The past couple of weeks I’ve been digging deeper into the world of DHS/CPS, caseworkers, placements, and adoptions, and the true horrors that the foster system marks for a cost of living project that I’m doing this semester for school, because I want to be a social worker after college. It has brought to my attention once again the blind eye that this world turns to the kids in the foster system. It has made me sad. The jobs of caseworkers are horrific, and yet they remain underpaid, and under recognized. The things they have to see and deal with as their job are horrific.
Yes, I still believe that there are bad caseworkers, but I realize more deeply the numbness that comes with the months and years of daily being exposed to the suffering of children, and the forced separation of families. It makes me appreciate more the love and dedication of the social workers we’ve had during the past year. I just wanted to recognize the caseworkers I’ve had the privilege of meeting in my state, and briefly talk about social workers who work in the foster system and what they do. And I would like to recommend you share some encouragement with them to show you appreciate what they do.
Thanks for taking a minute out of your day to read this post, please consider following this blog to see more from me if you’re not already
2019 is over. And with the end of the year comes the thinking about everything that I did in 2019, and about all the things I loved. Since I started doing makeup, eye makeup has been that one category that really draws me in. I love the endless color and texture possibilities, the opportunity to be so unique in my choices, and the prospect of being able to create looks that will turn out wildly different each and every time. It’s such a unique medium, it’s probably my favorite product category to use.
My favorite eyeliners this year have been the Tarte clay pot liners. They are versatile and creamy, they go on smoothly, working on my very watery water line, but still creamy enough to blend out as eyeshadow all over the lid. These little pots of cream are pricey compared to their drugstore counterparts, and my wallet screams in pain every time I buy one, but they truly are the best liners I have found. And for being so darn good, they have earned themselves a spot in my top makeup of 2019 list. The Tarte liners have been the best overall, but as far as liners go the colourpop bff liner pencils are a really good pencil alternative if that’s what you’re looking for. They stay pretty darn well in my water line, and are smooth and creamy enough to blend out on the lid, or even under the eye as a smokey liner. It’s also not too expensive, a bit of a win win to me. This year I realized that I just don’t really love liquid liner as much as I thought. I honestly haven’t used a liquid eye liner in months, so I’m not going to list any as the best of the year or as my favorites.
My mascara game has been interesting this year, and for the last six months I really haven’t worn the stuff very often. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t played favorites. The problem is, they’re all just so good! My eyelashes are notoriously long, and my cousin always gripes that every mascara looks good on me, so that might contribute to my long list of good mascaras. That being said, I do have several things that I look for in a mascara. I like my mascaras to be easy to remove from my lashes, and I also prefer a warmer tone to my mascara, as I have a lot of red tones in my hair and my eye color is pretty warm. I don’t own any at the moment, but the Essence Lash Princess mascaras are some of the best mascaras ever on my lashes. My favorite is the Volume version, it makes my lashes look really fluffy, and I don’t find them very hard to take off. The Tarte mascaras have all been good so far, but my favorite has to be the Gifted Mascara. It gives the lashes such a nice effect, and has a warm undertone which makes it subtly more flattering on my lashes. It seems like a strange thing to say about a black mascara, but I honestly find it to make a difference in the way it looks on my eyes. I would also like to give an honorable mention to my Colourpop Bff mascara, as a good coloured mascara. It’s a volumizing mascara, that goes on with a dramatic effect, and doesn’t transfer or flake on me. Plus they have a ton of colors to choose from.
Eyeshadow has to be my favorite makeup product. Period. They are the product that I find I can have the most fun with. The array of colors, different textures, layering, blending, there is so much possibility when it comes to eyeshadow. That’s what makes this category so tough. My eyeshadow collection is the biggest portion of my makeup collection, so there’s a lot to choose from. I thought I would break it down into several eyeshadow categories for the sake of this post. Powder shadow, Cream shadow, Glitter shadow, and Palettes.
