I’ve been so busy this week with work and art and being a lunatic in the middle of the night, and also busy avoiding the computer, that I’m completely behind on what everyone is doing. Today after a short work day (hopefully by noon) I am driving down for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. Drive eight hours Friday afternoon, baby shower Saturday/see my sister Saturday, drive eight hours back Sunday, work on Monday. I wish my husband could go with me, but he has important teacherly/writerly things to do. I also wish one of the dogs could go with me, or even Coltrane (who is currently using a remote control as a pillow, because she is weird), SOMEONE. However, my parents, who are Sooooooo Mean, told me that the pet(s) is(are) not invited, under any circumstances.
What I am trying to get to, is, I am behind on everything; I still love you; here are the questions for Friday. And I can not believe it is Friday already; I do not know where this week went; I don’t want to think about how many hours I spent agonizing over the hypothetical placement of a sink. Also: I do not know how I think of these questions. There is no method. I just think of things I would like to know about someone (you). They pop into my head during the week, or I dig around and pull them out at the last minute, such as when I am putting on my socks and shoes.
Tell me how you make a salad at a salad bar. Have we done this before: what are your favorite sheets? What are you doing this weekend? And here’s a tricky one, that I thought of last Saturday: what part of your face do you feel most self-conscious about?
This is how I make a salad: I start with a medium amount of lettuce, carefully choosing leaf by leaf if necessary to avoid anything brown or wilty. I prefer green peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, a tiny amount of cheese, four or five croutons, and huge heaps of those cold peas. If there are carrots and/or broccoli, I will put them on the side. I prefer a light amount of ranch, but if I am feeling crazy I will get fat-free Italian dressing. On top (always on TOP of the dressing) I like to put a healthy sprinkling of sunflower seeds. The sunflower seeds and peas are the best part. Sometimes I’ll use black olives, but usually only if other toppings are sparse. I shun all salad bar meats, except sometimes for a few pepperoni, if they are an option.
My favorite sheets are a super-cheap set of bright blue jersey t-shirt style sheets we got on sale the first day we moved here, so we’d have something to sleep on on the floor. They are sooooo soft, and so comfortable, and I don’t think we’ll ever go back to normal sheets again. The jersey sheets feel good. Sooo good.
I already told you what I am doing this weekend! So, now for the last part. Ahem. I have many facial things that I am embarrassed about, many little things that drive me crazy. But I’ll narrow it down to TWO, my two most awful and humiliating, so that you don’t have a reason not to share just ONE. First, I hate any form of my facial hair. Plucking and tweezing are annoying, and I’m allergic to waxing, and it’s all just painful and embarrassing. I feel that I’ve been battling my eyebrows since about sixth grade (that’s the first time I remember my mom and I deciding to Do Something About Them) and my dark hair combined with my pasty-pale complexion means that every little hair is super visible. I hate it, I am embarrassed about it, I worry about it more than I should. I am in awe of women who unabashedly get waxed in public at salons–before my last haircut a woman got her upper lip waxed in front of everyone, and then lifted her face and asked if her chin needed it too. AWE.
My other face issue is my teeth. First I dislike where my upper lip hits my gum line when I smile. Also, my teeth are large, and straight–thanks to braces–but I feel they are not white enough. And that spending money on whitening would be So Shallow and Selfish. Three or four of my teeth are chipped. Tiny chips, from an incident long long ago involving a mouthful of thrown gravel and also involving me not paying attention to where I was standing and also involving me with my mouth open, talking (imagine that). Few people probably notice them, but I know they are there want to hide them away. They are not fixable; there have been failed attempts in the past. And finally, one of my front two teeth is a hint darker than the other–again, probably only noticeable in certain lights if you are staring at my mouth, but I feel so self-conscious about it. I don’t want to smile with my teeth showing in photos; I want to cover my mouth with my hand when I laugh.
These things are silly.
It feels awful to admit them, but also sort of freeing.
Go! Cross your fingers that I don’t get driving sleepiness tomorrow, yes?
Kisses,
black sheeped
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I don’t make salads at salad bars, really. My favorite sheets are soft purple ones that I got for 70% off at Macy’s. I’m spending this weekend with a friend who’s visiting. And I am most self-conscious about my chin(s).
Have a great weekend!
okay, salad- romaine or spring mix, never iceberg, then broccoli, real bacon, bell peppers, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, and either ranch or blue cheese. My salads are not very healthy, but always good!
My favorite sheets are a set we got for our wedding. They’re super soft sateen, chocolate brown, 500 thread count. I like my sheets to be cool when i climb in and these do that.
this weekend i have no plans. Hopefully my husband will help me do some dishes since we’ve managed to dirty every piece we own.
