What a week.  Way too much rain for me!  I hope May is much more sunny.  Here are this week's links.

– Digging this ink blot manicure. 

– Via Beauty and What It Means, here's an interesting article on beauty packaging. 

– I liked this shout-out to Stila's eye shadow packaging at The Dieline.

– Good post on whether loving makeup makes one a bad feminist.

– Today I tried my hand at rose macarons.  Not anywhere near Laduree quality, but not bad for my first try either!

What were you up to this week?

This post is a little late because I just got back into town yesterday, but this week's installment of Curator's Corner is devoted to my first race, which I ran 2 days ago.  🙂

My running history:  I've been running for nearly 12 years now but it never occurred to me to actually run a race, or even outdoors – I was strictly a treadmill runner who only ran about 10-12 miles a week.  I don't know what happened but about 2 years ago I decided I wanted to try running outside and maybe even enter a few races.  A few months after that I decided I was going to start training for the 2011 Baltimore marathon, and of course, developed a horrible injury a few days later that kept me sidelined from running at all for most of 2011.  Last fall I was finally able to start running a little again so I hope to run the 2012 marathon.  But before I start training for that I wanted to see if I even liked running races, so I thought a shorter race would be good practice.

Anyway, this particular race was 10 miles, and my distance runs are about 10.5 so I knew I could do it.  I was just hoping to go a tiny bit faster than my usual turtle-like pace (what I do is not technically running, I suppose – I'm more of a very slooooow jogger.  I think my body is meant for distance, not speed.)

So here I am at right before lining up to start.  Of course I managed to blink just as my husband took the picture.  I'm wearing all Lululemon except for shoes and socks – I should get free stuff from Lulu for all the advertising I did. 

Here I am during…I know it looks like I'm walking but I can assure you I wasn't!  Like I said, I just run super slow.

Here's the awesome sign my husband made, featuring Museum Advisory Committee members Jeero and Babo's bird.  Our Jeero is a kind of he-man – very macho, a real meat-and-potatoes "guy's guy" who loves working out (especially lifting weights), so he was the natural choice to cheer me on.   "GRRR, RUN!" He does have a soft spot for Babo's bird, however.  "Pretty bird, pretty bird".

And here's an extremely sweaty Curator with her medal! 

I didn't finish any faster than I normally do during my training runs, which was disappointing, but oh well.  There was a VERY steep 0ne-mile hill starting at mile 8.5, which slowed me down even more, especially since I was starting to get fatigued by then.

So all in all, not bad for my first race.  I do want to get a little faster and get to a respectable pace, but I think for right now I will continue focusing on distance rather than speed. 

Do you run?  And if so, any tips/racing experiences you'd like to share?

Happy Easter/Passover weekend!  Here are this week's links.

– Some very exciting local news:  lots of my favorite stores – J. Crew, Anthropologie, Lululemon and MAC are all coming to Harbor East. I'm particularly stoked for the Lululemon store, since currently all we have is a tiny showroom that never seems to get any items I'm interested in.  A full-size store will be awesome!

– One of my heroes, Carrie Brownstein, will be publishing a memoir. 

– Cracking up at this new Tumblr.

– I knew it was only a matter of time:  Marc Jacobs will be introducing his own beauty line.

– For Passover, check out this amazing matzoh house created by (who else?) Martha Stewart.

– For Easter, I adore these dip-dyed eggs and super cute Easter tablescape, especially all the metallic foil touches – reminds me of the little foil-covered eggs the Easter bunny (a.k.a. my parents) used to hide all over the house for our egg hunt every year.

– And I made Cadbury Creme Egg cupcakes.  They look AWFUL – easily my worst-looking cupcakes ever (I was trying to make the frosting look like eggs but I didn't have enough, so they're tragically ugly despite my attempt to cover them in Easter-themed sprinkles and mini Cadbury eggs) but they do taste delicious. I'm embarrassed to be posting them, but they're too hilariously bad not to share!  They should be on Cake Wrecks.

How are you celebrating Passover/Easter, if at all?  🙂

Woohoo, it's officially spring!  Although I'm still not ready for the warmer weather we've been having, I'm happy the season is here.  This week's links:

– I always thought the Feminist Ryan Gosling Tumblr was pretty funny, but this museum-inspired one is hilarious as well.

