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“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” – Ephesians 5:16-17
I think a little bloggy break is in order, my friends.
I’ll be back in a couple of days.
And in the meantime, check out this incredible post by our friend Kevin.
Y’all be real sweet while I’m gone.
;-)
I’ve had a crazy busy day today, so I decided to look through my drafts folder to see if there was anything there worth posting.
And if you’re wondering what I mean by “drafts folder,” it’s just the place where I start posts that I don’t necessarily finish. For example, if I have a particularly eventful day with the child, I might title the post, then type out a list of pertinent details until I figure out what I want to say about the aforementioned eventful day.
It’s really just a safeguard against the fact that motherhood has robbed me of all short term memory.
Anyway, I’ll jot down a few details, then go back to the draft in a day or two and write the actual post.
Usually.
But, as I discovered today, sometimes posts get lost in the shuffle. To wit, I present you with this little gem:
The Night The Beans Bit Back
started walking daily, want to eat better, made Jeana‘s pinto bean recipe since it seemed somewhat healthy, ate beans – which were quite delicious, then later suffered dire intestinal distress and literally ran myself out of my own bedroom
I’m telling you, internets: you can’t find that level of klassy bloggity goodness just anywhere.
Oh no ma’am you can’t.
I’ll be back later tonight with an American Idol re-cap, probably around 9:30 or so.
I will not eat any beans beforehand.
This is my promise to you.
I’ve received some incredibly touching emails over the last few days, emails filled with such heartfelt sentiments that they’ve brought a tear to mine eye. And really, when tough times hit, it’s a tremendous source of comfort to know that I have friends who are capable of such an overwhelming outpouring of concern for the tragic situation that is, well, my hair.
It’s cracked me up, really, because of all the mind-numbingly mundane topics I’ve addressed on this blog over the last year-and-some-change, I think my most recent unfortunate highlighting incident has evoked the greatest response. I’ve gotten at least twenty emails asking “Did you call your hairdresser?,” “What did you decide what to do?,” “Have you considered going darker?,” “Is it really that bad?” and “Have you taken the Coastal Dunes haircolor back to Walmart where it belongs? Flee from evil, sister! Flee from evil!”
So here is my official update, just as clear and concise as I know how to make it. Which means that it’s going to be really wordy and rambling. Because that is what I do. Some might feel it’s annoying, my tendency to go on and on, but I like to think of it as a writing gift that keeps on giving. And giving.
And then it gives some more.
Anyhoo, I decided after about the 64th comment that I definitely needed to go back to my hair guy. But the thought of sitting in that chair while he goes over my hair with a fine-toothed comb (literally! oh that is witty) and then tells me in very soothing tones what a horrible, terrible, very bad thing I’ve done – and that it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg to fix it – well, it intimidates me.
However, since it takes about two or three weeks to get an appointment with him, I decided that I could work up sufficient courage by the time that my Walk of Shame appointment arrived. I mean, we are talking about my hair, y’all. For a Southern girl it’s like a calling card, and right now my multi-hued calling card is engraved with all manner of messages that I don’t necessarily want to send.
Well (THIS IS SO EXCITING), yesterday morning I was taking Alex to his classroom at church when we ran into his very favorite staff member in our children’s ministry. And I just have to tell y’all: her hair was rockin’ it so hard that I about near rummaged through the drawers behind the check-in counter to see if I could find a lighter, flick it, and hold it high while I swayed back and forth in front of her.
Alex was of course talking up a storm, but in his brief spurts of quiet I tried to gather as much information as I could: Who did the color? Did the application of said color require a withdrawal from any family member’s college fund? Where in the sam hill is this hair magician located? And mightn’t it be possible that she would work her magic on me?
After I got the little man settled in his classroom, I went back to the check-in desk, pulled a Sharpie off of a clipboard, and wrote down all the pertinent information on the back of a visitor’s sign-in card. Make no mistake about it: I’m calling the hair magician first thing this morning. The best part of all? She doesn’t charge even half of what my usual guy does. So I’m going to let her straighten out my color – and then I’ll be able to go back to R. with my head held high the next time I need a cut.
Now isn’t that just like God? To use one of His sweet servants in our children’s ministry to impact my child for eternity and to give me hope for my hair? I mean, that’s a multi-faceted anointing right there, people. Oh yes it is.
So I’m feeling much better, thank you. Hopefully Hair Tragedy ’07 will be coming to a close in the very near future.
Finally, on a completely unrelated note, why I am just now realizing how fun these iPod things are? I’m just a little teensy bit in love with it. Just a bit. But in the most totally healthy way one could possibly be in love with a postage stamp-sized electronic device that plays all the many boocoodles of music. Plus, investigating all of your incredible music suggestions should keep me busy until at least mid-April, which is quite a relief, seeing as how I only have about seven irons in the fire at any given point in time, so that eighth iron of looking for music is really going to eliminate my ongoing battle with boredom.
