CareMail for Hair Mail

This week I crossed a very weird item off my to do list: mail hair.

Check.


As instructed, I had put it in a ponytail before having it cut and put it in a resealable plastic bag, but I needed a padded envelope to mail it in. (Not sure why padded, but that's beside the point.)


I found this CareMail envelope at Office Max. It's stuffed with old newspapers, so the recipient can throw in with papers to be recycled. Smart, huh?!

Seeing is nice.

I called the glasses place on Friday. Then again today. Finally, they were in.


I'm all for lines not being blurred. And for (hopefully) fewer headaches. And...yikes...I need to dust!

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Photo by me.

Weak

Seems like lately it's just been one thing after another with my health. Not huge things. Not life-threatening things. Things that are just big enough to slow me down, to make me cancel plans with friends, to come in the way of whatever I thought I was going to be able to accomplish. It could be much worse, I know.


Still. The allergies were doing much better, and then the unexplained headaches started. Those have been letting up the last couple days. And then I got this random sore throat/low fever/zap you of all your energy bug over the weekend.


I realize a sore throat is really not a big deal. But it's so hard not to think "Hey! I was just feeling better!" How am I supposed to build friendships if I'm constantly having to stay at home? How am I supposed to get anything done if I'm constantly wiped out by one thing or another?! I was struggling with my purpose in life and feeling very weak when I read this:

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many...The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable...

So I guess I'm indispensable. I guess there is room in the community of believers that make up Christ's body for weakness. And that is a job description I feel totally qualified for.

Plus, I did get a lot of reading done.

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Photos by me.

Quote from I Corinthians 12:14-22 (NIV). Emphasis mine.

Learning to talk

I just read this post on Holy Experience (one of my most favorite blogs!) about talking to your kids about God and about a book on the topic called Gum, Geckos and God. That's the first I'd heard of that book, but it sounds intriguing.

Anyway, click on over to Holy Experience when you get a minute. There's always some good food for thought over there!


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Photo by me.

The fish with no name

Another change that occurred this weekend was that E and Christine gave the Hubs a beautiful Beta fish for his birthday.

So we now have a pet in the house.



The fish doesn't have a name...yet...but we're working on it....

Ch-ch-changes

Speaking of getting around to things, Saturday I crossed two big things off my list that I've been meaning to do for a long time.

1. Eye exam. My glasses will come in later this week, and I'm actually excited. Because seeing would be nice. And less headaches would be too, so keep your fingers crossed for that!

Also...

2. The big chop. Oh yes, I finally did it. First, a before shot....

(Here's me concentrating really hard on keeping the camera steady on Friday night before we went out for Peruvian.)

So Saturday morning I headed up to Toni & Guy Academy...

...and let Tellie cut off 10 inches of my hair.


Which I'll be donating to Locks of Love.

Oh, yeah, we did lowlights too.


(I say "we" like I contributed to the process in some way other than picking out the color, then sitting there drinking my Daily Rush. Right. It's all I can do to take a photo and smile at the same time...)

And the result...


Voila!

The funny thing is that I forgot to bring a bag with me to put the cutoff ponytail into. So I ended up walking out with this...

It works, though, right?

So since I currently do not hate my hair, maybe I'll put a photo in my profile.

Maybe.

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Photos: The ones where I'm holding the camera are by me. The ones where I'm getting my hair cut are by Claire - also from Toni & Guy Academy.

Marking the occasion

So catching up from the weekend here. Not going to have time to tell you today about the big changes I made Saturday, but hopefully I will tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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Sometimes you just don't get around to doing things you'd like to.

The Hubs turned 30 on Friday. It turned out to be a great opportunity to do some things I know he has been wanting to do, but we haven't gotten around to recently.


We went to the zoo - first thing in the morning so it wasn't hot was less hot.

We had lunch at Taco Bell. I know. But the Hubs has been wanting Taco Bell, and I keep talking him out of it. They even decorated for him! (I'm sure the balloons were for his birthday, not customer appreciation day. Right?)

We went back to the Lego Store. And there wasn't a line to get in this time. It turned out to be pretty cool. At the back they have this huge wall with (kind of random) individual pieces. You can fill up a container with whichever ones you want for a set price. Kind of reminded me of buying potato salad at the deli. Very expensive potato salad.


Dinner was at the Rincon Peruano. And it was super delicious. The Hubs loves Peruvian food, and I can't believe how long it's been since last time we were there. We're definitely not going to wait so long before we go back.


Finally, I made this cherry cobbler dessert (well, I added apples too) in the crockpot. (The Hubs is not a huge cake fun.) So when we came home from dinner, I served it up, lit a candle and sang happy birthday.

I think he had a good day.

Here's to year 30!

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The Hubs took the first photo (of us), the rest are by me.

Arrivals

My brother, E, has moved back to Arizona. Which I'm very excited about!

His girlfriend, Christine (who is fabulous) and her cats (who I haven't met yet) have moved here for the first time.


Welcome home, everyone!

