Promises Promises

Since I’ve been following Operation Beautiful , I’ve kept a pad of post-its in my bag and try to pay it forward whenever I think to. Not often enough but I love the idea; it’s such a great way of combating negative self-talk. Let’s face it, we’re rarely as hard on anyone else as we can be on ourselves and who couldn’t use a random compliment now and then?

Catlin Boyle, who started Operation beautiful and Molly Barker, who founded Girls on the Run, have taken on a sixty day “Naked Face” challenge. To sum it up, they will go sixty days without makeup, or primping of any kind.

When I first read about this Naked Face project, I’ll admit I met it with an unfair presumption accompanied with scoffing and eye-rolling. Both of which I have to take back. Clearly, I missed the point.

I am not and have never been what you would call a primper. I take care of myself, brush my teeth, wash and comb my hair, shower regularly and all that, but I couldn’t be bothered with makeup. Most of my clothes come from comic book stores and to be brutally honest, I’ve had to talk myself out of leaving the house in sweat pants on more than one occasion. But getting dressed up, primped and painted (b-ugh!) is an exercise in humiliation for me every time. Makeup is itchy and I’m so uncomfortable in dress clothes that I’m constantly pulling at them and there are never any pockets when you need them so I don’t know what to do with my hands and I feel so conspicuous I might as well be in a rhinestone Elvis costume. Don’t even get me started on women’s shoes.

Despite what we’ve learned from TV, cosmetics aren’t really about being beautiful so much as they are about feeling beautiful and if going without primping triggers the kind of insecurity in them that getting primped triggers in me, then yeah, my hat is off to them. These ladies are putting their money where their mouths are and challenging their own ideals, just as they would challenge their girls to do. Bravo!

Hey, since we’re challenging social convention here; where’s the blog where we can see two dudes go sixty days WITH makeup? Now that would be brave.

Yesterday was my first day back to the gym in…about eight weeks (I think? Something like that). I was planning to go back last Monday, but then the cough started up again and bla bla bla.

The thing about Pneumonia is that it’s not one of those “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” situations. It kicks you in the chest and it takes a while to get back up. So when I say “back to the gym”, that actually means walking the treadmill for an hour.

Everyone says I really have to take it slow and ease back into activity, but when you find yourself winded after a ten minute walk when you know you are (were) capable of running 5k in an hour, it’s that’s harder and more frustrating than it sounds.

So for now, I will keep walking. I figure if I can do an hour every day this week without the cough coming back, then (fingers crossed) I might be able to start back to some of my classes next week. Which would be good for everybody because frankly, it’s getting really hard to come up with comic ideas without my primary source of frustration inspiration.

Here’s a video of my ridiculously cute nephew rocking the halftime game at my brother’s Super Bowl party last Sunday. With moves like this, it really is a shame they cut the touch down dancing.

It’s Super Bowl time again (Yay! Home Run!).

There’s been a lot of helpful advice circulating about how to make this a fitter weekend, lower calorie snacks for parties, fitness breaks, that kind of thing.

While I’m all for including the veggie tray, I’ve been trying to imagine turning up at my brother’s annual Super Bowl “meatetarian” pot luck party and replacing all of the food with tofu and sprouts… I think it’s safe to assume that getting told off would be the least of my worries.

I’m going to use my brother, Jay as an example here. Generally speaking we don’t agree on much but he is a pretty smart guy (don’t tell him I said that) who throws really good parties (or that).

In this case, yeah, there’s going to be a lot of snacks and sometimes-foods at a Super Bowl party but beer and a piece of pizza once in a while isn’t going to flush an otherwise healthy lifestyle. If you’re that concerned about it, fill up the rest of your plate from the veggie tray and stay out of the chips.

The other great thing Jay does is the traditional halftime flag football game. Not because it’s great exercise, not because it’ll offset some of those calories but because it’s fun. Fun always trumps forced and frankly, I really don’t think I know anyone who could get into the Super Bowl Exercise Game which is surprisingly similar to the Super Bowl Drinking Game (except that when you find yourself on the floor you’re expected to get back up and then down again, and up again and down again and up again).

It’s been almost seven years but I finally went out and bought myself some new kicks! (Apparently “kicks” means shoes. It’s hip, like the kids say!)

After my other overly-sentimental post about my gross old sneakers, it seemed appropriate to mention that this enormous transition had finally been made, but I promise I won’t make a habit of posting about my shoes.

Still can’t bring myself to throw them out though. I feel like I should get them one of those glass trophy boxes that people keep game-winning footballs in, or something.

In other news, The Baroness Knows Best has finally been updated! Thanks so much for sending in your questions and please, keep them coming! I’ve just started formatting the next Promises Promises book (yes!) and the advice column was such a fun feature of the first one, (Starting Tomorrow – available in the Promises Shop) I’d like to make it an ongoing thing.