Before and After

I told Marian I  was planning to get my hair trimmed.  She said she wanted a hair cut as well.  Her hair was really long and she has loved having it long.  I think the heat here has been getting to her.  She absolutely must have it in a ponytail.  The first thing in the morning after she gets up is to start nagging me to put her hair up, and it is always in her pony.  She wanted less hair so she'd be less hot.  I asked if she was sure, and she was, so off it came.

Her trademark ponytail. 

What it looked like down, which no one ever saw because it is always in the ponytail.

All chopped off! 

 Big difference!

That is about 8 inches of hair there! 

And this is me.  I have not had my hair cut in nearly 2 years.  I haven't even had a trim since we moved almost 2 years ago.  So I went to the salon that had done Delaney's hair last year and said, do something!  I let them talk me into color, which I have never, ever done.  I'm getting old and the gray hairs are starting to make me self conscious, so I thought, why not?  

Well, I know why not.  I can't believe how much time and money I spent on my hair!  It is hair, for crying out loud!  Sure, I love it, but sheesh.  It is going to keep growing and graying, and I'm so not spending that kind of money regularly on my hair. Besides, how silly is it to color my hair its same color?!  Sure, I know it is to cover the gray, but most of my hair is still brown, so I'm coloring most of my hair to hide the few gray?  Hmmmmm.  So, this is a one time deal.

It feels like it is really dark. It is definitely darker than my natural color.   I'm not sure I like the color (good thing, since I'm not going to do it again!), but I love the cut!

 Love my girly too!

Boston Trip!

Dan has gotten to do a little bit of traveling for work, and he thought it would be great to take Joshua along with him on a recent trip to Boston.  So they took off for a week, and went to see the sights.  They did a lot of touristy things and visited all the historical stuff that Dan likes.  Joshua said he liked the Salem Witch Museum the best.    Dan did a great job of taking pictures, although he did not appear in any of them.

Sadly, they did not take a picture of something I thought was awesome.  Joshua said they went to the movies, and at the base theater, there were 2 doors to get in.  One was labeled "Team Edward" and the other, "Team Jacob".  

I didn't get to go on the trip, so I'm not sure what all the pictures are of.  Perhaps I'll have Joshua or Dan sit down and caption them, but don't hold your breath!  (I am humbly corrected.  Dan has captioned the photos for you!)

William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony.  Look it up!

Interpretive Art.  Don't you feel uplifted?

We looked for this place hungry for pie, but we settled for pizza.

We walked for several hours on the Freedom Trail in Boston so I figured Joshua earned this overpriced serving of Gelato.

This is the site of the 25 minute presentation about the Salem Witch hysteria.  Lots of mannequins and good narration. Totally worth it!

The spire is the monument for Bunker Hill and the USS Constitution is the old ship with the sails.

This monument is at the North Bridge at Concord better known as the site for the "shot heard round the world."

Still at the North Bridge.

This 38.5 foot polished shaft of granite in Sharon, VT marks the birthplace of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

What's Awesome?

What's awesome is walking out our front door and seeing this:

I know, hard to see.  But I wanted you to know, I am standing on my front porch here.  

Look closely.  What do you see? 

Yep, this little guy was hanging out by the canals!  I'm pretty sure it is the same one I saw before. 

Check it out!  You can see how close he is to the housing on the other side of the canal.  

Hello Mr. Alligator!

What's even more awesome that spotting alligators from your front porch?

This is: 

Yeah, I felt like a rock star this morning after my amazing run.  The distance, not the time!  That's 8.08 miles run in 1 hour, 22 minutes and 50 seconds.  And it was an awesome run for me!

Today, I'm the statue

Some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.  Today I'm the statue. I can't seem to do a darn thing right.  Marian has been requesting I make a banana topping for waffles for breakfast and this morning, I had a little extra time, so I did.  I made lovely waffles from scratch and this whipped banana topping.  Marian thought it was yummy. Callie tried it, and everyone else refused to even consider sampling it.  Rylee and Delaney refused to even eat a waffle.  I have a ton of banana flavored whip cream that no one else is going to eat. So frustrating.

