By Lanee Smith

Can’t afford to buy expensive makeup right now? Here are some simple
ways to survive the recession with breaking your pocket book! Not all
cheap makeup is bad makeup! See our list below.

99 Cent Only Stores carries Almay Mascara! It normally retails for
2.97. It is great mascara! You can also find false eyelashes there as
well.

Jordana Cosmetics carries great eyeliners and lip liners for $.99
cents. It is available at Walgreens.

Loreal True Match Foundation is a great waterbased foundation that is
available at Walmart for less than $11.00! It is also available on
Ultra.com.

Editor’s Note: ELF is my personal favorite!  E.L.F. Cosmetics (eyes, lips, face) has all your makeup needs for just $1!  ALL e.l.f. COSMETICS ONLY $1

I have a new plan for change and hope in 2009. It’s called GOYA: Get Off Your A**.

You’ve heard a lot lately about hope and change; in the economy, in our country, and in the world. Call me cynical, but I don’t buy it. Not yet anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish President Obama all the best. He’s got a tough job ahead, and people’s expectations are high, too high in some cases. The whole thing is, what are YOU AND I doing personally to bring about change and hope we’d like to see in our lives? Why should the responsibility rest on President Obama?

Here’s the deal. I don’t blame George Bush, the Republicans, Democrats,  the Governator or any other politician for my current financial status, state of health, or state of being. Things happen in the world over which they have no control, and they must make decisions as they see fit. We can’t control what they do, but we are 100% in control of how we deal with what life gives us.

There’s an old German word that sums up my entrie philosophy here: Kwitcherbichen!

I’ve made some less than informed financial decisions in my lifetime, but I haven’t had the option of getting a government bailout. Guess what? I paid them off! My husband and I lost money during the current fall off in the market, but guess what? We’ve found extra work to help cover the shortfall, and we’re cutting back on non-essentials.

I’ve had 6 children, and I haven’t had anything lifted, tucked or liposuctioned. I also haven’t laid around like 3rd base feeling sorry for myself. I got up and exercised, ate right, and taught my kids to do the same.

I dropped out of college, had a string of jobs that did not challenge me intellectually or pay me what I was worth. So I studied on my own, started writing, got out into the community and the internet and found a number of new ways to monetize doing what I love. It didn’t happen overnight, but you know what, it rocks! People helped me along the way, but they didn’t do it for me, and I didn’t expect them to.

Life isn’t going to be perfect, and you’re not going to have it all. But you can get really close to it. Enjoy your family, take a class, learn to do something that speaks to you personally. Get out of your comfort zone, meet some new people, read books and travel, if only to the next town. Think before you spend, and give a few bucks to people or organizations who need a hand. Not because they expect it, but because it’s the right thing to do. Share your time, talent and treasure.

Do whatever it takes to BE THE CHANGE in your own life, because no one else can do it for you.

GOYA, Baby!

By Lanee Smith

Here are some makeup tips that you can work into your daily routine.

Makeup Tips

1) For flawless skin after washing your face, always apply moisturizer
before adding foundation.

2) If you are going to apply concealer under your eyes, always apply it
before you use your foundation.

3) When you are looking for the right foundation color, always apply it to
the side of your face and not your hand, because you hand isn’t the same
color as your face.

4) Always wash your makeup brushes in mild shampoo once a week.

5) For longwearing lipstick, apply, blot your lips and then reapply.

6) Control shine by using pressed powder to set your foundation and use oil
blotters throughout the day to prevent shine.

Do you look at the New Year with a sense of wonder or dread? With 2008 coming to a close and 2009 with all it’s coming changes looming ahead, I must say I’m having mixed emotions. But, I am an optimist, so no doubt I will rally and find the positives out there. Things are going great so far, I must say.

As we look to our leaders, communities and most importantly, ourselves, I sincerely hope that we will find our way and work together to help one another in 2009. There is really so much that can be done, and if we try very hard, each of us can accomplish much, as groups or as individuals.

I would encourage everyone to get involved on some level to help ease the burden of others in their lives, if only in a small way. You’ll be amazed at the effect it will have on your own life.

All The Best To You And Yours This Coming Year!

By Seth Godin
Used with permission

People really want to believe effort is a myth, at least if we consider what we consume in the media:

politicians and beauty queens who get by on a smile and a wink

lottery winners who turn a lifetime of lousy jobs into one big payday

sports stars who are born with skills we could never hope to acquire

hollywood celebrities with the talent of being in the right place at the right time

failed CEOs with $40 million buyouts

It really seems (at least if you read popular media) that who you know and whether you get ‘picked’ are the two keys to success. Luck.

