If You Give Me Liquid Foundation

“Do you use powder foundation or liquid?” my friend Robin asked as she took me on my first visit to Ulta Beauty on a recent trip to Lansing. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Ulta, but it is a vast showroom of everything girly and make-uppy. “Powder, why?” “Well, my sister told me that because we are over 50 now, that we should wear liquid foundation because it doesn’t look so caky on our skin.” She showed me the Lancôme foundation she switched to and we proceeded to try and figure out what color I needed. That led to me sitting on a tall metal chair with a young woman applying makeup to my face. “I’m going to need something for these dark circles too,” I added. It was wonderful. I haven’t had someone put makeup on me, ever. And I have to admit, when she was finished I looked amazing. Nothing close to the clown-esque job I do with liquid foundation. The closest thing I have gotten to someone putting make up on me was sitting in front of a little plastic tray at someone’s Mary Kay home party. And that was just me, applying it myself while the Mary Kay consultant squirted little blobs of makeup in the tray. This was different. I wondered if this is what Hollywood actors felt like before a scene. The associate told me about blending and proper cleaning of brushes before she handed me my new little bottles of rather expensive make up and sent me on my way. I remembered that if I’m going to start wearing liquid make up again, that I probably should start washing my face at night, which I haven’t done since my last go-around with liquid make up. But then when I considered the now added step of nightly face-washing, I was also going to need night cream. Is it just me, or is my column starting to sound like “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie?”

            If you give a 51 year old woman liquid foundations, she’s going to need to wash her face. And if she washes her face, she’s definitely going to need some night cream to go with it.

But you should know me well enough to know that I ended up with the foundation, concealer, the little egg shaped spongy ball, face cleaning wipes, and night cream. OH and while I’m here, I’d better get some mascara too, right? It actually didn’t happen quite that quickly or seamlessly. Some of the items were bought at Ulta. Then I was introduced to the equally wonderful Sephora, where I got the night cream sample and mascara. Finally, I wound up at Walgreens for a full container of night cream and the spongy little egg shaped ball. And all of this happened because Robin’s sister said that women over 50 should wear liquid foundation.

The Potluckatarian

When you make a decision to change your lifestyle in order to have a positive impact on your health like I did, there are bound to be some situations in which you are forced to make some difficult decisions. I have written before about the changes I have made in order to be a more active, healthy person. One of those decisions is the choice to avoid meat and dairy products. I have said before that I am not a vegan or vegetarian, because I want to have choices. If you are a self-proclaimed vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, glutenarian, or whatever you are, whether by choice or by force, you understand as well as I do, there are some sacrifices that come along with living a lifestyle void of cheeses (oh how I love cheeses) and meat. It can be challenging to take a vacation in the U.P., for instance, where, at times, the only vegan option on the menu consists of ketchup and saltine crackers. This is where I draw the line at whether or not I’m going to give in and just have the dang pasty, meat and all. Nowhere on earth is it more difficult to be a something-arian than at a church potluck. If you are the member of a church like I am, we gather together around food, usually potluck style, frequently. And it’s not just food. It’s really good food. I have been a potluck attendee my entire life because I have gone to church my entire life. When I have that Chinette plate in my hand and I’m shuffling along the potluck line, faced with the likes of tuna macaroni salad, taco salad, cheesy potatoes, and ground beef chili, I’m weak. Very weak. I scoop the turkey and dressing casserole on to that sturdy eco-friendly plate convincing myself that I’ll just “eat around” the turkey, but knowing full well that it’s not going to happen. I feel like a failure to all that’s good and vegan. “But God put those animals on this earth for us to enjoy!” they say. Tell that to my intestines that struggle to digest it. I try to be strong, but when I’m staring down a crockpot full of homemade macaroni and cheese the spoon beckons and I obey. As I cleaned my plate at the most recent potluck luncheon, I promised myself a meat and cheese detox starting at 1:00 pm. So maybe I’m a potluckatarian. Care to join me? I’ll be sitting in front of an empty oval Chinette plate, looking guilty, and full.

The Blessings of a Daughter-in-Law

So far, 2019 is shaping up to be one of my best years ever. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to the little hints I’ve dropped in my previous columns, my son Robby got married in February to a wonderful young woman named Melody. We had not one, but two weddings (technically a wedding & reception in California and a second reception in Michigan). Both events were fun, but the real fun has been the “having a daughter-in-law” part. I used to say that because I lived in a house with all males, that our pets had to be female to balance things out. Not even close! If you live in a house with all males and haven’t gotten a daughter-in-law yet, let me tell you that it’s a real treat. There are just certain things that come along with having a human female join the family. For starters, the gift-giving is a blast. Melody was in the fiance’ stage when Christmas rolled around, and I’m not exaggerating when I admit that she probably got double the gifts that the boys got because, well, it’s just more fun to shop for a girl. Before her birthday, I studied her style of clothes and picked out something I thought she’d wear and, SCORE! She liked it, AND she wears it! Melody likes to do things I like to do like clean eating, going to the beach, and working out. She likes to dance too, but she’s a real dancer and I’m more like Elaine Bennis from Seinfeld. We don’t have everything in common though. She’s fluent in Spanish and I can say the standard 3 phrases that we learned in Spanish 1 in high school. My new daughter-in-law gives girl gifts and likes to talk about girl stuff.

Having a daughter- in-law means that you get asked questions you never thought you’d hear, like,

            “What do you usually like to do for Mother’s Day?” and “We’d love to come over for dinner. What can we bring?”

I also got a bonus when she signed on as a Hovie. Her sister and husband were good friends with Robby when he and Melody met, so we’ve sort of adopted them as surrogate family. So our family just got a lot bigger and more fun, to say the least. I feel like I just really lucked out in the daughter-in-law department and have been working on how to share it. But the best part is that she loves Robby as much as we do, which is just the icing on the cake for this Best. Year. Ever. Welcome to the family, Melody.