Rant Alert - The Tan Craze

     It's that time of year again, the trees are flowering, the grass starts greening up, the daffodils are popping up everywhere...and suddenly everyone thinks they need to become seven shades darker.

     I've alway had a problem with the tan craze. For several reasons. One, I don't understand why pale skin is unattractive. It's natural, it's pretty to me, it goes with the natural hair and eye and complexion coloring God gave you. For hundreds of years, it was highly unattractive to ruin your complextion by tanning yourself. Creamy pale skin was the desired thing, and women went to great lengths to preserve theirs. Think about your classic beauties. Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe. Those women weren't bronzed up, they were creamy skinned and still are considered lovely.

    


     Two, I've always been pale, and not necessarily by choice. I can't physically tan, and a lot of my family members share this quality. We're pale by necessity. If we try to get out in the sun, even with nuclear SPF sunscreen, we turn bright red, and get painfully sunburnt. The kind where you turn purple and people look at you with pity.

After all this suffering, we don't turn to a nice toasty brown like most people. We get blisters, peel, and go right back to white. Maybe with an added freckle or two. If we try anything fake like lotion or spray tan, it either looks horribly fake or takes so many applications that it's almost not worth the effort.



     Three, it's expensive. How much does laying on the tanning bed cost? Or keeping up spray tans? Even if you go with tanning lotion, to get the good stuff it's ten or more dollars a bottle. I can't see myself paying for that, when I know it's just going to go away and I have to re-do it, or I have to keep doing it constantly. It's really like an addiction you have to feed.



     Four, and most important, it's just plain not great for you. Tanning beds, staying in the sun, they're killing your skin. Even if you escape getting skin cancer or something else, your skin is dying and aging faster, and by the time you're fifty you look ten years older.

     I'm not just spouting junk I've heard or read from crazy internet articles. I've had people in my family get cancer from that and end up passing away from it, and they would be the first to tell you that being tan and staying in the sun isn't all it's hyped up to be.



     As a teen, I resented a little the fact that I couldn't lay on the tanning bed like my friends, and that I was always the glowing white girl among all my tan friends. But as I get older I appreciate much more my mom being so strict, and I like my white skin.
     Our compromise when I was a fussing teenager about not being able to lay was that I could lay for three months before I got married, simply to be just a little darker than my wedding dress :) I tried spray tanning to see if that would work instead, but on such a pale person, going drastically tan in one afternoon looks so strange, and I'm scared it'd end up rubbing off on my pretty white dress. Even though I'm old enough to make up my own mind, I'm content to stick with my mom's and my old compromise. To me, my wedding is worth a little extra effort, and if I'm going to the extra lengths with my hair and makeup and all that already, I'm okay with making that compromise too.

     I wish we could get back to the notion of beauty as a simpler concept than what our society has hyped it up to be. Beauty isn't so much makeup you don't look like yourself anymore, it isn't huge flashy jewelry, it isn't revealing or tight or expensive clothing or if your shoes have six inch heels, it's not the designer label on your purse, it's not whether you have brown eyes or blue or green, or whether you have perfectly highlighted hair. Beauty is also not fat, nor is it skinny. Neither of those words have any place in determining beauty, but that's another blog entirely. Beauty comes from within first, and it illuminates the outside. Beauty is taking pride in your appearance and knowing that you feel good about yourself. And I promise, once you do that, other people will notice too.  

    

Last Book post of 2012!

     I almost can't believe that I've actually kept an actual list of every single book I've read this year. And it wasn't hard, or annoying, or even a 'challenge' at all! To be honest, I'm going to feel kind of strange this next year when I stop keeping my running list all month long. I'll have to find something else to blog about on a schedule though...as busy as my life is, if I don't have that set schedule coming around regularly, I won't ever remember to blog about anything!

     Most of this post's reading has been done in the last week. I had Christmas eve and Christmas day off from work (hallelujah!), so aside from doing our traditional family Christmas things and napping, I got a fair bit of reading done. I took a day off Thursday because I had a routine doctor's appointment to work out some details with my migraine treatment, so more time to catch up on reading. This weekend I've been sick at home with the crud, so watching Redbox DVDs and reading is about as spiffy as I feel like getting.

