Flyleaf "New Horizons" album review

Subtitle: Goodbye Lacey =(

Hey there everyone, today's post is a bit of a change from the usual girlie-stuff. Sometimes I need to stop talking about make-up and taking selfies and get real for a second.
No Halloween posts from me, unfortunately, because I'm not going to any kind of event or party and even if I did, I would have started planning way too late to make a costume for myself, not to mention make a tutorial about it.
So instead I'm doing music today.
Let's talk about flyleaf. It was over four years ago when Ien and Lisa (love you guys!) first introduced me to this band. The first song I heard was "Cassie". I think it was during my stay in Japan when I really started listening to their music, and I even bought their first album in a mall in Japan!
For a long time I used to say "My favorite bands are Flyleaf and Paramore", but Paramore (amazing as though they are) have been pushed back to second place for a while now. Not only is flyleaf's first album (self-titled) incredible, their second one, "Memento Mori", has been my go-to singalong album for YEARS.

Then, about a year ago, singer/songwriter Lacey Sturm announced that she was leaving flyleaf! I gotta say my heart was a little broken. BUT before that they kicked out one more album, "New Horizons", which is the best thing this band has ever created. Ever.
Think they did it so everyone would have a reason to properly miss Lacey?
 I think so. Now, let me get something clear. I know I easily get excited and because of that I tend to exaggerate a lot, saying stuff like "omg I love this" or "This is the best thing ever!".
This way it's a bit hard to tell when I'm actually being sincere. But rest assured that a lot of time and thought went into the statement when I say: Flyleaf's "New Horizons" is. hands. down. the. SINGLE. best. album I have EVER. heard.

Let me try and explain why.
First off, Flyleaf just makes good music. The kind of post-grunge/alternative metal thing they are doing works SO well. Almost all of their songs are extremely well produced and written, speaking in terms of music. There's some talented people working on these tracks and I also feel like they are really trying hard to make every song a perfect little composition in itself. Now, this is obviously true for both of Flyleaf's other albums as well; it just had the biggest impact on me personally in "New Horizons". Something about the order of the songs, and the mix of really strong and loud anthems and beautiful calm ballads... I don't know, the whole composition of this CD just does it for me.

Then there's the songs themselves.
Now I don't get around mentioning that Flyleaf's members are all very religious and this does show in a lot of their songs, but even though I'm not a very faithful Christian myself, it never stopped me from loving their music. First, because I think a song has a different meaning for everyone who listens to it, but also I'm of the belief that pure, unconditional faith is something very admirable (even though - or maybe because - I cannot claim to have it myself).
That being out of the way, let's talk about the lyrics. To my ears, "New Horizons" isn't so much about Christianity, as about basic human values. Like, there's a lot of songs that are about the entertainment industry (e.g. "Cage on the Ground", "Green Heart" and others) and how money has become more important to people than their own souls. I love those, because I agree so very much.
Somehow Flyleaf always manages to put things into words that have been somewhere on my mind, but I never thought about saying it out loud. But then, once I think about it, I realize that that's exactly what's wrong with humanity.

 Of course that's not the only kind of song on "New Horizons", I was just trying to make an example of why I love this CD so much. There's also a lot of very emotional stuff that I identify with very much. Some honorable mentions are:

- "Call you Out": So this song gives me goosebumps for some very personal reasons. Anyone with ears in their head can figure out what those are: Because of a dear friend of mine, I keep finding myself in this situation where I'm one of two things: Either so incredibly sad, I can't even seriously talk about it; or just... so ANGRY, I wanna punch someone! (not just anyone either, someone specific) Now the latter of both is what makes me love "Call you Out" so much, because it's just LITERALLY (did I ever use this word the right way before?) what I would say, if I had any way to do so.

- "Broken Wings": Ah, now this is the other half of my emotional spectrum in this situation. At least, the way I listen to it. Other than that it's just heartbreakingly beautiful, and amazingly well sung.

- "New Horizons": Where do I start. The title track of this album is (being sincere again) my favorite song, ever. It's what gets me up in the morning, I shit you not.
The first few lines of this song is what I would get tattooed (if I didn't think tattoos, and especially text tattoos, were so stupid):

"So you're, tired, but you're alive
so open up your eyes and
you can get your sleep when you are dead,
kill the clock inside your head,
bring your normalcy
to the edge
and watch it drown in
New Horizons,
New Horizons"

I don't know why, but those words give me so much strength and motivation.
I didn't know I needed this song in my life, but now I usually don't go a full day without listening to it at least once.
Okay, I feel like the more I talk about it, the less meaning it has... So I'll stop now.


