beauty products that i love

i am product obsessed. i always have been. i am the girl that actually pays close attention to the ads and commercials tucked into my favorite magazines and tv shows, i could spend quite some time in the beauty product aisles of target and cvs and don't even get me started on my obsessive love for sephora and ulta.

my counter tops are covered with pretty bottles full of promising potions and my shower is a shrine to john frieda and dove. 

 

 

i love all of my little beauty babies, but there are some favorites in the family:

ALMAY EYE MAKEUP REMOVER PADS: 
{ipads! hehe} my college roomie turned me onto these little gems. nothing takes off makeup better. nothing leaves your eyes feeling irritation-free, moisturized, so fresh and so clean clean like these babies. bonus, they travel really well. {don't try the blue ones...aka poison!... purple package only!!}

OLAY FASH WASH:
first, carrie underwood is their spokesperson...soooo duhh i had to try it {my beauty icon!} second, their entire line of products {body wash, face lotion, night potion,  etc} is fantastic and their face wash does not fall short of my very high expectations for them. the one pictured smells fantastic and is the perfect combo of exfoliating and moisturizing: spot-on perfect for the summer. their "total effects 7" line of fash wash is also amazing but a little pricey.

MOROCCAN OIL: 
OMG!!! i just recently purchased this bottle of magic and my hair has never seen better days. its silky, smooth, so shiny, so stong and smells so yummy. it honestly feels healthier but i am rocking my way through this teeny tiny bottle fast and magic potion isnt cheap! even being on the beach every single day this past week, my hair never felt damaged or dry. i have an obsession and from what i hear, i am one of maaaannnnnyyyy.

BARE ESCENTUALS PRIME TIME: 
i am a long time devoted fan of bare minerals and if you have spent any significant time with me, i have more than likely convinced you to buy at least one of their products. when summer hit the south i knew that the humidity level would soon be out of control and i wanted a way to keep my makeup as close to "in place" as possible. i love this product, my makeup stays put, it isnt heavy at all, no shine, no stickiness, it actually feels like silk and a little bit goes a long way.

BUMBLE & BUMBLE STYLING LOTION:
lotion..that is more like a gel, that you can spray, that smells faaaantastic and is a wonderful root booster! i don't need a lot of volume all over, just up top around my part at my roots and this is a wonderful product that does just that! and it lasts all day. b&b products are a new favorite of mine thanks to my great salon, Cortex located in Virginia Highlands.

JOHN FREIDA ROOT AWAKENING LOTION: 
before morrocan oil entered my life, this was my every day go-to product for detangling, strenth, protection and shine. it smells wonderful and spreads through my hair well without weighing it down. i have made a promise to this bottle that i will still use it from time to time {is that weird? that i talk to my products? eek}

OLAY PRO-X EXFOLIATING BRUSH: 
the product that changed my life! spa-day every single morning and night. this little hand-held face scrubber rotates a soft-ish pad of toothbrush-like bristles at two speeds and exfoliates like a dream to reveal sooooft and smooth and clear skin. products work better and you feel cleaner. its a dream tool and its only $25 compared to the clarisonic tool {$250!+}.

For now, those are my favorite products! 

some of my favorite beauty sites are these:

• Lauren Conrad's The Beauty Department {it's LC...and the website is pretty and organized}
• ...Love Meagan {great hair tutorials, if i had thicker hair and braiding talent ha}
• Elle and Blair {their website is okay, but i like Blair's little youtube vids...even though they can get annoying sometimes}
• this is glamorous {for hair inspiration pics, she loves a chignon and so do i}
• People StyleWatch {for celeb inspiration}
• InStyle {an all-time favorite magazine and their website is no less}

:) amc

beach books!

It's sad but somehow I only manage to find time to read when I am at the beach. This week I have managed to finish/read 3 books, all of which were aaaammaaazing! Each one stole my mind away from its current paradise {soft, sandy, white beach and clear blue water} and dropped me into its world where I was able to somehow resonate with each of the characters in some way or another. I love reading good books and that feeling I get when I finish one... where my mind is stuck in dreamland, still focusing on the characters and their stories. Its a happy escape.

So far I have read/finished these:

Glorious stories!

Emily Griffin's "Something Blue"
Kathryn Stockett's "The Help"
&
Ree Drummond's "The Pioneer Woman"

I have debated about this over 2 glasses of red wine, on a big porch, getting scorched by the summer sun and come to the conclusion that I will tell you my opinions on each of these books. Book reviews are scary... what if I totally missed the meaning of the book? What if my writing fails miserably to do these great books any justice?

Oh well, the red wine and the scorching sun is telling me to "type it out sista!" {blog manager boyfriend agrees with said red wine and scorching sun too}



{THE HELP by Atlanta's own Kathryn Stockett}

You should know that I have typed out two reviews of this book and both were accidentally deleted by my fat fingers. I blame the wine, or the home-made sticky buns, this afternoons home-made mac & cheese, yesterdays beers, all of the seafood, the desserts, basically any and everything that I have consumed since this family-fun 2011 beach vacation began. Bad amanda. Sad fingers. 

