Married | Mother | Millennial
There’s nothing like a cup of hot chocolate on a cool fall evening or cold winter night. However, if you haven’t tasted delicious hot chocolate until you have tried Jordyn’s Homemade Hot Chocolate recipe. This recipe is creamy, rich, and made with love. If you didn’t catch her “how to” YouTube video or IGTV video yesterday, click on either video to watch, like and/or comment!Read More
October means it’s the time for creative and fun Halloween snacks. If you follow me on Instagram or Jordyn’s YouTube channel then you caught Jordyn’s newest episode of “Cooking with Jordyn“. On this recent episode she showed you how to make these fun Halloween themed kids ghost strawberries!Read More
Happy Soulful Sunday folks! This summer Maxwell released his much anticipated blackSUMMERS’night album. Y’all know I absolute LOVE me some, Maxwell, right? This man has women ranging from ages 20-65 fangirl-ing over his music and smooth demeanor.Read More
Happy Music Monday! This is one of my all time favorite instrumentals. I mean, how can you ever go wrong with the collaboration genius of, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane? There is something about the arrangement of this song that screams “cozy fall weather”in my mind. It’s probably becauseRead More
Today, Billie Holiday a.k.a. Lady Day, would have been 101 years old. I have always liked Jazz music, but my love for Jazz music really bloomed about 5 years ago. Naturally, Billie became one of my favorite jazz singers, ever. There is something about her music where you can feel the passion and/or pain in her voice, but she makes it sound like the most beautiful sultry voiced passion and/or pain you have ever heard. I am only 27 years young so Lady Day was well before “my time” as the older folks like to say lol, but quality music knows no age. I wish I could say I got to see a legendary musician such as Billie perform live, but I thankfully have her collection of beautiful music to listen to until the end of time. I will share my favorite Billie Holiday song with you called, Good Morning Heartache, below. I’m sure I’ve probably shared this song before at some point in time of my blogging history, but you can never have too much Billie in your life, especially this song. 😉
Happy birthday, Lady Day! I hope you’re resting easy.
Brie <3
[04.07.16]
I recently discovered the makeup company, Colour Pop, by doing a generic matte lipstick search on Google. The search led me to a few different videos, and I decided to watch Laura Lee’s NEW ColourPop Ultra Matte Liquid Lipsticks FULL review + LIP SWATCHES. This gem of a video is how I discovered my now favorite line of matte lip colors. Why are they my favorite? They’re long lasting, there are SO many color options, and they’re CHEAP. In case you didn’t quite understand how important that last part is I’ll repeat it again: they’re CHEAP. Like, $6 each type cheap. I bought a beautiful matte lipstick pencil at Sephora last year while visiting “home” a.k.a. the surrounding Chicago suburbs and I paid $26 + tax for it -_-. This is not one of the most financially smart decisions I’ve made in my life and I’m okay to admit this now. In case you’re wondering…there is no lip color that is ever worth $30 dollars. I went temporarily insane and cheap frugal Brie is back to her senses.
Anyway the entire purpose of this post is to share what the lip colors I bought look like on my skin tone. It can be hard to judge lip colors when there is only one model to show you what it looks like and…well…she’s not Black lol. I’ve had a few people ask me what I think about the colors I picked and I personally love them. I had been searching for more earth tone/nude colors for my lips and I bought two of them through Colour Pop on my first order. Oh, and if you sign up with them you get a promo code for $5 off your first order so I pretty much bought three lipstcisk for the price of two. Say whaaaaat?!
Here are some not very well lit (my bad) pictures of the three colors I purchased. FYI- this was by no means done in a timely manner so if the lipstick has been applied unevenly pretend you don’t notice and just stare at the beautiful lip colors. Please and thank you in advance 😉
Limbo:
This is my favorite color hands down. I looove the dark brown color against my skin tone because it’s so bold. Even though my skin tone is a darker brown it still stands out on it’s own. I guess you can say I’m a pretty big fan :-).
Lax:
This is my second favorite color of the bunch. It’s the ideal fall color, but I wear dark colors like fall is year round so it won’t stop me from wearing this in the summer too LOL.
Chilly Chill:
This one is the perfect “nude” color I was searching for. It stands out just enough that you can tell I’m wearing lipstick, but blends enough that it’s not the first thing you notice when you see me. Operation nude lippie is complete!
What are some of your favorite makeup companies and matte lip colors? I’m willing to give them a try as long as they aren’t too rich for my blood ;-). Have a great evening!
Brie <3
[01.28.16]
Grow up in the surrounding Chicagoland suburbs, one thing I didn’t realize until I left, is how many activities and attractions I had around me to keep me busy all year-long. Once summertime rolls around you can add the plentiful music festivals and other outdoor activities to the mix. However, my husband and I are currently based in Montana, and although Montana in general has really exciting and fun cities/towns, we unfortunately don’t live in one of those fun towns. I know, it sucks, but what living in this town has taught me is how to be creative and think outside of the box.
