My friends really liked these nails. I did them freehand with just the brushes from the nail polish. Lover liked them too. He said it looked like fire on my fingertips 🙂
Tag: self-improvement
Becoming a Romance Heroine: New Shoes!
I’m getting sucked into the cult of shoes. I was far too excited when I received these shoes from Lover before our date Saturday night:
You can’t see it, but the shoes zip at the heal which is strangely sexy.
Have you been shopping for your summer shoe wardrobe? Tell me what you bought!
xoxoxoxx
Evelyn
Becoming a Romance Heroine: Nails
In Corporate Fire, Grace is OCD and can’t stand to have even one fingernail with chipped polish:
Grace noticed the chip in the “sassy red” nail polish on her index finger as she removed the bicycle clips from her pants. The compulsion to slam her hand on the elevator’s emergency stop button pulsed all the way to her fist, but she clenched it at her side—the bells would draw too much attention. She’d ride to her floor, wait for the door to open and close and go back down. It’d only take what, another half hour to bike back to her apartment? Then she’d be late.
I’m not at her level of obsession, but I have been enjoying doing my nails in different ways recently. This weekend I had fun with stickers! Nail stickers are an easy way to make your nails pop. I’ve had lots of compliments on them, and I felt extra attractive on my date because of them.
Becoming a Romance Heroine: Yoga
Dear Readers,
I do intend to finish Becoming a Fantasy Romance Heroine soon! I didn’t like one of my pictures and wanted to retake it. Please enjoy getting back to contemporary times for a bit 🙂
It seems to me that contemporary romance heroines take Yoga or Pilates. I don’t know anything about Pilates, but I have a couple of acquaintances who teach Yoga–one teaches Hot Yoga even. Yoga or Pilates, the point is a romance heroine keeps herself in good shape. Please note that I say “good shape” and not super thin or model perfect.
I have always considered myself to be fit, but definitely not super thin or model perfect. Between the ages of 3-18 I took some form of dance lesson every year, mostly tap but I dabbled in ballet and jazz. That was a great foundation for my adult health. And for quite a bit, as an adult, I kept myself very active.
But recently, not so much. For the first time I have slipped over from “healthy weight” to “overwieght.” I’m not very far over the line, but I haven’t told you the worst.
The worst is I have the stupidist injury ever: from sitting on my butt all the time writing and from sleeping on the same side every night, I injured my T-band which is a band that runs from hip to knee. When my doctor prescribed physical therapy as my treatment, I thought I’d be there with senior citizens recovering from hip replacement. There were a few senior citizens, but mostly there were super athletes who over extended their muscles doing their super exercises and making me feel super pathetic.
Fortunately, my trainer was super cute 🙂
So now my physical therapy is over, and I feel much better. But I’m still a little overweight and my leg strength is definitely not what it used to be. I am not a romance heroine 😦
This morning, I took out the old Wii Fit board, dusted it off and started up the program. I know it’s so 2008, but it’s a good start. Unfortunately, my scores have really dropped from when I did it the first couple of years I had it–especially my Yoga scores. The only good report was I’m still 4 years younger in Wii Fit age than my real age.
My goal is to lose 15 pounds in three months and to build up my balance and strength again. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. Wish me luck!
Becoming a Fantasy Romance Heroine: Jewelry
Maybe after a fantasy romance heroine has slayed the fearsome monster threatening the kingdom, she’ll get to wear one of these:
And win the hand of him:
But while in the midst of her quest, a fantasy romance heroine must have practicality as well as beauty. Maybe even something with magic. One of my first aquisitions for my fantasy jewelry collection was this lovely butterfly ring:
I wore it out gambling once and the blackjack dealer wanted to do a side bet for it!
And while at the renaissance fair, my lover bought me a dragon earcuff. It’s my hope that a sexy shape shifting dragon made it, but don’t tell my lover that 😉
It went great with my hair:
Do you have any fantasy jewelry? I’d love to see a pic.
