(1) Soaking up the sun as it reemerged (2) Continuing with the ‘Daily Highlights’ posts (3) Good thing I didn’t say I was on a ‘No Buy’? (4) I kind of Netflix binge-watched both seasons of this – (no regrets)  (5) A somewhat adequate picture of the day above (6) A daily face featuring my MAC Palette (7) An amazing and hilarious video, of course courtesy of ChelseaWears (8) Yesterday’s therapeutic wishlist post (9) My most liked post of the week and quite possibly my favourite post too – linked here

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Another week has passed and therefore I’m coming at you with a Weekly Medley post – to state the obvious. It was really not the greatest of weeks but it was not the worst of weeks as it wasn’t physically debilitating like that hellish week during exams for me; it’s been a serious family one, my grandfather whom I’m rather close to, has been sick for a while but things have escalated for the worse rather quickly, requiring lots of care, and it’s difficult to stomach the whole situation. Being someone who struggles with anxiety (putting it mildly), it’s no surprise that I’ve been affected in an unusual way — I’m constantly on edge and unable to focus on any sort of task at hand and be productive. I’m not someone who cries easily over these things and exhibits typical emotional displays but I’m supposing that I’m experiencing it in a different way. The funny thing is that I never intended for this blog to become so personal but writing this down was so therapeutic that I’m letting it slide. I’m not usually one to go on and on about weather actually, but until yesterday, the weather was warm and muggy but constantly overcast and raining on and off so it wasn’t a great one on that front either, until now. Spoiler alert: the last couple of days have been gorgeous sunny ones of 30 degrees that have been spent down at the dock, swimming in the 25 degree water — woo! I’m sure there will be a bit more on this next week and scrambled through upcoming posts.

On a much more superficial note, this week lost points because my basement started to accumulate heat and lose it’s status as the most delightfully cool room to escape to – but I’m working on not leaving every single electronic device on to help matters so it might be more along the lines of a fault of mine. This wasn’t my most exciting makeup week or one where I was particularly into wearing makeup; I did wear makeup most days but on a few occasions I ended up wiping it off a few hours later because I was feeling rather ‘meh’ and on others I found myself merely wearing wearing some BB cream, brows and maybe mascara. However, when I was feeling makeup, I was consistently reaching for my (ALMOST FULL – :))) MAC Palette and loving it. I know I look either extremely sleep-deprived in the picture above or drugged-up but I promise that it was just my general non-photogenic nature coming through. I didn’t wear this combination again on the eyes but I did rather like it and it was somewhat different than what I’ve been reaching for on other days in a nice way. As I have been doing daily, I began with running Soft Brown loosely through the crease – blah blah blah, I’m sure you get it. All over the lid I went for the pale pearly unique Vexshade that I’ve hit pan on but have been neglecting for ages and then deepened up the crease, as per usual (as of late) with Swiss Chocolate. The star of the show might have been Sketch, as it was used to add the plummy smokiness, packed onto the outer corner of the lid and blended out with actual effort (and placed underneath the lower lashes), but I liked the overall look. The shades minus Vex, have been my staples this week along with the other 10 shades in my palette – with a few exceptions.

Two of my lovely confidants from High School (that I happily still am close to and see frequently) decided that they wanted to go beauty product shopping and obviously told me to come along and I agreed, faintly aware of the purchases that would occur as a result, despite being somewhat committed to my ‘Low Buy’. In my defense, I held onto my pennies (joking, we can no longer use pennies here) and watched them go somewhat to town at Sephora and MAC (*pats self on back*) but gave in at the drugstore for a few practical purchases that I was rational about and then we went into Lush and weirdly out of character, I couldn’t resist a purchase or two. On more occasions than I would like to admit, I can be found grumbling on about how ridiculously expensive drugstore makeup in Canada is in comparison to the US and how tragically unfair it is that we cannot return drugstore makeup but I felt both sentiments rather strongly (particularly the second) as I tried and tried the L’Oreal Voluminous Miss Manga Mascaraand wish I had never allowed myself to look inside the drugstore with my friends (kind of) – or at least, wished I had the willpower to say that I would just wait it out for another mascara as I do have enough at the moment. In my defense, it was on sale and I had been hoping that it would be a really easy throw-it-on mascara that removed with minimal effort – a la Maybelline The Falsies, that has recently dried out completely on me. In the last post linked above, I ramble on about this product and four others in more detail that doesn’t reach the realm of excess tangential descriptions, IMO. Sweet success.

Funnily enough, I’m not actually a huge TV person, despite the shows that I’ve included in these posts as of late as I tend to watch them whilst doing other things but while doing so, I’ve found some really interesting ones that capture my attention by their own merits and complicated intricacies and the top spot in recent months might just go to Hannibal,which is a NBC horror show that can also be found on Netflix. It’s placed in the horror genre but it has that thriller-esque complexity that grabs my attention but at the same time, you need somewhat of a strong stomach in order to watch it. It’s psychologically intense (my cup of tea) but it’s best feature is the acting; Hugh Dancy is fantastic at playing the psychologically-troubled Will Graham, who has been pulled out of the classroom to help solve these complex murders and Mads Mikkelsen is just about as believable as the psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter, who has been brought in to theoretically ensure Will’s safety. It keeps you on your toes, that’s for sure. On the beauty-related front, I absolutely loved Chelsea’s latest video, “NEW IN: Skincare + Beauty Part Two”; with actual life busy-ness getting in the way, the hilarious but helpful Chelsea had taken a break from making videos and this has been among the first few videos of her return and I suddenly remembered why I missed them so much. Plus she’s such a genuine human being and her shop ships to Canada so I might actually have to order online.

How was your week? This sounds rather bullshitty (if that’s a word?) but despite lacking general functional human emotional stability, I hope yours was at least a little bit better than mine. Aaaaand I think I love you if you actually got through this little novella of mine!

Maggie, x.

P.S. I’m the last person to get Twitter and I most likely will be the most boring person to follow but if you’re interested in the occasional update, you can follow me @beautyandlit – because beautylit etc. etc. was already taken not because I absolutely loved the name…