My Last Minute Beauty Routines!

So, I never have a lot of time to do things in the morning. Or at night. Or ever. My typical morning is supposed to go something like this:

-Wake up at 4:30 

-Take a 15 minute shower 

-Spend 10 minutes blow drying my hair

-Take 10 minutes for my makeup

-Take 10 minutes to pack my lunch

-Dress in 5 minutes

-Take 5 minutes to put all of my homework in my backpack

-Take 15 minutes to drive to work

Get to work before I clock in at 6:00!

In reality, it goes more like this:

-I oversleep and wake up at 7:00

-My hair is so long that it takes 30 minutes to shower (and sometimes I start thinking about my life and forget that I'm in the shower...)

-Spend 20 minutes blow drying and combing my hair

-Take 20 minutes messing with my makeup, then realize that I never put my contacts in and I have to somehow maneuver my fingers so I don't get any contact solution on my freshly made-up face

-I can't decide what I want for lunch and spend 20 minutes just staring at my cupboards

-I can't decide what to wear/what jewelry to accessorize with and end up spending 15 minutes on that

-Take 5 minutes hurrying around trying to find the homework that is strewn all over my apartment

-Take 10 minutes to drive to work (because at this point I am SO BEHIND that I speed the entire way there)

Get to work at 9:00 and spend the whole week staying late to make up my hours!

As you can see, I never have any time. I like my sleep too much. It's actually a huge problem. So, I never really have any time for a "beauty routine" of any kind. But, I have found a few things lately that have made my life a lot easier and that only take a few minutes to do. Some of these are needed, and others are just little hacks that make my morning routine go way faster!

-To Get Rid of Blackheads:

I get blackheads all around my nose, and I hate them. No amount of astringent or scrubbing in the shower seems to get rid of them. But I recently found a way online to diminish them rather quickly. Basically, you just combine toothpaste with a little bit of salt, then scrub it lightly on the area. I won't lie, it burns a bit. It is just the extremely minty toothpaste smell so close to my eyes that ruins it for me. But it works so well, it got rid of almost all of them for me, and I will definitely be making the time to do this one at least once a week.

-Washing my Hair

My hair is a pain. It is currently halfway down my back, and takes forever to wash and even longer to dry. My mother always told me that it was gross to wash your hair every other day instead of every day, but in the past year I've started doing it. It is so much better for your hair to not wash it every single day, and since I've started, my hair feels a lot healthier. Plus, it really cuts down on the time I take to get ready!

-Drying my Hair
When I do wash my hair in the morning, it takes a really long time to dry, even when I put it in a towel. To make this process run a bit faster, I comb my hair first (when it is soaking wet) and then I put it in a towel. It makes my hair dry way faster, and I can do my makeup while it is up. This is one of the few things that makes my morning run a little more smoothly ( when I actually remember to do it!).

-Picking Out my Clothes
I've been trying to do this more lately. The night before, I pack my clothes for school and put out my clothes for work. It helps a lot, because, when I wait to the last minute to pick out an outfit, I always forget something! When I do it the night before, I'm a little more clear headed, and I can remember to pack jewelry and shoes for both of my outfits that day.

That's all for now! Maybe my laziness will eventually make me more efficient...but we'll see :)

Love,

Hayley :)

PS-Forgot to mention that all of the newer members of my sorority got our house shirts today! This is me and my sister Meghan proudly wearing them:)

Becoming Vegan

My first video for my blog!! All about my newly adopted vegan lifestyle.

Until next time,

Hayley:)

Daisy

As I mentioned before, I have had two other blogs. But this blog was the one I was going to really try hard at, because it meant something more to me. That is because I named it after the little love of my life and my best friend; my dog Daisy.

We got Daisy when I was in ninth grade, and she was the cutest thing that I had ever seen. She was a teacup pomeranian puppy, literally a ball of fluff. As soon as I saw her, she had my heart. I carried her home in a shoebox lined with blankets and from that point on, we were inseperable.

My entire family was completely in love with her, I swear she had a personality like no dog I had ever met before. She was always happy, fiercely loyal, and the sweetest being that I have ever known.

I never used to understand why people got so attached to their dogs. I had seen people mourn the loss of a dog like it was a person, and while I was an animal lover and could see why someone would be sad, I never understood why a loss of a family pet could break a person's heart. I didn't understand until I got Daisy.

Then, in September of 2013, Daisy started to get really sick. She was throwing up all over, she wouldn't eat. She looked so sad all the time. It was so strange for her, because I don't think that she had ever really gotten sick before that. She was sick on and off for the next few months, but every time we would take her to the vet, she would get better. We honestly thought that she had an allergy to something we were feeding her, since she only really seemed to get sick when she ate certain foods. I was so worried about her, but every time she got better, it gave me a little bit of hope.

That is, until it got worse. Two days after Christmas, I was spending some time at my parent's house. I had found out that I had tonsilitus, and I was in trumendous pain. That night, Daisy started to get sick again, too. But, it seemed worse this time. She was still throwing up and wouldn't eat anything, but this time, she could barely stand up. She couldn't walk. My dad said that he would take her to the vet again in the morning, and I thought about her all night.

