I really don’t like mornings. 

It doesn’t matter how much sleep I’ve gotten, when the alarm goes off, I’m still not ready to get up.  But I do. 

I shuffle down the hall to get the kids up, and then I shuffle to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, all with my eyes half closed.  I avoid turning on lights because they hurt my eyes so much.

Now comes the bad part.  At some point, I have to turn on the light and look at myself in the mirror.  As if mornings weren’t already bad enough, they get worse at this point. 

I just look at the image staring back and I can’t believe it’s me.  Some mornings it’s so bad, I gaze into the mirror and say, “This is going to take awhile.”

My husband walks past and just chuckles.  Men tread on thin ice when it comes to their women’s “morning look.”  The wise ones have learned early on that the response is never, “Yessirree, it’s going to be a marathon this morning, hon!”

Other things men shouldn’t say are, “Well, good luck anyway” and “Thank goodness for makeup, huh?”

And if they say, “You look fabulous, my darling,” we know they’re lying.

Men, it’s best to say nothing at all.

I have to laugh when the magazines say, “Natural is IN!”  Whoever writes these things hasn’t seen people like me in the morning.

Let’s just say for a minute we were forced to go “natural.”  If I couldn’t blow dry my hair, it would dry into a sort-of-wavy-sort-of-frizzy mop.  I’ve been around long enough to know this natural hairdo of mine will never be the style. 

If I couldn’t put any makeup on, the lovely blotches that have come with too much sun over the years would surely turn people’s heads.  I’d be stopped daily by people on the street and asked if I felt okay.

And the lips.  The older I get, the paler my lips get, and first thing in the morning they are nearly invisible.  My lipstick is very, very dear to me.

In other words, if I went “natural,” I’d look almost dead.

Next, I’d have to scratch the unnatural deodorant and let my real aroma fill the room.

Okay, so I’d smell dead, too.

No, “natural” is not for me.  So, I begin to tackle the task at hand and set in motion the amazing transformation that takes place each morning.  Considering what I begin with, I am amazed that the result looks like a live person.

I walk down the hall.  I pass my husband.

I hear him say to himself under his breath, “Thank goodness for makeup.”