The Tuesday that Feels Like a Monday

In the spirit of easing into the week, I'm having a catch-up pajama day over here. I just wrote an article to send to one of my all-time favorite magazines, and I hope they'll want to print it. Fingers crossed.

I've also been thinking about beauty products.

Back when I was spending my parents' money, I had expensive tastes in hair care and makeup. Clinique, Estee Lauder, and of course super-sized cans of Paul Mitchell hair spray cluttered my countertop. No "bonus gift" or "gift with purchase" passed me by, even if the colors were all wrong for me. But back in the 80's, sometimes the colors were so wrong they were right, you know?

It was as I got older (poorer, cheaper, thriftier) that I made the move to CoverGirl, Maybelline, and the occasional Wet'n'Wild product.

Well, at thirteen, thanks to Youtube videos and Pinterest, Margaret makes my previous champagne tastes seem more like Milwaukee's Best. She is familiar with every high-end product at Sephora and is skilled at using them. The good news is, she is introducing me to a few new products and helping me figure out how to keep my sparse yet unruly brows "on point" as they say these days. She also managed to help me look like I'd had a full night's sleep by dotting white eye shadow on the inner corner of my eyes. Who knew?

The bad news is, I am not comfortable supporting a $50 a pop toiletry habit, even though the desire for "bonus gifts" was passed down from my genes to hers.

Her desire for more products/more money led to a little mother-daughter furniture painting adventure, taking this sad little nightstand with its cheap plastic knob:

 To this shabby chic charmer.

Selling it on our local yard sale site means Margaret pockets $25.

Which I think translates to about 1/2 a high-end mascara and hopefully more mother-daughter enterprises like this one!

Good Enough

I was trying to be a champion grocery shopper today, having scoured the ads and money-saving websites and organized my list and coupons accordingly. I found my way to the brand spankin' new grocery store nirvana in a neighboring town.

While I was getting out of the car, using my leg as an awkward buffer between my door and the car next to me, I gave myself a nasty paper cut across the nose with the damn grocery list! By the time I made it inside, my face was bloody. Apparently, saving money can be dangerous.

I managed to have a productive trip, and I'm proud of myself for being so organized, but there's no telling if I'll be up for it all again next week. And if not, I won't beat myself up over it.

My coupon clipping made me think about my mom, because, much to my annoyance, she flatly refused to "deal with coupons."

You have read about my mother on this blog before, so you know she was pretty special. She had a magnetism and good humor that people still talk about even though she's been gone more than 20 years.

She was an entertainer who used silver and fine crystal, but who also parked herself cross-legged on the kitchen counter to chat. She was a church-going charmer who threw around the S-word.

She was a fashion plate and decorating guru, whose kitchen counters were piled high with papers and assorted "crap." She saved her kids' artwork for posterity, but then found herself writing lists and doodles and phone numbers on it.

A nice thing about my mother was that she did not try to be perfect. In fact, in many ways she was, well, "good enough."

She could eat an entire bag of gumdrops for lunch and not beat herself up about it.

She could take us out to dinner 3 nights in a row because she couldn't bear the thought of how this dinner thing kept coming up...every day.

She was not the most consistent gift giver, with gifts ranging from Neiman Marcus goodies in pretty little boxes, to the pineapple she made me give my 4th grade teacher for Christmas.

I despaired of ever having a satisfactory birthday or Christmas, as she never seemed to get me what was on my list (no Snoopy Snow Cone machine?) Instead of giving in to my histrionics about the injustice of it all, she would shrug. "Well, I'm the only mother you've got."

In my childhood and adolescent wisdom, I would try to change my mother: her clothes (pj's and clogs in the carpool line?), her spending habits (why wouldn't she go to yard sales with me?), and how she kept house. Always a reader, I had articles to share. I had statistics. I was an expert on all things current and new. She would listen, give me a "hmmmmmm," and not change a thing.

Now, I use her as a model in my own varied attempts to throw away the damaging idea of perfection.

I do not sort laundry. Ever. Or hand wash. Or lay flat to dry. Apparently, I like an element of adventure at laundry time.

I do not iron anything, and am not above/below stapling or gluing on scouting patches. Another strategy I've used is to leave the patches in a baggie to see if the child will move on to the next level of scouting before I do anything with them.

I do not make homemade Halloween costumes, and when I do make costumes for school projects, my son tells me mine are the "cheap-iest looking."

I rarely offer side dishes. Taco Night means tacos, Chili Night, chili. You get the picture.

I go places, like church and work, with soaking wet hair. If people are inclined to think I'm a serious swimmer, rather than someone who is too lazy to dry her hair, so be it.

I choose (or steer) my children's activities based on my personal convenience and preferences.

I decorate with quick fixes rather than high quality, knowing that I'll tire of a trend before too long.

The list goes on and on.

So even though I only had my mom for 18 years, I feel her influence still. The short-cuts, attitudes and actions I pooh-poohed about her are the very things that help me get by without getting myself in a dither. The fact that she was so comfortable with herself helps me to accept myself the way I am.

Growing up, I never once thought a clean house or good grades or a fancy car or thin thighs were the most important things in life, and I know that was because of my mother. What a gift.

And if that's not perfection, I don't know what is.

"There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one." Jill Churchill