Do you ever see something at work or at home, or realize something about yourself, and say, “I never expected…” — like, “I never expected to like Brussels sprouts” or “I never expected to have 23 cats”?
Some things make you go “Hmm…” Others, like the things on this list I started yesterday in my journal, make you go “Who’d a thunk it?”
Here are nine (beauty and otherwise) things I never expected to see or do in my life. If you feel like joining in, please share yours in the comments (and you don’t have to list nine). 🙂
I never expected…
1. To have my wardrobe revolve around my cat
I noticed the other day while looking in my closet that I pick a lot of my clothes based on how well I think they’ll disguise black, orange and gray tabby fur. For instance, I don’t have a single pair of white pants, and I always think about how much Tabs is shedding at any given time before pulling out an outfit to wear.
That’s weird, right?
2. To always have a pair of tiny tweezers in my purse
Why? Because I have chin hairs like mushrooms that just sort of appear out of nowhere in the blink of an eye. Where do they come from? What purpose do they serve? Are they an omen of some kind? And why do they always, ALWAYS pop up in the middle of the day?
Thank goodness for Tweezerman. Without those tiny tweezers I could be walking around with a goatee.
3. Getting older to be so hard
To quote my oh-so-eloquent optometrist, “Growing older isn’t for wimps.” This, she said to me as she prescribed stronger glasses.
4. My metabolism to slow down
As a kid I assumed I’d always be able to eat whatever, whenever I wanted to. I never realized that someday there’d be a price to pay for ice cream, donuts, Nutella and cake.
5. To love blue eyeshadow
I can’t believe I used to be scared to wear a color I now love so much.
I decided to give it a try after reading an article about complementary colors in a magazine. With a color wheel, the article suggested different shades for different eye colors, like blue shades for brown-eyed girls, orange-based colors (and earthy chocolates, bronzes and golds) for blue-eyed babes, plums and lavenders for green-eyed gals.
It took some practice and time to get accustomed to seeing my eyes in blue, but now it’s one of my favorite eyeshadow shades.
6. To look down one day and not recognize my feet
There’s always toe socks…
I wish someone had pulled me aside years ago and told me to apply sunscreen to my feet. Seriously, old-lookin’ feet sneak up on you like THAT.
7. To be tempted to write a novel
I’ve never thought of myself as a fiction writer, but the idea of writing a young adult book has been like a pebble in my shoe. I try to ignore it, but it won’t go away.
8. To live among gangs of wild turkeys
I’m just a city girl living in a small, turkey-filled town. I miss the city’s urban energy, but I’ve also grown to love my turkey neighbors and other small-town charms.
9. To be an optimist
After getting knocked down by life a few times in my late teens and early 20s, I went through a long period when I wondered if I wasn’t destined for misery. That sounds dramatic, I know, but it really felt that way at the time. Finally, though, when things did eventually turn around, I came out of that awful, rough patch a more resilient person than I was before, with a new, more positive perspective. As corny as it sounds, every half empty glass is also half full.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
OMG, for #6? Cutest socks ever!
Karen!
I lol on this post!
Please let me know if you ever do write that YA book! I love Young Adult fiction! Especially that by new writers, it is nice to have someones voice come through the page. All the good ones are able to achieve this, and it is complately inspiring how someone can use letters on a page to express SO many things, and to make you feel them. I LOVE that!
#2, what the heck is that about I want to know? I am amazed that out of nowhere there is a pesky little hair that wasn’t there the day before. It drives me crazy.
I like this!
1) I never expected to be someone’s mother
2) I never expected to like McDonald’s again after watching Super Size Me. ( blame #1)
3) I never expected to be living back in my small hometown. I can’t say I like it at all and I’m year on 7 here:( I miss city life so much it hurts.
4)I never expected to like water so much…I can’t drink much anything else
5) I never expected my liquor tolerance to lower. lol! One glass of wine= a sleepy me
6) I never expected to be crafty….I’ve DIYing lately and everything has came out really great!
7) I never expected to like reading magazines via digital copy.
8) I never expected to have clear skin. I can’t believe skin is so clear now.
9) I never expected to be obsessed with drugstore beauty. I remember when I only went to CVS to get a prescription filled and pick up a magazine.
I love that picture of Tabs looking at the band of turkeys – with that ominous and funny caption too!
ooh Karen, that is a good tip about applying sunblock to your feet! Also, your hands! And neck! And arms to avoid sun spots!
I can totally relate to #1! In fact, I even bought furniture to match the cats! 😉
Totally with ya on the cat hair/clothing thing. I barely own anything black because of Sam & Chewy’s orange/ white fur!