He took her to our local vet at about eleven the next morning, December 28. By noon, we had gotten a call. They recommended that we put her down. Apparently, Daisy had irregularly shaped kidneys, so small the the vet could barely see them on an xray. It was something that had been wrong with her for her entire life, and the vet was surprised that she hadn't gotten sick sooner. My dad and I drove to the clinic, and I held her while they put her down. I just looked into her eyes and told her I loved her while the light in them went out. I've never seen my dad cry like he did that day.

I think about my puppy every day, and I still have trouble walking past the pet aisle at the grocery store. I know I'll miss her forever, and I named my blog after her in her memory. I know it might sound stupid to some, because its not like she was a human. But to my family, she was. She was my best friend, and today would've been her fifth birthday.

Until next time,

Hayley

7 Reasons I'm Glad I Stayed Home for Spring Break

Right now, many of my sorority sisters and coworkers are in Florida, or some otherwise tropical location. I'm still here in Michigan, where it is currently about ten degrees outside and I can see the snow flying around outside of my window. Yet, I'm so happy that I stayed home instead of going on my own warm adventure, and I have seven reasons why:

1. I have no money...

Yeah, remember that internet thing that I said I was having installed? That was super expensive. Also I live on my own and I have a fairly new car with a payment, so I really don't have a ton of extra money to spend on a trip. If I would have went with my sisters, it would have been fairly cheap, but once I got down there I know I would've spend way more than I had on stupid stuff that I don't need:)

2. I would miss out on a week's worth of money...

In addition to the fact that I don't have that much money to begin with, I also would lose out on a full week of pay. If I had the paid time off saved up, I would've done it, but I don't.

3. I have a ton of stuff that I HAVE to do...

I've been so ridiculously busy with school, work, and my sorority that I haven't had any time for...anything. My dishes are starting to get to that disgusting stage. By bathroom is in desperate need of a cleaning. And as much as I really don't want to do it all, it has to be done soon, because I'lm really the only one who is going to do it.

4. I have so much homework...

Everyone was talking about how I could do homework on vacation. I could shut myself in a room for a couple hours, finish everything up, and head back out to the pool. I can tell you right now that is not what would happen. I would end up sitting in a room for five or six hours, not actually getting anything done due to the beautiful sunlight streaming through the window and the laughter of people outside of it. Then, I would give up and go put my swinsuit on. Better to just stay at home and actually get some of my homework accomplished!

5. I have a ton of stuff that I WANT to do...

I love to craft. I really do. But, I always get started on something and then don't have time to finish it. If you knew how many half finished scarves I have tucked away in my apartment, it would astound you. Maybe I'll have some time to actually finish something.

6. I don't see people anymore...

My family complains all of the time that I never come home. My friends from school never get to see me enough. My friends from work never get to see me enough. There is literally not enough hours in the week to spend a sufficient amount of time with everyone I know. I need a secretary to pencil people into my schedule a few months in advance to actually be able to see anyone. It is nice this week to be able to just go out with friends after work, or spend an entire day at home with my family. 

7. I'm already used to this weather....

As nice as it would be to have it eighty degrees out right now, it isn't. And, it still won't be at the end of this week when everyone is home again. I'm already used to this miserable weather and I know that a trip to a nicer part of the world would just make me miss summer and be more depressed about how cold it is when I got home. I'm just going to do my best to wait it out :)

Only a few more months of having to dress like this. I may look happy, but trust me, anyone who is smiling in a snowy picture is faking it :)

I think my biggest reason for staying home is that, at the end of the week, I'll have everything together. I'll be ready to face the rest of the winter and the rest of the semester, with my apartment all put together and my homework all done. I will finally be able to relax knowing everything is in order. If I was just coming from vacation, all I would have is one week of relaxation on top of a half a semester left of freaking out and trying to catch up :)

All there's left to do now is wait for summer... :)

Thanks for reading!

Hayley :)

Adventure Weekend

This weekend turned out to be the most fun I've had in a long time. I've found that it is usually the case with the weekends that I don't overplan, because I don't get my hopes up too high. This weekend was supposed to be a quiet one, starting out with my best friend Lauren spending the night at my apartment and then ending with laundry at my parent's house. But I ended up having an amazing, fun weekend filled with new experiences.

Lauren came over on Friday night. Let me just say that Lauren is my very best friend, along with the best person I've ever known. She's motivated, smart, funny, and she is always there for me. She works at Petco, so when she got out of work on Friday, she came right over. We got pizza and just talked, which was actually a lot more fun than it sounds. She is literally the only person that I can talk to for hours and not run out of things to say. She got to my place at ten, and we stayed up talking for seven and a half hours, only stopping because I was starting to get drowsy. When we woke up the next morning (actually only three hours after we went to sleep), a man was at my door to install my WiFi, which was one of the most exciting moments that I've had at my apartment yet. Living without internet is really hard, and before Saturday I had been doing it for over three months!