On my face would be many issues. Two big ones- my teeth are small, but my mouth is larger so when I smile, it shows too much gum. The other is that i think all my features are disproportionately small to the size of my head.
Happy Friday!
Salad- I do the same thing with the lettuce, making sure nothing is brown or wilty. Bonus to the salad bar if they have spinach. I’ll plop on tomatoes and cucumbers croutons and bacon bits with reckless abandon. Then I agonize over which dressing—I prefer Italian, but what if it’s too sour. Usually I’ll settle on something I wouldn’t usually buy, like parmesan peppercorn.
Sheets- plain cotton. It’s all we have. I have high aspirations for investing in to tons of fancy bedding once we have remodeled. Right now, our room seems a bit like a tattered old cabin, and I don’t mind the cheap sheets.
This weekend—the kids have gymnastics and Tae Kwon Do on Saturday, and Hub has promised them a trip to Chuck E Cheese’s. (Kill Me) He is in a wedding pn Sunday and has a rehearsal dinner Saturday night, so it will be me and the kids from Saturday night on. It’s supposed to be really nice on Sunday so I’m hoping to take them to the park with the big wooden playground, and tons of walking paths if it’s not too muddy.
Finally- my face. Right now it is acne—this pregnancy is killing me in that area. Nothing gets rid of it—especially around my hairline. In general though, it is the dark circles around my eyes. It’s not lack of sleep, they are just there. Drives me nuts.
Have a great weekend—don’t get too tired driving.
I typically don’t like salads, but if it comes free with my meal, I’ll have a small amount of lettuce, plenty of shredded carrots, LOTS of cheese, a little bit of ham, lots of black olives and cucumbers, and french dressing.
My favorite sheets are our blue flannel sheets. I think this week is the last week we’re going to use them, then we’re going to open up some new sheets we got for our wedding. They’re blue and white striped (our comforter is a dreamy shade of blue).
This weekend: I have to renew my tabs in person at the DMV because I need to change my name; we’re dropping off 2 old computers at the recycling joint; I need to buy another yarn basket because Jason is concerned that the yarn is taking over our living room; I need to buy an official scorebook because I decided I need one for all the baseball games we’ll be going to this year; and hopefully, Jason will agree to let me take him out to Famous Dave’s for some ribs (even though we’ve eaten out 3 nights already this week because of the baseball games.)
My face, oh, let’s see. I also hate plucking – SO MUCH. I am a big wuss about the pain. I also hate when I get my pre-period breakouts. Blah. But I have to agree with Saly – the main thing I hate is the dark circles under my eyes. I could sleep for 24 hours straight and still have them.
I make salads in a way very similar to the way you make salads, so we would be bumping into each other and getting in each other’s way at a salad bar. But do you know, I have not tried peas? I will try peas next time. I like lots of sunflower seeds.
My favorite sheets are our new dark blue flannel ones. They are sooooo warm and cozy. But they show Every! Single! Cat hair! and I don’t know what to do about that. They look crappy instantly.
This weekend I’m going to do laundry, and I’m going to go to Target and buy a candle warmer so my scented candles will stop sooting up my house.
My face. I used to have a little space between my front tooth and the tooth next to it, but then the front tooth tilted to fill that space and the space is between my two front teeth. I don’t mind the space, but I HATE that my tooth is tilted. And I think my teeth are too yellow, but that is because I compare them to celebrity teeth; my teeth are probably the appropriate amount of yellow for my age. Also, the pores on the sides of my nose look too big to me. Also, I have a very high forehead.
But I haven’t minded my dark undereye circles since my brother and a college friend of his were talking about things women did that they (my brother and his friend) thought were dumb, and they said it was dumb to cover undereye circles because undereye circles look mysterious and sexy and interesting. I was of course utterly squeeked out to hear my brother talking about what’s “sexy,” but I’ve retained a love for my undereye circles. Undereye BAGS, though—I don’t love those.
1. Salad. My first step is to be depressed that I’m at the salad bar, and to think how much I dislike the smell of lettuce at salad bars. My second step is get a tiny bit of lettuce, or a lot of spinach if they have it; next, I’ll go for the cucumbers and the chick peas. I like to pile cottage cheese and those pickled beans (separately) to one side. If there’s blue cheese, I’ll take that; hard boiled eggs, ditto. Seeds sometimes, and then dressing–usually the red sauce that is called French.
2. Sheets–anything flannel and not studded with little holes where our bad dog has chewed it. This means one set, the moss-green ones with the plaidish lines. Also, flannel sheets is one of the things I love about winter.
3. Weekend. The same thing I do every weekend–clean, run, kid wrangle. SLEEP IN. To like SEVEN AM.
4. I used to be self-conscious about the smallness of my eyes. Now I have come to terms with that and am instead thinking about how LONG my nose is getting and also how bored I am with my hair.
