Wishing You a Happy and Peaceful Christmas!

Lily Raisin is enjoying hers!

Countdown to Gorgeous Day 24: Thankful and Christmas Eve FOTD

Hard to believe that Christmas is finally here. In some ways it seems like it will never come when I'm in the midst of work projects/end of semester hoopla, and in others it is here and gone in a flash. The last day of the Countdown to Gorgeous advent calendar by bareMinerals wants me to "Be Good", so I'll give it a shot.

Day 24 brings a rosy brown loose powder eye shadow with a satin finish called Thankful. All of the shadows from this series haven been easy to work with (beyond the messiness of being loose powders), and it reminds me how much I used to love and use loose shadows from bareMinerals in the past. Yes, I managed to spill a fair amount of Thankful into the wicker of my makeup table, but it's nothing that a vacuum cleaner can't handle :-)

Here I'm wearing Thankful up to the crease, with matte shadows Fringe and Silk from the MetalMatte Kat Von D palette as transition shades. I also tried out the Mr. Bing eyeliner from the Kathleen Lights + ColourPop collection for the first time. Still forming impressions on it, but it does work nicely to softly deepen my lash line and meld with Thankful.

On my lips I went with a soft nude look featuring Nude Pop Lip Oil Balm and the Marvelous Moxie gloss in Daredevil.

The dogs and I enjoyed our Christmas eve at my mom's, and today is Christmas dinner. For the last few years we've gone with nontraditional Christmas meals, and this year will be barbeque ribs with all the fixin's. Yum.

The dogs definitely enjoyed Christmas eve, and Lulu has turned into the best present opener of the bunch. However, she tends to want to open everyone's presents.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

It's been wet, warm, muggy and the end is not in sight yet.  But still, the dogs (and adults) had a wonderful Christmas Eve.  My heart goes out to those having to deal with tornadoes and flooding the past few days.

Christmas Eve, post present unwrapping

Christmas Day (sans dogs, who were napping after all the excitement the night before) focused on lunch and more present unwrapping with extended family.  I hope you and yours are safe, warm (or cool, as in my case it was upper '70's today), and having a lovely day!

Christmas Day

A Christmas Tale that Includes Tornadoes

5:13 p.m. CST: Mobile radar during the tornado that hit western parts of Mobile, AL.  Source: MSN.com

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a safe and happy holiday!  Mine was exciting, but for all the wrong reasons.  I did manage to have a lovely Christmas eve that included watching my favorite Christmas movie, Love Actually.  I also got to witness my most bossy and dominant dog, Maggie, meekly wear a pair of reindeer antlers for almost 30 minutes.  I also had a great Christmas day lunch with family and received lots of lovely presents, including a Keurig coffee maker to replace the one that broke a few months back.  Um, coffee in the mornings again!

Dauphin Street at North Carlen Street is impassable from storm damage in midtown Mobile, Ala., Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012. (Mike Kittrell/mkittrell@al.com)

I also sat in my "safe place" while a tornado passed overhead.  You can see videos of it here.  Christmas evening was spent glued to the TV to make sure that the dozens of tornadoes that passed through my area were not also going to be a direct hit, which sadly at least one and perhaps more were for many in my area.  As I'm typing this, the last squall line is rolling through, but so far so good.  I'm sure tomorrow morning will bring many stories of great damage, as the storms hit right as it was getting dark, making it hard to assess how terrible things might be.

Source:  Stormchasermovies.com

I do know that the tornado that hit Mobile managed to skip over my area, although it was traveling in a straight line that touched down a few miles before and caused major damage a few miles after where I live.  It really does bring home the randomness of it all, doesn't it?  Not to mention that Mobile had a direct hit from another tornado last Thursday, and we are not an area known for tornadoes (hurricanes are another story).

Source:  AL.com

All I can say is that it's been a memorable Christmas, and I hope you and yours are safe and happy.  I'm grateful for much more than the presents I received this year!