A recycled angel and a whole new me

The last thing I did on Friday was to put a note to myself on the monitor. I forget everything, and I did not want to forget my appointment with Barbara Higgins. I meant to take a “Before” and “After” but I forgot that part. You see how I am.

So anyway, there I was, getting all gorgeous and catching up on the news. I admired the holiday decorations at the salon. Barbara says a lot of her customers go away for Christmas and don’t bother to put up a tree. They enjoy hers instead.

This was my favorite Higgins Original decoration.  She’s a recycled angel, made from an outdated Avon catalog. 

I’d forgotten that Barbara sells Avon on the side. She’s even made up special gift baskets, a whole wall of ’em.  (Keep that in mind when you’re thinking about the Gift Frenzy and dreading the trip into the Gauntlet of Commercialism on the other side of Traverse City.)

We traded stories of the Avon Lady coming to our houses when we were little. Her mom collected fancy Avon bottles. My mom liked the lotions and potions. The Avon Lady would give me a tiny little lipstick sampler in pale pink. I thought I was pretty hot stuff.

Barbara says 2011 will be the 125th anniversary of Avon, which got my little wheels spinning. I’ve been doing a lot of 125th anniversary stories, and they all end up coming back to my Civil War veterans.  Tell you what–if anyone in the entire country has an original sales package from the California Perfume Company (that’s what it was called in 1886), it’ll be Betty Beeby.  Her ancestors saved everything. 

So, by then I was all gorgeous and Barbara was signing me up for my next appointment.  I started taking pictures for the blog.  Here’s Barbara, caught unaware.

And here am I, gorgeous.