Drive safe! Enjoy the baby shower! Enjoy your sister!
Thank you for answering how you thought up the questions! I was interested because I find myself wondering if other people do the same things that I do, or if I’m just weird.
Oh how I love salad bar! My plate is never really healthy in the end but I start with good intentions. I like a little lettuce, little spinach, sprouts, cuc, tomato, chick peas, large amount of cheese, banana peppers, ranch dressing, and bacon bits! At home I like to add in strawberries.
On my face I hate my nose. When I was 11 a mean neighbor boy told me that I had a HUGE nose and I can’t seem to think otherwise. I am conscious of it when I know someone is looking at my profile. ICK!
If I could make an entire salad out of shredded carrots, sunflower seeds, and ranch, I would. And I do. But usually I feel bad taking ALL of the shredded carrots at the salad bar, so I fill in some lettuce, some turkey cubes, broccoli, and a couple croutons. Other than that, I’m to picky. I don’t eat a lot of vegetables due to the childhood thought, “It looks icky and is gross” sticking with me to adulthood.
The sheets depend on the season. In the warm months, I love the crisp sheets that have enough weight that I don’t feel like I’m going to be attacked (I MUST BE COVERED) in my sleep, and they are not sweat inducing. In the wintertime I like the cottony super-soft almost flannel but not quite sheets. With the comforter, and another comforter folded in half only over me.
This weekend I have to have dinner with my dad, ugh. Other than that, I plan on a lot of cuddles and snuggles and no thinking about work allowed. Also, homework.
My face I enjoy for the most part, but this is pre-zit. ZITS. That is what I hate. Other than that, there are small, more permanent annoyances like one eyelid shows more than the other when they are open (i think i have a droopy lid). I also used to hate my bump in my nose, but have since told myself that it is the trademark nose for the women in my family, and I love it. My teeth are nice (father is a dentist) and I like the color of my eyes (only one of 6 kids that has the color). So, you’ve just made me realize that I like myself a little.
Thanks.
Salad: I pick the greener leaves then pick cheese, shredded carrots, red onions, green/black olives (whatever they got) and mushrooms. Tomatoes if they’re red and ripe–can’t stand the tasteless “white” ones! I usually have ranch dressing. Then I will put any and all crunchies on: sunflower seeds, chinese noodles, croutons, etc. I love the crunchies.
Sheets: I finally broke down last week and bought my first set of 300 count sheets. WHY was I so cheap for all those years? They are a burgundy that match a beautiful oatmeal/cranberry quilt my Grandmother made me. An heirloom, folks.
Weekend: Girl Scout event on Saturday. Nothing else planned as of right now. Perhaps getting new cleats for my softball girl.
Face: I too am a victim of the facial hairs. It’s very disconcerting to have such dark eyebrows when one has natural blonde hair! (Seriously, I’ve NEVER colored my hair, but I’m always afraid people are looking at my eyebrows and saying, “Oh, I wonder what number her COLOR is? And why doesn’t she do her eyebrows to match?”) But I’ve never waxed. I don’t think I have the pain threshold. I use this little Avon trimmer, and it seems to do the job–in an OK way. And the chin hairs! The older I get the more hairs I’m finding and plucking EVERY DAY. I am obsessed with checking for new ones like every time I use the bathroom.
Forgot to add last week: I am right-handed.
I use a minimal amount of lettuce and concentrate on the other vegetables. I like a lot of broccoli, peas, beets, olives and well, anything except for carrots and celery. I HATE celery. I only use tomatoes if they’re cherry or grape. I can’t have sliced tomatoes touching my salad. It OOKS all over.
For sheets, I like high threadcount Egyptian cotton, which is kind of snooty, but I buy them at Marshall’s!
We have a totally obnoxious cocktail party this weekend that involves maple sugaring. Don’t ask.
In terms of my face, I’m self-conscious because it’s very asymmetrical. The right side, I loathe. It’s awful and sort of lumpy.
Tell me how you make a salad at a salad bar. — I just get a bunch of lettuce, then put shredded cheese, chopped up hard boiled eggs if they’re available, cucumber slices, and croutons on top, and throw some ranch on the side. Yummers.
What are your favorite sheets? — one of my aunts gave us a semi-swanky set of purple sheets for our wedding. We registered for blue ones, but the purple ones are so soft they’re our favorites anyway.
What are you doing this weekend? — I worked today and have to work tomorrow, but today I had a workshop with middle-schoolers that went pretty well, so that’s cool.
What part of your face do you feel most self-conscious about? — my eyebrows. I need to woman up and just go get them professionally tended once so I have some kind of idea what to pluck and what to leave alone :P I’m SO bad at being a chick sometimes.
When you get a chance, come over and visit my blog, cuz I have an award for you! xo!