Quote for Tuesday

One of my favorite beauty blogs has to be intothegloss.com. But be warned, if you are a beauty product/skin care aficionado, you will fall like Alice through the rabbit hole into a product wonderland.

I particularly adore the intothegloss.com interviews with men and women on their approaches to skin care and the reasons behind their product choices and their beliefs on beauty and self-care.

On Monday, “My Hair Color, My Self” was no exception. It focused on Amy Astley, Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief, and her decision to stop coloring her hair and embrace her natural hair color.

It was an interesting read, but then towards the end, I found this quote that really resonated with me and knew I had to share it.

I don’t like that society says, ‘Oh you’re old, you can’t have long hair.’ Of course you can have long hair! Instead of taming yourself, Mrs. Prada said, be wilder. With women, everything is about you trying to tame your look: how thin can you be, how tiny, how muscular, and seeking so much outside intervention for your hair and face—taming it.

A new skin care manifesto perhaps? Take care of yourself but refuse to be tamed?

Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago, May 17, 2004, my life was forever changed with the best "worst thing" ever.

To those who have traveled this road, those in the fight, and those who are with us in spirit. I honor you:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) I am never without it...

...here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
(E.E. Cummings)blockquote>

Ridiculous Celebrity Quote

As I get back into blogging after more than a month long absence from blogging, I wanted to share a ridiculous celebrity quote that has helped me through the past April. Every time I read it, no matter how intense or stressful the moment, I can't help but smile and think, "Celebrities?! What are they thinking?"

I pack my baggage, or dress myself, or comb my kids' hair, pick up their clothes -- that makes our life beautiful you know? There's something very elegant in that.

-Jennifer Lopez, Interview from February 2013 Harper's Bazaar

My initial reaction to reading this: "WTF!?"

General summary of my subsequent reactions: "WTF?! Ms. Lopez if you want your life to be even more beautiful and elegant, we can trade. You can work my job and come home and do an endless amount of "beautiful" tasks. I"ll take your hair and make-up team and your closet."

Lainey's (of the laineygossip.com blog) take on this quote is hilarious.

If someone said that to you out loud, if they told you, no joke, that they keep their lives “simple and beautiful” by DRESSING THEMSELVES, could you keep a straight face?

God I love these assholes.

Jennifer Lopez really is one of the best.

Here's to beautiful and elegant living! And Jennifer Lopez never change your divalicious ways! You are fabulously out-of-touch and definitely a celebrity who is not "just like us," and I love you for it!

Skin Care and Beauty Product Obsession

Confession time: I am equal parts fascinated and obsessed with skin care and beauty products.

My fascination/obsession began while I was undergoing chemotherapy in 2004. Once you find yourself bald and are on some pretty intense medications that impact your skin, you find simply taking care of your skin is of the utmost importance.
Pampering your skin on those days when you have the “baldheaded blues” is also very important.

Years later my interest still continues. I love reading skin care books and am obviously an avid reader of many beauty blogs. I feel like I learn so much and get so many great ideas on routines and products.

Now obviously this interest does have some pitfalls. Much like fashion blogs, it can trigger the “Must have! Must buy!” compulsion. This compulsion is calmed by the simple fact that my skin is still super sensitive after all my chemotherapy and post-chemo medications. Overloading my skin with new products will only cause very bad things.

Another curb to a beauty products shopping spree is money. Skin care and beauty products when bought full-size can be quite pricy. If I do have an interest in a new product, I always go to Sephora and request a free sample to try out. This helps me avoid any skin freak-outs and save money by not buying a full-size product for the “test drive.” If it works out, then I return to Sephora and buy the full-size.

I am also a subscriber to Birchbox which gives me my little “try new products” fix. For $10 a month, I receive a little box filled with mini samples of skin care, hair, make-up, and fragrance. I cannot recommend it enough and have recently discovered some amazing products that I don’t know how I lived without for so long.

So long story (blog entry) short: my subjects to ramble on will now include skin care and beauty products.

Winter Is Coming

After a couple of weeks of severe Downton Abbey-withdrawal and knowing I couldn’t make it until Mad Men’s April premiere, I knew I had to find a new show to watch. A friend had recommended Game of Thrones a while back, so Westen and I decided to give it a try.

By the end of the second episode of Season One, we were hooked and may have watched Season One in a couple of days. Followed immediately by a weekend binge of Season Two. Since clearly we are both ravenous and greedy for Game of Thrones, the March 31 Season Three premiere cannot come soon enough for either of us.

In the meantime, my Game of Thrones obsession has impacted my reading habits. I’m resisting beginning the book series for a variety of long-winded reasons, but once I read that the author George R.R. Martin was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, I knew that there were some non-fiction works to tide me over until Season Three.

I’m currently reading Alison Weir's The Wars of the Roses,to be followed by The Princes in the Tower. I am driving Westen crazy with my proclamations of which real life figure is TOTALLY an inspiration for a Game of Thrones character.

Winter cannot come soon enough!

Washington Antiquarian Book Fair

This past Saturday I took a break from un-packing and went to the Washington Antiquarian Book Fair held at the Key Bridge Holiday Inn in Rosslyn. I went with a friend and we were in literary nerd heaven. There was so much to look at, so many shelves to peruse, so many interesting book sellers to chat with.

Here is what I found/resisted buying:
• First Edition of Gone With the Wind ($2700)
• First Edition of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel ($2500)
• A Little Princess autographed by illustrator Tasha Tudor ($250)
• First Edition of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Island ($150)
• Collection of Keats Poetry with this inscription: "To my darling and wise daughter. All my love, dad 1916" ($125)

But as God is my witness, someday I will have that First Edition Ariel!

"...The Submerged History of Women: Very, Very Famous Men Who Are Absolutely Vile to Their Wives."*

I recently read Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages (or as I prefer to call it John Ruskin and Charles Dickens Were Horrible Husbands) by Phyllis Rose. A fascinating read, particularly for anyone remotely interested in feminist lit. theory, Rose focuses on the marriages/relationships of Jane Welsh and Thomas Carlyle; Effie Gray and John Ruskin: Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill; Catherine Hogarth and Charles Dickens; and George Eliot and George Henry Lewes. Rose does a good job of remaining “fair and balanced” but occasionally slips in some fantastic snark which led me into the occasional laugh/snort.

Here is my personal favorite: (emphasis mine)

It is George Eliot’s tolerant, stereoscopic gaze, with its refusal to see in the most inviting circumstances anything so simple as a villain, that I should wish to direct upon the small series of well-intentioned divergences ending up in a giant disaster which was the Ruskins’ marriage. When marriages go wrong, the people concerned may be excused if they seek a clear and simple reason for their misery, but we—observers, readers, friends—should try to achieve a more complicated view and a more embracing sympathy. We should try to.

And yet, I find myself rooting for Effie. Perhaps she was frivolous. She never pretended to be anything more than a well-bred young lady, and such young ladies were frivolous by vocation, by education, and by social convention.

What would have convinced Ruskin of her seriousness? Nothing short of total devotion and submission to himself.

Later, he would say she was crazy. One deplores the flinging about of such judgmental terms. Still, it must be said that if either of them was crazy, he was.

OH SNAP!

* Note title is taken from a quote by Emma Thompson regarding the upcoming film Effie.
**Note image is from Effie, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.