The 9 year old wrote these resolutions for 2011. Apparently he fell behind on planting trees.

I pretty much always make at least a few New Year’s resolutions, and for the most part, like everyone else, they fade away. The only variation is the speed with which they disappear. So this year, I came up with a new idea that I’m hoping will help me make some changes.

Monthly resolutions!

I’m going to choose a few goals to try to stick to for just the month. Then, at the end of said month, I’ll reassess, decide whether I should continue with those goals and/or add new ones. I figure, it’s much easier to stick with a goal for one month, and then once I have, hopefully a glimmer of a habit will have been formed, and continuing will be easier. And, if at the end of the month I’ve had trouble, then I can revise the goals without feeling like a failure. If I said I’d walk 5 times a week and I only manage 3, then I can make the next month’s goal to walk 3 times a week, without feeling like a failure.

Now, we’re already well into January, but I’m still picking up a few goals for this month, which will give me an even shorter trial period to see how this works. But I’m optimistic.

So, here are my goals for January:

• blog at least 3 times a week
• log my meals at My Fitness Pal every day
• practice guitar 3 times a week

See, I got a new guitar for Christmas, and I need to start learning.

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? I’ll keep you posted on how these go, and what my new goals are come February. Although you’ll be able to monitor my first goal pretty easily yourself!

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YAAAAAAY!

I finally finished as much coding as I can handle, and my new design is live. Tell me you all love it. NOW.

Now I can get back to posting content. This re-design was a doozy, since I did it all myself and I have no background in web design or coding. But I took two online courses that really helped: Your Darling Blog from Jo Klima at The Darling Tree, and The Girl’s Guide to Web Design by Amanda Aitken Verrall of Better Than Chocolate Web Design. With the design lessons from Jo and the coding lessons from Amanda, I managed to re-design, move to a new customizable theme, and code everything. With much help from the support forums, but I did it!

Thanks to all the lovely ladies who helped me through the coding part… I was asking questions constantly and they always got back to me promptly and with great information.They are the best!

Thanks for being patient while I worked through this whole process. If you do find any hiccups, links that don’t work, alignment mistakes, yadda yadda, please let me know in the comments. I don’t have a quality control department over here.

Onward, soldiers!

I’m a bit new to this whole beauty thing. I was never very skilled at applying makeup or even knowing about makeup, until recently my friend Eva introduced me to a whole new world of beauty. So I’ve been experimenting a lot lately, improving my skillz and trying out new stuff.

I thought I’d share with you some of my recent faves as well as I few I hope to acquire.

1. Sally Hansen Salon Gel Polish Starter Kit. I’m a big fan of gel manicures. I get them often, and they are kind of pricey, so I’ve been waiting for something to come on the market so I can achieve the same results at home. There have been some products, but they were all in the $150 – $200 price range, which was out of my league. But then suddenly, I saw the new Sally Hansen one at Target, and it was only $65. Still pricey, but when I pay $45 including tip to get a salon gel mani, with two uses I’ll already be ahead. And guess what? I’ve already recouped my cost! I’ve used it twice, and I really love it. I might do a more detailed post on it to give you the nitty gritties, but it works great, it’s easy to use, and it’s just like the mani I get at the salon. Only caveat is you have to be able to paint your nails pretty cleanly, but that just takes practice. Check out my handiwork (pun intended!) from last night, while I watched Revolution:

Not too shabby. I’m really looking forward to acquiring more colors and using this puppy a lot.

2. Too Faced Better than False Lashes Mascara. Wow, they are not kidding. This “system” really is about as good as false lashes, as long as you are going for the natural look. In fact, when I use it I even have to be careful not to make them so long they look weird. It’s kind of an odd process; first, you put on the mascara, then, you put on a coat of these “fibers,” which really is like a mascara wand dipped in a cotton ball. It’s bizarre. Then, you coat again with the mascara. But it really works. Here’s my main problem, though: I seem to sometimes get some fibers in my eye, and I can’t get them out. This is totally not scientifically proven; usually it’s later in the day that I feel like I have something in my eye, and then I think, “oh yeah, I was wearing that mascara…”. I’ll keep you posted on this one. Have any of you used it? Have you had a problem with the fibers in your eyes?

3. Lancome Color Design Eyeshadow in Kitten Heel. (Image above by Temptalia.) I bought this eyeshadow when I saw that rose gold was getting popular. I love rose gold in jewelry, so I thought I’d try it. It’s a great color; I’ve been using it with some other gold-inflected shadows and I love the way it turns out.

4. Guerlain Terracotta Gloss and Shine in Porto Azzurro. Ooooh, I want this gloss! When I first saw it, I was intrigued by the bold color, but when I discovered it goes on kind of sheer, I really wanted to try it. I just haven’t been able to locate it yet. I’m on the hunt!

5. Clarins Eye Quartet Mineral Palette Holiday Edition, 09 Odyssey. This palette is a limited edition holiday offering from Clarins. I love the colors and really want to try it out.

6. Givenchy Gelee D’Interdit Smoothing Gloss Balm Crystal Shine in Enchanting Silver. I went to get this new color for the holiday at Sephora, and while they have it on the site, it’s not in the store. Why the face, Sephora? The lovely ladies there told me that the new products don’t make it to the store for 3 – 4 weeks after they show up online. Well, that does me no good, because what if this color sucks? I don’t want to order it sight unseen; I want to try it on. Get that fixed, Sephora, will ya? But anyway, I really want to try out this gloss.

So those are my beauty obsessions this fall. What are yours? Anything good I’m missing?