Five on Friday

Hooray for Fridays! This week has been pretty decent and I'm excited to share my five things!


{one}
 Who can resist this precious face?! My nephew Evan was all smiles after his bath, but what is up with the modeling poses? It's like he knows how to draw the people in. I'm telling you. He's a professional model in the making and I can't wait to go to New York with him, and then Milan, and Paris. I've got big plans for this dude.

{two}
During my recent reviewing of BB, CC and DD creams for my upcoming beauty article, I fell in love. No, not with a boy, as E has my heart (swoon), but with the newly introduced DD cream. Have you ever heard of this before? I knew off BB creams, and Smashbox is by far my favorite. CC creams I'm okay with, but this DD cream is the new love of my makeup life! Now that I've graduated my 20's, a girl's gotta get on it with the anti-aging approach. My DNA can't do all the work. This DD cream by
Julep has all the benefits of the BB and CC creams combined, but adds the ingredients to help with anti-aging. Read again: IN L-O-V-E.

{three}
Received a beautiful wrap bracelet from my lovely HR lady. I swear, I genuinely love my job, and I love the people I work with, but when someone does something extra thoughtful, you just can't help but smile and feel just a little more excited about going to work. You know you're valued.


{four}
Tomorrow is a bridal shower for one of my very best friends. I have been overjoyed with helping her plan her future wedding. Her and her fiancé have gone through a lot of things in their relationship. Mostly that of losing loved ones to sudden illness, losing friendships with jealous people and leaping over many barriers to get their ideal dream house and all while balancing the rest of what life gives them (good and bad) and keeping each other very happy, and let me just tell you, this couple has that "it" factor many wish for. I love them and can't wait to celebrate this beautiful bride tomorrow, and look forward to the exciting events that will follow.


{five}
My five is a bit more personal.. I just want to grab a bit of downtime to just be Lisa. I plan on doing that this weekend. When, is a different story, but I will do it. It's my weekend promise to myself. :)

I'm new to this Five on Friday sharing fun, so I want to extend a big thank you to the girls that host this event: Darci, April, Christina, & Natasha

From lil ol' me, to all of you, thank you! <3

Have a great weekend!

Peeking past the clouds, and then there's this...

It's the start of the New Year, and I know, I knowwwwww... I haven't been around in a month! But I can explain myself. There's been some family circumstances that have kept me busy. For starters, I'm in the throws of helping my Mama heal from a very upsetting illness that I'd rather not travel too deeply into sharing, and the first of EVER opening up to sharing anything, even that small bit on this here blog. Some things are just too private to be slathered all over the net, anyhow.

My other life changing event that has recently occurred, is the birth of my newest nephew, Evan Isaiah. This little bundle is beyond adorable. Remember the baby shower I shared a few months back? Yep, that was for him!

Pics will come down the road. For now, I'm letting him unravel his essence into the world one day at a time. Some day soon though, you will be cooing just as much as I have been over his precious face in no time. For now, let's get back on a lighter level of fun and girly things, and let me share with you two new things I've tried this week!

The first: RED LIPS!

All together now.. Oooooooooohhhhh..........Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... Red lips are pretty intense, I must say, but it was a challenge I needed to take on.

I used Lorac lipstick shade in Leading Lady

My second trial and discovery was a messy side bun. I literally curled my hair with a flat iron to get a swirled ribbon look, pulled it over to the side and flipped over my wrists a couple times to twist it and just started bobbing pinning, allowing the hair to fall where it may. Instant work look that's classy and professional. 

And that's all I've got! :) 

Hope you're all having a great week so far. 

Xo

Lisa Love

Sayonara November, Hola December

It's officially here, December! Wow, can you believe how quickly this year has flown by? I think it's actually been a nice year overall. There's been a ton of turns and twist in my own life and in the lives of my family members but the journey and beauty through ashes has proven to me that the human spirit is far more resilient than our minds can ever fathom. My home life has been quite lovely in my opinion. I will not share the exact details to pin-point my story, as this one is very close to my heart, but let's just say that when you, or anyone, is faced with adversity, you can either choose to jump fully underwater and kick back up to retrieve air, or you can just simply let yourself drown. And my dear friends, when you choose to kick, the amount of ruckus you create under water, relinquishing your freedom and realizing you are overcoming fear, is a brilliant manifestation to watch. Journeys like these (whatever they may be..) are a part of living and it's important to enjoy the bad times, so you can have gratitude through the good. Thus, this journey has kept me away from my blog for just a little over a week, and although I missed you all, I am happy to report my quick turnaround of events in pictures. Please enjoy the quick snippets of my life starting from last week's Michael Buble concert to my Thanksgiving. <3 class="separator" data-blogger-escaped-and="" data-blogger-escaped-buble="" data-blogger-escaped-div="" data-blogger-escaped-eat="" data-blogger-escaped-heart="" data-blogger-escaped-ladies="" data-blogger-escaped-le="" data-blogger-escaped-me="" data-blogger-escaped-out="" data-blogger-escaped-your="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> Hanging out by the tour bus... what a total floozy.

Picked up TWO new CD's for my Mom.. she L-O-V-E-S him.

Next comes Thanksgiving... I took on a little morning jog to shed a few extra calories before my intake of turkey volumptiousness and cranberry sauce spectacular! Oh! and this little sweet dog tag necklace came in, courtesy of Shields of Strength. A lovely company that makes jewelry with Bible versus. This one in particular has been popping up for me. Literally. In fact, two weeks ago, while driving home after dinner one evening, I was contemplating and reflecting on the journey I spoke briefly about above, and naturally a black, SUV car pulled in front of me as I'm driving. I suddenly noticed the license plate reads: PH413IL as in Phil 4:13 If you are not familiar with the Bible, "Phil" is short for Philippians; 4 stands for the chapter, and 13 stands for the verse, in which it reads: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And there you have it... this verse, was brought to my attention and has since been my shield for the journey ahead.

So, I ran about, er, um.... okay, who are we kidding? I lightly jogged and speed walked up-hill for 30 minutes. Burned almost 300 calories though, which I was thrilled about.

Hung out with my two pups, Bella, who is my own version of "snoopy" from Charlie Brown, and then there's my other little buddy, Lulu, who joins us. (She's Mom's dog, but her and I are best buds as well). Lulu is pretty hilarious in her own right and has a very kind heart.

Once we wrapped things up at home, I drove to my Aunt's house for a lovely and I mean, beautiful Thanksgiving feast with my Mom's side of the family, where I stuffed my belly with delicious meats and mashed potatoes while watching my cousin's dog Remi watch TV. It's no joke, the dog watches TV!

... the day concluded with a smile of gratitude on my face and an abundance amount of love in my heart. It was the perfect Thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to a wonderful December, of which I can't wait to share with all of you.

One more thing... It's Mom's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!