A sheepish apology and a Chemical peel

I offer my sincere apologies for the atrocious grammatical errors that may have popped up in the blog posts. I am going to blame:

Ø  Me reading way too much Lol.cats

Ø  Text messaging

Ø  Tweeting

Ø  Watching too much of The Style Network channel

Ø  Being out of school too long ( even though I got the English prize and an A+ in matric back then , you’ll never say that now)

Ø  Wits Med School – short hand notes with multi-colour pens, losing the ability to write legibly, learning ‘ having no sense of banking’ and speaking and writing jargon

Ø  Google – where you can type in any trash and you will get what you’re looking for.

Oh well, whatever! I’ll try and be better now. Also in the unending  quest to snazz up and improve my blog I will be experimenting  with HTML , widgets and gadgets. Please do not be alarmed if the blog takes on crazy shapes or falls off the page – it’s just a minor , fixable calamity resulting from me fearlessly exploring HTML code. So to exciting times ahead!

Now on to something completely different . Tomorrow I am going for my long awaited chemical peel. My skin needs it! It’s an awesome treatment for your skin provided you use the correct peel and have a great therapist. I had my first peel in 2008 and it made my skin look awesome! So more on chemical peels  in the next post.

Getting my Bum into Gear - A break in the blog flow

After an embarrassingly long hiatus from the gym I’ve decided to kit up in black, shape-blurring battle gear and distracting, snazzy Nikes ( said as Ni-keys) and whittle my waist down .I’m waging war against the dreaded 'marriage fat". “ SPARTA –AAAAAAAAAAA!”


Being happily married is bad for your waist line (if you can still find it). The hallmarks of the happy marriage are those instantly recognizable physical indicators – muffin tops, love handles and that dreaded phenomenon of women morphing into pears, apples and oranges .You've seen it before - calabash-shaped men and calabash-shaped women plodding along in matrimonial bliss.


Also now since I’ve started blogging I fear I may develop the dreaded “BLOG BUTT© ”. I don’t know , I just made that up. Um . . . “ a difficult to treat condition where your bum merges with an ergonomic chair as a result of overzealous blogging and Googling.”


Let’s get back to the solution – an eating plan and exercise. What has happened to the Gym –Bunny I used to be? What is even more shameful is the  inescapable truth of the answer- I really have no valid excuse for inactivity. At the estate we live in there is a private gym that may take just over a minute to walk to. Okay, so you might burn a hole in your lungs trying to walk up the Himalayan-esque incline but really I cannot even use it as vindication(we can drive to the gym which might take 30 seconds). Also we (the Hubsy and I) have two other gym memberships from two different gyms both less than 2Km away. The other day a consultant from the Virgin Active phoned to tell me about the new super-club in Glenvista and asked if the reason I haven’t been to gym in so long was because of “laziness”. I promptly hung up and thought: “Is that dumbass right?”




Hell no! No more I say! No more exercise avoidance behaviour. What characterizes this behaviour?

1.    Schlepping (it should be a real word) to the mall to indulge in the latest 3D movie and binge on new-found Sushi fetish.

2.    Become dangerously addicted to Gossip Girl – don’t even ask why adults are so fascinated with the activities of hedonistic teenagers.

3.    Religiously watching box-sets (Heroes, Big bang theory etc.)

4.    Doing laundry

5.    Reading Shape magazine

6.    Merging with the sofa

7.    Grocery shopping

8.    “Laziness”

I am so done with that. Last night I worked out. Reluctant to show my face at the Virgin active I walked it to the gym at home. Did some light weights, fooled around on the Pilates ball and braved “the Hill”. At home, waited for the Hubsy to go shower, quickly  popped in a Zumba DVD and did the crazy dance moves. I was caught out by him doing a crazy reggae move. Much delirious laughter and finger pointing. “Hah! So what I am working out!”

This morning I woke up grumpy that I had such a half-assed workout. Medusa-haired and muzzy-eyed I pulled on some track pants and I ran up and down that crazy hill. My husband (a.k.a the Smoogie) is highly amused by my bizarre behaviour.

