A Splash O' Spring

We live in a world that is full of contradictions.  It is a world in which to feel love is to feel pain. Where knowing happiness cannot come without knowing melancholy and depression. Where success can never be achieved unless one is accustomed to failure. Where hope is akin to despair and anguish. Where there is no truth not clouded by lies. Where there is no such thing as good without evil to oppose it. Where life is always accompanied by death.

No one would think that a thief, a budding scientist, and a kid just looking for kicks and giggles could ever get along, but those who look beneath the surface would get a glimpse of something beyond those superficial aspects – a bond forged so strong that even the mightiest forces on Earth could not cause it to shatter.

I never bother with telephones and instead stay in contact the old fashioned way - with words that can be viewed on a computer screen. 

 

Fact about me.  I get mad at movies and video games that make me cry.  I love the show House, because I like Doctor House, but I can't watch the show because the surgery part bothers me.  I gross out easily.  I love the Final Fantasy series, it's my favorite series.  I can never play Final Fantasy X again because the ending upset me.

The wind refuses to cooperate.  Next week we are looking to be in the high sixties with ridiculous wind speeds.  That's warm enough for outdoor running.  The wind is mocking me.  I am thrilled to be back on a consistent workout schedule.  Even if that consistency keeps me inside until the wind lets up.  I feel healthy. 

A question I asked the bloggers I interviewed:  What was the last book you read?  For me that would be Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot the illustrated edition.  I've been reading a lot lately, but most of what I've read has been on-line.  I like the feeling of holding a book in my hand.  My current read is The Body You Want In The Time You Have.  It's research and refresher for me. 

Fashionable Graffiti

When I was blinded, that was when I saw my strength.  When I was deaf, that was when I heard my calling.  When I was mute, that is when I spoke true wisdom.

Don't judge me wrong, my petals may be delicate, but make one mistake and my thorns will tear you to pieces.  Don't seek my heart.  I will love no other.  Other...  then the one taken from me.  There is more to me than a few pretty pictures.

I am the secret; I know it well.  And so it is guarded in my protection.
The flames of this mystery shall not scorch your heart, for to the wind and air alone shall I speak.

This was a fun photo day, until the wind kicked in.  It was a short shoot.  I had to get inside because I was freezing.  

The dress was a steal.  I found it at a wholesale store I happened to be shopping at.  The high heels I'm wearing are the only heels I can wear continuously with no discomfort.  They are the most comfortable heels I own.

I'm not going to be one of those bloggers who doesn't smile in their photos.  I know it's a fashion model thing, but it's also an unapproachable, I'm not having fun thing.  I don't take myself that seriously.

I workout seven days a week.  I run an average of six miles a day, and push it to eight during the summer season.  When it is warm enough, I do not drive my car to places that are within walking distance from my home.

Fashion is an individual expression.  It's draping yourself in art.  I keep my looks simple.  

Desert Bloom

Moments of true peace are few and far between; fleeting instants that flicker in and out of our lives. Some experience more peaceful times than others; a lucky few may even claim to have lived a whole life of peaceable tranquility, but their perspective is limited. Until you find yourself in the midst of total chaos, you can never understand or appreciate genuine peace.

I have experienced chaos. I have experienced innumerable hardships, a multitude of heartache, a myriad of losses, and infinite failures. I have felt pain of the sharpest intensity, and I have cried enough tears to fill rivers. I have stared into the blackest abyss and faltered.

I have also experienced love. The love of my family, my friends, and of soulmates. Love, pure and strong; boundless and enduring. I have been filled with joy, and have experienced moments so overwhelmed with euphoria it could have drowned me.

I seem fated to an existence of extremes.  I wonder at times, what it would be like to live a life of tempered mediocrity. To walk a road plagued only by soft hills and shallow valleys. I would not have seen the horrors I have seen.  But then, I would have also missed out on the miracles those horrors have brought about.

All is silent and I can feel everything is in sync.  I feel our connection and I revel in the warm familiarity of it.  I have felt this before, in a time long passed, and I have yearned for it since.

I don't know what the future holds for myself, my family, or those dearest to my heart.  I can only hope the future holds good things for everybody.  Understand, life is a mix of good and bad.

And for the sake of fashion blogging, my favorite shade of lipstick is nude.  I prefer dramatic eyes and toned down lips.  My boots were found at Newport News.  The dress is from Target.

A Rose Garden

When the winter comes, things change. Frozen dew makes the yellowing grass stand on end, like the hair on a dog's back, hyper-aware and unprepared. The clouds flatten and scream white one day, then thicken and fluff and turn smoky the next. Will it snow or will it rain? It might hail, it may sleet. Wind will erode the sides of houses and branches, then it will still, as if the earth stops breathing. A giant pause holds every living thing in its palm, waiting for the signal to begin again.

