Friday, July 26, 2013

How to apply for Mycaa: A Simple womans breakdown

                                                                   


Hello military spouses! I'm just going to get right into it. Mycaa is a pain! At least trying to figure out how to
go about getting it and enrolling in school.  I know for maybe half a year to a year I have been asking off and on for help applying for this scholarship. The answers I usually got were contact your school adviser or just go to the website it will tell you.  While that's fine and dandy for some people that just doesn't work for me. Never has. I need steps, explanations before I start diving into things. I get too confused with how does it work? So maybe your like me and had the same experience. Well luckily I'm at the home stretch of enrolling in Career Step and thought I'd share my experience with you.

1) Alright first thing I did was to visit the education center on base to get the website and information I needed to apply for Mycaa. Well I got home and it didn't work! I use Google Chrome and it would not let me on. So I went back and had them get me onto the site. Really it's just your computers settings because it has a different type of certificate since it is a military site. At any rate just open up Internet explorer. It's annoying but everything you do for this will be done through explorer. It says it's not secure up top, but if you go to the education center, they will just do the same thing.

2) Be sure you know kinda what you want to do before making an account. It will ask you and will make it a lot easier to just go through if you're not second guessing. Register for that, easy peasy. If it takes a few minutes on one of the pages and seems frozen, just leave it alone. It does a live DEERS check so it takes it a few minutes. I promise it will load the next page.

3) After this hopefully you have a school chosen. Whatever school you decide you want to attend (mine is just an online school) Contact the Career counselor/adviser.  They make it super easy. Just let them know you aren't sure about all the steps to using Mycaa and they should be more than happy to give you emails with the steps you need.   They will provide you with an attachment of a career plan.  On the Mycaa website on the right hand side it will ask you to submit a Career plan. This is where the email from your adviser will come in handy, it should tell you how to fill out every line of that form.

4)Now once you submit that call the 1 800 number at the top of the page, it probably says SECO next to it. You need to make an appointment to have a consultation call. This takes 10 maybe 15 minutes to do. They ask you a few questions like your name, email, address, spouses branch, pay grade things like that. After you make your appointment you get to play the waiting game. I personally had to wait a week for my call so definitely get on that.  Whoever you talk to will also send you an email asking you to make a SECO account. This is different than the Mycaa one. Be sure to do that before your call, it will make it so much easier.

5) Your consultation call can last up to an hour is what I was told. Mine really took 25 minutes. I think it depends on what you want to do career wise but just be aware to set aside that amount of time just in case. They basically ask what your goals are. Now between the time of making your appointment and the actual call you may have seen that your plan has been deferred. Don't panic. The consultation call fixes that. They approve your plan after that call. Contact your adviser and let them know that you have had your call and that you are approved.

6) They will now probably send you two emails. One with step by step instructions to apply for FA (financial assistance). I know that is weird. But once you get approved to use Mycaa you then have to actually request the amount of money you need.  The other email will be a electronic signature so that they can enroll you once your FA has been approved. I did both of these things this morning. Now I wait. I was told it can take up to 2 weeks for it to go through but that it rarely takes that long. Maybe a week if that.

And so far, that's all it takes! It sounds like a lot but with the helpful emails from your adviser it's really very easy. Annoying if you don't use explorer but not too bad. And there you go! A little breakdown of what happens. If you have any questions please contact me here in the comments or on Twitter. The link is up top :)

Friday, July 19, 2013

How to use up bad mascara and other lash tricks

Ok so this post will be a little scattered. Just a few random things I've come across that work for me personally to get my best lashes possible. It's really hard to get pictures of the full effect on here though so please try it for yourself!

                                                                     

Tip #1: Always tight-line.  For those of you who may not know Tight lining is basically applying eyeliner below your top lashes.  You know the water line right? Well same thing on top just under those lovely lashes :)  You don't have to be heavy with this, in fact I rarely actually apply the stick liner there. I usually take a flat thin brush rub some liner from the stick onto that and push it into the lashes. this will give your lashes a fuller look without screaming "I'M WEARING EYELINER!!!"  Focus on the outer third of your eyes with this.

Tip #2: Do the tight-lining before your eye shadow. I find I have to pull up my lid a little bit to get my eyeliner on and I hate messing up eye shadow after spending all that time on it. You can touch up if need be but you should be fine. Plus this gives it time to set.

Tip #3:  When using an eyelash curler blowing on it, running under warm water, or blasting it with the hair drying for a couple of seconds can help your lashes curl better and last longer!

Tip #4:  Curling your lashes seems to be a "Must do" for people and some may wonder what it's actually doing. Honestly, you may not need to curl them! I figured this is true for myself, my lashes are pretty long and are already curled a little bit. So if you're new to this concept try a cheap curler like one from Elf, I think it's $3 so if you find you don't benefit from it no harm done.

Tip #5:  If you find your lashes don't hold a curl throughout the day try applying a very light coat of waterproof mascara (try a lighter shade like black brown) and then follow up with your normal mascara.

Tip #6:  Have you bought a mascara that you loved but found it smudged on you like crazy? I mean black all over your cheek kind of crazy? Try the trick above! Not only will it hold a curl but when I tried this my mascara didn't smudge!

Tip#7: Less is more in my opinion. If you try the tight lining go a little lighter on mascara, you don't want to be clumpy spider eyelash girl.  


Remember my last post on the Revlon lash potion mascara? Well I can use it now thanks to tip number 5!

