RSSSome True Spring Children
July 23, 2009
Pure season kids are the real deal. They haven’t yet learned to temper some of their pure characteristics.
These are the party children. Playful, silly, unpredictable. Would shoot Grandma with the water cannon. As 2 year olds, it takes a lot of extended family to keep them alive.
Book Review : Staging Your Comeback
February 26, 2009
The full title of Christopher Hopkins’ book is Staging Your Comeback : A Complete Beauty Revival For Women Over 45.
If you don’t know the book by Hopkins (a.k.a. The Makeover Guy), you have several hours of hugely enjoyable reading and thinking ahead of you. It recognizes our particular needs in a terribly honest way. He’s not too big with indulgence either, the talk is straight up, as in “ …you are not the right temperament for hair color.” Fun moments abound.
You will read some pretty raw admissions (“I am no longer interested in attention from men.”). The makeovers begin with 12 mommies and grannies, women way out at one end of the I-let-myself-go spectrum. He’s got every Before stereotype covered and achieves 12 remarkable transformations.
Check out the Befores right here. See you in about an hour.
Christopher proves that it’s not only certain men and women who can be more attractive than ever as they age. It’s all of us. Every single one. We make excuses for why we don’t care what we look like but the only result is to further and further weaken ourselves.
Nobody cares how old you think you look. We all know that’s a choice. If you don’t want it to be that way anymore, this is the guy to help take you through a transition.He has vision and imagination. There is so much that can be done before you even think about seeing a dermatologist for Botox or fillers. It doesn’t cost that much money. You use face cream anyhow, right? You do get haircuts, don’t you? We all go out in sweats and sneakers sometimes but there are a thousand small differences that matter.
What I love about this book:
1. The women are real. They’re not suspiciously gifted with wonderful skin or fabulous eyes just waiting to be revealed. You know me. I have little use for anything that’s not Real World, unless it’s meant as an entertaining diversion.
2. He’s brutally honest about what age does to bodies but still respects and enjoys the company and confusion of older women. You also know that I love aging, which I see as an opening of doors. And I love older women and their mind-blowing and completely unrecognized (especially by themselves) potential.
3. There doesn’t appear to be any Photoshopping going on, at least not too obviously. A beauty book with a pixel of Photoshop is rendered useless, IMO. Right away, the whole thing is out of reach.
4. He really really gets how to wear clothes, not just for aging but for all body types. Here’s one I never knew, but it’s obvious when he says it as all correct ideas are : The tighter your sleeves, the bigger your chest. OK, I can use that.
5. The pictures are bona fide, cringe-worthy renditions of the I’m-too-busy/old/young/comfortable/ugly/hot – to care. They are not forgiving or concealing anything. I got a few jolts because I think I saw me.
6. He’s not trying to get you to spend useless money. Quite the opposite actually. One of my favorite lines, “In the beauty industry, live and learn is taboo. Forget and buy is the name of the profit game.”
7. It’s comprehensive. The clothes, shoes, bra, buttons, hair, makeup, nail polish… all covered. He hits on every cliché and has noticed every detail.
8. The hair chapter is outstanding. If there’s anything that we all get wrong in every conceivable way, and that ages us the most, it’s hair. He covers it all, from color to cut, with a very comprehensive discussion of the very common problem of thinning hair.
9. He’s heard every comeback. He’ll tell you your fears before you tell him. Your objections get pretty weak when they’re No. 5 and 8 on the Exposing Your Excuses list.
10. His goal is to give you things you can do yourself. He just wants you to see differently, where seeing yourself is the hardest thing of all. He’s never showing himself off.
11. He’s funny. I spewed my smoothie on the line about the biscuits.
12. He can be brutally honest, ( I know I said that already) , almost sarcastic, in trying to get these women to see that they are so much more than they believe. Your best friend can say things nobody else can, not strangers or family, because you know he/she loves you and you can entrust him/her to take care of your feelings. Nothing is held back.
13. He doesnt’ see what is. He see what is possible. Possibility is what it is all about. Learning, change, it’s all in honor of what is possible. And there are very few limits.
See the man himself on YouTube.
He says his frustration with makeovers is that women don’t continue to practice what they learned, they just go back to the familiar. It may be because the transformation is too much of a leap to adjust to, too much like a fantasy. It can’t be incorporated into the woman’s life fast enough, so it just gets forgotten like a dream or a week on a Carribean island. Even I couldn’t maintain myself in the After Pics and I already use all this stuff. If you presently wear no makeup but would like to try, you’ll need a friend who knows how to do this or a makeup artist. Ask around. Book a private appointment, not a MAC counter on a Saturday afternoon.