AHEM.
But I do thank y’all so much for all your great recommendations. I’m giddy from having so many musical options. In fact, I filled up a big notecard with artists and CD titles y’all mentioned, and I can’t wait to start making my way through the list.
And speaking of lists, I have a mighty big one that says “to do” – and I need to start tackling it so that we can have some “clean clothes” and “food to eat” and “pleasing living conditions.”
Hope y’all have a wonderful week!
So almost a year ago I asked for music recommendations because Chris Tomlin’s Arriving had been in my car CD player for over a year, and I figured it might be time for a change (love Chris Tomlin though I do). My friend Addie recommended Watermark’s A Grateful People, and as soon as I heard it, I knew I would love it forever and ever.
Clearly I was right on target with my first Watermark impression, because almost a year later, A Grateful People is still in my CD player. I rotate it with the aforementioned old faithful Arriving, Chris Tomlin’s See The Morning, Passion ’06 Everything Glorious (featuring, oddly enough, Chris Tomlin), the latest Bethany Dillon, and Selah Duets.
Versatile, aren’t I?
(Sidenote: I gave D.The Best of Passion (So Far) CD for Valentine’s Day (featuring – guess who? – CHRIS TOMLIN!), and if you have not heard Christy Nockels sing “His Renown,” get thee to iTunes and download it NOW. She’s my new best friend forever, only she has no idea because, well, we’ve never met. But if we did? I would ask her to sing to me while I cooked her fried chicken, and then she would become terribly frightened and alert the authorities. It’s the stuff Lifetime TV movies are made of, really.)
So in the interest of broadening my musical horizons, I’m going to repeat my request from almost a year ago: what are y’all listening to? What CD or song am I missing that I just have to have? Because now that I have my sassy new iPod, I need to fill ‘er up.
You should probably know that I love contemporary Christian or praise and worship music because it enables me to have a little “quiet time” as I listen, but I’ve also been enjoying John Mayer’s Continuum and Corinne Bailey Rae’s self-titled CD when I’m trying to get some work done. Really, the only genre that’s off-limits for me is hip-hop, as I feel it might be somewhat odd for this 30-something mama to be getting her rap on as she waits in carpool line at Mother’s Day Out.
Final request: the music needs to be kid-friendly (i.e., no bad language whatsoever) but doesn’t have to be for kids, simply because I’ve finally broken Alex of his Veggie Tales listening habit, and oh sweet mercy I’d rather not go down that road again if I don’t have to. Because while I love the Veggie Tales with everything in me, three years of listening to high-pitched voices sing “I’ve Got The Joy Joy Joy Down In My Heart” has been a-heapin’ plenty, thankyouverymuch.
Leave your suggestions in the comments.
I’m all ears.
GET IT?
And above all, interpeeps?
ROCK ON.
(I’ve always wanted to say that.)
(It’s a shame I can’t pull it off.)
Y’all, we really, really need to talk about my hair.
I mean, I know you have other stuff to do like “making cookies” and “eating chocolate” and “cutting out paper hearts,” but I’m having a bit of a hair crisis, and I don’t know what to do.
Here’s the deal.
The natural color of my hair is dark blonde. At least I think it is. I really can’t be sure since I haven’t seen it since around 1998, but as best I can recall, it falls somewhere along the darker end of the blonde spectrum.
And for many years, I have enjoyed the luxury of going to the salon, sitting in a chair, and letting a talented color specialist apply golden blonde highlights while I thumbed through the latest issue of InStyle.
Sure, there were moments of home hair color weakness, moments when I couldn’t bear to fork over the big bucks, moments when I convinced myself that I could do just as well with a $10 kit from the drugstore.
And then, last year, the most unexpected thing happened: I did just do just as well with something from the drugstore when my friend Tracey highlighted my hair. I LOVED IT. The color lasted until the beginning of summer, when my hair gets naturally lighter anyway. When I got ready for some touch-ups back in the fall, I coerced someone else into giving me highlights with a home highlighting kit. It didn’t look quite as good as it did when Tracey worked her magic, but it was fine.
About three weeks ago, I pushed my luck and tried to go the home hair color route for the third time in a row. I talked a friend into doing the whole pull-my-hair-through-a-cap deal, and the results were, well, iffy.
With “iffy” being a really generous term.
Because now my hair is way too blonde on the ends, way too dark on the top.
In fact, I look like someone dipped my head in light brown dye, flipped me over, and then dunked the bottom half of my hair in a vat of bleach.
