Bare-ly There

On Monday, I was able to go with my friend, Chelle, to Urban Nirvana for a much needed facial, eyebrow wax, and massage. This is all because my generous grandmother, ME, gave me a gift certificate for Christmas - so thank you thank you thank you again, ME! :)

I was introduced to the world of facials several years ago, and even though I don't get to go very often because I'm broke and know that it's a luxury I can't afford unless someone buys it for me, I am amazed every time - both at the estheticians' knowledge and their ability to talk me into buying things. This time they got me good.

I will admit it - I am a skin freak and I'm always after the latest and greatest to make my skin fabulous. I think this slight obsession stems from the fact that I have had Keratosis Pilaris (KP) all my life and have done nearly everything to get rid of it short of laser treatment (and only because that's too expensive right now). Thankfully, I don't have THAT severe of a case and it's only on my upper arms and a bit on my thighs. It's not an unusal skin condition and it's not harmful, just not very attractive.

My esthetician noticed it and suggested Phytomer bar soap. She said it was a miracle worker. Um...SOLD for $19.50. For a bar of soap. Then, I asked her her opinion on using ProActive products. She was against them. I knew she was going to say that. Unfortunately, I had just bought a month's supply because my brand new Clinique 3-step was making my face resemble a pizzeria. She suggested Skin Authority's Exfoliating Cleanser...for $38.50. Gulp. SOLD. Again. AND she wanted me to purchase Skinceuticals Emolliance Moisturizer for $55. I passed on that because I didn't want hubby to pass out when he saw that I had spent my entire gift certificate in one spa visit plus more. I settled on just spending the whole gift certificate.

Oh, one other thing...my esthetician recommended Bare Esscentuals makeup and concealer. So of course, because she is an esthetician and is the skin guru, I went to Ulta and am now the proud owner of a Bare Minerals makeup starter set. Which I'm wearing today.

Do I feel glowy and fresh in my barely there mineral makeup? Oh yeah. Does my skin look and feel better after using the products I purchased? Definitely. Amazing how a $20 bar of soap can make you feel on top of the world.  Do I feel like an idiot for spending that much money on beauty products? You betcha.

But seriously...sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do to feel good. :)

The Answer

I have finally solved the mystery to self-tanning: paying someone to airbrush your naked self in a room full of mirrors. I think I also made myself become anorexic by looking at my hiney in several different mirrors at once. Talk about the truth hurting. To top it all off, my self-tanning applicatoress (yeah I just made up a new vocabulary word) wore a size 0 after 2 kids. I told her I hated her. I halfway meant it. Seriously though, ya'll, my tan looks fabulous, even if my pride is hurting.
I looked slightly strange yesterday - Chad came home and said "Baby, I've never seen you this dark!" But after today's shower (you absolutely can NOT shower until 24 hours after the application) it looks great. So for $25, you can look like you spent a couple of thousand laying around in Mexico. I sported a cute new Old Navy sundress today and felt oh so summery with my faux tan!

Also, our dryer is fixed. Guess how much it cost? $158. I am so not kidding and wish I was. Evidently, dryer maintenance men earn more per hour than lawyers do. This one came in at $60 per hour. A freakin' DOLLAR per minute. Plus the service call price. Plus parts. Plus how many breaths he took in my presence. I almost teared up when I wrote out the check and he had to snatch it from my hand because I didn't want to let go. Not really, but trust me, I thought about it. Chad and I will be opening up our dryer fixin' business soon because this guy is making BANK doing not so hard labor. AND he talked on his cell while he was here. I just think that's tacky.

On the kitchen front - I got almost another wall of border down. Along with some sheetrock when I was holding the scraper thingy the wrong way. This project is taking YEARS. I plan to have it done before Christmas. I hope.

The weather in Greenville, SC was just gorgeous today and it's going to be a beautiful warm spring evening, too. So we're meeting my best friend, Michelle, out to see a band play at Quaker Steak & Lube. Should be a fun time! Ya'll stay safe tonight!

The Easter Dress

Now I'm not sure about other parts of the United States, but I do know this: you have to have a brand spankin' new Easter dress if you live here in the South. I'm not really sure who started this tradition or why it has remained so permanently ingrained in my psyche, but I can not imagine an Easter Sunday without a pretty Easter dress to match. Yes, I know that my priorities are right up there.