– We have some great news on the beauty front.  First, Fresh has a new coral tinted lip balm out.  When I wrote a review on the first one to be introduced (Plum), I said that I hoped Fresh would come out with more of them, especially in a peach or coral shade.  After releasing Plum, Rose, Honey and Passion tinted balms, they now have a coral one.  I will be buying it ASAP.

– Next, it looks like Sephora may be carrying Tokyo Milk (one of the Curator's favorite bath and body lines – their items may end up in the Museum's collection despite not technically being makeup).  I was browsing Sephora online and Tokyo Milk is in the brand list.  No products showed up, but it's interesting to see the brand name on the site.

– Finally, it's still fairly early in the year but this is bound to be some of the most exciting news of 2012 – NARS will be rolling out an Andy Warhol-themed collection in October!  Apparently it will “evoke the cool, image-rich, character-laden world of Warhol” and have “innovative packaging, formulas and shades.”  Can't. Wait.

– I'll leave you with this bizarre but springy image from 1573, courtesy of WTF Art History: 

The good for this week:  it was daylight savings time which means the days are getting longer, and it's been unseasonably warm here.  The bad:  I'm always more tired than usual on account of daylight savings, and I'm totally unprepared for the warmer temps we had! I have to dig out some spring clothes from my closet.  Nevertheless I'm happy to see spring has sprung a full week early.  Anyway, here are this week's links.

  – Hilarious Tumblr for the art historian. 

– This print is great, not just because of the typography but because it happens to be one of my favorite Belle & Sebastian songs.

– May is shaping up to be a good month for new music releases.  Last week we found out Beach House will release their 4th album, and this week Gossip announced their new album. 

– Finally, I was astonished to learn there is a Lipstick Museum in Berlin.  I want to go!!

(image from lippenstiftmuseum.de)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here are this week's links. 

– BritishBeautyBlogger shows us some super cute Olympic packaging for Benefit. 

– Cool vintage makeup tutorial featured at Refinery29. 

– The Dieline spotlights some very sleek packaging for Shu Uemura's new skincare line.

– Mmm, two of my favorite things together at last – chocolate and shoes! 

– Speaking of shoes, this time of year I start itching for sandals and espadrilles.  So I ordered these, since I had been hunting for a pair of light tan ankle-strap espadrilles and these fit the bill perfectly:

(image from shopbop.com)

They're so cute I might also get them in the black or mint.  :)  Now it just needs to hurry up and get warm!

What were you into this week?  And were there any spring fashion purchases for you?

Another winter week DONE and we are that much closer to spring!  Here are some things from the interwebs this week that caught my eye. 

– Something I would definitely install at the museum is this makeup wallpaper (via Addicted to Beauty). 

– According to new research, humans were meant to sleep twice a day.  See, I always said naps should be mandatory!

 - I got a kick out of this Mondrian-inspired sandwich.  

– Jessica at XOJane.com discusses Marian Keyes's book Saved by Baking – I must get it, seeing as how I bake 2 to 3 desserts nearly every weekend as therapy. 

– F*ck Your Noguchi Coffee Table is a truly hilarious blog (found via Apartment Therapy).  With their post on wall-mounted guitars, they definitely got our number.  Oops.  Here's one of our living room walls.

I swear we didn't hang them up to be hipster design snobs – it was out of practicality!  If they're not on the wall they take up a lot of room.

What was catching your fancy this week?

This was an important week, not because it was Valentine's Day but because both of my parents' birthdays occurred.  Happy b-day Mom and Dad!  Anyway, here are some good linkies for the week.

– Here's a very informative interview at Worn Through with dress historian Aileen Ribeiro, author of Facing Beauty: Painted Women and Cosmetic Art, which I will be buying ASAP.

– Another awesome-sounding book brought to my attention by The Beheld.

– Collecting Vintage Compacts shares an amazing photostream of compacts on Flickr…oh my how I'd love to have those for the Museum!!

– In other makeup design news, I was pleased to see a shout-out to the packaging for Benefit's new Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow foundation at TheDieline.

– There's a brand that I should have known about way earlier!  My interest was piqued when I spotted this British makeup line at AddictedtoBeauty.  Then, I just about died when I read more about the packaging over at Lovely Package.  Must. Get. Everything.  Stay tuned for a proper post on Laqa & Co.

– Finally, one of my favorite incarnations of the latest meme that's been making the rounds on the interwebs, brought to you by the always hilarious Pink Sith.  I thought I'd play too, so here's my contribution:

What have you been interested in this week?