Have you looked in the mirror recently?

Have you looked in the mirror recently… I mean really, really looked?

I have myopia - aka very near sighted. I am one of those people that if I decide to wear makeup and my glasses, I need to put extra concealer on my nose. Why? Because I inevitably run my face into the mirror trying to get close enough to “see” my eyelids. Happens. Every. Time.

It’s bad.

Sometimes it’s better for me to just close my eyes when moving around without my visual assistance. That way I don’t end up getting dizzy or falling over due to my absent depth perception. In the morning when I am waiting for the pups to finish eating (and way too lazy to grab my glasses) I like to play, “Guess the indefinable, unknown shape.” I recommend it to all the semi-visually impaired folk. 

A few weeks ago I was lounging on the couch… at 6:30 am… waiting to let the dogs out. After resting my eyes for a few minutes, I opened them and saw Cyrus next to the chair in the kitchen. Figuring he was ready to go outside, I called to him. No movement.

“Buddy, come on, it’s time to go potty.”

**Sidenote.. No, my dog doesn’t know how to use the “potty”. It would be wonderful he did. I will settle with him going outside and doing his business. That’s okay too.**

Nothing.

I could hear Ginger still eating.

“Buddy?”

I was starting to get worried. Sometimes Cyrus makes the poor life choice to inhale his food instead of chewing it properly. I was now hoping that he hadn’t choked. 

Swiftly making my way to the kitchen, I realized that what I thought was Cyrus was actually a coat that had fallen off the chair.

“Cyrus??”

I was frantic. I listened, but couldn’t hear the jingling of his collar. (I might be blind, but my hearing and smell have not overcompensated.) I ran to our room, tripping over the coffee table, and hitting my hip on the dresser and haphazardly grabbed for my glasses. After a few extra-long minutes (and  inadvertently knocking my glasses off the bedside stand) I could see AND had found Cyrus. Turns out he was still in his crate from where I had put him the evening before. Yeah, I hadn’t even let him out to feed him. Maybe I should wear my glasses around the house.

So I can’t see, I’ll admit it.

But, once I have my glasses on or contacts in, you would think THEN I could see everything. That’s what I thought, until I was taking a picture of myself the other day. 

Pictures are worth a thousand words, but I have one word to describe this picture. Unibrow.

Turns out my brows are planning to take over the world – once face at a time. I know they aren't too bad right now, but give them another week... I will be able to have a self made visor for my eyes. After I zoomed in x500 (or something like that) I grabbed my mirror. Sure enough, they had been there the entire time – I was just too worried about my poor nose getting some one on one time with a reflective surface.

Guess I will have to revoke the gag order I have on the hubbie about making comments about my facial hair. (No beard or mustache  - just ONE annoying mole… but apparently also applies to brow disclosure.) Eek!

Oh what we do to be beau…. Haha… not look like a monkey.

Have a wonderful day!

Nail Painting... Not for the Faint of Heart

Someone please tell me that I am not the only one that can’t paint their own nails.

It’s not like I am not prepared. I have a whole caboodle (remember those?) of different paint colors, bottom coats, top coats, fast dryers, sparkly colors … the whole works. There are twenty-seven bottles to be exact that I have come to accumulate over the years. I even have this small tiny little fan to dry my nails with. And no – those fancy polishes don’t paint your toe nails by themselves even if they cost 20 dollars. Don’t let anyone try to trick you.



So my problem is not that I don’t have those other essential items to paint my nails. Besides having enough fingernail polish to paint an army of five year olds… or a room full of beauty contestants… I have the toe spreaders that splay my toes so far apart that people might confuse my foot with a hand. I have fingernail polish remover that could potentially be used to render someone unconscious and those dreaded nail files. They give me the shivers just thinking about them. I usually mentally prepare myself ahead of time, get everything together, breathe… and then get started.

I can reach my feet… but my legs get in the way of my arms trying to get to my feet. I swivel, lean over, try to bend in weird positions. So as I balance on four toes of one foot and maybe have a good angle of my third from the left toe on my right foot, I get too much polish on the 0.02 cm long brush and I end up painting three toes at the same time. It is inevitable. I would probably paint the nails better if I just dropped the bottle of nail polish on the floor and let the splatter paint my nails.

(I would like to preface that these are not my feet - merely a representation what my feet usually look like when I paint them. I just wouldn't take a picture of it.)



So I have asked the experts about what to do when I have gotten more polish on my dog then my actual toe nails and they say that finger nail polish remover should be my friend. Well while getting asphyxiated trying to dab away my mistakes with a cotton swab, I manage to get the ONLY toe that was painted correctly. Yes I missed the nail painting 101 class that little girls got in the third grade.

