So my samples came today. I love, love the foundation. I, amazingly, picked the right color for me on the first go, confirming what I suspected - I'm a neutral skin tone. Neither cool nor warm.

The blush is beautiful, plus they sent me 3 extra samples - so I have several colors to try, but I loved the first one I tried, and that'll probably be what I get full-size.

The powder I chose a little too light and too cool. They've got a darker neutral that might work. To be honest, the foundation and blush looked so perfect, I think even the right powder might detract.

I still look awful in blue eyeshadow. It was a bit of a whim. Not excited about their eye shadow at all, but that might be that I didn't have brushes small enough to apply it, and it's not as easy to a apply powder by hand as it is a solid (a bunch ended up on my cheek and I had to start all over). I'll have to try it with a brush (maybe one of my paintbrushes) before I write it off. I loved their eyeliner, though. I did use one of my paintbrushes for that, and used it wet, and wow - pop! Much easier than using a pencil, and the shiny blue-black does a lot more for me than the standard flat black I've used in the past.

Wish the lipgloss was lipstick. It'd be the perfect color. But it is extra shiny, soft, and lasts ages - even after drinking.

All in all I'm going to probably look to buy the Charmeuse foundation, Dahlia blush, and Nuit eyeliner, along with a Toast powder sample. Maybe some more eyeshadow samples to see if I can find anything better than my standard white. I might buy the gloss, but.. enh. I have lipgloss coming out my ears. What I need is lipstick, preferably the same color as my nail polish.

Speaking of, Shawn painted my toes the other day. He's so cool.

I read an article the other day that suggested the use of "Please forgive me" instead of "I'm sorry", as "I'm sorry" turns the coversation and makes it about the transgressor instead of the victim. While I agree about "I'm sorry" being inadequate and/or inappropriate, I don't like "Please forgive me" much more. That still seems to me to be about the person asking for forgiveness, and while it has an air of vulnerability, it also is asking for something from someone you just hurt in some way.

Plus it puts the person harmed on the spot. What if I'm not ready to forgive? What if I'm still hurting and not feeling giving? What if what I need right then is not to forgive, but time to repair?

I've pondered alternatives. Foremost in my mind is expressing apology and offering to rectify it, but I'm not sure of the best way of wording that. "What can I do to make it better/make it up to you?" Maybe.

Maybe better than words is just doing something for the person. Not out of guilt but out of a geniuine concern for the person's pain.

I know, I'm obsessed. I'm actually wearing make-up every day and I can't wait to get the full size versions.

The paintbrushes are working beautifully. I'm happy with the white eyeshadow, it's pretty and sparkly and goes well with the blue-black liner, especially if I put a little liner in the crease. I need a contrast color, though. The Cimarron is no good. I also tried the Berry blush and it's all way wrong for me.

If anyone's interested in the samples I'm done with (the Sandstone powder, the Berry blush, and the Night Sky eyeshadow so far), give me a shout via email or tribe message with your address (if I don't have it already) and I'll toss them in the mail to you. I tapped everything I used out of the bags they came in, so there's no contamination.

Over the past few months I've been reading bits of Elaine Aron's The Highly Senstive Person. I recognized myself as being unusually sensitive about 4 years ago. It's not that the sensitivity devoloped then, but just that I became more self-aware, and stopped reacting without questioning. I noticed that things affected me that others didn't even notice - bright light, sudden or loud sound, certain fabrics, textures, tastes, and once I quit smoking - smells. I cook by smell these days, more or less. I can even tell when pasta is done from the livingroom. I'm extremely easily startled and tickled.

The book helped me in some ways - realizing this is just a normal neurological variation, that it can be an asset and not something just to "deal with". I've really tried to turn this into something positive in my life - being more aware of others, opening up to that (yet firmly maintaing my boundaries). Exploring the details.

I've mostly cringed away from the overstimulation in my life through the years - it made me so anxious I had panic attacks, but the avoidance added to the stress. Embracing it has lessened the negative impact a lot. Even WalMart's bright lights and crowds don't bother me too much anymore as long as it's not prolonged or I'm not already under a lot of stress (physical or emotional).

