For several years now, I've had a sidekick. Loa the cat follows me everywhere I go in our house, faithfully trailing along in adoration and dependence.br / br / When Ian was young infant, I imagined when we would be the same way -- he trailing by my side, helping me as I went throughout the day.br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/4847394822_534489261a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/4847394822_534489261a.jpg" width="212" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"iAble to conquer pull toys with his bare teeth!/i/td/tr /tbody/tablebr / I should have known from his first few kicks in the womb -- my oldest son is not a sidekick, he is a superhero.br / div style="text-align: left;"br / /divbr / He knows where he wants to go and want he wants to do. He is undaunted by any challenge, be it ferocious cat or heavy ottoman. He is a champion of doing what's right, whether putting away toys or helping lock puzzle pieces in place. And, like all superheroes (and toddlers), he has those classic, angst-filled mood swings.br / br / I find myself providing support, scheduling, supplies, and advice. I am relegated to the roll of a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_pennyworth"Alfred Pennyworth/a. And you know? It fits me quite well. Sure, I still have my own interests, my own special skills. But I love equipping my son to be the person he is meant to be.br / br / I'm not really fond of flying anyway. br / br / But Ian? He's a different story.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-7413466197721454566?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

Y'all have heard me grouse about the whole bedrest situation for a couple of weeks now. Here's a beautiful post in which my husband wrote his perspective:br / br / a href="http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/2010/09/wherein-i-explain-my-actions/"Wherein I Explain My Actions/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-2068830929691217372?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

Sometimes, when writing these posts, I feel obligated to balance my complaining with gratitude. And while I think gratitude is an essential part of a healthy life, I want to give myself the freedom to write about being hurt or sad without drudging up some gratitude to go along with it. Just know that you get to see some of the worst of my days here, where I need to share, while the gratitude often comes in quite moments away from the computer.br / br / Today I have been very sad about missing the next few months of Ian's life. I mean, sure, I'm here, and he wanders in and out of my room all day. But I don't get to be Ian's mommy the way I want to be his mommy. When I see him running down the hall or hear him trying out new words, I'm both delighted and sad. I'm so excited to see him grow, but I'm depressed that I only get a bedside view.br / br / I know that I'll love the next phase of Ian's life just as much as this one, but part of me is very jealous for ithis/i phase, the right now. To quote my melodramatic mind, "he'll never be this age again."br / br / I'm also mourning the loss of the last few months of Ian as an only child. I was looking forward to keeping him lots of extra special time this fall before his little brother arrives, and now he'll have to share me almost as soon as I get out of bed. (Don't worry, buddy, we'll do a Mommy/Ian Predators game this spring.)br / br / Anyway, that's where I am today. Thanks for listening.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-8638316003921188853?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

The weather is beautiful today, and I am delighted and wistful.br / br / I happened to see a headline in a newsletter today about the best snacks to take to the playground with a toddler. That renewed my mourning about this fall, about all the plans I had for Ian.br / br / I am grateful for the weather, though, and grateful that we can open our windows so I can experience a bit of this pre-fall day. I'm grateful that Ian has a wonderful daddy who loves to play with him and knows how to elicit streams of giggles.br / br / We'll get through this, one day at a time.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-2053423781942038733?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

Last night we slept with the windows open. Laying in bed, listening to the fan in the window, I could almost imagine I was 10 and sleeping in the back bedroom of my grandparents' house. Add the chirping and croaking of insects and frogs, and lowing from nearby cattle. Instead of my new mattress and bamboo sheets, I could feel the soft, springy mattress and ancient quilts that made the guest bed at the old house in Alabama.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-6452004948255429966?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

I found out yesterday that a sweet friend also is experiencing some difficulties with her pregnancy.br / br / What on earth.br / br / So many of my friends have had difficult pregnancies or difficulty conceiving. Honestly, I'm reminded of one of my favorite sci-fi episodes when I think about our collective experiences. (Not telling which show or which episode, because I don't want to spoil a terrific plotline.)br / br / I don't know why this happens -- if it is more frequent right now or if we all have risk factors in common. My guess is that as medical technology improves and infant and maternal mortality rates decrease, pregnancies that used to end in tragedy now are just extremely difficult. But at least nowadays they have a much happier ending (see a href="http://ittybittyhill.blogspot.com/"Becca the wonder girl/a).br / br / If you are the praying type, maybe say some prayers today for women who have struggled or are currently struggling with these issues. At least in my experience, the prayers of friends and the grace of God are keeping me afloat on this ever-changing river.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-1629733464767433161?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/467458391_be8076926a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" height="277" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/467458391_be8076926a.jpg" width="320" //a/divdiv style="text-align: left;"br / /divSeptember is here, and I feel the confinement of bed rest more than ever. As I hear about friends hiking at Radnor Lake and going to concerts, I wish I doing the same thing. Seeing that the Preds have started their informal practice sessions has me itching to feel ice rink air again.br / br / I'm so frustrated that all this is happening during my favorite time of the year.br / br / ia href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnich/467458391/sizes/m/in/photostream/"Photo courtesy of Paul Nicholson/a./idiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-2877114159292877365?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

