Lifestyle
For the lives that we love, and everything that comes with it.
Moving Houses While Pregnant
Moving is stressful no matter where you are in life. There is the packing and the cleaning and the organizing. Then there is the loading everything in a truck, driving it to your new destination, unpacking, cleaning, and organizing. It is a trying time for most people. It is a hard time for most people.
By Samantha Reid8 years ago in Families
How I Got Here and Some Tips for You, Too!
My name is Krystal and I’m 29 years old. Growing up, I had no interest in makeup. My mom used to beg me to at least wear mascara, but I had no desire, LOL. As I got older, I started clubbing and, of course, wore eyeliner or the occasional eyeshadow, which consisted of just rubbing gold eyeshadow on my eyelids. Finally, when I was 18, I believe, I remember one day asking my mom if she would come with me to Walmart. I wanted to buy some products and get into makeup. She was more excited than me I think, haha. I’ll never forget. I bought everything for $85. I had no idea what I was doing, I just knew I was going to learn something; anything. I came home and sat in front of my mirror for hours trying to figure everything out, which was a total fail. I realized I would need a little bit more help so, where was the one place all the MUAs were? MAC Cosmetics, of course. I remember asking one of the employees how to contour and her exact response to me was, “You don’t wanna learn how to contour. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian in person?” I kinda need to thank her because she made me even more eager to me learn. I refuse to be told no, LOL. A couple years later, my fiancé purchased my very first eye shadow palette that wasn’t from Walmart. It was the Kat Von D Butterfly Skull palette. I have learned every technique from myself. I am going to be honest—I have watched YouTube videos, but that can only do so much. I learn differently than others and I always have. I have spent days and nights almost crying because I refused to give up. Here I am now. I started posting my looks back in October of 2017. I’ve been featured in articles and the famous Fenty beauty website. I can’t tell you how proud of myself I am. To some, it may be nothing, but to me? Every like, every comment, and every compliment is one step closer to where I want to be.
By krys ayala8 years ago in Blush
Cocoa
Cocoa Mo is what I'd call her. She was so full of personality but I think a better way to describe her her would be to tell you the story of her life. On one nice sunny day my dad and his girlfriend Crystal at the time took me and my sister to what I thought was Crystal's friend's house. The most special thing in this house was her. The first day I met her we played for as long as my little legs could handle running back and forth in the backyard, with a cat. Throwing toys for her, taking her on a walk to the park, and enjoying her radiant presence. Little did I know this wasn't Crystal's friend's house really, my dad was looking to adopt Cocoa Mo! It was a bittersweet moment. As it was the beginning of my love and passion for her pit bull breed, it was also a heartbreaking end of the bond she had with her previous family. I felt terrible to know this family that loved her so much, was crying and waving at her as we took her home. What I was certain of though, was we would ensure her to be the most loved, taken care of, spoiled little girl. She was pretty scared at first, a new place, new people, she couldn't help but to poop (although she was potty trained) at the thought of her whole life changing. Dad was upset with her but he let it go because of the enormous events she had for the day. It took only but a few days for her to get comfortable. We lived in an apartment but my favorite part of the day way taking her to run in the church field next door. The way she'd sprint into the sticker bushes after the bunnies, the way she was so curious of everything that moved or made sound, the way she stalked her prey before they'd outrun her over the fence. She was so beautiful. I fell in love with her form, her smile after a few hours at the field, her warm snuggles I'd get the whole night after the field. All I wanted was for her to be happy and healthy. Unfortunately at the time, there weren't very many studies or information for consumers about dog food but we'll come back to that later. She has forever taken a spot in the hearts of me and my family. She was a Staffordshire bull terrier, beautiful fawn color with white socks, tummy, and face strap. We lived in the apartment until she was about four or five and she moved to her forever home on an eight acre farm in Corbett, OR. Her days were FILLED with her favorite hobby; stalking her prey. She had all the room she needed to run around and let her natural dog instincts come out. We'd always fill her food bowl but anytime she saw it was empty she through a huge fit, picking her metal bowl up in her mouth and slamming it all over the back room with her loud yelps of despair. When you'd fill it, most of the time she would look at it, see its full, and not even touch it. She'd definitely let you know when she needed to go outside too! She didn't care she just went