Ah, New Year's. When we come together to celebrate a new year full of hopes, dreams, and possibilities. It's a time for good friends, lively parties, and OH MY GOD DID I REALLY DRINK AN ENTIRE BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE BY MYSELF LAST NIGHT AND THEN PERFORM A JOURNEY/DEF LEPPARD MEDLEY FOR THE INVITED GUESTS?? moments. For whatever reason, New Year's Eve seems to bring out the drinker in most of us, myself included. Fortunately, my champagne-hogging, 80's hair metal singing days are thankfully past (for the most part), but I remember all too clearly those mornings after, waking up feeling as if an anvil was sitting atop my head, and looking as if my hair and now-smudged makeup had been styled by either of the aforementioned rock bands. It's Hangover City, people.

There is something so tempting about New Year's resolutions, isn't there?  Even those of who know better are lured into promising that we'll stop drinking! and start excercising! and call our mothers EVERY DAY!  Yeah, right.  This year, instead of vowing to completely reform everything about yourself and your life, resolve to make some very small changes.  Because while it might seem like the only resolutions that really count are the big ones, little tweaks to your routine can add up to big results overall.  We have four suggestions to keep you looking and feeling beautiful in the new year; none of them is particularly time consuming or expensive, but all of them will leave you looking -- and feeling -- more beautiful.

As any true child of the 80's knows, Monday nights meant one thing: MACGYVER. I couldn't get enough of MacGyver's ludicrous, death-defying inventions, such as bombs consisting of pantyhose, spearmint dental floss, and a single plum. (I'm not saying that was an ACTUAL device on the show, but honestly, if it was, would you be at all surprised?) I mention all of this because I think it goes a long way towards explaining my current obsession with emergency beauty/fashion fixes.

OK, right away I'm realizing that I'm probably blogging to myself. Because nobody is as clueless as I am. About hair, or even about locating the digital camera, both of which affect this post.See, I can't upload pictures of this hair technique, or at least, I can't until I find the %&*@@!! camera.But I have a trick for making my hair look good. And since I have straight, medium to long hair with long layers cut in, especially around the face--just like everyone else on the planet, thank you Jennifer Anniston--I thought I'd share it.

Style. It seems like such a frivolous thing - hardly worth a mention, really. Who cares about something as superficial as style? It’s become increasingly common to belittle style and any discussion of it - maybe we think that we’ve evolved beyond it, or perhaps we hope that if we ignore it it will go away? Well, it won’t. How you present yourself sends a message, whether intentional or not. I believe that you should be in control of the message you send out into the world - that you should nurture and develop your authentic personal style.

This time of year we have more opportunities than usual to get glammed up, which, for a girly-girl like myself, is fantastic. When I had longer hair, I was always playing around with different accessories and styles, but once I cut it shorter, I got a lot less creative because I never saw a variation on the sleek, straight style I showed my stylist initially.

When I was in high school, my mom took me to get my haircut at some fancy salon in Beverly Hills. It was supposed to be a special once-in-a-lifetime sort of treat. But my hair ended up looking so good. Too good. I was hooked. (For the record, it was the Rachel.)

I am not a morning person. I never have been, and a full-time job (for which I leave quite early) and two small children have done nothing to change that. All that those factors have done is force me to become more creative with my morning routine so I get the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE NUMBER OF EXTRA MINUTES blissfully nestled in my so-comfortable-it-should-be-illegal-or-at-least-heavily-regulated bed.

According to Wikipedia habits are "automatic routines of behavior that are repeated regularly, without thinking. They are learned, not instinctive, human behaviors that occur automatically, without the explicit contemporaneous intention of the person."

I love to try products, and I love to talk about them - but I thought I'd share two of my favorite beauty items that don't come in a bottle...and will work for everyone.

I grew up as a blonde. I was naturally blonde as a child, and when I reached high school, I started getting highlights, and when I finally decided in college that I no longer wanted to be blonde, I made the mistake of purchasing a permanent brunette dye at the drugstore (I'm sure the cashier was laughing on the inside as I paid).

I'm not going to tell you how long I've been coloring my hair - it's been a very long time. I used to color my hair because I thought "mousey brown" didn't particularly suit me, but, early in my 30's I started to go gray.  I don't mean strands here and there, I mean all-over, salt and pepper hair, which really didn't suit me at 35. Over the course of these hair-dying years I've used countless brands of henna, paid large and small sums for professionals to do the job and bought dozens of boxes of drugstore brand hair color.