The Easter dress shopping season begins, oh, somewhere in the month after Christmas, right when Hobby Lobby starts dumping all their Christmas decorations for something better - like Fourth of July decor in the middle of a February snowstorm. You gotta stock up early, evidently.

You will see the dresses start peeking out, especially in the little girls department. Little frills and pastels and even some madras prints for the nontraditional mamas. Little hats and patent white purses and shoes...it's all out there because choosing the Easter dress is the most important decision one will make in the spring/summer season. Pictures will be taken to live on in infamy and making the wrong choice is just unacceptable!

I can remember shopping for Easter dresses with my own mama, back in the day, and waking up on Sunday morning to not only my Easter basket (a post all its own) but the thought of wearing my brand new Easter dress to church that morning. I was overboard about fashion even at a young age. I had never felt prettier than I did on Easter morning in my new clothes.

I am 25 and yesterday, I bought this year's Easter dress. I have gotten a bit better about not going too overboard with it, mainly because we don't have the money. I went to Stein Mart (oh yes, it is heaven) and purchased the cutest little navy and white sheath with a chain link print. It's a great Easter dress for my church because they are pretty casual. I also purchased A-dorable Steve Madden gold shoes to wear with it. I even have a little white and straw bag I'm carrying to match. Old habits die hard, ya'll.

And yeah, I'm planning on what my future little on will wear on his or her first Easter Sunday. I know it's several years in the future, but a girl can dream, can't she? I am so turning into my mother.

And I'm Orange.

Everyone is scurrying around to try and finish up wedding details for my SIL and her fiance, Matt, henceforth known as "G". SIL has changed the little girls' dresses twice, before finally settling on a lovely hot pink number that more closely matches my ombre maxi dress that adds 10 lbs to my frame (and trust me, I do NOT need an extra ten). We are heading down to "arrogantly shabby" Pawley's Island on Thursday afternoon for a wedding weekend extravaganza. I have my Lilly Pulitzer ready to go for the rehearsal dinner and just bought hubby a pair of madras shorts - his first - that go great with his blue RL polo. I'll make a Southern prep out of him yet!

But our flurry of excitement has a small problem - the fact that my skin looks like it belongs in a '70's *ahem* flick - one of those. Yes, my skin is orange. My war on sunless tanning began six weeks ago when I decided to be completely out of character and be prepared for something - namely not to look like a ghostly bridesmaid or be on my way to melanoma city before I hit 45. I have LITERALLY tried the whole L'Oreal Sublime Tan line. This past weekend (of course it had to be the weekend before the wedding) I tried the L'Oreal Sublime Gradual Sunless Tan. It promised to be a foolproof way of getting a streakless, lovely tan, well, gradually. Uh, whatever. I am so streaked up and down (and I had help applying the stuff) that I look like I went for a roll in the dirt. Definitely not the look I was going for. My right leg is deep orange and my left is splotched deep orange and white - I look like a true, die hard Clemson Tiger fan. Maybe I could keep this orange thing going until football season?

Point being, I am going home tonight (after Jazzercise of course) to bathe with baking soda. Apparently, that helps. Also prayer. Prayer for me and my orangina skin would be greatly appreciated.

It gives me fevah...spring that is!

Now that our one "big" snow is melting away as we speak, my thoughts are moving ahead to the days in front of me...SPRING days! It is warming up outside and will be in the seventies tomorrow - unbeliveable. Spring is my favorite out of all the seasons. As much as I love fall and Christmas, spring is the best, culminating in my favorite holiday - Easter. I think the symbolic nature of this season is what I love the most and how fitting for our Savior's resurrection to be recognized at the same time as the earth's "resurrection" from dead 'ole winter to spring's marvelousness! And also, because I'm shallow, I love spring clothes! Let's just be honest here. At this time every year I am SICK of heavy sweaters, heavy pants, heavy everything. I'm ready for some Rainbow flip flops, fun skirts, and tanned (even if it's fake) skin.

