Hi everyone!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's Aileen.
It's so good to see you again.
So today it's time for November favorites, and November was a great month.
A lot happened.
It was very bold.
I went to Japan and had a blast.
I think my highlight was going to DisneySea which is just a gorgeous Disneyland on water
with a ton of boats.
And I love water, so that was really fun.
I also soft-launched my Artist of Life Workbook.
If you are not caught up on my Instagram
or my email list, then surprise!
I have my Artist of Life Workbook up on my website.
I haven't launched the actual video on YouTube because I wanted to wait
until my website issues are fixed.
I've been kind of having a nightmare this week,
dealing with tech issues and trying to upgrade my website.
And I don't want to create
any problems for you guys, so just be patient and I'll let you know when everything is fine.
Now that that's out of the way, my first favorite of this month is this bucket bag
that I got in Japan.
Isn't it so adorable?
I love that it looks like a bucket with a little handle.
And I spotted this at the mall at the train station in Yokohama.
And I'll post down below,
where exactly I got it.
But I just thought it was super cute, and ever since I got it,
I've been wearing it every day and it genuinely makes me happy.
When I hold it with the loop,
I feel like I'm holding my lunch pail or something.
And I just think it's so fun.
My next favorites are my new skincare products, and I'm gonna get real bougie
on you guys because I basically got these two items duty-free at the airport
coming back from Japan.
So obviously, I wanted to take that opportunity to shop tax-free.
And I don't know, I think this year I'm allowing myself to splurge on skincare
because skincare is growing more important to me.
I think because I just turned 27,
and I think this time is when you want to preserve as much as you can
and do as best as you can.
So I don't know, I just gave myself permission to splurge.
So I got the SK-II Essence and the La Mer Crème de La Mer.
I think that's what it's called.
But these are two staple, really popular items from these two major brands.
And I've heard so many great things about these two products
and I've been testing them both out together.
And I think I tried a week
just using the SK-II and now I'm in the process of just trying the La Mer,
just to see which one is better because I know, when I combine them,
the results are really amazing.
But I want to be able to tell which one's doing what.
So I'm still in the process of really experimenting, but I won't say,
I think my first thoughts are: the La Mer cream has more of an effect on my skin
vs. the SK-II Essence.
And I was surprised because I thought the essence was–
I mean, everybody LOVES this product.
Everybody raves about it,
so I thought I would see immediate, amazing results.
And I did, but I'm just saying,
comparing the two, I think the La Mer is better for my skin, because I have dry skin.
And the La Mer is…I just like that it's a thick cream.
And I don't know, it has magic in that jar.
Next, I'm gonna get real basic on you guys.
Another favorite was Taylor Swift,
her new album "Reputation" but also all of her albums from the past.
So this whole month, I've been on the Taylor Swift wave.
And I feel like,
since Reputation came out, I bought it, I listened to it, I loved it.
There were songs
that I didn't love as much and songs that I really loved and thought she was an artistic
genius
for writing songs like this.
And then listening to Reputation made me want to go back
and listen to all of Taylor Swift's songs, from her entire history of writing music.
And guys, I probably cried to Taylor Swift's songs in my car this month, over ten times.
I'm not even joking.
I'm not exaggerating.
I cried so many times to Taylor's songs this month.
Like her old, good, beautiful storytelling, like “All Too Well”, I cried.
So many songs,
she's just so good at drawing out emotion from you.
She's so great at
painting a picture of a story where you see yourself in that story,
like you know that feeling she's talking about.
So I just think she's amazing
and this whole month–Oh!
Another thing I really, really loved this month
was watching her "Making of" videos.
So she has this series of videos
where she shows how she wrote her songs for her new album.
A lot of the videos are up on YouTube so you can search them yourself,
but I personally love seeing the creative process as an artist.
I love seeing
the behind the scenes look at how to create a hit song, just because I love music
and I love being able to appreciate something going from an idea,
something going from a rough draft to the polished end version.
And I love seeing how lyrics change throughout the versions.
I love hearing how
the production changes through the versions, and it's just surprising.
I respect Taylor Swift as an artist so much.
And anyone that wants to talk her down,
oh my god.
Don't even start the hate.
Don't start the judgment,
because in order to be where she is today, she definitely has the talent,
she's definitely worked hard for it.
