Beauty Shop

This is an extra-long post, because I'd like to take today to explore a few things about what Just the Girls: Real Beauty is about....and what it is not about.  I've been reading another beauty blog about 'natural' beauty.  I like that blog.  It explores the natural beauty of women and I agree with a lot of what it has to say. The bloggers expose celebrities when their photographers slim their size 12 bodies into size 0's, and they are enemies of the toddler beauty pageants.   But I disagree with plenty, too.  'That' blog is down on everything that is not 'natural'.  The bloggers are down on make-up, hair extensions, eyebrow plucking, and the magical erasing of wrinkles our photographers do.  They don't want women to cover our grey hair or use eye cream.  I'm not sure how they feel about armpit hair....but I have a feeling they are 'for' it!

Just the Girls is about Real Beauty.  It's about women who are strong, funny, smart, and confident.  Just the Girls is not, however, only about natural beauty.  We love make-up.  We're ok with getting our eyebrows waxed (well, we're not OK with the pain, but we like the results).  We're also ok with erasing wrinkles from a photograph, unless a woman tells us specifically not to.  Our photographers also sometimes whiten teeth and brighten eyes, and they might even add a little lip color if a woman forgot her lipstick that day.  Real Beauty doesn't have anything to do with the little things we do to make ourselves look different than we looked when we rolled out of bed this morning. Real Beauty comes from INSIDE us, and on the outside we can do whatever we want.  If we decide to put our hair in a ponytail and let our brows grow bushy ala teen Brooke Shields, that's fine.  Or, if we want to pluck our eyebrows out and draw them on or tease our purple hair as high as it will go, that's fine too!  It DOES NOT CHANGE the beauty we possess!

  Aubrianah and Faith recently got to spend a couple of hours at our favorite place for shampooing, head massages, hair cuts and color, and eyebrow plucking, Sage Tryall Salon.  But the girls weren't there that day to get washed, plucked, or colored, they were there to photograph the fabulous Sage ladies.  I've included several pictures here, but they got loads of great shots that you can find on our Facebook page in the next few days!  The gorgeous Sage ladies are always made up, they all have cutting-edge hair styles in every color, and their outfits are fabulously funky.  They are BEAUTIFUL!  Owner Suzy Tryall is a funny, sweet, talented Beautiful Girl who loves to wear vintage-style dresses and big flowers in her hair.  She is the leader of the BEST beauty crew in Lynchburg!  More importantly, every member of the Sage team cares about you and how you want to look.  They'll make you laugh, and they'll help you de-stress, because   they are talented, smart, creative, funny women!    All these Beautiful Girls, and Suzy's Beautiful Guy, Todd, will make your day an experience you will want to tell your friends about. You'll come away from Sage feeling relaxed and empowered and, well, beautiful!

Thank you, Suzy, for allowing Aubrianah and Faith to hang out with you and your team!  They had a great time!

You can find out more about Sage Tryall Salon, including their contact information so you can book an appointment with ANY of the fabulous Sage ladies (or Todd!) on their Facebook page here:  http://www.facebook.com/SageTryallSalon?sk=info  

You Can't Catch this Beautiful Girl!

When I look at Rebekah, I see energy.  I think I have a lot, but she has more energy in her left toe than I have in my entire body.  I think I’m a runner…..HA…..she runs ULTRA-marathons.  Some of her accomplishments are listed below. 

Past winner of the following races:

• Catoctin 50K
• Holiday Lake 50K
• Mountain Masochist 50 miler
• JFK 50 Miler
• The Groudhog Classic 50 Miler
• Rattlesnake 50K
• Uwharrie 40 Mile Mountain Run
• New River Challenge (Bike, canoe and run)

Finisher of more than 75 ultramarathons

One of four women to complete The BEAST ultramarathoning race series

Women's record holder on West Virginia's 302-mile long Allegheny Trail (7 days, 6 hours)

Tri-holder of the women's record on the South Beyond 6000, a nearly 300 mile long run across five mountain ranges with the summit of forty peaks in excess of 6000' feet elevation (6 days, 13 hours, 31 minutes)

First American and 2nd overall woman in the 250 km Jungle Marathon in equatorial Brazil

I’m tired just looking at this kind of mileage!  A 302 MILE race – that’s just insanely amazing. 

I’ve been friends with Rebekah for years.  She and her husband were our Sunday School teachers for a long time.  She has such a heart for the Lord, and it is evident in everything she does.  Her boundless energy is used to reach others for Christ.  She has written a devotional book called Pace Yourself.  It is awesome!  In her preface, she writes:  “Too often we want a dramatic theological breakthrough but fail to see the lessons in pulling weeds or watching a simple sunrise.  So take a run with me through 366 days of normal, ordinary life.”

Rebekah also has a blog that I highly recommend.  I don’t just recommend it; you need to read it!  You will be inspired, encouraged.  She has a way of writing that draws you in, and I love reading her posts!  The link is below.

http://rebekahtrittipoe.blogspot.com/

I like this, taken from her website:

Ever wonder what makes someone tick? Why would a reasonably sane woman traipse through jungles, climb mountain after mountain, and run up to one-hundred miles at a time?  Good question.

