2015 VMAs

Posted in Life Rantings by

miley-cyrus-vma-2015-promo-riding-catWell, it took me almost 48 hours to digest the 2015 Video Music Awards on MTV, but I finally did and that’s all that matters. Every year lately seems to be more shocking than the previous years and with that comes a lot of haters. Before I wrap up my favorite parts of the VMAs, I just want to give my own public service announcement. As I scrolled through my social media during the VMAs I saw a lot of disgust, mainly from older generations. I find this completely unnecessary. MTV has never promoted this award show as a family show and it will never be a family show. I don’t think I watched it for the first time until I was 17, to be honest. Parents, look at the host. Miley Cyrus is crazy! Don’t get me wrong, I love her! But why would you think your ten year old should be able to watch anything hosted by her? Stick to the teen choice awards, there is nothing wrong with that.

thMy favorite part of the VMAs? Kanye West’s speech! If that wasn’t your favorite part, you really need to grow a funny bone because it was hilarious! In 15 minutes, he talked about his family, orange juice at the super market, his leather shirt at baseball games, being a winner, being a loser, being really stoned at the moment, and he said he was going to run for president in 2020… Yet he said nothing and that was the best part. I am a firm believer that Kanye always comes with good intentions and I think this was still one of those moments. The problem with the speech; he inspired himself SO much, that now he is running for president in 2020.

taylor-swift-bad-blood-6I could make this blog my longest one yet, so to spare you wasting 13 years of your life, I’m only going to touch on one more subject. Taylor Swift. If you know me, you know I love her and her music. Her album 1989 got me through my breakup and made me content with being the awesome single gal I am. Anyway, recently Miley Cyrus was interviewed and was talking some smack about my girl T-Swift. To sum it all up, Miley said that she didn’t understand why people consider her a bad influence  just because she is always naked and openly on drugs. She tried to say that Taylor is really the bad influence because of her latest music video, Bad Blood, shows girls with weapons and clearly promotes violence. Wrong, Miley. It supports girl power. I love you both, but I’m on Taylor’s side for this one. As Taylor accepted the music video of the year award she said, “There’s been a lot of discussion about this video and what it means, but I’m just happy that in 2015, we live in a world where boys can play princesses and girls can play soldiers,”  Pure poetry, Taylor!

POTS: It’s A Chronic Mouthful

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POTS. No, not marijuana or pots and pans that you cook with. I’m talking about Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. My life was completely changed when I was diagnosed with the chronic illness, POTS, in June of 2008. I never wanted to blog about my illnesses (yes, there are more), but I feel like I have to because it’s such a big part of my life and I know others are struggling with this debilitating illness.

What is POTS? I’m obviously not a doctor, but there have been many times where I felt like I knew a lot more then them. So, I’m going to try and explain this in the simplest way. It’s a form of dysautonomia. I lost you already, didn’t I?

“Dysautonomia is an umbrella term for various conditions in which the autonomic nervous system (ANS) malfunctions. Dysautonomia is a type of neuropathy affecting the nerves that carry information from the brain and spinal cord to the heart, bladder, intestines, sweat glands, pupils, and blood vessels.” Yes, I did just copy and paste that from wikipedia. We’ve all done it.

Okay, here we go again- POTS is a form of dysautonomia that mainly affects the patient when they’re in the upright position or when he or she changes positions. Personally, my blood pressure is typically low (90/40) and drops even more when I stand up. While my blood pressure is going down, my heart rate is typically jumping up to almost 200 beats per minute. (Fun Fact: I used to have a heart monitor that my doctors thought wasn’t working correctly because it would read my heart rate at almost 250 beats per minute. It wasn’t broken, I was.) So, heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes down and so does Emily. Yup, that’s right I drop unconscious. Lately, knock on wood, it hasn’t been happening that often, but back in high school it was a daily struggle. Think of all the things your body does subconsciously; heart rate, blood pressure, nervous system, digestive system, ect… With POTS, they basically throw tantrums and stop working. Not all at once and sometimes they’re all working fine, but when one goes haywire I can become debilitated.

Let’s start with my head, besides the fainting. How often does someone ask you if you are on drugs? Happens to me a lot. My eyes get totally glassy and I get this “duh” look to my face because I’m so out of it. I’ll get so disoriented that I’ll move my head and it will take my eyes a second to catch up. On a really bad day, me carrying a conversation is such a task. I have literally made up words and have not made any sense to my friends and family before. For example, if this blog post isn’t flowing as well as usually and not making sense, blame it on the POTS, for real.

