Motherhood

Thanks given through a Flashback

No, no, and nope. I am not going to be cheesy and start to list all the things that I’m thankful or grateful for because, truth be told, there are too many things to list!

I am not a pessimist, neither am I an optimist. I linger somewhere in the middle because that’s my safe zone. In the past, I’ve had to manage a laundry list of mental health issues and would bounce from one extreme to another. Never feeling mentally strong or stable to understand myself and what I needed verses what I believed I wanted. When I was overly optimistic, I would only focus on the activities that were going “well” and that was it. I would miss the bigger picture or the long term goal because I’d try so hard to stay positive about the present or current situation. Then the opposite happened when my attitude become more pessimistic.

As I was clearing data from my laptop, I stumbled on the picture above. I quickly started to reminisce to that moment in time. I was in the middle of the feeding routine, a mundane task that typically last about hour from start to finish. But a crucial one for my daughters development. This picture was part of a series of shots, each seemingly doing something subtly different; Bella facing out the window or me looking down. As my iPhone was mounted on a tripod in the middle of my kitchen, I set up the self timer to capture us during the routine. Although I didn’t feel very confident wearing such a bold floral quarter sleeve t-shirt, I thought I still looked nice and put together. My hair was tied back into a high ponytail and in my mind, it had bounce, shape and length. Just to see the pictures afterwards and realize the only cute one was sitting still in her high chair wondering what the heck was that black thing doing in the middle of our kitchen.

During my postpartum year, it was unsteady but I kept reminding myself that the moment wouldn’t last. I planned to take it easy on myself for the sake of my mental health, but also wanted to find a way to document what was happening in the moment so I can compare my progress. My biggest fear was to somehow permanently impair my sense of rationality. It was a shakeup year and praying to God for an answer taught me what resiliency really meant.

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Easy Makeup of the Day x A Not So Helpful Guide lol

Honestly, when I feel like crap 💩 I like to do my makeup. Whenever I’m feeling so overwhelmed with different tasks, to do lists, and the on going little details of managing motherhood, I try my best to take a few moments to touch up my a face. Even with just a little bit on, my mood instantly changes from indifferent to motivated and focused. Managing motherhood feels like a challenge every day because you’ve got to learn to balance your own personal needs and the very cautious efforts of parenting and those minutes of just “me time” can make the difference. This feeling is something completely new to me and I only started to really embrace it after I gave birth. This just makes me wonder how much different my attitude about my daily activities would have been if I’d started this routine earlier in life? Why hadn’t another women ever mentioned this and how come its not more commonly mentioned? I don’t feel selfish by taking that little bit of time to just focus on me and sometimes I feel like thats the only time I can get a few minutes with my own thoughts.

I’ve been steadily getting better at doing my own makeup by trying different things or a new technique every time I take up the challenge to apply it. For this look I put a little bit of eyeshadow along with a cate eye wing (which is something I’ve never tried doing cause eyeshadow kind of intimates me). From what I’ve noticed, a light hand is key as your applying it because it can easily start looking like a mess.

Here is a step by step of what I did & please, feel free to chuckle at the subtle humor of the commentary lol:

Step one: covering up my reptilian skin lol

Step two: using this awfully bad compact makeup as a under eye concealer because I needed to use it one last time so I won’t feel so guilty for throwing it out and wasting money on it.

Step three: blended well… from this distance you can’t notice the bumpy skin. i think i did a job well done. Now its time to set it with some powder to minimize my oily skin build up. hooray

Step four: some eyeshadow because i hardly wear it and these are subtle enough for others to not notice how mediocre i actually am with makeup.

Step five: if i were in a stranded island, i would put a note inside a bottle asking for whoever reads the note to send me mascara and eyeliner… and some sunscreen cause no one wants to age prematurelyStep six: a lip liner to overline my lips and as a lipstick cause my lips can make a desert look moist and plump

Voila mistro… not bad.

and another selfie to reenforce how naturally untalented I’m with makeup and girl, let me just say that if you know how to work your angles, no one will even notice lmfao!

