Collective Haul!

As promised, this is another "haul post," and it will include items from the past couple of times I've been shopping. :) These are in no particular order, by the way.

First up is a few things from Forever 21. In the top left corner is an adorable grey sweater with a black bow on the front. It was on sale, and even though it's too warm to wear it now, I know I'll get a lot of use out of it when fall comes back around. Next to that in the top right corner is a blue floral umbrella. I've been wanting a small one to keep in my car, because all too often I get stuck in a random middle-of-the-day rainstorm and don't have one. This one was too cute, and I'm thinking around $10, so I had to get it. Speaking of umbrellas, right under that is a gold chain necklace with a purple umbrella pendant on it...absolutely love. :) Bottom left corner is probably my favorite item purchased on this trip. It's a short sleeved purple shirt that has light purple, gold, and turquoise detailing on the top. It's a "high-low" style, and really loose on me, which I like a lot. In the bottom middle picture are just 2 basic tanks, one in lavender and the other in mint green. These are SO soft and go with a lot of things. Finally, in the bottom right is my other favorite, and it's a light brown loose-knit cardigan. All spring I've been looking for one, and was so glad to find this.

Next is a few things I picked up from Sephora. These were necessities, so nothing too exciting. On the left is Urban Decay De-Slick, Fresh Sugar Lip treatment kit (the Beauty Insider birthday present for this year), and Origins Checks and Balances face wash. The Urban Decay De-Slick is something I've been wanting to try for a while, and I'm so glad I finally got it! It's a make-up setting spray that you use on your face before and after applying your make-up. I've noticed such a difference in how long my make-up lasts when I use this. It actually makes it all the way through my 12-hour work shifts without budging at all. :) The Fresh Sugar Lip treatment is awesome. I've got one of the lip balms in another color (plum something, I think), so now I have a colorless one and a rosy one. The Origins Checks and Balances is a face wash that I've been using for close to a year. I use this as my nighttime face wash and absolutely love it. It has a nice smell, is gentle on the skin, and is basically just a really good face wash, lol. In the picture on the right is a sample of Dr. Brandt's Pores No More. I've almost used all of it up, and it's pretty good, but does nothing that my regular foundation primer can't do. The other item in that picture is my card (that I lost...sad!) that says "you are officially a VIB." VIB, for those that don't know, stands for "Very Important Beauty Insider." Basically you get extra perks that you don't get just being a Beauty Insider. To achieve VIB status, you have to keep 300 points in your beauty bank for a certain number of months, and you get to keep that status for the next year.

Last but not least: Victoria's Secret! I bought a new bra and underwear, but I'm not posting a picture of those on here, sorry! xD I was at VS on the day they were having their special "spend so much money get a free tote" deal. I was about $4 away from getting the free tote, so I grabbed the Beauty Rush soothing lip balm, pictured at the top. It's minty and actually does soothe your lips. I'm thinking it'll be great to have in my beach bag this summer, and will feel nice on my lips after I've been in the sun all day. Speaking of the beach, pictured bottom right is the free tote I got. You can't tell from the picture, but it's a pretty big bag and will make a perfect beach tote.

Well, unfortunately, that is all. I'm pretty sure these were from just 2 different shopping trips, lol, but oh well! I do have more hauls to post, including items from J. Crew, DSW, Anthropologie, and others. I'm also going to do a haul showing my MyGlam and Birchbox items from the past 2 months, as well as the (free!) Target Beauty Days bag I got a couple of weeks ago.

Also, I've been back on both of my Tumblrs recently! Want to follow me? I'd love it if you did! :) One is just a general/silly/fun/life blog, and it can be found here. The other one is a weight loss/healthy living/inspiration blog, found here.

Seeing as it is now nearly 4 am (!), I'm going to bed now...thank goodness I don't have to get up early in the morning for anything! Tomorrow is going to consist of cleaning my apartment, getting my room organized, exercising, Vampire Diaries (with which I've become obsessed recently), and a possible (probable) well-deserved mani/pedi. Goodnight! xoxo, Brittany

Update time :)

So...once again, it's been quite a while since I've been able to post on here. And like always, I don't know if anyone reads this, but just in case, I'm providing an explanation for my absence.

Last year (I'm thinking around October/November?) my laptop got several viruses on it and crashed. My sister's boyfriend offered to fix it, and tried, but said he would pretty much have to wipe everything off of it and start over. That was in January. Since then, it's been sitting on my desk all by its lonesome, looking a little pitiful lol. Because I work nights, it's sometimes difficult for me to find the time to do things on a computer that I actually want to do. So obviously going through numerous files/photos and putting the ones I want to keep on a jump drive wasn't exactly at the top of my list. However, I do still have things I have to do at times on a computer. My sister was kind enough (after a bit of pushing, mind you xD) to let me borrow her old laptop. It's pretty much a dinosaur, but I was able to do what I needed to on it.

That worked out most of the time, unless she decided she wanted it to play The Sims on or something, which would always frustrate me. -.- And then it got to where she didn't want me borrowing it without asking her, and then she changed her password and blah blah blah...I'm not going into all of that. But anyway, there was a time for a few weeks that I was just completely without a computer, plus my work schedule was crazy and I wasn't able to do what I needed to do to mine. So then March comes around, and we are redoing our bedrooms, which was an early birthday present from the parents and grandparents. Awesomeness, by the way, because I have an amazing bed. But back to the point. Somehow in all that mess of moving furniture and whatnot. her old laptop ended up in my bedroom. By this time she'd told me what the password was, so I was able to use it. Until a few weeks ago, anyway. That was when the power cord decided to get a short in it and not keep the battery charging, so I could only use it for a few minutes at a time before I'd have to stop working to hold the power cord into the outlet. So frustrating.

But then I got to thinking...I could get a new laptop, just a basic one that wouldn't cost me much, and then I wouldn't have to deal with all of this. And even if my old one was not infected with viruses, it would be about time for a new one anyway, because that one was nearly 4 years old. So I decided to just get a new one, and I'm very glad that I did. :) The one I got is a Compaq (like my old one) Presario CQ57. It's smaller than my old one, which I like, and it has Windows 7, and it's pretty much just awesome. Eventually I will get around to getting those files off of my old one and let my sister's boyfriend fix it, and then I'll just have that one to play The Sims on or whatever. But it's nice that until that time, I have a nice, new laptop to use the Internet, iTunes, YouTube, blog, etc. I'm happy with it. :)

I have several posts planned for the not-too-distant future, including but not limited to: a couple of tags, a few hauls rolled into one post, vacation/beach things, skincare and makeup routines, more pics of my cute dog, and much more! Hope you all are doing wonderfully!

xoxo, Brittany