**Breaking News – This week’s Happiness Project includes working on my blog, so if you have any issues with my site, please bear with me! It will be even prettier and more functional soon!**

This last week was so fun because I just got to be girly! How many beauty-related pins have I pinned over the years?! I got to choose a few and try them out. Why not? They don’t take an inordinate amount of time and it was fun to shake things up. My beauty resolutions will probably be the easiest for me to continue in my regular life.

Beauty

– Try new hairstyles
–I  tried my favorite milkmaid braids again (welcome back, bangs), a new technique for hot rollers (start rolling at the top, leaving the ends out, the same way I do with curling iron, except I don’t have to hold it!) and a braided bun. Still working on a couple of hair ideas for the wedding – I’ll keep you posted.

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– Try an organic hair mask for my lifeless locks
— Did it! I mashed up half an avocado, one egg and a hearty splash of olive oil. It looked like a weird guacamole and I smeared it all up in my hair – check out the gross chunks – and tied it up for 20-30 minutes before washing it out with COLD water (you don’t want to cook the egg!). I saw the biggest difference! It’s hard to tell in the second picture, but by dinner that night my hair was softer and shiner. Definitely worth a try if you feel like your hair is basically straw.

 – Try new makeup techniques and wear lip color every day.
– I spent a few hours on my Makeup Pinboard, reading Lauren Conrad and Bobbi Brown beauty & style books, and watching YouTube videos and tried several new techniques. I tried eyeliner into the corner of my upper lid (loved it!), blended bronze creme shadow instead of black eyeliner (very summery), and a better technique for covering my biological dark circles that make me look like a zombie (forming a triangle of cover from the inner corner of the eye, down the side of the nose and then up to meet the outer corner of the eye).

– Wear lip color every day.
— I tried. I really did. I just suck. I never think it looks good, my lips are always too dry and chapped for good color deposits, and it’s always bleeding regardless of liner.

– Take a luxurious bath to recharge
— I was super sore and tense from sleeping poorly and doing intense crossfit every day, so these bathsalts were particularly needed. I’ve done milk baths, bubble baths and scented salt baths, but these epsom salt baths are just the top of the line. This little package costs like a dollar at the grocery store and it’s amazing. This one has a soothing menthol smell and it loosened up all of my tense muscles and soreness. Highly recommended.

Personal Improvement

– Quit picking my split ends!
— If you’ve ever seen me in real life, you’ve probably seen me picking at my split ends. I’ve been doing it since like 9th grade. It’s an absent-minded thing, as well as a mental escape for me. I do it when I’m bored, nervous, thinking, worrying, all the time really. It’s a bad habit and my car and clothes are covered in little blonde broken hairs. It’s preventing longer growth and makes my ends look so unhealthy. I still did it from time to time, but curling my hair, wearing it up and looking at Cara Loren’s gorgeous locks helped me to leave my split ends alone. Work in progress, but I tried!

– Stop complaining.
— Easier said than done, right? They also say that your goals shouldn’t be a “Don’t…” or “Stop….” but that you should rephrase them to be positive and action-based. So I tried to replace complaining with gratitude! It is so easy to forget and start complaining about stupid things, but when I consciously tried to think more positively about my life and eliminate complaining I saw a real difference. Seriously, why do we complain? What do we hope to accomplish by that? Has it ever made you feel better? No! We should all just stop.

– Finally master the French Macaron!
— Epic fail. I am literally the WORST at macarons. I don’t get it. I don’t understand.  Look at this. It’s not a camera trick. They are actually flat.

 

 – Continue my other Happiness Projects.
— I’m still moving in and cleaning up my new apartment, still working on my BOM study,  supporting The Beard in our new life pursuits, checking out lots of books from the library on various topics, couponing and even trying to practice mindfulness. Even just working on them for one week helped to make them more habitual and more conscious.