The thing about luck is this: we’re already lucky. We’re insanely lucky that we weren’t born during the black plague or in a country with no freedom. We’re lucky that we’ve got access to highly-leveraged tools and terrific opportunities. If we set that luck aside, though, something interesting shows up.

Delete the outliers–the people who are hit by a bus or win the lottery, the people who luck out in a big way, and we’re left with everyone else. And for everyone else, effort is directly related to success. Not all the time, but as much as you would expect. Smarter, harder working, better informed and better liked people do better than other people, most of the time.

Effort takes many forms. Showing up, certainly. Knowing stuff (being smart might be luck of the draw, but knowing stuff is the result of effort). Being kind when it’s more fun not to. Paying forward when there’s no hope of tangible reward. Doing the right thing. You’ve heard these things a hundred times before, of course, but I guess it’s easier to bet on luck.

If people aren’t betting on luck, then why do we make so many dumb choices? Why aren’t useful books selling at fifty times the rate they sell now? Why does anyone, ever, watch reality TV shows? Why do people do such dumb stuff with their money?

I think we’ve been tricked by the veneer of lucky people on the top of the heap. We see the folks who manage to skate by, or who get so much more than we think they deserve, and it’s easy to forget that:

a. these guys are the exceptions
and
b. there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.

And that’s the key to the paradox of effort: While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don’t get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.

This is a hard sell. Diet books that say, “eat less, exercise more,” may work, but they don’t sell many copies.

With that forewarning, here’s a bootstrapper’s/marketer’s/entrepreneur’s/fast-rising executive’s effort diet. Go through the list and decide whether or not it’s worth it. Or make up your own diet. Effort is a choice, at least make it on purpose:

1. Delete 120 minutes a day of ’spare time’ from your life. This can include TV, reading the newspaper, commuting, wasting time in social networks and meetings. Up to you.

2. Spend the 120 minutes doing this instead:

Exercise for thirty minutes.

Read relevant non-fiction (trade magazines, journals, business books, blogs, etc.)

Send three thank you notes.

Learn new digital techniques (spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, productivity tools, graphic design, html coding)

Volunteer.

Blog for five minutes about something you learned.

Give a speech once a month about something you don’t currently know a lot about.

3. Spend at least one weekend day doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.

4. Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.

If you somehow pulled this off, then six months from now, you would be the fittest, best rested, most intelligent, best funded and motivated person in your office or your field. You would know how to do things other people don’t, you’d have a wider network and you’d be more focused.

It’s entirely possible that this won’t be sufficient, and you will continue to need better luck. But it’s a lot more likely you’ll get lucky, I bet.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

 
If you want happiness for an hour …take a nap.

If you want happiness for a day …go fishing.

If you want happiness for a month …get married.

If you want happiness for a year …inherit a fortune.

If you want happiness for a lifetime …help others. 

~Chinese Proverb

If you think you are beaten, you are.

If you think you dare not, you don’t.

If you’d like to win but think you can’t, it’s almost certain you won’t.

Life’s battles don’t always go to the strongest or the fastest,

But sooner or later, the person who wins is the one who thinks they can.

~Unknown

For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it.
For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it.
For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it. ~Ivan Panin

Beauty lies in the specific looks of a person, rather than the object, because different people feel beauty in different things. ~Vally

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. ~Kahlil Gibran

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God. ~Jean Anouilh

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. ~Franz Kafka

Beauty seen is never lost, God’s colors all are fast. ~John Greenleaf Whittier

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. ~Kahlil Gibran

Those who look for beauty, find it ~Unknown

1. Try everything twice. On Madam’s tombstone (of Whelan and Madam) she said she wanted this epitaph: Tried everything twice…loved it both times!

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. (keep this in mind if you are one of those grouches!)

3. Keep learning: Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain get idle. ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.’ And the devil’s name is Alzheimer’s!

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath, and if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and lots of time with HIM/HER.

6. The tears happen: Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. LIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love: Whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

11. Forgive now those who made you cry. You might not get a second chance.

Excerpt from Beauty 101
By Ralph Ann Forrest

Finding The Right Mask For Your Skin Type 

Specialty products such as facial masks are great to use! There are basically three types of masks: Hydrating, Exfoliating and Purifying. Knowing what each one does will aid in helping you find the right facial cleanser for your skin.

Hydrating Masks restores moisture to dry skin. Applying moisturizer after using the mask will aid in maintaining your healthy skin.

Exfoliation Masks slough off dead skin. These are tiny granules are massaged into the skin removing dead surface cells. You should use this mask once a week!

 
Purifying Masks are deep pore cleansers. Sometimes referred to as Clarifying masks are great for removing excess dirt and oil.

A skincare regimen should be customized for the skin type of the individual. The most important thing is to be consistent with whatever products that you use.