And she might be misunderstood, yeah.
She might have made some mistakes, yeah.
But so do all of us.
I'm the person
that has no judgment for celebrities.
I accept them and I see them as humans,
and I see them as artist too.
I just have so much respect for Taylor Swift,
and I'm thankful that she's revealed her creative process for us to watch.
Alright, now I'm gonna get a little more obscure for you.
My next favorite
is this book by Ilchi Lee.
It's called "I've Decided to Live 120 Years".
I know, what a weird title.
You're like, "What the heck?
120 years?
Are you crazy?"
So let me give you a little backstory.
Ilchi Lee is this guy.
Fun fact is:
I actually met him in 2015.
His team invited me to Sedona to his meditation center,
and I got to interview him, so I'll post the link to that vlog right here.
Since then, I've stayed in touch with them and this is his most recent book.
And I just started reading it.
I'm only a fourth through the beginning.
Basically this book talks about how we, as a society, are conditioned to plan our lives
up until age 60.
We don't really think about what we want to do with our lives past age 60,
when in reality we actually live to 80, 90, maybe even 100 now.
There are a lot of people who are living longer than ever before,
but they're spending 20 years of their life doing nothing.
20 years of their life idle,
with no plans and no dreams, because their dreams stopped at age 50 or 60,
or even younger.
Ilchi Lee is 67 years old and he's in a place in his life
where he originally thought that this was the end of his life, but he realized
that he could plan for so much more because in reality, humans have the capacity
to live to 120 years old, but why don't we plan for that?
Why don't we continue
having dreams up until that point?
So he is just all about continue to use your life
to do good, continue to fulfill your dreams, continue to create new dreams
and fulfill them even in the later half of your life.
And it's really inspirational.
I think it's catered toward people older, obviously, but it's beneficial for people
of all ages because the younger you are, the more time you realize you have.
I think, traditionally, we think that, by 30, we want to get married, have a house,
and have kids.
And by 65, we retire.
But these age numbers were determined in the 1800s.
In the 1800s or 1900s, 65 was the retirement age because so many people
died before them.
So many people died when they were like 50.
So we have to change our mindset about age, now that we live older.
So if you are like 30 now, you're technically like 20 or something.
You know what I mean?
We're much younger than we think we are
because we have more years in our life.
I was just really inspired
to read about this perspective because I never really thought about it before.
You know, I've set my life and dreams until age 50, and then after that
I thought I'd just be a potato, and just live everyday life.
I didn't really think about
what happens after that.
And I'm not saying that you have to have the idea now,
but it's just the fact to keep dreaming, keep creating new dreams for yourself
as you get older, and open your mind to believe that you will probably live to 100
and beyond because of our modern-day medicine and technology.
So if you were to live until 120, what would you do with your life?
What would you do if you have that much more time on your hands.
The title is kind of deceiving because when you read "I've Decided to Live 120 Years",
you're like, "What the heck?
This guy's crazy.
No way he's gonna live that long."
or "Why does he think he's gonna live that long?"
It's not really about that.
The key word here is "decided".
So what he's saying is: We cannot guarantee
how long we live.
We can die tomorrow.
Anything can happen tomorrow.
But the key message here is "decided", like "I've made a plan to live that long,
and so I have things that I want to do with my life in those years,"
instead of just living your years with no purpose or no goal in mind.
Another part of this is: If you truly believe that you're going to live 120 years,
then you're gonna start taking better care of your body.
You're gonna start exercising more,
eating better for your body, getting enough rest, doing all the things to take care of
yourself
because you want to prolong your life and because you want all of those years
to accomplish your big goals.
So I think it just kind of reminds you that,
if you want to do good work in the world, if you want more time to fulfill your dreams
and live a beautiful life, then the first step is taking care of yourself.
So yeah, I'll link this book down below so you can read more about it.
Alright, that's it for my November favorites.
Now that we're almost done with 2017,
I'd love for you guys to give me suggestions on what type of videos you want to see
from me in 2018, so start leaving your comments down below.
And you can start commenting on all my videos throughout the next month,
what you want to see, because I like to collect ideas so that I can use them
for next year in planning out the content for videos and for podcasts as well.
Alright, have a beautiful day.
Happy holidays!
I love you all so, so much,
and I'll see you next time.
Bye!