I had wanted to make my super yummy cheesecake for my running group, and this morning, I got it done.  Unfortunately I'm an idiot.  The cheesecake cooks for an hour, and then sits in the oven for another hour, and you are not suppose to open the door at all during those 2 hours.  I needed to go to the commissary, and Dan is home, so I didn't want him to accidentally open the oven while I was gone.  So I thought it would be a good idea to turn the oven lock on.  Silly me,  that is apparently reserved only for cleaning, and it shuts off the oven if the dial isn't in "clean" position.  So yeah, I turned the oven off halfway through the cooking hour.  I'm so cross.

I could have left Rylee home with Dan while I went to buy groceries.  But no, I'm on a roll today, so I kept making dumb decisions.  I took Rylee with me so she would get out of the house, and I had a short list of stuff to get.  How bad could it be?  Pretty bad, as it turns out.  She cried.  She cried that obnoxious, continual, half whimper for 45 minutes.  She carried on and on, and would not stop.  What was so horrible that it required such a cry-till-your-Mom's-ears-bleed-and-she-might-run-away-and-leave-you-behind cry?  I said no, I would not buy cocoa puffs.  Yep.  That induced 45 minutes of crying that ended with her screaming that she didn't want Daddy to carry her in from the car; she wanted mommy to do it.  I let Daddy cary her up to bed and if I am really lucky, she might be asleep by now.

Sadly, I do not even have cheesecake to drown my sorrows in. Maybe I need to go back to bed for a do-over.

Moms do the hard stuff

It poured rain again yesterday.  Lots of great puddles available for splashing, so after school, Callie headed out for some puddle-stomping.  She wisely went barefoot so she wouldn't get her shoes wet. Oh wait.  It was NOT a wise choice.  She joyfully went stomping in a great puddle that had lots of sticky prickly thorns at the bottom, and ended up with 2 feet full of tiny thorns.  Yikes!

I expect any normal mom would have sat on her and plucked the darn things out.  It would have been a 5 minute job, tops.   I did not do this.  Callie is my temperamental child.  Had I gone the brute force route, she's have screamed forever and hated me for days.  True story.  Plus, I kind of have the same pain-makes-me-neurotic thing going on, so I do understand it.  As a grown up though, I can (ususally!) see how silly it is to prolong the pain when it could be over so much faster.  Let me tell you how it went!

I carried Callie inside and put her on the bathroom counter.  She wailed and screamed.  I told her I could pull the thorns out quickly and she went hysterical.  I asked what she would like to do.  After more crying and dithering, she decided she wanted to lie down on the living room floor and cover her face with her blanket.  She went into drill sergeant mode and started bossing her sisters and me around- go get my blanket, I need a pillow, no one look at me, put the dog in his kennel so he doesn't accidentally touch me, bring me the cd player and put on the children's hymns so I can be distracted..... oh yeah, loads of fun already!

I finally got her situated on the living room floor, yes, with pillow and blankets, dog in the kennel, and her sisters playing upstairs.   I told her I wanted her to be comfortable and I would do what she wanted. She cried and cried.  She wasn't ready.  It has now been 30 minutes. 30 minutes of crying that was so completely unnecessary!  She cried about the dog yipping.  She cried that it hurt.  She cried that she was afraid.  She cried that her sister came downstairs and looked at her.  She cried because my hands weren't the proper distance from her feet.  She cried because she could see the tweezers.  She cried because her feet hurt.

My patience was wearing thin.  I did have dinner to make and 500 other things to be doing, other than sitting on the floor watching my child howl over something that could have been over and done with by now.

Then she looked at me and thanked me for being so patient with her and told me I was the best mommy ever.   With such heart-melting encouragement, what could I do but persevere?  I held her foot and we counted to 3.  She screamed, "No! Wait!  I'm not ready!!"  So I waited.  We did it again, with the same result.  And again.  I suggested she count to 3, cover her face, take a deep breath and then count, 4 and 5, and I'd pull one thorn out.  She agreed, but when we got to 3, there was more shrieks of no no no, not yet.  Sigh.  I got her to try again, and I finally pulled one out while she was on 3.  Whew!

Oh wait, there were 8 more thorns to pull.

Sufficeth to say, it was a 90 minute ordeal before they were all removed.  The cd had long run out of music, her sisters had run out of things to do upstairs, and I had run out of time to get dinner done before we'd be eating late.  Thank goodness she knows and appreciates that I love her and was willing to help her be as comfortable as possible throughout the process.  It was nice to have her delighted with me for once  And so rarely do I hear from her that I am the best mom, so it was totally worth it!