High Five for Friday: November 23

Happy Black Friday! Hope y’all had a great holiday! Here’s what brought the ✨ this week:

• Over the weekend, I actually did some creative writing! I have all these scenes scribbled down for a story I want to write, but I always talk myself out of working on it. A come-to-Jesus therapy session has changed all that for the time being, though! Writing again was freaking FUN! ☺️

• I was off on Wednesday, so Pops and I went ice skating! He used to play hockey, so he had a lot of good tips for me. Even though we had to dodge 8,000 kids, it was a lot of fun, and I feel like my legs are getting stronger!
  

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SUCH A PROFESSIONAL 😂😂 I even attempted skating (ok, wiggling) backwards today and did one singular, very wonky, crossover! Movin’ on up! 💃💃 Bonus that Pops was there to be my videographer! #poorPops . . . #iceskating #skating #selfcare #therapy #innerchild

A post shared by Jess (@jessie_face4) on Nov 21, 2018 at 2:25pm PST

• On Thanksgiving, I kept negating all of Pops’s answers during a rousing game of Scattergories (because if you put the same answers as someone else, you cancel them out, and Pops and I apparently share one brain), annnd I accidentally got low-key drunk, so it was obviously quite a time!
  

• Otherwise, it’s been 2008 around here, because I’ve been listening to Jupiter One nonstop for no apparent reason! Did anyone else listen to these guys in college? Full disclosure: one of their songs was on the soundtrack to NHL ‘08, that’s how my bffl and I discovered them hahahaha. “Countdown” is so good!

• Lastly, YOU GUYS, I am now fully in love with the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody. (Poor Timmi has borne the brunt of this all week haha. Truly #rideordie) The guys who play Queen all seem to genuinely love each other and get involved in hijinks together, and my heart can’t handle it. 💕💕

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Walking in the footsteps of legends..... (Ben - you’re here with us in spirit....and cardboard) #bohemianrhapsody #bohemianrhapsodymovie #queen #tokyo #japan #tokyotower #borappresstour @bohemianrhapsodymovie @20thcenturyfox @brianmayforreal @rogertaylorofficial @benhardy1

A post shared by Gwilym Lee (@mrgwilymlee) on Nov 8, 2018 at 8:36am PST

Like, one dude couldn’t go with them on their press tour to Japan, so they brought around a CARDBOARD CUTOUT OF HIM. (Which later escalated to this. 😂😂)

https://borhap-babies.tumblr.com/post/180165103787/rogerstaylor-they-did-give-me-a-perm-six

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I know there’s only like 8 people who follow me that don’t also follow Gwil but this is just too fantastic of a memory not to share over here as well. Yes we got so good at Live Aid that we were able to learn this silly dance between shots. Forgive the crude language in the song!

A post shared by Joe Mazzello (@joe_mazzello) on Nov 20, 2018 at 8:42pm PST

These guys are everything I didn’t know I needed in my life!

Hope you have a great weekend! xo

High Five for Friday: November 16

Happy Friday, everyone! ☺️ Let’s see what brought the sparkle:

• On Saturday, I got to hang out with one of the YTT gals! Jamie is hilarious and super easy to talk to and just GETS IT (about everything), so it was delightful! Bonus that, because she’s trying to get some more experience doing reiki, I got to add some reiki to my day! It was super calming and much-needed. ❤️
  

• While I was on my way to meet up with Jamie, I passed by this gorgeous backdrop! I happened to have my DSLR with me that afternoon (what luck!), so this worked out perfectly!

• But on Sunday, I was really out of sorts. Thankfully, I was still with Pudge, who is an excellent emotional support cat, but I was just… sad. I don’t know. Luckily, I managed to get myself out of the house to see Bohemian Rhapsody and I LOVED IT. (Although I could have done without so much creative license being taken with certain things. 😞) It felt like being at a Queen concert, especially because they recreated the Live Aid performance, and y’all know that’s my jam!
  