The book has helped me accept and embrace the fact that it takes me longer to process than most - because I simply have more coming in to sort (and I like to sort things thoroughly before forming a judgment). And it's helped me realize that the reason I don't hear vocal tones well is because I grew up not wanting to. It was so painfully overstimulating I had to block it out, and so now, as an adult, it's less that I don't hear tone, it's that I don't have a clue what those tones actually mean. It's something I'm having to learn.

On the other hand, the way the book suggests success in a world that doesn't value sensitivity - by wearing masks (or personas, as she puts it), playing the game, etc., just doesn't sit well with me. To me that's not honest. It lacks integrity.

I don't want to fool people into liking me or not, hiring me or not, whatever. Maybe it's the goals of the book that differ. I don't even care much about being liked (though having the respect of those I care deeply about is a great blessing). I care about my own actions, my own feelings for people and the world around me. I do acknowledge this is a luxury I have with already having the love and support I need in my life, and not needing a job, but I still don't think lying is the best way to get ahead, for sensitives or anyone else.

It's like on one hand the book is saying it's alright to be your different self, but around others you need to be someone else or they won't respond well to you, and that doesn't resonate with me at all. It seems to me compassion is a better method of relating than dishonesty or fooling people into thinking that you're someone you're not. If you genuinely care, that will come through. It'll show, and people, I believe, and have seen, will respond to that. No persona needed.

The past few days have been a bit of a happy whirlwind. When I signed up for Dreamhost I reserved the "infp" mailing list just in case, and I'm so happy I did so, and was able to offer to host the list and handle some of the techie aspects of things. I've been on the list since 2000, though I didn't post for a while, and there were a couple stints where I deleted months worth of list mails mostly unread. It's still been an integral part of my life for what feels like a long time, and I'm thrilled we found a way to keep it thriving. The group effort involved in switching over has been amazing, and I'm excited about working as a group to manage it.

I've mentioned list members here and at my old blog before, though probably not by name. I'm so thankful to Chuck for creating the list, Julie's handholding as I started facing my infertility journey, Elizabeth's encouragment, Gale's positive and loving influence, and so many more. They really helped shape my growth the past several years, and I'm still surprised at how much positive feedback (both personal and intellectual) I get, and how much it means to me coming from these people that I so deeply respect. I added a link to the list info page to the right as one of the places to find me. It's one of my heart's homes.

I've been meaning to add my linklist here ever since the move from the old domain. I finally made some time for it tonight. Some of the names link to several sites. It seemed the easiest way to include everyone's various web homes. I also got rid of the scripts slowing down the site, too - the Y! avatars and tribecasts. It's a shame to lose them, but not worth it to torture the dialup people.

I also added a few Tampa Bay blogs I had in my file. If you're local and want to be added, shout.

I went through a lot of very old links - some I stopped reading when they stopped posting ages ago but now appear to be current. Many were gone. A couple were pregnant or just had kids - those I left aside. I'm too tender right now, though I am happy for their happiness. And then I came to Sarah's and clicked to the now-defunct site. And I cried. I still think of her, and miss her, and I never really got time to mourn her. I did a little, tonight, and added her livejournal link to the side. Leaving it off just wasn't an option. Her greatest fear the last few days was that people would forget her. Completely impossible to forget a light that shines so beautifully.

by Erik Kastner

So, Jessica sent me an invite to Wallop. She wrote a good article about it, and I'll write my own highly clouded by my enthusiasm for Tribe.

First, there's the bad. While I don't think there can be anything quite as bad as MySpace, this one has some pretty annoying kinks that hopefully they'll sort out as they go through the beta process. The worst is that it's all Flash. For me this means slow loading, the annoyance of having to reload the entire system every time I navigate away (or, in many cases, hit the back button), and internally cringing about accessibility. Not to mention I right click - a lot. It's my main web navigation. This site has some right click accessibility, but it's all for site-related options, not the typical "Open in New Tab" and whatnot.

On top of the accessibility issues, there's usability issues, major ones, and almost no help. The system isn't very intuitive (most people trying to be innovative miss this key necessity). I think the worst offender was that clicking on any of the four pictures in the Network pane took me to my Network page instead of the profile of the person I clicked. This makes even less sense when there's a network button in the navigation bar.