out five minutes ago, she wanted out again and she would stop at nothing to make you let her out. She was like having a person around, she'd listen to you and you may think I'm cray for saying this but she would respond to you. She'd respond with facial expressions, whimpers, barks, a tail wag, or even snuggles. She was the most wonderful thing in my life for some time, when I felt everyone and everything was against me I knew she would always love me. As the years go on, my dad feeds her the same NutroNugget advanced formula he had fed her, her whole life. But, I start to notice differences. Her stomach is widening, she's getting small random bumps that don't go away under her skins, and she's not going outside as much anymore. I wish I had known when I was ten and first got her what I know now. It could have made her life even better. After some research I found out the truth behind dog food. It's a very sad and terrible reality for our best friends. The dog food companies don't care about our dogs. I found out that dog food was never meant to be in middle form like it is now. Back in the World War II days, they didn't want the dog food supply getting mixed up with the human food supply since they were both canned so the government made the dog food companies turn to putting the contents in bags. Who'd imagine animals weren't supposed to eat kibbles? (Sarcasm). Kibbles are filled with a bunch of grains and preservatives to make the shelf life last longer and kibbles are cheaper to make. Many words they use on the packaging are patented by large animal food companies to sound good but not hold up to what we would consider the wording to mean. Words "flavor," "dinner," "organic," and "grain-free." These are all patented words and a lot of the time the food only has to contain less than three percent of what they claim to be. These marketing scams caused the drastic ending for my best friend. Years of feeding your pet these things causes many health problems, one of which being cancer.. As I mentioned before Cocoa started getting lumps in her last years of life, we were told by vets that they were nothing and they were normal and would go away. They didn't go away a year or two later, they got worse. They ended up getting so bad her neck was double the size and she was having trouble breathing. In her last few days the lumps grew and grew noticeably bigger. She was so miserable my dad thought she'd be happier being put down in the backyard. The very next night my dad took her out back and buried her in the ground of her favorite place on Earth, at home. I will never forget my first best friend, Cocoa.
By darian bentz8 years ago in Petlife
How to Be a Baddie: Series 3
Baddies are royalty and that means they have to dress the part. Not literally though. You don’t need to purchase a crazy expensive tiara or super elegant ball gown. However, they are always put together and fashionable. They are very trendy, but also very unique. Take notes, queens, because I’m gonna share with you what it takes to dress like a baddie!
By Sanaa Dowd8 years ago in Viva
How to Be a Lazy Feminist
I would like to start this off by saying that I use the words feminine, female, and woman as ways to express these abstract life areas that are more nurturing and “earthy” by nature, and in no way do I intend to place people in boxes or claim to have any kind of superior knowledge of anyone else’s process of what or who they identify with. I use these terms not to be gender specific or to classify people—instead I use them because, at this point in time, I have no other way to explain the concepts I am about to talk about without turning this into a thousand page essay. I am open to ideas and suggestions on how to approach these subjects in a more enlightened way if anyone has anything they would like to contribute. I am aware of the unfairness that is associated with society putting labels on people and making them choose a specific identity. I am also aware this is shifting and I am on the path of learning more—please help me learn!
By Morgan Leigh Callison8 years ago in Viva
Learning Things the Hard Way
I think I am going to start this post out with a story from being a little kid. It is a story about one of my first memorable life lessons. It involves me, an invincible mindset, and my mother reminding me about how she is right. I am often reminded just where I get my hard headedness whenever I challenge my mom. My mom is a strong Hungarian woman who is never wrong, just sometimes misunderstood. She knows when to be caring and when to use some tough love. This story leans towards the later.
By Steven Serbinski8 years ago in Families
Hatchimals
For those of you that may not know what these cute things are, Hatchimals are adorable children's toys that when activated they hatch and and a mysterious animal comes out. I never really thought anything about this toy until one day my son saw a commercial for them and told me that he wanted one. Eventually I brought this to his dad's attention (seeing that he spends more time in stores than me, I figured he can go buy it), but for all the times that he has gone shopping, he never came in the house with the Hatchimal.
By Mis Understood8 years ago in Families