November and December

The Pillars of Creation - Terry Goodkind

Naked Empire - Terry Goodkind

Chainfire - Terry Goodkind

Phantom - Terry Goodkind

Confessor - Terry Goodkind  

     I finally finished that audiobook series! That was a long one!

The Dark Enquiry - Deanna Raybourn

Secrets of a Lady - Tracy Grant

The Mask of Night - Tracy Grant

Reflected in You - Sylvia Day

Bared to You - Sylvia Day

The Bloodletter's Daughter - Linda Lafferty 

     This book was my favorite! Very well written, great characters.

Redeeming Love - Francine Rivers  (yes, again...)

Wicked - Gregory Maguire

Two Graves - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan

     This one disappointed me. So many great reviews, and the book fell a little flat.

Brooklyn - Colm Toinbin

So, drumroll please........................................

This list of 16 books puts my total of read books for 2012 at 119! Quite a few, I think. And I enjoyed (just about) every one! I definitely recommend you all to keep up with your books next year. It might surprise you what you turn to when you're bored, what you never ever read, and what your favorites really are!

Christmas Q&A - Getting in the spirit!

     Hello friends! I hope you all are enjoying this crazy Mississippi weather, and maybe starting to make your lists and check things off getting ready for all these big holidays coming up!
     The end of the year holidays are my very favorite. My family has always made sure we celebrated them all to the fullest, from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Years, but we all know Christmas is the star of the season. So I decided to share a little bit of my Christmas with you, and maybe see how your memories compared.

Crushing on one of these trees! I spent many childhood hours playing with my grandmama's tree like this, and I want one just like it!

Favorite Christmas movie: The Santa Clause and the original 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas'. If it doesn't come on at least three times a Christmas, I get sad. Maybe this year I can catch it on the DVR!

Least favorite Christmas movie: It's a tossup between, and I know half the planet Earth is going to want to crucify me after I say them, A Christmas Story and Elf. Oh how I hate both of them! A Christmas Story comes on only once a year, thank the Lord, but it's on over and over, ALL DAY LONG, on Christmas day. It has a few good lines, but I could never see it again and be content.. And Elf...I'm just not a Will Ferrell fan, and Elf just doesn't light my fire

Favorite Christmas carol: O Holy Night. I can hear it dozens of times each Christmas, but I still have times when I hear it and get chills.

Favorite holiday food: I love when the Christmas popcorn buckets come in. At our house, the caramel and cheese go fast, and nobody ever eats the plain butter flavor.
     People puppy chow. Also known as muddy buddies. Make it every Christmas and eat myself sick on it, but it's soooo good. We just made a batch this weekend...and it's almost gone already.
     I'm not sure what the proper name is, but that cornflake-peanut butter candy...oh me. That stuff is good.
     Regular candy canes. No, they don't taste the same as regular peppermints do. It's candy cane flavor. And it's a once a year, special, Christmas thing I look forward to all year long.

What does your family do for Christmas Eve? On Christmas Eve afternoon, we try to go out as a family and eat an early supper, then see a movie. Nobody else is ever in the theater with us, so it's like we have the theater to ourselves. If there isn't anything playing we want to see, we stay home, put on our Christmas pajamas, put glass bottled Cokes in the freezer until they get slushy, and drink them while we play cards or board games.

What does your family do for Christmas Day? We get up around nine or ten, open our presents together, then my grandparents come over to see what all we got. We cook a huge breakfast and eat together, then spend the rest of the afternoon putting together presents or watching our new DVDs.

What are your favorite Christmas traditions? When I was a kid, it was being in the Christmas play. Now as an adult, it's singing the Christmas Cantata the Sunday before Christmas after we eat breakfast together as a church.
     Putting together Christmas shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child every year, especially after being able to go to Atlanta to work in the shoebox processing center and see the tons and tons of boxes getting ready to go out all over the world.
     Christmas present scavenger hunts, if you are getting a particularly good present.
     Candy in your stockings. Every person gets a bag of 'their' candy. My dad's is always Hershey Kisses, mama's is KitKats, Molly's is Reeses, and mine varies from year to year, but I think this year I'll pick peanut butter M&Ms :)
     Wrapping presents. I love to wrap all the presents, it's very relaxing for me.
     This one is kind of a generic fall one, but annual Dressing Day with my mama and grandmama. Once a year, we take a day and make up all the chicken dressing we're going to eat for the entire next year.