Which brings me to my next topic. Self tanning lotions. For years, I have been a tanning bed member come March 1. I think it's a Southern thing, like big hair and fried chicken. But, because I am getting older, I am becoming more aware of a 'lil thing called WRINKLES and another 'lil thing called CANCER - mainly because my mom (she herself was quite the sun/tanning bed goddess) had a basal cell carcinoma removed from her face earlier this year. If seeing your mama with a large feminine product stuck to her face to stop the bleeding from "minor" surgery isn't deterrant enough, I don't know what is. So I am now on a quest to obtain my "sun kissed" look by various products purchased at my local Rite Aid.

The results are as follows:

Jergens - I think it stinks, first of all. The smell, I mean. It smells like baked skin, kind of like when you get out of a tanning bed. I started using it on Sunday (because I was concerned with the condition of my nonexistent tan when there was snow falling outside) and by Wednesday, I was a distinct shade of orange. Except for my feet, which were white as snow. And my chest, which had broken out to the point that Frick 'n Frack asked me if I had hives. Lovely. Frack suggested L'Oreal, so I went off again to spend more money, which I should be saving.

I bought the L'Oreal bronzing moisturizer and the bronzing body lotion. I also bought a harsh feeling loofah because Frick 'n Frack said the key was to exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate! I tried the moisturizer on my face last night, avoiding my eyebrows and hairline. I woke up with my face very tan (I'm sure someone must have noticed or else wondered how I could have jetted to Jamaica right after I got off work last night and arrived only 10 minutes late this morning). However, there is a thin white line around my hairline, which they package TOLD ME TO AVOID. I'm guessing that I could blend it using my bronzer. Which is stupid because isn't that what the moisturizer is for? I haven't tried the body lotion yet - one thing at a time, one thing at a time.

A question that came up during our tanning moisturizer conversation was what to do about your back? Do you just leave it and hope for the best when you put on a bathing suit (horror of horrors - wow, that is a post unto itself)?

All these questions, and spring just right around the corner...

A Random Snowfall & "The Kingdom"

You just can't top off a lazy Sunday the BUTLER way without watching a violent movie involving Islamic terrorists who hate us and the F.B.I. and kick butt Jen Gardener (why yes, we are BFF, which is why I refer to her as "Jen").

Seriously, it was a good weekend, ya'll. And guess what happened last night in this mecca of subtropical temperatures that often last until Christmas? It freakin' snowed. Not an ice storm, not a measley two millimeter dusting, I mean fat wet flakes of snow that piled up into a beautiful winter wonderland. No, I didn't make a snowman (even though I wanted to, but honestly, I was feeling bloated this weekend and piling on numerous layers of wintery clothing would not have made me feel any more attractive). Yes, I did have to work today. BUT it snowed. And it was beautiful. And my doggie children loved it!

Back to the movie. We purchased "The Kingdom" on Friday night because in this recession we can't find better things to spend our money on. We finally watched it last night and it was really good, but kind of gory. Americans right now are so concerned about the economy, which is definitely understandable, but we seem to have forgotten that there is a small, but incredibly dangerous religious sect that completely hates us and will do whatever is necessary to destroy us, including taking their own lives in the process. And while we're talking about Allah, let's talk about God!

I am currently reading (along with Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"), Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ." Now before any rumors start flying, no I haven't gone back on my faith or anything. But I do believe that God gave us inquiring minds for reasons other than reading Ok! magazine. So, in the beginning of this Easter season, I am reading a book that has done nothing but reaffirm the incredible story of Jesus Christ. It's GREAT to believe, but it's even more fulfilling to know WHY you believe. That's something that other religions seem to frown on - questioning. And that's probably because the answers are pretty crappy. But Christianity? You can question it all day long, but you will get the same answer - God the Father loved us SO MUCH that He sent His son to die on a cross to save the world from the sins WE created for ourselves and eternal life is ours if we just accept it and choose to live for Him.

Yeah I sound preachy and I'm the last person in the world that should. I have had a potty mouth as of late, I've been crabby, and we've been slack on going to church. I'll admit it because I'd be a hypocrite if you just got this idea that Kelley Butler is some perfect person. I'm not. I probably need prayer more than anyone you know! But I still believe Him and I know He continues to believe in the imperfect human being that I am.

Okay wow, don't know where that tangent came from because I started all this talking about how Jen Gardener (I really feel like I'm misspelling her last name?) was such an inspiration for me to continue on my diet in the movie last night! Anyway, for all your South Carolinians that got it, enjoy your snow day! And thank goodness that spring is right around the corner!