Nobody told me that either – the sunblock for feet part – love the socks and the frog 😀
Karen, if you want to try your hand a writing a novel in a no-pressure-it’s-okay-if-you-totally-suck kind of format, you should really check out National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). Basically, it’s a challenge wherein you write 50K words of original fiction in 30 days without worrying about how good, bad, or awesome your work may be.
I’ve been a writer my entire life, but NaNo is the only reason I’ve ever finished a fictional story of any length. It’s all about setting goals for yourself (which you’re obviously AWESOME at) and chucking your inner editor in the bin when you start.
Please, please, please considering joining our crazy community. We even have a club for cat ladies 🙂 You’ve got obvious talent–that’s the reason I come back here every single day!
And now there is also CampNaNoWriMo. Writing a novel in either July or August <3
If you wrote a book, I’d definitely buy it!
Oh, I HATE the wild turkeys in Davis. HATE HATE HATE. They are creepy. They like to hang out in a field I sometimes go past on my morning run on the way to an overpass. I’ve seen them stalk people before. I’ve seen them in that field, turned around, and nixed the overpass, totally ruining my mileage plan for the day, just to avoid them. I fear them. HATE. HATE. I need a DOG to run with. Then I wouldn’t fear the turkeys. *shudder*
Thank you for being my trukey-phobic twin! I thought I was the only one!
Thank you for outing yourself as my turkey-phobic twin! I thought I was the only one!
That would be my worst nightmare…I am TERRIFIED of birds and bird-like creatures!
OMG! I have to carry tweezers too, b/c of those pesky chin hairs I hate them. It’s like they grow in five minutes, because I swear it wasn’t there when I checked.
I LOL’d at #6, mostly because I have a few little plastic froggies like that too. Does it squeak? I gave one to my dog, and she loves it!
Speaking of my dog, my clothes always have dog fur all over it. She sleeps in my hamper.
And I agree with #9. I always thought I was more of a pessimist/realist, but I’m really a hopeless optimist.
Every time you post a picture of Outremer, my wallet dies a little inside. And I resist running to the Nordstrom NARS counter. Is it even out yet? Does it matter?
I never expected to…
…enjoy being a mother.
…be the size I was in high school AFTER having a baby!
…be married at 27.
…also coordinate my clothing with having a cat. No sequins, delicate lace, whites…ha!
…stop reading as much as I did in college. Sigh.
…enjoy pulling weeds. Hey, it’s therapeutic!
…stay in Cleveland.
Y’know, I’m having a hard time coming up with more…I suppose that means I’ve led a mostly content, predictable life. 🙂
omg! my bf commented on his old feet yesterday.. how funny.
Oh! Fun.
1) I never expected to marry my best friend’s ex-boyfriend. *pauses to extend the awkward silence and skeptical looks* Its not what most people think! To keep it short, everyone is friends. She was even the bridesmaid.
2) To own a Merc.
3) To not know exactly what I’m doing after 6 years of university.
4) To live with a long hair cat. A reccomended experience! You haven’t properly lived unless you’ve fallen asleep with face burried in the luxurous coat of a longhair.
To #7 I say: DO IT! I love your writing style, and I can only imagine what you’d write in a novel. I’d by it the second it hit the shelves, and I’m usually a wait-for-the-library-to-get-it kinda girl.
Hey Karen,
I never expected I would to marry and settle down so easily.
To cook so well
To take a post graduate degree
I would be able to live alone and be happy 😉 (now that my husband is away in NY and I live in AZ all by myself :))
There was a typo –
I meant to write :
I never expected I would marry and settle down so easily.
Gosh !! I better sleep.. I am tired..
Oh my god, I never thought about old feet! I’m so paranoid about my hands looking old, but never thought about feet! Aaackk!
Ooh, girl, do I ever hear you on the chin hair and cat fur issues!
Here are the things I never expected:
1) To be perfectly fine and at peace with being single.
2) That being and only child and having an elderly parent to care for would be SO HARD!
3) That I would ever wear wild colored nail polish (this week is turquoise)
4) That I would ever love eating sushi (that’s been fairly recent, in the last few years)
5) That I would ever end up sharing a home with my mother again (see #2)
6) To become completely and totally wrapped around a tiny, black furry paw, and love every minute of it!
Chin hairs, OMG!!! They do pop up in the blink of an eye! I’m gonna start carrying tiny tweezers in my purse now too, thanks for that idea!
And aging is hard! The little things like wrinkles popping up, excuuuuse me? Where did you come from crow’s feet??? And the tops of my hands, not the prettiest thing to look at. But with age comes wisdom, and that’s a plus, right?
…I have to start carrying tweezers in my purse too, not for my stray hairs but the Boyfriends!! he has this one extra-thick hair on his chin that annoys the heck out of him so whenever we see each other he asks me to pluck it out for him. I guess that’s love?
The metabolism bit is so true as well. I’m a hardcore chocolate fiend, I can consume an entire bag in one sitting… Needless to say I’ve had to try and kick that habit but I do allow myself to indulge once in a while.
You have the best posts. And chin hairs are the enemy.
I never thought that I would be in my 30s, out of work and living at my mom’s again. Things happen for a reason right?
I hear y’all on the chin hairs. Actually that’s one thing I never expected; my mum and older sister have some but I always thought I’d escaped that gene.
Then mid-20s Fing hormones kicked in. See also, “metabolism slowing down”.
I know what you mean about the cat hair! I have a tri-color girl (black orange and white), with thick, luxurious fur, so color coordinating with her is out! The first time I took her to the vet, I made the mistake of wearing a white t-shirt and she stress-shed on me so much that I could have been wearing a sweater. A tortie-colored sweater. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve bought any white clothing since.
LOL!!! I plan my wardrobe around my 2 German Shepherds so I know what you mean! I love your writing style so I definitely think you should write a YA novel. I think you would have a lot of success.
Agreed with #1 – I have a tricolor Cavalier, who is mostly white and black, and I definitely have to make adjustments to my wardrobe. I LOVE wearing white, and I have to be EXTRA careful wearing it around her. Whenever I’m laying on the couch with her or traveling like via car, where she is likely to sit on my lap, it’s gray all the way. It’s the only color I can wear that disguises her hair. No matter how much I furminate or vacuum, her hair is everywhere. Suggestions?
I never expected to be so lost after graduating college! I have no idea what I want to do or where. I can’t believe I actually graduated, I always thought I was prone to growing up.
**wasn’t prone
i love posts like this!
i never expected to be:
1. a crazy cat lady
2. a makeup addict
3. wearing tank tops outside the house
4. w/ the hubs
5. driving on the freeway
6. a Texan (LOL!)
7. do the job i currently do
8. a sports fan
9. loved, safe and secure. 🙂
I know what you mean about getting older. For me, getting older is hard because I want to accomplish a lot, so every year I say to myself “You’re a year older, hop to it!”. It’s one of the reasons I worked so hard to get into NYU and Columbia. I want to do things with my life, and be someone other than the mousey little lady that I think I am. As I get older I feel like I am losing time.
I never thought I’d become a makeup artist, or live with my boyfriend. When we first met, it was at work. I was helping him out, showing him the ropes, and I thought he was cute. Two and a half years later, we share an apartment and 2 cats. 🙂
Just yesterday I was talking to a friend about how hard it is to get older. The changes in your body, to your looks, your ability to be as agile as you once were…sigh. BUT, many of the things that are a struggle can be helped by exercise, diet, attitude, etc. But I still feel a twinge of pain when I hear younger women making fun of older women because I feel so much like a youngster on the inside. I still like the same things I did when I was younger, I still love to have fun, but now I am doing it in a middle-aged woman’s body, and that is one major thing for which I was not prepared.
Great post!!
I never expected:
1. that I would live in Philadelphia, or on the East Coast for that matter
2. that I work from home
3. that I would be obsessed with makeup
4. that I would love married life so much
That’s all I can think of for now.
That was great – I love these posts. 🙂 Mine are:
1. I’d have twins.
2. I’d have 3 cats at the same time.
3. To have anaphylaxis from an unknown shellfish allergy, when I’d eaten shellfish my whole life!
4. I’d EVER have a knee injury, let alone two.
5. To not have a flat tummy or really to have any excess weight at all. I guess, not to be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want without gaining weight.
6. I’d care about wrinkles or droopy eyelids (or drooping everything, for that matter!). 🙂
7. To still have the occasional skin issue as an adult.
8. That people would compliment me on my cooking.
9. To realize my body just can’t do what my mind thinks it can.
I now have two cats, one the same color as Tabs, and a BLACK one. Solution: I stopped caring about cat fur. Also, I found a wonderful cat-fur removing gizmo. I don’t use it, though.
My things I didn’t expect are a mixed bag:
1. To be living in London. I knew it was my place from the first time I saw it aged 13, but I never believed I would actually be living here. It’s still making me happy.
2. To be still single at 45.
3. That I would end up not having children. The realisation that at this point it is really not going to happen is recent, and still hurts quite a lot.
