July 2012 | Favorites

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Physician’s Formula Eye Booster Eyeliner:  I heard about this eyeliner from Ashley, so of course I had to get my hands on it.  I am all about easy eyeliner because I am not the best at Eyeliner Application.  I know, I know, I swore up and down I wouldn’t ever use anything else but gel eyeliner.  But that’s kind of how I role with makeup.  I decide I love something and won’t ever change.  And then I cheat on it with another product and decide that new product is my forever favorite.  Rinse, repeat.  Anyway, this eyeliner is easy to apply and goes on smooth.  The brush is like a fine point marker.  I drag the brush along my eye, and it never gets gloppy.  I may have bought this in Ultra Black and Brown.

Revlon Just Bitten Kisseable Balm Stains, Honey:  Guess how I found out about these lipstains?  Why, Ashley, of course.  I’m so blaming her for my behavior at drug stores.  These Revlon balm stains are some of the best lip products I’ve ever used.  I love how they go on smooth, and the color stays on forever.  Here is my testimony:  I put on this lipstain about an hour before I planned to teach a BodyStep class.  I noticed how good the lipstain looked as I was heading out the door, and I made a mental note to wipe it off before class because I figured it would be all over the place, and I’d look like a crazy clown and people would be scared and never want to come to my class again.  Well, I forgot to take it off.  And I wore it the entire class.  And by the end I was soaked in sweat.  But that lipstain?  It remained firmly stuck to my lips.  I looked like a hot mess in general.  But my lips?  Outstanding.  I wonder what my class thought about my lips…

Lululemon Vinyasa Scarf:  My gym BFF, Kim, turned me onto Lululemon.  I’d heard of Lululemon.  But I didn’t step foot in there because I assumed everything cost about $16,571.  Which is kind of true.  But fortunately, as an instructor, Lululemon offers me a 15% discount.  I had my eye on this vinyasa scarf, so Dan bought it for me for our Sedona trip.  It’s perfect for traveling because it folds into a small square but opens up big, so you can wrap yourself up.  The fabric is soft, and I love how I can wrap up in it several different ways.  Love.  So worth the price.

J.R. Watkins Tub and Tile Cleaner:  Between cleanings, I like to spray my shower down each time I get out.  Taking the time to spray down my shower after each use cuts down on the grime.  And it takes only a few seconds.  I’ve used various cleaners, but this J.R. Watkins cleaner is my favorite.  I like how it smells like citrus and not like chemicals.  This cleaner keeps my shower fresh from shower to shower between deep cleans.

Urban Expressions Kerry Bag:  This favorites post should really be called: I pick a lot of products based on Ashley.  Because this bag?  She has this bag.  So when I was on the look out for a new bag, I decided to pick up this Kerry bag on Ashley’s recommendation.  I love the charcoal color, the vegan leather is soft and feels like real leather, and the size is perfect.  I love the front pockets – they are a great place to stash my iPhone, sunglasses, gum, etc…  The main compartment is big enough for my entire drug store collection of lipstick products, a bunch of Kate’s junk, and my life planner and notebook.  Are you interested in me making a video of this bag?  Kind of a what’s in my bag thing?  If so, let me know in the comments.

Okay, you tell me, what did you love in July?

Project Life 2012 | Week 30

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Last week I confessed my weeks aren’t always interesting.

Sometimes life is boring, huh?  There is always a dishwasher to unload and load.  A bed to make.  Oil to change.  Floors to vacuum.  Counters to wipe down.

So what do you do?

You make the best of those non-boring times.

And accept those less-than-stimulating times.

I picked the first tomato from my garden this week.  Tomatoes from the garden taste much better than tomotoes from the grocery.  Sadly, some creature decided to help itself to my tomotoes, too.  I found a half-eaten tomato in my front yard over the weekend, so someone is using my garden as a buffet.  Rude.

I taught four Step classes this week and treated myseld to a set of neon sweatbands.  Sweatbands are great because 1) the class can see your razer arms and 2) you look cool.  Obviously, I like to look the part.

When I wasn’t picking tomatoes or teaching Step, I got out with friends on three separate occassions.  And at the end of the week, I wondered why my mood seemed so improved.  Taking a break from the sundry aspects of life to spend time with friends left me refreshed and able to accept my laundry and vacuum cleaner and unmade beds with renewed appreciation.

 

Thank you + reader survey

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I appreciate the feedback I’ve received so far on my reader survey.  If you haven’t taken it and would like to share your thoughts, please take less than five minutes and leave me your feedback.

