Girl Scout much?

Technically, I was never a Girl Scout. I quit after being a Brownie, to the surface despair of my mom, who happened to be our troop leader (she was coerced into it, by a well-meaning friend). My mom is a trooper, but you can't really blame her for secretly being happy I quit, after my friends and I frolicked in the mud by a lake one day, on a camping trip, and later discovered it was goose poop... That was a lotta laundry... and the cabins didn't smell too great afterward...

Really, despite that experience, I had a pretty awesome "Brownie" experience. For me, being a Brownie ment going to a meeting once a week where my friends and I wanted to giggle and run around, like maniacs, all we wanted, while drinking apple juice...

Also, roughly once every two months we got to go on a camping trip (though, we didn't go on quite as many after the goose-poop incident), where we frolicked in the woods, and ate s'mores after dinner...

So why'd I quit? The cookie season.

Until about two years ago, I was painfully shy. It wasn't so bad selling the cookies though, because no one really turns down Girl Scout cookies. Except the woman who had her weight-loss coach over while we were there (she asked me to come back in an hour or two though, and bought 13 boxes)...

but delivering (apparently Blogger doesn't have that medieval creepy looking font that would perfectly illustrate my thought, so I'll have to go with italics here)  the cookies?

Seriously, talk about tough... no really, just kidding. I'm very lucky that in 1st-4th grade the toughest thing in my life was delivering cookies for Girl Scouts (actually, I had to deal with tougher stuff, but you know what I mean).
But seriously, if you plan having a daughter in Girl Scouts one day (or a boy in Boy Scouts, though I don't know entirely how that works...) think about the neighborhood you're raising them in. Hilly areas will make it harder... ahem, mom and dad. Actually though, I probably needed the exercise... especially since it was Girl Scout cookie season...
Anyhoo: if you thought the hill was bad, think about a shy 10 year old walking up to the door of a person they only met once before...

There are three things I expect you to take in from this image:
1) It was not a nice feeling, walking up to the door of pretty-much-strangers, especially after we had to watch that movie about "staying away from creepy" in the Brownie's meeting last week... If you've ever been a Girl Scout in the last ten-fifteen years you've seen it: the girl is playing "Pong" (so maybe 20 years?) and the guy in the gorilla suit comes up to her door but she doesn't open it, because her mom said not to? Come on! You know what I'm talking about! Anyway, it sends mixed messages to ten year-olds who are creeped out by the creeper, just because of the gorilla suit... moving on from that;

2) I told you I can draw! I know the first couple images were really bad, but that was totally on purpose. You can just ask my coffee cup, from which I glugged (totally a word) coffee at 11pm while I was trying to draw this and stay awake for Saturday Night Live...

3) Mini Fire Breathing Dragons ARE AWESOME (I was going to write kick-a... but then I realized that my New Year's/Mid-January resolution was not to swear... so... let's see how long this lasts) AND I FEEL AS THOUGH SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, IS SELLING THEM ON EBAY FOR $0.99 AND I SHOULD GO BUY ONE... BECAUSE, REALLY, WHO NEEDS A MINI-FIRE-BREATHING-DRAGON? ME! JUST THINK, INSTEAD OF TAKING MY DOG FOR A WALK, I COULD TAKE MY MINI-FIRE-BREATHING-DRAGON. I COULD NAME IT HAROLD! Actually, Harold the pig, as you might know, would be very offended by that... hmmm... let's go with BUDDY! BUDDY THE MINI-FIRE-BREATHING-DRAGON. OH MY GOSH... THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN.

PLEASE EXCUSE ME, I HAVE TO GO SEACH EBAY...
DARN YOU EBAY
Also, if you click that link, please do not sue me if something frightening shows up. As of approximately 4:36pm on Thursday, there was nothing on that page (except a Monopoly figure... don't really know how that's relevant...)
But as we all know... it's eBay, after all. Anything could happen...

Now I'm depressed. Please, let me know if you find where I can find a mini-fire-breathing-dragon, because that would make my day...
-A.

ps. Thanks for reading!

The 24 Hour Cure

I'm no beauty blogger: so my cure is not for clumpy mascara... it's for acne.
As mortals, we all know we shouldn't care what we look like, because we're all beautiful. And that's completely true. But, sometimes you really, really, really just want that stupid, evil pimple to go away...

FYI: I have really wimpy delicate skin, so everything on here should be "ok" if you have delicate skin.

THE 24 HOUR PLAN: As far as I know, none of this has caused scarring or any pain. This, I think, is a better approach than eek... popping pimples.
Something to remember: acne can spread (it's not contagious or anything) but if you touch one pimple with a finger, wash your hand before touching another. AKA if you're applying product to your face, alternate fingers & cotton balls.
1) Things to start doing before 24 hours: Probably should have written this before the heading.
--Food often makes a difference. Everyone knows about greasy food and chocolate etc. so I'm going to skip that. This is not a change to make 24 hours out.
-- Use a light facial cleanser every night. I'm a fan of St. Ives, because I can usually find it in my shower, their Green Tea scrub and soap is great. WARNING: if you use products like this every day, your skin will become immune to the product. I try to use cleanser at night, and Neutrogena Clear Pore in the morning (you pour some on a cotton ball and swab it on your face) to alternate.