Another reason women don’t stay with the changes is the time it takes. I don’t know about you but my tightest commodity is time. Change does take time. It takes trial and error and error and error too. So take on one thing at a time, and pretty soon, you’re in a whole new place, looking back and thinking “That WAS me but it isn’t me anymore.”
He writes a blog. I liked this post on aging. Considering the world of appearance that he lives in, he finds a good balance.
His personal experience with plastic surgery, the new addiction, and how easy to go a little too far with just a little more is here.
Enter the Sweepstakes to win a makeover with him!! for US residents only (how could they?).
We’re not trying to look 21. Or 31. We’re trying to look like fantastic 40’s , 50’s , and beyond. OK, maybe a fantastic 60 does look 50, but not 30!!
Sometimes the way you look IS what’ s holding you back. It’s not a symbol of the shallowness and superficiality of our world. This is completely internal. The whole thing is happening inside yourself. It’s your message to your subconscious that you’re slowing down, that you don’t see yourself or your future as worth the effort. If you believe the future looks just like the present, why expend the energy?
What you believe about the world makes it the way it is for you. If you can sincerely say “I like my life and I don’t want anything to be different, ever, not one single thing”, then you’re doing fine. Otherwise, change starts with you. You don’t have to see or know the endpoint. You don’t have to absorb the entire scope of possibility immediately. You are just signaling your subconscious that you’re changing your brain waves. It will get it. It works for every human being and it will work for you. It never doesn’t work.
If you look like you can take on more, this could be the first step in convincing yourself that it’s true. We’ve all seen (or been) the woman who got an amazing haircut but didn’t keep it because she couldn’t match her personality to that cut. Certain behaviors accompany, and are expected of, certain appearances. Amazing, subtle, and true.
Everyone else automatically believes what you believe about you - I mean, what your subconscious believes. You can strut all you like; if your subsconscious has doubts, that’s what others will hear. Can you know ahead of time where the break in the clouds will happen? No, that’s not part of the deal. All you’re doing is saying “I want the cloud cover to lift. I’m ready to think about a new chance.”
By the end of the book, you feel like you’ve travelled a little journey of empowerment with these women. He has given them back so much pride in themselves. In the After pics, they’re laughing and moving and playing in ways they probably never would have again.
-->
If you don’t know the book by Hopkins (a.k.a. The Makeover Guy), you have several hours of hugely enjoyable reading and thinking ahead of you. It recognizes our particular needs in a terribly honest way.
The makeovers begin with 12 mommies and grannies, women way out at one end of the I-let-myself-go spectrum. He’s got every Before stereotype covered and achieves 12 remarkable transformations.
Ellen as Cover Girl Spokesperson
January 11, 2009
I bet CG will sell a ton of whatever makeup Ellen is promoting because they picked a real person and didn’t Photoshop away all her wrinkles. The brand will be noticed for celebrating diversity in women, just as they were with Queen Latifah. The consumer appeal will be that these are real women, not plastic girls, and they’ve teamed up with Olay to put an anti-aging spin on it.
She’s 50 years old. She’s worth $65million.
This is the link to the CG ad, not reproduced here to protect copyright. There, you’ll find the videos for the photo shoot. I wonder if I could afford those pants and shoes.
Why is she always in black or black&white? Is it her choice, do you think? Neither one do anything to light up her natural beauty. Her incredible eyes don’t shine through and her skin looks tired. Why frosted pink lips? Surely, the makeup artists could have come up with something more interesting.
Real women needed
The fashion and cosmetics industries desperately need to find women of the Over 40 group to inspire real clothes and makeup. Look at how Michelle Obama dresses. She doesn’t spend a ridiculous (a disgraceful) fortune on what she wears.
You can’t tell me that a woman whose ensembles cost $50,000 and up has the slightest idea about the life of the everyday family. Maybe Mrs. Obama doesn’t either but at least she looks great, she has a unique style, her shoes make sense, and she doesn’t buy into what any designer tries to put us all in. She could look at pictures of herself in 10 or 20 years and not cringe. These women really do represent how we look and how we want to look.
Why do women decide that designers somehow have flawless vision? What makes their taste so sacrosanct?
Look around and suddenly you see women in this,
Stiletto at Amazon, linked to source if you wish to buy.
or this,
Pants from Amazon. Click image to find source.