So.....I'm on bed rest. For five months. The rest of my pregnancy.br / br / I have a pretty active imagination when it comes to health issues, but I never imagined I would be here.br / br / Apparently, my body is trying to push this baby out several months early. My condition is known as cervical incompetence, which according to my friend Nancy, is one of the worst names ever for a medical condition (followed closely by irritable uterus).br / br / So here I am, in bed. All day every day. Whee.br / br / One of the strangest aspects of this situation is that being on bed rest for 5 months is just about the best possible outcome, because that means the baby will be full term. So, erm, I'm hoping to do this for 5 months?br / br / I vacillate between gratitude and frustration right now. br / br / I'm frustrated at the way my relationships with Ian and Paul are changing. I want to hang out and play with them again. I'm frustrated that my plans for fall are gonenbsp; -- the zoo trips, playgroups, hockey games, and concerts I pictured in my mind are all gone. I'm frustrated that I'll spend my favorite month, October, indoors in a bed. I'm frustrated that I can't control my household OR my own body (and I'm a control freak).br / br / At the same time, I have a lot of gratitude. I am so thankful that this baby has decided to stay put for now. I am thankful that I did not find out about this condition the way so many women have, by losing their babies at 20 weeks. I am thankful that I have a team of doctors willing to fight for my baby's life. I'm thankful to have friends and family who have shown an incredible willingness to help.br / br / And.... this is hard. I keep hearing things lately about adversity bringing me closer to God or helping get to know myself or refining my character, but I'm still waiting for that to happen.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-7926238301721078677?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4656286791_dd77feef98_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="212" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4656286791_dd77feef98_z.jpg" width="320" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"iVienna's First br / District/i/td/tr /tbody/tablespan style="font-size: small;"My favorite moment in Vienna came about through happenstance -- a side note as we went about our day. We/spanspan style="font-size: small;" had decided to go to the a href="http://draft.blogger.com/goog_869794174"zoo at Sch/a/spanspan style="font-size: small;"a href="http://www.zoovienna.at/"önbrunn/a for the day, but we wanted to grab brunch before our journey. Amy suggested that we stop for lunch near the Graben. Paul and I, having no idea what that meant, shrugged and gave our assent./spanbr / span style="font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-size: small;"/spanbr / span style="font-size: small;"As we emerged from the U-Bahn station into Vie/spannna's First District, my breath was absolutely stolen from me. The beautiful plaza filled with people and pigeons, surrounded by high end stores and gorgeous, old buildings....and the wonder-filled sight of 12th-century cathedral a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Cathedral,_Vienna"Stephansdom/a. Now THIS was Europe.br / br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4656293013_1bc230b344_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4656293013_1bc230b344_z.jpg" width="320" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"iStephansdom/i/td/tr /tbody/tableWe grabbed a sidewalk table at a href="http://www.aida.at/"Cafe Aida/a amid tourists and gypsies and Wieners (Vienna natives), still in the looming presence of the Stephandsom. Heavenly. (Literally, I suppose.) At the cafe, the three of us ordered enough food for six people. The waitress gave us a funny look as we kept ordering more and more food, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to sample as many Viennese pastries as possible. I ordered a sachertorte based on orders from my friend Emily, who listed eating a sachertorte at a sidewalk cafe in the First District as her top Vienna recommendation.br / br / After brunch we took a close look at Stephansdom. As I approached the cathedral, the bell started tolling the hour, and a flock of pigeons took flight just feet in front of me. Right at that moment, I was Audrey Hepburn in a classic movie. Bliss.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-7180217273676575674?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

