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Category Archives: Raves & Praise

Katie’s teacher gift drop off!

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It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and…end of year I guess?! Mrs. Hansen got some beauty goodies from me and, well, since it’s Cinco de Mayo she also got margaritas (plus Katie’s memory book to write in). She only lives about a mile from us—and probably less as the crow flies.

Lest you think I forgot Owen’s teacher…I delivered hers last week! That was a story in itself. I transposed her address so I actually dropped off the gift—and Owen’s book!—at the wrong house!!! There were a few moments of panic on my end because Owen’s book is irreplaceable and I kept thinking WHAT IF… Plus with the Corona thing, it’s not like she could just go knock on the other person’s door! And I felt horrible that I screwed it up. Well, some quick googling got me property records and a name which got me to LinkedIn where I recognized the guy who had been inside the screen door at a desk (I had just assumed it was her husband) and his posted resume had a phone number! I called and left a message explaining everything…and he called back almost immediately—he had been talking to her! She had walked down and they had a nice chat! In a bizarre turn of events, his daughter’s name was Heather and she was a teacher so he just thought it was a gift for her and didn’t even think anything of it! But he was very nice about it and even joked about enjoying the margaritas!

I’m a Maiden again!

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Okay so I’ve told you all I never got into this side hustle planning on having a team—and I still don’t really worry about it that much—but it’s still exciting to get that email telling you you ranked up to Maiden!

For those playing along, I have been a maiden before and was actually a higher rank, but unless your team keeps up their sales, you lose your rank. And since I don’t really have any serious sellers on my team, ranking up just happens randomly. This month, I had two people sign up and place qualifying orders plus one who signed up last month and place an order…

Oh, and guess what? Free sign-ups have been extended through this month!! So if you were thinking about it and thought you missed out… You didn’t!! PM me with any questions! Or just click here to join!

I’m a comeback queen, y’all!

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Tonight was my pseudo-upline’s Dominion Virtual Awards. I didn’t get to attend (because I didn’t pay)…but look at what I qualified for?! COMEBACK QUEEN RETREAT! Just 21 people out of maybe thousands?! WHAAAAAT?! I was floored when my friend Breesy sent this screenshot to me!

And remember the awards I mentioned I technically achieved but didn’t get my own certificate because I didn’t pay to attend? Well, they made a one-time exemption with virtual certificates—and my name wasn’t on it (I did it myself!) but here they are!

Personal Volume Court (this means selling a lot)
12 consecutive months SeneSeller (this means ordering $1500+ every month)

Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way! I never imagined this little side gig would turn into this…

A SURPRISE SEMINAR YEAR SUCCESS STORY

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I know it’s long. Stay with me.

So as I’ve mentioned, I do my SeneVersary party months as a celebration of another year in the business but also as a huge thank you to everyone for supporting me—I couldn’t do it without you!

Never did I imagine the impact this business would have on me. It’s not even the extra money so much as the newfound friends, additional self confidence, improving makeup skills, learning to go outside my box…and even moreso now…allowing me to work from home!

I want to publicly thank my friends and family for your orders (and loyal REorders!) of AMAZING products, to the ladies always wanting to try something new, and especially to the few who have also found a love for this sustainable home-based business that we get to work on our own schedule.

So I wanted to share something with you that I learned tonight.

Had I planned to attend seminar (this weekend, cancelled), I would have been up on stage receiving an award from the CEO of our company. What the what?! Yep, I technically fall under her so in her dominion, I would have been one of the top 15!

I edited to make my own certificate!

Now, to be perfectly clear, this is not the top 15 of the whole company. This would be more like…a grade out of a whole school district. There are many grades and classes, each with a leader and a bunch of people in them. And in her grade of, say, 500 people, I am in the top 15. So it’s still something good but it’s not like I’m in the top 15 of the entire school district of 10,000. (We just had our annual awards ceremony and there are so many people doing so many amazing things with huge teams and multi millions dollars worth of sales that my achievement seems quite piddly in comparison. But it is still something noteworthy.)

