tunes tuesday // one direction.

Okay, so I am absolutely no exception to the rule that most girls love Justin Bieber, and I am certainly no exception to the same rule regarding One Direction. I'm obsessed. I appreciate them for not being a typical pop band and actually having some really great ballads and slow songs. A great thing on their side is that they have Ed Sheeran writing a few songs for them. Ed is great, but five voices harmonizing each other through a classic Ed Sheeran song is just pure beauty. Their voices are like butter. Butter.One Direction's new album Take Me Home came out last Tuesday, but I decided to give myself a week to listen to it before posting. I probably could have written a full novel about it after the initial listen, but if it is even possible, the album gets better and better with every listen.

Another great thing about this album is that there are actually a total of 20 songs. Depending on which version you buy, there are a few extra tracks. I bought the deluxe yearbook edition on iTunes, but if you go Target, there's a special deluxe edition, much like the version they put out for Taylor Swift, which has ANOTHER three songs not on the version I got. I still need to get my hands on those three songs, and once I do, that will be 20 new songs total for the adorable boys of One Direction, (especially Harry! Who's your fave?).

Like I said, Ed Sheeran has written a few songs for One Direction, including 'Moments' on their first album, Up All Night, and 'Little Things' on this album. However, if you take a listen below to my favorite song on the new album, 'Over Again', you can tell that it is definitely written by Ed, as it is totally his style. I can't officially find it anywhere that he wrote it, but all over google are blogs and fan sites that say he wrote it. But I promise, if you know Ed Sheeran, you don't need proof he wrote it after hearing the first few notes alone. So take a listen below to 'Over Again' and go buy Take Me Home! 

                                                       Over Again

                                                       One Direction

                                                       TAKE ME HOME

peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bliss.

Hellooo!! So last week, as soon as I got power back from the hurricane, I preheated my oven and got straight to work! I am obsessed with anything peanut buttery, and who doesn't love a good ol' chocolate chip cookie? Mixed together, the two are a magical combination.

// ½ cup butter

// ½ cup peanut butter

// ½ cup granulated sugar

// ½ cup brown sugar

// ½ tsp. baking powder

// ½ tsp. baking soda

// 1 egg

// ½ tsp. vanilla extract

// 1 ¼ cup flour

// 1 tbsp. milk

// ½ cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.

2. In a large bowl, mix together butter and peanut butter until combined, then add the sugars, baking soda, and baking powder and mix until combined.

3. Add the egg and vanilla extract into the mixture, then once combined, add flour a little bit at a time until well mixed.

4. Add the milk to loosen up the dough a little bit, then mix in the chocolate chips.

5. Bake for 7-9 minutes, or until the bottoms are light brown, and let cool on a wire rack.

6. Pig out.

random favorite products.

So since my power is still out and I can't bake or do any of the crafts I have lined up, I decided I'll post about some of my favorite products right now! I have a pretty basic routine in the morning and after showers, but there are some products that I cannot live without because they make life easier, or they're just really pretty and fun! And the best part is that most of them are super affordable!

1. My favorite makeup item is mascara. I love the way long, black lashes look on anyone. I try a few different types now and then, but Covergirl LashBlast fusion in very black is the best that I have found so far. It really elongates my lashes without clumping them together, and the brush does a great job of fanning my lashes out and up with one-two long strokes. It's about $8 at drugstores and lasts me about a month of everyday application, sometimes twice a day if I'm feeling sassy.

2. This bronzer by Too Faced is the absolute best. Not only does it do its job (making me look tan and glowing in the middle of a pale winter), but it smells like chocolate. Yes, chocolate. It has cocoa powder right in the mix to make your face smell like an absolute dream. This is like the girl version of the axe commercials. Boys will literally sniff you out from miles away and you will find their noses pressed against your beautifully bronzed cheek. Carry it with you for reapplication in case of such emergencies.

