Best Eyeliner EVER!

It has been months since I've written anything on my "hobbies" blog but well, I've been fairly busy. In September I started a new job which I actually care about. Since I am a slightly just over the border workaholic, I put in the full official 8 hours and then some, plus a 2+ hours commute there and back. With that and daily chores like tidying up, making dinner, etc. it doesn't leave too much time for leisure. I usually get about an hour or so of personal down time. Either I can sit down, tap away on my iPod, workout, be healthy or pig out to bust stress. OR I could actually go to bed early to catch up on some sleep.

Anyway, the sad point is that I rarely knit or sew now. I still have lots of ideas for all kinds of projects. We bought an Arduino kit for Christmas and I have 2 different programming projects in the back of my head plus the ambitious programming project to simplify things at work which I am really excited about but have no time to do. By the way, I am not a programmer by trade. Now, in my semi spare time during the commute I read free public domain ebooks or listen to audiobooks and frenchpod101 lessons. My French has improved a ton!

À propos de ce article, I am using a new eyeliner which I am so happy with in every way I just had to blog about it. It's the new Maybelline Eyestudio cream eyeliner. I bought it on sale at $6 plus tax on sale at Shoppers Drug Mart.

The eyeliner is available in 4 colors: Blackest Black, Charcoal, Brown & Eggplant. It comes in a small pot the same as most other cream eyeliners out on the market. The good thing is that it is packaged with a little brush that isn't like the usual eyeliner brushes. Usually when you buy a single eyeliner brush it either has a flattened brush shape with a straight edge or it is a very small watercolor brush with a pointed tip. This one is more like a mini foundation brush, flat with a more tapered edge instead of rounded like most foundation brushes. It lets you build a thick or fine line so it is easy to create different looks. It works very well with the consistency of the cream liner - just perfect.

The cream is also waterproof. It does not smudge at all after a full day. Unlike the liquid liners, it is much easier to work with. With non-waterproof liquid eyeliners, you better not get teary-eyed at a movie, have allergies or god forbid walk in the rain. Sometimes you blink and you'll have black spots at the corners of your eyes. Or with the waterproof liquid liner varieties, a mistake means breaking out all your other tools to rub it off, causing your lids to become red and swollen.

With the Eyestudio liner, when you make a mistake, just a little water/saliva :P will erase it. At the end of the day, it comes off easily with eye makeup remover. No need to rub hard and basically scrape the paint off your face with a cotton pad.

I also want to note that I wear contacts and the Eyestudio liner did not irritate me at all. I even apply it right to my bottom inner lash line - a trick I learned from a makeup artist back in my camera trainee days. Application to the inner lash lines make you look more awake instantly without looking like you have any makeup on. This liner stayed on, no smudging on my bottom inner lash line during allergy season, all day long. I mean it faded a little bit but I am way too lazy to touch up throughout the day. THIS passed all my liner requirements with a thousand gold stars.

Thank you Maybelline for creating such an amazing product. I do believe it is the Holy Grail at the end of my lengthy search for the perfect eyeliner. I know there are really good cream liners out there but they cost so much, I just can't justify spending that amount to feed my vanity! But this is so amazing and affordable, I just had to write about it.

I love it!

* FYI I also got engaged during Christmas and have been procrastinating on the planning.

The lightbulb went DING!

While driving to work today I had a minor epiphany. This occurs often during the morning commute. My mind suddenly surfaces from the muddle of drowsiness, like your ears popping during a change in air pressure. Or like a movie playing in reverse of a pool of murky water de-mixing as a drop of blue food coloring de-falls from a body of crystal clear water. I was pondering the common and almost pesdestrian analogy of life as a journey when suddenly I realized the stupendous aptness of it all.

If life is a journey, there are many paths, roads & highways from one place to another, connecting people, places & ideas. Some routes take longer, some more difficult but it is all relative to the person taking the route. Usually on a journey, we have a destination and we plan our route (some of us do anyway) but as in life, our planned route may not work out. Natural disasters may have blocked certain roads. Earthquakes, freak storms, bodies of water get in our way but we choose our path.

The main roads & highways are pretty much set by the larger community as a whole. They're not moving anywhere and the experience will be similar for almost everyone on that road, but we choose the paths that lead to those roads. We base our path decision on many variables, such as the presumed ease with which a path may be completed, perhaps the scenery is what gets us. Some of us actually choose the treacherous mountain climb for the thrill, the excitement. Maybe we choose it out of familiarity.

What is fascinating is the frequency with which many of us will choose the same paths even though in the back of our minds, we KNOW that it leads nowhere. In fact, it may even have led us into some sinkhole or swamp that took us forever to get out of. Did we merely forget this fact? Some of us learn, we make maps, mark down the hazards and set out a new course.

There are others of us...who are not as smart, or perhaps brave is a better word. We are afraid to explore unknown territories and in the end, we walk around in circles going through the same motions, experiencing the same obstacles, never quite settling in one place for long. Yet, never quite happy with where we are now either. There are people who finally settle in where ever they find themselves. Somewhere between neither here nor there they attempt to make a place called home. It is possible to find happiness this way if that is where you feel comfortable but I am afraid many of us are merely paralyzed with fear, forced to settle while still imagining ourselves at the final destination we initially set out to reach but were not hardy enough to complete the remainder of the journey.

Another point to add to this is that every travellor should know to some degree, how far their means of travel can really get them. A horse can only take you so far before it tires and needs refreshment. Can you abandon & sacrifice all other needs in order to ensure the horse is fully nourished for the entire journey? What about your companions? Will you leave them on the trail in order to lighten the load for your horse, to get somewhere faster? What about knocking other people on the same path down to clear the way for yourself?

I bet there is more to draw from this analogy and it's just too much fun to visualize it. A diagram should be drawn to symbolize this concept. In time...