Becoming a Romance Fantasy Heroine: Hair
Princesses, of course, get fabulous hairstyles:
But a heroine in a story needs something practical. I always felt sorry for Rapunzel and figured she’d shave her head the first chance she got. Notice how in the latest Disney fairytale, the heroines get simple hair: one braid or two for Elsa and Anna. Easy to manage.
And in the latest reality/fantasy TV show The Quest, the heroines look practically perfect even though they battle the forces of darkness. They don’t let their fashion suffer!
When I went to the renaissance fair with my lover this summer, I found an awesome tool for hairstyles that I love to use even in reality.
It has dozens of ways to form the metal rings, and it keeps your hair back in a bun or a ponytail so you can fight the villian without hair blowing in your face.
Of course, since I was at the fair, I also needed to get my hair done in braids with flowers and glitter sprinkled all over:
What would your ideal hairstyle be if you were a romance fantasy heroine?
Becoming a Romance Heroine: Shoes
I will probably revisit shoes several times throughout this journey because I just don’t understand the fascination. When I watched Sex in the City, I was often boggled by Carrie going into debt so many times over shoes. Perhaps it’s how I was reared. I had one pair of school shoes, one pair of dress shoes and one pair of sandals. The irony is my mom was actually a secret shoe-aholic, and when my dad started earning more money, she slowly garnered herself a closet full of shoes.
In any case, romance heroines also seem to love shoes, and so I must go on this quest to discover why.
Recently, I had a chat with my lover about heels, which went something like this:
Lover: “Why don’t you wear heels more often?”
Me: “Because they hurt my freaking feet. Besides, I find sandals to be sexier, especially if the toe nails are painted.”
There are two things wrong with my statement. The first problem is, if you read yesterday’s post, you know I don’t keep my nails painted. The second problem is, I hadn’t bought my new sandals for the summer yet, and so what he saw were these:
I know, right? Horrible.
Later that afternoon, I got a phone call from him. “I think I found a compromise. What’s your shoe size?” When he returned, he had a pair of sandals that were heels. I thought maybe he had missed the part where I told him that heels hurt my feet, but these were wedge heels and strangely more comfortable than spikes. Here they are with the classic red nail polish from yesterday:
My lover really likes it when I wear these shoes. He says I walk with more confidence. I wonder if the confidence comes from being taller or if when I look down at my toe nails painted a pretty red and my foot wrapped in cute straps I feel sexy?
Becoming a Romance Heroine
I’m a very casual, love-me-as-I-am kind of person. Most writers I meet are. Maybe it’s the area of the US I live in, but we wouldn’t win beauty contests. I have always been much more interested in the stories in my head than my outward appearance. Not that I’m a slob by any means, but I don’t do things like keep my nails polished or spend an hour on my hair or care about the latest fashion.
I also believe in romance for all, so my characters don’t tend to be the typical alphas that you might run across in a romance novel. In Through the Paintings, the heroine is a baker and barista who wakes up at three in the morning to get her cafe open and has no time for fashion. Her soon to be lover is an artist–a gorgeous one yes, but has too much of a creative drive to be the typical domineering or broody hero.
But the romance book I’m currently reading has what I consider to be the penultimate stereo types of romance characters. The woman is independently wealthy, loves shoes, does things like waxing her body and teaches yoga. The man is a broody ex-movie star who buys her tons of stuff including a room full of roses and rents an entire restaurant just for the two of them one night. I won’t name the book because I don’t much care for it. It has no tension: it’s just a series of dates with sex scenes that are kind of phoning it in. But it is a New York Times best seller, so obviously these are characters that people really enjoy reading about.
I’m curious. What is it like to be a romance heroine? My current lover is much more of an Alpha male than I usually date, and though he has definitely past the “love-me-as-I-am” part, I know he would really enjoy if I dressed up more often. He even recently bought me a new pair of shoes which other women might squeal over. So this summer, I’m going to become a romance heroine. I’ll post each week the things I’ve done to improve my appearance along with how one of my dates went–if I think it was better or not with the new looks.
In fact, I’ve already started with my nails. I’m doing the classic red look this week:
Come back tomorrow to see the shoes 🙂
Evelyn Aster 