If you’d prefer, shoot me an email with your thoughts, suggestions, and/or questions.

I’m heading to BlogHer’12 Thursday, and I hope to bring back lots of inspiration and new ideas for SunnySide Up.  Next to BodyStep, blogging is my favorite hobby, but it doesn’t require me to sweat a lot.  Or run out of breathe.

Thanks for your feedback.

Pst…If you’re going to BlogHer’12, please let me know.  Remember how I went to Blissdom alone?  Yes, I am going to BlogHer alone, too, so I’d love to connect with bloggers before I go.  So if you’re going, email me at sarah {at} bagley DOT org.

Friday features | tomato tomahto

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You know what else I had little faith in?  That any of my tomatoes would turn red.

Hurray!

This guy is sitting on my counter, waiting to be sliced into a sandwich.

When I wasn’t stalking my garden and waiting for one of those tomatoes to turn from green to orange to red, I read some great stuff:

+First, I finished Mindy Kaling’s book in less than a day.  That Mindy Kaling is a riot.  I laughed the entire way through this book.  And I got a little mad at her when I finished it in a couple hours.  More, Mindy!  I want more!

+You all know I’m crazy into Les Mills and group fitness and BodyStep.  So when I ran across The CHASE Project blog, authored by another Les Mills addict and local group fitness instructor, I promptly started making my way through all her current (and not so current) posts.

+From Chase’s blog, I found this article about moms and fitness.  I relate to those moms.  If I wasn’t on the go, I’d go backwards.  And melt into a puddle of mush while Kate pummels me with plastic fruit from her toy kitchen.

+I can’t remember how I found Melissa from The View From Five Two, but isn’t she sweet and fun?  I loved her blogger interview, and she is planning to host more, so I look forward to that.

+Isn’t AP’s new baby so cute?  Also, I relate to this post on so many levels.

What have you read this week?

Happiness Project | August 2012

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I can’t express enough how much I appreciate the kind words on my post about worry and my faith-testing day.  It seems everyone can relate to how vulnerable we feel when life moves out of our control.

So what can we control?

We can control what we choose to do with ourselves each day.  And we can choose how we react to things we don’t choose for ourselves.

When I was laying out the month of August, I wanted to groan.  Sure, I have fun stuff planned like attending BlogHer12 and participating in a huge group fitness event.  But Dan is going to be out of town some again.  We’re driving to the beach, a drive that makes me want to curse and vomit and never drive anywhere again.  And I’m preparing for a busy September with Kate going off to preschool and new challenges for me.

So I totally wanted to groan when I thought about the month of August.

But then I realized, I have power over this month.  It doesn’t have power over me.

I can choose to be anxious and frustrated and mad.  Or I can choose to be lighthearted.  Choose to let go of the resistance.

And when I think of letting go of all that, it’s an easy choice.

August could feel stressful.  Or it could be fun.  My choice.

Ye of little faith and lots of worry

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I’ve been thinking a lot about worry this month.  How I like to use worry as a way of preventing bad things from happening.  And how worry, really, gets me nowhere.

Worry as a form of faith never serves me.  Instead, worry wraps it’s tentacles around my throat.  And squeezes hard.

While I’m busy letting worry seep under my skin and suck the life out of me, my life goes on living.  Without me.

Something happened this month that challenged that worrywort part of me.  I share this story for two reasons:  1) worry is not preventative and 2) never, ever, skip a doctor’s visit.

Here’s what happened:

I had my annual OBGYN check up this month.  Standard stuff.  Just a that yearly, routine examination.

My OBGYN is the same OBGYN who delivered Kate.  I’m crazy about her.  I missed her after I had Kate, and I didn’t have a reason to come back to see her each month.

So we chatted away while she performed my breast exam.  She felt me up on my left side.  And started over to my right.  Then she stopped.  Refelt.  I saw something flash across her face.  And she refelt again.

Then she said, “Sarah, have you ever checked your breasts?”

And I said, “ummm…”

She said she felt what she thought was just a benign cyst, but she wanted me to go get a sonogram to be certain.  She said she wasn’t concerned but wanted to be sure there wasn’t something else going on.

I wanted to panic.  I wanted to launch into a full scale panic, complete with my worse case scenario thoughts and perhaps a good vomit.

But I had Kate with me.  And Dan was out of town.  I was alone.

So.

There wasn’t time to panic.

I clutched my referral for a breast sonogram and encouraged Kate to move quickly across the parking lot and into the car.  Once I had her strapped in, I started dialing.  I called up the closest diagnostic center and requested an appointment.  For right now.