The first category I’m going to talk about is my collection of single powder shadows, and I’m actually going to be choosing a favorite shade, as all my single shadows are from colourpop. As I was thinking about which shade to choose one specific shadow came unchallenged to my mind. What shade is the you ask? Colourpop Tea Garden. This duo chrome shadow is exquisite. It’s a brown based duo chrome with a gorgeous green shift, and honestly I think it adds to every look I use it in. It’s subtle enough to be used in a neutral look, but has the perfect amount of green to lend it to colourful looks as well. The formula is creamy, and easy to work with, and the shade lends itself to many different applications in my opinion. It was a pretty clear choice for me, even though it is a shimmer.
The next eyeshadow category I want to talk about would be my cream shadows. The choice for this was also pretty obvious to me. My cream shadow collection is honestly not that big, and consists of only a few different formulations. My choice has to be the Tarte Chrome Pot in the shade Park ave. Princess. It has to be my favorite bronze shade I’ve ever tried or seen. It’s smooth and very metallic, and makes a gorgeous one shadow eye look. It’s just such an amazing product with phenomenal shine and pigment.
For glitter shadows it’s a bit more difficult, because both of the formulas I have are wildly different. But, I have to say that my favorite glitter would have to be Get Lost by Colourpop. I like that it’s in a pan, and easy to apply with my fingers, and it’s versatile enough to use for glam or even just for everyday use.
For eyeshadow palettes it’s honestly a really tough call. Eyeshadow palettes are my favorite part of my collection, and I have quite a few of them. At the beginning of 2019 I had never tried a colourpop product, but 2019 saw my collection get taken over by my love for the brand. That being said, I honestly just love colourpop’s eyeshadow formula over most other eyeshadow formulas in my collection, and when the Uh-Huh Honey palette launched earlier this year I just couldn’t say no. I mean, I could have, but I really didn’t want to. It has become my favorite palette of 2019. I love the bright color story, the glitter, and the variety of tones. The shadows are easy to work with, and they apply smoothly onto the lids. The set-up with the plastic packaging and the mirror is quite durable, and it’s compact enough that I’m willing to take it one trips with me. Ever since I got my subculture palette back in January of 2019 I’ve been obsessed with the yellow toned eyeshadows, and the colourpop Uh-Huh Honey palette was like all my amazing yellow eyeshadow dreams come true.
I realize this post is a bit late considering that we’re already over a week into 2020, but I had fun with this post, and hope you enjoyed it regardless. If you’d like to see more from me you can follow me on instagram @not_molly_19, and follow my blog to see when I post. Thanks for reading!
I have been homeschooled for the majority of my school aged life. My parents made the decision to take me out of the public elementary school I attended k-3 at the end of my third grade year, I’ve done Classical Conversations curriculum from grades 5-10, and it has proved to be the perfect fit for my family. That being said, the truth is that there is really no stereotypical homeschool experience. The most important thing to know about homeschooling before you get into this post is that everyone does it for different reasons, and everyone does it differently. All I can tell you is about what homeschooling looks like for my family.
The first question I get a lot when people find out I’m homeschooled is if I ever plan on going back to public school. To that question my answer is no. Actually though, a lot of the time that question comes out as more of a when am I going back to public school. For my family public school has never been the end goal of homeschooling, it hasn’t been our temporary solution. I realize that for a lot of people homeschooling can be more of a temporary fix then an end goal, but it’s not that way for my family. I started homeschooling when I was in fourth grade. It has its ups and downs just like public school, but I feel like it has helped me have a bigger perspective on things, and really explore life in a different and bigger way.
Another question I’m pretty sure every homeschooler ever has encountered at least once a week ( Not really, but it feels like it sometimes.) is the shock-faced question of how I socialize, and “Oh, how will you ever learn people skills?” The thing is, I’m homeschooled, not hermitized. I have a wider social circle than I think some public schoolers do. I interact with people my own age, with adults, and with people younger than me that aren’t related to me on the daily. I participate in a lot of activities, like basketball, youth-group, homeschool group, and I’ve also done things like swim team, and other sports. I’m also learning to play the violin, and took several years of piano lessons. I have no shortage of social interaction, and a lot of my life is go go go. I’m not stunted in social situations, and though I am painfully shy, I’m not afraid to put my opinion out there.