Thanks so much for reading along and maybe even getting a little inspired by this faux easy makeup tutorial cause a girl tried her best! show some love on the comments and I hope you all have a blessed day.

ASOS Shopping Haul Video x Stress Management

Ugh.

I can’t even begin to express to you what I had to sacrifice in order to get this video edited and finished. Lots of dirty dishes pilled up, clutter pilled up like Mount Everest, a grumpy husband who had to be attentive to our baby girl and certain level of stress that equals that of a college term paper due the following morning that hasn’t even been started yet lmfao. yea, you know what feeling I’m talking about…

When I was officially done with the video below, I started the process of exporting it to the Youtube 1080p setting. I decided to stop exporting it because I felt like something was wrong since the time frame displayed on the progress window read “14 hours until file complete”. I kept thinking, “14 hours”, practically a whole day? that doesn’t make a lot of sense so I canceled the progress and as soon as I did, all my hard work had randomly disappeared…

I was shook, pissed, scared and annoyed!

How could my MacBook betray me like this (I kept on thinking to myself) and how is it possible that this amazingly expensive video editing tool program thing deleted my work without having any trace of the completed file stashed away somewhere in my files? could this be the work of the illuminati? whom everyone knows keeps an eye on everyone especially on minorities? anyways, I digress and yes, I’m completely exaggerating (and joking! nothing but jokes here, I’m a real comedian lmfao)

In all honesty, I’m proud of myself for magically scouting out all of the missing files that made up the video and finally getting it exported to upload! I still had to spend some more time re-editing some scenes, but it wasn’t as bad as having to re do the whole darn thing! I’ve been trying to get better at creating content more frequently for my Youtube channel. I’m really trying to build my video editing skills so I can confidently update my LinkedIn profile. Its just a little difficult managing motherhood whilst learning something from scratch.

Which leads me to say that learning to manage your stress and/or intense emotions is also a life skill that many sadly never pay enough attention to. Finding out what works, when suddenly your emotions get so out of hand that it causes you to simply react instead of stopping and thinking is so valuable. Blessed are you if you are one to recognize that as useful and admirable skill to possess. Here are some tips, if you find yourself getting out of control with yourself:

tell yourself its ok and that the moment will pass
step away, step away, step away… you dont want to say or do something that you will regret in the long run
vent to someone, tell someone what just happened and ,perhaps, they might help you sort through it with you.

I’ve listed just a few but by no means are these the only ones. Sometime in the near future, I’ll dive more into this topic in a full blog post. But for now, heres a video on my ASOS haul of knee high black boot shoes and ugly wedding dress options that didn’t look nice on me. Thanks for watching and let me know what you think of my editing skills below!

Book Reading List x February Reads List

How do you know what you don’t know?

Super excited for my little selection of books that I got from my local library. Normally, I like to purchase the books that catch my attention but I’ve been noticing an annoying pattern. I purchase the books, get a surge of excitement of all the potential valuable information & gleefully find a spot on my bookshelf for it. Then once its neatly placed in its new home, my dopamine rush fades away, I forget all about the shiny new book. I don’t bother with it for months until I randomly linger through my selection of books. I truly hate that habit…

I value taking home borrowed books from the library because I know I have a deadline, so in some ways, I place more urgency on them versus the ones I already own. Granted, if I really love the book I borrowed from the library, I’ll purchase it! I sort of preview the content of the books by borrowing them first through the library because some authors just repeat information from other authors or its irrelevant to me or my personal interest. I’m curious, do you do the same?

With that being said, here are a few that I picked for the month which sound really exciting to read! Some I’ve already read which I’m considering writing a little summary blog post about but let me know what you think of the titles in the comments below!

