Someone asked me what I’ve been using on my skin. And while I wouldn’t recommend my regimen to anyone (mostly because it might not work for anyone else) I have no problem talking about it. I have generally, what I consider, terrible skin – or I used to I had pretty bad acne and scaring from acne thats long gone now. My skin is oily and my pores are ugh but my skin is a LOT better than it used to be and I’m so happy about that. I always laugh when I hear on commercials about how people don’t have confidence and stuff when they have bad skin, I’m always like “omg shut up“. I agree that it makes your confidence kinda blah because you don’t really want people to see that you have bad skin but I don’t think its anywhere near as severe as proactive commercials make it. Anyways, my acne sucked lol as all acne does and while I still get some here and there its not nearly as much as it was before. Its like some cystic acne going on – gross! ANYWAYS so here’s what I use.

1. St. Ives Apricot Scrub for Blackheads and whatever, I think its $5 or less at Walmart (thats where I get it), I use it every night after days where I wear makeup because I don’t wear makeup everyday or whenever I feel like my face needs a little extra lovin’ but generally only at night. Its pretty gritty and feels like you’re scrubbing your face completely off – and thats ok with me. The downside is when I use it in the shower and have to scrub the stuff off the bathtub “floor” so I try to do t
2. Clinique 3-Step Acne Solutions: (I get the whole set from Macy’s for about $48 which includes all three steps but you can get it at any department store or Sephora) One pump of the cleansing foam in the morning and one pump at night = 2 pumps a day.
3. Clinique 3-Step Acne Solutions: The clarifying lotion isn’t even a lotion! Its like a toner and if you have bumps on your face or anything it will STING like crazy but I kind of like that lol This runs out faster than any of the other products =/ but its worth the money to me
4. Clinique 3-Step Acne Solutions: Moisturizer. I don’t know what I can say other than its the only step that has the benzoyl peroxide stuff, the other two steps are sacylic acid. It dries REALLY fast which I like.
5. Clinique Acne Solutions Spot Healing Gel. I use this like right after I pop a pimple or something which isn’t as often as it was so it lasts me a while. This stuff BURNS MY FACE but its like a Hey, I’m making you beautiful burn not a I’m trying to burn you alive burn or maybe my mind makes that distinction because it makes me tear up a little when I use it. I think it was $14.50 but I’ve had it for at least 6 months and I’m no where near done with it. Its not even halfway done.
6. Zapzyt. I don’t know what to say about zapzyt other than it works for me. I noticed an immediate difference when I use it. If you use too much it feels gritty though, you barely need a pea size amount for your ENTIRE face. You can’t feel it which sucks but eh =/ whatever. I think its $4 at walmart? Idk but look at all that Benzoyl Peroxide! WHOA 10%, the moisturizer only has IDK 1.5%? lol I use zapzyt even when I don’t have any active breakouts but only when I’m not being lazy. This goes on before the moisturizer.
7. Mac Cleanse Off Oil. Probably THE best makeup remover that I’ve used (I haven’t tried the Boscia or the Shu Uemura cleansing oils because of the price) I use it in the shower at the end of the day because its MESSY. When you put it on your face (just one pump of it) and you rub it in – it turns white and then when you rinse it off you see all the makeup rinsing off and going down the drain. It looks gross and cool at the same time. I think the bottle is $22? Its a fairly big bottle too. This literally gets EVERYTHING off, mascara, eyeliner, everything and all of it and leaves your face soft because you’re not scrubbing your face with a stupid scruffy makeup remover wipe
8. Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel. I won’t say it does anything “dramatically different” but whatever, when my skin is dry (not often but I do get dry spots sometimes because the acne solutions system is pretty drying) I throw this on. Not often at all. I think the tube is $12 but I’ve had this tube for a long time – maybe 3 or 4 months? and its not done yet. (If I’m not using this, I use Cetaphil lotion which is $8 from drugstores and is great stuff)
9. Jojoba Oil from Trader Joes. I use this on my face when I steam it (I either put my face over some really hot water or put a really hot towel on my face) and it makes my face really soft, sometimes I do this instead of the apricot scrub. This bottle was $5 or so, pretty cheap. I use it on my hair too, and on my elbows lol
10. Honorable mention: My Neutrogena Wave I’ve been using it every morning in the shower and it makes my face feel really soft – why wasn’t it included with the rest of the pictures? Because I don’t know how much longer i’ll be using it because I want to buy a DermaNew ($70) or a Clarisonic ($130-200) because the cost of the little pad things that you buy for the neutrogena wave is kind of expensive (if you add it up) around $6-7 for 10 little pads, if there’s 30 days in a month thats $18-21 a month = $216-252 a year. but on amazon they sell 3 month supplies for $25 each so idk. we’ll see.