Something I feel like a lot of people outside of homeschooling circles assume is that my work is easy, and that I’m not going to graduate with all the knowledge I need. People assume that because I’m not doing the same work as my public schooled friends, my work must be too easy, and sub-standard. And, while I do understand that this is a reality for some kids who are homeschooled, the exact opposite is true in my family. My parents hold me to a much higher standard than even the best, and most demanding teachers I had in public school, and they’re always pushing me to be better and to do more. My parents are not the ones to sit back and let me do poor work. They have always pushed me to do better, and I am very lucky that they care about me so much.
There are a lot of other faq’s to do with homeschooling, and if you’re interested I would love to do another post about it in the future. If you enjoyed this post please consider following my blog, and also my makeup account on instagram (@not_molly_19) to see more from me.
It’s official. It’s my very FIRST EVER COLLAB!!!!!!!! Can you tell how excited I am for this??? I have been watching Christina Chang’s channel for about a year at this point, and her channel does not disappoint if you are a fellow makeup lover. She’s also a fellow Harry Potter Nerd in Ravenclaw House. She makes a lot of amazing content, and gets me super inspired to do stuff like palette bingos, project panning, and shop my stashes.
I started this blog back in May, and from before I posted my very first blog post I was already thinking about how amazing it would be to be able to collab with her. I put off asking for the longest time even after I got my instagram account because I was nervous that she would say no. Two weeks ago I finally got the courage to DM her on Instagram and ask if she would be willing to do a Ravenclaw makeup collab with me…. And she said yes. I was literally so shocked that she was willing to collab with me. She’s been really sweet throughout the whole post creation process. I’m so excited to have gotten to work with her on this.
( If you’re curious about what any of the makeup I’m wearing in any of these looks all the looks should be up on my Instagram today. @not_molly_19)
My idea for this collab was to do three looks based on the Ravenclaw house from the Harry Potter series. Ravenclaw house is all about creativity, wisdom, and learning, and covers a wide range of artistic personalities, and their house colors are blue and bronze.
My first idea for a Ravenclaw Makeup look was to do a look based on the average Ravenclaw. For this look I wanted to go with something I would feel comfortable wearing to class, with a little extra spice. I am literally so pleased with how this look turned out! I tried a couple of different looks before settling of this one. I wanted the look to be natural and easy to wear, with a light subtle flair of Ravenclaw spice. I honestly started this look out with absolutely no idea of where I was going. But the subtle blue duo chrome and blue bottom lash mascara bring the Ravenclaw flair to an otherwise normal neutral look.
The next look I wanted to go for was a super extra Ravenclaw Pride look. At one point in Harry Potter we see Luna Lovegood, a spacey artistic, not afraid to be herself Ravenclaw go all out on an outfit to support her friends on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and I wanted to capture the way I think that look would transfer into Ravenclaw Spirit. For this look I pulled out all the blue and bronze to create a very in your face Ravenclaw Pride makeup look.
The last look I wanted to be inspired by our favorite Ravenclaw Character from Harry Potter. Fortunately for my decision making skills, one of my favorite characters from the entire series is Luna Lovegood. She embodies all of the things I love most about my Hogwarts house, creativity, wisdom, confidence, and even some Gryffindor type loyalty. All in all, I don’t really think there’s another character who provides the same unconditional friendship, and trust in her friends. For this look I wanted to capture the dreaminess of Luna’s personality in more pastel tones with a bronze wing and a light sprinkle of star shaped glitter. And of course we can’t talk about Luna Lovegood without talking about her loyalty to her friends, and that lion hat she had enchanted to roar to cheer for Gryffindor Quidditch.
If you’ve gotten this far I would love to hear your input! Please leave a comment letting me know what you think. If you want me to know you were here please follow my blog, and if you want to hear when new posts go up, and see more looks from me follow me on Instagram @not_molly_19. Also, go check out Christina’s take on this idea on her YouTube channel Christina Chang. She’s an amazing creator and was really fun to work with. Thanks for reading, so until next time, Bye!
This is a post about me. I know that all my posts are about me in general, but this one is specifically about me, because I’m going to spend this whole post telling you some random facts about my life. I don’t really like talking about myself to most other people, but I’ve seen a couple people do posts like this recently, and I thought it might be fun to show you guys that my life is not just foster care and makeup. So without further ado, here it goes.
