BRONCOS!

When we moved to Denver, CO in November 2001...it had been a difficult year. William was in the middle of looking for a job. We now had 2 kids in college. 9/11 had just happened. I think that early fall was one of the hardest we faced. So much uncertainty.

God is good. Wm's company had provided a severance package that lasted 7 months, and it was 7 months exactly b/w the day he left his old job and started his new one in Denver Tech Center. Amazing is our God. Always.

One of the perks of living in Denver (and there are MANY!) was picking up a love for the Denver Broncos. Sorry, no Cowboys fans here. WE are Denver orange.

The kids gave Wm this Tim Tebow jersey for Fathers' Day. It just arrived yesterday in the mail. He wears it w/ pride. Can you tell? Looking forward to this fall!

economy make up

I've been tearing out magazine pages...I try to file them, but usually I just reread them and then throw them out. I have found the idea or picture will stick in my mind a little bit more if I do that. And there ARE some great ideas out there. I certainly should be chock full of them with all the ideas I 'get'. (too many magazines, but letting them all expire this year.) I need to get better about copying and pasting my ideas from all the websites to folders on my Mac. I need help in that area.

Anyway, this is one of my tear outs this week. It's from Good Housekeeping, Sept. 2010. Nice and fresh! It's in their 'good looks' section and is titled, "An A -list look for less".

Sounds good to me. I tore it out and took it to HEB yesterday. I already had one of the products and knew it was great, so thought I'd take the recommendations on some of the others.

HEB actually offered a $3 coupon on each of their Revlon products...so I saved $6 right off the bat. :)

I already had tried this... love the way you can apply this eyeliner with a small brush and it truly does not smear and stays on all day. I got the charcoal. I give it an A+.

Next up..L'Oreal Paris True Match Super-Blendable Makeup SPF 17.

You have tons of choices and basically use a little transparent guide against your skin to pick your color option. I made the mistake of holding it against my hand, which is a little bit darker than my face right now. You simply pick the color that 'disappears' from the guide. Next time, I'll try it next to my face. What I love about this is the the way it just slides on and doesn't feel heavy or oily. Give it a B, mainly due to human error in color choice. Not shown, but have been already using ...is their true match liquid concealer. I like it a LOT.

Now, for the eyeshadows. I had actually tried this before in other colors. I think Tamera uses this brand, also. I just needed to pick the brown tones. Stays on all day. You use your pinkie finger to apply it. At least that's what I did. For eyeshadow to stay on all day in Austin, TX, in mid- August qualifies this stuff as miracle shadow.

Have you tried those lipsticks that are supposed to last all day? Well, I have. I end up with dry, cracked lips with creases filled with bits of lipstick. Not a pretty sight. I found this stuff to be a

lot smoother and creamier. I pair it with the NYC lip shine.

It was fun to find make up for less! And to find it all at my local grocery store.

PS I forgot about posting a pix of the mascara...It's the one at the bottom left hand corner of the page. It's Maybelline New York Lash Discovery Mini-brush Mascara. It was so much easier to apply with the tiny brush that's provided.

What do you think about all those 'names'. How would you like to sit around and think up cosmetic names? New and different???? Not ME!

loving words

I have been fascinated with this trendy use of words that you can apply to any surface! I found the 'enter as guests, leave as friends' at Bed, Bath and Beyond and have used it several place. I decided I like it best on glass.

It has stayed surprisingly sticky with all my experimenting! It's final resting place will be on the glass canister that holds soaps in our guest bathroom. You do have to turn it a bit to read it all, but that's part of the fun, right?

House Hunting

We have had a few busy weekends and really needed a 'something different' kind of Saturday morning. At least Wm figured out that's what I needed. It's been a strange, difficult week, so it was nice to forgo the Saturday morning bike ride. Wm pulled out the old Austin book that we got several years ago. It's been a while since we have done this. We grab a coffee, get in the car, and go on a search for some of the old houses in Austin. Invariably, we end up finding either a home we love ... or are reminded about a neighborhood we would love to move to someday.

Today, we first headed out to a house off of Windsor and Matthews. It's the home that Zachary Scott lived in on 2408 Sweetbrush. It was beautiful. I didn't take any pix of this beauty. Then we headed over to this one. It needs a little bit of work, in our opinion, but it is striking. It's over in the Hyde Park area. Here's Wm checking out the nice side entrance...

It's Elizabet Ney's studio, Formosa. She is our famous Prussian born sculptor who made sculptures of both Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.

In my Austin book, I always make a notation of the date we visited and our impressions. Nice way to see your hometown.

his and hers

I'm not sure when my love affair with lamps started. I think it was really a long time ago when I was a teenager. My bedroom had a small 'nook' for a desk and a little 'club' chair. My parents hung one of those rattan type round lamps from a chain just over my desk and chair area. It was yellow and it gave off the prettiest light in the evenings. I really like recessed lighting, halogen bulbs, and tiny night lights.

We really like to read at night and the lamps we had on those little bedside cubes just were not tall enough to shed any light on our books. I practically had to lean out over the bed with my book to get it under the light to read. That, plus my reading glasses placed on the tip of my nose, made for very uncomfortable reading.

JCPennys.com to the rescue. I have been really pleased with my online purchases from JCP. These 2 wall lamps were on sale for 1/2 price. I was actually surprised at the quality of the shades. You really can't tell how nice they are from these pictures. I certainly couldn't tell when I ordered them. So,

HERS:
and HIS:

I'd like to find those little metal brackets that will hold the 'wiring' in place, but for now, it's just so nice to read and not fall out of bed.