There's very few mass-edit options. I had to change the width of the URL in my RSS-fed blog in every single post (though being able to modify them, and even delete them, was a nice feature - something Tribe could take note of). Plus all my RSS feed posts are showing up in my conversations as well, and, of course, no mass editing means I had to delete them one by one. One of the few (maybe only) mass-edits you can do is uploading several pictures at once, just by shift or control-clicking them in the file box. I loved this. Especially after spending a night on Flickr uploading one at a time.

I'm not quite sure I like the profile either. The profile section is simply one input box where you write what you want. I much prefer the detailed profiles ala Tribe.

My favorite feature so far, though, is the Music section, though there's parts of that I'm not sure of, too. It's similar to Last.fm's Radio system in that you can listen to the music you upload, and the music people in your network upload. The part I quirk at is that the music plays on the Wallop page itself, with no way to pop it out. So, again, if I navigate away, I lose what I'm listening to.

One of the other things I liked was the side navigation. "What's New" flashing when something happens is really handy, as is the "History" bar for going back to a profile you scanned earlier but forgot to save. The networking system is really neat, with it's flexibility, though I still think Tribe's is superior with it's degrees and showing who connects you.

The 8 picture slideshow on your main page is something else I liked, but I think if you drag pictures onto the slide show, you should be able to drag them off, instead of hitting the delete button. I'd also be nice to adjust your slideshow speed. With all 8 pictures in, it goes a little fast.

I think the Mods and Conversations sections have great potential and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with them. I don't see the Conversations section going much of anywhere with no directed groups, though. See, you can make groups, but as far as I can tell, not search for them.

If anyone wants an invite to form their own opinions, I have 7 - just toss me an email or Tribe message.

Stephanie has an interesting article on Dove's evolution film. The film shows the process of how one gets from normal human to billboard goddess and is worth a peek.

Well, it looks like I've screwed up my schedule again. It's 8 in the morning and I've been up 19 hours. Yesterday Shawn woke in the late afternoon, and we went on a picnic at Edgewater park. It would've been nicer if we had the blanket, but instead we sat on a bench - two benches. We ate at one with a beautiful tree for a view, then moved to another to get a better peek at the sunset.

Then we drove south, just snuggling and talking. Stopped to take pictures of the sunset, ran a few errands, that sort of thing. Nothing much. Came back, watched TV, snuggled in bed. He fell asleep for a couple hours. I knitted. And snuggled. He woke up, wide awake, so after a bit we decided to get up, and I cleaned a bit, and he cooked a bit, and we ended up staying up way late goofing off. So just as he finally tried to pass out, I was enchanted by the sunrise, and stayed up to watch it.

I've never had a window open to sunrise before, and here we have a huge sliding glass door to one, and whenever I catch one, it takes my breath away. I'm much more in love with sunrises than sunsets. I love being up this time of day. But I don't think I can maintain it much more. Except I know the minute my head hits the pillow my brain is going to start whirring.

Tampa's mayor is pushing for a combined bus system for Hillsborough and Pinellas. It actually doesn't make much sense to me having the two transit systems in the first place -- I always figured it was tax-related.

I think it's a great idea, personally. Right now I could get from here to Tampa, and I suppose if I needed to bus commute, I'd deal with having to figure out the two systems and where they meet, find out about costs, etc. But at the moment it feels like too big of a pain to care.

It just seems like with Pinellas and Tampa being irrefutably linked, with so many commuting, that a joint bus system makes all kinds of sense that seperate ones don't.

Sarah blogged aboutQuotiki a few days ago and I took some time to check it out tonight. I like the ability to save quotes, add them, and give a TiVo-esque thumbs up or down a lot.

I find it a little strange that you can set up a profile, but, as far as I can tell, there's no way for anyone to access it. That and an RSS feed of your saved quotes would be major improvements, that I'm hoping are already in the works.

I'll have to go through and see if any or all of my Buffy quotes from my old random generator are in there.

edit: To correct myself, there is a profile page, but it doesn't show anything about you but the quotes you've given a thumbs up to. Also, much of the site doesn't appear to work in Opera - grump.

You know, if you'd told me in my teens I was a morning person, I'd have thought you were nuts. But it's always been true. I remember when I was in California and we got up early every day. I remember sitting the back yard, up early for school in the dewy morning. I remember a year and a half ago, when I was getting up early every morning. All these were the times I felt the most stable and full of life. There's something about the energy in my body that craves the sunrise. I was up this morning at 4:30, and I woke up full of energy and excitement. Staying up late occasionally is fine, but there's nothing like the morning waking to heal me.

