My gym bag - more products than tools

I need more practice. What looks balanced on the polyvore site does not look balanced when posted.

What is in my tool kit?

This is it....all the tools that are in my make up kit today. And, yes, I do have Cinderella band-aids and, yes, I do consider Tylenol a tool.

What a start to 2012 Part II

Before the vans taking the faculty group to the Cancun airport even reached the corner, I was in my car and racing to the Hyatt Hotel to meet my all-time favorite uber-chica Montse, her husband Manuel, my next favorite chica Ceci and her wonderful husband, El Capi. (El Capi is the retired AeroMexico pilot who was the purveyor of several wonderful air tickets to Madrid and Paris when I was living in Guadalajara. You might have heard me talk about his retirement party for 1500 of his most intimate friends and family members.) Anyway, they made a surprise visit to Merida; their timing was perfect. I was ready for a break. And I got it.

We walked, talked, ate, laughed, caught up, laughed some more, ate a lot, and talked continuously for three days. Three days was not enough.

What a start to 2012!

The past two weeks passed in a blur. The faculty group arrived on January 4, and the action was non-stop until they left on January 10. Their development workshop was across-the-board successful based on both the formal evaluations and the personal emails received from many participants. While the Yucatan program was not necessarily the focus of the workshop, for the first time in a long, long time, I feel the program is secure. I feel faculty will be recommending more of their students travel here now that they understand the breadth and diversity of options available. I also feel I will have a visiting professor each semester instead of just an occasional visiting prof.

The purpose of the workshop was to help the faculty develop their own international/intercultural skills. It turned out that while many faculty are experienced international travelers and have lead programs, 7 of the 22 participants had never traveled outside of the United States. All had expressed an interest in leading short -term international programs which is the current trend in study abroad. We arranged for them to experience much of what the students experience when studying here. Some were great; others fell apart. Interestingly, several of the highly experienced travelers had the most problems adapting to the activities. Each portion of the program included intense discussions, required readings and journaling.

A new addiction!

This polyvore only took about 15 minutes to put together. I can't/won't tell you how long it took to create my first one.

My make up routine is a mixture of high end and low end. The high end includes a Chanel foundation for special occasions. The low end is my go-to mascara by Mabelline. My favorite and most used product is Laura Mercier's tinted moisturizer with sunscreen. My funniest product is, according to the manufacturer, an industrial-strength concealer for my eyebrows. I bought it in Paris after Patti and I had our eyebrows done at Sephora in 2009. I will need to replace it in about 10 years. I could not find it in the polyvore archives but will keep looking.

This is my entire make up routine: Foundation or tinted moisturizer, mascara, lipstick mostly alone but sometimes with lip liner, eye brow pencil, and a little eye liner in navy or grey.


Now to think of other polyvores!

My first polyvore!

I wasn't invited, but if I were to have lunch on New Year's Day with Lisa, Une femme, et al, I have to admit I would go very, very conservative. I think black would look fabulous in the greys and whites of the designated restaurant.

Going Forward

Image from Google. Title from Lisa at Privilege. Motivation from looking in the mirror.