So you guys, this just completely blows my mind. And I wasn’t going to go to seminar because it cost a few hundred dollars and is way outside my box and I hate huge groups of people and I keep thinking this is just a little side thing and I don’t have a huge team and I really don’t do THAT much business… But apparently I do enough to earn a top spot?! Again, mind blown.

And I could have had this one as a company-wide thing…had I ponied up the cash to go. I guess I’ll be happy knowing I could have gotten a piece of paper. But seriously, it’s actually a pretty big deal and I’m kinda bummed you only get the award if you were going to attend.

⭐️⭐️Looking for a side gig or wanting to earn extra income…
▪️TOTALLY FREE SIGN-UPS THIS MONTH

http://bit.ly/LL367013

This is the fun I get to have with my SeneGence business!!

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Y’all. This is the fun I get to have with my SeneGence business!! I just got done playing with, showcasing, and answering questions on the most awesome shadows to a great group of ladies for an hour…while enjoying an adult beverage. Gotta love a job that you can drink while having fun, helping people, giving out prizes, and making money, right? 

Six weeks to the day!

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This manicure has lasted amazingly long already—six weeks as of today. This just blows me away because a nail usually pops off by week three or four…so the fact that this powder dip has lasted this well for this long is blowing. my. mind. Same salon, same nail tech, same level of activity on my behalf…so I have no idea what’s going on. It’s like the magic manicure.

But today one nail was finally realllllly loose so I popped it off. I’m keeping the rest as long as possible… So stay tuned.

I’m a rising star!

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I rarely get recognized for any of my work accomplishments since I have no true working upline (and my “official” upline leader is the CEO of our company due to people dropping off… which sounds cool but is effectively useless)… I have been taken under the wing of an amazing leader, but I’m not in her back office (since I fall outside her dominion) but she still tries to keep tabs on me. Soooo she posted this in her 8000-member group today.

The maiden voyage of my Margaritaville machine!

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I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I’ve tried our really good blender before (that’s supposed to be good with ice but… didn’t give you really smooth ice) but wasn’t sure the cost of this would be worth it.

But it is. It sooooo is. 

The only thing at the moment is I don’t have the individual ingredients for margaritas…so I’m just using my ready-to-drink mix. It’s good, but once you mix it with the ice, it tastes diluted. So…I decided to add some extra tequila, some Grand Marnier, and some mashed strawberries from the freezer!

And then this happened. NOOOOO!!!

Yes, don’t worry. I know how to fix it.  After realizing there was no way to get all the cork out…in it went and then I strained it.

DELISH!!

I put up our Christmas light last night!

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There was a mini movement on Facebook too put up holiday lights and decorations (any holiday) in order to break up the boredom and monotony and give people something to look at when they’re driving by. I’m all about the Christmas lights so Tom dug ours out and I put it up last night.

And look what’s happening now?! 😒 SERIOUSLY.

Hair washing day!

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This morning was hair washing day. If you’re like me, it’s something you plan for. My hair is wavy but I like to wear it straight so I need to take things into consideration like the time it takes to air dry or if I have the energy to use a round brush and a hair dryer for 30 minutes.

Straightening my hair is a long process during which my arms get tired and I sweat (ha, my phone corrected that to swear and that’s sometimes true, too) and even then it’s hard to get the back or the roots straight. I would need a second set of arms plus at least another 15 minutes to really get it right. It’s exhausting.

But this morning? This morning was a delight. Today I tried the Dyson Airwrap and HOLY FORKING SHIRTBALLS it is a life changer!!

I let my hair air-dry for an hour then used the dryer attachment for like two minutes and then the hard brush attachment for less than 15 minutes. Straight hair, straight roots, no sweating, no sore arms. Sigh. 🥰

Tomorrow I throw away all my old styling implements and round brushes. Yippee!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻

P.S. If you Google the Dyson Airwrap, prepare for a minor heart attack. I had a good friend let me use her company discount so I got it a bit cheaper.

