Posts from — September 2013

Brighter.com offered me a free dental visit.   All opinions are 100% mine.

My son took this picture of me and told me I should smile more often in pictures. He’s right! After all, I can’t think of a better anti-aging remedy or beauty asset than a smile. When Brighter.com offered me the opportunity to get a check up and cleaning, I wasn’t going to turn it down. It’s important to keep your smile looking great with a clean and healthy set of teeth. I have dental insurance but my deductible is for the birds and doesn’t cover a whole lot. Basically all I had to do was go to Brighter, find a dentist near me and make an appointment. I like that the site was connected to Yelp, provided information about the office, offered patient reviews and fully disclosed the cost of your visit so you can make an educated decision about your care. I did it quickly and without hassle. I’m scheduled to see my new dentist next week.

If you live in Los Angeles, I would love for you to try out this service. I’m giving away $199 for your visit with any of the dentists found at Brighter.com. All you have to do is enter below by telling me who you’d like the service for. I will announce the winner on October 14th. A winner will be picked via Random.org. Good luck!

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Mary Kay sent me their limited edition Fairytales and Fantasy collection in a beautiful box, and I absolutely love it. At first I wasn’t too sure the colors would go well with my skin. As much as I love pinks and gold, I often find it doesn’t work well my yellow/green undertones. However, it looked really pretty once I put it on, and I like that it goes on light at first but is flexible enough to go darker for night. It made me so ready for Winter, and we haven’t even touched the surface of Fall yet! It makes for a great gift or just get the collection for yourself. Check out the slideshow of each product or head over to Mary Kay.

(Necklace from Zara)

While I was NYC, I decided art was more important than lunch. I was only there for four days and the majority of it was for work purposes. But the thought of being in the city and not going to a museum was eating me up inside. Even if it was for an hour, I just had to go. There’s something about it that feels like home to me. The white walls, the echoing voices, the work.

Art is a language I understand far more than words. Yes, I’m a blogger. Yes, I mostly write and engage for a living. Believe it or not, it takes going outside of myself to do what I do. I can be a bit closed off. I’ve spent most of my life drawing in my room, wandering museum halls, reading about art or spending countless hours alone creating, painting and day dreaming — Until I finally made a career out of it in the museum field. As a lecturer and studio instructor, the conversations were about art, the process of creating and being in the moment. Now I’m in a world where the conversations have expanded into everything and anything online and off. Most times I really don’t know what to say or how to say it. I have a love/hate relationship with my phone and feel the art of communication is becoming empty. It overwhelms me at times. There’s a side of me that still wants to preserve the power of ‘less is more’, the truth we find in silence and the act of being still. This short visit to MoMA brought me back to that quiet space I miss so much. It brought me back to the conversations that required no speaking, sharing or explaining. It centered me. When I feel like things are out of control, I find answers in Pollock. When I need order and rationale, I find it in Flavin. It’s more effective for me than calling a girlfriend up to dish on the latest. I’m happy I took this time for myself by myself. I think I stared at Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy for most of the visit. It’s so tranquil, poetic and soothing. Precisely why museums are my best friend and what I call upon when I need to make sense of things. It was the first art museum I ever went to as a child. It holds a special place in my heart. Thank you MoMA.

I’ve been on a nail polish kick lately. It seriously is the only thing I have time for since it has not been realistic for me to pull out the brushes and canvas and get to work. Although it’s definitely something I want and need to do again, and I will. For now, I’ve been frequenting nail polish aisles buying dozens of polishes fit for the season. I have myself quite a little collection of dark polishes, which I share on Babble. Check out it!

There’s Ana looking to see what else can we achieve and conquer. And that’s me, certain we can do it all. As much as we work — even on days where we just can’t keep our eyes open anymore — we love what we do. We are just two girls with a vision. Always inspired. We love community. We are passionate. We are moms. Friends. And some say, we even look alike. I guess that happens when you’re around someone so much in person or through text, Skype, email and air planes. Lots of bonding takes place (even without speaking) on a 5 1/2 red eye flight to NYC from LA after trying to complete a 5 day work load in 3 days.

