{ the vitamin store }

Does anyone else identify with being on a never-ending quest to try out new products? My situation is slightly different--I'm just always on the hunt for the ingredients. 

Product-hopping has never been hugely successful for me. As it happens, I have very fussy hair and skin. (I could see how that'd be sort of a good thing; in theory I'd never buy anything I knew I couldn't use. In reality, however, my cabinet is full of things that have been used exactly twice. I feel weird about returning used conditioner, so I just sort of let it be down there for a thousand years or I regift it to my mom.) 

Over time, my focus shifted to trying to make my own skin and hair products. That's been much more successful. If you can believe it, it's cheaper, too--which means I get to try out way more ideas before running out of money. (Seriously, I've seen conditioner for $40 before. Will it turn my hair into spun gold? If so, perhaps I should actually stop writing this and go purchase a bottle.) I was actually thinking about writing a post about the "recipes" I've tried so far later this week, mostly on the off chance that anyone with similar issues happens to be reading this! A lot of the ones I use right now seem to be quite gentle while still effective, which can be entirely helpful for someone who struggles with being easily irritated.

On the day I took these pictures, I happened to end up at the vitamin store with my mom. Apparently, that's her new favorite place to hang out because she's gravitating toward homeopathic remedies for some of her health issues. I got to come along while she scoped out some Calm tea (proceed on that stuff with caution, by the way) and it turned out to be a gold mine of things to try out! I picked up some organic shampoo and conditioner along with a small bottle of emu oil. I was a little skeptical at first, but I've been experimenting with quite a few oils over the last few months and was curious about this one.

It was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made. I'm excited to see what else I can do with it!

It also didn't hurt that this vitamin store was located in the cutest plaza ever. It's part of a bunch of little local shops, and they're all set up in this pastel yellow Victorian-looking house. The whole area used to be full of places like that, but they've all shut down in recent years. Across the street, there used to be a similar, smaller house that sold fantastic ice cream. Mom and I were hoping to find some, but it had evidently been out of business for some time. We walked around to see what else there was; unfortunately, all we found was an olive oil shop and an expensive-looking photography studio. My mom was nice enough to take some pictures of my new dress for me, though!

Dress: Seashell We Dance? (swap, sold on Modcloth for awhile!)

Belt: It's actually just a long strip of lace.
Shoes: Chelsea Crew

I'm excited to try coming up with more posts--some days, it seems like it's difficult to think of anything to talk about that would be remotely interesting to anyone. Still, I'm eager to share the results of the emu oil and hair products with everyone, along with some of my favorite recipes. What products have you found that worked best for you? I love hearing from people who aren't hindered by sensitivity--some of the available options out there look like they can do great things for your hair and skin!

{ my new toy }

Today, I bought a sewing machine!

This one.

I'm not going to lie, I was heavily influenced by the aesthetic. It's an anniversary edition, so the style is a little bit more vintage-inspired than the other ones I was looking at. It wasn't the deciding factor (entirely), but I did settle on this one and it is now in my possession.

I'm a little bit nervous about learning how to use it. I grew up hearing my grandma use a lot of sewing jargon (to this day I'm unsure what the term "basting" refers to), but she wasn't able to teach me a whole lot while we were together. I'm sure it's very complicated for someone new to sewing, but I can only hope that it gets easier with practice.

It had better, because I might have already ordered fabric to play with.

Well, I did get some clearance cotton from JoAnn's to practice with before I use anything I really love. At $2 a yard, I'm okay with having a few missteps.

With luck, there will soon be stylish, handmade dresses coming my way.

Or a lot of cursing.

Probably a little bit of both.

resolutions

Hello!

I hate to admit this, but I sort of lost interest in doing this sometime in November. I've enjoyed reading some of my favorite blogs' recaps of their eventful 2013's (and their compilations of lovely outfits to go with them!) and sadly, I haven't got a lot of that to my own to contribute. Still, I thought it'd be nice to come back on the night of the new year and talk about how I'd like that to change!

All right, let's see.

