5 Things: SUMMER EDITION.

Hey ya'll :)

I've made these "five things" post for most seasons already, but I thought it'd be kind of cool to do this "summer edition" with a bit of a twist.

FIVE THINGS I'M UP TO THIS SUMMER:

1. READING! I've been keeping track of all the books I've been reading in a draft on here, with mini reviews as well. I'll post it once the summer is up.

2. Hanging out with my friends every chance I get. :)

3. Stressing over what I'm going to take in the Fall. I know that's a really nerdy thing to say, but ugh, I am. I've been constructing my "preferred list" for a few months now. ugh.

4. Working shows at 1919. I will say the best one this month was the Pity Sex//The World is...//Cat People//Two Knights//Dads show. It kicked ass.

5. ALSO, playing shows!

ME! (Olivia took this awesome photo)

And here's where the twist comes in!

FIVE THINGS I MISS ABOUT LAST SUMMER:

1. How much more relaxed I was! I don't know why, but this summer has been a huge stressful ball of fucking stress. I guess this comes along with growing up and having more responsibilities.

2. The fact that I wasn't completely broke. (Yeah, little known fact to my internet frandz, but I am completely and utterly so broke. I am lucky I still live with my parents.)

3. My brother coming to visit! That made last Summer amazing, and I'm sad he's not coming this summer.

4. How much I got together with my old friends from high school. So far we haven't planned a get together this summer, which kinda sucks. I've seen some of them separately, but I hope we all get together sometime before this summer is over..

5. ALSO, my hair. Early on in summer I had this pink dip dye hair, before I did the blonde stuff in the photo above. I don't miss my undercut, but I miss this coloring:

It'd be cool if some of ya'll did this post too, if you do you should totally tell me! I'd love to read each of your five things.

Love, Noralee

Beauty Guru Spotlight: guru of the year!!

It wasn't super hard for me to pick my favorite guru of the year. It's funny because the only reason I found out about her was because of a video she made about body positivity. After I watched that video, I subscribed, only to find make up tutorials and hauls and whatever in my inbox. I watched a few of her tutorials and fell in love with the genuineness in her personality.

Anyhow, I've mentioned her briefly before, so I'll just get right to it, my beauty guru for the year is:

Rachel Whitehurst.

 

This is Rachel's video on body image and her rant on the thinspo tag of Tumblr. It's the video I mentioned above that I first saw of hers. She also has a video called something like, Fuck Negativity (Advice on Life) - that is REALLY great, and of course her 3 part video series on college for people new to dorms and living on campus.

Besides these videos, she also posts really amazing covers, like she legitimately has a voice of a fucking angel. I swear to it. And, her makeup is always on point. I love her tutorials and first impressions because she is so straight up about everything. She'll tell you why she hates things, not just that she hates them, and same goes for why she loves things. I feel like she really considers all people with all different skin types when she makes tutorials, and when she's reviewing them. She's always thinks of what kind of skin type would work for a product that didn't work for her, instead of just writing it off as being a shitty product - which  is something I see a lot of beauty youtubers doing. 

Also, I have to mention: she is hilarious. so. hilarious. 

Here are all of her links & enjoy!:

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/icallitambrosia/videos
TUMBLR: http://87daysbefore.tumblr.com/
BLOGGER: http://www.87daysbefore.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/87daysbefore/
FACEBOOK: http://facebook.com/87daysbefore/
INSTAGRAM: 87daysbefore

Who was your favorite beauty guru this year? :)

Love, Noralee

Snippets Sunday #7

On Friday night I had a gift exchange with my closest friends, Stephen, Erik, Manuel, & Ivan. :)

I made a stop motion, so here's that:

And the silly photos we took in stephen's apartment if you don't want to watch all the to the end in the stop motion or watch it at all:

Stephen & I. :)

These boys. :)
Erik, Stephen, Manuel, & Ivan.

E, S, N, M, I

 I really don't know why they took of their shirts.


I just don't question their lives anymore, I guess. Hahah. :)

Christmasssss. :)

 Stephen got me the new book on Kurt Vonnegut that has all of his letters and old photos in it. I'm beyond stoked about that.
I adore these guys. :)
I really couldn't ask for better friends. They're all equally important to me. I've known all of them since the start. I've been friends with them since I moved here four years ago, and they're honestly the few people I've really kept in contact with and kept being friends with since graduation. I love these guys to bits, seriously.

I'm headed to an "ugly christmas sweater" themed party tonight. So, I'll try to include some photos of that in my Christmas post or some other random post. It'll be super fun. I've been documenting christmas around our house all month, so I'll have a nice collective christmas stop motion to do after actual Christmas Day is over and done with. :)

Happy Sunday! :)

Love, Noralee