Beauty

Well.

I don’t want to get all puffed up and full of pride, but I have kept all my goals for 2012. Granted, it’s only 8:00 p.m. on January 2 but I’ll take my victories where I can get them.

P took Caroline to school and I put on my running attire and hit the streets. I’m trying out this new sprint interval workout that I saw on Pinterest. Mainly because it was on some diet/exercise plan that featured a picture of Carrie Underwood’s legs. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen her legs, but I would be happy to have a tenth of that muscle tone.

Who am I kidding? I’d be happy with less than a tenth.

Okay. I’d be happy with muscle tone. Period.

Anyway, this whole article on fitness said the key is to not just jog but to shock your body with sprint intervals and a lot of lunges and squats and other things that will make you want to cry. So I tried out a combo of walking/jogging/sprinting.

And when it was all said and done, I’m pretty sure my neighbors thought Phoebe Buffay was in our neighborhood.

Apparently I’m not afraid of a little humiliation.

You can imagine my disappointment when I looked in the mirror earlier this evening and discovered my legs don’t look like Carrie Underwood’s yet.

But I persevered and ate a small slice of ham for dinner with a side of steamed spinach. And then I texted Gulley and told her I felt like I was eating in prison. And, also, that my body is going to need some time to adjust to all this fiber.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

On the failure front of my healthy eating initiative, I’ve already discovered that I think Greek yogurt is disgusting. I’m not sure all the reasons that it’s supposed to be better for you than good old Dannon, but yuck. I bought a tub that was allegedly flavored like vanilla but tasted like thick cheese. And while I like cheese in the form of queso, I don’t want anything vaguely cheese-flavored and that thick mixed with berries and granola. Besides that, what makes yogurt made by Greeks so special? I suspect it’s all just an elaborate marketing ruse.

I’ve also pinned all these healthy eating sites on Pinterest because I need to learn to make more things that don’t contain cream of mushroom soup and cheese and pasta. And I’ve found some decent things (I’ll let y’all know that best ones as I try them out), but some of the recipes are things like Roasted Beet Soup with Garlic. Yes, that is a diet food because no one would actually eat that. You’d roast those beets, puree them, pour them in a bowl and then throw the whole thing in the trash. No calories.

Anyway, I’m not going to be this strict on myself for a long time. I just feel like I need a few weeks of shock and awe to remind my body that toffee isn’t a side dish and six sugar cookies after each meal might be considered excessive. But then I plan to reintroduce a few of my favorite food groups, like chips and queso and guacamole and Gummie Sour Lifesavers. And then I’ll just tear through the neighborhood with my arms flailing wildly to burn it all off. Oh, and to keep my heart healthy.

Because that’s important, too.

Even though I haven’t noticed anyone putting up pictures of Carrie Underwood’s heart on Pinterest.

So about a month ago (or maybe longer but I can’t really remember because the last two months have been a crazy blur and wasn’t it just summer and why do people have Christmas lights in their yard when it’s surely only August?) my sister called me with the news she’d found a hair product that had changed her life. Because in my family we don’t believe in simply stating that something is really good, we like to go straight to IT CHANGED MY LIFE.

Naturally I couldn’t wait to hear about the new hair product because, in the words of Truvy, there is no such thing as natural beauty. Amy told me all about a new clampless curling iron called the Conair You Curl and said it creates the best curls of your life. She informed me it doesn’t make regular hot roller curls or normal curling iron curls, but curls that look like Kelly Ripa or Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian.

Yes. I’d like to go to there.

Because Kim Kardashian may not know much about marriage but she has some good hair and Taylor Swift is just darling and Kelly Ripa kind of has a lollipop head but I do like her hair most of the time even though Regis and Kelly don’t come on in San Antonio anymore because I guess our local affiliate is too cheap to pay for it. And I feel like I’ve watched celebrities on T.V. for the last year or so and thought their hair was doing something that I didn’t know how to replicate, but couldn’t figure out all the follicular logistics. I just chalked it up to a good stylist and maybe some tricky way of using velcro rollers.

But now Amy was telling me that she had created those curls for herself. And, not only that, the curl had lasted for two days. TWO DAYS. She warned me it was a little hard to use at first but that YouTube was full of video tutorials demonstrating how to use it and create fabulous hair in the comfort of your own home.

(I promise this isn’t a paid advertisement or some kind of infomercial. I feel like I sound like an infomercial.)

(Buy one now for a limited time for only $29.99! We’ll bill you in two easy installments and guarantee your money back if you’re not completely satisfied after thirty days!)