• Acquire a sewing machine and become proficient with it. Following this, make thousands of adorable skirts and dresses from inexpensive printed fabrics and impress all the three-year-old students with them. 
• Put that gorgeous camera my grandmother gave me to more use. I love the convenience of my iPhone, but I feel like I could stand to do a little better.
• Continue pilates! That's a really fun new discovery I made late in the year that I hope I keep up with forever. 
• Use those sweet new bread and tartlet pans I bought in Seattle. They're beautiful.
• Put all the kitchen applicances I was gifted with to even more use--come up with even more healthy, fun recipes to feed my very hungry family with! First on the list are breakfast foods (read: waffles with fruit and pancakes), breads and curries. 
• Set some money aside to take a real trip someplace overseas.
• Write.
• Follow through.

That last one is a big deal for me lately. Sometime this year--I suppose around the time my grandma got sick--I realized that I tend to do a lot of complaining and wishful thinking. To clarify, I was exactly the type of person to want to do something and then lament that I hadn't later on. ("Well, I could have entered that contest/written that story/participated in that event, but x/y/z got in the way...) 

Excuses.

Somewhere along the line, I made the decision to follow through. Anything I said I was going to do had to be done on principle. Surprisingly, a lot of things happened that probably wouldn't have otherwise. I did enter a pretty big contest (never mind that I didn't win! I still did it!), I wrote and read my grandma's eulogy, and I completely overhauled a lot of unhealthy tendencies, food-related and otherwise, going on in my household. It's sort of exciting to think about how many things can happen just because you've already decided they're going to.

I can't state definitively that I will become exactly who I want to be just by making these changes in my life. I can mostly just decide that this is all going to happen anyway and see what happens. Hopefully, the result will be good. 

The same can be said for the upcoming bread recipes. 

I'm thinking cinnamon raisin to start with, but I did see a pretty intriguing pumpkin recipe out there as well...

If I do as I say and follow through, I'll have a ton to show you soon. 

To anyone who has read this far, happy 2014. 

a light has gone out of my life

Grandma--top right--with her mother and kids (there's my mom with the black hair!)

This week, my grandmother lost her battle to pancreatic cancer. Some of you might remember briefly hearing about this back in October, when we first found out and still hoped it'd been caught early enough.

Given that this is not exactly the best place to disclose too many details, I won't go much into her last few weeks. Suffice it to say that while she was indeed in a lot of pain and spent a lot of time sad or afraid, she still actively maintained a positive attitude and never wanted anyone else to worry about her. For awhile, I invented different flavors of smoothies to bring her, and when she was still eating, she requested a lot of baked goods. I practically sprinted home every night to make her whatever she asked for, but she didn't end up actually finishing a whole lot of it.

There's been a lot of grief. I would even admit that most of it probably hasn't hit me in full force yet. However, my grandma wasn't the kind of lady who wanted anyone to dwell on unhappiness. Having said that, I think anyone reading this deserves to know exactly what kind of woman she was.

My grandmother always said her greatest hope was to see her daughters and granddaughters grow up to be ladies who also knew when to curse like sailors.

She always had enough food in her kitchen for anyone who was visiting--and if she didn't, she practically teleported to the nearest Asian market to go get some more.

She was a banging mother. I'm not even remotely doing her justice here, but she spent years as a single, hardworking mom with four kids in a country that wasn't hers--and she refused help from her well-off relatives because (in her words) she was too proud and wanted to make her life herself.

She was always running around in her little trademark straw fedoras. For her birthday one year, Marcus and I each bought her new ones. Jesus, she loved those hats. If it wasn't hats, it was colorful hair clips. Accessorizing runs in the family.

She was an unbelievably strong lady. Her life reads like a damn Univision soap opera, except all of it actually happened. She went through some serious adversity. I would even argue she was still going through a lot of it before cancer even became present in her life. I never heard her being negative or down on herself--she waved everything off and said it wasn't worth the fuss.

She said I had her face, and she loved that. She always called me her mini-me to anyone she introduced me to. After she did, my mom said "you have so much of her in you" and cried.