We attended the #LATISM13 conference at the Waldorf Astoria, where we worked, hung out, barely slept, tweeted, instagrammed, interviewed, Facebooked, photographed, hugged everyone and ate, ate and ate some more. But before we treated ourselves to pastas, pizzas and desserts, we spent much of our time with one of favorite clients Johnson & Johnson. As part of our collaboration with the brand, Ana interviewed Univision’s Dr. Juan River and Raquel Garzon, who actually made me rethink the way I do things when she said that when you’re multi-tasking your IQ drops 10%. That explains a lot! I’ve tried cooking and working at the same time, which almost always resulted in burned food and unfinished posts. One thing at a time if you want to do it right.

We loved seeing everyone and taking in the city as much as we could. And as usual, we laughed, we cried and inspired one another. And speaking of inspiration, you didn’t think I would go to NYC and not sneak into a museum? I had very limited time but I decided to swap lunch for Picasso. I will get that live this week! Until we meet again, New York!

(In the pics: Daily, Denise, Kathy, Divina, Nicole, Melissa, Maura, Danielly, Silvia)

Recently, I was invited to sip mimosas and enjoy a lovely brunch at the Beverly Hilton with the “stars” of NatGeo Mundo – César Millán of El Líder de la Manada, Jason Silva of Juegos Mentales and the casts of Reyes del Acuario and Doctor Vet: LA. And the sweetest star of all — the beautiful little pup I am holding in my arms.

We all know César as the Dog Whisperer but this fall he’s on a mission with the second season of his critically acclaimed series El Lider de la Manada where César facilitates the adoption of dogs. I love shows like this. There are so many dogs out there that have been abandoned and don’t have a loving home to live in, especially dogs with behavioral issues. In this series, César sets out to rehabilitate these dogs and train the owners who want to love them. I don’t talk about television programs on my blog, but I think shows like this are needed. I’m an animal lover, and it breaks my heart to see animals abandoned. I have two cats now (rescues) but for the majority of my life I’ve had a dog, one of which was also a rescue.

For more info about this series and shows like this, check out NatGeo or NatGeoMundo.

What in the? Yep, that’s me. For someone who is not a Halloween person, I’m certainly feeling a bit excitement for it this year. After checking out this Cinderella tutorial, I thought ‘Hmmmmm, which Disney character could I delve into?” The first image that came to mind was Maleficent. When I was a kid I just thought she was so cool. I loved her gothic, elegant look. She was striking and powerful.

If you’d like to learn more about the makeup I used step by step, I have a slideshow up on Babble.

I was compensated for this post but I only write about things I like or care about, and this topic, paid or not, is deeply important to me.

When the opportunity came along for us to work on the AT&T campaign, an initiative created to raise awareness about the dangers of texting and driving, I was eager to get started. Whenever I’ve been in a car with anyone using their phone while driving, I always say something. I’ve been called uptight and accused of being too worried. Drivers have even bragged about their sterile driving record and told me nothing would happen. When the dangers of texting and driving are proven to be even more fatal than drinking and driving, it really doesn’t matter if you are driver of the year. If you’re on the road, your eyes and attention should be focused on that. There is nothing urgent happening online and there is no text that cannot wait until you are out of your car. What happened to the days of listening to music while driving? Why have we become so obsessed with our phones that we’re putting ourselves and others in danger?

Before I sound like I’m preaching, I will admit I was guilty of it myself. And I will admit that this smart phone culture we live in is undeniably addictive. Although I’ve never used my phone while in motion, I’ve used it at a red light. My dumbest move to date was texting at a red light in the middle of Times Square. Something was due to a client ASAP and I was stuck in traffic. Well, as I was “urgently” trying to get something done, I didn’t see that the light had changed. But a native New Yorker (love them for their honestly) standing at the corner saw the whole thing and brought it to my attention, and the attention of everyone in the area when he proceeded to yell at me. He threw in a ton of profanity and my New York inner self was trying her best to stay shut. Bottom line — he was right. F-bombs and all. I was being irresponsible. Period. And guess what? The client got what was owed to them the next day and everything worked out just fine.

Part of the campaign included blog posts in support of . Latina Bloggers Connect and AT&T also hosted a . It was a fun evening with a powerful message that was shared via and Instagram. Every single person we can reach and encourage to take the pledge to stop texting and driving, we save lives. That simple. If you’d like to join the cause, please take the pledge to not text and drive (yes, that includes red lights!). And if you’re still not convinced, please take a moment to watch this .