Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Book Review

"Dark Places" , what would you expect of this book right off the bat when you read the title?? I read one other Gillian Flynn book and somewhat had an idea of her style of writing and so I didn't expect this to be a Stephen King novel with blood and gore but I didn't know what to expect.



This review is based solely on my own opinion after reading this book. I will not giveaway anything in the book only share how I felt reading the book. I picked this book up as a summer read and I don't think I would recommend that you do the same. This book is about a murdered family and a girl who had survived. It's very very dark. I literally felt depressed and very sad reading this book. The book is written in the perspective of the main character, the girl who survived the murder and she is not a happy person. I would expect her to not be happy but she is in a very very dark place. The story follows the same style of writing that I have seen before with this author in the sense that you get an ending and then the story builds to it. For example, you find out early on that her family is murdered and then characters build around this scenario and so do the events that lead up to it. Who is to blame and how the main character relives this awful experience. I did not feel alot of suspense with this book. I did feel as though it was a quick read because I did want to know what happened in the end.
As far as character development I did not fall in love with any in particular. I didn't have strong emotions or attachment to any of the characters. The story moves quickly with some chapters taking longer than they should.
Overall, I do recommend reading this book but definitely not if you are sitting poolside or at a beach. This is a very dark story and probably best cuddled up by a fire in the winter time. The ending was slightly disappointing I wanted more and didn't feel like I got enough. I'm glad I read this story and will continue to read books by this author in the future.

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Rehab Update on Rocking horse

This project has really been such a pleasure and the results were better than I expected!!
Here are the before





The hair was very matted and the tale was missing. I initially thought I could put doll hair but then decided to use yarn.








I think it turned out pretty cute for a little girl.
It definitely needed some paint. Alot of the old paint has chipped away and needed to be brightened up.




Some of the little knots were missing as well. I used polymer clay and glued them in. I decided on the polymer because you can customize the size and that's what I had on hand.




Here is what the knot looked like when I made it out of the polymer clay.





In the picture posted above you can see the knot and also the little seat was dirty. I ended up replacing the seat with a purple terry cloth material.

And......Here is the final pony!!



Yay!! It's finally done!! I'm so very very excited with the finished product! With some fresh paint and some new hair it looks like a new pony. I kept the face because I loved the vintage look to it!!
What are your thoughts??
Have you done and great fixer uppers??
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Urban Decay Naked Skin Review

I was so excited when Sephora offered a travel size of this product for $15! I am always looking for a great beauty balm. With Naked skin the product has an spf of 20. This is wonderful always want to have a great amount of protection to just throw on your face and go out the door.
It's oil free. My skin is combination and in the hot summer months I think it's important to have a product that is oil free. It claims to have DNA repair and optical blurring.
How I feel about products that claim optical blurring etc is something that I'm not heart broken over if the product doesn't actually do it. I think it's rare to find something that actually does it but a great bonus if it does.

Here is what the product description on the website state:
It's not just any beauty balm – it's Naked Skin Beauty Balm – the BB cream with INSANE benefits. Unlike a lot of beauty balms, Naked Skin delivers measurable anti-aging benefits – and we've got the claims to prove it. And while many beauty balms are tinted to provide coverage, ours diffuses light with high-tech pigments to give you amazing, natural, NAKED-looking skin that keeps getting better every week. Naked Skin is like an instant retoucher in a tube! This multitasking formula: • Perfects: Optical blurring pigment instantly evens out skin tone and minimizes pores, lines, wrinkles and redness.

Here is a link to the website:


So I've used this product for almost a month and here are my personal thoughts and reviews. First off the application process. I used a flat top kabuki brush and also a foundation brush. I would not recommend using a brush with this product. When using a brush the brush picks up too much of the product and I don't think you get the benefits of the product. Because the brush picked up so much of this product I didn't even bother using a beauty blender. So using clean fingers is the best way to go with this product. The product when squeezed out of the tube is not too watery and not too thick. I have used some bb creams that are thicker and this I would say is right in the middle as far as consistency.
When I initially placed this on my face I thought it looked great. The coverage is light so unless you have perfect skin you will need a concealer but that's expected. About an hour after applying I looked in the mirror and the product began to almost cake on my face. It became a mask on my face. I looked like I had used halloween makeup. Just to clarify I only used a moisturizer and then applied this product. I was so unhappy with how this product looked on my face. I have tried this product several times in case it was just a one time thing and everytime I have applied this product after an hour it looks like a halloween mask!
If you have dry skin I definitely DO NOT recommend this. I would think that this product will end up sitting in all of your creases and show fine lines and wrinkles.
In conclusion I'm glad that Sephora offered this product at a lower price so that I could try it and realize I didn't like it before buying the larger size.
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Sex and the City 15 Year Anniversary!!