Right now I'm sitting outside watching the sun creep over the apartments to our east, turning the sky a light pink and deep purple. The clouds washed onto the sky. I hear the continual splashing of the fountain on our little lake, the click of the oven making from-scratch brownies for tonight, a plane on it's way to our local airport, and the geese occasionally honking.

I think I'll go greet the dawn with some T'ai Chi, filled with joy and life.

Shawn and I talked about it and I said for my birthday I wanted him to take me to buy some yarn. We went to The Yarn Shop today, and looked at the very expensive pretties. The difference in yarn quality from Red Heart to Lion Brand, and Lion Brand to Debbie Bliss is just incredible. But the balls ranged anywhere from 6-14 dollars for the sort of size of balls where it'd take probably 15 or so to make a sweater. You do the math. Maybe one day when we have more money and I'm adept enough to create something really beautiful.

So, after, we went to Michaels and they were having a yarn sale. Pretty much $1 off every ball of yarn in the store. I did very good not to go nuts. I bought three balls of Lion Brand homespun, with an idea in mind for something for someone with each. And I bought another ball of the multicolor pastel so I can make a baby blanket. I was doing a hat and scarf thing, but didn't have the right size needle and decided I liked the blanket idea better anyway.

And, with Michaels lacking in pillow form, I bought some batting and finished off my pillow for the car.

There's still so many supplies I need - stitch markers, row counters, different size needles, double pointed and circular needles in different sizes - the list goes on and on. Crochet is definitely cheaper, but I just enjoy knitting more. Though I did grab a free pattern for a pretty crochet scarf I might try.

Mmmm. Yarn.

This weekend was filled with surprises on so many levels. We were up around 4 on Sunday morning, out by 5ish after the negative pregnancy test, having to turn around to get the camera I forgot. The drive was smooth and beautiful. No traffic, only a little bickering when Shawn wouldn't listen to my directions, and a dark orange sun hanging huge and low in the sky. Patches of fog here and there and condensation issues on the window. We talked about maybe going to Sea World for Shawn's birthday.

We got to the beach around 8:30 to find a spot with tons of time on the meter. We laid out, listened to the waves, watched the crabs tossing sand out of their holes. They were really cute. I found a baby crab crawling up my arm at one point, too.

Then Shawn was up and looking out at the ocean and there were fins above the waves. Beautiful glistening fins and backs of dophins, swimming on the top of the water. It was amazing to watch the two groups, one of two, one of three, swim by so quickly and gracefully. It took my breath away. I've never, in all my years of being a beach bunny, seen dolphins close enough to the shore to tell what they were. And they were very close to the shore. It felt like a gift.

By around 10 we were getting hot and the dolphins were gone, so we drove back over the causeway to check on the art festival, stop at 7-11 and change, then back to Starbucks on the beach to wait for Lin since our meeting place was demolished. My phone kept not ringing but I was watching for missed calls, so I think (hope?) I called her back pretty quickly. We popped into Starbucks for some shaken tea (and a bagel for Shawn), then off to the festival.

The art festival itself was pretty lousy. The spring one, at least before, was twice the size and had, you know, art. This one had some nice pieces, but they were interspersed between mostly craft-stuff and things like fish playing billiards. I did keep a few business cards - one for a guy who makes japanese fountains, one for some wooden bangles, and one for some coasters, though I lost the one for the bangles. (edit: I found it in with my credit cards. Doh.)

We were dying of heat so we popped into a candle shop that had some giant windchimes. And then later into a chocolate/ice cream shop that was really neat and had wonderful lemonade. After the festival we grabbed lunch at Olive Garden, then wandered around Barnes & Noble and Best Buy.

It was a really great day. Lin is amazing. I was so completely not nervous around her which is very rare for me. Maybe next time we'll drag her to the outlet mall so we can watch her go nuts in Banana Republic.

After all of that, we were beat, so we took some time driving to look at the new mall in Viera. It's huge. I can't wait until we actually get to walk it. Shawn got his wings at Frankie's, I got a fried cheesecake - the warm cheesecake filling was good, the rest was enh.

