Makeup, Skating, and What's Up?

 

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what's up. It's hosted by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk, and if you want to join in, sign up on Jaime's blog!

What I'm Reading: 

Beta and CPing, still. I haven't had much free time this week, so reading has fallen by the wayside.
But I'm so lucky to be able to read these-- my friends are so incredibly talented, I'm blown away by their awesomeness.


What I'm Writing: 
10K! Yay! *collapses*
translation: I'm at 10K words on my WIP and it's starting to look like a book-shaped thing with an actual plot. Weird how that happens right after I outline.

Huh.

What Inspires Me Right Now: 

Let's talk about skating. As we got to the end of my lesson this past weekend, my coach asked me to go into a scratch spin. I'd been skating for over an hour at that point, including so many jumps that my leg muscles were jelly. Even though I hadn't had a decent spin day in three lessons, I'd been improving overall in making micro adjustments with my ankle, leg, or arms to save spins that I wouldn't have been able to save a few months ago. You'd be surprised how much a tiny detail, like a shoulder, can throw off an entire spin (or jump.)

Right before I could start my spin entry, Coach stopped me and reminded me that, even though I was at the end of my lesson, I needed to stay mindful of those details. "Never relax. Professionals focus 100% of the time, even on the tiniest movement of their little finger. It's hard work to make something look easy..."
A good spin might look effortless, but there are so many tiny details that need to come together to make it fast and centered and amazing. But coming out of a perfectly centered spin or landing a high jump is worth all the focus and hard work in the world. I'm inspired by hard work made to look effortless and by sweat that turns into magic.

What Else I've Been Up To: 

Going to work with my mini-moons holding my hair in the cutest mini-buns ever:

 

Bought and played with the NYX Mortal Instruments Parallel Worlds makeup collection. A makeup collection inspired by a YA series I love? Yes, please. While I understand that the NYX price point is better for the target demographic (listen to that marketing speak,) the makeup junkie part of me wished that Urban Decay had created the collection. Still, this is a pretty decent smokey eye kit:

 

Following the kit lookbook, I tried a Clary "day" look (since the eyeshadow didn't show up decently in any of my pics thanks to my apartment lighting, you'll have to take my word for it,) and an "Isabelle" night look:



Commentary: The shadows are nice with okay color payoff. The shadow pencil is great, and the liquid liner is fine. Since I'm pale, the blush is a bit bright for me and the pink lipstick clashes slightly with my faux red hair. The consistency of the blush and lipstick are both nice, though. Overall, nothing unique or special about this kit, but it's nice for a smokey eye if you don't have similar shadows already. I also wish that NYC had carried the TMI theme throughout the packaging-- I would have loved runes on the lipstick tube, for example.

Enough babbling about makeup, though. That was my week. What have you been up to lately?