The FAB Mom by Jill Simonian, I loved this book because of the wittiness and ‘so true’ experiences that occurs to all new mothers. The author explained her points like a real gun slinger by getting straight to the point about taking care of oneself right after birth whilst managing the life of your newborn. I enjoyed how she used celebrity moms as a way to emphasize her points because celebrities are just like us except with a little bit more time lol

I’m proud to admit that I’m finally getting through this book, Going Beyond Mom by Randi Zinn, and I’ve already taken multiple pages of notes on only the first few chapters. My favorite aspect of this book is that its based on personal accounts but of many thousands of working mothers who’ve shared their experiences while growing a business. This book is invaluable because it shows and proves how many other moms have created their own opportunities for success.

I mean… need I say more? Your Money Life Your 20s by Peter Dunn the title pretty much sums up the gist of the book and the sole reason as to why I had to put it in my reading pile. The first ever book about personal finance I completed was Nicole Lapins Rich Bitch and it was a ton of fun to read because it was like having your best girl friend giving you great informed first hand account advice about dinero. I’m hoping this one would give me a different perspective on managing personal finances especially since now I’m a married woooman.

Lets face it, some people are a lot smarter then you, they may have more drive then you and when it comes to multiplying their money, they may have more cash to play around with. So I’m a 100.1% committed to learning more about what that 1% know through The Rules of Death by Richard Templar because some day I’ll like to be proud knowing that I “made it” even though I’m considered a minority.

When I first saw this book casually sitting on the shelf, I thought to myself “wow, this’ll make me not feel so bad about myself”. The title way over promised and didn’t really delivery what I was expecting. Before opening the book, I was expecting some intensive research and information that’ll help me psychoanalyze my mental state like a professional psychotherapist… but the topics and lessons revolved around sports, mostly from football and coaches of professional sports team. Let just say, I raved about this book to my husband because I didn’t even bother reading it more than half way.

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck by Sarah Knight, since I haven’t had the chance to get my hands on The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fck by Mark Manson I’m praying this one will be just as good!

This is it for now, but by the end of the month I’ll probably have about 10 more books that I may or may not get the chance to read before needing to return them back lol!

First Week of 2018 Thoughts & Resolutions

New Year’s Eve was small, cute and cheery. Our family stayed home since New York city has been experiencing some of the coldest temperatures in the city’s history and it didn’t help that we all had a bit of the whooping cough. So we stayed up until the ball dropped and even woke up our babygirl so she can feel the excitement of the new year since it is officially her first one.

For most of the New Year’s Eve day, I spend it planning, planning and more planning. I feel so much more confident overall and secure knowing that I’m not wasting my time because I have a better sense of what to anticipate next. I’ve grown to dislike spending time just pondering on what needs to be done next or wondering if I’m missing something. It such a annoying mental road block when your just sitting there confused about what to do with yourself or, on the other hand, when you have too many plans that it feels overwhelming. Unlike 2017, I’m planning on taking more control in all areas of my life throughout 2018. Here are some of my personal resolutions for 2018:

Don’t overwhelm yourself. To much too fast, halts creativity & that’s no bueno if your trying to create content.
Stop over eating! Portion control will be a waist saver or waist killer.
Go to the gym more! Cause you know your booty is not going to build itself and like Elle Woods said, “endorphins make you happy” lol
Patience will be your greatest gift to yourself and others. Embrace that shit! Lol
Learn to simplify things. Not everything needs more than a day to complete.
Grow a YouTube channel & learn what it means to add value to others.

I purposefully left my list short because each one can be broken down into smaller and more manageable tasks. I believe that resolutions should be goals that turn into habits. A skillful habit that will help guide you into your greater self.

I hope this post sparked some idea or thought that you’d like to further explore. Thanks for reading along and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

You can catch up with me on instagram And twitter

Wet N Wild PhotoFocus x First Impressions Review

Here was the agenda for the day…

Go to Manhattan to get drug tested for a new job
Go Northwest of Midtown for the DMV office
Go Southwest to visit campus to complete registration for this Fall
&& then to go back into Brooklyn to my parents house, to pick up my youngest autistic brother from the school bus…

ooh, my day wasn’t over just yet cause I needed to, then, go across town. To get back to my apartment and finally EAT!

