Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

Radiant

For the last three years, I’ve participated in Molly Mahar‘s Holiday Council. Part of the goal-setting work we do includes picking a word or theme to guide you.

Last year, I proudly adopted FOCUS. I wanted to concentrate really closely on a few things and do them really, really well. That lasted for about 2.5 weeks before I totally lost focus and started to go all willy-nilly with my plans and time.

But this year… This year will be different.

I chose RADIANT for my word. Everything I do will be measured against the ruler of, “Does this make me feel radiant?” I want to be so freakin’ unstoppable this year that I’m positively radiating awesome.

Or at least, I’ll try to.

All I know is that I want to glow, damnit. And like I said before, short of ingesting glitter, I’m going to be as radiant as possible.

My word for 2016 is RADIANT. What’s yours?

A photo posted by Angelica (@gardeninginhighheels) on

RADIANT just found me and I’m glad it did. I was going to pick STREAMLINE, but RADIANT is way more fun.

What’s your word for 2016?

Many thanks to Life with Lolo for writing about her word, Thrive, and inspiring this post!

Sunday Lately, 54

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe (which is being fearlessly lead by Meghan, Nicole, Katy, and myself). We e-hang out every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the last week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!
This week’s themes: Updating, Remembering, Needing, Wearing, Being

 

Updating

Awkward: I killed most of my houseplants because I left them outside too long and they got frostbitten. I went to Lowes to replace them and couldn’t find any. Sad face.

Awesome: I did find some other air purifying plants and a poor orphaned clearance succulent for $1.00. They’re all repotted along with some surviving houseplants I’m trying to rehab and doing well.

Baby succulent from Lowes clearance section. It is possible to rehab a plant!

Remembering

Awkward: I don’t think I have anything awkward to remember today. Yay!

Awesome: How awesome it is to has fresh blueberry muffins in the morning. I love blueberry muffins. I used this fantastic recipe from Averie Cooks. It’s a skinny recipe so it isn’t as crumbly and sweet as a traditional bakery blueberry muffin, but it still tastes great.

Needing

Awkward: I still have my Christmas decorations up. And they really need to come down. But it’s such a pain in the ass. I have to get the boxes out. I have to put things in the boxes, I have to try to puzzle-piece them back inside their bigger storage box. I’d rather just watch Netflix.

Awesome: I rearranged some art and made some new things to use on my gallery wall sections. If you need to refresh a space, try moving around art.

Wearing

Awkward: The weather on Saturday was bananas-level warm. I started out with my winter coat and scarf and by the end of my errand session, it was all off. It was freezing just the day before. What is happening with this weather??

Awesome: I didn’t need to bundle up in a heavy winter coat, so I call that a win.

Being

Awkward & Awesome – that’s my answer. I’m being awkward and awesome.


Blogger Tribe

If you saw Sunday Lately this week, you know that it’s being presented by the Blogger Tribe instead of just Katy, Meghan, and Nicole. I’ve written before about finding a supportive group here and here, so it’s probably no surprise that I’ve fit myself into the Blogger Tribe.

It really helps to have a group of people who are supportive that you can turn to for questions. As creatives, sometimes it’s hard to get your ideas flowing to the point where you can write something. It’s also great to have advice from people who have been there and done that.

Right now, Blogger Tribe is a group on Facebook and an Instagram account. I know it’ll go bigger and better places, but I really like the small, personal group we’ve built.

And of course, you’re welcome to join. Everyone has a unique perspective and deserves a supportive tribe regardless of how long you’ve been blogging or what you write about.

Finding your tribe in the blog world is important. The Blogger Tribe is your kick ass group full of inspiration & encouragement for bloggers.

How did you find your blogger tribe?

Sunday Lately, 53

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe (which is being fearlessly lead by Meghan, Nicole, Katy, and myself). We e-hang out every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the last week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!
This week’s themes: Creating, Finding, Switching, Forgetting, Craving.

Creating

Awkward: I pretty much blew my life up at the end of 2015. I was lazy, complacent, drinking too much, forgetting to check in with myself to find out if I was okay with the choices I was making (surprise: I wasn’t). So now that I tore myself down…

Awesome: …I get to build back up. Create new things in 2016. My word is RADIANT this year and damnit I’m going to sparkle if it kills me (no ingesting of glitter, though. That shit really will kill you.)

Finding

Awkward: I came home last night to hear scratching noises above my head in the living room. Fast forward to 5:30 am this morning and I was woken up by the same scratching noises. I felt a little like Leslie Knope. Except their part of town appears to be my bedroom.