-When growing tomatoes, I highly recommend pruning the plants throughout the summer rather than waiting until the end of the summer to do battle with monster tomato plants. Just, ya know, in case you were wondering. br / br / -I'm testing two more products as a a href="http://bzzagent.com/"BzzAgent/a. One is Got2B's Smooth Operator hair smoothing serum. I have grown into quite a fan of this product; it is a great 30-second quick fix to smooth my frizzies. I have run out of the sample product, and I think I might have to buy some more. I'm also trying CoverGirl's LashBlast Mascara, and I have been pleasantly surprised! It doesn't run or smudge or flake off, which is saying something considering I'm an emotional pregnant woman dealing with 90-degree heat. I still prefer my Clinique Lash Power since it comes off with warm water, while the LashBlast needs makeup remover. (Disclosure: I received free products and coupons from CoverGirl and Got2B for reviewing their products. And if you want some coupons, let me know in the comments and I'll try to send them to you.)br / br / -(Warning: kinda sad bullet point) I was reading an a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38129344/ns/health-pregnancy/"article about a woman's childbirth experience/a and came across a quote referring to a group of home birth extremists think that a baby who cannot be born at home should instead die since he or she would not be evolutionarily strong. I may be a little biased, considering my background, but that makes me unspeakably angry.br / br / -And now that I have informed you of that dreadfulness, here is a much happier thing to brighten your day. This video is the best thing on the internet.br / br / object height="385" width="480"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HTzTt1VnHRMamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HTzTt1VnHRMamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-4190783829915577674?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

No, no, the title isn't saying that my dear sister-in-law has gone crazy. A "berzirk" is like a neighborhood or district in Vienna, and that's what the post is about -- Amy's amazing neighborhood, which was a wonderful part of our stay.br / br / After our long plane ride, seeing Amy waiting for us at the airport was a joyous relief. She even brought two adorable stuffed elephants for Ian, which made him feel right at home. Interestingly, I think Ian recognized Amy from talking to her on Skype, as he took to her immediately.br / br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/4613260560_4338af0395_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="150" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/4613260560_4338af0395_b.jpg" width="200" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"The gorgeous floor of Amy's building./tdtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"/tdtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"/tdtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"br / /td/tr /tbody/tableAmy led us home to her apartment, which is absolutely amazing. Recently renovated but in a very old building, her apartment feels hip and full of history. Amy, as usual, has done an amazing job decorating with IKEA and thrift store finds. My favorite part of Amy's apartment might be the windows -- turn the handle one way to open them, and turn it another way to tilt them in. Fabulous!br / br / There are at least two wonderful grocery stores within a few blocks of Amy's apartment. Especially since I had been used to couponing and mega-grocery runs, it was quite an adjustment to pick up our food every day as we needed it. I really enjoyed the freshness of eating that way, though. And since each store was about a 5-minute walk from Amy's place, the trips didn't feel burdensome. For toiletries and baby items, we had to hit a different type of store. I'm not sure what that category of store is called, but the name of the one we went to was Bipa. It essentially was a Walgreens or CVS without the drugs....just makeup, shampoo, diapers, etc. For the record, I had entirely too much fun buying Austrian diapers and baby food. Most of the baby food in the store was organic, which was really nice.br / br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/4643467285_4234f316e4_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="212" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/4643467285_4234f316e4_b.jpg" width="320" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"Ian makes a friend at the Belvedere playground./td/tr /tbody/tableAmy lives in the fourth district (or "bezirk"), which is a gorgeous area. Many international embassies are located in the fourth district, as well as the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belvedere_%28palace%29"Belvedere/a and a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlskirche"Karlskirche/a (oh, just looked it up -- technically Karlskirche is in the first district, and the Belvedere is in the 3rd district, but they're both really close to Amy). So yes, Amy lives within a short walk of a gorgeous 18th-century church and an amazing palace/art museum with botanical gardens. More importantly, Karlsplatz and the Belvedere both have lovely playgrounds which Ian enjoyed immensely.br / br / Amy's neighborhood also had an assortment of bakeries and restaurants from which she procured wiener schnitzel and other yummies for us. One evening we went to this cute, little bier garten which served Italian food. We were on an early schedule due to Ian, so we were the only people in the entire outdoor area. The restaurant had its own playground, including a slide that Ian needed to try several times.br / br / Amy's neighborhood was an amazing place to stay for a week, and the perfect base for our trip. Easy U-bahn access to the other districts, amazing architecture, and a little kitty that sat in the window of a nearby apartment provided the perfect backdrop for our stay.br / br / iFor more pictures of our adventures, check out a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnich/collections/72157623975518602/"Paul's Flickr stream/a./idiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-5660907015097412613?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

