Must-Have Monday

I totally forgot to share some exciting news in my last post.
In an effort to ramp up my blog content to be far more comprehensive than ranting about cellulite, I will now be bringing you a new regular feature that I like to call, Must-Have Monday. Each Monday, I will share a beauty queen must-have for my fellow queens, reigning or training.

For this first Must-Have Monday post, I’d like to introduce you to Skyn Iceland Glacial Cleansing Cloths.






These little buggers are incredible. I’ve tried cleansing cloths like these before, but I have never found any as amazing as these. They remove makeup and dirt without water or rinsing and leave your skin feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. They smell great too! Anyway, I have been using them for a short period of time, and my skin condition has improved greatly and I have gotten better results than from my regular skin-care products, which tells me they are really doing the job of getting my face clean.

Anyway, I highly recommend these! They’re great for traveling, the gym and of course pageants – especially for Miss USA contestants who need to refresh after “Waking Up in Vegas.”

You can buy them at Sephora or at Sephora.com and they’re reasonably priced at $15 for 30.



P.S. I really do want world peace.

It Starts With a Small Step

I haven’t posted in a while because A.) I’m me, and B.) it took a while for the results of Miss USA to sink in. To put it mildly, I was rather surprised by the winner. I was pulling for Oklahoma (who had a beautiful dress, and the tiniest waistline ever), and when Michigan was called I was about to completely write off the USA/Universe pageant. However, after the past few weeks, I have really grown to like our new Miss USA. She’s adorable and fresh and she’s got a real shot at winning Miss Universe. So yay.

However, I am still in disbelief as to what the Miss USA pageant has evolved into. The whole lingerie situation left a bad taste in my mouth. Say what you want about it, but it still involved young women posing in underwear without compensation. Had I done something like that, my parents would have flown to Vegas, pulled me out of the pageant, dragged me home and beat my ass. They would have been mortified. And there are few things that make you feel worse than disappointing your parents.

All that said, I am now really looking forward to Miss TEEN USA. Without a network, they might be even more desperate for media attention and god knows what they will attempt to do to those poor girls. Miss Teen USA has consistently been my favorite pageant to watch, because the contestants aren’t completely bitter yet (bitterness in pageants just get worse as you get older, married contestants are by far the meanest), and they usually have a fun perspective on current events, like, such as. Miss Teen USA I believe is the next big pageant of the year, and we’ll have to see how it all goes. Additionally, Miss Universe is in Vegas this year, so I am sure some other scandal will surface just in time. I can hardly wait!

Well, while Miss TEEN USA still is without a television network, guess who has a new one? MISS AMERICA! The pageant will return to ABC! This is great news that I am really excited about. Hopefully that pageant can make a comeback now. I look forward to it – but only after my state’s pageant next weekend. I love pageant season!

Of course, pageant season makes me feel like a blimp. So it’s time to work harder on the exercise front. So I am going to take a stab at running and I am starting tomorrow. I have mapped out a trail in our neighborhood that is exactly one mile. Although, I will admit it’s one mile from my house to the marker, and another mile back. So I am going to attempt to walk to the marker, and then run home in spurts. Hopefully an ambulance, I mean, Mr. Beauty Queen doesn't have to come pick me up in the process.

But my iPod is charging and my sneakers are calling. Hopefully it goes well!



P.S. I really do want world peace.

Miss USA Tonight!

This is a crazy pageant weekend! First of all, congratulations to Shalon Polson, the new Mrs. Colorado America! Mrs. Colorado was a pageant I was planning on attending this year, but I couldn’t fly up there because of a work obligation. As far as Mrs. Pageants go, Mrs. Colorado is probably the most competitive in the country. There were over 50 contestants this year, and it pretty much sets the stage for the rest of the Mrs. Pageant season – at least in Mrs. America.

Let me see if I can explain this better. If pageants were fashion (and, let’s be honest, they really aren’t because you would never see Oscar de la Renta on a national pageant stage, EVER), Miss America would kick off spring fashion week, Miss USA summer and Miss Universe fall. From these “shows,” thousands of contestants across the country get inspiration, or flat out copy, the designs worn by the finalists or winner.

This is most clearly illustrated by what pageant enthusiasts refer to as the notorious “Shandi Dress.”



Worn by Miss USA 2004, Shandi Finnessey on the eve of her crowning, this dress has been duplicated, altered and bastardized in every color combination under the sun for the past 6 years. Never has a dress been more over done, and wearing it will pretty much screw you in any competition as a result. But even with that being the most overdone dress in pageant history, it still happens every year. It’s a safe bet to say that after a girl is crowned Miss America or Miss USA, you will see the dress almost immediately in local pageants all over the place. That’s just how it is.

Most national Mrs. Pageants aren’t held until late summer or early fall, and so there really isn’t another “preview” as to what will be hot before. Wearing a dress in a Mrs. Pageant that placed in Miss USA or Miss America rarely works, because you can only get away with a certain degree of sexiness as a married woman before you look like a total slizut. But, because Mrs. Colorado is so big, and so early in the season, it’s a great glimpse at upcoming fashion trends in the Mrs. Pageant circuit. So yeah, I wanted to go.

I also wanted to go cheer on a very good friend who competed last night. And while I am so proud of her for placing in the top ten at such a crazy pageant, and while I give my congrats to our new winner, I can’t help but think my bud got robbed. Call me biased, but she’s awesome and I hope she gives it another go!



Anyway, onward and upward! Miss USA is on TONIGHT!