                                                                   
I'm sick and just out of the shower..excuse me 


Friday, July 12, 2013

Revlon Lash Potion Mascara Review

Alrighty today I have some more terrible pictures of another beauty product, go figure. Anyway this is Revlons newest mascara out that promises length and volume. And really I know a lot of people do multiple coats of different mascaras to get those two things. However I'm lazy and want 1 mascara to do it all. On top of that, I don't even bother with more than 1 light coat. I hate when my eyelashes stick together and start looking like spider legs. I also hate when they are crunch and just bleh.
   I needed a new mascara in black since I grabbed the wrong color when I used the clump crush and decided to try this, it's new and I had a couple coupons that made it only $2.69! Since when is mascara ever that cheap? Speaking of price this retailed for $4.99 at Target which is cheap to begin with.

                                                                   
Its super pretty packaging. Purple blue green and sparkle! 

It's quite a large tube. One thing I find interesting as that it comes like this in the package, I kinda like when the brush is separate in the package. I feel like it keeps the mascara fresher and I get a weird sense of satisfaction from seeing that clean brush haha.  Another downfall for me is that as far as I could see, there is no water proof version. 

                                                                      
A ginormous wand! 

The wand is huge which scared me when I saw it, I thought for sure I'd poke an eye out! But it's actually quite nice. Its a spiraled brush which you can't tell from here, but it reminds me of those pictures of the spiraling DNA strands. Is that weird? Why must my brain make these comparisons. Anyway it's a great brush for getting those strands separated.  

Now I love that this mascara is cheap, the brush, and how it makes my lashes look. It really does add length even though my lashes are pretty long. I didn't curl them for the upcoming pictures and I know they are blurry, stupid webcam but in person it is a crazy difference. I'm not sure how much volume it gives but length for sure. It's fantastic. 

                                                
Before application


Excuse my crazy wide eye, I didn't curl my lashes. But I can tell the difference it makes in the upper lashes they look thicker and separated. 

That being said I will not be re-purchasing this mascara. The reason being that it smudged on me like CRAZY!  Now I do have oily eyelids and skin in general so that could be a problem. So maybe this would work if you didn't have that problem or live somewhere crazy humid. But I have both of those problems and even if it was only worn on the top lashes a little while later I literally had black on my cheek. It was terrible. So I'm not sure that I will use this up, maybe if I just do a certain look for this blog and not going out which is a shame. I really like the formula except that it's not waterproof and smudges. I think if there was a waterproof version it would be my go to mascara. So if anyone knows if I missed that please let me know!  

I think it's worth a try for those who don't have oily eyelids or live in crazy humidity. I mean it's cheap after all so I'm not sweating it too much. 

Any recommendations for a good mascara? 

Saturday, July 6, 2013

4th of July Nails

Well this is super late but I thought I'd post anyway, who doesn't like nail art right? I wasn't really sure what to do until about 10pm on the 3rd. So I stayed up way late to do them. I did some crazy makeup too but I couldn't get a good pic of that. Sadly it was less crazy than what I would do in High School.
     Imagine the technique of how you would do normal eye shadow but just with different colors. I used the color tattoo is barely branded on the whole lid, and used sin from the naked palette to make it stand out more. Then I applied a dark blue on the outer half of my lid and red in the crease and blended it all in. I it dunno, I thought it looked cool but really, I'm too old to be doing that shit lol.
    Anyway here are my nails which I am a little more proud of.

                                                                 

Blue Nails: Blue is OPI Swimsuit Nailed it!, Silver glitter Orly Tiara

White China Glaze Platinum Pearl

Red is OPI The one that got away from the Katy Perry Collection

We took our little girl to see the fireworks last minute and so glad we did. She loved them. She rarely speaks but she managed to say "It's Pretty" then when we went into a store and came back out after the show was over she pointed up and went oooo pretty! So that was pretty cool. Hope you all had a great holiday and didn't get to drunk ;)  

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Yo Mamma!

What? No one else thinks of Yo Mamma jokes when they see the "Not Your Mothers" hair care products? Well fine then, onto the actual point of this blog.

I was terrible and had some retail therapy yesterday and while in the hair aisle I decided I need to start trying to do my hair.  So naturally I went for the most interesting bottle that was also fantastically cheap.  No kidding at Target this brand is $4.75 across the board.  For a big bottle might I add.

                                                         

Sorry terrible pic but you get the basic idea of what it looks like. 

 So the proper name of this is actually "Not Your Mothers Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray"  Infused with Dead Sea Salt and Sea Kelp.  That might sound scary but anything with sea salt in it I'm all over. I keep seeing this sort of thing pop up as well. But seriously back to the price, the size of this bottle ( 8 oz) for $4.75 how cool. 

So basically I've always sucked at hair and this seemed perfect for summer, just spray and go and have it be wavy and awesome and be a model. Well in my head. It is supposed to add waves, texture, and separate. All you have to do is mist generously all over your hair and you can use it dry or wet.   

My hair does tend to have some wave to it already but nothing great and some pieces are flat while pieces like my bangs curl so weirdly that it looks like the letter L.  But after I came home I tried it on my pretty straight dry hair.  I have to say I wasn't a big fan of it that way. I felt like it made it chunky to the point of looking like I hadn't washed my hair in a couple of days on the top of my head.  It also just felt strange. I brushed it out a bit and that helped but it looses some of the effect that way.  

This morning right out of the shower I decided to try spraying it in wet hair.  I think I like it better this way  but for me it does make my hair take quite a long time to dry for some reason.  I think the wave looks better, though I did miss pieces. And another downfall is that it made my hair incredibly frizzy and had a lot of fly aways. I guess that does happen after being on the beach but I have a problem with frizz to begin with. But no matter I took some styling spray (I'm sure you could take hairspray or anything you use with frizz normally) and just sprayed it on my hand and combed where I needed it. 

                                                           
This is what it does for me. It's a little difficult to see with my dark hair but it does add nice wave. 

I'll continue to experiment with this but I do like it. The smell is strong but lucky for me I love it haha. But for the price why not try it?  Hope you have a good day!