Then once I got home, immediately start breastfeeding my babygirl cause engorgement is a mother f******.

All this had to be done in 80 degree weather, so I decided to wear some lightweight coverage because I wasn’t about to look like I just rolled out of bed…

My day was full of errands and just as I finished up the last touches of my coverage, I ended my routine with the Wet N Wild PhotoFocus Vaporisateur Setting Spray. I didn’t notice much of a scent, which is great because I hate having strong perfumes or smells around me (unless I actually put on perfume). The nozzle is not hard to push down and it doesn’t get stuck on itself as your fingers are pushing it down. From the many makeup Youtube videos I’ve seen, setting spray is key and should be one of the last steps to helping maintain all that effort you put to applying the makeup in the first place. This is a classic drugstore find and for the price point, you’ll likely find me hoarding this cause I’m a huge fan.

Throughout my agenda, I paid special attention to the overall appearance of my face which is more on the oily side and these are the things I noticed on my skin;

-my nose was not so oily even after power walking to catch the train with some of my nose contour still in place! I was really surprised by this little victory because my nose is usually the first thing that gets super oily.

-at noon, the temperature was at its highest and I started to get some sweat beads around my hairline but my eyebrows stayed the same as when I first left my house (hurray!) and

-by the time I got to my parents house, I felt super hot and humid. When I looked in the mirror, I was surprised to see that my skin still looked a bit airbrushed, except for my nose. The bit of oil on my skin looked a bit glowy also (as if I’d applied some highlighter) which was a very nice effect!

For the first time trying it out, I was really impressed by how long my coverage stayed on especially on such a challenging hot New York City day. To back up my experience and see how others felt once they put this to the test, I looked up a few Youtube videos to just see what others had experienced. Nathalie Marie Kay, a beauty Youtuber Creator, did an awesome comprehensive review of multiple drugstore and high end brand setting sprays. She felt that the Wet N Wild PhotoFocus was one of her top three choices (link of the video down below because its awesome) and she even compared it to the Urban Decay All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray.

Her review made me feel even more excited about this purchase because it was money well spend. Nothing gets me more disappointed then when something is overpriced and your not getting the quality that you expect for it. Especially to someone like me, who’s learning the effects of different products on my skin after pregnancy since my hormones have changed the texture of my skin.

Thank you so much for checking out this review, I’ll try to post on a more consistent basis, but I get lazy and, honestly, sometimes uninspired. Thank you again and have a blessed day!

Link of Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJa9uWdMaNI&t=1004s

Off-The-Shoulder Floral Romper x OOTD

This was a super casual floral romper for a casual stroll around the park in this crazy humid New York City heat. The romper has a trendy off-the-shoulder look with super cute floral motifs of red, pink, blue flowers and leaves that almost look drawn on. It was really comfortable and cute. I’ve been feeling a little anxious lately, mostly because I’ve been researching the classes I’ll need to take to go back to school for a bachelors degree. I’m really excited about the major I’m planning to go into but its going to be really tough for me because its mostly in math. I’ve spend so much time researching what would be the best and most flexible degree for me and my little family for a while now. It was really challenging because there were so many questions that I had about demand, pay scale, etc and nothing that could be answered by simply googling it.

Personally, I wish public high schools would incorporate and encourage other topics, something that’s more relevant long term, to build interest within the kids which would grow into a life skill. Instead of spending so much time on memorizing (what feels like now) useless facts or rules. I completely understand that education is important, but understanding whats valuable and what isn’t is just as important. Its just unfortunate that kids don’t get that time to really explore and question the things around them because of all the time spend on schoolwork or craming for tests… Anyways, I’m just ranting on my own personal experiences.