Fortunately, I got an appointment for later that afternoon, called my sister and told her I had an errand to run and needed her to watch Kate later.

And then I went to the grocery.

I’m one of those busy-worriers.  I don’t eat my feelings.  I don’t tend to cry.  I don’t pick and tear at my nails.  I busy my body while my mind whirls with what ifs.

As I calmly selected produce, I figured this was as good of a time as any to work on my self talk instead of letting a sea of anxious thoughts envelope me.  I had things to accomplish today.  I needed to put one foot in front of the other.  If I let myself go down a scary train of thought, I didn’t know how I’d get through the day.

After Kate and I got back from the grocery, my sister came over to relieve me.  I told her it was just a regular check up, I’d be back soon.  Gave Kate a kiss and got in the car.

When they called my name for the appointment, they took me back to a room filled with half-dressed ladies old enough to be my mom, and a handful old enough to be my grandmother.

As I stripped off my clothes and pulled the too-big gown around my middle, I kept thinking, I’m only 27, I’m only 27, I’m only 27.  This shouldn’t be happening.

After what seemed like the longest 10 minutes of my life, the tech called me back.  As she manueverd the wand over my breast, I felt all those tears I’d been holding back prick through my eyes.  The tech asked if she was hurting me.  But all I could choke out was I have a two year old.

The tech nodded and explained that she’d been over and over my breast and the lump just looked like a clump of breast tissue, nothing of concern.  She called the radiologist into the room to confirm, and after going over and over and over my right breast, she told me she didn’t see any evidence of cancer.  That my breast was just…dense.  And that clump was dense breast tissue all lumped together.

I told her, funny, my breast don’t feel very dense to me.  The adjective I’d pick would be flabby.

And then I asked her if she was sure, very sure, that what she saw wasn’t a cause for alarm.  I told her I have a two-year-old at home.  I’m 27.  I want to be sure.

She confirmed those deep dark fears were not going to come true.  There wasn’t anything in my breast.  I could go on home, continue my yearly exams, stop worrying.

What I really want to do is obsess over this.  Whenever I have a rare moment of quiet in my day, I find myself reaching up to my chest to that lump.  I want it to go away.  Even though I was told not to worry, there’s nothing there, it doesn’t take away from the fact that I was scared.  That I get scared.  That something bad could happen to me.

But each time I feel that lump, I challenge myself.  Do I want to sit here, feeling that lump, and letting that lump get in my way?  Should I waste my time with thinking that worrying will prevent any and all bad things from happening?

Or maybe I can challenge that thinking.  Maybe I can change the narrative in my head.

The fact is: there is a lump in my breast.  And the fact about that lump is: doctors ruled it a clump of breast tissue with no malignant signs.  Another fact is my doctor is going to recheck it in four months.  So the fact is I am fine.  And consuming myself with anxiety doesn’t change the facts.

So.  Worry.

I wish I had the magic words to get rid of worry.  I don’t.  So each day, each moment, I try to do my best to quell those nervous flutters in my stomach.  I tell myself, right now I am in spin class, right now I am eating dinner with my family, right now I am enjoying this book, right now I am in the company of friends.  Because right now is all I can control.

From garden to table | margherita pizza

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When I was planning my garden, I knew I wanted basil.  I love how basil smells, I love pesto, and I especially love margherita pizza.

Brick oven pizza places are my favorite, and I always, always choose the margherita.  I don’t even consider other options.  I guess I’m a plain jane that way.

Now that we’re more than halfway through the summer, my basil is ready for use.  It practically exploaded the other day.  And since I’m always itching for pizza, I decided to throw together these DIY individual margherita pizzas.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

+one package wraps (I used the plain FlatOut wraps)

+jar of your favorite tomato sauce

+handful or so of basil

+mozzarella cheese

+tomato cut into slices

+pizza spices (We like the Penzys Spices pizza seasoning).

Lightly spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and lay a wrap on top of your baking sheet.  Top with sauce, tomato, cheese, basil, and pizza seasonings (I use a heavy hand with the tomatoes and basil and a lighter hand with the cheese, but the ratios are all up to you.).  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes.  When the cheese is bubbling and the wrap starts to turn golden brown, it’s ready.

Okay, how simple is that?  I am pretty sure it took me less than 30 minutes total to whip up this dinner.  While it might not be exactly like my favorite brick oven pizza place (looking at you Pizzeria Orso), it’s a good at-home option.

