Hair Cut Woes

Hair brings one's self-image into focus; it is vanity's proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices. ~Shana Alexander

My day FLEW by yesterday. FLEW! I have no idea where the time went.

DD wanted her hair cut. She's been growing it out to donate again, and HATED the length, so I took her to a walk in haircut place. I mean, how hard is it to whack off a ponytail and even the ends? Her hair is not that hard to cut.

Evidently, I was wrong. Perhaps I should have run out the door when the stylist was a lady older than I am but wearing a pink Mohawk. Understand, I don't have an issue with Mohawks, per se, but on a 50ish woman, it was a little out of place.

She whacked off the pony, ended up "notching" one side of it about an inch higher than the other (which was WAY shorter than DD wanted her hair cut) and then, when she "evened" out her hair, one side was much longer than the other. It was wet when we left (I didn't want to pay for a blow dry... my bad) and DD kept tucking it behind her ears, so I didn't notice it until we were home.

Now, I know I can go back to that lady and have her fix it for free... but my concern is that the "fix" will be worse than the cut. And it's already so short that DD hates it, so there isn't a lot of room for error.

Teach me to go to a cheap walk-in place. I'm so sad. I could have done a better job cutting her hair.

We also had to run to the store to find clothes for the daughter. She's growing like a weed and all of her tops were too small. We found a couple at the L.L. Bean Outlet, and plan on hitting Kohl's at some point this week.

Now ... I didn't get a chance to respond to your questions and comments yesterday, so I'll do it here!

Maria Zannini said she was getting Nice / Naughty dog bones for her fur babies (having one of each... if you remember her Dog Dish interview, you know which is which). I love those bones! I don't have one of each, I have a dog with the proverbial Angel / Devil on her shoulder... so she can have both!

Dru Ann loves the bracelet... which is a good thing. *G*

Joanna St. James asked, "does she sell some of her designs on artfire or etsy" about DD's designs. Joanna, she does! LOL... I forgot to say that (assuming y'all knew). Her store is DistinctivelyDD on Artfire.

Tori said, "I bet Artfire has some awesome steampunk stuff." They DO. And lots of it!

Brandy said, "I'm STILL trying to find something for the Out-laws for the Holidays, so will be sure to check out Artfire." -- I swear, I'm so totally sold on goods from Artfire. I really, really LOVE the place. Bet you find something perfect there.

Thanks for visiting yesterday!

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Your Color is Blue

You are a calm and content person. You find that the key to life is easy... just be yourself! You believe in the importance of letting go. You release your anxieties and welcome renewal. You are a generous person, and you look for the best of people. You promote peace and trust. You value intellect and experience. Unlike most people, you truly respect your elders.

What's Your Feng Shui Color?

HAHAHAHAHA... no. Maybe the last sentence, but the rest? Not so much.

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Truths and Trees and Trinkets

Never do anything that you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics. ~ Author Unknown

So ... we took down three more trees yesterday -- all oaks. Two were fairly small, but one was huge and it was oh-so much fun moving brush and piling logs. I just kept saying, "I'm going to be so glad in the winter when I'm toasty warm." over and over. I wasn't entirely convinced of that, though, when it started to rain on us while we worked. *sigh*

DD has decided she wants her own laptop. So, that's her next "I'm saving for" item. The computer she uses now is my old, old desktop (from six or seven years ago). It's functional but incredibly slow. I've told her that just because she *might* get a laptop, she doesn't get to have it in her room. We'll see. She keeps getting tempted by other things (most recently, she stumbled on last year's Holiday Barbie on sale for only $15 and bought it), so the laptop may not happen for awhile.

I did put up a pile of new jewelry on her ArtFire site last week. For some reason, I really like these earrings:



DD's favorites from what I uploaded were these:



She's busily at work making Christmas earrings. I bought her a bunch of red and green Swarovski Crystal beads as well as small white ones. They're SO pretty and sparkly... I can't wait to see what she does with them.

And now, without further ado I give you for your daily giggle ...

Truths:

1. A best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. Map Quest really needs to start directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I
know how to get out of my neighborhood.

6. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

7. Bad decisions make good stories.

8. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

9. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

10. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

11. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

12. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

13. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

14. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

15. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

16. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch three consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

17. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys
in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey -but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away,in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

18. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

Have a great Monday!