What's your decorating strategy? This is a little hard for me at present, being as I don't have a house of myself where I have full reign of the decorating choices. My mom is mostly alright with me throwing my opinions around with decorating, but it is her house and her final say so.
     My personal Christmas decorating style, and I can't wait until I have my own house to decorate, is very simple. I love silver and white and brown and green, and I love decorating with old things and natural things.

What's your personal wrapping style? I would love to be one of those people who wrapped all their presents in matching, one color paper, and had gorgeous bows and tags and trimmings. But...I am not that dedicated. I wrap the things that have to be wrapped in two or three different kinds of paper, and I try to get designs that coordinate. The majority of the presents tho...we bag wrap. I love gift bags because they're so reusable! Six Christmases later, still recycling the same bags.

Best Christmas present ever? Definitely the Christmas I was fifteen, when my parents surprised me with a car. I already had my permit, was getting my license the next week, and we had been talking about going car shopping when Christmas died down. Come Christmas morning, I got a box with a note and a set of keys. I ran outside barefoot and in my pajamas to a pretty little Jeep with a big red bow. It was really hard to settle down and eat breakfast with everybody afterwards when all I wanted to do was go for a ride!

Christmas traditions you're glad you don't keep: There are two big ones I can think of right off the top of my head. First one, and the biggest one, is Black Friday. For lots of people that's their Christmas shopping, all done in one day, and they love the rush and the competition and the chaos. But I've been once, and I can't see the attraction. I'm content to start shopping early and find deals and not have to fight everyone else in the mall for it. The second one is having to dress up fancy for family Christmas dinners. You always see on TV where the people all wear dresses and ties to eat, and use fancy china and cloth napkins, and they just look miserable. I"m happy my family know that it's still Christmas even when we wear jeans and eat off paper plates!

Pinterest Project: Coin Frame...Completed!

     I've been hanging on to this project for a while, and it's finally done! Yay! 

Original pin

     So here's the thing. I collect coins, specifically coins from other countries. We travel a lot, and it's a cheap, interesting souvenir. I have coins from every continent except Australia. Most countries have very pretty money; we're the exception. So when I found this pin, I loved it! I hated just having all my coins in a dish or container somewhere where nobody could ever see them, and this was perfect for displaying them! 

     I waited on my Dad to get back from his last trip to Africa to call it finished, and good to his word when he got back last week he brought me several new coins from various countries in both Africa and Europe so I could finish off my frame.

It's done! I love the frame I found...best part, I got it on clearance!

I think my black velvet looks much better behind the coins than the original pin's tan color; it makes the coins show up so much better.

Close up! Just in this shot, there are coins from Qatar, Cuba, Ecuador, Belize, Europe, China, Canada, and the US.

This might be my favorite out of all the Pinterest projects I've done! Love love love it!

Election 2012 - A Different View

   

 



 

     Tonight, Mr. Obama was reelected to his second term as our president. Even though he wasn't my personal choice at the polls, I'm not going to get my panties in a wad and let everyone know how mad I am that my team lost. I was raised better than that.

 

     Honestly I'm so relieved that this election is finally over. I completely dislike politics, and really hate election year politics, because of the condition our country declines to during them. On social media sites especially, election years bring out the worst in people. And it sickens me. Just because someone isn't voting for your candidate, it's okay for you to make racial slurs, belittle their intelligence, talk about their religion? I've seen picture, memes, signs, slogans, anything you can make, and most of it I woulnd't dare repost or even repeat! Saw these two today:

 

 

     Pitiful. And people get offended when their rights aren't respected to the utmost degree. How about 'friends respect their friends political views, no matter if they're different from their own'?

     This is America. And because they missed a couple of lessons in government class, whoever posts those signs should be educated in what that means. America was formed by people who didn't have freedom to vote for the way their lives were ruled. Our founders and lawmakers through the years set up our voting system, and many many men and women have given their lives through the years, so that you might have the priviledge to vote and do it freely. You can pick the candidate of your choice, the party of your choice, and vote however you like on the choices given you. Just because someone doesn't vote the same as you, it doesn't give you the right to belittle them or their choice. You have the right to respect that their views are different from yours, and the right to hope that the candidate or platform you voted for wins.  