3. My third item, Sephora's classic bronzer brush, will help you apply your new bronzer evenly and easily. It's a compact looking brush, but it does fan out enough to get even coverage. It has a thick handle so that you're not trying to apply your bronzer with one of those little kabuki type brushes that is so small that it slides out from your grip and brushes chocolatey bronzer all over your fresh, white shirt (does it sound like I'm speaking from experience?)

4. This little gem, Nivea's a kiss of shimmer glossy lip balm is grrrrrreat. It's like lip gloss in a chapstick that mousturizes and soothes, but you look super cute with it on. It's cheap and easy and does a two in one job. Obviously a girl can never have too many lip glosses, but at least this one actually does something for your lips other than make them sparkly and pretty. I cannot live without it!

5. Bath and Body Works lotions and sprays were like the best things since sliced bread when I was a kid, and to be honest, they kind of still are. I would eagerly await birthdays and Christmas to unwrap a gift basket of stuff all in the same scent, most of it that I would never use. But still, it was great. Out of all of the things, the foot creams and the hand lotions, I would always love the fragrance mists, and I still do. I have my fancy perfumes just like the next girl, but for day to day wear, I love their fragrance mists, especially Paris Amour. It is a really elegant scent for what it is and how much it costs, but that's the beauty of it. I wear it all the time and always get compliments, even hours after dousing myself in it.

6. I have blogged about this nail polish before, but I cannot stress enough how much I love it. I literally use it on any and every manicure, even if it's just on my ring fingernails to look supah stylish. It is an absolute pain in the tush to get off, but like all things beauty, you gotta work to look good! Sephora by OPI's Only Gold for Me is more than a top coat, it is magic in a bottle, a little genie that pops out via brush and makes all your manicure wishes come true. But really though, it's just fabulous.

7. This is probably my favorite product on this list. It is $16 of melt in your mouth, vanilla cake scent that sticks to your skin like a bad spray tan. Except it's amazing. Philosophy's Vanilla Birthday Cake 3-in-1 shampoo, body wash, and bubble bath smells so much like a real slice of cake you almost feel like you are ingesting the calories via scent. Almost. Philosophy creates some really great products, and they all smell like a dream. This particular scent is my favorite, and I also have it in lip gloss form so that I can look like an idiot sniffing my lip gloss container and then licking my lips afterwards as if I just smeared actual frosting on them. It's all very pathetic, but if you smelt this scent you would totttttally understand. Promise. So get down to your local Sephora or Ulta and get ready to sit in a tub full of vanilla cake bubbles, with vanilla cake lathered hair, and vanilla cake all over your skin. Mmm.

8. This is another product that I could not live without. I just bought it in May, and it is literally a life saver. Normal curling irons take forever, especially since you have to hold the curl until it heats up. This curling iron looks just like a flat iron but has a curved plate on one side and the other side is dipped to fit the other like a puzzle piece. The method of using an actual flat iron to curl is probably what inspired Jilbere to make this product, but this is so much better. One time through very quickly creates a lasting curl that will bounce and shine until your head hits the pillow, and even the next day if you are blessed with thick hair (I, however, am not, so they normally fall out while I'm sleeping). But it takes such a short amount of time to curl all of your hair that it isn't even a bother having to do it everyday if that's what need be. This iron is a serious miracle worker that creates smooth curls rather than ones that are flat in some places from a flat iron, and you don't get those awkwardly straight tips from the piece that lifts up off of a normal curling wand. This thing is magnifique!

9. The last thing on my list of can't live withouts is J'adore by Dior. And speaking of can't live without, I should be dead since I've been out of this for a couple of months, but I feel the pain every time I go to reach for that empty bottle I just cannot bear to throw out. Christmas is coming, and Santa knows that I need it, so hopefully that problem will be solved shortly. This scent is fantastic. It's really sexy yet subtle, and you really only need one or two spritzes to last through the day, so the bottle lasts forever. It's a little on the pricey side as all designer fragrances are, but this one is definitely worth the dough, and can be kept in your special reserve to make it last.