We got to Sue's around 11, crashed, got woken up at around 2:30 by my cousin peeking around the corner with a can of pepper spray. Come to find out Jasmin & Celest forgot we were going to be crashing there and almost called the cops on us. Yikes!

The next morning we ran to Atlanta Bread (yum, Atlanta Bread) for breakfast and use their WiFi, then to Wild Oats to check out what a little one looks like. I got some Teas Tea, Pure Green which I really liked. We stopped at Best Buy in Vero and picked up the Smashing Pumpkins Greatest Hits CD. I found out I'd started when I stopped in the bathroom, which was really rough, even after the negative pregnancy test.

Then we went back to Winter Beach to wait for Sue to come home - I knitted, Shawn played with his Game Boy. Then everyone took me out to birthday dinner, which was really, really nice. I think everyone had a pretty good time, other than Shawn & I getting attacked by mosquitoes on the way there.

In the morning we had chai and Sue made Shawn some breakfast burritos. Once she left for work, we left for home, with plans to pick up pizza on the way. That's when things broke loose, really. We'd been holding in all the disappointment of a failed cycle, plus I didn't take my Effexor on time in all the packing and driving (and Shawn not stopping for milk), and we ended up in the worst fight we've had in a couple years. It passed, like they all do, and on the way home we called the RE and found out we get another Clomid cycle before the HSG, which made things a little better.

Overall, it was a really great trip, but we are also very happy to be home.

We sat in the car with the windows open for a bit outside Sue's waiting for everyone else to be ready to head to dinner. Big, big mistake. Shawn was eaten alive by mosquitoes. When we got to the restaurant, his face was swollen with bites.

I had one welt. One.

Then the next day, we found a few more.

This morning there were twenty two.

And now? I have over 30.

What the hell?

Today I'm 28 years old. When I was 6 my mom was 28, and my present to her was to never grow older. That was her present to me, today, too. Too cute!

Sadly, I want to get older. I'm looking forward to 30. I'm not sure why, I'm sure it'll just be any other year, but I am.

Today has been the best day. The perfect birthday. Even better than the year we went to Disney. It's been so soft and peaceful. We were supposed to go on a dolphin sighting cruise, but I just wanted to stay in and snuggle. It's just the mood I was in. I got to see dolphins on Sunday, and we can go on the cruise next week.

Shawn went out this morning and brought me home manga and a birthday cake. He's making me dinner. We've been snuggling while I played Sims2 he bought me yesterday and we've watched Tsubasa together. I spent the time he was out reading Big Girl Knits, my other present. There are several designs in there that I'm in love with and I can't wait to get good enough to make.

I got lots of "happy birthdays" from the people in my life. Jonathan caught me first thing this morning, Lin made me a hilarious birthday graphic, and Winter altered the guild MoTD. I really didn't want any gifts (other than to be pregnant, which, sadly, didn't happen), though I know Shawn had a blast shopping for me. I've felt so loved today - that's all the presents I wanted.

I know at 28 years old, I'm probably not considered much of a success - no degree, no children, no career. But I feel successful. I've survived so much and come out glowing with joy. I've been blessed by the love of some wonderful people, and while it's not the typical definition of success, I couldn't ask for more than the love-filled, authentic life I have now. Only one thing is missing, and hopefully that will come soon.

I'm going to put my knitting aside for about a month, at least somewhat, and try NaNoWriMo again. I got to 18k+ words in 2002, and less than 2k words in 2003, so my success rate so far is pretty lousy. I don't really expect it to improve, but I'll give it a go.

I'd really like to continue the novel I started in 2003, despite the rules. I mean, really, it's 1.8k words, and it was 2 years ago. It doesn't seem to fit into the "bringing a half-finished manuscript into NaNoWriMo all but guarantees a miserable month. You'll simply care about the characters and story too much to write with the gleeful, anything-goes approach that makes NaNoWriMo such a creative rush" reasoning. We'll see. I'm usually really a stickler, and don't want to even skirt the rules on anything. I rarely even speed when driving, and almost never intentionally. But I really like the story. Shame that's just an excuse for bad behavior.

Gah. Sometimes being a growned up sucks.

Either way, I'm really looking forward to the B&N Write-Ins. I'm tempted to get a backup battery so I can hang out for more than a couple hours.