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Photo by me. E and Christine in hats my mom made them wear one very hot sunny day at the zoo last summer.

Mom's Sunflowers

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T-shirt sale

Just thought you might like to know that my shop's t-shirt supplier is upgrading their Jr. Jersey tees.

Which means we're liquidating the current style.

Which means time for a sale!

Get $4 off until Jr. Jersey tees until they're gone! Use coupon code 4JRJERSEY at checkout. (Colors and sizes will be removed as they sell out.)

Home again

Just FYI, the Hubs and I are back in our own home as of last night. It's kind of weird not having anyone else besides us to feed.

Since I had another migraine yesterday and can't deal with being on the computer for more than a couple minutes at once today, that's all I'm gonna say for now.

Hope you're having a fabulous day!

More window well wildlife

So I haven't seen the snake I posted about last night in a few days. But it rained last night and this morning there are no less than 5 small frogs in the same window well. It's like our own personal menagerie.


If I lived here, I could start a separate blog just for the window well. We'd call it the Land Down Under. Or Mesa Underground. Or something.


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Photo by me. Sorry it's so grainy - can't use the flash through the window screen and don't want to take the screen off.

One snake, two snake, red snake...

Ok, it was actually a black and yellow king snake - not a blue snake.

We saw it just a couple days after we spotted the red ground snake in my parents' dining room. In the 10 years prior to us housesitting, my family has seen 3 snakes at the house. Slightly disconcerting that we've seen almost as many in the past week.

This one was actually outside the house in the window well. But still.

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Photo by me (through the window screen).

Time to feed the chickens

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I wear my sunglasses at night

I think I've officially crossed over from having an epic headache to having a migraine. Don't think I've had one of those before. Why am I even on the computer? Because knowledge is power. And I'm trying to (quickly) read up before I return to my dark cave of a room. I turned the monitor brightness down from 75 to 25, put on my sunglasses and skimmed a WebMD article.

Since I don't have a lot of time to surf, I was wondering if you had any links/info on migraines could share-?

My friend Leanna gave me some good tips for dealing with one. But I don't really understand where this is coming from or what to do about it. I am going to call the doc tomorrow, but I know they don't have all the answers. So feel free to share what you know...as long as you don't talk too loud. ;)

The unexpected

The first full day of our "housesitting" adventure I woke up with what the Hubs termed an epic headache, which killed our 4th of July party plans. The Hubs could've still gone, but he is so awesome that he just wanted to hang out with me.


So we raided my parent's fridge and their movie collection. By the time fireworks were in full swing, the headache had let up enough that we could drive up the hill and look for a good spot to view some at a distance.

We pulled into this random parking lot and were surprised to see that several other families (mostly with small children) had picked the same spot. Maybe when your kids are at a certain age, it's easier just to skip the big crowds.

I dunno. It worked for me. We could see several fireworks displays - but they were all far enough away not to be too loud.

Actually, the most eventful moment of the day came when we arrived home to find a snake hanging out in the dining room. Sorry, it was not a photo op moment - we had to get that thing out of the house ASAP.

Funny how things never seem to go as planned. Funny how uneventful can be good.


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Photo 1) by the Hubs. The rest by me.

Feeling needed

Ranger decided I should be up at 5:30 this morning.

The Hubs and I are at my parents' place housesitting. Actually, the house is fine on its own. It's more like we're dog-, cat- and chicken-sitting. And yard/plantsitting.

And since the aforementioned dog decided he urgently needed to chase a stray cat off the property, I was up before the ants were.

Slackers.

I took advantage of the cool weather to start the watering and get the chickens fed.

I think it's good for the Hubs and I to have living things other than ourselves and the potted plants at our condo to take care of. I have a feeling that needing to get up because someone is demanding our attention, needing to get home because someone is waiting for us, needing to drop what we are doing and check what someone is up to are all very good things for us to get used to.

Speaking of which, I'd probably better go make sure I'm not flooding the tomato plants.

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Photos by me.

Independence

The Hubs and I were talking about 4th of July memories from when we were little.

He remembers being about 5 or 6 and being really scared of the fireworks. That's understandable - since that might have been the first time he'd ever seen them. His dad was in the Air Force and the Hubs spent much of his first 5 years in Germany.


I remember going with my family to the community college. My parents would spread a blanket on the grass in the football field or over the ample trunk of the old gray Chrysler - I was pretty excited about sitting on the car. And we would wait.

It seemed like we had to wait forever. And it was hot. And I always begged for one of those glowy necklace things. (I was probably a lot of fun on the 4th of July. :P Sorry, Mom and Dad.)

Once the fireworks started, I didn't notice the heat so much.


I still love fireworks. Which explains this. But now that I have money to buy my own glow-in-the-dark stuff, I'm not so interested. Such is life, eh?

Yo baby, what's up?

Yogurt for babies? Really? Do babies need different yogurt than the rest of us?

I think the company just liked the name and came up with a product to go with it.

Slack time

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