In need of real muses
We look dumb dumb dumb. Weak. Suckers. The marketing department cranks up its imagination and they rake in cash. The media machine doesn’t address the needs of regular women over 40 because it doesn’t know how. It still thinks we all have the body and budget of Diane Keaton. It is dawning on them that we have interests beyond those of Goldie Hawn but they’re not sure what they are.
Ellen’s style of dress may be masculine but at least it’s real. There’s nothing she wears that I wouldn’t like to own (in the right colors, in case I haven’t said it often enough). She doesn’t wobble when she walks. She could even dance to faster music, like You Can’t Stop The Beat from Hairspray, or Avril Lavigne’s I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend, which I think would be a good departure from the present tempo, and she wouldn’t risk falling over and needing help to get up.
I hope they’ll paint Ellen as a real woman. They’re almost forced to because she’d look too goofy in sparkle and cartoon eyelashes. They couldn’t get away with it. I’m hoping to see what their makeup artists can do with neutral. Because her coloring is so incredibly soft, they can’t overpaint her. Even here, she looks interesting, if a little metallic.
Photo Michael Thompson. Ellen on W, February 2007.
She is funny. Like all people who have a certain exterior face, her private side is probably fairly serious, maybe even overly reflective. People who are always up and funny on the outside are often the opposite on the inside. Here, she is just plain funny, from YouTube.
One bone to pick
Now why is she selling for a company that animal tests? Why? It is so outdated. It also feels a little two-faced in light of her support of animal charities. Her tell-it-like-it-is honesty isn’t really her biggest selling point. Her funny sense of timing and dry, throwaway remarks are, like Bill Cosby. She’s incredibly likable but this feels deceitful.
Among the charities various celebs support, this page shows Ellen’s causes.
There are more Ellens in reality. There are no Julias. That’s the beauty of the woman. She’s all of us.
-->I bet CG will sell a ton of whatever makeup Ellen is promoting because they picked a real person and didn’t Photoshop away all her lines. The brand will be noticed for celebrating diversity in women, just as they were with Queen Latifah. The consumer appeal will be that these are real women, not plastic girls.
She’s 50 years old. She’s worth $65million.
Update on Savings and Givings Accounts
October 21, 2008
On July 3/08, I posted the article Dan Kennedy : 26 Behaviors and Beliefs To Attract Wealth. It was a review of Dan’s book Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs.
Imitating the activities of wealthy people is a means of becoming one yourself, faster. The wealthy tend to have Savings Accounts and Giving Accounts.
I tried it for 4 months just like Dan said.
Nothing You Believe Is True
October 12, 2008
Possibility is more interesting than reality – sez me.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”, sed Einstein.
If I were interviewing someone for a position, for any job at all, I’d be looking for three things only :
- genuine friendliness
- self-motivation
- imagination
That would be an impressive package. You can teach everything else.
Imagination sets us apart. It will be the key to our species’ success and to an interesting, wide open, off-the-treadmill future for us as individuals. Although everyone of us is capable, being more imaginative is hard to do. My sources have been children, exercise, and forcing my curiosity to expand beyond its natural limits. Does knowing your goals help unplug your head’s creativity? Nope, because not only is nothing we believe true, nor is what we think we want. In fact,
We don’t know what we want
Malcolm Gladwell is a sociologist, known for having written The Tipping Point and Blink . The Tipping Point discusses the phenomena of crazes. How does something become incredibly popular overnight, and what factors created that explosive growth? Blink argues that people are wired to make accurate judgements very quickly based on conscious and subconscious information gathering.
Do you know about the TED Conference? It will make you want to cheer for the entire world, for the collective voice of humanity. Gladwell speaks here about spaghetti sauce:
The point he makes is that we have no idea what we want. The context was that marketing might as well not ask consumers what they want because they will not know till they are given it. Once the product becomes available, like extra-chunky spaghetti sauce, it will fly off the shelves.
We don’t know our goals
We’re told to write down goals or set precise goals in our head. Has it happened to you that the goal looked so right for you, but when it is realized, it didn’t fit at all with who you really are? Thinking something would be perfect, and then getting it and not wanting it … seems to happen to me a lot.
It’s like the Donny Osmond poster on your bedroom wall (OK, there is no Donny Osmond poster on my wall; it’s a Josh Groban poster; you know Josh Groban, when he sings Come What May ?
