A Very Merry Anniversary Wrap Up

If you watch my youtube channel or follow me on any of my social medias, you'd know that I recently celebrated my 2 year wedding anniversary.

Leading up to our trip, there was quite a bit of stress and planning involved. At first we were trying to make a week in Hawaii work, but finally it fell through, so off to plan B... Vegas. My husband bought us Britney Spears tickets and I was elated! Now I know Britney hasn't been her best since 2007, but there's something about getting to see my high school pop idol live.

The week leading up to the trip, I was filming, editing, cleaning, and working like crazy to make sure our trip would be as smooth and stress free while we were there.

Monday I took the babies (if your new they are my 2 dogs not actual human babies) to my mom's for her to watch while we went away. While I was at my mom's my husband lets me know that they have canceled his returning flight home and they are trying to schedule him on a new flight. I start to panic... what if he doesn't make it back in time?!

A few hours later I get a phone call from my husband, clearly he has not gotten on the plane.
He calls: "Well your not going to believe what happened, I guess we're not going to see Britney."

I PANIC I'm thinking there is no way in HELL I am not going to drive myself to vegas and go see her on my own. Then he says that I have booked a job (acting job).

"That's not possible, I haven't auditioned for anything," was my response.

My husband says: "No it's a direct booking from your last audition." (these things apparently really happen)

I still don't believe him.

Flash forward to a few more hours, me finally believing him. I ended up working on Tuesday and our tickets are for Wednesday so worst case we can still drive in Wednesday morning to go see my pop idol.

Basically everything worked out. I worked early Tuesday morning and was wrapped just before 11am.

I play a Young Teacher

My OOT from my trailer

Gotta take a selfie!

This whole time I thought things were working agains us and our trip, but I got to work on one of my favorite shows, take a week long vacation with my husband, and see Britney Bitch!

At the concert

Look how tiny she is!

Nils from Beautylish sent me this autographed perfume from Britney. I was kind of gushing about how excited I was for the concert on Sunday at the Beautylish Charlotte Tilbury Launch. 

Sometimes things going wrong really are things going right.

XOXO
Serein

P.S.
HUGE Vegas makeup haul will be up soon on my channel. Make sure your subscribed!

Another Birthday Come and Gone

So as I reach another birthday I reflect on the last year of my life. It's been a little less than a month since my personal holiday.

Sometimes as excited as I get about celebrating my day, there's a deep rooted sadness that I feel around the 19th of April as well. As I get older each year the sadness becomes more prominent. This could be the fact that as a child you never imagine yourself past 20.

This year was the marking of truly feeling like an adult, yet still not quite. Do we ever feel our age? I seem to have age identity crisis a lot.

This I've done this year:

I planned a wedding and got married!
As much as I love being married and I adore my husband, who makes me the happiest woman on Earth, I never actually imagined being married before meeting him.

So as I look back at 2012, getting married was a huge milestone in my life and it happened last year! Just sitting back and reflecting on the whole process of being engaged. Planning the wedding. Getting married. It's all very overwhelming. No matter how much I knew my husband or how much I loved him before the wedding, something happens when the vows are said, the ceremony is over and that little wedding band is on both of our fingers. I can't explain it, but a shift happens. Expectations change, not bad, not good, things just change. It's you and him forever now. You have a partner for life. You are responsible for another's well being and hapienss. It's a huge adjustment mentally.

Youtube Beauty Guru
I've also become an active youtuber posting multiple videos a week on beauty, product reviews, makeup tutorials, and shopping hauls. I never would have thought of myself as a youtuber. If you asked me a few months ago even, I would laugh and be embarrassed of my endeavor to advise through youtube. Making videos has become an outlet for me. Videos fill my creative needs and also makes me feel productive and helpful to others. It's become my main source of daily expression and creativity. I get complete creative control talking about things I'm passionate about.

Yoga?
I became a Yogi in the last year as well. In college I hated yoga, I didn't see the point, now I need it. The breathing, the stretching, the community, it all calms me and centers my mind. The physical benefits are great too!