Oh, my. I have been so remiss in blogging about our Europe trip. I think I'm having a hard time figuring out where to start in talking about our adventures. So far I'm trying to break it down piece by piece. br / br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnich/4570640829/in/set-72157623851151745/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="212" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4570640829_f9de014333_b.jpg" width="320" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"Yummy plane food (weird statement, eh?)/td/tr /tbody/tableI love British Airways. BA is the airline we flew on our recent trip to Europe, and I was really impressed. Every seat had a personal TV with a wide selection of movies and music. The food was absolutely amazing, with dinner choices including chicken marsala and a vegetarian pasta dish. They served tea in little cups after every meal. The flight attendants all had endearing accents (one called Ian a "huffalump" and asked to hold him). Previously my only overseas flight experience had been in first class, but BA made me feel like I was in first class this time with all the amenities. On the way home, Ian even received a Paddington Bear-style suitcase with crayons, stickers, and coloring pages.br / br / Yes, all of that is well and good, but let's be honest here about the real reason I love British Airways.br / br / The chocolate.br / br / div style="text-align: right;"br / /divtable cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnich/4570148790/in/set-72157623851151745/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="132" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3440/4570148790_69ef8d99b1_b.jpg" width="200" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"So glad we bought an extra seat for Ian.../td/tr /tbody/tableYou see, we signed Ian up for the child-friendly meal options, which included things like fruit, chicken fingers, and mac and cheese. When the crew noticed that Ian is still a baby, they also brought us an organic fruit and yogurt mix. However, since the meals were generally intended for older children, they also included a yummy dessert consisting of various forms of British chocolate. And since Ian is a tad young for candy, Mommy and Daddy got to enjoy it. Oh, yes. Chocolate bars, Cadbury buttons, a treasure trove of awesomeness. br / br / British Airways wasn't perfect. They kept the lights too bright and the temperature too warm on the flight over there, which pretty much ruined Ian's shot at a good night's sleep. And the London-Vienna flights were just bare-boned commuter flights where they served egg sandwiches (um, yay?). The flight attendants on that flight were confused by the fact that we had Ian in his own car seat.br / br / Another downside to British Airways is that most flights go through Heathrow, which was not a pleasant airport. Embarking and disembarking for all our flights involved making several loops around the airport on a bus, and as we went through security we had to open and taste Ian's milk and baby food (nope, not in the lawsuit-happy U.S. any more!). However, the Heathrow experience was somewhat sweetened by the Boots pharmacy, which had a terrific selection of organic baby food and whole milk. br / br / But overall, our BA experience was lovely. As most of you know, flying is, er, not my favorite thing in the world, but British Airways made it fun.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-3996095012854759311?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

Recently I received the opportunity to review two new products from CoverGirl: Smoky ShadowBlast eye makeup and ShineBlast lip gloss. I've been hoping to do a makeup review for a href="http://bzzagent.com/"BzzAgent.com/a, and I was excited to finally have the opportunity.br / br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yw6SRcrXWFk/TBBw1U7nDqI/AAAAAAAAACk/Alwz55jS7fs/s1600/covergirl1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yw6SRcrXWFk/TBBw1U7nDqI/AAAAAAAAACk/Alwz55jS7fs/s320/covergirl1.gif" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"iAttempt #1 with ShadowBlast and ShineBlast./i/td/tr /tbody/tableWhen I first received my BzzKit, I was horrified to find bright pink lip gloss and bright blue eye makeup in my box. Eighties Barbie, eat your heart out! I just knew I was going to be ready for jazzercise at any moment. ShadowBlast and ShineBlast both come in an assortment of lovely colors, I just happened to choose two that were brighter than what I normally wear.br / br / I was happily surprised by ShineBlast lip gloss. At first I was a little startled by the vaguely-noncommittal fruity scent, but gradually I decided it was a pleasant fragrance. The tint of the gloss was not at all Barbie -- it turned out to be just a hint of color and shine, exactly what I look for in gloss. I found ShineBlast to be a bit tacky/sticky for my tastes, though. Overall, I would say it's a good lip gloss but not one of my favorites. Definitely a good item to pick up on sale, though.br / br / table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"tbody trtd style="text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yw6SRcrXWFk/TBBw9yUimuI/AAAAAAAAACs/hfZtCfLVvQo/s1600/bladerunner.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yw6SRcrXWFk/TBBw9yUimuI/AAAAAAAAACs/hfZtCfLVvQo/s320/bladerunner.gif" width="249" //a/td/tr trtd class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"iHmmmmm....Bladerunner eyes?/i/td/tr /tbody/tableShadowBlast eye make-up....now that's a different story. The big selling point of ShadowBlast is that the two tips of the pencil are an easy way to create a smoky, sultry look for your eyes. One side of the pencil is for shading your eyelid, and the other side is for lining the crease and around your upper and lower lashes. Originally I was surprised at the subtlety of this makeup as well. Actually, I was a little disappointed -- I had expected to have stunning, smoky eyes after following the directions, and instead I felt like I looked washed out, maybe a little fatigued. I tried twice more on other days to apply the makeup according to the directions, each time applying more and more color. By the end I felt like the girl from Bladerunner. Looking back at the pictures I took, the original attempt was pretty good. The makeup looked good on me, but I didn't feel good wearing it, and that's kinda the point of makeup for me.br / br / Another quibble I had with the ShadowBlast is that it is not at all long-wearing. After about 4 hours I noticed that every bit of the make-up had gathered in the crease of my lid. Some literature sent along with the BzzKit suggested first using concealer or translucent powder on the lid to keep the makeup in place, but that felt like more trouble than it was worth.br / br / So in summary, ShineBlast lip is pretty cool, and ShadowBlast -- not so much.br / br / I do have some fabulous $2 off coupons to give away if you want to try either product (or any CoverGirl product), so if you're someone I know, hit me up and I'll send you a coupon (sorry, too lazy to send them out to strangers).br / br / iDisclosure: I received two free CoverGirl products, coupons, and MyPoints for participating in this campaign./idiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-8727397201371869870?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