My favorite color is red. I don’t feel like this needs a lot of explaining. My favorite color is a bright vibrant orangey red color that I like to describe as electric red. My second favorite color is dark gray. What can I say? Variety is the spice of life.
I play Basketball, it started as a mandatory school sport in third grade, and I fell in love. Back in elementary school my teammates called me Wrecker. My record time for fouling out of a game is before the end of the first quarter, my parents have never let me forget about it.
My favorite drinks are black tea and black coffee. Most people, especially kids in High School don’t like unsweetened black coffee, or tea, but in my opinion black coffee and tea is just really good. I actually don’t really care when it comes to details like ‘type of roast’ or ‘where its grown’ I might be weird, but I’m not a coffee snob.
I’ve always loved art, and doing crafty things. When I was little adults would come to me all the time and ask me to do crafty things for them, usually it wasn’t the kind of crafts that I liked to do, but most of the time I did it anyway. I love to paint and draw, even though I’m not that good at it. I feel like being an artistic kid transitions into being pretty good at doing makeup, which I think is pretty cool. I guess my love of makeup does make sense after all.
I’m not into fashion. At all. I don’t really spend a lot of time on clothes and accessories, I hardly ever wear jewelry that doesn’t serve a purpose, and I’m pretty low maintenance when it comes to what I wear. It’s not a way I like to express myself like it is for some people. I’m not really sure why.
I think that if a book gets made into a movie, the book is almost always better. I feel like this applies to almost every movie that has been made from a book. Yes I’m strange, no, I don’t really care. Unless you make a movie that follows every scene from the book exactly, and doesn’t leave out any characters, or lines, it’s probably not as good as the book. Unless it was just an awful book to begin with.
My favorite books are the Lord of the Rings, the RL series by Nancy Rue, Beyond the After by CM Healy, and Harry Potter of course. I love the mystery genre the most, and when I was little most of what I read was Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, though Nancy Drew was always more my jam. I still own almost all the original Nancy Drew books.
I don’t watch a lot of tv, but I love shows like Matlock, Murder she Wrote, and Sherlock. Going back to the fact that I love mysteries, its probably no surprise that I really love murder mystery shows, and true crime podcasts. Like I said, watching tv makes up a small part of my life, and beside the three shows I already mentioned the only other things I really watch are old Looney Tunes, and The Food Network.
I hope you enjoyed learning more about me, if you did, please follow my blog, and if you want to see more from me you can follow me on instagram @not_molly_19. Definitely come back on Friday to see the very exciting post I have planned. Until next time, Bye!
Today I got to do my cousins makeup for homecoming. It was amazing, I really enjoy being someone people go to when looking to get their makeup done. In doing makeup on my cousins and friends in the last year, I’ve learned a few things that help me when I’m getting ready to do someone’s makeup.
Don’t stress it. I find this very hard, but it’s true. I do my best work when I’m relaxed, and enjoying the process. I’m obviously mostly referring to doing makeup for events and things, because I don’t usually find doing a blue smokey eye on my best friend at a sleepover particularly stressful since it’s all in fun. But either way, my best work tends to show up when I’m not spewing worry out of my ears.
Don’t be afraid to have to take something off, or start over. It happens, you get mascara all over your friends wet concealer, and you instantly regret your life. That wing is curved? Something always goes wrong. Or maybe you thought everything was going great, but they just don’t like it. It’s not a big deal, don’t take it personally. Sometimes what you had in mind wasn’t quite what they wanted, or maybe it just wasn’t your best work. The more you practice the better you’ll be, both at doing makeup, and at understanding what people actually want you to do.
Pay attention to timing. Make sure everything stays as much on schedule as you can without stressing over it. The last thing you want is to get stuck finishing their makeup in a rush.
One of your first looks, or a technique you’re not familiar with? Practice on yourself. It’s the best way to get a good feeling of the look you’re doing.
Practice on different eye shapes and skin tones, the more diversity the better your technique. It helps to practice on people with different skin tones to get a good idea of what colors work best on what skin tones, and on different sizes of lid space, because eyeshadow style should vary widely based on lid space and eye shape.
I hope you enjoyed my list of tips that have helped me get better at doing makeup on other people. If you did, please follow my blog, and also follow me on instagram @not_molly_19 to see when my posts go up, and to see other looks from me. Also, comment below with your thoughts and ideas. Thanks for reading, Bye!