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You Are the Left Side of the Brain

You are a logical and orderly person. You have a system for almost everything in your life. You like to stay busy, and it's important that you stay on task. You prefer to do one thing at a time. You are rational and detail oriented. You love to analyze, and you have a head for numbers. You are also good with words. You love to read, and you've been known to write well.

What Side of the Brain Are You?

Yep. That one is right on...

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Making Time

Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving. ~ Martin Amis

Yesterday I made time...okay, not exactly, but despite the fact that I'm still (and always) buried in LASR/WC/Goddess Fish work, I decided I would make time to do some other things.

So... I wrote.

Only it wasn't as successful as I may have liked, since the story is coming out like a bunch of dog excrement. It's frustrating: I know the characters, I have the plot loosely outlined, I have a pile of scenes I can see CLEARLY in my mind, but when I write them??? They are horrible. Stilted. Dull.

Should I push through and get it down on paper? Or do I stop and try to figure out why this book, which should be quite fun and sexy, is coming out dry and boring?

I also spent some time with DD.

We played Battleship for an interminable amount of time. Then we were going to put the rest of her jewelry up on Artfire, but got sidetracked. We received an email from another artisan telling us that DD's items were lovely, but that we weren't pricing them high enough -- that the low prices were indicating to possible buyers that we didn't value our work and made them hesitant to buy.

And I sat and wondered if that were true.

And I agonized... because we price them to make a profit, but not a huge one. And we're not trying to rip anyone off. But, OTOH, are we making it look as though her work is cheap? Not worth anything?

I'm still not certain ... and we surfed both Artfire and Etsy to see what other people charge, and we are lower than most.

So, what do we do?

For now -- we put a about a quarter of the items on DistinctivelyDD on sale to clear out the older items for the new stuff she's making (LOTS of earrings for $1.99/each!) and will contemplated the prices. You should go look. *G*

Frustrating. What do YOU think?

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I forgot to bring in my birdfeeders last night... and just now, as the sun was rising, my heart was in my throat. Had the bear gotten them? I didn't want to lose my stupidly expensive, squirrel resistant Droll Yankee Dipper.

:::Peeking out through my fingers:::

PHEW! Still there. I'm so lucky!

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You Are a Verb

You are an active and proactive person. Verbs are doing words, and you are a doing creature. You're always up to something. Inaction drives you crazy. You get bored and restless easily. And even when you take time to sit still, you don't quiet your mind. You are in a different state every few minutes. Whether you're thinking, working, playing, loving, wondering, reading, or simply smiling - you are a verb all the way.

What Part of Speech Are You?

Yep, yep, yep....

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Yesterday...

Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning? ~Coleman Cox

I locked the cat in the basement last night and laid around like a lazy slug this morning until 6 a.m.!! I think that's the latest I've slept in years (though I was awake at 5 a.m. -- it sure felt good to just lay there in that in-between state where you're fuzzy but not sleeping and not wide awake).

I need to do that every Sunday morning. It's the only day I don't need to be up to load pages for LASR/WC.

I'm still not feeling sick (knock wood). I exiled DD to the room over the garage yesterday for the entire day (except the book sale ... I let her go to that) with some movies. She watched "The House of Dies Drear" and two seasons of "Little House on the Prairie". I really need to buy her season three... she has a GC for Amazon sitting here. Maybe I'll do that today.

Yesterday was a little crazy: book sale in the a.m. (I've decided to rebuy all the "In Death" books. I used to have them, then got rid of them, and now I miss having them -- the book sale had about half in nearly new condition for 50 cents each - woot! I found some books for my mom, and DD found 5 books for herself. I spent $7.25 for everything.

I had to make dog food yesterday, and DD couldn't help which was a drag. So, I boiled chicken, pulled it out of the broth to cool, added veggies to the broth to cook, deboned the chicken.... well, you get the idea. It was an ordeal. And just as I was getting ready to finish that, DH came home from his folks house with a pile of corn on the cob that he'd picked at a field near their house. Since we couldn't possibly eat that much corn over the course of a few days, I had to process it for freezing.

