High Maintenance Hair

When I was in elementary school, my hair was long & wavy, like mermaid hair. In junior high, my hair was frizzy (naturally). In high school, my hair was pretty straight (probably due to the fact that it was fried blonde every few weeks). In college, I stopped the haircolor & my hair started getting wavy again. I could use mousse & fix it wavy, or just blow dry it & it would look fairly straight.

Since graduating college, my hair has gotten much wavier. I used to use a Conair straightener but I finally had to succumb to the Chi due to my crazy waves. Now, I do like the fact that I can fix my hair wavy or I can completely straighten it. It's fun to have variety. However, I'm now annoyed that I can't just blow-dry my hair & go anymore. It just looks bad. So most days of the week it ends up pulled back (which is fine since I'm at home most days anyways).

I decided this week that curlers seemed like a good idea. I mean, the thought of being able to walk around & do whatever while my hair fixes itself is pretty appealing. I haven't owned curlers since high school, but now I do again. So, I used them today. You know the drill. Plug in & wait until that dot turns black before you put them in your hair. I'm convinced my dot is broken. I kept waiting for it to change, it didn't, so I figured a watched dot never blackens, so I left, only to return to a not-black dot. Anyways.

I'm not sure what to do now. My hair is... curly. Like, Texas curls curly. If I went out to the grocery store right now people would stare. Maybe not if I were a five-year old in a pageant, or a country music singer, but I'm neither.

I'm sure Josh will get a good chuckle or two out of it. But then I will need to figure out something before we leave the house tonight... hmm.

Communion hog

So today we had communion at church. This was exciting, because in the past year, we have missed most communions due to being back in Sunday School with our second graders. So yay for communion.

Anyways, so we file out of our row & stand in line to grab a piece of cracker-type "bread" & some grape juice. File, stand, take, walk, sit back down. Once we were seated again, waiting on everyone else to get theirs, I tapped Josh on the shoulder. He looked over & held up my cracker - a big piece nearly as long as my forefinger. He grinned & shook his head at me, in that "you are ridiculous" kind of way. I think he called me a goober or something too.

It's true... in the two seconds I have to scan over all the cracker pieces I have to choose from, I quickly spot the biggest available & take it. I love bread. & crackers are bread-like.

I was hungry too, does that make me less ridiculous??

We Recycle Now.

I know right? First we get all gas-conscious by trading the SUV for a Corolla, & now THIS?! Are we GREEN??? Okay, probably not. One day I just decided we should start recycling. San Antonio something-or-other-recycling-whatever provides homeowners with a green bin that you can fill with recyclables & they pick it up once a week. There is a lot of stuff we just throw away that we can recycle!! I have a complex about hating to be wasteful, so this fits in perfectly with my mental issues, plus it's good for the environment & what not. So, you should recycle too. :-)

This weekend we had lots of fun with Paige & Jason. We had planned on floating the river, so we went to the spot that Josh & I like, away from the beaten path, & the river that last year took us an hour & a half to float was this year going to take FIVE & a half hours!! It is so low because of the current drought. So, we opted to kayak instead!! Aren't we adventurous?? It was fun (altho it got really tiring toward the end, especially since the wind starting making the water flow backwards for about a mile making it seem like we were paddling upstream), but at one point Jason's kayak knocked mine from the side, pushing me to the right, & right into a tree stump - where a WATER MOCCASIN was nested!!! Oh my. It was really big, & it couldn't have been more than 4 feet from my face. I freaked out juuusstt a little bit. I don't think it ever moved, but I had instant visions in my head of it's big, white fangs bursting forward & sinking themselves into my face, causing me to die a painful death in the middle of the Guadalupe. But alas, I lived to tell the tale. I think it will be a while before I go hanging out in snake-infested waters again tho....

C

tales of a painter

I painted the kitchen! Finally!

The Mexican food restaurant green is gone, replaced with a lovely minty kitcheny green (thanks to my mom we actually finished in one day, too). Next I'll paint our room latte (but not the reading room, I like that part of our room)... then I'm in the process of picking a color for our bathroom (note that it took almost 3 months after painting our living room for me to do the kitchen.. maybe all this by 2009?). I'll also have to paint the antiqued yellow cabinets - yuck. Our bathroom will hopefully look drastically different. Then I think I'll paint the guest bath, then eventually the two guest rooms. It's fun finding cheap ways to improve our house. One of my favorite is switchplates. Another is hooks, like towel hooks you know. They don't cost much at all but can change the way a room looks!

Something has happened to prove that I am no longer in school, but this is my life. I used to have two dreams about school, at least once a semester - one was that I had to go get a book out of my locker, but by the time I found my locker, I couldn't remember the combination. The dream ended there, always leaving me in a panic. My other school dream took place toward the end of the semester, when I realized - "oh my goodness, I forgot I signed up for that class! I haven't been going all semester!" That dream also ends in a panic, wondering if I will just fail, but never finding out.

