Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

Dating in the Real Estate World

It’s no secret I’m on the hunt for a new place (when something is happening in my life, it’s all I talk about; I’m a broken record that way). And my goodness, if finding a new place to live isn’t like dating, then I don’t know what it is. It takes a special listing to get the girl and Pittsburgh, lots of you are doing it wrong.

Dating and real estate don't sound like they'd be similar, but you'd be surprised as the similarities between apartment hunting and dating profiles.

First, let’s talk about your picture. If you want me to click on your listing, you best have a least one picture that isn’t blurry and was taken in the last year. And it better be a real photo of you, not the same standard “model apartment” shots that your 10 other listings have.

Oh yeah, why do you feel the need to spam us with your other listings? Can’t you just say, “Call Stephanie and ask about our other availabilities”? It seems to me that it’s harder to write 10 different listings, but whatever. It’s like Tom Haverford and his 26 profiles, only distinguishable by middle initial.

Now how about that listing title. “Charming and quiet” tells me nothing. A much more appealing headline would be, “Charming 1 bedroom apartment in quiet neighborhood.” Much better. If I feel like you’ll satisfy what I’m looking for with just a quick snapshot of what you offer, I’m much more likely to click on your listing. Who knows, I may even schedule a showing. Crazy!

Once you get into the listing, then the fun really gets going.

If you type in all caps, I’m out. I don’t want a landlord who yells at me. Ditto Every Word Being Capitalized. If you can’t figure out the English language in a grammatically correct fashion, I don’t know if we have any chance at communicating on a meaningful level.

Now, I understand, you don’t want to give it all away up front, but a little info is nice. What’s included in the rent? Do I get a parking spot? How about pets? These are standard questions that would make this process go a lot more smoothly and help you weed out the unnecessary applicants. Why waste your time showing an apartment if the girl has a cat and your building is deathly allergic to felines of any kind?

And you better not be fibbing about your square footage. What a disappointment that can turn out to be.

How’s your luck when it comes to dating in the real estate world?

 

7/100 — #100DaysBlogging

Change

Every single cell in your body regenerates every seven years. You are constantly a new person, even if you don’t realize it. So if you say you never change, you’re lying. You are in a constant state of change.

“Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.” - Steven Hall. We are in a constant state of change.

Change is constant. How we experience change, that is up to us. It can feel like death or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it. It can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment, we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment we can be born all over again.

-Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

3/100 — #100DaysBlogging

Vulnerability

People undervalue vulnerability. And part of that means they don’t authentically share what’s happening in their lives as it’s happening. They wait until something shiny comes along, slap on an Instagram filter, and present a polished version of what’s happening.

I’m not saying don’t share the great things that happen to you, I’m just asking why we can’t also appreciate the messy things. The stuff that gets swept under the rug because we don’t want to look like we don’t have it all together. Trust me, I do it, too. If you were to go in my head now, it would look something like these dogs:

and a little like this girl:

So, for Day 1 of #100DaysBlogging (thanks to Emily Levenson for the challenge), I’m sharing where I am, right now, in all of it’s authentic vulnerability.

One of my biggest insecurities is that I feel like I’m playing dress-up and just make believing that I’m an adult with a real job and real responsibilities and at any moment, someone will come along and say, “You’re not an adult yet! You don’t have x, y, and z, so you’re not really there, you don’t know what it’s like to be ‘an adult.'”

Then I get to thinking: That’s right! I rely on my stepfather to pay the Verizon bill. I’m not really a “real adult.” And while I’m at it..Why should someone care about what I’m writing? What difference does it make? What do I know about x, y, z? Who else knows that I’m really not strong and capable and just pretending to get it all together? What will happen when they find out I’m not as good as they thought I was?

My mind. It can run amok sometimes.

Call it imposter syndrome or playing pretend. Call it whatever you want.

But sometimes you have to roll around in what’s real for you in the moment and get really comfortable being messy for a while.

I have been protecting myself from those thoughts. But trying to shield yourself from getting hurt, from discomfort and awkward situations, dulls you to the outside world. Vulnerability is a crucial part of the creative process. Hell, to the living process. And that means getting really comfortable admitting that those voices are valid, but they aren’t driving the car.

So if we never allow ourselves the opportunity to be vulnerable, we never allow ourselves to experience everything on a scale from -10 to 10. We stay firmly in the -3 to 4 range. That’s a small window of opportunity.

It’s like Andy Warhol said, “I never fall apart because I never fall together.” And that guy knew something about experimentation and being open to new opportunities.

Embrace where you are right now. Share what’s real without the rosy Instagram filter making everything look flawless. Sit in the dirt and get comfortable with vulnerability. It’ll open some interesting doors if you let it.

I’m off to take a big dose of my own medicine.

How are you embracing vulnerability?

Embracing vulnerability as a creative person is absolutely imperative. Get comfortable being a little uncomfortable!

1/100 — #100DaysBlogging

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!

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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