Winter does not persevere.  It watches, it bates your heart with ice, it stays for as long as it wants. It rains only to freeze the water to skin, frosts trees to take the place of leaves. It kills all the vegetation to paint the ground in the white it creates, ruling over the land. It's visceral and it's raw, cutting deep into the flesh of the people to watch veins constrict and cheeks pink, for lips to crack and eyes to glaze. Because winter likes what it can do, what it can make, what it can suffocate and what it can bring to life.  In the midst of the chill, it ignores the predictable. It lingers for the change.

The change did not occur.  Spring will bloom like it should, and it will rain like it should, off and on, crisp and warm for hardy crops to be harvested - dandelions, dill weed and masses of brush, hidden with rich, strong herbs.

Skin/beauty secret #2:  When it comes to beauty products, I have a habit of making my own.  Here is a homemade sugar scrub that I use to make my skin super soft.

• 1/4 cup sweet almond oil
• 1/4 cup granulated brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons of red wine
• 3 teaspoons of honey

Mix all of your ingredients together.  If the mixture is thick, add a touch more oil.  If the mixture is thin, add more sugar.  Massage onto wet skin and rinse.  It can be used as an exfoliant for the face, or can be used in the shower to exfoliate the entire body.

A Rouge Awakening

I have to do this. I can do this!  Music moves my soul, and so does my desire. 
Do not fret my shooting star, longing, wanting, comfort, need... there are so many emotions...  Know you will never be alone.  I will travel through time and fight my way back for you.

The cycle starts over, and there is a soul; a lost and wandering entity which holds in its custody, the simple emotion of hope. With this hope, the soul knows love and from this love, there is life.

What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us.  Like moths to open flames we cluster about our dreams; we want them, and we fight for them.

I run because I love being physically fit.  I lift weights because I love feeling strong.  Running is the best way I've found to relieve stress, and it wakes me up in the morning.

Vitamin E, that's my skin care secret.  I use creams or oils, applied every single night to my face.  Vitamin E oil provides the skin with necessary moisture as well as antioxidants for intense healing, boosts collagen production, and blocks free radical damage which helps prevent wrinkles and other signs of aging.  You can't stop the process of aging, but you can slow it down.

Because this is a fashion blog, I am asking myself one fashion question.  Who is my favorite Fashion Designer?  When you're talking big name Designers, Roberto Cavalli is my personal favorite. I also love Versace, Chanel, Balmain, Zac Posen, Jason Wu, Emilio Pucci, and of course Alexander McQueen.  When you are talking celebrity Fashion Designers, it's Gwen Stefani and Jessica Simpson. 

Rusty

The snow that you see behind me, that is the extent of what was received this year.  The winter here has been very mild.  For the last couple of weeks, our highs, for the afternoons, have been just below sixty.  This week, we've been sitting around the forties, but with the wind chill, it feels like we are sitting in the thirties. 

A light winter usually means we will see a dry summer.  Personally, I just want the weather to warm up soon so I can start running outdoors. 

I do plan to incorporate fitness into this blog.  Sometime in the near future I'll be posting progress photos, before and after.  I'll talk about my workouts, bra guy, and the crazy road runner that chases me when I run passed it.

I am expecting to travel this year:  to a place I've been before, to a place I've never seen, and to see family.  My travel goal is to visit every state at least once in my lifetime.  I've visited more than half already.  Overseas, my dream location is Egypt.  

I am working on a universal introduction for all my fashion sites.  I am getting more and more comfortable putting myself out there.  It's a process.  I am contemplating facebook.  I am currently looking for the questions that I sent out to the Bloggers.  I am also working on new questions for future issues of the magazine.  Every question I ask of them, I have every intention of answering myself.

Underground Rock

I'm contemplating playing a game of twenty questions with myself for this blog.  After all, I am the person interviewing the Bloggers, Designers, and Illustrators for DeWinter magazine, and since I do have my own blog now, I thought it might be interesting to see how I'd answer my own questions.  I'm in the process of searching through my hard drive for the original questions I sent out for the first issue of the magazine.  Funny thought about those questions, I think I may have scared off a few of the Bloggers with the questions I asked.  I don't think they thought I was going to ask anything deeper than what their favorite color of lipstick is or their favorite brand.  I had to dummy down the questions for the first interviews.  If my sister does get this magazine going, and Bloggers want to be interviewed to be in it, that courtesy will not be extended again.