2) Drink water (24 hours to go): this greatly reduced the coloring of my acne. If you've got something to go to Saturday night at 7:00pm, and it's Friday morning, start drinking water NOW. 2 pint glasses usually starts doing the trick.

I like to drink my water out of a Krispy Kreme mug-->
Don't judge me.

3) Ointment & lotion (have it done before day of):
--Bacitracin Ointment is the... good stuff. Apply a very thin layer before you go to sleep, and when you wake up, you will find regular red-spot acne deflated (and demolished). Acne that has a head (white or yellow or whatever) is a little trickier. You NEVER want to touch it, so do the same thin layer thing, with minimal contact, and be aware that when you wake up there might be a very, very small amount of blood surrounding the head of the pimple, because the Bacitracin dried the pimple out, and the head popped off. This step is absolutely painless, which makes it SO AWESOME.
--When you wake up Saturday morning, apply a little bit of lotion to areas surrounding acne spots, just because the Bacitracin dried it out. I like Olay complete, because, again, there's a whole lot of it in my bathroom cabinet.

4) Saturday day/night: There are a couple other lighter products you can use during the day (I don't like to use any during the day at school because they tend to get kinda gross) but here are the ones I've tried (all this stuff was under $6):
--E.L.F. under eye concealer is for absolute emergencies, when you really CANNOT bear to let your pimple be seen. It comes in a lipstick contained and you just roll some on. Not a great plan, but makes you feel better.

-- E.L.F. primer-- not the greatest stuff, but on sale at Target when I needed primer. It tends to hold things under control during the day- but is too shiny.

-- E.L.F. Zit Zapper: I just carry this in my purse because it makes me feel better. I don't think it actually does any good.

Really: I don't like buying acne stuff. The best product on this list is the Bacitracin ointment. It dries everything out without any pain. The lotion is good to use with it too.
Water's probably the cheapest thing on this list- reduces redness like no other product.

That's about it.
We're all beautiful how we are, but sometimes you just really want that acne to go-to-he...
Thanks for reading + hope this helps!
A.

30 SECOND DIY PROJECT WOO HOO

Hello,

I haven't posted in a while- life is busy, so sorry about that.

Moving on to more interesting things- A DIY CALENDAR! THAT ONLY TAKES 30 SECONDS! REALLY. IT'S AMAZING HOW EASY THIS THING IS...

But before we start, an explanation: 

Let's put it this way: if I don't have a calendar I go kind of crazy. I don't really enjoy going to a certain office store, ahem, and asking the sales clerk for the cheapest calendar (I just want something with pre numbered days of the week, alright?), an adventure that always ends with the sale clerk getting ever more grouchy, and saying something to the effect of, "the cheapest calendar is $20," and getting even more annoyed when I give them the bug-eyed "are you crazy" stare. $20 for a calendar. And no, they don't like it when you ask them if Target sells calendars for less...

This adventure always ends with me searching Google images for a January 2013 (or relevant year) monthly calendar. This worked for a few years, until I discovered late January of 2012 that I had printed a calendar that had the wrong dates on it. That would explain why I didn't have my history paper ready...

Therefore, I figured it could be a whole lot easier. Henceforth: the epic DIY calendar.

Full disclosure, this took me approximately 30 seconds, it might take you up to a minute, basically because instead of cutting the cardboard I just kind of ripped it. Your calendar will probably turn out better.

STEP ONE:

Gather all materials. You will need:

• A monthly calendar print out ( I have iCal on my computer, so I just printed out the two months I needed-- if you use Google images DOUBLE CHECK THE DATES!)
• A piece of cardboard (I was cleaning out my school supplies etc. today, and discovered I had the cardboard backs to a couple of legal pads, as well as last year's calendar, so I used that.)
• Scissors. (no alternatives, really, unless you want to use a chainsaw, which I do not think would end well.)
• A stapler (or tape, or rubber cement, or Duck tape, basically, any kinda adhesive thing you want)
• A pen (or pencil, or eyeliner... which is really fun to draw with, by the way.)
• I didn't use a ruler, but, should you like extremely straight lines, you might want one.

STEP TWO: 

Match your paper up to your cardboard. Do you need to remove any excess cardboard for your calendar? If so, just mark with a pen (with or without a ruler) where you need to cut off extra cardboard.

STEP THREE:

 Cut the cardboard to match the paper. Or if you don't want to cut off any cardboard, it's cool. Just skip this step...

STEP FOUR: 

Staple the paper to the cardboard.

STEP FIVE:

I don't know... write stuff  on your calendar?

Hope you enjoy, and save yourself $20!

More later,

A.