After he left, Lauren and I decided that we wanted to go out somewhere, and I remembered that Shipshewana was coming to an expo center about half an hour away from us, so we just decided to go on a whim. It was amazing. They had so much food, and the way to my heart is with free samples. They had meat, dips, cheeses, fudge. This was all in addition to the clothes and crafts that they had there. By the time Lauren and I left, I had bought three different dips and fifteen honey sticks for my tea, and Lauren bought a big bag of kettle corn to share with her mom. If we weren't so broke (me from my expensive internet installation and Lauren from her impending trip to Florida with her boyfriend, Jordan), we would've bought much more. I had decided on the cheapest dips I could find, which also happened to be my favorites out of all of the vendors. Plus, I felt kind of obligated to buy them after I spent ten minutes at the stand and almost all of the poor vendor's pretzels trying to decide which dip flavors I liked best.

My Dips! I've tried the Dill one already, I can't wait to try the other two!

My honey sticks. They come in some of the weirdest flavors:)

After Shipshewana, Lauren and I parted ways and I headed straight back to my place to get ready to go out again. Earlier in the week, my dad had invited me to an auction. His best friend Dave had invited him to go, like he did every year. It was an auction to benefit Dave's son's school, Valley. Valley is a private school, and every year they hold an auction to benefit their scholarship fund. I was a little nervous to go with my dad, because practically no one I knew was going to be there, but I went anyways. It was a ton of fun. There was a silent auction first, and my dad and I walked around placing bids on anything that we wanted. I was dying for this Vera Bradley duffel bag, and I almost won it, but another woman there bid it up out of my price range. Anyways, during the silent auction they served this amazing dinner, and I'm sad to say that I majorly cheated on my diet. They had scalloped potatoes, and once I saw them, I knew it was all over for the night.

After dinner, they ended the silent auction and started the live auction while the volunteers tallied up everyone's totals for the silent auction. The live auction had a random compilation of items, ranging from a half of a pig to a signed picture and script of The Big Bang Theory (signed by the entire cast, and the script was from an episode that hadn't aired yet). My dad ended up winning Red Wings hockey tickets with Dave at the live auction that he was pretty excited about. When we left, we picked up our silent auction winnings and found that he had also won three giftcards to various restaurants, bottles of wing sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings, and Detroit Pistons basketball tickets. I won a coffee mug and a bottle opener, and I was thrilled even though I didn't win my Vera Bradley bag!

I found out after I took my mug home that it also had fifteen dollars worth of gift certificates for my favorite coffee shop! I only spent seven dollars on the mug in the first place.

The whole reason I bid on the mug was because it was from Cafe Rhema, my favorite coffee place. They serve bubble tea, which is totally amazing. My favorite flavor is the watermelon.

This is the bottle opener that I won! I had been needing one for a long time, and this is one that Dave's mother brought back from China, which I thought was pretty cool :)

Here is the actual mug that I won! I see these mugs every time I go to Cafe Rhema and I always want one, now I finally have one! Even though I don't drink that much coffee...

After the auction I went back to my house and watched some Netflix (thanks to my newly installed WiFi), and then Sunday morning came. I wasn't too excited for Sunday, it was laundry day, and I had a lot of laundry. I could, in all honesty, go a solid three to four months washing nothing but my tank tops, socks, and underwear. I have that many clothes. But, my pile of dirty clothes was starting to climb to a ridiculous height, so I decided it was probably time to wash them. So, I drove over to my parents' house. My sister and I had lunch plans with her friend Andrew, so we left for his house as soon as I walked in the door. We went out to Red Robin for lunch, which was fun, even though my little sister and I unknowingly got lemonades that were five dollars apiece with free refills, and once we found this out we both guzzled three of them just to make up for the ridiculously high price.

After lunch we drove home, and I just got to spend the day with my family. I am the oldest of four, and the only one who doesn't live at home anymore. My brother and sister are twins, and they are both sixteen. My youngest sister is eleven. We all just have a lot of fun together. While my laundry was in the wash, me and the twins (Adam and Megan) played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, which was our favorite game to play when we were younger. Adam talked all about how he wanted to get a pet fox, and how he had researched all of the laws about owning a fox in Michigan, he just had to convince mom and dad first. 

After that, Megan made dinner and my dad showed Adam how to tie a tie, which was a show in itself. Sunday was just a normal day when I think about it, but that was what made it so special. In a few years, Adam and Megan will be off at college and I'll be pretty close to done with it altogether, and things will be different. But for now, I like to appreciate the moments when everyone is still young and living at home, before we all go our seperate ways to live our seperate lives. Weekends like this one are the most fun, because they are mixed when new experiences and completely normal days. 

That's my dad trying to show Adam, he couldn't tie Adam's tie, he had to show him how to by doing it on himself :)

I really hope that I can post more very soon! Thanks for reading my ramblings :)

Hayley <3