In my year of being a foster sister I have seen both good and bad social workers. I’ve gotten the weird looks when people find out what my family does, and the excited expressions of people who have been impacted by foster care. I’ve heard and seen the stories of parents who’ve gotten their wake up call and turned their lives around for their kids, and the ones who’ve tried to play the system, and hurt their kids even more in the process.
We’ve been open for a month to take new placements, since my little bonus brother went to a kinship placement. He was excited to go back to “his beautiful city”. We got a call from his social worker, after five weeks of him being in kinship that it wasn’t working out, and he asked if we were interested in taking him again. We definitely were.
So he’s started his first week of homeschool, and has been enjoying being back in church, seeing his friends, and getting to be with my family again. He was shy when he first came back, we hadn’t gotten to talk to him at all while he was in kinship, but his first night back he exclaimed how happy he was to be here with us. It was a sweet moment for my family.
I have to say, it’s nice to see how things work out when Social Workers are invested in the well being of the kids, and do their best to make sure the kids are with a happy family being taken care of in the best way possible. It’s been a beautiful thing to see the reactions of the people in our lives seeing my bonus brother back with us, they’ve been amazingly sweet and supportive.
If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment, you can also follow my blog, to let me know that you’re here enjoying my work, but if you really want to know when I post, and see more makeup related content you should follow me on instagram @not_molly_19. Anyway, since I don’t really think there’s anything else for me to talk about, I hope to see you next time. Bye! (Waves awkwardly to you from my side of the computer because I’m weird.)
It’s no secret to anyone that has ever had a chance to poke around my makeup collection that I have way too many lipsticks. I have tried many different formulas and styles, but over the course of the past six months there has been one formula that has acted to end my love for all other formulas.
What is that magical lipstick you ask? The Anastasia Matte Lipstick. A simple matte bullet lipstick that is all at once so boringly ordinary to look at, but also so fabulous in practice that I can’t help but share my love for the stuff.
Though ridiculously expensive when purchased at Ulta or Sephora I buy the stuff at TJ Maxx or Marshalls when I can find a color that suits my fancy, or on the Anastasia website whenever they’re having a good sale. I can imagine that this lipstick won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it does have a fun shade range with everything from neutrals to dusty teals. I have a slightly abnormal taste when it comes to lipsticks I think, and I like a good bullet lip with a soft looking matte finish.
I don’t usually prefer a liquid lip on a normal basis, and I find the Anastasia lipsticks to be a beautiful hybrid between your traditional cream lipstick, and a matte liquid lip. ABH lipsticks have a decent amount of staying power, but don’t dry out my lips, or emphasize texture.
The ABH formula wasn’t anywhere near new when I tried it out for the first time, but from the first swipe of bright pink, I knew I was in love. This picture has the lipstick swatches in order of when I picked them out/purchased them.
So, what’s the point of me stressing to you how much I truly love this lipstick? Well, the point of this space is for me to be able to share my thoughts about things with you. I don’t want to make you run out and buy all available shades of this lipstick because it’s the best thing since stick butter, but I wanted to tell you about how good they are, so that the next time you think to yourself “I think a matte bullet lipstick would add a lot to my collection” you’ll know that this formula is my favorite, the pros and cons of it, and you’ll know where to look if you want to buy it on sale. I don’t want to be pushing products down your throat, making you feel like you need anything you didn’t think you wanted before you read this post.
If you enjoyed this post, I would appreciate it if you would follow my blog, and if you want to know when I post, and see other content from me, follow my instagram, not_molly_19. If you have anything that you would like to see from me, please let me know, suggestions are always welcome.
Thank you so much for reading, and until next time. Bye!
This past week has been crazy. I kind of feel like everything has been happening whirlwind style, and I’m really struggling to keep up with it all. We’ve been open for new placements for a full week now. I anticipated getting a new kid within the first couple of days, but all the calls that we’ve gotten so far have been seven plus hours away from us, and two out of three have been for respite care. I also started Violin lessons, which I’ve literally been looking forward to for years at this point. Two of the orphaned kittens that I had been bottle feeding died last week, which was really disheartening.