So I drove to Target THAT VERY DAY and bought a You Curl for myself. But I didn’t have time to try it out until the next day after I dropped Caroline off at school. I came home and watched a few of the tutorial videos on Youtube and decided it didn’t look that difficult. It was just a matter of pinning up sections of my hair while I curled the back and sides.

This is where I need to interrupt myself to explain that I am a die hard hot roller girl. I have never been one to have the patience to curl my entire head with a curling iron. Why go to all that trouble when you can put in eight rollers at one time, do your makeup, take out the rollers and call it a day? I’ve always just used a curling iron as an auxiliary curling device to add some volume around my face.

However, there was a time in the late 80s when I may have used a miniature curling iron to enhance my spiral perm. And also to create bangs that were then curled and teased into oblivion. The 80s were a cruel hair time.

See what I’m saying?

Anyway, I opened up the You Curl box and was so pleased to discover it came with a heat-proof glove for me to wear while I curled my hair. Hair styling while rocking a glove on one hand like Michael Jackson? Yes, please.

And then I spent the next thirty minutes trying to emulate the curling technique I’d observed on all the tutorial videos. Only to discover that I am highly uncoordinated and couldn’t keep the stupid Michael Jackson glove on my hand and that a ceramic curling iron heated to 360 degrees really hurts when you touch it with your fingertips.

All I managed to create were a few sad looking waves that were completely straight on the bottom because I never could figure out how to wrap all my hair around the clampless curling iron without it all sliding off before I curled the bottom. Granted, my hair is really too long right now. I’m in desperate need of a haircut and one chorus of “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” away from Crystal Gayle. So maybe that was part of my problem.

But I tried it on Caroline’s hair the next day and managed to create some flawless, beautiful waves. This is where it would be so great if I’d taken a picture of it but I failed to document her perfect hair day and she hasn’t sat still long enough to let me try it again.

And so the You Curl has sat on the shelf in my bathroom, taunting me with its promise of good hair and third degree burns, for the last few weeks.

Until Saturday night.

P and Caroline were at the ranch for the night and I decided I could take a break from my Army Wives marathon to make another hair-curling attempt. After all, it’s humiliating to know there are videos of ten-year-old girls demonstrating how to use the clampless curling iron all over the internet when I couldn’t even manage to get one lousy curl that wasn’t reminiscent of the days when I’d crimp my hair with a waffle iron and throw it up in a banana clip.

So I washed my hair and blew it dry. Then I heated up the You Curl and didn’t even attempt to use that stupid glove this time. And I’m proud to report I managed to create fabulous waves on ONE side of my head. For reasons that I don’t totally understand but lean toward a diagnosis of hairstyling dyslexia, I couldn’t quite manage to get the curls on the left side of my head to go the right way.

(I think a large part of the problem is explained by my need to tell you that I mean the left side of my head when I’m looking in the mirror. As opposed to what? The other left side of my head?)

But the results on the right side of my head gave me hope for the future. A belief that, with some work and perseverance, I can create a better hair tomorrow for myself.

And I think we all know that’s what Kelly Ripa would want.

Remember the other day when I mentioned that Gulley and I had gone shopping and inadvertently ended up in the bathing suit section?

You probably don’t remember because why would you need to remember some meaningless detail of my life? And I totally understand. I personally wish I could forget the entire incident.

But it is burned in my brain because it’s the moment the reality of DANG, I’M GOING TO HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT A SWIMSUIT THIS SUMMER set in.

Anyway, none of that is really the point. The point is that the whole experience led Gulley and I to have a discussion about things we should be doing to make ourselves healthier and look better as we approach forty years old.

And, honestly, the “look better” portion of that equation weighed much more heavily because I guarantee with 100% certainty that not one person watched the Royal Wedding and thought, “MAN, I bet Pippa Middleton has phenomenal cholesterol levels.”

Then, last week, Oprah had Bob Greene on her show and the whole thing was about being twenty years younger. I really haven’t consistently watched Oprah in years but I’ve been sucked in by the last season because I don’t want to miss anything. I end up deleting most of them from my DVR because, contrary to popular belief (I’m looking at you, P) I don’t have much time on my hands to just lie on the couch and watch T.V. However, the Bob Greene thing totally sucked me in for almost ten minutes before I deleted it because who wouldn’t like to turn the clock back twenty years?

Of course, for me, I could accomplish that by drinking too much Zima and dancing with no rhythm to an MC Hammer song. Which might be preferable to eating a plateful of steamed broccoli.