I guess my entire point of this post is: This. album. is. amazing.
Go listen to it, if you don't know it yet.
If you don't like it, that's fine too. Just know that you're dead to me.


I'm just kidding. I guess all I wanted to do is share something that's really important to me.
I hope you enjoy this kind of post, because I don't think it'll be the last one I make.


Thanks for reading anyways!
Love,
T <3

New Hair REVEALED! Also selfie-trouble. (halp meh!)

SOOOooooo the time has come.
I actually wanted to do ze revealing of ze hair in a tutorial post, but that one got postponed (get it? =D), because something came up:
EMODA is looking for an ambassador and I would just about kill someone to get that position. I know I don't really stand a chance, but I'm the kind of person who will still try, no matter the odds.
(Go to http://emoda-webstore.com/ for more info :3)

My point being: entering the competition requires me to send in a face close-up (of myself, obviously) and I happen to think that I suck at taking selfies. I'm also socially awkward so I don't wanna ask some other person to take like 20 pictures of me until I find one that I like.
So I use "showing you my new hair color" as an excuse to list all my recent selfies (there are a LOT - I'm trying to get better.) and have YOU choose which one I should send in.

So without further ado, here are tons of pictures of my face (yay -.-)

1. Straight from the hairdresser's. O.M.G. I love those people.
Note: I did not do any editing on this except for cropping. This is the actual color my hair has.

 2. I... do not know when I took this one. What I DO know is that I the mirror-selfie definitely works best for me. Idk, I can just predict the outcome a lot better..? Anyways, I kinda like this one, though it took a lot of adjusting in photoshop to make it bright enough =/

 3. First in a line of manymany pics I took on my boyfriend's birthday, when my lamp made my hair look a lot more orangey than it is. Now this one doesn't really qualify for the EMODA thing, but I still put it up, because I kinda like it ^^ (camera focus fail though u_u I'm still learning)

 4. I call this the "Jessica" face, referring to SNSD obviously. I don't know why exactly but it just reminds me of her. (I'd never, EVER claim to be as fucking beautiful as any of the SNSD members, I'm just talking about the expression here...)

Those two don't qualify, so they're not even getting numbers ^^ I have a lot of this kind of picture, where I was about to press the shutter and then looked back at the screen of my camera for some reason and then I end up with either (left) derpy-face, or (right) super-drama-face.

 5. Now this one I honestly like. Mainly because my hair looks so...neat <3 I think this one might be my favorite for EMODA.

Another thing I've been practicing: liquid eyeliner! Turns out that shit makes fotos look like 80% better. Huh. This pic is obviously not appropriate to send in, but I was so proud of my eyeliner that day (might be the reason I took so many pics :P), I had to share.

 6. THE CRAZY EYES! I swear, this is just my face. When I try to do a no-expression face, this is what happens: I look like I want to stare into your soul. Since the crazy eyes are kind of my signature thing, and also because my face can be seen very well in this pic, I think this might be a good candidate for the EMODA picture... maybe?

 7. Very orangey hair again, that's just the artificial light in my room. Problem with the mirror selfies: I only have mirrors in the back part of my room, where no natural light ever reaches anything =/

 Hee hee. I just liked that one. Looks badass ^o^ (if it wasn't for my little chubbyhand)

 8. Look at that. An honest-to-God laugh. Hah. Fun story: I was taking selfies in my room and I heard my boyfriend singing "You better run, run, run, run,..." in the other room. That's what made me laugh. Seriously. Making him sing Girls Generation. Hihi.  This picture is very precious to me :3
Fact: I actually eye-smile a lot, when my smile is sincere. There's a pic of me at the wedding (hoping to get my hands on those soon to show you) where you can hardly see my eyes because I'm smiling so much.