I went to the movies by myself, which I think means I crossed a goal off of Bri’s list, haha!

I love John Deacon, and I totally had a crush on Joseph Mazzello back in the day, so the fact that he, of all people, played John Deacon was basically 🤯🤯. And he is so good! Why can’t he be in more things!?

• Switching gears to a different movie! Because I love Milo Manheim on this season of DWTS, I made Pops watch the Disney movie that he’s in, Zombies, with me this week, and it’s pretty darn cute. It’s basically High School Musical with zombies. 🤷🏼‍♀️
  

•  Lastly, I’m obviously Team Witlo, but I did love Alexis and Alan’s jive this week. Ridiculous ‘80s exercise video vibes, a plethora of sequins, and “Yes” from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack?! HERE FOR IT.

Hope you have a great weekend! xo

High Five for Friday: November 9

Happy Friday! Let’s see what brought the sparkle this week!

• Saturday night was the Halloween party I’d mentioned a few weeks back, and my “brilliant” Halloween costume idea was a huge success! I enlisted my friend Russell to be the Inspector Gadget to my Penny! I’m pretty dang happy with how it turned out! Cheap eBay trench coat ftw!

We also made some pretty sweet props! (Sidenote that Penny was WAY ahead of her time—she basically had an Apple Watch and an iPad in the ‘80s!)

Possibly the most unique usage of Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before! 😂😂

• Also on Saturday, I busted out my DSLR and took some pictures of pretty leaves! (One of my November goals! ✔️) Pops accompanied me, thinking we were going on an actual walk and not a “stop and gawk”—whoops! #PoorPops

• Speaking of goals, you might have noticed that I’ve been very meh with my goals posts for the past few months. I don’t know what my deal is, but I just am not excited about those posts right now. I do still want to set some small goals though... enter Instagram. I shared a few goals for October on there on a whim last month, and it really did help, so I’m back at it this month! Also, Gretchen Rubin liked this post!! (If she only knew I turned her book into a “computer”! 😂)

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YOU GUYS. My IG goals post really helped me last month, so maybe this will be a new thing! Tiny goals seem to be key for me. My October goal to read two chapters of @gretchenrubin ‘s Better Than Before led to me reading SIX chapters! But if I had made my goal “read 6 chapters,” I almost certainly would have been like “whatever, that’s going to happen” and not have done any of it. Know thyself, right? So with that in mind, here’s what’s on the white board this month—a few things to brighten up November and take some annoyance out of my life: . ✨Get and write out Christmas cards ✨Take pics of the fall foliage with my DSLR ✨Read two chapters of any book ✨Unsubscribe from mailing lists clogging up my inbox ✨Go ice skating once . What are you working on this month? . #goals #goaldigger #creativehappylife #anxiety #selfcare #happiness #christmasprep

A post shared by Jess (@jessie_face4) on Nov 5, 2018 at 6:49am PST

• I’m staying with my beloved Pudgie Princess for a few days! Look at this precious angel I’M DYING. (Also from cat dander, tragically. WHY WON’T MY BODY LET ME LIVE MY BEST LIFE? 😭😭)
  

Working hard, or hardly working?  

• Lastly, this has definitely been the song of the week. It’s so ridiculously catchy. And it was apparently the B-side to “Last Christmas,” so if that doesn’t sell you on it (besides the fact that it’s, you know, WHAM!), I don’t know what will! Go ahead—choose life.

Hope you have a great weekend! xo

High Five for Friday: November 2

I hope your week had some sparkle! Here’s what put the ✨ in mine:

• Somehow, Pops convinced me to stay up and watch when World Series game 3 went into extra innings last Friday night. Since it wasn’t a weeknight, and I thought the game would go til maybe midnight, sure, why not?

HAHAHAHAHA IT WENT TIL 3:30 AM. OH OK. Pops, lover of all things Cali, is pro-Dodgers, so I was cheering for them too, and after about 1:30 AM, I had to pace whenever the Red Sox were up—I WAS SO STRESSED. Thank god the Dodgers won! Even though they ended up losing the series, I don’t think I could have handled them losing that game!