It really is a sad, sad story.

So what do I do? I go to the nail shop. Nope, not the one that I get my hair done at. Those ladies speak English. Because of this, I think they charge 40 extra dollars. English is expensive!

I go the “fancy nail” or “exotic nails too.” One of my friends shared a video with me on you tube of a comedian talking about her experiences with nail salons. You think she is being funny, but all of this is sooo true.

Goodness. I don’t know which is more stressful. Painting my nails by myself, or having them done by a middle aged Asian man that pointed at me three times and laughed while talking to his friend speaking a language I didn’t understand. Shaved my legs? Check. Don’t have any fungus or weird abnormalities. Check. What are they laughing at?? Oh probably my nail painting job from three days ago. Maybe I forgot to remove some of the polish from the back of my leg.

Check out the video and enjoy…

The Biggest Critic

Who is the Biggest Critic in Your Life?

2010 is my year.

I have dedicated myself to being an “investigator.” What am I investigating? Well many things. First and foremost, who “I” am and what makes me, me. Why is this important? Continue reading …

Over the past two months of 2010, we have heard in the news (entertainment news) that reality star Heidi Montag (Pratt) went through 20 (20?!?) surgery procedures to become “beautiful” to make it in the music industry. (This was her second plastic surgery.) She is 23 years old.



She did this because she felt she was “ugly” and that in her industry she has to be beautiful to become popular and some “alterations are necessary.” This is sad and disturbing – for two reasons. First she is basically telling the public that to be beautiful you will probably need plastic surgery. Two, that she was so unhappy with herself she felt the need to spend $30,000 on procedures that were dangerous, leaving her in pain, weak and showing little to no expression. She just released another music album, but she hasn’t been able to promote it. Why? She is unable to fully move her jaw – and she had the surgery in November! Please tell me how these procedures are helping her career?

I understand the media believes they “define” beauty. They show us that being 5’9 and weighing a 100 lbs is beautiful. (I never made it to 5’9 and surpassed 100lbs before puberty!) (Another tidbit – many models can’t have babies. Why? They don’t have enough fat to distribute essential hormones that allow them to have menstrual cycles! Anyway..) But – who ultimately accepts this definition and then strives to become it? We do! Why? Because we are not happy with ourselves.

Last year the general public became familiar with the name Susan Boyle. With humble upbringings, Susan’s “image” vastly differs from those media definitions I mentioned earlier. Yet, she is popular – so popular that her CD sales have competed with country singer Taylor Swift! (She has sold many more CDs then Heidi Montag!) Why has she had such great success? She has true, genuine talent. The public has spoken – not the media. They value exceptional talent, no matter what you look like.



So where am I going with this. Everyone starts out unique – even identical twins. You might not be 5’9 or weigh a 100lbs, but embrace it. Embrace what God has given you. With this uniqueness, everyone also has a talent that makes them different. EVERYONE. Something that they enjoy doing, something that defines them, something that they are truly good at. It might be something that no one else does, it might not make you famous, it might be weird… and the list goes on. But it is what makes you – you. Embrace this too! Why am I promoting all of this self acceptance? Because, ultimately, this is what truly matters.

Life can be defined as change. Never static, it is the change in life that we can bet on. With this, we must become familiar with ourselves, know what “I” and “me” truly mean. If we let other things in life define us (the media, our job, even friends and family) – then when those things change or disappear – where does that leave us? In shambles.

I feel that sometimes the entertainment hopefuls strive for “popularity” backwards. People want to be famous and then they try to find themselves afterwards. Unfortunately, they are never happy, always trying to be the next biggest, best thing. Those that are truly famous (and legendary) are the ones that don’t care what others think – they just do what they love, what has made them unique. (Take for instance, Lady Gaga, J.K. Rowling, Bill Gates, and the list goes on…)

If you want to make changes in your life, do so because it will make you happy, not because someone else told you to do it. I pluck my eye brows so I don’t have a uni-brow (because I would!) and a uni-brow just doesn’t look good with glasses. I don’t blog because everyone else is doing it, I do it because I like to write.

If you want people to accept you, you must have already accepted yourself. Don’t strive to be famous, strive in doing what makes you “you” and ultimately makes you happy. If you end up down that road – props to you! If you don’t – oh well, you are still happy… and that’s all that matters, right?

When the end comes, God won’t be sorting us in “famous” and “not so famous” categories, nor the “rich” or “poor” categories. He made us unique for a reason…

So live, love, learn – that’s what I say!