While I have blogged at different sites since the late 90s, this was the first year that I started viewing beauty blogging sites. I had been into makeup and fashion before, but had fallen out of the habit of fussing about it a few years ago. Viewing beauty blogs, however, rekindled my interest, and encouraged me to go on my first beauty shopping spree in years. On posting about my haul, I asserted that “this is not a beauty blog”. The next few beauty-related posts, I still adamantly stated that this was not turning into a beauty blog. But after some encouragement and positive feedback from friends and folks who read my reviews on other beauty sites, I asked myself, what if it was?

And so, glostix was reborn. No longer would she be a dusty chunk of webspace, used only for random image storage and a cool email address. She would actually have a purpose.

I learned a lot in 2011, and tried many new, cool things. I’ve also met some wonderful people through beauty and blogging, proving that beauty isn’t about being pretty or painted, but having the whole package. These people are funny, kind and giving. The beauty blogosphere and indie makeup community is bursting at the seams with strong men and women, and I consider myself blessed to know them.

Simply because I find these sorts of things interesting, here are some stats that reflect the activity of glostix in 2011.

Total unique visitors: 20,067
Total page hits: 118,653

Top ten posts of 2011:
Bath & Body Works Semi Annual Sale 2011 Guide
Happy Haulidays Giveaway
Sugarpill Burning Heart Quad
e.l.f. Eyelid Primer: New Colours, New Review
High Voltage Cosmetics
Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters
UDPP Tubes at Sephora
Clearance Crawl: Hot Topic & Target
Paris Amour Giveaway!
Top 10 Thingy

Top Ten Search Keyphrases:
high voltage cosmetics
bath and body works semi annual sale
elf eyelid primer champagne
urban decay eyeshadow swatches
glostix
elf eyelid primer
revlon lip butter swatches
revlon lip butter peach parfait
urban decay sale
elf eyelid primer swatches

What Next?
At first, I worried that I would not have enough material to cover to keep this place interesting. I most definitely don’t have to worry about that now. The problem at this point is finding the time to test, swatch, review and post everything that I want to say about various articles I’ve acquired. I definitely hope to do so more this year! I plan to write more, and engage with my readers by responding to comments much more regularly than I had before. I also have one giveaway planned in the Spring to go along with my birthday, which should be exciting. Lastly, I want to make sure that I can stay connected with my readers through Facebook.

I hope this new year brings excitement and opportunity for everyone. May all your resolutions be successfully achieved, and all your needs met!

Much love and warmth,
Bekka

The story goes like this: I have a website called glostix.  Kev likes the name.  He jokes about getting his own website with a similar sounding name, so we can be a matched pair.  I say, well hey, why bother with that when you could just be part of glostix too?  And he’s like, oh hey, ok! So I set glostix up to be a joint-blog, with a shiny new layout, rearranging all of the pages (permanently jacking up orders and numbers of said pages), and WHAM!  We has a blog.  Except… nothing.  Nudge after careful nudge, prods, prompts, strong hints and suggestions, nothing.  Which has brought me to this day, when I just sort of gave up.

So now everything is back the way it was.  Leading horses to water, etc.

In other news, I still can’t find a job.  I’ve thrown out countless applications and resumes, gotten callbacks, interviewed, did my thang for nothing.  I’m starting to worry less and less about it, though.  Even though it pisses me off that everyone is looking for “experience” but no one is willing to give a girl a chance to GET experience, it’s not worth stressing myself over.  I wish I figured that out before I started smoking again, because now I have to quit all over again, which is surely going to make my “don’t stress it” attitude hard to stick with. Still, not stressing the lack of work.  If we can survive til the start of next semester, we’ll be just fine.

What we have here, are placesettings. Plates, knives, forks, glasses, and all sorts of other neat and groovy things. Sadly, you have no idea what I’m talking about, as I’m not going to post photographic evidence. Which, I suppose means, “it didn’t happen”. But the fact that I experienced part of this setting-getting expedition myself, as well as Kev, who braved a sea of cheap silverware to discover a treasure by the name of Pfaltzgraff, I would say it did happen, regardless. Besides, we have the receipts.