Bob Greene talked about the importance of nutrition, exercise, skin care and something else that I can’t remember right now and so let’s hope it wasn’t that important. And then Oprah talked about her skin care regimen. I think she exfoliates with diamonds or something. Bottom line is I don’t believe the Oprah skin care regime is in the Big Mama budget. I bet it’s more than $15.00.

But here’s what I’ve been doing lately.

1. Using Aveeno Daily Brightening Face Scrub every day followed by Oil of Olay Regenerist Moisturizer.

2. Trying to eat more vegetables and fruits even though they don’t taste like chocolate chip cookies. Also, drinking a ton of water. Sparkling water, still water, tap water. Water. I add lime because I am very fancy.

3. Dry brushing my skin because it’s supposed to be good for your lymphatic system or something. I don’t really know, but it’s supposed to make your skin glow or eliminate toxins or something.

4. Taking a range of vitamins and essential minerals. Those Flintstone vitamins are delish. I’m just kidding. I’ve actually been taking Evening Primrose Oil (good for hormones, skin and heart), One A Day multi-vitamin with green tea extract for boosting metabolism, Vitamin D, and Calcium supplements.

I’m just a step away from carrying around one of the plastic day-of-the-week pill containers like my Pa-Pa used to have.

5. Doing some form of exercise on a semi-regular basis. I haven’t been as good about this as I need to be, but I’m vowing to resume with enthusiasm on Monday.

And so I’m wondering if any of these things really make a difference. Or is there something you do that makes a difference? Is there some fountain of youth I need to be aware of in the form of a bottle of something I can purchase?

Or is the key to drink about four Zimas or a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill about once a week?

I didn’t even discuss my sadness over this season of The Bachelor coming to an end. I guess it’s because the reality of it didn’t hit me until Monday night when I didn’t have the joy of listening to Brad Womack use his super robot voice to terribly abuse adverbs. Badly.

My loss was amplified by the fact that Gulley and I watched most of last week’s finale with Nena, who had never experienced anything like The Bachelor in her entire life. HONEY, ARE YOU TELLING ME BOTH OF THOSE GIRLS THINK HE’S ABOUT TO PROPOSE? I’VE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH. I CAN’T STAND TO WATCH ANYMORE! WAIT, TELL ME ABOUT THIS CUTE BLONDE. WHAT DOES HER MOTHER THINK OF HER BEING ON THIS SHOW?

The inquiry about the mother is a signature Nena question. No matter the situation she always wants to know what someone’s mother thinks.

So my Tuesday morning wasn’t as bright without all the Bachelor recaps and whatnot waiting for me on the internet. But I have found solace in Bethenny Ever After because it really personifies all that is good and right about reality television.

On an entirely different note, I’m struggling with my hair. I realize this will come as no shock to anyone who’s been reading here for longer than five minutes. I did a whole wash, blow-dry, hot-roll thing yesterday and, thanks to the wind and the humidity, it lasted all of thirty-two seconds once I stepped outside. I also experimented with blow-drying my bangs to the opposite side and then sweeping them over to their normal side because I’d heard that this creates the perfect side-swept bang. Maybe on some people. On me it created some bangs that just wanted to stick up like a gang of unruly children all day long.

As if all this wasn’t enough, I have reason to believe my current shampoo is no longer working for me. I’d had my suspicions, but then I lamented to Gulley last week about how my hair seems to be getting dirtier much faster than usual. I can usually go three days without washing my hair. Sometimes even four if I sport some sort of messy ponytail or bun on the fourth day. Please hold your judgement about my hair-washing frequency. It works for me.

But lately it seems that my hair feels a little dirty and lifeless by day two, which has historically been known as my best hair day. Gulley has been using the same shampoo and conditioner I have and she said she’s noticed the same thing. Then while I was in Bryan I used whatever shampoo happened to be in the shower and it seemed like old times between my hair and me.

Yesterday afternoon I perused the hair care aisle at HEB and tried desperately to make an educated shampoo/conditioner/product decision. But I couldn’t commit. I realize I asked about hair products several years ago, but the times they are a changin’ and time makes you bolder, children get older and I’m getting older, too.

(Did I just veer off for a minute?)

So help me, o wise internet friends. What shampoo/conditioner/hair care products do you recommend? Keep in mind that while I am willing to spend upwards of tens of dollars, I can’t wash my hair in any sort of liquid gold.

My hair and I thank you in advance.