At the beginning of this past week I was feeling in fantastic control of everything, I thought I was doing so well, and then everything went wrong. I do feel lost. My emotions are in a hectic state, the uncertainty of everything has really gotten to me over the past few days. I’m a perfectionist, and I hate to feel out of control. But that’s how I feel. I feel like I should be able to let everything out, write it all down and feel better, but every time I sit down at my laptop and start to type I’m at a loss for words. The things that come out of my brain are gibberish, and somehow it only makes me feel worse.
So what’s my point in all of this? Not only do I want to make sense of the way I feel about life in general, but I want to let other people in. I don’t want to internalize how I feel, and for me the best way to let it out is to write it out here and turn it into a post. I want to help other people who feel the way that I do, to know that it’s not only okay to feel like life is out of your control, but it’s also okay to share those feelings with other people. I’m not saying any of this to say woah is me, to complain, or to make you pity me. I’m not even saying it to say that I wish I wasn’t doing any of those things that have contributed to me feeling out of control. I love this stuff.
I guess my point is that sometimes life isn’t perfect, sometimes we’re not made up of the kinds of things we’d like to show off to the world around us. Doubts, fears, uncertainties, confusion. Those things don’t feel fun, but if we open our eyes and look around those things, the joy that those things bring us when we stick with them, is worth the struggle.
My original point in sitting down here was to chat about our current foster situation. Well, we’re still waiting for a new placement, the calls are still coming, the decisions that my parents are making are still undeniably tough for them, but I know that we’ll get a call for a placement that will fit into our house, whose life will be benefited by our family, and our lives by them. And I know that moment will make all the doubts, and the waiting, worth it. We opened for new placements last Tuesday, and haven’t gotten any calls in the last five days. It stresses me out a bit, it’s outside of every other experience I’ve had with the foster system before, but I guess it’s good that they aren’t as desperate for foster homes right now as the have been for the past year. The right call will come in the right timing, and until then I am ready to wait I guess.
Right now, the stuff that I’m saying seems a little crazy, even to me. But I trust that everything will be worked out in the right timing. For me, and for you. I don’t know what’s going on with you as you’re reading this. But I believe that God has a purpose for you, even if it’s not clear yet. And we just have to wait, it’s up to us to do what we know is right, and to trust that the rest will be taken care of in the right timing.
I hope you enjoyed this little brain dump of mine. If you did, please feel free to comment any thoughts, or suggestions for other things that you would like to see me talk about in the realm of makeup or lifestyle. And also follow my blog if you like what you see. If you’re looking for more from me, follow my instagram @not_molly_19. Thanks for reading, and until next time, Bye!
Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something. Sound familiar? The Princess Bride was the movie of my early life. But some of the best quotes from the movie are the ones that ring most true. Life is pain. Not everything in life is nice, and often, the things with the most return are the hardest and most painful.
Being the biological daughter of foster parents, on top of being an only child, on top of being picked on for being a weirdo homeschooler. It sometimes makes me feel like an outsider. But the payout? An understanding that real life doesn’t always mean neat and tidy. A good relationship with my foster siblings is worth the craziness to me. I know that even if my bonus siblings forget about me, I won’t forget about them. I know that these kids have exposure to God, exposure they might have missed otherwise. It makes all the pain worth it. Not always easier, but worth it.
My thought is just that, this is not easy, I don’t find it fun to build deep relationships, call people my siblings, then send them hours away from me back to their family, their real family. It hurts, a lot. But at the same time, to hopefully be able to help these kids, their parents, and even their extended family, feels good.
I just don’t understand people who say that they could never do this, because it would be too hard to send the kids back. We weren’t made mutants. It’s not easier for us, no less painful. But we know that it’s right, the way we want foster placements to turn out, reunified, back with the people who have done the work to right the wrongs they’ve put their kids through, and are ready to be the good parents that their children need them to be.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, feel free to comment and follow my blog. I post lifestyle content on Monday, and Makeup related content on Thursdays. Following this blog means that you’ll be first in line to hear my thoughts, and updates on my family’s foster journey. And if you’re dying to hear from me in the mean time, feel free to leave a comment, and check out my instagram @not_molly_19
journal of a dreamer. 