A Tea in Tasty? (Overview)

Alrighty, so I love tea. I would say that I would drink an average of three to four cups of lovely tea goodness a week happily. Maybe it is because I'm British which automatically makes me awesome.. who knows. Anyway, I was trying to think on another post series that I would like to write about; something that maybe has something to do with beauty and something that I love and would thoroughly enjoy sharing with you. Coincidentally enough, when I came up with this I was sitting here, on my couch, sipping a cup of cinnamon and apple spice tea. Talk about planting the idea seed. So here is how it is going to go; I've made a list of all of the different types/flavors of tea that I am going to review for you throughout several different posts. In these posts I will discuss the flavor described on the package and whether I agree with it or not, whether I would happily drink this tea again, how long it takes to brew, any noted beauty properties that this particular tea might have, the package design and an overall rating. Please let me know if there is a specific type or flavor of tea that you would like to read my two-sense about and I would be more than happy to add it to my quickly growing list. So without further or due, here is the original list:
-Cinnamon Apple Spice
-Peppermint
-Green
-Madagascar Vanilla
-Wild Berry Zinger
-English Toffee
stay strong and keep chugging along, -Madeleine

Inspired by..

Today I decided that I wanted to repaint my finger nails because the colour that I was wearing (Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in 270 Lacey Lilac) was looking a little worse for wear. I was looking around my bedroom and something caught my eye; my peacock feathers. I have four of them sitting up straight and tall in a matching blueish green vase on top of my dresser. I love them not only because they are a great shape, but the colour are exquisite. I have found myself trying to replicate the beautiful feather into makeup tutorials for my videos and I do have some more complicated nail designs in mind for when I have a little more practice. I looked through my nail polish and was surprised at how many different blues and blueish greens that I own. I also have wanted to try to come up with something that follows the ever popular colour blocking trend, but with nothing too too crazy that could be off putting. These nails seemed to be the answer to all of my questions. To be completely honest, I would have put up a proper tutorial of these babies on my Youtube channel, but they are so easy to do that it seemed kind of pointless.. maybe I'll make one later if I feel differently in the future. I love these nails, and I am pretty happy with myself that I came up with these (those I am sure that I am not the first one to do so). They incorporate all of my favourite colours while still looking cohesive and follows with the bright summer/colour blocking trends. Please let me know what you all think of these, and if you try them out I would love to see a picture of the end result or even just a quick word about them in the comments. I personally would wear these nails anywhere, but it really depends on your personal style and where you might be going (maybe you work in an office where these wouldn't be appropriate?).

So here is the scoop: I first took the darkest blue colour (Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear nail colour in 250 Blue It) and painted my thumb nail. I then took the next colour down in shade (OPI's NLT14 Austin-tatous Turquoise from the Texas collection) and painted my index finger nail. Next was my middle finger with which I took the next greenest (?) colour (China Glaze's 721 Custom Kicks). On my ring finger I painted the lime green shade (Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri 29 Lickety-Split Lime). Lastly, I painted my pinky finger's nail in a gold (Sally Hansen's 2701-03 Mesh Frost).

stay strong and keep chugging along, -Madeleine

Hair Thoughout The Ages

1. Super short, when I was really little.
2. Muuuushroom cut.
3. Still pretty short, with bangs.
4. Red streak :)
5. This was the only picture that I could find, but I had just gotten ride of head lice in this picture, so it is super super short and kind of spiky.
6. Long, super blonde and full bangs.
7. Same length, same cut, different colour.. obviously.
8. shoulder length, longer bangs, and its red. People thought that this was my natural colour. I tried a few different shades, but I didn't take pictures of them.
9. Same length, same cut but back to blonde.
10. Longer with grown out bangs.
11. No more bangs, two toned hair.
12. Super blonde, two toned is still there, but you can't really see it. It was starting to fade.
13. The bangs are back!
14. Semi grown out bangs and trying to get back to my natural blondish goldenish colour.

I hope that you enjoyed this post, I thought that it might be interesting to see. I do change my hair style a lot, and I do pay for it in split ends and dry bits, but I think that it is worth it in the long run. I have done stuff with it that I will never do again, but I have also found out in the process what actually looks good on me and suits me.
stay strong and keep chugging along, -Madeleine

Food For Thought

I have many found memories as a little girl at my grandparents' farm up north. I can recall chasing down the barn cats for a snuggle, parading through many acres of fields, itchy bug bites, streaking my hair while sitting on the porch, pretending to be an explorer, fairy princess or x-men with my cousins outside, and my grandmother's garden. I had never seen such a huge, beautiful garden.. and I still haven't. She had trees everywhere, with lavender, tulips, poppies, chives and big, round hydrangeas. Off on the very edge of the lot, she had planted vegetables and berries. The nine of us (my brother and I, and our seven cousins) would always make a point of moseying over there anytime we became a little peckish. My grandparents are good cooks and so are the rest of the adults that would have been up with us, so it is not like we were going hungry and were forced to eat some strange things outside, we chose to. I have a distinct memory of me and a few of my cousins shoving Gooseberries in our mouths. We would purposely look for the green, unripened ones because they were, and still are, the best tasting.
As my grandparents became older, they realized that it really was time to let go of their beautiful farm and down grade into a town house. We all miss it, and there are some moments where I feel as if I would do close to anything to go back to those warm, sunny, summer days.
My father went grocery shopping a few days ago and brought back some summer goodies; strawberries, nectarines and gooseberries! When I laid eyes on those bitter, green gems I knew I could not wait for him to put them away in the refrigerator. I was taken back to those wonderful lazy days; when I learned how to ride my bike and got gravel in my knee, when we would go to the beach religiously and collect beach glass, when we would spend our mornings building things with Lego blocks and our afternoons reading outside or playing scrabble, when I had all of the time in the world with my family and nothing honestly mattered that much. All of this came rushing back as soon as the green berry exploded the bitter taste in my mouth. Its amazing what something as simple as a berry can remind you of.
Is there a certain food that reminds you of your childhood, or of a strong memory (good/bad)? Let me know in a comment, I would love to hear (or should I say read?) about it.
Some food for thought: