I’ve been absent online, some due to work and life, but mostly due to the Olympics.
The Olympics are like a national holiday around here – all rules about screens and TV watching go out the window as we have our television on basically all the time any one of us is conscious. We even record the overnight coverage, so we have something to watch during the four hours a day that the CBC isn’t actually showing Olympics or talking about Olympics or comparing this Olympics to years past with moving vignettes. It gets to the point where our kids are bored – they wander off to do crazy stuff like read a book – while Sir Monkeypants and I remain glued. I admit it, I’m a junkie, and I do not care to reform myself.
Of course, Olympic season means flag time. We are reaching an apex with the winter Olympics, where we have already made almost all of the flags of winter participating countries, but there were still a few obscure ones left to make, and one of the new ones even made the leader board (Lichtenstein, who sent like, four athletes to this games and has two medals, good on ya, Lichtenstein!).
I love, love, love the flag making. Here’s a photo montage. It makes me happy.
Last night while watching Olympic coverage (of course), I got into a conversation with Sir Monkeypants about Women Athletes Who Wear Makeup. I put it out there that perhaps curling isn’t a sport so much as a game, because the girls are always done up with full makeup and hair. Rachel Homan, the Canadian skip of the women’s team, even curls with her hair loose and out, not in a ponytail or anything, which I can’t even do while wiping the kitchen table, let alone a “sport.”
But then Sir Monkeypants pointed out that almost ALL the female athletes, regardless of sport, were wearing makeup while competing. We looked at close up shots of the Canadian women’s hockey team, for example – they are wearing helmets with face guards, but when you look closely yup, almost all of them have on eyeliner and a little foundation under there. Later we watched some bobsleigh and the women had on makeup when they took off their helmets, and then we watched some downhill skiing and again, most of the women were fully made up when they took their goggles off at the finish line.
Now, I get that you are about to be on international television. And perhaps you are such a devoted wearer of makeup that you would not think of appearing in public without a little eyeliner and mascara, at least.
But as a total non-wearer of makeup, I was surprised. Isn’t it uncomfortable? Doesn’t it make you sweatier, or smear all over? Doesn’t it drip into your eyes and cause them to water, possibly causing you to make a medal-losing error?
I guess I just don’t associate makeup with sports. What do you think?
Lastly, aside from watching and discussing and leaderboarding the Olympics, here’s something else making me happy right now:
These two Royal Daulton teacups, scored at the Value Village for $2 each. I am not a regular at the Value Village, as I am not the kind of person who enjoys the Thrill Of the Shopping Hunt, and the big score that can sometimes come from there. I’m more of a “Dammnit, I need a shirt, I will go to the mall, grit my teeth, and buy the first thing I touch that is possibly my size” kind of person.
However, I popped in last week looking for some Girl Guide supplies, and there these beauties were. Little Miss Sunshine loves them too. We like to drink whatever we are having with dinner – usually water – out of them. We’re fancy pants Olympics watchers, we are.
TurtleHead 
We’ve watched a lot of Olympics too when home, the athletes are inspiring!
And your flags. I said this last year, I’ll say it again: awesome!!
Regarding makeup: I wear it all the time, I wear it to teach yoga and to the gym. I just don’t feel like myself without it, tbh. I know that probably sounds vain and it probably is but *shrug*
I think if you’re an athlete and you’re wearing makeup, you probably have some good waterproof stuff. I mean, sweat is going to drip, that’s going to happen, but if you have a decent waterproof mascara that won’t affect things.
I don’t think it’s vain, I think it’s kind of awesome. I have a long history of hate when it comes to makeup – I just can’t seem to keep it on my face! It vanishes or smears. It’s such a mystery to me. The fact that these women can compete at top levels AND look as good as they want to impresses me.
I think I need to take some makeup classes. GAH.
I use waterproof mascara, maybe eyeliner, but not always. The waterproof mascara works best bec I wear contact lenses.
How do they manage to look so fresh though? It’s a mystery to me.
This actually reminds me of the hockey/ringette photo day of the team. Usually they take photos before a game for the annual team photo, so everyone doesn’t look sweaty. With the girls, it’s kind of funny how all the moms run after them with hairbrushes. The boys…moms wouldn’t dare…and this is over the ages!
Photos after a win, when they’re all sweaty looking? Boys don’t care, they love helmet hair it seems. But no one really notices, they see the huge smile, the medals.
When girls win? The first thing they do when they take their helmets off is quickly adjust their hair. They have equally huge smiles and all that, but there is definitely a hint of ‘planning to pose’ that doesn’t appear on the boys side so much. (So this is experience from age 5 to now, girl is 10 and boy almost 13)
Lesson #1: don’t touch your face
I love the flags. I love the cups.
I don’t wear much make-up anymore, but I used to wear it always. I once called my dad to come get me at school because I’d been in drizzle on the way to school and had racoon eyes and needed to start over. I remember that feeling (even though it’s foreign to me now) of it being sort of impossible to Not Wear Make-up. It would have felt like not wearing a bra, or not wearing my glasses, or wearing pajamas to school (in the days long before that became something people sometimes do)—not impossible, but super uncomfortable and weird and wrong. I remember figuring out make-up I could wear while swimming. SWIMMING!! And I remember it didn’t bother my face to have it on, which is weird now that it bothers my face a LOT to have it on: I tried wearing eye shadow and mascara and undereye-concealer for a date with Paul and had to wash my face in soap and hot water to get rid of that unpleasant feeling. But it USED to feel totally neutral.
I can’t ride the bus to work without sweating makeup off, I don’t get it
I can’t say what the athletes are doing, but a big motivation for me to slab on makeup each day (other than because my skin conditions are scary) is to control sweat and oil. That’s right… *control* it. Without makeup, within an hour my face is a greasy mess, and that’s just if I’m sitting quietly at home!
The key is wearing the right makeup: not just sweatproof eye makeup, but sweatproof foundation, which requires financial investment because you can’t get such things at the drug store.
In case anyone is interested, I wear Studio Fix pressed foundation powder by MAC, and it is amazing. Totally life changing. Way too drying for any face but the greasiest or faces. As a bus, it’s super easy to apply: just swipe it on like powder!
Oh! And another thing about the MAC pressed foundation is hat you can keep applying it on top of existing foundation, MAC or not. You can even swipe it over a sweaty, oily face, and it fixes things right up! I tell ya… AMAZING.