15 years ago on June 6th Sex and the City premiered on HBO. I remember that night very clearly. I was 14 and in my parents basement very eager to learn what this show was all about!!
I think initially I was very bored to be honest. I don't think I understood what they meant or what they were talking about.
Fast forward to college and the show was something I just could not get enough of and just loved it!! I had my first serious relationship by that time, my high school sweet heart whom I dated for almost 5 years. From the time I was 15 until I was 20, he even waited for me to go to college together! Then of course college opens the doors for so many different guys to choose from and that's exactly what happened. The show was something I could start relating to and even some of the shows content was exactly what I had shared with my girlfriends. I think the older I got the more I loved this show.
Samantha is definitely the character I can most relate to and the one I loved. The fact that she was smart, beautiful and very successful. SHE was the one who decided when and were she wanted a man. She had many of them including the UPS guy but it's because she wanted it. If a man were to do what she did he is considered a Don Draper but if a woman does it..... so i loved her for that. She also loves sex and so do I!! She always surprises me like episode where she sees the priest and decides that he is "Friar F*uck" and starts to donate cans of soup to try and get in his pants. I love that she took nude photos of herself and had them hanging in her apartment and the delivery guy told her "nice ass". She is always entertaining and I think the most light hearted of the bunch.
Carrie, she also really touches my heart, especially with her and Big's relationship. I had a relationship just like that when I graduated college. I became an RN and I began dating an attending at the hospital. He was older, successful and just so exciting that he choose me out of all the other nurses. That relationship was so fun but I knew also so bad. I was always hurt in that relationship. We would break up and make up so many times and every time it became worse and worse but somehow we always found our way back to each other. The big difference with him and Big was that he ended up putting his hands on me during one of those big fights and that was the end of that!!
Charlotte was just too naive for me to relate but I have friends just like her and Miranda is a little to serious and cold for me to be like her but again I have friends just like her.
So tonight on the anniversary the network E! is playing the Sex and the City movie. I sat there watching this movie and I could so much feel Carrie's pain. How disappointed she was and how badly she wanted her happy ending. I could feel that and remember the pain I felt in my relationship. How she felt she could never laugh again, that awful feeling in her stomach. I know that feeling. The worst part going back to your apartment and picking up the pieces. I had to do that as well. I lived with my ex and we had a dog and a condo, had to start all over again!! I remember all that pain and as Carrie went through the motions I could relate to everything. I could feel her joy at the end and almost small hesitation about Big!
In conclusion I think we all love this show so much because we relate. It's our life in someway, maybe not so glam and our friends slightly different but still we can relate. We can relate to the funky spunk, and the dilemma of the guy who eats you out and wants to make out right away to the guy (Aiden) that is the good guy and loves us so much but we still end it. Some how we love those girls and it never gets old I still watch them whenever I catch a rerun!

Happy Anniversary Sex and the City!!!!!!

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Rehabbing an Old Rocking Horse

I recently stumbled upon a beautiful old rocking horse!! My neighbors are so sweet and they have children that are already grown and off to college so she brought out this great old rocking horse. It's a beautiful pony but it definitely needs some help.




The first thing that I decided to do was to fix the pony's hair. The hair on this thing looked like matted old carpeting. Cleaning it was not going to be an option because it was so matted so I decided to just cut it all off. I grabbed a big pair of scissors and I started to cut it all off!!




My next dilemma is what can I substitute for hair? I initially thought that I would get the doll hair and start gluing that on but that might be hard to maintain and isn't the friendliest for babies/kids cause they like to put things in their mouths. So I decided that I would use yarn. That idea to use yarn brought back the memory of my first cabbage patch doll and she had all this brown yarn for hair!!
I immediately ran over to Micheals and quickly found the yarn aisle. My first grab was just white yarn and then some colorful yarn caught my eye. I stood there and debated for awhile but decided to go with the colorful yarn. I think it might make the pony more of a fantasy, cirque du soleil kind of a thing!








Here is what I have done so far!! I am still not done with the hair I've only begun but I was so excited to share the progress so far!!
This is my main project for now so I will continue to post as I make progress on the pony!
xoxox
Vicky
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Book Review: The Dinner by Herman Koch

I had seen this book at Target numerous times. I like to take a walk in the book section of Target to see what's new and what's popular. This book, The Dinner, had been catching my eye for awhile now. I went home and decided I would place an electronic hold for this book from the public library. I was 1 out of 56 on hold for this book so I became more excited. As soon as I got notification that I was able to borrow the book I quickly downloaded it on my nook. Here is what I thought!