Perhaps you’ve had a different experience or have a different opinion about the education system, if so lets chat in the comments below! Also, what do you think about this outfit?

Thanks for checking out my blog and this post!

sunglasses; Ray Bans | romer; Rainbow | sneakers; Forever 21 | bag; Boohoo | baby; MINE 😅

Five Month Update x Mommy Thoughts

Now that I’m a mom, I constantly have this internal battle with myself regarding the massive changes with this new lifestyle of motherhood. It sickens me whenever I hear other parents say to those who have no kids that they shouldn’t have any kids period, as if their a curse from God. No bueno! I find myself having to remind my baby’s father about our great gift whenever friends ask us how we’re doing. Like, no, you don’t get to complain unless you were the one bearing the pains of birth!

But I get so confused and upset sometimes because I want to complete my to do list on a daily basis. I’ve got some easy tasks and others that are a pain in the ass, like figuring out how to back up all your electronics (Sheeshh, as tech gets more sophisticated it also seems to be more complicated… or maybe I’m out of touch).

The battle starts with the idea of being constantly present, in the moment with my baby girl. Watching like a hawk for the small details of her development, physical changes and guiding her to understand what’s around her… yet, I have other personal important things to do, goals to accomplish and dreams to fulfill.

Now that I’m a mom, its so ironic to me how I’m more sure and confident about my career and life and what type of action to take… how convenient. It doesn’t help either that I have this constant feeling like theirs a shelf life for my plans and that times being wasting by me choosing to pay attention to my daughters daily activities rather then my own. Then again, I argue, who is she if not the value I place on myself… ultimately, it’s a tug between who’s more important: my daughters development or the future me?…

Maybe its because Isabella’s my first baby that I’m feeling this way, but I haven’t heard many moms talking about this feeling or even express it. I’m literally learning as I go and trying to document it so I can share it with others, but if your a mom and have felt this feeling before, let me know in the comments below! How did you adjust? Did you find a helpful hand from family or did you have to buy it?

Thank you so much for checking out my blog, if you want to check out my socials, they’ll be listed below. Have a blessed day!

white fur coat from Macy’s: onesie from First Impressions: pink headband from Babies R Us: doggy shoes from H&M: black jumper from Aerie

Socials: instagram @rozalyndamoxie | snapchat @rozalyndamoxie

Birth Story Video x Baby Bella

Finally, I’m getting this done!

Someday in the future, my daughter and I will watch this video together (especially during those inevitable rough patches in our relationship). This is the new way of keeping our own histories within the family. Maybe down the line we’ll have something more holographic and 3 dimensional like in star wars. But for now, its best to master the tools available to us at the moment, Lord only knows how complicated these applications already are!

Lastly, thank you for checking out my video! I look forward to your feedback so leave your comments below, much love and have a blessed day 😘

The New Normal: Motherhood

This year couldn’t have started out on a more exciting yet terrifying note. once a major milestones achieved almost always another one soon follows, whether its positive or negative in my life. Sometimes those drastic changes feel almost like a piano falling on your head because it feels unpredictable and unexpected.

Motherhood, something I definitely wasn’t planning for going into 2016. It’s been a mix of many emotions and I don’t just blame it on the soup of extra hormones that charged through my body during pregnancy. I’m officially a mother and what does that mean besides the extra daunting and exciting times that will soon follow from this tremendous life change for my daughter and myself, only time can tell. The best thing I can do is to create a balance of being actively present in the moment, especially for those memorable little moments. While, simultaneously, looking out for what the potential future might hold for myself and what it’ll mean to my new family.

It’s so incredible how every women is so completely different and yet the things that resonate with one another are the same things that make us stronger. I’m sure I’m going to have many more lessons and failures as I’m adjusting to this new life change and I hope that you’ll follow along with me in this journey. Thanks for reading && until next time, have a blessed day!

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Socials: instagram @rozalyndamoxie | snapchat @rozalyndamoxie

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