She really isn't that strange.  She is a long-time wife and the mother of two grown boys. She is a house cleaner and dust-bunny gatherer, grass cutter, grocery getter and chief cook and bottle washer.  She works at a lot of things and cries all too easily when it becomes too overwhelming. Sometimes she lies in the dark, her heart aching over concerns. But sometimes she leaps for joy at the new day and the pleasures a noisy dinner with family can bring.  She really is very normal--if you don't count the running thing.

“She really is very normal—if you don’t count the running thing.”  That is so funny!  God has gifted her with this incredible talent to run these awe-inspiring distances, and she has used this gift for Him.  Again, please visit her blog to learn more about her – you will not be disappointed!

Serving Up Beauty

We talk a lot here at Just the Girls: Real Beauty about having a servant's heart.  A lot of our Beautiful Girls spend  a lot of their time serving others.  But what does that mean, really?  Millions of women serve others every day, what makes these particular women's service beautiful?

  Servant beauty is all in the attitude.  See, we can serve all we want, but the minute we complain about it, or make ourselves out as martyrs because we do so much service, or make the people we are serving feel below us, we've lost the beauty.  This is something I am working on myself!  I caught myself feeling high and mighty because I made myself available to substitute teach the children's Sunday School classes at my church.  Teachers would ask me, and I would complain and roll my eyes and sigh, just to make sure they knew how much I was sacrificing!  What a dummy I was!  At one point, I had gotten so bad that the teachers didn't want to ask me any more.  They'd ask anyone else they could think of, then come to me as a last resort!  If I cooked for a church event, I let everyone know how much time it took and how many times I'd gone to the grocery store and how much money I'd paid for the ingredients.  If I cleaned the church, I made sure to put on my Facebook status how messy everything was and how long it took.   If I took out the trash at home, I'd make sure to remind my son that I'd done his job.  I'd make sure my daughter knew how many miles I'd driven her that week.  I was serving, but not beautifully!

When I look at Kristin, I see a real, beautiful, servant's heart.  Kristin doesn't really think about serving as SERVICE, she just does it because it is who she is.  She doesn't talk about how much she is sacrificing, because she doesn't think of it as giving something up.  She also has a hard time sitting still, so she loves to fill up her day with things to do!  She also doesn't wait to be asked, if she sees the need she just serves.  However, if someone does need to ask for help, they aren't worried that Kristin will roll her eyes and sigh and complain like I might...she won't.  It's more likely that she'll thank them for asking and set about it with that beautiful smile on her face.  She doesn't need thanks, she doesn't need affirmation, she doesn't even need us to know she did it.

  I sometimes still have to make a conscious effort not to sigh an "I guess"  when I'm asked to serve.  I do want to serve, I don't know why I feel like I need to make a federal case out of it!  I'm learning from Kristin, though, how to serve beautifully!  Eye-rolling is never beautiful, so put  beautiful smiles on those beautiful faces and serve, Beautiful Girls!  The more you and I do it, without complaint, the more second-nature it will become!

Beautiful Editor

We loved hanging out with Johanna at her Real Beauty shoot!  We walked all over downtown while she told us the story of how she came to be the editor of the fabulous local magazine, Lynchburg Living.  Johanna used to be on a more fast-paced and stressful career path, but she made the decision to go in a different direction.  Since Johanna came to Lynchburg Living, the company that owns it (Prototype Media, Inc.) has gone from that one publication to five!  But this Beautiful Girl didn’t give up her career for her family, she just tweaked it to make it fit better!   Johanna is proof that we really can ‘have our cake and eat it, too’, we can have a fulfilling career AND keep our family priority number one.  She gets to work closely with her husband and they both make sure to schedule plenty of time with their new baby daughter.

  Johanna loves working with a local magazine, and she loves showcasing local businesses and people.  We were even stopped on the street by a local business owner who wanted to thank Johanna for a recent story in the magazine. 

  Besides her career accomplishments, Johanna is an encouraging and sweet Beautiful Girl.  She had never met Aubrianah, but she chatted with her, gave her tips (Johanna is a photographer, too!), and made Aubrianah feel like her work on the Real Beauty project is worthwhile.  Thank you, Johanna, for participating in the project, we had a blast with you! 

Check out Lynchburg Living, and all the other Prototype Media, Inc. publications.  They are all free, and you can find them at many local businesses!  www.lynchburgliving.com

Beautiful Healer

Today’s Beautiful Girl is special to me and Aubrianah.  She may be special to you, too, if your child is a patient at Rimland Center.  Aubrianah spent many years just being sick.  She saw specialists and had tests and tried medications, but every ‘cure’ was short-lived and she was soon sick again.  I remember the last time I took her to her previous doctor, he told me that if I wasn’t interested in her taking the medication (it had severe side-effects) or allowing more invasive tests, there was just nothing else that could be done.  She’d just have to live with it.  I cried that day. 

