The Eyebrow Adventure, aka Amidey Made Me Do It

So. When I entered my midlife crisis this summer and realized that my Chick Card had been revoked, I first did the ear piercing thing. I also began to consider getting my eyebrows waxed, with a fair amount of encouragement from some of you (see comments for the last two posts). Yes, it is true, my friends; somehow I reached 39 years of age without ever having had any hair ripped off my face (or any other part of me, thank you very much). It was part of the "a la naturale" thing I had going... no hair color, no piercings, no tattoos, no eyebrow waxing, and for several years, no eye makeup. I was downright granola for awhile, I'm telling you! I even made my own homemade granola. Also yogurt, cheese, and butter from raw milk gotten from a cow I milked myself. I wore Birkenstocks with socks, even. (But not while milking the cow.)

So, with that kind of emotional baggage, you can understand my reluctance to get my eyebrows done. My whole identity revolved around being REAL. Hair color and eyebrow waxing were for shallow girlie women who secretly hated themselves and were insecure about their appearance. My husband liked me the way I was. I liked me the way I was. Mostly. Well, sometimes. And above all, I didn't want to get my eyebrows done just because most of my friends thought I should. If I was going to do it, I would do it because I wanted to do it.

So I waited more than a month. (Bad writing alert: I started three straight paragraphs with the word, "so". The floggings shall commence immediately.) I waited, because I am stubborn and spiteful. And I looked at my eyebrows in the mirror every morning; with each passing day they began to look bushier. Finally I capitulated. I called Kari Rawlings of New Reflections Salon and made an appointment for myself and Jessica, my lovely fellow Sister-OutLaw.

My handsome but annoying husband overheard the conversation and smirked as I got off the phone.

"I knew you would end up doing it. If Amidey wants you to do something, you always do it."

If he hadn't been holding a reciprocating saw, I might have socked him. Instead, I stuck my tongue out and put my fingers in my ears.

"NanaNanaBooboo!"

And then I ran.

What a dork. (Him, not me.) (As if I needed to tell you that.) (Right?)


So, last Wednesday we went. Amidey came along to document the process. We are nothing if not dedicated bloggers, after all.

Behold, the videos.

Worse than the waxing, however, was the tweezing that commenced after the camera was turned off. Dude. That really hurt. I was yelping and crying and making a complete fool of myself in the chair. Okay not really. But I saved up the pain and went home and cried like a baby later that night.

And here, we are, Jessica and myself, after the ordeal was over.

The funny thing is... I don't know that I see a whole lotta difference. Do you?

Before

After

Yikes - take a look at the wrinkles around those eyes!? Whoa, baby - I think a little botox might be called for here! I mean, hey, I'm already well down the slippery slope of appearance artifice, right? Why stop now? I could be young forever -- Wheeeeeee!


What's that? Too late, you say? TOO LATE?! Are you calling me... OLD!?

&$*&@! so called "friends"! Who needs you, anyway! :stalks off to make voodoo dolls:

You will rue the day you mocked the Funny Farmer!

Scared yet? No? :sigh:


OH! Wanna know what my husband said when he got home that night and saw my new brows?

Nothing. He didn't even notice.

Shocker.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

There's new poll up - and apparently at least some people want to talk about it. So here you go.

Here is a picture of me. Note the eyebrows. Do you think they need shaping, plucking, waxing, darkening, or other method of "fixing"?

I think what I need is a before/after comparison image - I'm scared to do it and then hate it, because although theoretically I know they would grow back... wouldn't it be ugly and awkward while it happens?

Blast away.

A Piercing Scream Ripped the Air. Twice.

Alternate Title: The one with disjointed thoughts and run-on sentences.

Okay not really on the screaming. Anyone who blogs knows that coming up with a clever title that relates to the post contents is the hardest part of blogging. Well, maybe not THE hardest part, but it's right up there with finding time to sit down and blog, thinking of cool things to blog about, inventing provocative poll questions, waiting for videos to upload, embedding code in posts without mangling it beyond functionability, and being real without embarrassing family members to death and losing their trust so they never tell me anything again.

Anyway - while at first glance the post title above may not seem to be related to this post. Keep reading, and hopefully you'll see how in my twisty, windey way, I tie it all together at the end. You can even suggest alternate titles, and I'll put the best ones at the top of this post.

So, I've been moaning publicly about my lack of feminine qualities lately. I think this issue is on my mind because I've been hanging out with cute people who are more stylish and skinnier than I am. This actually pretty much sums up going to church. About 90% of my ward is younger and thinner and more hip than me. It's that dratted comparison game - I always lose and can't for the life of me figure out why I continue to play. If only we'd purchased that other house we were considering in that older neighborhood in Orem, where most of the ward would be in their 50's by now, I wouldn't be going through this painful introspection today!

Now what was I talking about before? :slaps cheeks lightly: Come on girl, focus...

Oh yes. While I've never been a lover of lace and bows and frills, on clothes or anything else, I remember an era around 1-7 BC (Before Children) when I was skinny and I did enjoy dressing up more and owned a few cute stylish clothes and wore pierced earrings and painted my fingernails and spent time on eye makeup and performed the batting of eyelashes when cute boys were around and once even tweezed my eyebrows! So I know that I do have it in me, somewhere. Somewhere deep.

I had my ears pierced in High School, right before the Junior Prom. Over the years my parents gave me various pairs of earrings and I loved them all. Every now and then I'll run across the box where I store them, and reminisce and feel a little sad that I can't wear them anymore due to the fact that I let my post holes heal over during early motherhood after baby Karianne yanked on my earrings one too many times and I removed them.

There is the pair of pearls I wore for my wedding. And the green jade dangly ones dad gave me when I graduated from college. There is a lovely pair with freshwater pearls dangling from short chains - except that this pair is now a single lonely earring due to the other being lost one night while I was bidding an enthusiastic farewell to my future husband (but neither of us knew it at the time) outside my dorm. But because this is a family-friendly website I'll just leave that story be. Ahem.

And then there are the several pairs of earrings that I have brought home from my mother's vast jewelry collection in the last year: dainty porcelain roses, delicate silver butterflies, and sparkling zirconia with matching pendant on a thin gold chain. I've brought them home, planning to give them to my girls someday, but secretly wishing that my ears hadn't healed shut and I could wear them myself.

And then a friend told me that getting ears re-pierced through the same holes doesn't hurt like the blazing suns like I thought it would, and I began thinking about actually doing it.

Do you think I should?

Too late. I already did. And while I was at it, I took Megan and got her ears pierced too, since she's been nagging me for over two years now and I figured that I might as well reverse my earlier wise parental edict that girls must reach the completely arbitrary age of twelve before paying people to poke holes in their ears, which will probably have the effect of spoiling her rotten and teaching her that family rules are debatable and starting her on the slippery slope into a rebellious teenager-hood and I'll have guilt and grief over this decision. But hey, at least I'll look cute while it happens.

I'm so glad I got my priorities straightened out on this issue.

Here is the photographic evidence of our mutual mutilation at the mall.

One ear down, one to go, and she's still smiling! (It's all an act, folks. That thing stung. But I didn't want the bossy little asian chick with the gun to see me cry. She scared me a little bit.)

Megan is so excited and takes heart because mom made it look so utterly easy.

Ouch!

OUUUUUUUCH!

Megan decided that she would probably live, and sucked it up for the pictures.

And this is how I came to understand that I am a real woman after all: because I am willing to endure pain and torture for the sake of fashion and I am teaching my youngest daughter to do the same.

There's a lot of personal policies being thrown under the bus lately.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of my feminine metamorphosis: Lisa Shaves Her Legs!