P.P.S. I’m in Mojave. Big surprise. 😂

Doctor Who is back in place!

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So one thing I didn’t think about when getting a new car…my beloved Doctor Who decals!!

Since we now have a Cricut I thought I’d just make them, right? Well that turned into an hour plus Google project because I couldn’t find the exact graphics—free or paid! So then I decided to just go buy them again…except the online store is long gone. Not on eBay, Etsy, Amazon…or anywhere else either. So back to Cricut it was.

So I present to you the finished project. I actually upgraded my Doctor and Weeping Angel a bit and I like them more. I also had to rethink placement due to the wiper blade.

This will make my car MUCH easier to spot in a parking lot now!!

In one week our family will be on this ship…

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I honestly still can’t believe it’s real. This will be our first cruise with the kids and they are beyond excited.

And I am extremely thankful for SeneGence for providing me the opportunity to treat my family to this experience. Yes, you heard that correctly…this entire cruise from flights to excursions to souvenirs is MY TREAT—paid for totally by my little side gig. That was my main goal when I started doing this 2-1/2 years ago—totally a pipe dream and little did I know that the business would take off and I would be having so much fun and earning enough to spoil my family like this.

SeneGence has also totally changed my self confidence, changed my look, given me a whole new set of friends, and showed my kids that when you set goals anything can happen!

#senethankful

Our cruise shirts are done!

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As soon as I knew we were going on a cruise, I knew I wanted to make personalized T-shirts for all of us…thus begin the search on Amazon and Etsy and eBay… betsy was the winner with the best choices but I knew that I wanted to create my own with our names or initials (or something) and not just buy a generic one. So then I managed to find a friend with a cutting machine who volunteered her machine and her services…

It was actually quite a long drawn out process because she had really not done many T-shirts before and I had never done T-shirts before and it was literally just a comedy of errors but we had a great time working on them together.

So without further ado…

They are all the same on the front but the kids have a warning on the back of theirs and Tom and I have a similar warning on the back of ours. (My dad and stepmom escaped warnings on their shirts.) I figured we are literally only going to be wearing the shirts for a few hours on debarkation day so it really didn’t matter what we put on them…and we thought it was hilarious.

The sidenote to this whole story is that Tom and I are now the proud owners of a Cricut Maker and a crap ton of accessories. I had thought about getting one of these machines in the past but knew I would literally go down a huge rabbit hole of projects and expenses so I always passed. So when this came up Tom asked me again if I wanted to get one because he wouldn’t mind having one in the future for some of his projects…so many hours of research later (and YouTube videos and reviews watched and debating the merits of the different machines and getting input from friends)… we decided on one. So stay tuned for many projects!!

Red Hots win! Congrats to the GYB fall champs!

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Owen’s team won the fall championship in a 19-17 nail biter today! They were up a few and then down by 10 (and we thought the game might get called by the slaughter rule), then we caught up, then they caught up, and then we were ahead by two and held them off!! Owen did his thing on 1st and caught the ball for the final out of the game! We are so proud of all the boys!!

Here’s a few pics from the game. Owen on second.

A typical sight: tying shoelaces.

Attempting to steal home. I can’t remember if he did or not.

Katie was being punished for earlier transgressions at home and had to sit by me the entire game, so I got these.

The game was stressful to watch because the score was so back-and-forth. But once we came back from being 10 runs down, the entire mood changed and it was a real game!! We were ahead by two going into the top of the seventh inning so we expected they’d score and we’d have to rally in the bottom of the seventh (and last) inning but the boys held them off!

I was taking pics of the last plays and got these. They aren’t great because the fence was in the way, but I love the progression of the excitement, then the boys coming in from the field, then throwing hats in the air! I wished I had gotten a shot of Owen actually catching the ball but it is what it is.

Award ceremony!

TEAM PHOTO!