My eyeballs! I’ve always have had okay vision. I’ve needed glasses for close work, but I can function without them. With POTS, one day my vision can be perfect and the next day I have my glasses glued to my head. Sometimes I can’t even see. Pretty cool, huh? Just kidding, it’s pretty terrifying, especially if I’m somewhere new. My family can tell when this happens because I put my hands on the walls and feel my way to the nearest chair. I’m a pretty good navigator, they call me Sacagawea. Haha, not really. My friends and family do tell me I have zombie eyes sometimes, though; One pupil will be really big and the other will be super small. Hence, zombie eyes.

Okay, down to my heart, it’s tachy. Tachycardia that is. I thank God everyday that the mechanisms of my heart are all okay, but it’s pretty scary and at times painful to all of a sudden have your heart rate shoot up.

Alright, to be completely honest, my eyes are doing weird things right now, so I’m going to wrap this part up and finish in a day or two.

POTS is considered an invisible illness. Most of the time I just look super tired and out of it. With that, be kind to all and never judge because someone may be fighting a battle you know nothing about. Until next time! xoxo

Rants Of Retail Part One: Let’s Get Some Shoes

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I love shoes. I love shoes way too much and I’m not that picky. I love flats, boots, heels, wedges, sandals, sneakers… you get it, I really love shoes. I probably spend no more than 15 minutes deciding whether to buy a pair or not. I rarely even try them on. When I see a pair I love I get a feeling inside that most girls my age get when they see their boyfriend or husband. (But who’s really winning here, shoe’s don’t talk back and are always there for you) Anyway, what I’m try to get at is, shoe shopping should be fun and easy, but lately I feel like I’m the only one who sees it that way.

Stores, 100% of the time, have a shoe on display with the other sizes either in the back or somewhere near by. Where I work we stack a size run in order and have a random size on top, because well, that’s what works for us. I guess It’s a super hard concept to understand tho because daily I will get a customer who picks up the one shoe on top and says “This is not my size, you don’t have my size”. The stack of boxes under that shoe is just there for fun, you’re right.

I like to compare shoes to jeans, different brands are going to fit differently. You may be a size 7 in one brand and a 6 in another. No big deal, but apparently when I suggest to go up or down a size I also have snakes crawling out of my eyes, because that is the only explanation for the dirty looks and reactions I get.

Three. Hours. Later. Not one or two, three. That is the longest amount of time I have spent with a customer while they were deciding on one pair of shoes. I used to think the one hour customer was crazy, but that’s a daily thing lately. “That spot under my arch up by my little toe feels odd,” a comment like that doesn’t even surprise me anymore. So, why don’t you walk forward like a typical customer… No, no, no… we must also walk backwards, side to side, shuffle a bit, do the hokey pokey and turn it all around. Three. Long. Islands. That’s what I need.

Is there a word that just makes you cringe? One of my friends hates the word “moist”, so I say it a lot. Ha ha. The word that gives me the heebee-geebees lately is “bunion”. You would have a problem with it too if you heard it at least 20 times a day.

“Does this shoe come in sizes?” I’m not kidding, I’ve gotten that question more than once.

This last one is hard for me to write, because I still don’t believe it actually happened. But, it has… not once… but twice. “I like to buy my shoes a size bigger than needed because I forget to clip my toe nails.” I apologize to anyone who was eating while reading that or planning on eating anytime in the future.

967deb8fd7145328b2456209065c514cI was blessed with an easy going personality, way too much patience, and a love for cheap wine. Those three things keep me sane, loving my job, and loving what I do.

Rants of Retail- Introduction

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As many of you are aware I am one of the very few in the world who genuinely love working in retail. I enjoy it so much that I am making a career out of it, but that’s a blog post for another day. For the past three summers I have been fortunate enough to manage the best women’s boutique around, GG My Love, in Chautauqua Institution. I love everything about my job; my boss, co-workers, the location, opportunities, and even the customers.

Whenever someone walks into the store I treat him or her as if I’m shopping with my best friend, minus the part about talking about guys and deciding what bar to go to later. Anyway, I don’t do it just to make a sale. I do what I do because I love making other women feel empowered and beautiful, even getting some ladies to step out of their comfort zones. My typical customer- “lake mom”, mid forties, married, complains about shopping, but has an endless cash flow (so I vicariously live through her husbands charge cards and do my thing). Complain about shopping? Apparently it’s a thing. I see more and more women each year who hate shopping and it usually revolves around one of two things. One, they know nothing about fashion and just wear designer athleisure wear. Or two, they are way too critical of their bodies. That’s where I come in. Just like people, clothing comes in all different shapes and sizes and I will never let a customer leave feeling down about their body just because they don’t look how society tells them they should.

