Textured and Trying

  Hi - it’s been a rough few months and while I do need to catch up on the blog, I also have some other priorities right now. My grandmother passed away on the 3rd of November. We thought we had at least the next few Christmases left with her, but she fell a few months ago and we did our best but she never quite could get back on her feet. I think the work was too hard, in physical therapy, and the struggle to get up and eat. We had a few beautiful weeks with her at home, and then she let go. It seemed like she was at peace. Since she fell, until today, I haven’t had any motivation to do anything but work and sleep. It was a traumatizing experience, helping the woman who took me to ice skating lessons try to walk to the bathroom on a Saturday morning.  But she’s at peace now. We’re planning the funeral, and working on a new schedule - not to care for Gram and get her back and forth from her bed from her wheelchair, but for Gramp, who is alone for the first time since they met,...

This spring has been really crazy but I’m getting back on schedule with my ordering and products. Becoming more inspired every day there’s some sunshine. The IPSY merger with Boxycharm resulted in some very late deliveries, so I unfortunately had to skip April and jump right to May’s stuff. I’ll probably put some of April’s honorable mentions with the May posts though because I did get some excellent things, just not in time to do anything really in-depth. I had my annual performance review a few weeks ago and got high enough marks to ask for and receive a raise. I was really excited about it, I felt the appreciation. But I work so hard an so much, I feel like I don't have much time anymore for anything chill. So I canceled my Kinder Beauty Box Subscription, and am redoing my budget because my living situation is changing slightly. I need to get all this buying under control, so I think I’ll just keep IPSY right now and leave the other boxes alone and just review the products...

The day I drove my car home was slightly chilly. My hometown was starting to gear up for the tourist season and traffic was heavy, but not as heavy as it was about to be the next weekend. My grandparents had pulled the car I was buying from my sister into the main parking lot and I cried as I got in and turned it on. I felt like I was four-years-old and about to try riding a bicycle. I thought I was about to kill someone on the highway. I didn’t know how to drive. What was I doing? Why was I in the driver’s seat? Where was my boyfriend? Where was my husband? Who was going to come get me if I had an accident? My stomach was churning as if I was going to be sick - either kind of sick. I was in another world. I was out of my own life. I was in another place. My grandparents, who have been there for me through this my entire life, watched me put it in gear and pull out onto the road. I told them out the window,  “I can’t do this.” They saw me crying. “I can’t do this,” I repeat...

  Hi guys! I have an update on the BoxyCharm situation. If you're not up to date, here's a link to my previous review where I talk about why I needed a replacement box:      https://texturedandtrying.blogspot.com/2022/06/boxycharm-june-2022-review.html Yesterday I got my new box, which I was honestly hoping would have some different items in it, but unfortunately it was just replacements for all the other items, with the distinct difference of the unbroken serum. I was so excited - even though the packing job on this one was no better than the last, lmao. So The Sunday Riley serum wasn’t broken! And I was really excited to try it. But I do need to go over my skin and where it’s at. A week or so ago I was having a really difficult conversation with a family member about something that had happened in my life - and I caught myself picking at my face. I feel really ashamed about it and I felt awful at the time, because I didn’t want them to see me like this and I ...

My boyfriend has a disease that causes him a lot of pain and discomfort and inconvenience. Sometimes he would cancel plans because he was in too much pain, or didn’t feel like making the drive down to see me if we had plans.  This man is the most amazing person, and I look up to him, and he’s always going to be hurting, for the rest of his life. Knowing I was adding to his already full plate was what finally catapulted me. I made a phone call after my 25th birthday to set up another round of driving lessons with a school in the next town over. They were booked for a month, so I had to call again on the 1st. I scheduled six or seven appointments, a few in a row. I wanted to make sure I was really ready. The first few driving lessons I was so scared. I couldn’t tell where the car was, where I was on the road, how close I could come to things on the street, I just had no concept of the space around me. But the instructors were trying their best to keep me calm, and although I hit th...

  I got my license when I was twenty-five years old. I got my first learner's permit, my high school graduation went by, my second learner’s permit, then my marriage, part-time jobs, a move, full-time jobs, a divorce, a new apartment, a new learner’s permit, a pandemic, my first independent apartment, and still no driver’s license. So many reasons for it and they hurt to talk about. Please keep in mind that I’m adding context to my life so you can better understand, not blaming my issues on things in my past. My closure depended on understanding which things in my life were and were not my fault. We moved around a lot when I was younger due to my parents’ divorce. I didn’t make any long-lasting friendships at school because of this, although there were some nice people. So my social life suffered quite a bit, and unfortunately my parents thwarted my attempts to make friends whenever they could - not because they were bad people, but (I believe) because I was already so far beh...