So he shucked it all and I washed, blanched and put it in freezer bags. Half my day was spent in the kitchen, and DH wondered why I didn't want to cook dinner! LOL... I made him barbecue.

DD is still coughing, but it sounds like it might be loosening up a little. I hope so. She starts art lessons this week, too, besides the fair. My DH did say he'd take her to the fair if I was sick, but the problem with that is he doesn't like to do what she does. He likes the tractor pulls and the big equipment sales and the cows. She likes the horse shows and the art exhibits and the rides. And cotton candy. She gets cotton candy once a year at the fair. Besides, I like to go. So am still taking cold bombs, and washing hands and keeping Lysol with me where ere I go.

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RE: DD's store -- I found out yesterday morning that Judy and her mad photoshopping skills are gone for the weekend, so no DD store unveiling. Maybe Monday or Tuesday.

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You Are Spirited and Spontaneous

You are an energetic, passionate person. You are quite impulsive, and your passions tend to change with the wind. You are lively and fun. You like to stay busy with your various adventures. You are a wanderer and a traveler. You're curious about the world, and it's hard for you to stay still for too long. You get bored easily and tend to shirk on your responsibilities. You don't want to grow up yet!

The Autumn Leaf Test

Work is Hard. Time for Blogthings!

I'd have to say that's almost completely incorrect... but the leaf sure is pretty! *G*

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Nothing Ever Goes As Planned

You can avoid having ulcers by adapting to the situation: If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish. ~Author Unknown

So... Yesterday didn't quite turn out as planned. At 11:00, my garage door opened (and scared me to death) and in walked DH.

He said he'd been feeling better until he walked into the climate controlled building at work -- he instantly started coughing and getting congested again, so he came home. It's a shame buildings only do recycled air any more and don't have windows you can actually open for some fresh stuff. I think that's what helped DD and I stay healthy. The weather here has been gorgeous during the day, in the mid-70s, so I opened every single window in the house all day, every day. Flush out those germies!!

In any case, it was the first in a long list of things that didn't go as planned, and I am a creature of habit so it made for a very stressful day for me. Ah well, them's the breaks!

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DD and I are trying to think of a name for her new business so I can get it set up online. I've decided NOT to use Etsy (their fees are a little steep for a kid's shop - .20 to list each item and 3.5% commission on every item sold PLUS they unlist your item if it doesn't sell after a certain amount of time and you have to pay the listing fee to put it back up again. On a $2.00 item, this pretty much kills the profit), and am most likely going with an online place called Artfire. I like how it looks (very professional), and the fees are far more reasonable, IMHO. There are NO fees if you only have 12 items listed, and it's a flat fee of $12/mo otherwise). Also, they allow you to link to blogs, twitter, etc., where Etsy does not. AND, you can even sell ad space on your page via Project Wonderful and keep the revenue. I just really think it's a far better deal.

Sorry to go on and on, but you can tell I was really excited to find Artfire when I was so unhappy about Etsy's fees, lol.

Anyway, the point is we're trying to think of a shop name and would love input. It may not end up being ONLY beading -- she's already thinking of other stuff she could create and sell, so we don't want it to say "Beading" or "Beads" or whatever.

She thought of "Imagination Creations" but it doesn't *quite* sound right.

Anyone have any ideas?

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Isn't it amazing how you can pop right out of bed when you're worried about something? The last few mornings, I've had to drag my rear out of bed, but this a.m.? I woke up and realized the cat wasn't bothering me to feed her... all I could picture was the cat lying dead somewhere so I leaped up and started looking.

I found her, locked into a room she'd gone in last night and then fallen asleep. What surprised me most, though, was that she wasn't crying, just sitting patiently at the door until I let her out. She's a VERY vocal cat, so that was just plain odd. Of course, the moment I opened the door, she started giving me the business all the way down to the kitchen until I fed her! *G*

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We whacked down the milkweed yesterday -- the seedpods were starting to open, and I just don't need any more plants there. Unfortunately, there were still some Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillars eating, so we relocated them down the street where there was more milkweed growing in the wild. I really love those pillars -- so fuzzy and cute (photo from http://www.richard-seaman.com):



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Anyone have any fun plans for the weekend? Here our plans are sealing the driveway and chopping wood by hand (DH has apparently opted out of getting a wood-splitter).

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