The Sratty Archaeologist

I've always watched golf with my dad since I was a little girl and this week I'm #blessed to say that I had the opportunity to go to the PGA Championship this week at Baltusrol, in Springfield, NJ. The last time the championship was here I was only about 10 years old and my family was vacationing in South Carolina at the time. We watched as Springfield was on TV. I pass Baltusrol every time I head down to my grandma's house and I've always wondered what it looks like behind the gates.

Since summer is the season of glow, I thought it would be fitting to share my collection of highlighters with you. There's nothing better than having your highlight on fleek ( thanks Jaclyn Hill) and your glow beaming all day long.
1. Elf Baked Blush in Pinktastic

Although it's labeled as a blush, this guy is most definetly a highlighter and it's a steal at only $3!
2. Wet n Wild MegaGlo Highlighting Powder in Precious Petals

I had to get this when I saw Kathleen Lights instagram it. Two Rite Aids later I bought this bad boy and I can't belive how velevtly smooth it is. I love the creamy champagne color.
3. Wet n Wild Fergie Centerstage Collection To Reflect Shimmer Palette in Rose Champagne Glow

This was limited edition but I think they are selling them under a different name ( see below). This has a huge pan and the color is a cool pink toned highlight.
4. Wet n Wild To Reflect Shimmer Palette in Boozy Brunch

This is the revamp of the Fergie palette. I got this one on my hunt for a Champagne Pop dupe.
5. Wet n Wild MegaGlo Multi-Stick in Marigold Round

This stick highlighter is my only cream highlight. The champagne color lasts all day through the great heat of the outdoors.
6. Makeup Revolution Shimmer Brick in Radiant

This is a total dupe for the Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick and gives off a bronze golden glow. Perfect for summer!
7. The Balm Mary Lou Manizer


A cult classic, this highly pigmented highlighter is an opaque white champagne color.
8. Becca x Jaclyn Hill Shimmering Skin Perfecter Pressed Champagne Pop

The hype is real and the highlight is on FLEEK. Jaclyn Hill's original collab with Becca is my most favorite highlight of them all. Be careful! The compact is super delicate and I cried when I broke mine.
9. Becca x Jaclyn Hill Champagne Collection Face Palette


This is one of the most stunning pieces in my collection of makeup. It helped replace my broken champagne pop and I got another fabulous highlighter in the form of Prosecco Pop too! Not to mention three blushes!

...Make carrot soup! So I made the mistake of buying another package of carrot without realizing my mom had already bought a package when she had gone food shopping. My fault for not checking but I am not one for food going to waste. So I've been cooking carrots up for my dad to go along with his diners but the man only eats boiled plain carrots. This girl isn't into that, and I still really can't chew so I'm pretty limited to my carrot eating options. With a little help from Pinterest, I found a recipe from The Pioneer Woman for Creamy Carrot Soup. This recipe was very simple compared to a lot I saw on Pinterest. This recipe was designed for kids to help cook so it was very easy to follow. Click here for The Pioneer Woman's blog post and recipe! 
I decided to half the recipe since my dad doesn't eat carrot soup. The man is the pickiest of all eaters. It made a manageable size for me. I ate half and then saved the other half by refrigerating it for lunch.
I followed the recipe but hit a few road blocks along the way. My lemon didn't exactly zest, I didn't have any nutmeg, and I used whole milk instead of half and half. I also didn't have a hand blender so I used my nutribullet to blend the sauteed carrots. It took me a few more pulses to puree the mixture but it got the job done.
The soup was very warm, creamy, and hearty. I could taste the lemon flavor from the juice of the lemon, honestly you didn't even need the zest the juice took care of it. I added some extra salt and Mrs. Dash to give it some more flavor and it turned out great. My first adventure in soup making was pretty great! I'm excited to try more recipes out soon, especially since my jaw is slowly on the mend and I can open up my mouth just a little bit!

