When my girls were in Middle school I carpooled with a Mom who lived around the corner; her kids (twins) were one or two grades above Linds and one year below Lolo. As much as I loved their mom, the twins were a bit obnoxious. They loved to brag about the size of their home, how much it could sell for, their new clothes, new phones etc…I just can’t with braggers, even if they’ve barely hit puberty, but being the mature adult, I bit my tongue a lot.
I recall one day when picking them up from school, the daughter was scrolling her texts said to me: “You probably don’t know this, but I’m really popular.”
The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop myself:
Well, if you have to say it out Loud, it’s probably not true.
Obviously, I’d had enough with her sassy ass. I could hear Lindsay in the backseat giggling at my remark, and since then, that’s been a One Liner with Linds and I.
Recently, the Coach and I attended an event/dinner/awards at our local university. In attendance, and sitting at our table was a former athlete who is only two years older than our Lolo. Anyhoo, this young lady is beautiful, smart, very sweet, appeared very accomplished and personable.
But as much as I admired her for those things, and she did seem interested in the other people around her, I also knew in the first 21 minutes of introduction that she (and her husband, who is my age) have several Chiropractic practices, a Ferrari, a large house, plenty of travel opportunities that require much luggage and her Chanel purse needs its own chair.
Woah Sister, save some stuff for later!
The Coach and I discussed it on the way home and had a good snicker. Not the candy bar, a giggle, although I could use a snicker bar because I’m not myself when I’m hungry.
Anyhoo. It made me wonder, if I had all those ‘things’ at 32, would I feel the need to boast about them? No. I would not. And today, at the ripe old age of what I am, I’m kind of the opposite. I prefer to play down the ‘stuff’ and focus on what really matters: My Stellar Personality.
Not to brag, but I’m damn popular. In this house. Most of the time. Really, mostly at dinner time, but you know.
Anyone run into a not.so.humble bragger lately? Were you as unimpressed as I?
December 2023 me is going to cuss the living daylights out of January 2023 me. The way I took down the Christmas tree, with all the lights hanging/dangling/hiding/tangled between each section was a crime in the making. But I just didn’t have it in me to untangle, remove and sort the lights as a sane person would. I’m going to be so regretful of my impatience next Christmas.
*We generally go to GA for Thanksgiving and when we get back home, I stress about Christmas decorating because I’ve generally not done any shopping or planning and decorating just adds to my dread. (reading that again and it’s evident that I don’t have my shit together; I swear I used to) I declared to the Coach that this year, I will decorate the house entirely before we depart for Thanksgiving.
Hey, when November comes, can ya’ll remind me of this great idea and can someone come help with the light situation? Pretty please?
SHE’S SUCH A BABY, The DOLPHINS COWS MAKE HER CRY.
Peanut finally had her first visit to the Ranch just before we came back to Florida. The Coach wanted to document the property via his fancy-ass drone before more work on the land was done. The Cows were mooing and mooing as cows do and Peanut the Bad Ass was growling, from the safety of her SUV.
A bit later, when we were walking or in the UTV and a cow was close, The Bad Ass started shaking and hiding behind me. She’s such a baby.
As we were venturing around the property, I was really enjoying the Winter look to the place; I mean, it’s not as pretty as when everything is lush and green, but the winter perspective is to be appreciated. There were gobs of blue birds and downy woodpeckers flitting about; I’ve never seen a downy woodpecker (of course I got excited) and I rarely see bluebirds, so that was fun.
Our favorite treeA still shot over part of the property that the Coach captured with his drone.
MORE PECKERS?!
Back at home, I spotted an unusual-to-me bird in the tree outside my office window. I knew it was a woodpecker, but what in the Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors is it? After squinting my eyes through the blinds at least twenty seven times and then looking through my handy dandy laminated bird guide for our area that arrived with my AARP card, I realized what I was seeing was a Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker. THEY DO EXIST!
Again, I might have gotten too excited about this and what has my life come to?
Did birds exist before I turned 50? Most likely, no.
Although, I still have this memory from when Lindsay was in kindergarten, explaining one morning to her teacher that she was So Tired because the birds woke her up early. I was probably too busy to notice them.
Please tell me I’m not alone in my enjoyment of The Birds and especially The New-to-me Birds.
Are you embarrassed at how I stored my tree for the next year?
When I hinted last week at my need to share about my eyebrows, I was pleasantly surprised by how many of you were eager to discuss. (Nicole, I actually belly laughed at your comment) So, I figured that was all I needed to actually write the post.
Let’s Start with My Eyebrow Horror Story.