 

     It's so hard for voters to make an intelligent, informed decision these days when you're voting. With the media throwing their opinions around, all the gossip on social sites, and the debates that do absolutely nothing to clarify candidates positions, I'm amazed anything truthful ever makes it to the ears of the voters. But it's our responsibility and our right to make an informed decision.

     My parents wanted to raise a responsible adult who cared about understanding the vote I would be casting and learning about the candidate I was marking my tally for, and thank God for it! I take time each year to talk with them and understand what it is I'll be voting for, which candidates have what view, and what their opinions are. This year's voting has been the source of many conversations around the Falkner house, and will probably spawn quite a few more.

 

     As for this election, even though Mr. Obama wasn't my candidate of choice, I was raised to understand that once the vote was in, that was that. He's now once again our president, and as such deserves our respect. I may make jokes about him, and have about several other presidents, but I would never make a remark that insulted his race, called him retarded, or said that I would rather him die than be reelected, like some of the comments I've read lately. I admire him and his wife very much for keeping their family together so well in spite of all the stress I know they must face. You can tell they love each other and their children very much, and that is a quality I value highly.

     All I will say about him and this election is congratulations Mr. President, and good luck.

 

 

 

 

      

 

Help!

     This is a girls only post, which means all you cootie filled boys have to stop reading now or forever be tainted by the hormone, femininity filled post ahead.



     Are the men gone? Okay ladies, Alyssa needs help! Advice, tricks that worked for you, family remedies, life stories, anything short of crazy I am open to trying. For the casual reader dropping by, I'm getting pretty personal about myself in this post (nothing gross I promise) but it's because I know at least one of you out there has to have had some of my problems before.
    
     This whole year last year, I have had problems with my hormones. Very basically, when I got mono last year and dropped 20+ pounds in a month, I stopped having a period. My doctor knew about it, and though it wasn't great for me, we had other things to worry about and that wasn't a totally unexpected side effect. Side note: zero possibility of me getting a date at that point of my life, much less pregnant, so that was definitely not the problem. Fast forward a couple of months to early summer, I've gained most of my weight back, mono is gone, I'm healthy in all other regards, but still not having a period. All the women of the world are drooling with jealousy here, I know. However, I've been on birth control for several years to help with my migraines, and with me still not having a cycle, I'm getting more and more messed up the longer I go. My migraines also started getting worse, as they're very hormone controlled.
     The 'lady' doctor I had been seeing made matters worse, first putting me on extra estrogen then a higher dose birth control pill, and when that didn't work taking me off everything altogether, because 'sometimes skinny people just don't have periods' and 'it's not hurting you not to have one'. Oh. my. gosh. Talk about dropping me off a cliff. Taking me from a pretty high regular dose of hormones that I've been on for years, cold turkey? I had a migraine for a straight week, and was dangerous to be around. The people at my house need me to be hormone regulated. Proven need.
     I finally went to my family doctor who has seen me a lot this past year, a very very smart woman, and confessed to being a dangerous woman out on the loose. She treats me for my migraines, which is a talent surprisingly few doctors have. A neurologist once told me that since I was to be allergic to triptans (Imitrex type meds), I was just going to have to suffer. Like, not joking told me that. Um...no. Very unimpressed with your bedside manner there doc.
     Anyway, back to my doctor. She treats me for everything else, so I told her she could add the 'lady' doctor part to the list. Just fyi, skinny people still need periods just like everyone else, especially if you're a 23 year old skinny person on birth control, and it is highly unhealthy to go without your regular period.
     She put me right back on my old birth control (much rejoicing occured at that decision), and ran much blood work to make sure I had nothing else out of whack other than the level of my hormones.

