Do as I’m Doing

A little sumpin’ sumpin’ extra at the hair doing today. Maybe a tad subtle, but it’s a start. I approve heartily.

Quick, help me out intrawebs!  The hair salon in town called me up and they actually have a spot for me tomorrow (I’ve been on their waiting list for 3 months now, grrr) so I am totally getting my hair cut and highlighted!  Woohoo!  But how???  I loved my last cut with the bangs and layers and such, but Husband was just mentioning how he apparently dug the cut I had when we first met (see above pic, the story behind it is here) and I’m torn.  A bob takes a lot of work and I’m not particularly good at it.  So quick, before 12:25pm tomorrow give me any opinions at all on what I should do.  I mean, ANYthing is better than why I have now (overgrown crazylady hair that’s been stuck in a ponytail for months).

Okay, go!!  Merci in advance!

awesome. um.

Imagine you were a retired musician wannabe-rockstar violinist.  And you got an e.mail from your old celtic trio who are headlining this adorable Scottish games in north Georgia and need a fiddler.  And your husband makes sure you can actually make it happen.  Would you die of sheer joy?  Or would it suddenly occur to you that the last real celtic gig you played was a year ago and you don’t know if your arms and fingers can still bring the burn for 5 shows in 3 days?  And that there is NO way that you’ll be able to fit into your kilts in a month and a half.

AK.  YAY.   AK.

Improper use of punctuation drives me insane. I’m not the sharpest crayon in the box but this is ridiculous. The pizza’s what?? The pizza’s deli??? The pizza’s parking space??? Arg!!!!!! Courtesy of my local not-so-supermarket.

Today’s Throwback Thursday is from December 04, 2006.  This conversation is still so vivid to me and often I’ll think of it and giggle.  These two sisters were my saviors in Brasil.  Kind, loving, and strong - Bel is fighting cancer, and Betiane is a widow raising 3 children.  But they worked so hard to help me get through those most difficult months in my life.  I just cry thinking of them.  Neither can speak English, but they didn’t seem to notice and chatted on constantly to help me feel welcome and loved.   I can’t begin to describe the numberless sacrifices and kindnesses they gave to me… someday I might chronicle them all to you, they are absolutely amazing.  But their unconditional full-blast friendship was the greatest thing they gave to me.  Despite all their struggles, these women LOVE to laugh, and tell it like it is.

A conversation in my kitchen (all in Portuguese by the way – I even understood it all!) with two sisters, one large, one not:

Bel: “My sister is soooo fat!”

Betiane: “It’s true! I’m fat!”

Me: …. “You can’t call her fat!”

Bel: “Why not? She’s fat!”

Betiane: “It’s true!”

Me: “But in America, you can’t call people fat, it’s verrry offensive.”

Betiane: “Aren’t the people in America the fattest in the world?”

Me”……………… yes…..”

Sisters: “You guys are crazy!”

It’s true….

I used “OoooooooooOOH, SNAP!” in my adopted Georgia accent last night in my photography class and the Wisconsinites looked confused then amused then confused again.  I wonder what the Midwestern version of  ”oh snap” is?

(via rjwalker, ilovecharts)

GPOYW - grateful edition.  Grateful because there is almost nothing my husband can’t solve.  Two of the three people this house were in tears (just the female ones, go figure) and he just called and in one five minute phone call calmed us down, created order in the universe and even talked Ikea with me.

I’m so glad he made me marry him.

(via bitterdepths:hypnotic-fresh:drownalltheboys:mimesheat:screamflydream)

FYI - according to almighty Facebook, today (April 26th), is National Kiss A Mormon Day.  I got this one, you can go find your own.

to try

This weekend was… urglfarphblegh.  Not easy.

It was stake conference (for you non-LDSers, our church is divided into wards, like a parish, and groups of wards make stakes, like a diocese - we have 15 wards in our stake, so twice a year we meet together) and because we live so far out there and we’re in the Madison stake, going to all our meetings over 2 days would be about 5 hours of driving time.  The Saturday night meeting is just for adults, but since our usual baby-sitter couldn’t make it, we were going to have to take both kids with us.  Even if we could find another sitter, I couldn’t leave WonderGirl with a stranger for 5 hours.  I’m not worried about WG - it was more about the sitter.  She’s not someone you inflict on amateurs.  So, the solution was to get a hotel room down in Madison for the night.

Husband had a afternoon meeting without me, so I took the chance to head to Target and stock up on the essentials with the cranky kiddos in tow.  Then we headed to our meeting.  With the kids being kids, we had to sit alone in a back room and listen to it over the loudspeaker.  Then a night in a hotel with a kid and a baby is always a blast, right? … I just hope the people in the rooms near us wanted to be awake at 4am and 6am.  Needles to say, that plus forgetting to pack some things made me feel as dreary as it looked outside.  As we sat in our morning meeting, I felt so defeated.  Here I was, all dressed up so I could sit in a back room filled with other parents and their cranky children, straining to hear the talks but only managing to hear every other word while trying unsuccessfully to get my psychotic daughter to stop yelling and play quietly.   Why do I even try when it’s always so darn hard??  And I felt more isolated than usual.  Like this bumpkin vising the big city which just reminded how much I am NOT suited for small town livin’.  I NEED A SUBURB.  It’s my natural habitat.  I didn’t know a soul except my own family and two of them were acting horribly (three if you count my sour mood).  WG had just about the worst attitude I’ve ever seen and the Dude has awful allergies and is sick.  I kept thinking “what did I do so wrong as a parent to have kids that act like this in church??”  The Dude probably has allergies because I didn’t nurse him and WG is a terror because I’m a bad parent.  It was enough little things to make me just want to hang my head and cry.  Which, being Reva, I did.

And then by a small miracle (tender mercies, we like to call ‘em), there was a teeny tiny lull in the screaming and I heard this quote:

“Sometimes as parents we feel we have failed when our children make mistakes… Parents are never failures when they do their best to love, teach, pray, and care for their children. Their faith, prayers, and efforts will be consecrated to the good of their children… . No family has reached perfection.” - Robert D. Hales 

That right there made the weekend worth it.