Insight into Margaret

One of the nieces of Brett's side turned 11 last week. In trying to pick out a birthday gift for her I tried to go back to my days as an 11 year old and try to remember what I would have liked. We ended up getting her a bracelet making kit but while at the party the discussion of the significance of her next birthday came up. I don't know if the whole world puts such an emphasis turning 12 but at least in the LDS culture that means you are about to leave Primary and enter Young Womens (or Young Mens). It also seems to be the time that many girls are told they can partake in some rites of passage such as getting their ears pierced and beginning to wear make-up. I was one of those toddlers you look at and think 'how loud did she scream when they pierced her ears' and could not be kept out of the makeup as a little girl so neither of those were rites of passage on my twelfth birthday. My niece however expressed her excitement at being allowed to wear make-up after her following birthday. Well I now know what I'm getting her next birthday. Although it's a little too soon to worry I briefly wondered if I should go one really nice item like a good mascara or the big box of a million colors of very low quality makeup.


My years have wizened me and now I would ask for a nice tube of mascara over a lifelong supply of cheap eyeshadow in hot pink, blue, and green however, when I was a tween I ogled the makeup sets that always appeared around Christmas time. All consisting of a wide range of colors of eyeshadow, a few different blushes, and some a few tubes of lipstick. A few times my father indulged me and a make-up set would appear under the Christmas tree.

I'm going to diverge for a moment and try to express to you my love for make-up. I LOVE IT. I love trying new ways to do my make-up. Experimenting with new colors. Trying new ways to apply it. Desperately trying to get my straight lashes to hold a curl (Brett has beautiful long lashes, I hope our children get his!). Have you ever notices an elephant's eyelashes?? They are straight and have a down ward angle.... yeah I got elephant eyelashes.

There are a few thing I never touched numero uno. My eyebrows. Mom, Dad, thank you for my eyebrows. The other month (at the age of twenty one) I tweezed about four eyebrow hairs. That is it... my lifelong total eyebrow hair loss. (Is it bad if I pray every night that our children will get my eyebrows and not Bretts?? That used to be the top of my husband requirement list, joking of course, that he cannot suppress my good eyebrows gene in our children.) Okay maybe you think my brows are awful and I should just shave 'em and start over with a pencil but I like them. Where was I??? Oh yeah making a list.


So what else did I leave alone? My cheeks. I have a thing or two of blush but I never use it. I have red cheeks. Call them rosy if you want to be tactful. I'm not sure what the word ruddy actually means (and I don't feel like looking it up) but I always thought it was unattractive and applied it to my complexion. So thus I never saw the point in blush and skipped over it. Sometimes I would over do it with foundation and so I had to add a little blush to keep from looking ghostly but mostly


Last thing I never messed with much... my lips. I'll add gloss with a tint sometimes but mostly lipchap was enough for me. I don't understand lipstick... why wear it??


Sorry that was a LONG deviation. Oh wait.. I'm not even done with my deviation yet... just my list. So from my list you can deduce that really I love experiment with eye color. When I was in Jr. High and even some in high school doing each other's make-up was a very fun thing to do when friends were over. I don't know where my love of make-up came from. The only thing that ever covers my mom's skin is sawdust. My sister really doesn't wear make-up. I thought she did in high school, actually I'm pretty sure she did because I would watch her put it on... she had the classic hot pink (<-- tube color not mascara color) mabeline mascara with the bright green lid. Then after she moved back home while I was in high school she'd ask me to borrow my make-up and put it on her. So maybe my love of it came from the lack of its presence in my life.

As I got older I rarely spent hours trying out new make-up styles. That probably stemmed from my desire for higher quality product thus I couldn't exactly afford to waste money on bright green and blue when I needed to basic every day colors.

One of my biggest regret was buying Lancome eyeshadow for prom. I bought it to match my dress..... hot pink. I've used it maybe 3 times and it was not cheap.

So now I only have a few products that I use very often but the love of it is still there. I never feel like its a chore to put make-up on every morning (doing my hair however bleh!)

But back to my tween years. a few times at Christmas I was blessed with a plethora of eye shadows to play with. One time I got a train case of make up. I loved it. It had some fun colors and room for more makeup. I'd take it everywhere I went... sleep overs, my family's cabin, road trips. (Now back to the original introduction.)

My memories returned to this train case after thinking about my niece about to turn twelve. Well when your the youngest, have a propensity to keep EVERYthing, the make-up train case you got in elementary school is still at your parents house. Look here it is.
As you can see the colors are hideous and horrifyingly well used. In the bottom a large jumble of stuff. I found in there old clothing tags, a pen or two, white-out (I swear it was not for huffing! I have no clue why it was in there... used as nail polish maybe???) a few batteries, some quarters, and a lot of cheap hair rubber bands in addition to some old make-up.

Well tonight I was home alone... okay not alone my parents and brother were home but Brett wasn't so I didn't have anyone to pay attention to me. So I decided to pull out the old train case and throw it out. As I went through it old memories of hours spend sitting on the bathroom counter came flooding back. I went through and to toss out each thing individually... and I admit the temptation was too strong and even though I knew it was probably riddled with yuckies I just had test out the make-up. And do you know who benefited from the experience?? You.

How about that turquoise eyeshadow and though you can't see it blue eyeliner. I don't know what color the lipstick was exactly but I hope I never wore it in public. So what do you think? Scary or should it be my new everyday wear?? Boy I wish I had thought to do my make-up like this or my wedding...

Now I dared to put this make-up on because I was about to get ready for bed and wash it back off.. Well I don't buy the 'i get off cheap make-up' face wash any more and was a little frantic to find turquoise/blue still rimming my eyelids and red still staining my lips after washing my face. Luckily the never throw anything out was still effect and I had some OLD dove cleansing pads. I briefly wondered why I had only used a few of the cleansing pads... I quickly remembered. They have a weird smell and the abrasive side could replace the 80 grit sand paper in my mom's wood shop. But they got the make-up off.

Now I really meant for this to be a quick short post... I don't think I know how to write a short post. It's good I don't post too often because you'd get so bored of my ranting you'd delete my blog and never visit again. But I want to close with what I learned from my old make-up case and all my other nostalgic moments while living at home this Christmas break. I love the person who I used to be. I love the little girl with crazy hair I used to be. I love the tween I was who probably wore some pretty darn hideous make-up. I love the teenage I was who got my license the first possible moment, ditched school to go skiing with my mom, and would spend hours in my parents back yard under stars just talking with my friends. Sure I've made mistakes and done stupid things but I love looking back on the journey that has shaped me into who I am today. While it's a little harder to love who I am right now tonight I realized I do. I especially love that my make-up is a little more subdued ( most the of the time) now. I'm not perfect or even close. I have tons or shortcomings and there are a lot of things that I wish I was. But I am who I am and I love who I am today. Tomorrow more experiences will change and shape me and you know what. I'll love who I am tomorrow too.... Who though so much personal insight would come from an old make-up case... maybe I should go rescue if from the garbage.... nope better not. Brett doesn't know it yet but he better learn to love my pack rat tendencies.