Okay, I’m going off topic, so back to this introduction. It takes a special person to love working with people in general, especially in Chautauqua. What is Chautauqua you ask? Well, according to the all knowing Wikipedia.com…

“The Chautauqua Institution is a non-profit adult education center and summer resort located on 750 acres (3 km²) in Chautauqua, New York, 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Jamestown in the western part of New York State. The Chautauqua Institution Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was further designated a National Historic Landmark.”

According to the user submitted, but highly accurate Urbandictionary.com, Chautauqua is…

“An over hyped relic of the past that seems to live on its own self importance. Mainly due to the fact that the rich and upper-middle-class overextended (wanna be rich) have made massive real-estate investments. Located in Chautauqua, NY… Chautauqua is a place where rich to upper middle class suburbanites from Ohio, NY, Pennsylvania, … congregate during the Summer to put on a show that they are “cultured” and attempt to be somehow relevant. All the while their alcoholic neglected children drink their asses off and cavort with each other all Summer (read: massive party). The whole time saying that they will never be like their parents, and then returning to Chautauqua in their mid-life to repeat the same process.”

So there’s that.

I have had the opportunity to meet some of the most amazing people in the world, and the worst! I have been invited to vineyards in Napa Valley, lunches with Dean’s of universities, get to hear love stories from widowed ninety year old women, and have to decline to get set up with customer’s sons almost daily. With the same smile on my face, I get called unintelligent, have merchandise thrown at me, get ignored, I hear the word ‘bunion’ way too many times in one day, and people are just down right mean to me. But, in the words of a powerful public figure,

taylor-swift-shake-it-off“And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off”

All of my jaw dropping experiences that no one believes me about are going to now be blogged about and called, “Rants of Retail”.

Nailed it, begins!

Posted in Fashion, makeup, Nail Art, Tutorials, Uncategorized by

For over the past five years I have been quite the nail polish, owning well over 300 colors, shimmers, and shines. Like all things in my life, I tend to go above and beyond; so I take a picture and document it. I’m adding a page to upload all my nail art designs from the past, present, and future! Feel free to repost my pictures or use them for your own inspiration, but please tag me because I would love to see your creations!

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Focus on the Good

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To be honest, I wasn’t too fond of 2015 at first. Within the first week I thought the good life I have had was falling apart. I didn’t realize at the time what a blessing it all truly was.

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What changed? My attitude. My best friend gave me some of the best advice I have ever been given; “Be selfish for once. Put yourself first for once. Just focus on you and don’t care about other people so much.” It took some time, but once I did, everything began falling in place. “A bad attitude can literally block love, blessings, and destiny from finding you. Don’t be the reason you don’t succeed.” Just a quote I found on Pinterest, but I love it! I have never been so focused on my present and future. I have been blessed with knowing what I wanted to do for my career since I was ten, and because of that it has turned into my passion.

There are reasons things “go wrong” in life, but really it all will work out in the end. And if things aren’t right, it’s not the end. 🙂

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My Favorite Ab Workouts

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I have found these ab workouts to be the most effective for me! Now, this doesn’t mean someone is going to do this a few times and have abs of steel. Just some ideas to incorporate into your workouts and healthy life style 🙂

25 x Ball Toss

50 x Toe Touches

25 x Push Throughs

25 x Heels to the Heavens

Repeat this set three time! Four times if you’re crazy like me!

BUT REMEMBER! Abs are really made in the kitchen, and only sculpted in the gym! Eating clean and doing cardio will help you see faster results!

The Booty

Posted in Fitness, Tutorials, Uncategorized by

From Kim Kardashian to J-Lo and more, 2015 is without a doubt the year of the booty. So what if you have been cursed with a fanny as flat as a pancake? Ya squat! Seriously! My behind was always a boney joke for all who knew me, but in less than a few months of hitting the gym I had a backside to be proud of! And you can too!

My favorite booty lifting/forming/toning workouts include weighted donkey bridges, double pulse stationary lunges, weighted glute bridges, and of course… SQUATS! I work my glutes probably 3 times a week and do 4 sets of 15-20 depending on the workout. My last trick is fast walking on a steep incline for my cardio!
I also HIGHLY recommend participating in one of Katy Hearns fitness challenges!

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November 2014- February 2015- March 2015