Woo-hoo-HOO-hoo-hoo ; sorry, Josh always gets me off-topic ; I’ll get the cold cloth off my forehead and keep going here),
…the poster coming to life. It dawns on you that you might not want to interact with him as a human being, you just want to have a crush on him from a distance. You thought he’d be so perfect but it was only his image that was perfect.
For those interested in purchasing this item, it comes from here. Not only do they have many Donny images and products in stock, but they are interested in buying your Donny items from you 
You buy a pair of jeans without trying them on because they look perfect. You’ve been looking for that make. You love the color, the closure, the pockets, the rise is not too low or high. You know someone with a similar body type who looks awesome in them. You get them home, try them, and they’re way wrong. They fit someone, but not you.
Am I just wishy-washy and still muddling around in the stinking swamp of some low level of consciousness? Do people with higher awareness know their deepest wishes?
Ah, hell, what is the point of thinking about it? It’s like wondering why cats and dogs eat grass. We’ll know the answer the day one of them tells us. We could spend lots of time speculating but the odds are high we’d be wrong, so why bother? The answer is probably “just because”.
The real you
I never said to stop believing IN yourself. You would never, ever do that. It’s the most constructive and creative power in your possession. Believing IN yourself is what this site is all about.
Peter Russell answers the question of why not to believe. You might wonder if you’ve come up with anything new on your own, or are you just towing along a pile of inherited crap that would make Your Deeper Self snort and roll her eyes?
Of course, as soon as you ask the question “Does it have to be this way?”, it is beginning to change. It’s only as concrete as you say it is. Your beliefs and boundaries define your entire existence but also limit your possibilities. We need to ditch them to see our lives in new ways.
It’s hard to do. There are consequences attached to asking questions like that. Anyone remember Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Read the plot summary on the Wikipedia page. This type of material has been around since long before personal development became an industry.
Delete your beliefs and watch the windows open
You will stop You from allowing big changes. You will set up road blocks you won’t even be able to see. But once you are free of your preconceptions and presumed opinions, you are liberated from the restrictions they impose as well.
You can view them as an impartial observer or through the eyes of someone else, someone who doesn’t carry your particular set of personal constraints. The realm of what you can do or are willing to do changes drastically.
Take off, imagination.
--> Possibility is more interesting than reality – sez me.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”, sed Einstein.
Imagination sets us apart. It will be the key to our species’ success and to an interesting, wide open, off-the-treadmill future for us as individuals.
Does knowing your goals help unplug your head’s creativity? Nope, because not only is nothing we believe true, nor is what we think we want.
Challenge : Do Something For You Today
October 4, 2008
Women are experts at finding reasons for not looking after their general well-being in the way they would like to. We know that how we look or feel is disrupting our confidence, but we’ve invented reasons for not caring.
That doesn’t mean you have to hair your hair done every six weeks, or ever, if you don’t feel like it. You don’t have to lose a pound. You never need to meet someone else’s standard for how you’re supposed to look.
But if you look at yourself in the morning and think “Ugh”, or try to avoid mirrors wherever you go, maybe you can find yourself in the list below. If your hair is gone to frizz, highlights grown out, eyebrows are out of shape, but if you harbor ideas that …
- If I look great, I have to act different.
- I might lose control of my appearance if I let a stylist or esthetician near me.
- I might look like a clown.
- I’m not really worth it; I’m the Mom, I don’t deserve $100 hair color.
- I don’t want to draw attention to myself, or be noticed, or be fussed over, because then what would I do?
- Who really cares, who’d see me anyway?
- Beautifully shaped eyebrows are not in keeping with the role I play; focusing on my job and eyebrows together feels conflicting
- If I look different, I might send out a message that I’m not comfortable with; I don’t want to look self-absorbed or vain or (heaven forbid) hot
- I just don’t have time; the family needs me
… then, you’re holding yourself back for the wrong reason. Nobody weakens us better than we weaken ourselves (another thing we’re experts at). We women belittle and disparage ourselves every chance we get. It’s time to stop.
Not trying feels safe. Nothing bad can happen, there can be nothing to regret if you don’t try. The thing is, safety is overrated. So is shelter from your own imagination. Regret is overrated too. Why do so many people spend so much time there? Buy a beautiful journal and write.
Give yourself some credit. You deserve every ounce of it. Recognize the importance of your contribution by doing something for you. It doesn’t have to do with your looks. Get a reflexology treatment.
Acknowledge your worth with some money and some time. And decide beforehand that you’re not going say “I don’t know if I can do this” or any sentence beginning with “What if”, or worst of all, make up an excuse to cancel the appointment. You deserve better from yourself.