Independence
I've learned to be alone. Being alone use to lead to depression and feeling like a looser for me. Now I cherish the moments of solitude. To do my own thing and not be disrupted or worried about someone else. While I love my friends and always need them in my life, I have learned that as we age and grow up and build our own families, the time we do get to spend together is precious and rare. Just because I don't hear from them every day doesn't mean that they would be there for me if I needed them. This goes for them too. I don't feel the need to have to call them everyday, we are all busy and trying to live life. In fact my best friends are the ones I see the least.

Move On
This is something I'll always struggle with, but looking back at the last year, I've really improved this trait. It use to take me years to move on from the smallest slights or fights. Now mostly I figure it's not personal, but something the other person is going through. How often do I start a fight or get upset at someone because of my own insecurities or issues? Almost always. So 90% of the time if someone has beef with you, it's really not personal.

Growing up has made me a better partner and friend to those in my life. Do I still get a little sad around my birthday? Yes. I think it's the panic that I haven't done enough with my life or that I am not where I thought I would be, but honestly? Who is exactly where they thought they would be? Life is unexpected and beautiful. The control freak side of me needs to just shut up and enjoy the ride because looking back at the last year, It's been a pretty great one :-)

Shopping IS a Strength

Shopping a weakness? I’ve been led to believe this my whole life. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about strengths and weaknesses. We, as a society, focus so much on our weaknesses and how we can fix them. We leave our strengths as they are and keep trying to fix what is weak. I remember ever since I could walk, I sucked at math. Yes, I’m the only Asian who sucks at math. When I say I suck, I mean I have trouble with my times table after 5. So as a kid I was forced to attend Kumon (this math class where you are forced to do tons and tons of equations until you get them right…basically memorizing numbers and formulas). I even believed that I should take all these extra math courses to fix the problem. I may have memorized these equations, as long as I was doing pages and pages of this stuff; but, I’m sitting here now and I can promise you I can’t do them now. I have trouble balancing my checkbook and every month when it’s bill time, it takes me a few hours to make the numbers all add up right.

So really, what was the point in focusing all this energy on trying to fix something that I’m just not inclined to be good at? It’s just not in my make-up as a person. On the other hand, I am a really good shopper. Now this may seem like a small thing or even a negative thing and it can be a weakness at times; but if I use my powers for good, it’s a handy strength. My older brother needed a 70’s disco costume for a party two weeks ago. He had my mom and I both out looking. Well the week he needed it, I was super busy with work and driving all over town. It just so happened that I was in Burbank and had about 40min before my next appointment so I stopped in at a store called Play Clothes. I’d been in there before and remembered that they had lots of really cool vintage stuff for a reasonable price.  I asked the lady up front where their 70’s men’s wear was, she lead me straight back and I started the hunt.

After looking up my brother’s sizes, I found one pair of pants that would fit, they were these canary yellow, crushed velvet, cuffed, bell-bottoms. Perfect! 

Next, the shirt. This was a little more challenging, I had to use a tape measure to find the right size and I found 3 options, I went with the burgundy, floral, polyester button up. Then I asked for necklaces in the back. If you’re nice and ask nicely they will always pull things out from the back for you at any store. I find that there is always a way to get something, it’s in how you ask and approach the sales people. The lady found me a gold astrology necklace that was perfect for the 70’s themed outfit. Done in 30 minutes at $80. I was impressed with myself. I was also super proud that my brother was not going to have to wear some cheesy, gross, generic, cheap costume from one of the mass produced Halloween stores or Party City.

So while shopping is only one of my many strengths and may seem miniscule, it does come in handy. I make a great personal assistant and you can bet my house is always stocked up with necessities. I have this running inventory in my mind at any given moment and when I’m out shopping I know what I need. I’m also the person you’d go for if you ever need to find something or update your wardrobe.

So this week, I encourage you to look at some of your strengths and try to develop them. Admit that your weaknesses are your weaknesses and surround yourself with people who are going to help you with the things your not so good at. A friend of mine had me do the StrenghtsFinder 2.0. It’s an online book you can read in about an hour and take an on-line assessment to find your top 5 strengths and develop them. I thought it was interesting and that’s why I’m sharing it with you today. I do agree that we as a society focus too much on trying to fix weaknesses. Why not improve on what we are good at and make it work for us? I bet we’d all be a lot happier. 

if I had time there would be a brown belt and white platform shoes.