God bless you, Max Muncy!

• Is anyone else pumped for Bohemian Rhapsody?! Seeing the commercials has got me listening to a lot of Queen, especially their iconic performance at Live Aid. My parents taped Live Aid off the TV when it originally aired, and I watched it in high school while working on a research paper about U2 (who also had an iconic  performance there). I was mesmerized by Freddie Mercury dancing with the microphone stand during “Radio GaGa.” So if you’ve never seen it, you’re welcome!

• I’m starting to realize that I will do fun things (or just basic things, like leaving the house) on the weekend if I give myself chill time too. My introvert self really needs that balance. So after this past Saturday got away from me, thanks to getting out of bed at 11:30 (see above) and then having family stuff at night, I gave myself Sunday to regroup at home—get the wash done, get myself organized for the week etc.—but I also lit a fun candle (who even am I??) and took Days breaks so it didn’t feel like a total grind.

• I had a delightful fall morning on Tuesday! My one therapist’s office is tucked away in the cutest neighborhood, so after therapy, I walked around and soaked up some of the beautiful foliage! Somewhere over the past few years, I’ve become a fall person—didn't see that one coming! And then I stopped at Starbucks on the way home and picked up a PSL. I’m not their biggest fan, but I do need 1-2 a year in celebration of the season! #basic

• Lastly, you might recall that, in August, I set out to document my daily outfits, as I have for the past three Augusts. But some stuff happened this August that brought up a ton of anxiety and emotion, and I just couldn’t post cute, smiley Instagram pictures when I was dying inside. (I did eventually start commenting on my emotional state in my Instagram posts, but that wasn’t exactly an enjoyable exercise either.) I just wanted to speed up time so that things would hurt less. Well, here we are, two months later, and that bad stuff hurts way less. I feel like I’m dealing with a normal, non-incapacitating level of anxiety these days. When I was in it, I thought it would never end, but hey, here I am. “This too shall pass,” I guess. Anyway, here’s one of my favorite pics from the second half of Outfit Documentation August (aka October!)!

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Day 29: That feel when the sun comes out for five minutes when you’re trying to take pictures! 💃💃💯 Happy Monday, y’all! . . . #outfitoftheday #fallfashion #targetstyle #oldnavystyle #ootd #whatiwore #whatiworetoday #oldnavystyle #target #nordstromrack #francescas

A post shared by Jess (@jessie_face4) on Oct 29, 2018 at 6:48am PDT

43 Likes, 9 Comments - Jess (@jessie_face4) on Instagram: "Day 29: That feel when the sun comes out for five minutes when you're trying to take pictures! 💃💃💯..."

Hope you have a great weekend and had a great Halloween! (My super health-conscious dad ate a fun-size Snickers AND a mini Baby Ruth, so it was a wild time here! 😂) xo

October 2018 Budget

October was a v low-key spending month, especially compared to September! I only bought two things, both from Glossier:

1. Milky Jelly Cleanser (Glossier): $18

2. Lip Gloss (Glossier): $14

TOTAL: $32

I had racked up quite a bit on my credit card in September, so I definitely needed to avoid shopping (for the most part) in October! The Milky Jelly Cleanser was just a replacement (it’s been my go-to cleanser for over a year), and I threw in the Lip Gloss (which I’d had my eye on for awhile) to get free shipping. The Lip Gloss is… okay. Although it’s supposed to be clear, I feel like it somehow makes my lips look this nice shade of pink. My main issue is how sticky it is. I actually like a thick, sticky lip gloss, but this one is REALLY sticky. Like, to the point of feeling weird or unpleasant. I don’t know. I haven’t used it a ton, but that’s where I’m at right now. If you’re contemplating a Glossier lip product, I’d say go with the Balm Dot Com—I love the cherry one and use it all the time.

What are your favorite lip products that I need to try?