Lock up your useless inhibitions. Buy a nail polish. Better yet, get a pedicure. Your feet won’t look like they’re yours, but you can always go into stealth mode and hide them in socks till you get used to it.
Do what you think about. Cut off the ends of grown out hair. Get your old highlights covered and go back to a natural color. Spend sometime with yourself. And when someone says “Much better”, say “Thank you!”.
-->Women are experts at finding reasons for not looking after their general well-being in the way they would like to. We know that how we look or feel is disrupting our confidence, but we’ve invented reasons for not caring.
But if you look at yourself in the morning and think “Ugh”, or try to avoid mirrors wherever you go, maybe you can find yourself in the list below. If your hair is gone to frizz, highlights grown out, eyebrows are out of shape, but if you harbor ideas that …
Welcome To Reality
September 17, 2008
At a party recently, a group was discussing and wondering why life is so tough, why you never get a break, why things always seem to go wrong, why everybody’s broke. One woman chimed in “Well, welcome to reality”.
Whose reality?
That’s not my reality.
Is it just the reality of people committed to being sick and miserable?
Is it the reality of people who watch the news and believe that it really represents the world we live in? The news on TV is only ever bad, which is just not possible. But it will still paralyze you if you watch it.
Is it the reality of people who have lived with financial tension for so long they no longer see a fridge full of food? What exactly do they need so much that they can’t buy ?
Is it just our culture? I’m reminded of the type of people who work in Small Business Loans in banks. Now I know that banks (at least in Canada) are doing what they’re supposed to which is to be risk-averse (they’re not investors after all) and to keep our money safe, and they do it well. But the Loans officers across the desk-who are also just doing their job-have gotten a lot of practice at saying No.
They read the proposals, purse their lips, look down through their progressive bifocals (nothing against them either, I wear them myself, see?
, it’s just the image I’m conjuring), you can hear the sizzle as their scrap of imagination fries up, the more of the proposal they read, and they hand it back to you across the desk with a terse, tight-lipped, and final little “No”. No, No, No, No.
Reality can’t be real. It’s not the same for any two people. There are no rules to this game. You can make them all up as you go.
Have a little creativity. Reality is whatever you say it is. Make your own reality. Yeah, ok, you don’t have the exact car you want. In your list of things you’re thankful for, is your car on the list anyway?
There are people for whom everything is a Yes. They say Yes things, they see them, they live them. Their life becomes a self-directed Yes because they chose it. Their imagination is unleashed. They invent their own Northern Star.
Get excited about what’s right in your life. Most of us have so much of it. Continue to dream. It’s you in the control tower. It’s you at the wheel. Nobody is running your show but you.
Let those Welcome To Reality comments ricochet right off you. It’s as good or as bad as you decide it is.
Does this sound like nothing more than positive thinking? Basically that’s all it is. But that’s a choice too. You’re not born a negative thinker or a positive thinker. You can certainly absorb the tendency from the family whose conversation you hear or the friends you spend time with. Before you know it, you’ve heard yourself say it so often, it’s a habit.
At some point, it was a choice you had. It’s still a choice you have.
>> cspics
-->At a party recently, a group was discussing and wondering why life is so tough, why you never get a break, why things always seem to go wrong, why everybody’s broke. One woman chimed in “Well, welcome to reality”.
Whose reality?
This Month In Vogue : Sex In Magazines
June 7, 2008
It’s hard to find a women’s magazine without discussions of sex these days, unless you are looking for a magazine with recipes or home dec. If the topic is fashion, beauty, fitness, or if you fit into the 18-30 demographic, you’re in for it, like it or not.
On the cover of Vogue (Vogue!) this month is SJP, with the feature title “Let’s Talk About Sex”.
MAGAZINE WOMEN ARE PRETEND
May 15, 2008
I was emailed this photo. It got me thinking about what computers can do.
Read moreTHE BEAUTY AND POWER OF HDR PHOTOGRAPHS
April 8, 2008
I am endlessly awed, humbled, and inspired by human creativity. You can say any amount of bad about the species, and much of it would be true, but there is imagination and vision within each one of us that is stunning to behold.
Meet Xavier
I have realized that I notice very much how things look. A bit less, how they smell. Hardly at all how they sound. Not how they feel. How they taste? I don’t care enough, or else I’ve just replaced that care with a stronger concern about overall nutrition.
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A Greener Tea
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