How to Tuesday: Meet a blogger you adore!

Today's how-to Tuesday (see Stie's blog for more good advice) will teach you how to go about meeting a blogger you've admired from afar...anyone can do it, really.

Step 1.

Leave your house and go somewhere away from where you actually live.  (I went to the eastern side of my state this weekend for a dear friend's surprise birthday party.)

Step 2.

Think about who you know in the blogosphere who might live near where you're traveling.  (I thought of Jessica, a blogger whom I adore....you know her right?  She's that beautiful girl with the darling and hilarious kids and the super sweet and very tidy husband.  Of course you know who I'm talking about.)

Step 3.

Send said blogger an email asking if she'd happen to be around during the narrow little window of time when you'll be in her town.  (Seriously, I gave her like a 24 hour period of availability.)

Step 4.

Cheer loudly when you read the email she writes back saying she'd love to meet and would I like to come have lunch at her house with the aforementioned kids and husband. (Seriously, have you SEEN the barf training video?  How could you not want to meet the kids and husband after that little cinematic treat?!?)

Step 5.

Leave your house, drive east for a few hours, check into a so-so hotel, go to a fun party, return to the hotel, sleep, wake up, have a fun breakfast and more visiting time with the birthday girl you just celebrated the night before, then drive 30 more minutes to the home of the beloved blogger.

Step 6.

Panic a little when you get about a block away from the blogger's house.  Say to yourself "why did I think she'd ever want to meet me? Is it too late to back out?  I'm a total dork.  What if she hates me and we have nothing to talk about?"

Step 7.

Tell yourself to snap out of it, park the car, knock on the door, loving and smiling at the sound of the five adorable children running around inside.

Step 8.

Hug the blogger.  Go inside.  Start talking and then try not to act so surprised when she mentions things about you that she remembers from reading your blog.  (Seriously.  Actual people read my blog!)

Step 9.

Eat a delicious meal (still waiting for that recipe, missy) enjoy the darling family, talk like you've been friends forever.  Try not to wish out loud that we could be in the same ward.

Step 10.

Take pictures.  Hug.  Say goodbye.

It's seems totally easy now that I've laid out the steps for you, right? 

Dear Jessica, Ryan, Emma, Gabe, Jane, Seth and Faith -- I loved meeting you this weekend.  Thank you for making me feel so welcome in your home.  Can't wait to see you again sometime!

How to Tuesday: you too can have fabulous eyelashes!

Or an alternate title: how to be vain like me!

I've been racking my brain for weeks now, trying to think of something I could do to join in the how-to Tuesday fun with that darling and fabulous Stie.

It finally hit me - I'll tell everyone how I was able to get fabulous eyelashes in just a few months (oh and for just a little bit of money.)

Okay, last Thanksgiving, I asked my niece if she was wearing fake eyelashes because she had the most amazingly long and beautiful lashes.  She said she wasn't but that she had been using Latisse for the past few months.  I decided to give it a try and started up myself the first week of December.

Here's a terrible and slightly scary self-pic of my eyes just so you can get an idea of how incredibly this stuff works.

I know, right?

My lashes before Latisse were normal - short, straight, etc.  My lashes now are still fairly straight but they are longer and thicker too. I do a quick squeeze of an eyelash curler on the tips, apply a little mascara and they look perfect.

It's kind of amazing.  Okay, let's get into the how-to...

Latisse is a prescription medicine.  When you bring the box home and open it up, you'll find a teensy tiny little bottle (appearing much larger here) and a supply of little brushes for you to use to apply the stuff to your eyelids.

Friends, my advice to you is do NOT use the included brushes.  Seriously, do not.  These are cheap brushes that soak up the liquid before you can really get it on your eyelids.  Because this stuff is like liquid gold, you want it to last a long time and not just be soaked up in a throw-away brush.

Instead, buy this $11 brush from your nearest Sephora store.

It's the professional pointed liner/eyeliner brush #17.  After applying, rinse the brush out and set it aside to dry until the next day and that's it.

So every night, wash your face, remove your makeup, apply eye cream, whatever you have to do.  Once you're ready for bed and done doing stuff to your eyes, grab your tiny brush and drop a tiny drop of Latisse on it.  If it starts to drip off the brush because it's such a tiny little thing and doesn't soak up a lot of liquid (and you don't want to lose even a drop of this stuff) then you just let the excess drop back onto the Latisse bottle top.  This way you can use every last drop without it dropping onto your sink or whatever.

Use your tiny little brush to paint the liquid on your upper eyelid, as close to the lash line as possible (use one drop on the brush for each eye.)  I used my cute little Sephora brush and my first Latisse bottle lasted more than four months. 

So I know you're dying to know how much this stuff really costs, right?  Well, one bottle is roughly $100, depending on your pharmacy.  If you use the tiny Sephora brush, you'll feel better about spending all of that money on something so trivial as your eyelashes.  I mean, it works for me, anyway.

I saw results after about six weeks of treatment and you achieve your full lash potential after sixteen weeks of daily application.  I'm now on maintenance and apply Latisse three times a week.

Side effects?  I haven't noticed any.  The two I heard about the most are darker pigment on your eyelids (which I already had) and darker irises (hello, I have dark brown eyes anyway.)  I had one eyelash grow in white, which was a little weird but other than that, nothing but long and lush lashes that make me feel pretty.

And who doesn't want to feel pretty???