She was unbelievably crass. Seriously, appearance-wise, she fit the textbook definition of a sweet old Spanish grandmother, but the things that came out of her mouth were insane. I couldn't get enough. She somehow managed to relate to everyone because she never acted like she was above them--she had the raunchy vocabulary to prove it, too.

My grandma was universally compassionate and loving. She could make anyone feel like the most important person in the world to her--and so many people adored her. She had so much room in her heart for everyone, and it would be arrogant to assume you came first in her life because of it. We never minded, of course--knowing anyone, much less a person you're related to, who has that much capability to love, is an incredible gift. I don't care how many people thought of her as their grandma even if they weren't related to us. She probably felt just like one, and I love that. 

She knew everyone. Seriously. If she didn't, she at least found common ground with them. I can't tell you how many times we'd be grocery shopping when she ran into someone with an accent she recognized. She'd proceed to engage them in Tagalog and carry on a full, enthusiastic conversation. She had connections out the wazoo, and I finally just decided to go through life assuming she did know everyone in our immediate proximity rather than not.

We used to fight about the way I wanted to dress. I remember clearly, for my first homecoming dance, I just wanted to wear a conservative dress with sleeves, and in the middle of Kohl's, we had an argument about it. "No granddaughter of mine is going to a school dance dressed like that!" she declared, waving the sequined, strappy, ass-grazing number she favored for me instead. "You're going to show off what you've got, young lady! If you've got it, you'd better flaunt it!" I can almost guarantee very few similar arguments have ever occurred between a grandmother and a granddaughter. This continued until I came into myself over the years and eventually transitioned into a style I felt more comfortable in (which now includes a lot of printed dresses). 

Following that, in her last few weeks, she'd always want to be touching me or my clothing. I got into the habit of wearing her favorite dresses, then laying down next to her. From her little bed, she'd play with the patterns on my tights or dresses and smile for an hour at a time.

I could go on for hours about the things that made this woman someone I was lucky to be able to grow up near. So much of who I am is because of her. I probably can't even begin to guess how many people in the world consider themselves lucky to know her.

It hasn't hit me all the way yet. The hole in my life no longer being filled by her presence feels like a dream to me still. I keep thinking that if I just dial her phone number, she'll answer me like always.

I can't say when this is going to become more of an immediate reality to me. I've never experienced a death of a loved one before, and this was kind of like losing my queen in the beginning of a chess game. There's never going to be a way to replace her--not that I'd ever want to.

I only hope I was able to do her justice and appreciate her enough while she was here. I let her know all the time how much I loved her and wanted to be near her, but somehow I still wonder if it was enough.

If she was sitting here, she'd probably have smacked me in the arm by now, rolled her eyes, and told me to stop it already.

Jesus, we all loved her so much.

The hospice worker told us to say "see you later" instead of "goodbye", because we had every reason to believe we'd see her again someday. I don't know where I stand on that, but I sincerely hope it's true, because I'd give anything to have her back.

Wherever she is, I hope she's unimaginably happy. Someone like her deserves nothing less.

on the move

yellow skirt - Forever 21 (old)

royal blue shirt - Loft

red cardigan - Target (old)

argyle tights - Ross

boots - Steve Madden Troopa Boots

I started off channeling my inner Snow White, and somehow ended up thinking about life and the concept of "home". 

It is challenging to be content with where you are when you don't want to be there. My family moved to Arizona almost a decade ago, and in truth I've never much liked it here. It was a striking change from the city of Caracas, where we had been living for almost three years. There was a significant amount of political unrest occurring at the time, and the military found it necessary to send some of the personnel stationed at the embassy back to the States for awhile. Through some process I know very little about, we ended up in Tucson for a few months while things calmed down. When our tour in South America was over, we moved briefly to California and then straight back to Arizona. In my time here, I've lived all over the state, going as far north as Flagstaff. (That was my favorite, but it was built around the college and the general consensus is that it's quite boring if you're not actually going to school there.) 

