Eyebrows

Saturday night my hubs and I went out to dinner with some friends. As I settled into my seat, my friend complimented me on my eyebrows. "Your eyebrows look really great!" she says. "Really??" I replied. No one has ever complimented me on my eyebrows before. By way of background, I have a hate-tolerate relationship with my eyebrows. When I was five or so, I fell down my parents basement stairs and totally scrapped off my left eyebrow. It grew back, and I have a scar, but its not quite right. In the arch of both, I have weird bent hairs, no matter how many times I trim them back, they always grow back bent and funky. And I hate that they are really dark when my hair is not that dark. See, I have serious eyebrow issues.
It doesn't help that nearly every issue of Glamour tells me how IMPORTANT eyebrows are in framing the face. The shape is important, the arch is important, etc. I have a bad habit of plucking them kinda lean - just last week I went a bit overboard on the plucking, and my husband kindly suggested that we leave eyebrow shaping to the professionals. Yikes. It must be bad. He then goes on to say that they look better when I fill them in (how awesome is my husband - he has opinions about filling in eyebrows!!), so that is what I've been doing, every day. Filling in my blasted, over plucked eyebrows. Which is why the comment about how they looked over dinner caused me such JOY. I need a new makeup obsession, and I need to leave the shaping to the professionals, I guess.

Coming soon!

I am working, clearly at a snails pace, to give our blog a facelift. My life moves too quickly that it is hard to find the right balance of what my family/kids needs are and what I need in my life: blogging and online pinning on Pinterest. So bear with me as I figure out the world of blog facelifts and becoming a better blog writer. Oh another thing! A guest post. We are working on that. As you can tell, we would really like to up our readership. That is all. Just a little heads up for the 4! followers we now have! Mazel to us!

Chris Brown

I've been wanting to make a post about domestic violence for some time, and unfortunately, Chris Brown's performance at the Grammy's this Sunday affords me the perfect opportunity.  In 2009, Brown was scheduled to perform at the Grammy, an invitation that was cancelled when he viscously beat the sh*t out of his then girlfriend, Rihanna. After being given a "timeout" for those actions, he was again invited to perform at one of the most prestigious award ceremonies. For an account of the assault, read this. Or don't and take my word for it that it is truly terrible. 

Yesterday a friend made this post on Facebook: "Eve Ensler once said that the fact that we don't think of violence against women as extraordinary and that we are not shocked and appalled that it happens speaks volumes about our culture." Why aren't we shocked and appalled by Brown's actions? Or if we are, why don't we shout from the roof-top "this is not ok - we don't want to see him perform." Why do we support (either explicitly or by our silence) institutions that support violence against women? 

This passage from an excellent book, Transforming a Rape Culture, aptly sums it up, I believe: 

   "We are taught to see women as commodities and objects for men's sexual release and sexual fantasies;  most women are considered interior to men and thus not to be respected or trusted. Such thinking is encouraged and legitimized by our culture and transmitted via institutional structures (churches, workplaces), mass media (Playboy and Penthouse), misogynist music (rap and mainstream), and R-rated  and horror films that use exploitative images of women. And of course there are the ever-present tall, trim, Barbie-doll women featured in advertising for everything from condoms to the latest diet cures. Few men have been taught - really taught - from birth and to the heart and gut to respect, value, or even on occasion honor women." 

The song that makes me want to hurl

I am a huge music fan. I love a great (and even bad) pop tune. I like almost any music genre but there are some that I will not listen to. I'd list them off but this post is about a pop song. Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song", aka TLS.I am a Bruno fan. I own "Doo-Wops and Hooligans" and love mostly every song on that album. With the exception of one: TLS. It's not the beat that gets me down. I love the island feel of the track. It's the lyrics. Now some pop artist I have a hard time decifering or making out what they are saying until the millionth time I've listened to the track but Bruno is pretty clear. Here's the line that sends me into full gag mode: "Find a nice girl, have some really nice sex and she's gonna scream out: this is great." Just typing that made me feel ill. Now I have no problem with people singing about sex (as long as it's not too graphic) but the visual I get is this: he's really greasy and smelly because he's been in bed all day, plus he just did P90X right before calling this girl. I'm not a germ-a-phobe and without giving out TMI, I've had sex in the morning, unshowered but for wahtever reason Bruno's line makes me ill. Anyway. Blog break over. I'm sure my weird dislike of this song has not properly translated to blogger language but I had to get it out there. If there is anyone ever looking to torture me, use this song. I guarantee it will get the results you desire or the knowledge you seek from me.

It is good to be back!

Thanks to June Bug, and her magic with blogger, we are back! I'm excited to be here and to post more, like  June Bug mentioned. I'm shaking off my almost unemployed depression and I'm going to share more of my adventures here on this blog!

In an effort to shake said job blues, I've started to cook more. Since I am home almost all day, every day, I figure this is something I should be better about. I'm also trying to stick to a budget this year (because I've NEVER stuck to a budget - how sad is that?!), so planning my meals is the only way to do it. I've been scouring pinterest, and found some good stuff. My favorite lately is this: Mini Puffed Oven Pancakes. Let me just say, I would make these everyday if I could. I make a few changes - instead of 3/4 cup of white flour, I use 1/2 cup of whole wheat pastry flour and 1/4 cup of white flour. My very picky husband has not even noticed! I also just defrost and blend a cup of mixed berries for the topping (I don't mix the berries with jam as the recipe suggests). I also made these for dinner the other night - told you, I'm seriously obsessed.

Enjoy!

New year, new outlook

Greetings, reader! I come to you from the comfort of my shared space: guestroom/craft area! I've really been needing one of these and since we have not found a house yet to buy, I convinced the Dr. I needed to make a craft area just for me. I'm loving it. I just wish since Kumquat and I are making a goal to post more this year, that my iPad could post pics to Blogger. If anyone out there know how to do so HIT ME UP! As you can see we made some changes here. Our url changed. After I found the blog that was actually called Wit and Whimsy, my heart sank and I lost interest our space on the blogosphere. So after soul searching and taking an unintentionally hiatus, Kumquat (Jes) and I (Trixie, aka June Bug) are back with a VENGEANCE. We are writing from different coasts. K on the east and me on CST. My part of the CST is not on a coast but you get what I mean. I hope we can up our readership. I deleted a post or two so that I can start advertising properly our blog and not remain so anonymous. I deleted the posts because of their sensitive material and I did not want to offend, although I do dream of one day offending someone and then slapping them for being a prude. If one person has your link on their blog, the rest is history. Or so I've heard. I don't have a huge chunk of time to post all that I like today but here is a sneak peek of what you can expect from ME in the near future: ~Bruno Mars and his song titled "Lazy Song" ~Why I don't really read a whole lot of strangers' blogs... ~How sometimes you're a complete bitch and then you realize you had it ALL WRONG ~Toms Ballet Flats ~My craft corner til next time, reader! xo, junebug

Scarves!

I'm obsessed!  I need more.  STAT!