Meanwhile, sometime last week (more like Tuesday), my loan check arrived in the mail. Deposited it on Wednesday before class, and then went to class. First up is LOGIC, where our bastard instructor informs us that he is teaching the most difficult and fast paced section at the University, and that we should drop if we don’t like to work hard. And then Friday, after calling roll and finding that a fair portion of folk did indeed drop, informed us that it was all a lie, but we should enjoy the extra elbow-room anyway. Which still makes him sort of a bastard, but the good sort at least.
Next up is Anthropology, which includes two papers and three exams, plus weekly recitation. Then Women and Gender Studies in the Arts and Humanities, which seems like a lot more work than it should be for such a bunny-foo-foo class. But it was nice when, as I was called out to explain why I chose Social Work as a major, and replied “because I’m nutty as a fruitcake,” she replied, “That’s exactly why I went into English.” Finally, after just barely enough of a break to shove some food down my throat, is Statistics, which I know I am going to hate. Badly. But at least the textbook isn’t required.
I think I will be pleased with this semester. It’ll probably be more work than the last, but at least I won’t be as bored as I was in the last.

Some new things that class[money] have heralded: A coat, three shirts, two sweaters, a fine winter hat, and two more pairs of legwarmers. All on clearance, baby! Plus the above-mentioned housewares, with two mixing bowls and a rather nice pie dish.

Another change this past week has brought is Kev’s [Lazer] moving-in to glostix. I asked if he’d be interested in blogging together here on a whim, and he said he was down with it, so I got things all re-arranged and freshened-up for him. Looks nice, no? Don’t know how often he’ll post (not that I post very often anyway, hah!), but I’m tickled pink to have him on board WE has a website! Huzzah!!

Since those who replied to my LJ Poll with the answer of “no effing way chix0r” are spectacularly uber, and I would hate not having their input on things, I’ve decided to leave LJ comments open on these blog posts.  Ah well.  It was worth the shot.  Thanks for the input!

So yeah, in case you couldn’t gather from my Flickr feed, I have myself a car.  Nothing new.  In fact, it’s the same car I’ve been driving for years, but only because Mum was wonderful enough to share it with me for as long as I stayed under this roof, and all my activites were local.  With being a commuting student next semester, though, sharing would’ve been rather difficult.  So Mom bought herself a new 2008 Chevy Cobalt, and gave the ol’ Cavalier to me.
So that’s pretty damn nifty, if I may say so.  Now I just have to work on not wrecking it like the last hand-me-down Cavalier   Or, at least, wreck it with five gallons of something that smells better than milk.  *ribjab*  Then again, I’ve already wrecked this one once (Cockrell’s did a beautiful body job on it!), so maybe I’m safe.

Cleaning the damned thing was an all-day event.  Heh.

In other news, I think this might be year-two of being sick all summer.  At least I’m in brighter spirits this year… I just wish my guts would follow suit.

That’s never something you really want to hear in a progress report, is it?  I can’t help but be honest, though.  Gathering all my stories and such and throwing them up here is proving to be rather annoying work.  But I figured I should go on and get crackin’ on it, since one of my old friends has already huffed at the lack of reading material, hehe.

Ah, yes.  We do have some things up, now.  A fair load of fiction, and a couple of creative nonfiction pieces up for viewing.  I’ll be working on getting some more nonfiction up, as well as some poetry… then I’ll polish up and expand some of my older pieces.  I’m debating on whether or not I should put up some “scraps” as well.  Not anywhere near stories, but simple scenes that I write down in the hopes that maybe, someday, I’ll turn it into something bigger.  We’ll see.

This has pretty much been my day.  Getting kinks flattened out before sleep, then waking up and working on cleaning up/posting stories.  There was pizza in between.   Yep.  This is the exciting life I lead.