I am very much of the belief that you are a product of your environment. Growing up in the service has shaped my perspective to be ready to move on after a few years of being in one place. Imagine being on standby for nearly ten years after a lifetime of that! Going up to Flagstaff for college helped briefly, but in my heart I know I need to be doing more than that. Many of the people I've met here seem to enjoy the desert and are content to stay here, and I've struggled for the latter half of my life to make peace with it. Anyone who knows me is familiar with my incessant griping about why I do not wish to be here. It's a difficult balance to keep--I certainly don't want to offend anyone's home by going on about why I don't particularly care for it, but I also can't bring myself to feel enthused about it the way they are.

Now there are rumors surfacing within my home of a near-future move across the country. If moving back overseas is my first choice, relocating East is a close second. I cannot describe how excited I am at the prospect of being someplace like that. The circumstances are less than ideal, but my family seems to be ready to say their farewell to Arizona. While there are still some months yet before this will take place, I find myself eagerly looking forward and trying to actively find ways to be appreciative of this place while I'm still here at the same time. 

Most days, I feel like a very demanding rosebush--you can plant me in the desert if you're really determined to, but no matter what you do I'm probably never going to grow as happily or naturally as a cactus would. I respect that this is home to some people, but for me, it never will be. Truthfully, I can't say whether I'll ever establish roots anyplace; I'm happiest on the move. 

I can't wait to be on my way.

long time, no sea!

(Sorry, I had to. It's been a long week, and I enjoy puns far too much to ever let something like that go.)

Today was my first go using the new tripod. Marcus was nice enough to sit at the park reading his book while I twirled around on the bridge and tried not to fall into the lake. I was so excited to finally wear my new dress! Lately, I've noticed myself gravitating more and more toward longer skirts. For awhile, I wouldn't wear anything longer than your standard Forever 21-length dresses, so it's sort of interesting how much that's changing. As someone with a stature of only about 5'3, this is slightly alarming because anything below the knee tends to be hit or miss for me. If a skirt falls past my calves, there's a good chance it wasn't meant for me (or it was, and just I need to find myself a tailor!)

Luckily, I don't think this particular dress is going to need any kind of alterations. I'm very fond of how long it is even though it originally took some getting used to. It's very pretty in person (runs a full size small, though!), and as anyone who knows me is well aware, I'll take any nautical garments I can get my hands on. This was a welcome addition to my collection. I'd been after it since I first discovered Modcloth, but it recently went on a flash sale and I finally decided to quit fawning over it online and just get the thing already. Now I just need to find a way to help transition it into colder weather...I'm thinking white tights and some ankle boots, but given that the dress is long and full, I'm not sure how well that's going to translate. We'll see!

Experimenting with the tripod will hopefully be a fruitful endeavor. Now that I don't have to balance my giant camera on tabletops anymore, a lot of doors have been opened in terms of where and when I can take pictures. I love browsing other people's photography for ideas--it's one of those hobbies I think a lot of people have common ground on. Pictures are just fun to take! Personally, I'm a fan of playing with colors. I can't wait to take this thing out for a spin downtown or to the mountains when I go visit my brother. It'll probably come with me to Seattle, too, although I'm not sure how effective it will be to set up shop in the middle of Pike's Place. I got enough odd looks as it is from the occasional jogger this afternoon--I don't think my confidence is quite ready for anything more just yet!

Dress: Modcloth - Sea Shanty Singing Dress
Red flats: Old Navy
Bow: Made by me! 

Oh, yes, and Marcus joined me for a picture after I finished. Fun story: he originally wanted to try recreating the World War II sailor picture, only he wanted to be the one getting dipped. We tried twice, and the resulting photos looked like I was trying to assault him. Also, I kept dropping him. For future reference, I'm not a reliable foundation if you want to be dipped or dunked or otherwise tilted towards the ground.

We still had fun, though, even though we mutually agreed to never try to get into team Olympic figure skating.

:)

on autumn and teaching

This morning, Marcus came along with me to my school's Fall Festival. My kids were going to be performing, and I'd told my teacher I would help them get on stage and stay in line. Also--let's be real, who doesn't want to watch a bunch of three-year-olds wave colorful scarves around and sing This Little Light of Mine? 

