We’re already coming to the end of March which means…

A) SUMMER IS SO CLOSE I CAN LITERALLY TASTE IT!!!

B) It’s been a minute! We should catch up! Coffee Date style.

Spring drinks of choice have been mango kale smoothies (I’m hopping back on the train!), iced crafted press-es from Caribou, green tea lemonades, and iced royal tea lattes from Sencha but let’s be honest, that never changes. I even had a rogue WATERMELON juice the other day that was so good and so summery it almost made me cry.

But today, for this “coffee date,” I am actually drinking a big ol jug of minty cucumber water! Um, yeah. It’s taking my entire life up a few notches. More on that in a second.

Let’s chat about March.

I Switched To Beautycounter And I Wasn’t SUper Impressed.

SAY WHAT? I know. Call me crazy, but especially for the skincare, I don’t think I would spend the money again. I just didn’t love the products enough to justify the extra cost, especially when I feel like I can find other clean skincare alternatives that work just as well at more of a drugstore-level price. The lotion never really hydrated my face and the cleansers didn’t feel like anything special to me.

The good news is that even if my Beautycounter skincare spree was kind of a bust, I have found a lot of clean beauty products over the last few years that I can strongly recommend:

• Burt’s Bees Sensitive Face Wash – Clean, easy to find, and affordable.
• Burt’s Bees Milk and Honey Body Lotion – Ditto.
• 100% Pure Potent PM Serum
• 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented 2nd Skin Foundation – Okay, I LOVE THIS STUFF. I only recently started wearing foundation in the last few years and it has been a game-changer. This one is so lightweight and it feels so much better and more natural than anything else I’ve tried. I use Shade 4.
• 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Long Last Concealer in Peach Bisque
• 100% Pure Long Last Brows in Blonde
• 100% Pure Creamy Long Last Liner in Blackest
• 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Pretty Naked II Palette
• Pacifica Mascara – Annoying, because I would have really preferred to keep it all in the 100% Pure family, but the 100% Pure mascara stung in my eyes.
• Beautycounter Mattifying Powder – LOVE because I have very oily skin.
• Beautycounter Bronzer

Also worth mentioning that last year I used the Vintner’s Daughter Active Botanical Serum as my night-time moisturizer and I really liked it. If you want a skincare splurge and you’re into oils, it’s luxurious and lovely.

Okay, are you a clean makeup / skincare enthusiast? What are your favorite products? Does anyone have a good clean shampoo recommendation? That’s one I haven’t found yet.

Also, tell me what you think about Beautycounter. Are you a fan? I love their other stuff (listed above), and if I didn’t mind dropping $50 every month, I would totally buy their lemon sugar scrub on the regular. It was just the skincare that wasn’t right for me.

1A. Eyelash Extension Update

I didn’t keep them up. They’re gone. Too expensive. Too time-consuming. Very pretty, but not worth it for me. End of story.

I Need To Drink More Water.

Like, we probably all do. So I’m trying a few hacks.

1. Adding mint, cucumber, lemon, and other yummies to my water each day. Kind of obvious, but for me it’s a good place to start.
2. Drinking out of a peppy 20 ounce tumbler with a straw. Just more pleasant, IMHO.
3. Only refilling when I’m finished with my existing water so I can track how much I’m actually drinking.

My goal is three of those guys per day (plus additional water from juice, coffee, soups, fruit/veg, etc.), which probably isn’t all that lofty of a goal, but to me it feels kind of epic.

Anyone got any other get-yourself-to-drink-more-water-hacks that I should know about?

Bullet Journal Is Life.

I have gone back and forth and back again on every kind of calendar out there, and I think the Bullet Journal has had more staying power for me than all the other methods combined. Here’s why: it’s customizable. You can make it be what you need / want it to be. If you need specific time slots, add specific time slots. If you need it loose, just keep it loose.

Here’s what mine looks like at the beginning of the week, when I put in my scheduled events with a little circle and leave space for the rest of the week to fill up as needed:

And at the end of the week:

I use a modified version of this Bullet Journaling shortcode to keep track of what I’ve done, what needs to still get done, what I decided not to do, etc. Bullet Journals are good for people who like to kind of build their own thing. It is basically a next-level to-do list that is highly personal and doubles as a calendar and/or a journal.

How do you keep your life organized? Do you use a physical planner / journal / calendar?

I Made Myself a Mini-Jungle-SPa In My Office And It Makes Me Feel Happy.

Chair, diffuser on side table, and plant shelves over top. That’s all you need to make a jungle spa in your very own home. This corner of my office is my favorite place EVER! It’s where I sit in the morning to just kind of center myself before the day starts. Music, journal, pray, meditate, read, avoid email, all of the above.

It’s also where I pile the junk that I don’t know what to do with. Very handy for that.

What’s your happiest place in your home?

We Got a TV!

We didn’t have one (2009-2013), then we had one (2013-2014), then we didn’t have one again (2014-2018), and now we have one again (2018)! This is our struggle. Thank you for understanding.

What is your TV set up? Any no-TV-ers in the house?!?!

That’s all from me!

But that’s not all from Sage.

She would like to look into your eyes and say HEY! You’re gettin’ it done! You’re working hard! You’re rising above! YOU ARE AWESOME!

She would also like you to know that even when you make mistakes, you can always try again.

And she will be trying again in April.

Sage loves you guys.

Cheers to a great coffee (tea / latte / cucumber water) date! See you next month.

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