Though I must say after that exercise outburst , a healthy blueberry packed breakfast and a handful of Omega -3-6-9, Gojiberry, Calcium, Multivitamin supplements I feel pretty damn good hey.

So what is beauty anyway ? Part Deux



In the eye of the beholder?

We're still exploring the idea of beauty and trying to define it.

It's not proving to be easy.It's like asking someone to define "cat".

Yes we may alll know what a cat is but what words would you use to define (not describe) one.

You'll find many 'definitions" of cat :

Feline mammal usually having thick,soft fur and no ability to roar ( I mean this could even describe a Furby or those Ewoks from Star Wars).

Computerized Axial Tomography

A small domesticated carnivore

A jazz devotee

A spiteful woman



That's what Google brings up. Don't judge me - I'm too snug and lazy to get out the dictionary and look it up. So if you didn't know what a cat was until now  . . . you still won"t know.

So where was I? Cats and beauty , cats and beauty , cats and beauty . . . why have I digressed so horribly?

Let's get back to this beauty thing - so what makes us beautiful or "attractive" (beauty and attractiveness - I feel that there is a distinct difference but more on that later). Instinctively we can deem something attractive or not attractive. It's there, ingrained our conciousness and deeply etched into our brains ( the fusiform area of our brains to be precise - I kid you not).

In my mind , I've marked the parameters of "beauty". That doesn't mean my idea of beauty and your idea of beauty match up. It doesn"t have. I want to know . . . what's your idea of it? Do you think you're beautiful - why or why not?

So what is beauty anyway ?

Don't you just love LOLcats?


Yes ,so I've been thinking - what is beauty? What do I think beauty is - without the shackles of the media telling me what it is? How do you know someone is beautiful? What is the difference between being beautiful and attractive? So many questions !


On BBC Lifestyle (channel one eighty something on DSTV ) the other day I was watching a show called "Miss Naked Beauty" . Knowing DSTV it was probably a two year-old repeat of the show but it quite relevant to today's blog post. If you click on the link you can read a bit more on the show http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/M/missnakedbeauty   

Add caption

       


So they take a group "normal ladies with physical hang-ups" with different body types (apples, pears, oranges, peaches, mesomorphs, ectomorphs . . .you get the picture!) and strip them down-in all senses of the word- and through a series of episodes coach them to become more confident . I happened to catch episode 4 that dealt with the perception of beauty.


In the UK , glamour modeling is big ( I think in Bollywood terms they would call it "the Item girl a.k.a Koena Mitra"). Many young British girls aspire to be glamour models. They serve as a kind of benchmark for beauty. What is a glamour model you might ask? Think FHM , Jodie Marsh, Pamela Anderson, WWE Divas. As the saying goes - "a picture is worth a thousand words" . Go see what a glamour girl is http://www.plunderguide.com/top-25-british-glamour-models/.


On the show they want to rattle the belief that the fake glamour girl is beautiful. They pushing for a return to "wholesome beauty" and not the plastic-fantastic Barbie beauty.

Glamour Model Look

Naked Beauty Look

 
The pic at the top shows the women all dolled-up Katie Price style and the bottom pic shows them in all their naked glory. So where do they look more attractive? Your thoughts?

Blogging for Dummies

Finally , here I am writing a post. After many hours spent tweaking colours on the design template, adding gadgets and giving up on page 30 of " Blogging for DUMMIES". I know it still has that half-baked look but I'll add some more do-dahs on the way.


I've been wanting to blog for ages, why have  I only started now . . .well who knows? But now it's full steam ahead baby!


So you (all you followers out there . . . which at this point I still have to acquire) and I will be embarking on a journey of discovery. The quest for eternal beauty. Edging ever closer to that ominous milestone - The BIG THREE - OH ( . . . as in Oh Shite, don't they say it's downhill from here?) well anyway , where was I in the sentence? Oh yes you and I are going to go head -to-head with our biological clocks, arming ourselves with some anti-age ammo. So who's in?

While you think about it, let me get back to some more addictive " blog tweaking". Here's to some exciting times!