The Shaggy, Henna’d Me

Not that this is a surprise to anyone…

But I logged into WordPress, and all the freshly pressed blogs are “censored” and whatnot.  I am assuming this has to do with SOPA and the wiki blackout tomorrow?  Like technology isn’t hard enough, people. Really? *sigh*

At any rate – it’s been kind of a long month since I last blogged.  I think we left off where George knocked me down, or I tripped over him, or whatever, and I was out for the better part of a week with a blown knee and some fairly decent drugs.

So Christmas and New Year’s Day went by, without a lot of drama, which is always appreciated.

However…

Prior to the holidays, I decided to add yet another iron to my fire and become a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant…again.  Now, my motives, at that point, were not pristine. I do run a photo studio, after all, and glamour portraits are not here in my local market, and I’m thinking that I might be able to pull something like that off.  So I signed up. Again. Mind you, this is my 3rd go-around with Mary Kay.

The first time was back in ’84 when I was just a pup, living in Lubbock. The then-hubs was an Airman at the base, and I knew next to no one, so I signed up, thinking this would be a great way to supplement the family income and maybe meet some PEOPLE.  A social person such as myself does NOT thrive on being alone constantly. Well, my sponsor’s husband was a pilot in training and once he was done, they got orders, and there went my lifeline. Boom. That was over before it really got started, but by golly, I had some product on my hands, and boy did I LOVE me some Mary Kay skin care and color!  It also made GREAT gifts!

Shortly after I/we built and opened the Wall 2 Wall Photography studio in ‘08, I signed up again, because I loved the product and wanted it at a discount. I mean, really. One thing better than Mary Kay product is reduced price Mary Kay product. I didn’t put the product on any faces, and I kept my quarterly minimum up for almost a year, but I couldn’t keep up, so I let it fall by the way side.

Fast forward to late November of 2011. I met my friend, Marty, at a Business Link meeting, and then we ended up at a Legal Shield meeting, and before I knew it, she’d scheduled me for a facial. So I went. And I had fun. And I still loved my Mary Kay skin care and color. (Which, btw, has come a LONG way from 1984 just-add-water eye shadow, let me tell you!)  So I ordered some skin care, and scheduled a follow up color consultation.  Now, Marty had asked me at the first facial if I was interested in becoming a consultant. And of course, you know I told her, “No, I am just too busy – I have two jobs and a family.” And she was ok with that.  Then she asked me again at my follow-up.

Well, I was thinking glamour portraits, so I told her I would think about it. No, I didn’t want to put the product on faces, I was too busy to go to meetings, I didn’t have time to conduct skin care classes, and boom.  I don’t know what happened, but I signed up again and conducted my first skin care class in December in Raleigh.  What just happened?  I don’t know, but I gotta tell y’all…I LIKED it. I got to hang out with my friends, make a little money, and start to see the light at the end of the corporate-day job tunnel.

So now I am on the fast track to becoming a Director.  I think this is going to be a FUN journey!

So, that aside, I had to have an MRI done on my knee the week after George and I had our run in.  The MRI showed no damage, but a lot of bruising and swelling, which was normal. I went home, proof-read a friend’s manuscript, and took the prescribed pain meds on a schedule and made some money sitting in the arm chair via some web orders from my MK web site. (This would be located here.)  Do what? I made money sitting on my butt, reading and zoning out? Who knew?

Ok, so back to the knee.  I got a doctor’s note to return to work the Tuesday after Christmas.  So I did.

The following day, I was having a LOT of pain, so I parked where I wasn’t supposed to park, but it was worth the risk, because I was only going to be there for about 2 hours, and the thought of walking from the Pit to the building was more than I could handle.  And I got a ticket. AND I had the added bonus of the police chief visiting me in my office to tell me about the gift on my windshield. That was fun.

So I left early to pick up my youngest son from the airport in Raleigh, and fell off a curb in the parking lot because my knee gave out on me. I collected Tim, and went straight to my mom’s house, and we put a bag of frozen black eye’d peas on my knee and I sat there and had a mini-follow up class to their facials…they wanted to know about lotion and fragrance, and you know I am now never without some kind of product.  So we sat there, them with their noses in the fragrance and trying the lotions, and me, with my foot propped up on the dining room chair with frozen veg on my knee, drinking coffee and having a good time. When I was ready to go, I knew I needed to haul boogie back to Goldsboro, because I was going to need narcotics once the icepack wore off.  Yes, I was in a hurry, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the speedometer.  My first mistake. When I realized how fast I was going, I took my foot off the gas, started to brake, but not fast enough for that NC State Highway Patrol guy going the other way. I am sure his radar was screaming, “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!”

*sigh*

Driving 30 years and my first speeding ticket EVER. OMG.  I hung my head in shame from Johnston County all the way home.  All I can say is that at least I wasn’t driving on drugs, but then, had I been, I would have been watching my speed. I was just keeping up with traffic. Thank goodness for Legal Shield.

So I get home and have to tell Johnny I got the ticket from hell (and yes, while I won’t go into how many miles per hour over the limit I was going, it WAS the ticket from hell) on Hwy. 70, AND a parking ticket at the day job.  Not my best day. Just let me have my lortab and leave me the hell alone, at this point.

The following day, I ended back up a that at the doctor’s office because my knee is NO better than it was after I fell, and my NPA is stumped, because it should have been better by then, according to the results of the previous week’s MRI.  So she wrote me a note for work, AND a note to the DMV for a temporary handicap placard for my car.  These are a God send, provided you can FIND a handicapped space at the day job. I’ve had to walk up from the Pit a couple of times with my knee throbbing this last week or so due to lack of spaces, and I will be darned if I’m parking in a Cardio space again! And then I got to go see the Ortho folks, who gave me some exercises, which I probably need to start doing.

Ok, so now we’re almost to the present.  I’m not going to tell you about how I broke one of my upper molars on a damned banana Runt candy last week, but suffice it to say, I ended up in the dentist’s chair today. Now, I am a fairly educated, intelligent woman, but I am not without my fears, and I don’t want any of you to judge me, but I haven’t been to a dentist since 1987, due to a really horrific experience I had getting an impacted wisdom tooth pulled at a base dental office. I

Me, after a good color & cut!

would rather jump out of a perfectly good airplane WITH spiders in my hand than go to the dentist…but, when your tooth is broken, what are you going to do?

So I went to the dentist my employees recommended, and they were REALLY nice!  It was pain free, fear free, and no big deal! (Of course it was! That’s probably because all I had done was an x-ray.) The real fun starts next week when I get a root canal and a crown.  They assured me that between a Halcion tablet and the nitrous gas, I wouldn’t care if they took ALL of my teeth.  That remains to be seen.

But hey, on the brighter side, I darkened my red, and shortened my hair, as you can see from the “after” picture I took this weekend.  So now I will look professional when I am wetting my pants whilst having that dental work done.

So, I have about ten faces to facial between now and the end of the month, so if you are in the local area and want to give me your HONEST opinion about the products, drop me a note, huh?

Till Next Time….