I just looked at the clock and it was 5:15am. I've already been awake more than two hours, grudgingly awake, but awake nonetheless. I was wakened at 2:45 with cramps in my feet and ankles. I hate that! I got up and walked around until they were no longer deformed looking and then tried to go back to sleep. It was too late, I was awake and my day was starting, like it or not! I made myself lie in bed until another cramp at 3:15. Bummer, up and walking again. That ended any hope of dozing.
The bright side, if you can have a bright side at 3:15 in the morning, is that I got an early jump on Truth in the Morning blog! Even that early you can find something for which to be thankful. I had finished writing and sending it out before I heard my Honey rustling around at the other end of the house.
After he left, I resumed my morning routine, and since the blog was out, got dressed to shoes, hair & face. Why do my hair and face at 5:15, you may ask, when I work from my home office and only see the hounds all day? This brings me to the point of this post.
At one time I worked in an office of a commercial construction company. That's important only to make the point that I worked with a lot of men from department heads, to salesmen, to the guys actually installing the systems, I was surrounded. I heard many 'stories' about family life, hunting, etc. The saddest of all was the way some of these men talked about their wives. Work took many of these guys into business offices where the women they saw were dressed, faces made-up and hair coiffed. At the end of the day, they went home to find their wife far more casual, sometimes in the same clothes from the day before, with hair in ponytail or pinned up in bun, no make-up and a day full of stress-filled kid stories, fielding calls from bill collectors, etc. Not glamorous for sure. While it is day to day married life and whether or not they said anything to their beloved or not, these men noticed. I know, because I heard the same story from different men many times over many years. They noticed. It isn't fair to compare what they were seeing in offices with what they found at home, but they noticed and commented to me.
Having been a stay at home when my kids were young, I defended the wives and suggested they stay at home with the kids a few weeks and see how handsome they felt and looked. No one ever took the challenge. Imagine that.
We all know we feel better about ourselves when we know we look good. Let's face it, it's true. I have blonde eyebrows and lashes, if I don't put make-up on them I look like the walking dead. My light yellow skin needs a little rosy blush and my pale thinning lips need all the help they can get. My hair is the sort that either looks very good or very bad. I don't really have middle ground. Mornings, I typically apply (at the very least) brow pencil, mascara, a light swipe of blush, perfume and earrings. Lipstick doesn't make sense in the garden, so I wait for my afternoon foo-foo for that if I'm going to be home alone. I do this for me! I feel better when I know I look better.
I do my afternoon foo-foo before my Honey gets home. Freshen up what I've got on and retouch the hair, a little more perfume and now the lipstick. Full blown make-up isn't required (my requirements, not his), unless we are headed out somewhere. I do this for me! I feel better when I know I look better.
Nothing says 'frumpy' like finding yourself in public looking like you slept in your cloths and lost your brush all on the same day! A few years ago, I was so very thankful for my 'foo-foo for me' routine. My husband had another heart attack, you can't plan for those you know, and I spent the next three days at the hospital in the same clothes with nothing to freshen up. Had I not started out looking okay, it could have been rough for one and all. Before you go thinking it shouldn't matter what I looked like when my husband had a heart attack and I am a very vain and petty woman, let me say this...even in a hospital bed in ICU, men are still visual creatures. When he was scared and uncertain about what might happen, I wanted...no, needed...to be as confident and reassuring as I possibly could. I needed to be the 'strong one' for both of us during the crisis time. You cannot project what you do not feel and I never feel confident, strong or encouraging when I feel frumpy. Do you? Yes, I was thankful I had taken the time to foo-foo that morning because my man needed me.
Ninety-eight percent of the time my husband never comments on the way I look one way or the other. I want to look good for him even if he insists he doesn't care. I know better, remember the men from my old job? I remember well. It's not about vanity or fashion. Lord knows I am NOT a fashionista! It's about feeling like the best me I can be. When I stay in my jammies during my 'work day' of writing, I am less productive. If I dress in real clothes, do my hair and mini-makeup, and put on my shoes, I feel like I am ready to work. I deserve as much effort now as I put into it when I worked in an office. We fall victim to the 'it's just me' mentality and get lazy. There is nothing 'less deserving' about 'just you or just me'. I notice when my husband puts on cologne to go places, it's one of my favorite men's cologne. But he doesn't put it on just for me very often at all. Oh, yes, I notice when the extra effort is made for me.
I know we all need our down time to step away from the pressure and dictates of our day to day worlds. My Honey & I have 'Jammie Day' once in a while on the weekends where we stay in our jammies all day and watch movies, one after another. That's a good thing. Even in my jammies I do the mini-makeup so I don't look dead and my eyes do not disappear off my face. If I'm going to hang around lounging with my man, I want him to be glad he's with me, not wishing I'd go shower or something. I foo-foo for me, so I feel the best I can. If my man benefits from it, all the better but it has to start with me wanting to be the best I can be. So, the moral of the story is Foo-foo for YOU!
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