Advice

You don’t really know your mom until she loses her mom. I learned this last summer as we struggled through not being able to attend my grandmother’s funeral in Honduras. I was in New York when it happened, while the rest of my immediate family was in St. Louis together. A few weeks later, as soon as I could, I went to visit and spend some time with my mom. She cried, recounted memories, and claimed she'd been prepared for it as my Grandma's health had been rapidly declining.

I'm not a makeup artist but I really love doing my makeup now that I know how to play up (and down) certain features that make me look my absolute best. The Kardashians made contouring famous, but the internet made contouring EASY! Here are my favorite ways to contour, including my best advice on what products to use and how to artistically blend everything together (this is actually a very KEY part of it).

Here’s my quick gift guide for progressive lovers on VDAY. While I always think experiences are more memorable than tangible gifts, I’ve put together a mix of ideas here that should get your creative juices flowing for Valentine’s Day. I admit I had some trouble thinking about this in a gender-free, non-binary way so I'll just chalk it up to this being a fun gift guide made by a straight girl for whoever wants to read it. If you’re single, like me, buy yourself all the things that speak to your self-love or share a good plan with your girlfriends.

I don’t do this often. I’m very picky about everything I share because I take my health + yours very seriously.  Do I take supplements? Yes, A LOT of them but you won’t typically find me pushing them on others because I’ve felt for so long that supplements should be a personal exploration of what’s right for your body. But this time is a little different. I’m blown away by Magnesium Breakthrough from BiOptimizers.

I never had “baby fever” but in my late 30’s I knew with certainty that I wanted to be a mom. (Fyi, I'm 41 now.) For me, that was all I needed to know to make it a reality but there were some issues I still had to work through, and I was far from ready to plunge into baby making.