Leslie Knope raccoon quote. Leslie is the best.

Awesome: I’m finally figuring out how I want to use my Happy Planner. I would LOVE to be one of those people who decorates it all pretty and whatnot, but then where do you write? I use a planner to plan, yknow?

Switching

Awkward: It’s always awkward for me to switch years. I haven’t really ever placed much stock in a shiny new me the second the clock strikes 12. Let’s be real here, I’m gonna be the same sarcastic ass I was at 12:01 that I was at 11:59. So it feels disingenuous to say I’m going to flip to an entirely new mindset the minute it’s a new year.

Awesome: I do have some pretty awesome goals, though, so I have to switch my mindset if I want them to happen. I want to bust out of my jeans-and-t-shirt/stale-routine kinda way I’ve been going. I did officially register the domain for the fry blog that I want to do, so that’s step 1.

Forgetting

Awkward: To write anything until it’s almost noon the first day that I’m a part of the Blogger Tribe Sunday Lately linkup. Whoops.

Awesome: I went to a Pens game last night and I forgot how great it is when we win. Should that be in the Awesome or Awkward category…?

Craving

Awkward & Awesome: Now that I’ve talked about Leslie Knope, I want waffles. Oh you beautiful sunfish, why do you have to be so addictive?


Five Favorite Beauty YouTubers

I don’t pay for an expensive cable package. I’m rarely in a position to sit down and bingewatch Real Housewives and let’s be real, if I did have a cable package that included Bravo, I would get nothing done. So instead, I watch a lot of sitcoms on Netflix and keep up with a lot of YouTubers.

It’s no surprise that most of my subscribed YouTube channels include a ton of beauty vloggers. I can’t help it. I live vicariously through their eyeshadow that never creases and lipstick that never wears off. And their endless supply of new loot. Seriously. Where do they get the money? I know..brands send them things for free..just let me think that they buy these things themselves or I’m going to start begging companies to give me a lil’ somethin’ somethin’.

Five Favorite YouTube Beauty Experts. They basically taught me to do makeup.

Makeup By Tiffany D

Tiffany is my first and favorite beauty YouTuber that I watched and took seriously. I’ve watched her channel morph from tutorials and dupe highlights to being more open about life with her day in the life and random chit chat videos. I seriously learned how to do a smoky eye from Tiffany and trust her product recommendations completely. I also can’t get over her gorgeous house and adorable little Olivia.

Leighann Says

Leighann holds a special place in my heart. I love that she also lets you into her daily life with her Weekend Vlogs, but her personality comes through no matter what she does and it’s incredible. I don’t think I would like her channel as much if she wasn’t the animated character that she is. The way that she talks reminds me of my conversations with my best friend. Lots of hyperbole and connections to random things that shouldn’t be connected…ever.

I love her tutorials but my favorite videos are her monthly favorites/unfavorites and her hauls. They’re mostly drugstore/Target finds so when I want to go out and buy everything after watching her videos (like I do with all of these ladies), it doesn’t totally kill my budget.

Beauty Broadcast

Emily is the sweetest thing ever. She’s always so down to earth and real about what she’s sharing. Her mix of drugstore and high end is what attracted me to her channel in the first place. I love her Try This Not That series, her comparisons (thinking about splurging on a high end product? She probably has found a drugstore dupe that works even better), and her Beauty Broadcast Express channel with 5 minute reviews on one specific product.

Of course, the Emily Awards series is fantastic. She breaks makeup into categories and does a full video on each and pulls out the best products she’s found, both high end and drugstory, in each category. Emily is another YouTuber I trust completely when she reviews a product.

xSparkage

Leesha’s tutorials are insane. The girl can apply eyeshadow and rock all the crazy colors. Yellow and poison green on her eyes? No problem, Leesha can pull it off. I also turn to her when I hear about something new coming out. Chances are she already has it, swatched it, formed an opinion on it, and filmed five tutorials with it already.

And along with Tiffany and Emily, has an adorable baby. How do these people crank out genetically perfect children? Is the makeup in their genes at this point?

My Simple Little Pleasures

Colette is a genius with water marbling. If I had the time, I’d do all kinds of crazy things to my nails and change my polish daily (long-time readers know how obsessed with nail polish I am.) But I don’t have the time so I live vicariously through Colette’s nails.

Her water marbling tutorials are genius. I love her Polish in Motion series, too. It’s truly just that; she’ll show you how the polish looks when it catches the light at different angles. Sometimes a still photo just doesn’t do it justice. She also has tutorials for just about every holiday as well as nail care/polish application tips and tricks.

Who are you favorite YouTubers?

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