My husband and I have only been married for two years, and we hadn’t been on a date that wasn’t dinner and a movie, for quite some time. I don’t know about you, but as much as I love a good meal and movie, I want to do something else for once, or twice, all the time. I believe repetition is good to a certain extent, I wouldn’t categorize date night with the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with in the “good” section of repetition though.
When you don’t have a variety of established places to go for date night, you have to become creative and bring your own versions of the perfect date nights to life. These five creative date night ideas, are some popular date night ideas I recreated so couples in any location, are able to participate, and shake things up a bit. After all, who doesn’t love out of the box ideas that can be done in your own home or surrounding area? Exactly!
I know, I know, this isn’t a new date night idea by any means. However, why not take cooking together to the next level and create a couples cooking show? How can you recreate a cooking show? Get out the webcam and/or what ever device you use for making videos, and create a “fake” couples cooking show while making dinner. Pretend you have a loyal audience who enjoy watching you two bicker back and forth about how to cut certain vegetables, and/or share a few cute memories about prior dates you two have been on. If you’re a shy person, it can be a video you two save to watch on a day when you need a good laugh. If you aren’t so shy and/or willing to put yourself out there, share the video with your social network family. Let everyone get a good laugh as well as a few “awww’s” in there while you two enjoy watching the reactions and replays of the night.
*If you would like to take it a step further: name your “cooking show episode” and make it bi-weekly or monthly entertainment for yourselves and loved ones.*
I’m sure you’re thinking the usual buy something sexy and wear it for your significant other, but…that’s not quite the purpose of this date night idea. Most places, even smaller towns, have some type of store “adult store” nearby. (For example: Adam & Eve, Spencers, etc.) You will take a trip to your local adult store and each buy something for the other person. You will have the item gift wrapped at the store and present it to your significant other. You can both go into the store at the same time and buy your items at different registers, or one person can sit in the car while the other shops. Either way the anticipation itself is enough to keep you anxious and smiling from ear to ear thinking about being able to see the gifts. And clearly this usual leads to a happy ending for both of you…who wouldn’t enjoy this date night?!
*If you don’t have access to these stores where you live, you can order the items online earlier in the week and present them on the evening of your date night.*
How does one make game night romantic? By lighting a few candles and watching the sunset while you play, that’s how. This one is pretty simple, but makes such a huge difference. Instead of playing games inside in the house, why not take your UNO or LIFE games outdoors? If there is a favorite park or location in your town, take a blanket, some candles, some wine (drink responsibly) and set up a romantic game night. Make sure you get there in enough time to have everything set up so you can enjoy the beautiful sunset as you play. This even works if you have a backyard and want to do your romantic game night without having to leave the house. Either way, it’s hard to beat nature’s beauty and fun with your significant other.
*For those who live in climates where it is cold most of the year (like where we live) you can set this up to do in the car. Find a nice place to park the car and where you can see the sunset. If you have an SUV set up your romance in the trunk area (fake candles of course). If you have a car lean the seats all the way back so you two can face each other in your seats to play your game(s). I would suggest only card games if you don’t have a larger area for a board game.*
Is there a movies genre or series you both enjoy watching? For my husband and I, we LOVE the Harry Potter series. (Who doesn’t?) For our first wedding anniversary we actually watching movies one through six before we decided to give our eyes a break and go to bed LOL. It super simple and really takes no effort, but it’s one people tend to forget about. If you want to make it a little more fun, go to your nearest store, buy your favorite movie theater candy, some microwaveable popcorn, and drinks. Remember you’re going to be home so you can even buy alcoholic drinks to watch with your movie ;-). If you have tons of blankets and comforters, set up a comfy theater area on the living room floor while you watch. Movie the couch(es) if you have to make more room. Just make sure you watch and enjoy!
*If you start to run out of movie ideas to watch, you can even pick a new show to binge watch on Netflix or Hulu. Also, during the holidays try to do themed movies for the particular holiday being celebrated to get you in the spirit.*
One of my bucket list items is to learn how to ball room dance. I particularly would love to learn how to samba and tango. They are such intimate and sexy dance styles. My ultimate bucket list dance item is to samba on a beach in South America to a live band. Ahhh yes. Okay, back to reality, where we live we don’t have options for these dance classes, but thankfully it’s 2015 and we live in the age of technology. You and your significant other pick one dance style (or you can each pick one) and lookup the dance on YouTube. Pick your favorite instructional video and get to learning! Not only do you get to learn something new with your significant other, you’re exercising and having fun doing it.
*Once you’ve gotten a little handle of the dances moves, start learning about the best music to dance to and discover new artists and music together.*
If any of you try out these date night ideas, leave a comment or send me an email about what you loved and didn’t love. I hope you couples enjoy these ideas, and always remember, date night is supposed to be fun!
Fun fact: all pictures used for this post are personal pictures I have taken, except for the “YouTube Dance Lessons photo, which happens to be my husband and I, on our wedding day. 🙂
Brie <3
[08.09.15]
Tis’ the season to be merry and listen to even more merry music! Here are a few of my favorite Christmas songs, I must listen to, this time of year. They are in no particular order, but these are my favorite versions of each song by various artists. What are some of your favorite songs to get you in the Christmas mood?