Project Life | Week 29

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Is it just me or do the weeks seem to blend together?

Up.  Gym.  Shower/breakfast/blogs.  Race around getting ready for the day.  Errands, work, work, errands.  Defrost dinner.  Eat, talk, TV.  Bed.

Do it all again.

Repeat.  Repeat.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Sometimes as I’m printing off pictures for these weekly layouts, I think, what did I even do this week?

Where did the time go?  Didn’t I do all that the previous week?  And the week before that?  And the week before that?

I remember feeling this way when I worked in cube world, too.  Every week felt exactly the same.

As much as I love routine, I love change more.

One of the things I struggle with is being okay with the daily grind.  That monotomy that can characterize daily life.  The boredom that comes from doing the same stuff everyday.  I prefer my days to be interesting.

So what do you do when you can’t make the everyday entertaining?  What do you do to make the regular day more special?  How do you deal with the sameness?

I thought about this all day Sunday.  Maybe this is just a period of funk for me.  Or part of life with small children.  Or it’s that I’ve been solo parenting it for the past couple of weeks and getting tired of talking to myself (a very true feeling).

So that was last week.  And this is a new week.  I don’t know if it will be exciting.  But it’s a fresh start.

Friday features | ruffled skirts

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It’s launch week this week at my gym, which means us instructors debut the new material we’ve been learning for the past couple weeks.  It’s fun.  And makes me nervous to teach new moves.  Good thing I found this ruffled pink skirt at TJ Maxx to wear to my Saturday class.  (PS – I am sweaty in that picture because I taught a class and then took this picture.  You can’t see my lips, but let it be know, the Revlon Kissable Balm Stain I put on earlier – in the shade Honey – did not budge the entire class.  My face is covered in sweat.  But that lipstain stuck.  I could be a Revlon ad.)

When I wasn’t practicing Step, I read some pretty awesome stuff around the Internet:

+This video post from Tara Sophia Mohr offers an interesting perspective on finding our calling.

+These make-ahead oatmeal smoothies look like the perfect breakfast.  Now to source chia seeds…

+How to make a yoga playlist.

+Molly shares where she’s at in her life transition and offers strategies for making it through your next life change.

+My talented friend, Rachel, is preparing for Artscape this weekend, and earlier this week she shared a sneak peak at her new products.  That fish print?  I want it!

+If you missed it, please take five minutes and fill out my reader survey.  I appreciate the feedback.

+I wrote about getting over my dislike for travel on Stratejoy this week.

+Oh, and I forgot to share my guest post on Momitforward about the gym and me time.

My pink skirt and I will be stepping away to new moves on Saturday, watching my DVR’ed Project Runway, and hitting up the pool.  Any fun plans this weekend?

Sedona trip | a mini book

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Large scrapbooks freak me out.  There are 12 x 12.  That’s large.  A lot of space to fill.

Enter: the mini book.

So, so much smaller.  More manageable, no?

I like to make vacation mini books because 1) they have a purpose and 2) they hold all the odds and ends I like to keep from my trips.

After our Sedona trip, I printed about 50 pictures from Winkflash.  I ordered all 4 x 6 prints in a matte finish.  I mostly ordered horizontal shots, with a few vertical shots that I loved enough to want to include.

When I went to put my book together, of course I started punching holes on the wrong side of the image.  I punched holes on the top of the picture instead of on the left side.  At first I thought about tossing them out and reordering them (the entire shipment including shipping cost about $6), but I wanted to complete my book quickly, and I didn’t want to be wasteful.

So I enlisted Dan’s help in triaging the situation.  We decided I should find someway to cover up the holes.  I remembered my Erin Condren Life Planner has these sheets of small stickers in various colors.  So I chose one color sticker for each day, and I taped up the holes with those stickers.

Is it a solution everyone would be okay with?  Probably not.  But I am fine with it.  If I went for perfection in all my projects, I’d never finish anything.

I love this book because I wanted to hold onto the business card from the hotel restaurant to remember those yummy omlets and hamburgers, I wanted to keep the Red Rock Pass to remember how I climbed to the top of a very, very, steep summit, and I wanted all those maps to remember the places we went and the things we did.

Here’s the bulk of the album (warning, many pictures ahoy):

Phew.

That’s a lot of pages.

If you are heading out on a summer vacation, (or if you are wondering what to do with your vacation pictures and paraphernalia) think about storing those memories in a mini book, so you can look back during the cold winter months and be jealous of your past self’s tan.