(1) the book o’ blogging and my knee out in the sun on Saturday (2) me out in the sun on Saturday (3) photo evidence of my Spring Makeup Update post (4) the MAC lipstick in action (5) the obligatory pre-leaving selfie (6) MAC Sweet & Sour, the lipstick love (7) the skincare and book loves

This week wasn’t so fun until Thursday, I’ll assure you, but that’s to be expected with the whole exam situation from hell. Since finishing I’ve felt so odd — like there must be another essay to write and exam to torture myself over — but not so odd in the sense that would lead one to become an actual responsible human being and get right into that cleaning and organizing thing that goes along with that whole notion of normalcy where you earn money by acquiring an actual job. I was not that desperate to lose the strangeness of it all.

The weather has been nice, sunny and in the temperate twenties this week with a few cool and muggy days in between, however that’s to be expected when you live on the east coast. Yesterday, I casually wore short shorts if that is any indication. And I’ve spent hours lounging outdoors, relaxing and writing in the book o’ blogging and this has to be among the best things ever — up there with delicious lattes when you’re dead on your feet and stressed out of your mind.

Because my family is not big on the sweets and we all have a tendency towards abundant food sensitivities, we tend to both give and receive more substantial gifts for Easter and one of the substantial gifts this year was the book written by Helen Oyeyemi titled, Boy, Snow, Bird and let me assure you that it was fantastic. And I’m very picky about granting praise to reading materials. I know this should have technically fallen under the umbrella of last week’s post but I didn’t actually finish this until the beginning of this week and it was all kinds of crazy, so forgive me. I’m sure my mother’s intention in giving me this present was to enjoy reading a book for actual fun after my exams were finished but somehow in my groggy zombie-like state, I decided to finish it all on Monday night when I should have been writing the essay from hell. But the book was fantastic in itself, not just as procrastination material, I might add. It’s one of those rare five-star books and its written from three interwoven perspectives, intensely psychological and thrilling while also dealing with important issues (race, appearance, etc.) in an interesting and non-cliched manner.

Beauty-wise, my fixation was directed towards the skincare front. This is probably related to the horrendous stress-induced breakout along my chin and jaw that appeared in all of its painful-underneath-the-skin blemish glory. Thankfully, I had the sense to not try to murder it, drying it out and all that jazz, but rather took the more effective soothing route of going heavy on the BHA exfoliants of the Neutrogena and Clinique gentle variety and adding in more healing rosehip oil than usual. I’m pleased to say that there’s but one active blemish left on my face as of now and my severely easily irritated skin has not exhibited any signs of seeking vengeance yet.

On Wednesday as a treat upon finishing exams and all, I picked up a few things of the beauty variety and fell in love with one or two of them and one of which was the MAC Sweet & Sour Lipstick that was recently made permanent. I’ve been wearing the muted corally-orange shade nonstop. It’s a cremesheen so it doesn’t do my dry lips any favours but the shade makes it worthwhile so I can’t really bring myself to care.

Finally to sit down and breathe, I was able to do that thing where you go out and celebrate –the reason for celebration was my long-time friends birthday and it was nice to go out for a change. It was also surprisingly pleasant to write up a few posts that I’ve been wanting to put up for ages, such as the Spring Makeup Update post…

How was your week?

Maggie, x.