Funny team photo!

Running the bases (Owen led the way)!

Friends. 💕

Coaches Tom, Ken, Jamie (Head Coach), Mark

Happy boy!

Happy daddy!

Fun with Coach Jamie!

And then it was off to Culver’s to celebrate!

Happy 46th birthday to me!

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When it’s your birthday and you can’t decide what color lipstick to wear.

First was too light. Second was too dark.

Also? Yes. You can bet your ass I’m wearing my tiara all over hell today!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Happy damn birthday to me! 😂

Tiara out to lunch, getting my nails done, and leaving my kid at a neighbor’s after school. Tiara on the go!!

Then, I got birthday calls from my mom and David (as well as a handful of friends who were all in Maine together!) and dad and Linda (who, when I saw they were calling, wondered why).

Then, what better way to end my birthday than a margarita with a new friend (we met at the Paint & Sip a few months ago).

No, wait. THIS is the best way to end my birthday. 💕

I’m sold on these Tori Belle magnetic lashes!!

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Yeah. I’m sold on these Tori Belle magnetic lashes!! I hate liquid eyeliner (but I hate glue waaay more) and I do need to work on the finer points of application…but overall it was super easy. And I might need the other less dramatic styles because these are a little much for Saturday morning baseball.

After a few hours at baseball and back at home, one lash felt like it was starting to come off and Katie even told me it was coming off. So I pulled it off without looking at it too closely. Once I got up off the couch (Maggie was sleeping on me) I checked it out and reapplied for date night.

Redone…with more eye makeup…and I just love how they look.

So after I put them on a second time they felt even better. But about five hours in, I could just somehow feel like they were loose or something, so I touched them to see… And could tell they were pretty much off. It was weird. But really I’m happy with 5ish hours of wear for my first attempt.

Fri-YAY: Friends!

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This week I’m thankful for friends. That seems really generic, I know, but let me explain.

Being military and moving every three years, there is a certain cycle that we go through each move–it generally takes about two full years before we finally have a good set of friends. You know…the ones you can call last-minute to watch your kids, the ones you can call to take your kids to sportsball practice when you can’t make it, the ones you invite over for dinner because your kids get along so well. It’s also a time when friends are around regularly enough that it seems very commonplace–like we’ve been here our whole lives.

So we’re at that two-year mark.

This week I went for a walk around the neighborhood with a friend, I ran into a friend shopping at Michael’s, a friend came over to shop for make-up, a friend and I vented to each other about life, I helped a friend decide what artwork to hang in her house, a friend came over and picked me up because she wanted to talk and I had been drinking and couldn’t drive, and a friend offered her assistance in designing a T-shirt for our upcoming family vacation.

Friends are amazing and I don’t take any of them for granted.

It’s been at least 25 years…

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So today the boys’ baseball game was cancelled due to flooded fields but we took a few of the kids for some pitching and batting practice.

At the end I decided to pick up a bat and try hitting some pitches from Tom. I haven’t tried batting in probably 25+ years so I thought it would be a complete shitshow. Needless to say I surprised everyone there when I hit most of them!! They were underhand pitches but still…

I will need Aleve and margaritas later today but I have to admit it was fun!!

Owen’s Crazy Mohawk

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So Owen has a mohawk but he never lets me put product in to actually show it off so I’ve just given up asking. But today…today he said it was Crazy Hair Day and had a smile on his face.

“Soooooo, can I do your hair today?!” And he smiled big and bright and said yes. So we washed it with purple shampoo, then I loaded it up with Gorilla Snot gel, and then sprayed it with not one…not two…but three hair colors.

My boy is growing up and slowly turning into a pre-teen before my eyes (he’s almost 11) so I’ll grab these chances to do something fun with him.

Where did my wrinkles go?!

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😳💩 HOLY SHIT BALLS!! I have to share this because I am honestly blown away—I was NOT expecting what I saw!