I hope you like these!

book review // the tea rose.

“She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.”

“It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all.”

I am definitely an avid reader, always looking for new books to read, especially trilogies and the like. The Tea Rose trilogy is an absolute gem. Never have I been more excited to go home an snuggle up with a book as I have with this one, and I am pretty sure it has stolen at least one of the top three slots on my favorite books list. This long, LONG, book makes you ache for more after it's finished, a sure sign of a great story. Luckily there are two more to follow!

The first book of three, The Tea Rose, begins in August 1888 in East London, and for the most part follows Fiona Finnegan, a spunky young girl who is almost 18 at the time. Fiona dreams of pulling herself and her family out of poverty and opening a shop with the love of her life, Joe Bristow. They save mere pennies in a jar toward their shared dream, a dream that most people agree is unattainable for two young people, especially poor ones. Whitechapel, where they live, is full of families trying desperately to make ends meet, as well as women of the night, corrupt businessmen, and a murderer who kills by moonlight.

This story is full of heartbreak and let down and I assure you, there will be many tears throughout your reading it. Chances are missed by milliseconds and families and loved ones are put through absolute hell during this hard time for many. But, like all great books, it's the things that happen despite the hardships that really triumph. This book stays with you for a long time even after it is finished, and the characters feel so real and relatable that you feel like calling them up to hang out.

There are only a few problems with this book, but for the most part these things didn't even bother me. The point of view jumps around from person to person even within a chapter. I have no problem with multiple narrators, but this wasn't quite like that. Also, the story is a little bit farfetched at times, but to be honest, it's fiction, and it was still fantastic.

It's hard to say much about this book without giving some of the best parts away, but just in case you're not quite sold yet, I can tell you that this book contains one, if not two of my new favorite characters of all time, and the end will really make you feel like jumping for joy, even if you can't do that many times throughout the novel. This book is about more than what meets the eye, unlike most stories these days. The characters are not all privileged and spoiled, but there is real struggle and real turmoil with every flip of a page, as well as betrayal, revenge and redemption.

I'd say it's a 9.5 outta 10, so you should probably go read it now.

“Funny, 'ow you can 'old a jewel in your 'and, and toss it away, and not even know what you 'ad until it's gone.”

“We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.”

want it, need it, gotta have it.

I know it's not Wednesday, but I've been out of power since Monday, so today will have to do! I'm posting a wishlist that I've been keeping in my phone for a while. Some things seem quite unattainable at present, but others are more affordable, just things that I haven't gotten around to or would rather get as a gift!

1. I've taken a serious liking (more than in the past!) to Kate Spade lately, and I recently smelt her Twirl eau de parfum, and it is delicious!! Not to mention the adorable little gold polka dot glass bottle it comes in! Too cute.

2. I've had a couple different iPods in the past since the first ones came out when I was in high school, but since getting the iPhone, I sold all of my old ones to put music on here. It would just be so much easier to have a separate device to play music though so that my phone battery doesn't die as quickly! These new iPod nanos are cute and perfect to hold a large amount of music all in one little place. And I love the colors, especially the purple!

3. I have a silver MK watch, but I am so much more into gold and two tone these days, so it would be great to have another everyday sort of watch in gold. I just love this one, the Jet Set with horn band and gold face plate. It's cute and can be dressed up or down!

4. Glitter nail polish on top of a base color has been my go-to for the last year or so when I get bored of a normal manicure. I love this red color in general, but it would look great around the holidays and perfect with a Christmas dress. And this particular Sephora by OPI color just happens to be called Be-claus I Said So! Perfecto!

5. This bag has been on my wishlist since before I can remember, but man do those little LV's cost a ton! The Neverfull is such a classic bag, and so many people carry it. I love it because it's a classy spin on your everyday tote, and like the name suggests, it never seems to get full! My aunt has one that I have been crushing on for years, and I don't know how much longer I can be separated from my dream bag!

What's on your wishlist?