Picture this: Suz’s first day of 10th grade. I’m about 4’10 and I weigh no more than 80lbs. Awkward turtle with zero wardrobe compared to my peers. My brother Mark tells me as I’m getting ready that I need to clean up my unibrow. (I didn’t have a unibrow, but there were some stray hairs) He handed me a disposable razor and said: Here, use this to clean it up.
I took one swipe down the not.so.middle of my brows which took out the stray hairs and a good portion of my right eyebrow.
IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME.
What a way to start my not.gonna.be.awkward.this.year at school. My friends with straight brothers had no idea the fun I went through with him giving me terrible perms and bad eyebrow advise. I wish there was photographic evidence because I was something to behold for the first few weeks of my sophomore year; I did not have school pics that year.
EVIDENCE OF EYEBROWS A FEW YEARS AFTER RAZOR-GATE
My glamour shot photo from Beauty School. Can you even see my eyebrows with all that eyeshadow? No.you.can’t.
Through the years I did light plucking to keep my brows at bay without making any real damage. I did a lot of careless things as a young woman, but thank goodness I never over-plucked. For a time in my 30’s/40’s I would get my brows waxed just to keep them clean. When I was coming up on fifty I realized that waxing was overkill because my brows didn’t grow that much and all they required was light plucking on my part; no razors thank you very much.
It was shortly after turning fifty when I noticed in photos, I appeared to have little to NO brows. But when I looked in the mirror, it seemed like they were there, as they have always been. But obviously they, unlike my thighs and demeanor were thinning and getting lighter.
I would use tinted gels if we were going out for a special occasion and there would be photographic evidence. I’ve also been taking hair/nail vitamins for quite a while without much fanfare. Recently I invested in Revitalash. I honestly can’t say anything good or bad because I took my NEXT STEP before really giving that a chance.
Taking The Microblading Plunge
I’d been contemplating having Microblading for over a year, and the nail in the eyebrow coffin was when I saw my bestie Kelly a few months ago and she had this done without conferring with me. She lives on the East Coast, so occasionally she does things without letting me know, but still…
Her brows looked great. I did some research and found someone in my area who has been doing it a long time and had over 500 great reviews.
I made my appointment for Microblading and mentally prepared myself for this because the title of this procedure has BLADE in it. Did you notice that part?
Really though, my blade lady numbed the area and I felt nothing. Zilch. Zero pain. She drew the outline of my soon-to-be brows after measuring my crooked ass face. Woo. It looked like a LOT was going to be filled in, but I suppose when I didn’t have much to start with anything looked like a lot.
She made tiny little cuts along the drawn out areas and filled them in with ink. I was told to not have any caffeine, wine, vitamins, etc prior to this; you know, anything good that thinned out my blood. She was actually having a hard time filling in my left brow more than my right and she said that was common; that is the side where our heart is and there is more blood flow. And we all know how EXTRA LARGE my heart is. ♥️
She told me when all is said and done to not get them wet for 3-5 days. Me: Is it three? or is it five? I went with five. Which meant I couldn’t sweat, which meant I couldn’t work-out or walk to the mailbox because each of those activities involve me sweating.
Just before my procedure and right after. I hope you know how much I despise taking photos of myself, especially sans makeup; I did this for you.
What I didn’t fully understand prior was that you go through a few ugly phases while healing and you don’t get the full color/look until six weeks later when you have a touch up appointment.
The first few days I couldn’t pass a mirror without surprising myself. They seemed SO dark, so BIG, so Groucho Marx. Even the Coach kept staring at them…he said he wasn’t, but I know he was.
Do you ever watch The Walking Dead? You know, with all the zombies. Sometimes they’ll be walking around willy nilly and a body part (fingers, leg, arm) just falls off, but they keep going. Well, there were a few days where I would walk by the mirror, take a glance and see part of my brow just hanging there, willy nilly. For real. They were scabbing up and falling off. It was SO hard to not just rip off the dangling bits, but I didn’t want to ruin all that I’d gone through. Within 12 days, they looked pretty normal and I’d gotten used to them. Although, the left one does need more fill-in than the right one; I have an appointment in October to have them touched up.
The procedure is supposed to last 12-24 months depending on your skin type, how much you sweat, etc…so I’m guessing mine will last 4 months. KIDDING, I’d better get two years out of these brows. I was in her chair for just over two hours, but part of that was us talking about it and the numbing part. Overall it was an easy procedure and depending on how long it lasts, I’d probably do it again.
BeforeJust after20 days post-Side eye
My hair also got a little attention between the ‘just after and 20 days’. After my upcoming touch up, I believe my brows will be a little bit darker, but not by much.
I never in my life imagined that I would give my eyebrows a second thought. What a time to be alive.
Do you think I’m crazy? Don’t answer that.
Have you been microbladed? Were you taught to over-pluck your eyebrows and are now eyebrow bald?
Busy Bee Suz 