     Now I'm slowly getting back to normal but having all these weird hormone related side effects. It's kind of like going through puberty all over again, but worse than I ever had it as a teenager, and all at once! Ugh.
     First, my hair has changed texture twice in the last year. That is more of a manageable side effect, you find the right shampoo (again) and once its dried and straightened you're pretty much done.
     Not so manageable is the fact that my skin is no longer my beautiful, smooth, not dry and not oily, never get a pimple skin anymore. Don't get me wrong, I use good makeup, I take care of my skin, always have. But lately it doesn't seem to matter. I'm constantly in the middle of one breakout or another, I have blackheads popping out like crazy, and my skin is oilier than I can ever remember it being. Disgusting! And yes, I have lots of stress, and yes I deal with dirty nasty money all day long. This probably doesn't help matters, but not a changeable thing. I have always been secretly thankful for and proud of my skin, because it was so easy to deal with and, if my family is any key, only gets better in the long run. I want it back!
     I don't know if any of y'all have any problems with your skin or hair still, but if you can remember any tricks you loved from back in the day or that saved your life for that one huge date, SHARE! Basically, I want to know how to keep my face from breaking out so much, how to keep your face not-oily, how to stop a breakout when I know it's coming or how to make it get over quicker, how to make the blackheads vanish, any tricks that make you feel un-blugh when you're extra hormonal, all that jazz. Anything, Help a sister out!

Thrifting!

     This week I am so excited about sleeping under my new blanket from the Thaxton Mall (Dollar Gen.) It's one of those so-soft velvety almost furry feeling ones, in a pretty latte tan color that goes with my bedroom quilt. I've seen these blankets at places like Kirklands or Bed Bath and Beyond, but I was never willing to part with megabucks for one that was only throw-sized. Thaxton Mall had them for $25, and it's HUGE! Covers my whole bed! And not too heavy to pick up and tote to the couch to continue my snuggling pleasure in there :) I'm telling you, folks, cheap ain't always a negative term.
     My awesome friend Lauren is the thrifting QUEEN. No joke. It's my plan for us to retire and open a thrift store, so I can get in on all these great things she finds firsthand haha. After hearing for years the benefits of cruising the cheapo depot store circuit and making weekly shopping trips to the Goodwill, I decided to try it out - if maybe not weekly to start with!
     My big thing is finding cheap accessories and jewelry - I like to splurge on nice basic clothing pieces and add to them to make outfits, and decorating things. I also collect glass - as in cut crystal - wine glasses, serving pieces, bowls...I think it's the Southern in me coming out. I think every Southern woman should have a good set of china, pretty serving dishes for family gatherings and church suppers, and a set of wine glasses for when you want to feel fancy, even if it's only with sweet tea.

     I shop for certain things in certain stores. Oxford Goodwill I don't get to visit much, but I usually find pretty glass and decorating things there. In Tupelo I rarely visit the Goodwill because its too far for me to visit on my lunch, but I'll probably be going as I start Christmas shopping - gosh, is it really that time again? Ugh. TJMaxx is just across the street from work...highly dangerous. I can find just about anything there. My latest score was a Columbia fleece jacket for $25! Hobby Lobby is across the street too, and I have to just exercise self control with them, especially this time of year. They ALWAYS have a sale, and you can ALWAYS find something you want. I love the Dollar Tree, surprisingly. They have some strange things, but sometimes it's things you're like 'Okay, wow, I pay three and four dollars for this at WalMart,' or wherever you shop. Especially storage containers, candy, school supplies, cleaning products, dishes... Best find there: a retracting iPhone/USB charger. $1.
     As for finding sales and getting deals, one big secret really is being a repeat customer. Go back to a store every week or every other week and you start to see things being marked down and eventually moving out to clearance. The salespeople remember you too, and they'll tell you about upcoming deals and sometimes even hand out coupons!

     The other secret is to be creative. So what if that shirt is missing a button or a belt - if it's $2, you can sew on a new button or mix and match your own belts, and an even better one at that. Lots of times jewelry or purses are clearanced because they're 'broken' when all they really need is to have a clasp fixed or a ring replaced, or a decal glued back on. I bought a really expensive Guess purse once on clearance for $20 because the decal had come off leaving just a bare silver plate on the purse front. I hunted around and found an earring that looked like a buckle, and glued it on there. Looked better than the real thing, for $2 of work.

The earring I found to replace the missing decal

Finished product! And this purse still looks good after having it for about a year now :)