 9. So here's the pics from this morning. I had my hair in braids last night so I could wear one of my favorite hairstyles today. I kinda like this one with the lighting and my face being clear and all, but I'm making a bit of a funny face =/

10. Even funnier face, and, weirdly, I like this one even more. Something about my hair and the scarf and...Idk. (TOTORO! btw ^^)


Sohooooo, that's all. You sick of my face yet? ^^
Pleeeeheeease let me know which one you like best (just use the numbers) as soon as you can, either on my facebook page, or in the comments right here <3
Also if you like my new hair color, I recommend going to "Intercoiffeur Katharina Strassl" in Vienna, those guys are amazeballs, and the prices are completely affordable! (Also it's just two streets away from my place, so don't forget to stop by ;D)
Anyways thanks so much for reading and - in advance - for your counsel =)
Love and snuggles and all the good stuff :*
T

The "morning routine Priority System" + Updates

YAY! I finally managed to get my lazy ass back to blogging!
I'm very sorry for slacking off so much over the last weeks. But with Uni life starting again and just about every person I know moving to Vienna, I was just super overwhelmed.
But, on a similar note, I can now proudly introduce Buttons&Brushes' new category "lifestyle". There's gonna be two sub-sections called "Uni life" and "City life", which, being a easily-overwhelmed countryside girl, I still need to learn a lot about.
I guess "Uni life" will be interesting to anyone in school, college or University. "City life" might only be useful to fellow countryside people moving to a bigger city, and mostly not even that, because Vienna really doesn't qualify as a VERY big city... BUT maybe you'll still get a lough out of my struggles to manage the big city life =)

Other than that, there's also been another big change in my life recently: my hair color! I will not reveal it just yet (mainly because I haven't managed to take an ok picture so far), but I'm gonna say this much: it's kinda crazy. There will be a post about hair soon, so please look forward to that =)

OKAY, so since I'm introducing the lifestyle category, let me start by teaching you the way of  the "morning routine Priority System", which can be life saving for you chaotic and long-sleeping people out there.

So this has happened to me on several occasions now: I set my alarm early, thinking I'll have a lot of time to get ready, and then somehow I end up having to rush around to even make it to my classes on time. The person showing up at Uni then looks like this: (note: hinting on my new hair)

Why? Not because I didn't have enough time, or sleep. But because I don't have structure, I don't have a plan. I end up doing nothing for a lot of time, because I'm confused and sleepy and overwhelmed by all the things I still need to do.
So, here's the trick. I call it the "morning routine Priority System". I'm pretty sure I invented this, though I am not too proud, because it's really very simple. What you do is you break down "getting ready" into several small activities, e.g. breakfast, shower, brushing your teeth, packing your bag,...
You don't even have to make a mental list, you just have to keep all your little activities in mind. Then, you start with the MOST IMPORTANT ONE, being the one with the highest priority, hence the title. I usually start off with coffee or, recently, black tea, for reasons of hydration and caffeine. Next, all you have to do when you're close to finishing up your first activity is think of all the ones that are left, and which one of them is the next in line of priority.
For me it helps to think in this way:

"I COULD leave the house without brushing my teeth, but I CANNOT leave the house without packing my bag for class."

This specific example might sound gross, but it's true. So I pack my bag first and while I do that I think about which is the next important thing to do.This way, you will know what to do next and, assuming you've taken enough time in total, you will not need to rush anything. Of course, your total time depends on how many little activities you have every morning. For me, it's a lot, including packing a lunchbox and putting on make up. Also, just because you put back a certain activity, like "brushing my teeth", doesn't mean you're not doing that at all. It might even be the next in line of priority. You efficiently work through all of them, and if you've taken enough total time, you will comfortably finish them too. For total time I usually think 1,5-2 hours, depending on if I need to take a shower or not, and then I add an extra 30 minutes just to be on the safe side. If, by any chance, you miscalculated and you DON'T have enough time to finish all your activities, at least you'll have done what you considered important first and you won't be a total mess, like I am when I just dilly-dally through my mornings.

Now, here's why this is so great: For one, I'm horrible at fixed morning routines, I never even had one when I was in school and I had to get up at the same time every day. Now, at Uni, when my classes are at complete random times, it's a lot nicer to have a flexible routine that's efficient.
Also, working efficiently really wakes me up and then I feel better (also because I feel a lot more confident if my hair is done and I'm wearing make up), and I also find myself able to pay more attention during class.
Now the person showing up to Uni looks like this:

I know this might not necessarily be great for everyone, but it really changed MY life for the better, and I wanted to share!
If you're an anti-morning-person like me, give it a try and I guarantee you will be feeling a lot more motivated and healthy! (Well, if you're in high school, I understand if you can't be motivated for anything, but it might still help a little ^^)
You. Are. Very. Welcome.

Please please let me know if you tried any of my tips, or if YOU have any special tips for morning routines. I'd also really appreciate feedback on the little comics and if you'd like to see more of those!
Thank you so very much for reading!
Love
T <3