It’s a really attractive look, in case you were wondering, and it’s especially convenient when you’re trying to coordinate your hair with an ensemble (as I know so many of us do), seeing as how you have the bottom way-too-blonde part, which is great for those cooler-toned spring clothes, and then you have the dishwater-brown-etched-with-gray top part, perfect for those warmer-toned winter separates.
(I’m trying to rationalize. Indulge me.)
But then. But then.
But then you catch a glimpse of yourself under the flourescent lights in the Lifeway restroom. And you realize that OH SWEET MERCY, something has got to give, because OH SWEET MERCY, there’s no way to ignore your the horrific state of your hair affairs for even one more second.
And that’s exactly what happened to me this afternoon.
So do you know what I did?
I made my way to the front of the store, quickly paid for my Lifeway purchases, grabbed my child’s hand and said, “Come on, baby. Mama’s got to get her a little hair color at the Walmarts.”
Because no kidding, people: I look like the “before” picture in some gigantic magazine spread entitled “OUR MOST CHALLENGING MAKE-OVERS EVER!!!”
So here’s my dilemma.
I bought some hair color at Walmart today. Not highlights. COLOR. It’s some kind of temporary deal – Natural Instincts Coastal Dune. Clearly it’s a high-end product because it does make reference to the beach, and I’m certain that if I use it my hair will instantly acquire an artfully-tousled look, almost as if I’ve just walked in from, well, the coastal dunes (not to be confused with the non-coastal dunes, those piles of sand that have magically appeared in densely-populated metropolitan areas).
And here’s what I’m thinking.
It’s pretty much a given that I’m going to have to do the Home Haircolor Walk Of Shame into my salon at some point in the near future. The guy who cuts my hair hasn’t seen me since I received the latest round of ill-fated highlights, and you can trust me when I tell you that he. will. be. mortified. if I walk in there with the color looking like it does right now.
Which leads me to think that maybe I should try this Coastal Dune business, primarily to see if I can’t get everything a little “evened out” color-wise. I’ll still have to the do the Walk Of Shame the next time I get a cut, but maybe the Coastal Dune-age will cover up everything nicely enough that R. (my hair guy) won’t immediately throw me in a colorist’s chair and charge me an arm and a leg so that he can get everything back to normal.
(And by “normal,” of course, I mean, “my usual totally fake color.”)
OR – should I just go ahead and be a big girl, make an appointment, confess my home highlighting sins, and let R. fix it? I SO don’t want to spend the money. But girls, you KNOW – especially if you’re a big-haired girl from the South – when the hair doesn’t look good, it wears on you. Oh yes ma’am it does. It takes a toll on the ole self-esteem, and OH MY WORD I know that as Christians we’re not supposed to be concerned with self-esteem, we’re supposed to be concerned with God’s esteem, but I am not kidding when I tell you that what’s going on with my hair right now GRIEVES THE HEART OF GOD.
CAN I GET AN AMEN?
Come to think of it, we might need to have us a hair tragedy altar call, y’all. Can’t y’all just see it? First we’d insist that every head be bowed, every eye be closed, and then we could minister to the hurting: “YES, Sister. You right there in the back. You tried to perm it yourself, didn’t you? And you, sweet sister. Over to the right. Thought you’d trim those bangs on your own? And ooooh, sister. A banana clip? Really? Bless you.”
And just so you know? I’ll be the sister up at the front. Holding a box of Natural Instincts Coastal Dune in my hands. Waiting for some divine direction from my bloggy sistah hair accountability partners about what to do next.
Preach it in the comments.
COME ON, NOW.
Preach it.
I do apologize that I haven’t posted anything today, but I’ve been ever-so-busy trying to cough up a lung.
Plus, D has now joined Alex and me in the sick ward, so between the three of us it’s just a regular Festival-O-Congestion around here.
Also: I stayed in my pajamas all weekend long. In fact, I think that between my hair being pulled back in a clippy, my ever-present thick socks, my flannel p.j. bottoms and my stunning long-sleeved t-shirts, I was quite the Valentine’s Day vision for my husband to behold.
Now I think I’ll go cough in his face all purty-like. And then blow my nose while offering him some Nyquil in a champagne glass.
(KLASSY!)
I did, however, make my way through all of Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis, and I’ll probably post about that once I let it marinate a little longer. It made me think, for sure – and even though I ultimately don’t agree with him on several of the key points of his book, I’m crazy about his writing style.
Anyhoo.
In the meantime, be sure to visit Heather (blog designer extraordinaire) at Especially Heather to read all about an exciting new online community called Moms of Grace. Heather and her friend Laura have teamed up with 5 Minutes For Mom to develop a wonderful new way for women to get to know each other better.
Also, Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer has written an excellent post regarding internet safety – specifically in regard to posting pictures on a blog.
And I’m pretty sure that no one will cough in your face at either place.
Which, honestly, is a much better deal than you’ll find here.
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