  Then someone told me about Dr. Mumper.  “She stays up on the research,” they said.  “She takes a different approach,” they encouraged.  “Couldn’t hurt,” I thought, and made the appointment.  I switched Aubrianah’s records over from her former pediatrician, went for a consultation with Dr. Mumper, held Aubrianah’s hand through one last battery of bloodwork, got the results, did the things Dr. Mumper told us to do, and three months later, after seven years of off-and-on sickness,  Aubrianah was healed.  To top it off, the things Dr. Mumper had us do didn’t have anything to do with strong drugs or invasive tests.  That was about three years ago, and my daughter has not had one relapse.  In fact, we haven’t even SEEN Dr. Mumper in a very long time, until we went to do her Real Beauty photo shoot.  Aubrianah’s former pediatrician got a sick visit from us about once a month!

  Our story about this beautiful doctor is not the most dramatic in town, by far!  Dr. Mumper works a lot in autism research, and Aubrianah’s symptoms had nothing to do with autism.   But my friend Krista, whose son Gideon was on the autism spectrum and now IS NOT on the autism spectrum, has a much more dramatic story.  The plot is the same:  Child is diagnosed with something other doctors say he will just have to live with, mom takes child to Dr. Mumper, child does not have to live with that diagnosis after all.  Krista says, “I used to compare Gideon to Pinnochio and say that Dr. Mumper turned our 'wooden' boy into a real boy. Our boy who didn't make eye contact or understand language, who was afraid of everything and didn't really seem to know that he belonged with his family, was turned into a boy who interacts freely and comfortably with everyone, without irrational fears and who knows how to express affection.” 

I don’t want to tout Dr. Mumper as a miracle-worker, and I know she wouldn’t want me to do that.  But she does what others in her profession don’t often do.  She and her staff are committed to staying up on research.  They are interested in the things that make our children sick, not just the medications that are available to fix them.  She cares for her little patients, she cares for their parents, she listens, and she doesn’t get so proud of herself that she thinks she knows everything!  She is always interested and always learning.  Because of her humility and willingness to discover new things, she is sometimes able to heal children who have previously been left to ‘live with’ their illnesses.  Thank you, Dr. Mumper, you are our Beautiful Healer! 

If you’d like more information about Dr. Mumper’s work with Autism or other conditions, and/or the Rimland Center, you can find it here:   http://www.rimlandcenter.com/RimlandCenter.php

Courageous Beauty

Cindi~  When I look at this picture, I see a gorgeous mother (Susanne) and daughter (Hannah)…..healthy, happy, beautiful.  You would never suspect the trials they have had the past two and a half years.  Hannah was only 6 years old when she started having bruising, a rash and extreme fatigue.  A parent’s worst nightmare – Hannah was diagnosed with leukemia.  In an instant, their whole world changed. 

Now 8 years old, Hannah has been given over 20 spinal treatments, 10 different chemotherapies, and multiple blood transfusions.   Susanne said Hannah endured all of this with a smile on her face, never complaining – what courage!!  It’s amazing now to see how God has restored Hannah – you would never guess what she has been through.

Talking to Susanne was so uplifting and encouraging for me.  I asked her about how she has dealt with everything.  She said this experience has been life-changing and that in the beginning, they had to completely release Hannah to God.  I can’t even fathom the anguish of that type of prayer, knowing that Hannah is a gift from God and that they may not have her much longer.

What a praise that God has been merciful and allowed the leukemia to go into remission.  Treatments ended in April, but Hannah will be closely monitored for relapse.  As life for their family returns to a semi-normal state, the possibility of the leukemia returning is always in the back of their mind.  Please add this precious family to your prayer list!  They have carepages to keep you updated, and the link is below.  You will see from the journal the tremendous strength, courage and awesome testimony they have displayed throughout this journey.  An excerpt is below as well.

http://www.carepages.com/carepages/Susannesgirl

Hebrews 6:18-19 "....We who have fled to Him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls."

 “ We have learned such valuable, precious insights as a family, that we would not have learned without going through the darkness, all the uncertainty and not-knowing, with Hannah's cancer. The complete dependency on the Lord, when it was out of our hands....realizing all we do, is not for our agenda...but it's God's agenda for our lives.... learning to trust when we didn't understand or see what He was doing......placing our faith in an uncertain place, knowing God is and will always be at work in our lives for our good. And I could list so many other treasures learned in a hard place. But no matter what you're facing now or will face, know that the trial can change your life....allowing you to never be the same.....it's all in the heart response to it that matters!”

Peaceful Beauty

Philippians 4:6-7
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.


This is my friend, Kristin, with her daughter. This past year, Kristin had her fourth child. She was having some troubling symptoms during her pregnancy and was diagnosed with a heart condition. Although she was put on medication, the symptoms continued and made for a difficult and scary pregnancy. Since having the baby, Kristin has had more testing done and has learned that her heart condition is very serious. To add to this, the baby was hospitalized twice for his own health concerns in the first few months of his life.
Through this whole difficult year, I have never heard Kristin complain. She has endured each trial with peace, patience, strength, and beauty. With each new complication and decision, she and her husband have prayed and relied on God to guide to direct them. She has displayed a calmness that comes from the Lord, and I know the people around her have been inspired by her testimony of peacefulness.  


Photo Credit:  Faith Perry Photography