It sounds like a lot but the stuff I do everyday really only takes 4-5 minutes at the most and its worth it for me for someone to touch my face and comment how soft it is. I don’t really like people touching my face because they have yucky germs but whatever, I don’t freak out about it or anything lol.

Samantha-Marie.org P90X Progress Week 1 from Samantha Marie on Vimeo.

Week 1 progress,
full progress report on Samantha-Marie.org

(I totally cut my head off in this video, sorry, I didn’t notice and I didn’t have enough battery to film again lol sorry about the quality too) So, yay! Week 1 is finally over, I’m sore all over but its a good kind of sore! This week Wednesday I’ll be going back to Pilates at my local gym. I haven’t been in at least 6 months! But my favorite instructor Karen is teaching again so I’m excited to go. Its from 8:30am-9:30 am so I have to start waking up again I haven’t woken up that early in a while lol but it’ll be worth it in the long run. I loved how flexible I was getting when I was taking pilates regularly and I think incorporating pilates into my workout routine will be really good for building long lean muscles instead of bulky man muscles lol

• Day 1: Monday – March 1 2010 – P90X Kempo X
• Day 2: Tuesday – March 2 2010 – P90X Ab Ripper X
• Day 3: Wednesday – March 3 2010 – P90X Cardio X + 20 minute elliptical at the gym + 15 minutes sauna
• Day 4: Thursday – March 4 2010 -  Rest
• Day 5: Friday – March 5 2010 – P90X Cardio X
• Day 6: Saturday – March 6 2010 – 25 Minutes Elliptical, 15 minutes stair master thing
• Day 7: Sunday – March 7th 2010 – P90X Interval X  + P90X Ab Ripper X

Oh, and I cooked kind of. Broiled Salmon Wrap thingie, I swear it tasted A LOT better than it looks. I wish you guys could taste the food after I blog it lol Then again, I don’t know if I want to live in a world where that kind of technology exists.

Something happened with my server causing me to delete my site and re-upload everything so I lost all my subscribers as well as my poll results so if you voted on the poll, comment here with your choice. The choices were: Post P90x progress pictures every month or post p90x results at the end of the 90 days. I think those were th choices, if they weren’t the choices.. well.. they are now lol. I’m leaving it up to you guys to choose that. Because I lost all my subscribers, you all have to re-subscribe. (I’ll put the little subscribe thing under this paragraph). Another change: if you have me bookmarked – you have to change your bookmark to “samantha-marie.org” instead of how it was before. Why? Because samantha-marie.org/wp no longer works. In a way I’m kind of happy its no longer /wp because that was kind of annoying and I couldn’t see my trackbacks or anything (because I know some websites link to samantha-marie.org .. without the /wp) . I think thats the only change, the link itself and you have to re-subscribe and tell me your answers to the poll =/

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So, today was DAY THREE of P90x, I’ll vlog about it soon. Keep in mind that if I post progress pics every 30 days .. the comments will be closed simply because people can be very mean and I know they will completely disregard the fact that I am trying and it does take time to lose weight. Either way, I’ll vlog weekly about my “journey” which kind of makes me feel obligated to keep up with this whole fitness thing. I have to remember that fitness isn’t just for a bikini or a special occasion – its for life and its best to start early because the longer I wait, the harder it’ll get and the more weight i’ll have to lose. Mind you, I’m not focusing on the weight in terms of numbers, I actually just want to throw my scale out the window lol I just want to be in shape and healthy and thats something I can’t measure in pounds. I know a lot of people, skinny people, that cannot run for 15 minutes or do 5 push ups. Being skinny isn’t the goal, fitness is the goal, and theres a huge difference contrary to popular belief.

Onto the cooking… lol ignore the cheese, I don’t know what I was thinking with that cheese, I meant for it to melt before I took the picture but I was so impatient and wanted to EAT! I seasoned the chicken with a bunch of random seasonings and evoo, wrapped in aluminum foil, and baked for 50 minutes. When there was only 20 minutes left for the chicken to bake, I put the last of my shell noodles on the stove. Lightly buttered with some garlic seasoning and some onion mmm Who needs noodles and company (Well, I do but I didn’t want to spend noodles and company money lol). Oh and this water tastes amazing when ice cold (i usually can’t drink ice cold water, makes my head hurt :/) and it was only like 89 cents or something at Target and its a LITER!

