What do you get when you combine hair, sugar, and Moscoto wine? Duh, spa night. Particularly with girlfriends you haven’t seen in what feels like forever.
FOR-ev-er. For-EV-er.
Nevermind, Sandlot reference. There are some words that I can’t say without thinking of a movie/show. Like I’ve mentioned before, ‘fickle’ (I Love Lucy with Bill Harden – I’m fickle?); ‘Occurs’ (The Last of the Mohicans – No matter what occurs, I WILL find you.); and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (Mary Poppins – …even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious). That last one comes up quite a bit, believe it or not.
Anyway, so L & A came down for the weekend. Upon arrival, R uncorked a couple bottles of wine and then immediately went to bed….leaving us in the living room to talk until, wait for it, 5 o’clock in the morning. Look out kids – Mama’s gettin’ caraaaazy up in he-uh!
I can’t remember the last time I stayed up that late. Oh, wait, yes I can.. the first week with Ruthie. This time around was infinitely better, though. The hours flew by, discussing jobs, babies, memories…
The next day we ate breakfast, chit-chatted for a few more hours and then drove to Fayetteville to pick up our 5K race packets that we never ended up going to. We had priorities: sleep.
When we returned…
A teeny spa area had been set up. I looked at R and smiled.
He follows directions well! [For anyone who cares about how sexy R and my conversations are, we spent a good portion of this morning discussing when to use ‘good’ and ‘well’. We decided that the state of being is good, and doing a task is well. Please correct me if there are any exceptions, my fellow grammar freaks.]
So, yes, he follow directions well.
because I left him details on how to set it up. Yes, I am that cool. I even erased one rectangle because it was not proportionate to the coffee table. How R snagged such a catch as me, we’ll never know.
The excitement of seeing the table was short-lived, because we were exhausted. So we took a nap. I came out only when I heard hooting owls in the living room. A had found some background spa music. I mean, when aren’t owls relaxing?
So I ran out there and yelled, bootcamp style, at them to get in relaxed positions. NOW!
Nothing like stressing someone out beforehand. But L happily obliged with the foot soak.
And A, who I’m sure is ecstatic about this photo, started in on her toenails.
I used my almond meal/honey/jojoba oil scrub (Told ya I was gray)…
…and then it got serious, folks. I’d been wanting to try a sugar wax recipe I saw on youtube. This was a big deal to me. Because even though I have a high pain tolerance (for the most part), waxing is my achilles’ heel. The last time I had my legs done, I was living in Spain and spent the majority of the time trying to yell in spanish that waxing is akin to corsets and will be written about in future history books on how women torture themselves for beauty.
I gave up after trying to think of the word for ‘waxing’ and just started whimpering. Big baby.
This would be my redemption.
Before the girls came down, I made a couple batches of wax. R was impressed and said that was unlike me. I said Thank You without realizing it really wasn’t much of a compliment.
Here’s the recipe. Get ready, because it’s extremely difficult:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup water
Have I lost you yet?
Mix it all together and then throw into a pot until boiling.
Oh yeah, if possible, have a candy thermometer handy. Would you know that I had just picked that bad boy up at an estate sale a couple weeks prior? And R says I only bring home junk. Hmph.
After you get it to a boil, reduce the heat to the low.
I don’t know what ‘low’ looks like on a gas stove, but this is what my flame looked like.
Here’s where the trickiest part begins. You want the mixture to be slightly thicker than honey and a dark amber color. But watch out! It will literally turn to candy if you let it cook for too long.
Here it is light.
Darker.
More Darker. The temp on the thermometer should be between 240 – 260.
The first batch I made was left on until close to 260. The second was taken off around 240 and they both work fine.
In fact, it worked great. So well in fact, that I made loud exclamations on each pull of the cloth.
Okay, I’ll admit. I did two strips on my leg and then was dunzo. Both A & L were champs and did several areas.
I was intending on waxing the rest of my legs at my parents’ house and each night would find a new excuse… usually a word that started with HG and ended with TV bailed me out. When we got home yesterday, I took a look at my now extremely scary-looking legs and by golly, those two strips were still bare after a full week! That, coupled with R’s observation of how whiney I was: “Did A & L even do the waxing because they didn’t make any noise,” I am now finished with both lower legs.
I don’t know why everyone made such a big deal out of it.
You big babies.
what an awesome post carrie!! wow. i’m seriously impressed at your bravery and creativeness. i also got a much needed belly laugh upon seeing your diagram, especially “pack up dangly toy thing.” hilarious! thanks for sharing!
Ha. Thanks – nothing like a little dorkiness to brighten your day!
Love it! I wish the ‘good’ and ‘well’ conversation would have come up in our hours of talking…a good portion of 2011 was spent by Kyle and me correcting each other on the use of these words! This blog post might help a bit, if you haven’t yet come across it: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/good-versus-well.aspx