I'm a Different Kind of Woman For Sure

I suppose I clean up okay(ish) but have never been one to fuss a lot about the way I look. I pay less than fifteen dollars for a hair cut, sometimes six ninety nine and looks just fine to me.

At least have always been trim and fit, a little too trim these past few years but beats being a fifty something year old load of lard.

I wasn't a very girly little girl either...case in point.

On the other hand my daughter through no doing of my own has always been a girlie girl.

I've only worked at three different restaurants over the last twenty five years but at every one of them the younger waitresses (old school term) could never believe I'd never had a pedicure or manicure. They almost acted shocked, like I was underprivileged.

I've never even considered going to a salon. Don't get me wrong, when my daughter was younger I took her to have her nails done with her best friend. Seemed like a total waste of money to me and the smell in the place was horrific at best. No wonder they wore masks. I always thought it was because of the stinky feet. The girls were thrilled though and felt all grown up with their french tipped nails which lasted about eight hours.

I've always been more concerned with what I can do with my hands and feet...and has turned out to be quite a lot.

A few years ago when they were building a new Sports Academy here in Newnan, the landscapers had tons and tons of sod scraps piled up by a curb. I asked the foreman if I could have them and he said sure. It took me six trunk loads in my car but hauled them all home to cover a bare patch in my front yard , about a twenty square foot area. I pieced them all together and watered it every day.

...BAM!

About ten years ago when they were building a new subdivision up the road from us did the same thing there, hauling home about twenty trunk loads in my Passat and covered the bare dirt hill beside my house, about a fifty foot square area.

My feet may not be pretty but work pretty well.

Here's the thing. I love working in the yards but in the hot summer heat of the south do it in my tattered Levi shorts I've had  for thirty years or some of Massey's old Guard shorts, a bathing suit top (luckily am a 32A) and flip flops.

I dress for success and successful I have been.

When Tim moved to Texas over a year ago, everything here at the house fell on me. The gas company left a note on my door that we (now I) needed to remove the ivy and weeds covering our gas meter so they could read it.

Bam!! (once again)

The entire end of our house was covered but after two days of hacking and hauling had the whole side cleared.

Granted it took a toll on my hands and feet but felt wonderful to come home down our street and see how much of a difference a little sweat could make.

Dang! This girl did need a manicure so I bought a little stick cuticle trimmer and got busy.

Maybe I got a little too busy. The bandage is covering where I also slit my finger open on a broken wine glass at work.

My husband may be living a thousand miles away but my best buddy was still here and rode him like crazy.

I love my Johnny Dear!

I maintain a pretty nice yard, about an acre. I also cut my elderly neighbors yard next door, almost another acre. For the past six years have also picked up trash, cut and weed eated the front of our subdivision, about half an acre.

As Jed Clampett would slowly say "Pitiful...just pitiful."

This past Christmas a fellow co worker asked if she could take me for a mani/pedi as a present and finally agreed. The Holiday Season is crazy for everyone so decided to wait until after the first of the year.

So yesterday it finally happened. I went for my first ever mani/pedi. We decided to make it a girls day and my daughter (who works with us both) came along as well.

Talk about a fish out of water in the water!

I did have the good sense to shave my legs before going, knowing they would be exposed. Otherwise would have never happened... until shorts season.

I was confused from the time we all three walked in, especially with the other two having done this mani times before. (small pun intended)

Of course all the employees were Asian but the place smelt okay and looked clean, relieving my initial apprehension.

"You peek you colla" was the first thing they said to me? Confused again, my daughter told me to pick what color polish I wanted.

They had three chairs together for us and I sat down first. Good thing, mine took much longer than theirs.

I kinda felt like I was in a sweat shop but no one else appeared to feel that way so went with it.

I admitted to the woman assigned to me that had never had a manicure or pedicure. She looked at me like I was crazier than I am and told me to "soak feet" so I did.

Actually felt pretty wonderful. They had massage chairs so bonus points my aching back got some free loving too.

The foot part went okay until she filed my hooves with her little hand held cheese grater. I was relaxing and grooving to the free back massage from the chair when she tapped on my leg to show me her grater filled with about a quarter cup of dead skin. I could have done without seeing that but reinforced my decision in going at all.

Then she sat a little dish full of liquid on the arm of my chair. My daughter had to tell me what to do. Immediately made me think of the old Madge the manicurist commercials.

Here's where the story gets really good.

My daughter sitting next to me whips out her phone and shows my hand surgeon (nothing less than) the picture of where I tried to trim my own cuticles.

My little Asian surgeon looked at the photo, literally stopped what she was doing, dropped my hand, peered at the photo, then at me and quizzically asked "Why??"

It took her thirty minutes longer to finish with me than Massey or Ana's treatment took.

I finally got presented with the ridiculous flat flip flops and wandered behind my surgeon as she led me to the front of the shop. She wanted me to sit at a table by the front door for some reason and finally Massey told me it was a drying table. The little woman pointed to a ledge below and said to put my feet there. I put them on top of the ledge and once again shook her head (she did that a lot with me) saying "No! Under, under !!!"

Needless to say Massey and Ana got quite the kick out of all my faux pas but the end result was actually amazing.

It was the nicest thing anyone has done for me in quite a while and thoroughly enjoyed it after my initial embarrassment of how naive I am about all this girly stuff. My dear friend and co worker  even paid ten extra bucks for my surgeon to take care of the corns on my pinkie toes which my surgeon carefully pointed out with her little scalpel after first looking at my hooves.

I tipped my surgeon an extra ten bucks, she certainly earned it.

We all piled back into my car laughing, with me shuffling behind in my flat redunkulous flip flops so as not to muss my now phenomenally looking tootsies and went to lunch together, with my equally awesome daughter paying for our meal.

Sometimes you need to step away from your frenetic life and treat yourself . Most excellent for me, I got treated!

I haven't had that much fun since doing something with my own sister who is also totally awesome.

My final point being that blessings usually and almost always exceed your misfortunes but sometimes tend to be easily overlooked when concentrating on the negative.

As Bob Dylan so eloquently put it...

It's been a struggle,  no joke. I also realize how very many people have watched us struggle and totally seen us through.

Our times ... my family's times, they are a changing and mostly because of love  from so many others.

Once again blessed and always grateful....

COTTON