First impression: "Wait that's it?!" I kept pressing the next button hoping for more of the book. It wasn't because I fell so in love with the story but instead felt like there needed to be more things explained.

Overview of the story without giving anything away: main character is the one speaking to us and we are exposed to all of his intimate thoughts and feelings. If you have read the book Gone Girl, the story gives you something that's happened and it backtracks to then explain what is how it happened. For example, they are at the dinner but we only later know why these two couples met for dinner. I think the author does a great job with this. The story does take place at a dinner in a fancy restaurant which initially i though how in the world can this be a book, but give it a chance it may surprise you! There is a total of four characters and you get to know each one and how they relate to the main character. There is a twist in the story that leaves you with 'Well where is this going now?' But develops and has you wanting more. As the dinner goes on the main character is flooded with memories that place personalities to the characters at the dinner. The story becomes more intense and there is a murder involved. There is somewhat of a who done it type of feeling but by no means is it like Clue where you keep guessing who the murderer is. The story does touch on some personality/mental disorders along with issues that normal families can face. It can be a little emotional but the other does not go into much detail which i wish he kind of would have done because then there may have been more of an impact. Overall I would place this book in the category of crime/drama.

Characters: there are 4 important characters that are at the dinner and the main character with whom we explore his world and develop a relationship with each of the attendees at the dinner.

The Good: I like how the story backtracks almost like the movie the Hangover. You get to know what's happened but then the story does a wonderful job of combing back through the main characters thoughts and beliefs leaving you the reader saying 'aha' to yourself.

The bad: I felt a little jiped! I wanted to know more of what happened and what the future will hold for these characters. I had to retread the last chapter to make sure I didn't miss something but I felt as though I was involved with the characters enough to want to know what happens now!!


I will give this book 3 1/2 stars out of 5. I definitely think its worth your time. The book is about 286 pages and can be read quickly. Took me about 4 days but that's because I have a 5 month old keeping me busy. It's not a book that is a classic that I will come back to over and over again or one that I simply fell in love with the characters but I think it's worth a read! I highly recommend this book for the beach or a plane ride. It's not a story that you need to pay close attention to and so if you get distracted for one reason or another you can just catch up fairly quickly!
Hope you guys will benefit from the review!
Xox
MissVickybee
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Maybelline dream fresh BB review

Maybelline Dream Fresh BB!!!

Ok so I'm not behind on this product. I have actually been using this product a fair amount. I didn't think I needed to do this review until I noticed how much of this product I had been using. This has quickly become an all time favorite and something I find myself reaching for day after day. 

       The formula of this product is so light weight and easily smoothes out your face and very easy to apply. As a new mom I needed something to put on my face so that I would feel better about myself and could face all the visitors coming to see the baby with a face that I was not embarrassed to show people!

The packaging is wonderful. I small sleek plastic bottle. You can throw this in your purse easily. Makeup bag, it doesn't take up too much space. You get 1.0 FL OZ of this product. The color selection is kind of a general guess but the product sheers out so beautifully that as long as you are within the ball park of your skin tone then you will be fine.  There are 5 tones that this product comes in.

The product claims to do the following:

An 8-in-1 skin perfector

-blurs imperfections

-brightens

-evens skin tone

-smoothes

-hydrates

-enhances

-protects with SPF 30

-0% oils and heavy ingredients

So I can agree to some of the above.  I would say that it evens skin tone, but you will for sure need a concealer if you have blemishes.  It does hydrate your skin and leaves a very pretty glow to your skin. I would not say that you are dewy by any means but you do have some glow to the skin.  I think that the SPF in this product is a definite benefit.  This is great for the summer because it's such a light product and you can wear it outdoors and be protected from the sun.

Now I have very very sensitive skin and I can say this did NOT make me breakout. It's one of the main reasons I really love this product.  

Will I repurchase this product??? ABSOLUTELY!!

To give you an idea of products that I have tried and how my face reacts to it: Clinique even better foundations is very greasy on my skin and I look extremely shiney.  Neutragena healthy glow is one of my favorites and looks beautiful on my skin.  Nars sheer glow is a perfect foundation for me and I even used it for my wedding day!  Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer really did nothing for my face so I had to give it away.  Make up forever matte velvet works beautifully on me.  So there is an idea if those work for you this product will as well!

(above) the light/medium on my hand

 (above) sheered out on my hand

Overall, a wonderful product. For the price and what the product does definitely worth it!!