I was trying to find an old pic to see how much (if any) my lashes have grown since using a new mascara (because I thought they have but photo proof is always great) and I found proof…but I totally didn’t expect to see the huge reduction in wrinkles, too!!! I mean, just look!!! 😱

👉🏻👉🏻 Anti-Wrinkle Treatment 2x/day for the freaking win!! 🙌🙌

👉🏻👉🏻 VolumeIntense mascara (and primer) for the win! (I have only recently started wearing it 4-5 days a week – for the first few months it was maybe once a week).

👉🏻👉🏻 And though you may think my dark undereye circles look better, too… Honestly that’s due to the Light Concealer I wore today (which I don’t always wear)! 🤣

And just the lashes…

Unfortunately I have become that person that feels naked without mascara now… but the benefit is really long lashes!!

So anyway I’ll just be over here high-fiving myself 🙌🙌 and staring at these AMAZING results. #nofilter

Every woman needs a good red lipstick!

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Even if sometimes it’s just to go to a kids baseball game on a lazy Saturday morning! ⚾️😜

SeneGence has a bunch of reds to choose from (so there’s literally something for everyone, even if you think you can’t wear red!) but Hurricane Red is totally my jam. Unfortunately it doesn’t last the longest…but it certainly looks amazeballs while it does. I always get a bunch of compliments on it and today was no different.

Do you have a good red lipstick?

The tale of the table.

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So, some of you may have heard the long and involved tale of the table I asked for. If not, the short version is that neighbors had a similar style table that I fell in love with:

I thought it would be perfect for behind our couch for added seating, a place for the kids to eat snacks while watching TV, space for party hosting, etc. So I asked Tom to “throw one together” with the thought that it only needed to last until we moved because I didn’t want to move another big piece of furniture. That was March 27 (I know because that’s the date of the above picture).

Well, if you know Tom, he can’t simply “throw something together” when it comes to anything woodworking. 😂 So he started looking for plans, searching Pinterest, and watching YouTube videos. The time slipped by and weeks passed and I still didn’t have my table…but he was working on it! (To be fair, he doesn’t have a lot of time for projects like this so it was some weeknights and weekends only.) I kept giving him grief because I literally wanted a two-hour table and it was turning into a two-month table.

I did catch glimpses of it now and again and I knew it was going to be neat—he was using wood from various parts of my life, including wood strips from my mom’s basement and wood strips from a dresser my Grandma passed down to my dad and then to me (that finally broke apart during one of our moves)—he was cutting everything into pieces and then gluing them all together. I joked that this table was going to be a family heirloom that Katie‘s grandchildren would enjoy someday.

But it was seeming to take forever and I was growing anxious. After all, we’d already moved pieces around to make room for it—but it wasn’t there—so junk started filling the area and it looked bad.

And time passed. And since the table top had been stored in the garage and it was summer and humid, it warped…which necessitated more time to fix it. And then finally…it was done! Just in time for our back-to-school party on August 17 (or our anniversary on August 18—take your pick!). Tom was literally putting the last coats of sealant on it that morning…bu we were crazy busy so I didn’t even get any photos. That said, these were the legs (which had been painted gray). You’ll notice they are Hs. 🙂

We’d been casually looking for stools for months (we had two we could use but really wanted four) and by chance we found some on NextDoor and picked them up the morning after the party. We had measured the height to make sure they fit…but neither of us thought to ask about the width. I bet you can see where I’m going with this. Yep, two stools together were just a little bit too wide and didn’t fit underneath the table…DAMMIT!! The stools were really perfect and they were an amazing deal…so we ended up changing out the legs which gave us just enough room for the stools. Of course this took more time (but thankfully not too much more).

AND NOW IT’S DONE. AND IT’S PERFECT. AND GORGEOUS. AND I FREAKING LOVE IT.

Tom is simply amazing and I can’t wait to see this in our forever house (and Katie’s forever house 😂). And I can’t wait to see what treasures he builds when he actually gets a real workshop someday…