Sunday: strawberries, storms, golf etc.

T. and R. did mini golf, battle cage (baseball / softball pitching), golf driving range and bumper boats at Max's in Tyngsboro. They had ice cream while waiting out a storm that included hail.

A. and I went Northborough, to Tougas Family Farms, for strawberry picking. I probably got way too many. They were not letting people out into the fields when we arrived because of the storm, but once it passed we went out. We also got fudge and a hat for A. in the little store. This is apparently the preferred strawberry U Pick for T.'s sitter and her family.

Sunbasket arrived and I had the asian crunch salad for dinner. Along with a lot of strawberries, some chocolate sauce and a pastry shell. A. had the grilled cheese and fries from Nancy's airport cafe that she did not eat last night. Also, fudge and strawberries.

Look at the Rabbit Hole I Just Found

A little back story. Once upon a time, I was born into a family of JW’s. My mother was born into a Mennonite community in Canada, and 3 divorces later, her mother converted to JW in time for my mother to marry my father, whose parents had converted before he was born.

Yes, do the math. 3rd generation. Not easy to extricate from that, especially given the number of relatives in the extended mix still in other countries because they never came to the US. And, Mennonites. I have left out the best part there: _Holdeman_ Mennonites. You may laugh.

While the sect my mother was born into continues to require head coverings for women and is rabidly opposed to make up (among other things), my mother raised me to believe that leaving the house as an adult woman without lipstick on was basically equivalent to leaving the house completely naked. It did not take. I mean, I did wear makeup for a lot of years, I also didn’t when I did not feel like it, and when there was no enforcement (given the enforcement was the snarky assholes at the Kingdom Hall and my mother, basically, I got to college and suddenly and drastically reduced the amount of beauty product I went through).

People who met me late in college / post college were often surprised the first time they saw me fully made up, dressed up, shaved, hosiery, heels, etc. They had assumed, as a nerd girl, that I did not know how (and a few idiots suggested they Help Me with a makeover. I sighed, demo’d the kit, displayed the results, suffered through the But Why Don’t You Always inquisition, then got out the noxcema, took it all back off and got comfy again).

Now, in midlife, I am really enjoying a friend from junior high (and thereafter) who sells Younique. She comes up with the best stuff, and I have bought a little, but mostly, I still just do not bother, except for an occasional date night when I Feel Fancy or someone is getting married or whatever.

Anyway. I am always thinking about where people spend money, and how clutter develops and Stuff and the Human Relationship to Stuff because that shit is just fascinating to me. I got to wondering if the beauty product consuming community had people doing Depth Year or Product Diets or whatever.

Yes.

Yes, they do.

There is a subreddit called Pan Porn. For real.

I had to call my Priestess to discuss this with her, because, with her mad organizing skillz, and her occasional makeup use (troubled, as mine is, by massive skin reactivity and allergies) meant I would not have to explain anything extraneous to her. I _did_ have to explain panning (I had to look it up, too), but she got it pretty much right away, too.

We are really not at all sure what to make of any of this, honestly.

I will observe that there are some clear implications for how difficult it is to Not Use beauty products for at least some fraction of the population. And anything that is hard to avoid using inevitably generates a certain amount of buying and hoarding without using. On that level, panning, and a subreddit devoted to loving photographic documentation of Look, I Got to the Pan Bottom of This Eye Shadow Color was probably inevitable.

While we are all busy telling ourselves that we cannot afford mental health support for some or all of our population, I just want to note that a lot of these products where people never got to see the bottom of the pan cost dozens of dollars ... and that is not the expensive end of things. The people doing retail therapy with beauty products would probably save money with a dozen sessions of CBT with a competent professional.

ETA: What an amazing rabbit hole!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/depotting-makeup-beauty-hack_n_568c2acee4b014efe0dc10c9

Basically a pretty standard personal organization tactic, but for makeup containers.

Weekly makeup baskets, project panning, just all kinds of interesting things. This is a crowd that combines a lot of the numbers of book collections, with the ruthless willingness to throw shit away (or inflict it on friends and family) of Old Timey decluttering.

http://reverserouge.com/faq

Basically, adding up the value of what you used up. I wonder if anyone is doing an eat your pantry version of this?

ETAYA: There are a lot of really thoughtful posts about panning projects, weekly makeup baskets, etc. It is clear that this is really all about artistic expression for many people, and it is a lot of fun reading them figure out how to best collect and make use of their supplies.