Serendipity

Sometimes If I just click on tabs on the side of blogs, I end up somewhere cool.

This lady did a blog last year-12 crafts til Christmas and shared what she did.

and she made a PDF file of how to make a Pillow Buddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love her forever.

and my children will love her forever once I've purchased fabric and created these for all of them.

They'll love me forever also.

Now, do I make them for Easter, Birthdays or Christmas??? (listed in order of nearness in time. Probably Christmas is the only realistic choice--but not the fun choice.)

New Exercise Program

This is Cutie Pie. She dressed herself. Who says you can't mix different stripes? Who needs pants when you have super awesome tights like these?

In other news, the Man of the House and I started a new exercise program. His goal: be in shape to max out his Army Physical Fitness Test in 8 weeks.

My Goal: lose 20 pounds so I can be healthy. I am at my heaviest weight ever, 175 lbs. I know you are all shocked because you picture me as skinny, gorgeous, and multi-talented. Hah! I have recently begun to suspect that the reason we have no new baby-pie's entering our family could be related to my weight. Not Cool.

Well I am getting up at 5 (okay 5:30) AM every morning and exercising. I'm also almost dieting. Which means I try to make healthy choices but I still eat cookies sometimes.

The Exercise plan that we are following recommends taking before and after pictures so you can see how super you did while following their plan. Seems easy enough, right? Except why would I want to take a picture of myself right now? The whole point is that I don't like how I look. But laying that aside with the self-assurance that it is a goodbye to the old GlowWorm picture, there is still the problem of the picture. See, all the examples in the book are Men in swim trunks and women in bikini's/sports bra and shorts. Now while I do actually own a sports bra and shorts, I would never ever ever wear them without a t-shirt over it all. Nor would I ever leave my house in that ensemble for any reason, except perhaps if a random fire started in the middle of my exercise routine.

So why would I take a picture of me like that? I would never show it to ANYONE. I would never post it even here for you my loving fans. Even if I make a miraculous transformation and the P90X people invent a $5000 prize for the best set of before & after shots, I wouldn't submit my picture.

A certain person really thought that I should bare my stomach for my before picture. Just the thought makes me feel slightly nauseous. No one needs a picture. I'm sure you all know what bread dough looks like after you let it rise once and then punch it in the middle. That's what my stomach looks like. The following are the compromise before pictures that I took. A certain person is concerned that I won't be able to see my progress without the bare tummy picture. I am quite certain that the fact that my jeans fit or possibly my skinny jeans or possibly new jeans (please bless it to be true!) will be all the proof I need.

The pictures don't look as bad as in real life---somehow the fat rolls that are clearly visible when I wear that shirt sort of faded into the shadows. Not sure how that happened.

Cutie Pie felt no qualms about baring her belly.

The New Template finally worked!!

Blogger's new templates finally worked for me! I'm so happy about having a 3 column blog! Finally. I might weep a little for joy.

Thanks, Blogger. I don't know what you did, but it worked.

**happiness**

Hair 911!

Okay, I need advice. Hair advice. My hair is making me crazy right now. It is a horrible cut. I have to spend 30-40 minutes with a curling iron and mousse to beat it into reasonable submission. I don't have that kind of time on a daily basis.


I want to chop it all off like this:



or this



See, I need something that can be cute fast. I have 5 kids, a house to clean, meals to cook, 10 piano students to teach and a Mary Kay business to look after. I loved this cut. All my girlfriends loved it to and I got tons of compliments each day.

However, there is one person who didn't love it.

You guessed it, my DH. He is wishing for something like this:



This is 4 years ago and was an exceptionally good hair day for me.

The thing is. I'm probably 6-12 months away from that kind of length--if I start remembering to take my vitamins. What do I do between now and then?

Plus, with all the effort, will the DH dole out compliments generously to compensate for said effort? Probably not.

The other day he remarked that I looked "nice". Now, just to clarify, that remark made me much happy. Also, remarks of that nature happen about twice a month these days, sometimes weekly--which is a much higher frequency than the first 10 years of our marriage.

So I'm happy and, you know, grateful for the improvement in positive feedback.

And yet, can you picture me as I spent an hour on my hair that morning? before dashing off to deliver Mary Kay, grocery shop, and knock out my visiting teaching. Do you suppose I was thinking, "I sure hope my husband thinks I look 'nice' today."

"Nice" just doesn't quite make up for the near anxiety attack that I have every time I walk out the door, stressing out about my hair.

I realize that it is a little crazy that I am freaking out about my hair. But here's the thing. I have control over my hair. I can do stuff to it. I often do things to my hair when other things that are bothering me are beyond my control. --hence the fact that I always cut my hair about 2 weeks before I give birth. There is stuff going on in my life right now that I have no control over and it sucks. So instead of worrying over it, I am obsessing over my hair.

So what do you think? Cut it? Not cut it? Mousse it? Dye it? Perm it? To hell with it?

I obsessively await your ideas. Don't worry. I'm only checking the computer every 5 minutes. The rest of the time I am distracting myself with chocolate and avocados.