My life has changed.

Last night... I had a dream. I dreamed that I walked into a room that was HUGE, & looked like someone had started painting different parts of the room different colors, all loud horrible colors. I panic - "oh my goodness, I forgot about THIS room!! What color will I paint it?!?!??!!?!?!"

I am officially no longer a student - but a homemaker.

I wonder if that will be the only dream??

C

Lizards are sometimes cute

I realized last night that I feel very much like I am letting people down when I am sick. I feel like I'm being a bad wife, & a bad worker for the church, b/c I just can't do much. I pushed it too much yesterday b/c I wanted to get my life back & it made me feel pretty icky (physically). I'm a control freak.

That's what I learned yesterday!

I've been a hermit all day. I'm hoping by Saturday I will be able to leave the house without pushing it.

Yesterday I was being a bum on the coach, when I saw...

A LIZARD CRAWLING ALONG OUR KITCHEN FLOOR!!!

I think the first thing through my mind was... "lizard... kitchen... that shouldn't be in there..." then I realized I had to do something about it! So I attacked it with tupperware (luckily Sage was outside so she couldn't have fun with the little booger) & cautiously made it to the front door to throw it out. I'm so brave. I usually think lizards are cute... but not when they are in your house!!!!

Part of the reason my health went south yesterday was because we kind of went to the San Antonio Rodeo to see Jeremy Camp & TobyMac. I know I shouldn't have!! Buuttttt it was a good concert!!

Tonight we are having lasagna & watching a movie. :-)

C

I eat Bugs

So I really like peaches. I like the fruit, I like peach flavored things, I like the smell of peaches. Peachy peach peach. Every time I go to the grocery store I buy two or three peaches & they are eaten in a couple days. Every time.

I was just eating my peach, happy me, when I bit down to the seed, &

a

worm

crawled

out.

I want to throw up. I want to throw peaches as far as I can hurl them.

Where did this worm even come from?! Was it born in the peach? Did it make a hole from the outside of the peach that I somehow missed? Even worse...

How many worms have I eaten without knowing it???????????????

I'm so terribly grossed out right now.

Thank goodness for cell phones.

Oh, what a week we have had!

So last Tuesday, I tried a new Starbucks near the hotel for my hour or two of thank-you-note writing. First of all, they were playing very loud Hispanic dancing music. Then my iced caramel latte seemed all caramel, little latte. Mainly due to the music, I decided to leave & go to the Starbucks I had been going to. But when I hauled my Target bag of notes, stamps, wedding cards, etc., out to my car, my car didn't start. Okay. So Josh left work early & saved my stranded self. He jumped it & we went to the hotel to find somewhere to take it to. When we went to take it to the dealership, it wouldn't even jump. So we got it towed. Apparently my alternator had failed, so they replaced it & I picked it up Thursday.

Drove it Thursday during the day. Then Josh & I headed on the beltway toward Jessica & Brandon's place for dinner & my stereo stopped working... then lights on my dash came on... then my windshield wipers started slowing down... at this point we start heading back to the hotel to take his car... my air conditioner stopped blowing cold air... I'm crying, afraid it is going to blow up as we drive down the highway... then we exited the highway & my brakes started jerking. We pulled into some warehouse parking lot & my car died. Fun. We called the dealership again & the towing company & no one could figure out where we were. We eventually got picked up & some fuse linkage box thing in my car had died or whatever. Picked it up on Saturday.

So that was some all week car trouble fun!

Oh ya. Then we realized the highway we had taken when we tried to turn around was a toll-tag only tollway. So we're watching the mail for charges from that!

Poor Josh also got sick with a cold last week, & gave it to me yesterday. What a sharing sweetie.

We also found out where Josh would be his last two weeks of training. Not Austin, like previously planned, but... ALA-STINKIN-BAMA!

So he will be in Alabama for two weeks starting Monday. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, because he is flying so I can't go (unless we paid for it of course but that's not gonna happen)... go to Midland? Stay in San Antonio & try to figure out what to do with my life? We'll see.

I'm not really looking forward to going back to San Antonio. I'll be glad to be back in our home, of course, but I'll only be reminded that I have yet to hear God show me what to do with my time & that we have no close friends or family-figures. I'm having a harder time with this than Josh; he's definitely more patient than I am. We have really enjoyed hanging out with our good friends Jessica & Brandon while we've been here in Houston, & I got to spend time with Paige & Claire, & I'm very thankful for that.

Please do be praying that God will show me what He wants me to do. I'm quite conflicted over it all. Pray for patience & clarity. & please be praying that Josh is safe during his last two weeks of training. It's almost over!!

We miss you all!!

J&C