This is me just posting out of pure excitement. Today on my way home from school, my blackberry (bold 9000) continued to give me problems as it had been doing for the past week+. This was my second bold and I did not want to deal with RIM anymore! I’ve already talked to ATT customer service, data support services, and RIM themselves about my phone. Rather than getting it replaced again I decided to go with the alternative… THE IPHONE 3GS

Generally, I would not go to iphone (or any apple products) due to my own dislike for the company but my first impression was that this is a really decent phone. Even though there’s no insurance which is the scariest part, I think I might love this phone. Typing on it is starting to become easier for me, im currently syncing my apps and everything to it that I had on my itouch. Sold my itouch and my blackberry on ebay as-is to offset costs. I can honestly say that you cannot compare a Blackberry to an iPhone. I can’t say one is better than the other because they are completely different types of phone. They do completely different things… They’re just completely dissimilar. I have 30 days to try this phone out before I decide whether I want to go back to RIM or if I want to stay with this phone. I may go to the Bold 9700 but I’m loving this right now.

I know I know! It’s been forever since I posted! 11 Days is a long time to go without a post considering I was posting every other day. I need to get back on that. To be honest my life has been less than interesting lately and I really just wanted to forget those days even happened. I did nothing but study, work, school, eat, sleep, shower. Not in that order but that was pretty much my everyday. Now that I have some stability I shouldn’t have such a problem updating and you know, living and stuff. Math is kicking my butt though, I don’t know when I’d need algebra and I don’t understand why I have to learn it but for my GPAs sake – I need to do well or at least pass it because I cannot afford to retake this class.

Anyways, so today I made a decision not to go to Math class today. I know I said math is kicking my butt but going to math class today would not have helped me at all. I have to catch up on the homework assignments, I already have todays homework assignment and I have study guides etc .. so thats what I’ll be doing. I decided that skipping class to work on assignments is only worth it if you actually work on some assignments otherwise you’re wasting your life away lol ok maybe not wasting your life away but whatever you’re doing cant be as important as passing your classes =X

So after doing a little bit of studying, I decided to take a break and make some lunch. I always go to this greek place near my house and get “salad” which isn’t actually a salad in terms of lettuce. Its more like a cucumber onion kind of thing. So I decided to make some of that because I had a cucumber and a red onion and some vinegar and seasonings. Then I decided I wanted some salmon. I’d like to buy fresh salmon but thats not in the budget lol so I usually get salmon individually packaged and frozen and blah blah blah. So anyways, I made lemon butter baked salmon and cucumber salad. Delish.

Ps. If you haven’t subscribed yet… here you go

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I’ll try not to go so long without an update again.

While I don’t have a romantic valentine, I do have some great friends who are all the valentines I really need. I’m sure you’ve seen the huge picture post under this one from my “Valentines” Day dinner on Friday. I personally don’t think Valentine’s day has to be the day you show people love. If you love someone, you should show them everyday. You shouldn’t treat people like crap every day and then decide “Hey, its Feb. 14th so I’m going to get her flowers and candy and take her out”. Flowers and candy are nice everyday, granted I’m not expecting anyone to get their girls candy and flowers everyday – thats silly and expensive, I’m just saying – nice things should be done for the one you love regularly .. not just because of a specific calendar “holiday”.

So for everyone that I couldn’t spend V-day with, I decided to make 2 mixes. 1 for Valentine’s Day and 1 for those of you who are “I hate valentine’s day and I want nothing to do with it” kind of people. Or you can download both, doesn’t make a difference to me. Some of these tracks were picked by people who aren’t me so if you don’t like it or were expecting something like my other mixes, I apologize.

Anyways, here are the mixes, just click them to download them:

Last night I went to PF Changs with my girls An, Karmin, Alex, Sandra, Tanae, and AP. It got off to a rocky start because of traffic and Sandra getting a ticket and almost into a fight on her way there but I was hanging out with An for over an hour before Alex came, then we were seated. They gave away our reservation but our waiter was nice (and cute) and managed to get us all to sit together when everyone else got there. While I can’t explain why I didn’t wear all black, I can say that everyone looked gorgeousssss. I hate having my picture taken but they managed to get me anyway :X

(stole this picture from An’s blog, some nice lady took this picture for us)

Theres a TON more pictures under the read more thingie.

Read the rest of this entry »

A while ago I showed up at a photoshoot for ANMLHSE’s Big Deal Project 2. Here are some screenshots from the site, click any of the pics to go to view the rest of the project. (all links open in a new window) =)

and buy a hoodie while you’re there.

ps. see the new layout?

I think this is Day 4. I have no concept of days at this point. I absolutely hate snow. I don’t care where you live, I don’t care if you live in the coldest part of the world or here in Maryland. Snow is snow and it sucks regardless of where you are.  Whether you’re used to snow or have never seen snow in your life, snow is annoying. Its ridiculous to drive in, if you even attempt it, and its cold and wet and ugh I hate it. Some people have places to go and things to do. SUCKS. Anyways, I think if it didn’t snow I’d be wearing something like

but instead, i’m wearing

ps. did I mention how much I absolutely LOVE mens Polo white vnecks? well… I do.

Sorry about my messy room lol I’m working on it.