First of all, my kids looked adorable. They were all wearing jeans and white shirts, but most of the boys had been put into button-downs and had their hair all combed. So handsome! One of my little girls was even complete with a giant white bow and stylish little boots like her mom's. 

By the way, that's my other favorite part of going to events. It's priceless seeing kids with their parents and watching them interact. I get a kick out of seeing who looks like who and what their individual dynamics are. I told Marcus today that I felt way better about my job after going to the Fall Festival because, hey, guess what? A lot of these kids don't even want to listen to their own parents 100% of the time! That means I have no reason to feel incompetent if I can't always get them to focus or stop screaming or cooperate with the activities we're doing--of course, I'm always trying, but it was something of a relief to realize that I wasn't just awful at my job. The other thing I felt better about was being frustrated--I love my kids. I do. They've only been with me for just shy of a month, and I treat them like they're my own a lot of the time. Sometimes, though, when I'm trying to manage all sixteen of them and they all want to run around and climb on top of everything and break their toys, I find myself getting a little impatient--and I always feel too hard on them when I put them in time-out or scold them. Watching them with their parents made me realize that that's a normal part of raising kids--and there's not really anything wrong with feeling frustrated or upset as long as you don't take it out on them or do anything too extreme. (I always feel bad and let them leave the chair after two minutes anyway--they're three, nobody's committing credit card fraud or arson here!) 

Anyway, my kids did great. A lot of them sort of lost focus halfway through the song, and one of my boys yelled, "I SEE A PLANE!" mid-performance. Still, it was really clear how proud all of their parents and teachers were. They were able to stay in their line, and nobody ran off! (Going off how the rehearsal went the other day, that's a huge accomplishment!) 

After they all dispersed with their families, Marcus and I walked around to look at the booths. Some of the vendors were really impressive--we had these huge horses walking around the fairground and everything. Most of the games and prizes were geared towards the kids, but we still had fun watching. We also bought a a shaved ice to share--we tried half blue raspberry, half tiger's blood. My favorite part of that was ordering, because Marcus said, "Can we do part of it with tiger's blood--and can the other half just be Hawaiian?" I nudged him and whispered, "It's not a flavor, it's just called Hawaiian shaved ice." He thought about it for a second and said, "oh, they're all Hawaiian! I guess just blue raspberry then!" 

We got to be the first customers at the booth, which seemed to make the people working there happy because they mentioned that nobody had come by yet and they were getting pretty bored. We promised that we'd walk around with our shaved ice and make a huge deal out of it so more people would come by, and they both laughed--but it ended up actually happening! We were enjoying our treat and a family walked by and said, "oh, wow! Look at that, let's go get one!" 

I also got to wear my new pie dress that I've been fawning over all year. One more in my size finally came in on Modcloth, and you better believe I snatched that up the minute I saw it. I'm wearing it now. I actually don't want to take it off anytime in the near future. A lot of people I work with commented on how festive it looked. I love working at a school--everyone appreciates fun prints! 

Dress: My Kind of Pie Dress - Modcloth

Cardigan: Charter School Cardigan - Modcloth

Shoes: Old Navy

Bow: Made by me! 

Purse: Fossil 

Next time we're going to try something a little more traditional, like caramel apples!

Also, for some reason, this picture really thrilled him.

So, needless to say, this is becoming more of a viable career option for me. My teacher's been talking to me about some international opportunities I might look into, and I guess we'll see what happens! Who knew that I'd end up falling into teaching? When I met her husband today, he said, "my wife loves you. She's always talking about how capable you are--she says for this kind of job you need to have the heart for it, and everyone thinks you really do." 

I wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me a year ago that that was one of the nicest things I'd ever hear. I don't think I stopped smiling after that!

I'm going to try to get better about posting, because all of a sudden there's a ton to say! Be warned, I think a lot of it is going to end up revolving around teaching and my preschoolers--oh, and probably dresses? I'm just going out on a limb here.

:)