As I write this now I'm exactly three weeks post-op from my double jaw surgery. Well more specifically double jaw surgery, genioplasty, and some bone grafts. I feel pretty much back to normal, so here I am blogging about it.
A little background. I have always had bad teeth. I was about 8 when I had my first tooth pulled due to crowding. Fast forward to 2005, I like many of peers got braces. What I thought would be the typical two year stint in braces turned into a five year ordeal. One of my adult teeth hadn't come in so I had a bracket and gold chain attached to it underneath my gums trying to pull it up. After about a year of no movement and wild amounts of pain, my oral surgeon and orthodontist realized my tooth was actually fused to my jaw bone. So that tooth was literally chipped out of my face. Then came wisdom teeth surgery where my wisdom teeth and a couple of molars which were also attached to my jaw bone were removed. I finally got my braces off right before this surgery in 2010, but my raging under bite was never corrected and I was told that once I had finished growing I could get a dental implant for my missing tooth. Initially my oral surgeon told me that I was a candidate for jaw surgery but it wasn't really needed. He also told me that I would look more feminine and pretty if I got surgery. Literally the worst thing to say to a self conscious 16 year old girl. Needless to say I never went back to that guy.
Fast forward through my college years, I felt totally fine. My jaw would pop and hurt on occasion but I had no idea anything was wrong. When I finally stopped growing at the ripe old age of 21, I went to go see if I could get the ball rolling on my dental implant only to be told that my cross bite and under bite were so severe that any dental implant would fail. My dentist suggested braces and I started balling like a baby right in the office. I got flashbacks of those five painful years of braces and couldn't even think about getting another round of traditional orthodontics. My dentist is a gem and refereed me to a new orthodontist who specialized in Invisalign and I started that process about a year ago. Both my dentist and orthodontist were firm that I needed jaw surgery and referred me to Dr. Aziz, my current surgeon. Getting an appointment was an ordeal. My college is about three hours away from home and my spring break appointment was cancelled so I had to miss two days of class in order to have my consultation appointment. Dr. Aziz has an incredible reputation though and all of my dentists agreed saying he was the best of the best to do this surgery.
He took one look at me and agreed. My surgery was planned for the end of June so I would have enough time to heal before I started grad school at the end of August. I spent all of June preparing myself for this surgery, experimenting with different smoothies, eating a ton of my favorite foods knowing I wouldn't be able to for a long while ( Sweet lawdy I want a Moe's Burrito and a Cinnabon right now). About a week before surgery I saw my orthodontist and he placed little button brackets on my teeth, which I hated. I was so self conscious of them.

Me the day before surgery with my brackets

The day before surgery I went all out, ate everything in sight and my parents took me out to dinner and I got myself a large plate of baked ziti with lots of cheese, a large helping of bread and butter, and a side salad ( good gravy I'm getting hungry typing that out).
My parents drove me to the hospital and waited with me until I went in. I was super hungry already and super nervous. My surgery got off to a late start at around 2pm, I had been there since 10. When I woke up I was super loopy and the only coherent thing I could say was " my ass feels numb," I know classy right, I had zero filter. It was super late at night when I finally left recovery. They made me take some X-Rays which was really difficult, my face felt like it weighed 20 tons and I was still pretty loopy from all the drugs. When they finally rolled me to my very own room ( thank GOD), my parents left me and I had to pee like crazy. The nurse helped me along but this was a lot for me and I felt super nauseous afterward. I was given some anti nausea medicine through an IV and was hooked up to morphine that I could administer via a button. That was the only time I was really nauseous though through this entire experience. The next morning I was given pureed soup to eat and I gobble that down as best I could with my mouth wired shut. I wasn't in terrible amounts of pain thanks to the morphine and I went home at about 4pm that day.

At the hospital. New face who dis?

Coming home was worse though. My swelling was crazy around my third day post-op and I felt awful. I barely slept the night I got home from the hospital, I couldn't get comfortable. On the plus side I got to watch CSI: NY, which I haven't seen in forever and in my opinion was a pretty gosh darn good series but back to recovery. I took a shower the day after I got home and that felt amazing. Being clean just makes me feel ten times better. I slept on the couch for the first few days because sitting up took a lot of the pressure off my face and I binged watched more episodes of Law and Order: SVU, NCIS, and ordered London has Fallen on Demand. I was very weak the first few days but I made an effort to get moving at least once a day be it a walk around the house or down the street and back with the help of my dad. I kept ice on my face constantly to bring down the swelling. My doctor made a house call on Saturday morning right after my surgery and took a look, he said everything looked good and told me to make sure I kept it clean. I use a waterpik with Listerine and warm water and use a baby toothbrush to gently brush what teeth I can get to.
By the one week mark I felt a whole lot better. By the two week mark, I was more angry and frustrated by the whole situation. I was tired of not being able to eat, tired of my face being swollen. I felt so very low. It sounds crazy but Pokemon Go really helped my melancholy. I would get up everyday and take a walk around my townhouse complex and catch Pokemon. It gave me something to do and when I felt a bit better I started walking my neighbor's dog a couple of times a day whenever he needed me to. My dad also really helped me out taking me out for Rita's, going to see a movie, or just driving me to every grocery store in the are to find new soup flavors.

Week 1

Week 2

I'm getting my wires off tomorrow and I am so excited. After three weeks of eating nothing but soup, Ensure Clear, and smoothies I can't wait to eat some mashed potato, mac and cheese, and spaghetti squash, maybe even a Moe's burrito bowel? I'm still going to be limited on what I eat but anything is better than soup. My meals consists of an Ensure Clear and green tea for breakfast, soup for lunch, soup for dinner, and maybe a little bit of dairy free ice cream. The first couple of days I ate my meals via a ketchup squeeze bottle, then I graduated to small paper cups. Now I drink my meals out of a big tea mug. I did manage to go out to eat three times. Once for my mom's birthday. My godmother called the owner of the restaurant beforehand and they blended Pasta Fagioli for me. By far my favorite soup I've eaten during this entire three weeks comes from Stop and Shop. Their Kickin' Crab Soup blended and strained tastes like a crab cake in a cup. During the past three weeks I've lost 10 lbs which I haven't really minded. I'm back to my pre-college freshman 15  25 weight, so that's one plus. I'd like to keep the weight off and I'm excited to workout again. I might try Barre.