As i was saying {before being so rudely deleted by said chubby fingers} i began this book last year this time during the 2010 family- fun seaside beach trip. i just loved it- fell deep in love with the stories, the many characters, their troubles and their lives. It was neat to jump back into history and read "how things were" through the eyes of "the help" and the women of the time. A lot of it made me sad, a lot of it made me laugh and all of it had me hooked. So hooked that I didn't finish it during the 2010 family-fun beach trip and it became a "home accent" in my newly re-decorated bedroom until the first day of the 2011 family-fun beach trip. so sad, i really did like the book!!! {but i also like the delicious shiny gold cover that matches my room so well}. Fast forward to this year and i enthusiastically whipped the book out of my beach bag while sitting on the beach next to my mom. excited to join the journey of Skeeter and Minny once again, i settled into my beach chair and dipped my toes into the clear blue ocean water. Then...my mom spotted the book and enviously acclaimed that "all of my friends have read that book, i want to read that book, the movie is coming out soon, blah blah blah." I told her I would read quickly for her sake, and it didn't take long and i was reading quickly for my sake too. Law, how I had missed those characters and their lives. It didn't take me but hours to finish the book, and I finished with tears in my eyes. This is a book that transports you out of your life and into theirs, your heart actually pangs for them. I am so happy to have completed this book and highly recomend it to everyone!
 
{SOMETHING BLUE by Emily Griffin}

An ALL TIME favorite book of mine! I read "Something Borrowed" and "Something Blue" in college {or was it high school?} and absolutely died for the stories. Emily Griffin is that girly-girl, books-made-for-the-beach and written-to-one-day-be-turned-into-a-chick-flick kind of author. And when the preview for "Something Borrowed" caught my eye, I craaaaved the books. Looked high and low for my copies, but no where to be found. Hopefully they are in the hands of one of my dear friends and they are enjoying them as much as I have. But back to me :) my very next Target trip was built around my need for the books and I didn't think twice about spending money on 2 things that I have already owned once before. I sped through "Something Borrowed" even spending 3 consecutive evenings walking on the treadmill and reading for 60 minutes at time. Skill, I know. The characters in these books are people that you feel like you are friends with, maybe you are, maybe you are one of the characters, or a bit of both. It is easy to see yourself and your friends in these books, easy to drop yourself into the stories and pretend it were you. I love books like that.  Both of the books are fantastic reads, they are quick to read and a great little escape. I closed "Something Blue" after finishing it and announced to my family and Josh that "I WANT TWINS!!!" "And to live in Europe!!!" No one else joined those hopes & dreams with me....

{THE PIONEER WOMAN by Ree Drummond}

OOOOh my law! {The Help has caused "law" to stick with me}. Boy oh boy was I excited when I spotted this little gem in the Seaside book store! The Pioneer Woman is an ALL TIME favorite blogger of mine, nothing brings me more joy at 12:15 pm every day when I receive my "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" email in my gmail inbox. Each day she delivers a recipe for some sort of wonderfulness and the absolute best instructions ever on how to make it myself! I read her recipes like I read a book. For the instruction, information, inspiration and her hilarious writing and tidbits of stories of her life. Back to the book- it is truly a loooove story. Mushy gushy young love. The true-life story of her and her hubby and their first few years of their life. The way she writes is just like her blog- just like you are there, or she is sitting next to you talking to you like an old girlfriend of hers. I can't wait to pass this book around to my girlfriends, I know they will love it too. She writes so honestly about her thoughts and any girl can appreciate that. Bonus, it has recipes in the back of it! Oh and when I finished the book, I totally closed it and announced to my family and Josh "I WANT A BABY!!!" Still...no one else joined in. Just me and my hopes & dreams for now :) 

 happy reading :) amc

big news in amanda macy history

I have big news! Last night I tried a....

 SANDWICH!!!

& it was sooo yummy! but it was hardly a typical sandwhich. it was brie and bacon {2 of my TOP loves in this world} on cranberry walnut bread, panini style. all warm and crunchy and buttery and yummy. 

what makes this "day in amanda history" even more historical is by ordering a sandwhich it means i passed this up:

a beach hot dog food truck!!!! what?! so not an amanda thing to do!

but the powers of love swayed me into sandwich world...

 

Seaside has a line of about 6 or 7 food trucks. They are all those shiny silver bullet looking ones and they smell fannnnntastic. this is the one that the historic sandwich came from:

check out that menu! delicious combinations smothered between two slices of bread. who wouldve known?! 

 

so we took our food truck sandwich masterpieces to the amphitheater and ate while watching a live band. music was good- i didnt know any of the songs, which made it hard for me to sing along to...booo, but josh did. hippie boyfriend. 

 

here are the sandwiches:

Tiller and dad both got this one- its the man's sandwich. meatloaf melt with ham and lots of swiss cheese.

Mom was realllly excited about her sandwich and plans to replicate it when she gets home.

 

 mine! so yummy! like my favorite appetizer with a bacon bonus smooshed between sweet carbs covered in butter. i'm fat & happy. :) haha

 

we spent the rest of the night jamming to hippie music, watching Hopes & Dreams families and playing card games. 

:) amc

 

"so expected" family beach pics

It's the type of pictures that you can only expect to see from family-fun trips to the beach. and who would i be, but the first born dork to a nuclear family-fun group of dorks, if i didnt post them?!


we will start with some of the Tillers and I {i thought youd enjoy some candids in there too}

now some parent pics:

 this is my "helen knows the owner" face from the movie Bridesmaids

boyfriend & me pics!:

 

i love my life! this is what hopes & dreams are made of :) -amc