I'm so sad about the Gulf Coast right now.br / br / Throughout much of my childhood my family made yearly trips to beaches along the Alabama and Florida coasts, and it tears at my heart to hear that globs of oil are now washing up on those same beaches. At the time, I took those seaside excursions for granted, but now I am realizing how much they meant to me. I can't imagine the heartache experienced by my friends who grew up along those shores.br / br / I've mostly been avoiding news coverage about the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill"oil spill/a, preferring to remain in a state of denial about the scope of this thing. All those dying animals, the lost jobs, the marred water....not to mention the human lives lost in the initial explosion....it's just too much to take in.br / br / Today I did succumb to looking at the pictures of a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html"oil-covered pelicans/a (warning: not for the tender-hearted). I was grousing to Paul about BP and their evil-ness, and he remarked that he is surprised at all the blame levelled strictly at BP. Why are we boycotting BP stations when this spill could have happened to any of the companies? I mean, yes, BP is handling this terribly as far as I can tell, but need we look at them alone?br / br / Paul's point was that a disaster of this magnitude might cause us to reflect again on our oil dependence and seek ways to free ourselves from it. Instead of boycotting BP stations (and the hard-working, independent owners who run them), why are we not encouraging each other to drive less? Yes, we can send a message to BP, but what about sending a message to the oil industry -- hey, to the whole country -- that it is time to move ahead. It's time to move to a different type of energy.br / br / Now I don't mean to demonize the oil industry here. I have family members who have worked hard for oil companies for decades, and I appreciate the contributions that oil has made to our society and economy. Like it or not, big oil has made the U.S. a prosperous nation. But it's time to move on.br / br / For our part, Paul and I have started discussing whether we want to convert our diesel cars into "greasel" (able to run on peanut/soybean/canola oil). We're also talking about buying an alternatively-powered car like a a href="http://nissanusa.com/leaf"Nissan Leaf/a for our next vehicle (whenever we can save up for one -- um, 10 years?). No, it's not a perfect solution - for one thing, to be oil-independent we would need to make sure the electricty powering the car was generated by wind power or some other clean happiness. But this is a step we can take to start moving in a better direction for the future.br / br / One of my strongest feelings about this disaster is powerlessness. Honestly, that's what most of my anger boils down to. Sure, it seems like BP has been twiddling their thumbs and pointing fingers and in general being useless. I think they should be working day and night to find a solution to this while also cleaning the water and rescuing the critters trapped in this mess. (I'm pretty sure the guys who saved a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13"Apollo 13/a would have solved this by now.) But for all I know, BP could be doing all of those things and just have an ineffective PR department to tell us about them. I don't know.br / br / So for my part, I can pray for the beautiful Gulf Coast, a href="http://www.healthygulf.org/our-work/bp-oil-drilling-disaster-volunteer-opportunities/disaster-response-information"support the groups taking action to help/a, and look for ways to reduce my own dependence on oil. I don't want this to happen again. I sure hope that one day soon I can head to Gulf Shores and take Paul and Ian on one of those dolphin-sighting cruises that I loved so much as a child. But the odds aren't looking good.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1906241313202166330-87226794550334718?l=beyondthefried.blogspot.com' alt='' //div