Week 3, Sorry about the RBF and crazy hair

My skin has also gone crazy during this whole thing. Normally I have very dry skin but now my skin is a literal oil slick and I've had to revamp my entire skin care routine. I also have two small scars at the corner of my mouth from the surgical clamps that cut into the skin. That looked pretty gross for a while. It's been a struggle trying to find makeup that won't slide off my skin or become super patchy. I've been using setting powder like a fiend whenever I do wear makeup.  Still it's nice to be able to be back in public again and start moving around more. I'm pretty understandable and don't feel super anxious about being around other humans again.
I'm excited to continue my healing process and getting my life back to normal. I know this will all be worth it in the long run but I am literally one of the most impatient people on the planet and want to be better NOW. I'm feeling better and more energized, I'm even heading to the PGA tournament next week, my face just needs to catch up with the rest of me.

The screws and plates in my face

When I first started to get into makeup at the tender age of 13, my first experiment was with eye shadow. My mom had given me her Lancome, Clinque, and Estee Lauder little gifts with purchase and I quickly went to work trying to give myself a smokey eye look. I've come a long way from messily putting eye shadows on my lid, but my love of eye shadow remains. I have a small collection of eye shadow palettes that I dip into on the daily. Most of these are high end products but there are a couple of affordable ones thrown in as well. I see eye shadow palettes as the ultimate treat-yo-self gift so I do like to splurge now and then on a nice high end palette I've had my eye on. So without further adieu, my eye shadow palette collection.

1. Urban Decay Naked Palette


Every makeup junkie has a Naked Palette hiding somewhere in their collection. It's a cult classic. This palette was my first ever high-end eye shadow purchase and it has been very well loved. The palette is a mix of 12 matte and shimmer neutrals and can be used to create a variety of looks. One of my go to looks is using the color Naked all over the lid, buffing Buck into the crease, and then using my fingers or a flat shader brush taking Sidecar just in the very middle of the lid.

2. Lorac Pro Palette 1


This palette is the ultimate grand supreme. I only purchased it in April but have gotten so much use out of it. I even brought this palette with me on my travels to the UK and Ireland this past May. The palette has a combination of 16 creamiest, smoothest matte and shimmer shades. These are ultra pigmented and long lasting. My favorite go to look for this palette is dusting Cream all over the lid and up to the brow bone, using Taupe in the crease, and then adding just a little bit of Pewter to the outside corner of my eyelid and taking it slightly into the outermost part of the crease.

3. Tarte Tartelette in Bloom


I absolutely love this palette for Spring and Summer. The 12 palette is made up of 3 shimmer shades and 9 matte shades. The palette comes with a giant mirror which is great for on the go and use at home. It also smells AMAZING, like vanilla which is one of my favorite scents. My favorite look from this palette is packing Funny Girl on my lid, then using a mix of Jetsetter and Rebel in the crease and using just a little bit of Firecracker on my outer corner. 

4.  Anastasia Shadow Couture World Traveler Palette


I can't wait for fall to come around to dip into this palette. The warm shades of this 12 pan palette give me life. While the warm shades are my favorite, the palette also has some gorgeous fun pops of color. My favorite combo of this palette is using Soft Peach all over the lid,  mixing Morocco and Fudge in the crease, and then take Fudge on the outer crease and part of the lid, then finishing off the look with Bellini on the inner corner of the lid.

5. Urban Decay Shadow Box


This bad boy was a Christmas gift from my boyfriend. It has a lot of fun shades in it that I've used on special occasions and events. One of my favorite looks I created incorporated this palette was on sorority Bid Day. We had a Starbucks themed bid day and I used the color Indo along the lower lash line to give my eyes that pop of Starbucks green.

6.Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette


This tiny little palette is perfect for on the go. It's got the same great Urban Decay formula but I'll reach for this guy when I want a no fuss makeup look.

7. Collection Eyes Uncovered Nude Palette


I bought this while travelling this May in Scotland at Boots. It's not available in the United States but I wish it was and I wish I had bought more of Collection's palettes. They're super affordable I think it was only around £5. It is supposed to be a dupe for the Naked Basics Palette but this has more shimmer shades than the Naked Basics Palette. Still it is great for day to day looks!

8. Ulta Palette


I received this in a set as a Christmas gift from my boyfriend's family. It has a range of 36 matte and shimmer shadows and a mix of fun and neutral
 colors. I haven't gotten a really good chance to play with this but I'm excited to see what looks I can create!

I hope you enjoyed seeing my palette collection! What's in your collection?