In my last post, I mentioned that Miss USA is always a dramatic cluster! In 2006, we had to deal with Tara Conner’s drug problem, and her second chance despite being a “alcoholic addict” (which, to date, I still think is a load of crap by the way). In 2007 poor Catie (I’m sorry, her new name is Lauren Caitlyn) Upton got screwed when she attested to the fact that people in the United States do not have maps. And last year, Carrie Prejean tried to position herself as a strong Christian who was for “opposite marriage” weeks before it became known that she had really done a great job of “positioning herself” on video. It is always a roller coaster with this pageant, and this year has been no exception.

By now you have probably heard about the provocative photos of the girls taken in lingerie. I’m convinced this was done to get a rise out of people, and to get ratings, and to be honest, I’m kind of sickened by the whole ordeal. I can’t say I’m shocked, but I am certainly offended that these girls have been exploited. There’s a difference between being sexy and being skanky, and some of these photos are completely and utterly skanky. I have had several discussions with my fellow pageant enthusiasts about this over the past few weeks, so I will not continue to beat a dead horse, but I did want to comment on the inappropriateness of the whole situation.

Regardless of the skanky pics, I am excited about tonight’s competition, and as promised, I have selected my picks for the top 15 finalists for Miss USA 2010. Let me clarify that this isn’t a betting game, and there is probably a difference between who I want to place, and who WILL place, but nevertheless, here are my favorites for the 2010 crown:

1. Alabama
2. Arizona
3. California
4. Florida
5. Idaho
6. Kansas
7. Maine
8. Missouri
9. Minnesota
10. Nebraska
11. Nevada
12. Oklahoma
13. South Carolina
14. Texas
15. Virginia

Alternates: Wyoming, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Michigan and Tennessee.

There you have it, my thoughts. Who are you rooting for?

Sincerely,



P.S. I really do want world peace.

What have I gotten myself into?

Hi. It’s me again.

As an avid blog reader, I have officially become one of those blogs I loathe: the never updated blog. Yes. I am officially a failure as a blogger. But whatever, I have bigger fish to fry, although – ultimately – I am pretty convinced that I am just a failure at everything right now.

Anyway, the truth is, I haven’t really updated this blog yet because over the past few weeks, I have been trying to figure out what is going with my life, and where I want it to go. Now, this isn’t typical beauty queen drama and, unfortunately, has nothing to do with mascara, rhinestones or Sherri/Tony/Jamye.

As I have mentioned previously I have been pursuing an MBA for the past year, and am close to being half-way done with the course work. As an undergraduate, I studied journalism, so taking on an education in business was going to be a challenge. However, I had no idea how demanding it was really going to be, and to be honest, I didn’t give a lot of thought into applying in the first place. I literally decided on a Monday that I was going to do this – and really to prove a point to someone who should be completely irrelevant to my life (aside from the fact that he signs my paycheck) – and submitted my application, transcripts and test scores that Friday. I started the next semester and never had time to look back.

Now I’m at a point where I am completely burnt out, back to being extremely out of shape, stressed, unhealthy, agitated, tired, drained, and most importantly, unhappy. It turns out that I couldn’t really care less about being a PR executive, or even the owner of a firm, which is what I wanted originally. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself I wanted to rationalize this stupid and costly decision I made. But it turns out that the more I put into this, the more unhappy the more convinced I can’t do this right now.

Working my ass off (and this is clearly just an expression since – if anything – my ass has gotten bigger) to get these credentials will certainly pay off in a bigger salary, and more responsibility, which would be nice, but it would also equal longer hours, even more stress and more time spent making someone else’s dreams come true.

Now, to be a total traitor to my gender – oh, never mind, I DO do beauty pageants – the reality is that I really just want to be a great wife and a mommy. And I am starting to feel like for the longest time, I have been so achievement-oriented, that I have gotten my priorities completely out of whack.

The unfortunate thing about all this, is that I am (and this will probably shock you, but this blog is no indication of this) not a quitter. And the mere thought of quitting anything that I start is infuriating to me. And I don’t want to be looked upon as someone who gives it all up for kids, because lots of woman can have both a great career and family. I also know that my friends will never really understand what I’m trying to say, because they want “more” for their lives.

Still, bottom line, I am tired of living for other people, and I have reached a point where I need to step away from things – like school – and figure out what I really want before I continue to waste time and money.

So, I have decided to postpone my MBA work for at least a semester, if not indefinitely.

The good news is that I’ll be able to put more into the blog and other writing projects, as well as help Mr. Beauty Queen with some stuff he’s working on for his business. So yay! More good news means that I’ll be able to focus more on my body – double yay! I am looking forward to having time to cook and workout. I found some pageant photos of the “glory days,” back when I was in high school. Maybe when I can look at them without wanting to snort a line of ephedra, I’ll post them. But it reaffirmed that I have been focused on the wrong things for way too long.

So I am looking forward to what I hope will be a healthy and happy next couple of months – and I hope you stick around while I’m trying to figure it all out.

We now return to our regular scheduled programming – and as a reminder, Miss USA is on this Sunday!!! Prelims are on Wednesday night, so I fully intend to post my top picks shortly after! Miss America is definitely the Super Bowl, but Miss USA is the qualifier for the Olympics – Miss Universe. Plus, Miss USA can always turn into one hot crockpot of a crazy cluster in terms of drama. So I am sure we’ll be in for a scandal of some sort! The popcorn will be a poppin' come Sunday night in anticipation!

Sincerely,



P.S. I really do want world peace.