4. That I would go to Clarion West and people would call me an outstanding writer.
5. That, after Clarion, I would not end up becoming a writer anyway.
6. That I would feel so happy and contented in my life all the same.
7. That I would become an outgoing, extrovert, life of the party kind of person. That still boggles me a little.
Becoming a cat lady was always I think an inevitability, though…
I can totally relate to the hair/chin thing. A scar from my early teens is to blame for it! Ugh…
I also cannot leave home without tweezers…hate chin hairs! (definitely unexpected, as a kid I always saw my grandma waxing them).
I never expected…
-to be married at 24
-to be a divorcee at age 26
-to meet my best friend and soon-to-be husband two weeks after my ex-husband moved out
-and that being an adult is so not easy and sometimes not very fun…my dad always reminds me, “Remember when you wanted to be 18? And then you wanted to be 21?” Now I wish I was kid again!
And my fiance and I live with dog fur on our clothing. To us it’s a happy reminder of our pups when we pull a hair from our clothing and say, “Baby hair” or “Hulkie hair” 🙂 I love carrying them around with me wherever I go 🙂
And as for getting old… yeah, even just five years ago my eyelids were not so creased, and all those dark spots on my face weren’t there, and as for the white hairs…
But there are compensations. Mostly, I feel wise and happy, and you can take your supple skin and slim body for that and I’d still thank you for the exchange. I walked in the office today humming Summertiiiiiiime / And the living is eaaaaaaasy / Fish are jumping / and the cotton is hiiiiiiiigh… My co-worker next door was humming The Wall. Been there, mate. Know how it feels. 🙂
I am training as a counsellor and I am actually looking forward to more white hair, because I don’t look 45 and damn, I suffered all these years and I want the wise old woman respect that goes with them!
If your book is half as awesome as your lipglass then sign me up for a preordered copy 🙂
awww Karen very sweet 🙂 Writing a novel that is fab, Sign me up when the book comes out!
I’m sure tabs appreciates the Wild Turkey as much as my hubby likes to drink it lol 🙂
haha i couldnt stop laughing when i read about tweezer ,you wont believe karen i was trying to pluck my chin hair that too with my finger and thumb while reading this post,
lol thats some kind of gift to us from GOd :p
Karen, we’re sock buddies! I have those exact socks! (And now, additionally, the sage advice that I should include my feet in my rigorous sunscreen routine)
That’s awesome! I call the wild turkeys around my house the local gang too!
You would be an AMAZING novelist. Do it!!!!!!!
Love this post and the comments, made my day! Getting older is harder, but like one poster said with age comes wisdom & I really like that. I am so much more wiser & calmer now & a lot more “emotionally” mature. I would never want to go back to my 20’s & early 30’s, it was just such a mess.
& the chin hairs, what the heck is up with that?!? I never really thought about it until I saw a co-worker one day in daylight and she had all these blond hairs on her chin & neck too & I was like OMG & as soon as I got home I checked the mirror in bright day light and found a few stray hairs. Whew, at least I didn’t have a beard, LOL! Keeping tweezers in your purse is a must. 🙂
I never expected to have my whole house revolve around my cats! I only buy furniture I know my cats can’t ruin, and when I was buying my condo I was hoping to get it without carpet at all because my cats love to vomit:( My clothes are all covered with cat hair, so I have to go crazy with the lint roller whenever I leave the house. And I never expected my metabolism to drastically drop either! Things were going great until a few years ago, and now I can’t lose weight no matter how little I eat or how much I exercise!
Aww thanks Karen for the great post. It was heart warming in a much-needed way (today being a crappy, headache day). I’m pretty sure your novel would be awesome.
Your blog, your writing and seeing pictures of Tabs–obviously!–bring alot of fun & laughter into my not-so easy-not for wimps growing-old-adult age.
Thanks!
Love #9. I’m 22, experiencing quite the quarter-life crisis, and I have to constantly remind myself to just be happy. Though it feels like my life sucks now, I always hear the same thing from older people – that it gets better and you just have to keep pressing on.
I love toe socks I wear them fall and summer sometimes with flip flops. I have no shame. I agree with the growing older part. As I age it comes with little things…pain, eye sight fading, more set in my ways…I do feel I have grown into my grown womanhood though which is a good trade off.
OMG No. 9 is the one for me.
Because I’m in my middle 20s and life has knocked me down two times. So after about 6 months of complaining and feeling miserable, I can finally stand again and say What the hell !! haha
Thanks for sharing this Karen, you’re awesome 🙂