Mom to the Screaming Masses

Extreme makeover, the color edition

So I'm going on Monday to get my hair cut and colored.  Here is what it looked like in July, after it had been freshly "done".

Now that summer is over for us, my hair has been in the sun and has faded obscenely.  Think light red, brassy, with darker undertones, and a ton of gray sprinkled in.  Except for the one area that is a larger gray streak. 

My, I'm so colorful.

So, I'm wanting to go darker.  I had my hair colored in a mocha shade before, with lighter colors woven in, and I loved it.  I'm planning to do something similar. Yes?  No?  Different color, shades, etc?

And what about the style?  I had butt length hair until Gabriel was born, and had it all chopped to the style you see above.  The way it is now is so easy for me.  It styles well, since I wear a hat at work it's easy to fluff up after, I can wake up and toss it around a bit and be done with it.  I THINK it's flattering, and I get lots of compliments.  Is it time for a change?

The Hubster LOVES long hair.  He's really wanting me to grow it, at least to my shoulders.  I don't want long hair again - the stress, the mess and the constant fussing with it that I'd have to do.

Do you like the length of your own hair?  (Guys, I am probably not asking you this. ) What would your dream hair style look like?

What sez The Internets about my own hair?  Grow it, cut it, it rocks or it stinks?  Lighter in color, darker, shave it all off?

I'm getting tired of the taste of my foot

I have a really bad habit.  I constantly speak without thinking.

No, wait, it's worse than that.  I speak ABOUT people, usually when they are right there, in a frequently unfavorable manner.    Let's not sugar coat it - it's called gossip, and it's wrong and it's bad.  So why, oh why, do I continue to put my foot in my mouth?

The latest incident was with one of the nicest people I've ever met.  Her son did something wrong, and I couldn't wait to talk to her about it.  Only I didn't know her son was involved.  I've been in the same situation before, when it was my son who did the stupidest thing he's ever done - to DATE, let's stress that - and I walked in on two women trash talking our family, delighting in the "taking down our family a peg or three."

As soon as I realized what I'd done, I was mortified and went to the card store to purchase a card.  I found many cards - Having the priest to dinner?  Sorry you need to go to AA!, Congratulations on your successful IVF!, Adopting triplets is a great thing!, Happy birthday to my Rabbi - all of these cards were there, but there was no, I can't believe I was such an idiot and put my foot so far down my throat I should be gagging - hmm, there might be a market for this type card.

I bought a generic I'm sorry card and delivered it, too embarrassed to speak.

More than embarrassed, I'm angry with myself, humiliated and frustrated.  When will I learn?  When will I stop doing things so impulsively, when will I STOP and THINK before I SPEAK?

I'm sick to death of masticating my shoe leather.  It doesn't taste good and it's time to stop.

There is a reason that gossip is classified a sin.  I must determine how to engage my brain BEFORE my mouth. 

The Great Purse Organizer Giveaway

You all really wanted this purse organizer.  I mean, you REALLY wanted it.  I have forwarded the interest in this organizer - which REALLY is as cool as it seems - to the people at Real Simple.  If I hear of any opportunity to purchase them, I'll be certain to let you all know.

Before I tell you who won (I KNOW! I HATE it when people prolong the excitement!)  I must tell you that The Hubster has been a super great help this week.  I'm so tired today that I don't know if I'm coming or going, and he's been off for the past three mornings.  He's taken the High Schooler to school, and after I've departed for work with the other five, he's done laundry and dishes and general pick up crud before making his own way to work.  It was such a relief today to come home and see the dryer EMPTY, the kitchen dishes ALL PUT AWAY, and no huge pressing work staring me in the face.  Well, housework, any way.  It's left me free to sign the 411 billion kajillion papers that came home this week.  I know I have a tendency to dwell on the bad, so I must say when there is something groovy going on.

One more thing - there are several product reviews up over at Scrutiny By The Masses, so please take a peek over there.  I'd appreciate it, and so would the fantastic companies whose products I've been privileged to preview. 

Now!  Winners below the fold.  I SO wish I could award all of you - for if there is a more mixed up, disorganized crowd, it'd be hard to find.  I'm kidding, I'm kidding - the stories were amazing and the pleas broke my heart and, oh, go see already.

That makes me crazzeeeee, she sings

Whee.  Life is fun.  Life is fun. Repeat as necessary until you believe, right?   

I hit the ground early this week, starting school and work and continuing with the personal trainer and capoeira classes, training for the half marathon coming soon, soccer and cross country for the kids and yeah, we are all busy, right?  Shuddup already, lady.

One thing I've recently gotten quite a taste for is Iced Coffee.  I've never been able to make it so that it tastes as good as Starbucks, though, and my wallet is so light it floats at this point.  I did some experimenting, some googling, and some serious sampling, and found a recipe that was so close to the good stuff as to be interchangeable.   If you are feeling stressed, like I am CONSTANTLY, pulled in many different directions, and making mistakes at work (who me?  she whistles innocently) try this.  I pinky promise you'll like it.

First, what not to do.

•         Pouring hot coffee over ice:         This just yields weak, watered-down coffee that isn't very cold.    
•         Adding sugar after it's cold: Sugar won't dissolve in cold water, so you get occasional sips full of crunchy sugar granules and otherwise unsweetened coffee.
•         Adding flavor syrups without stirring:  The first sip is sickeningly sweet because it's all syrup, then all subsequent sips are bland.  I'd think that this was a given, but some people just don't believe in stirring. 

What you SHOULD do.  Make strong coffee, using a 1:1 ratio.  For my coffeepot, I use the 10 cup line and use 10 of the scoops.  You want the coffee to be strong, so that when you pour it over ice, it's not watered down.  Pour into a pitcher and add sugar.  I found that I got the best results when I used simple syrup, which I bought at the Alcohol store.  You can make your own, if you'd like, by boiling two parts sugar to one part water until the sugar is dissolved. Sweeten the coffee more than you'd usually like - I used the same measure that I did for the coffee, and used 10 for the entire pot.  You can also use flavored syrups, like the Davinci brand, and it's especially good for me if I use half simple syrup and half flavor.  Refrigerate overnight. Fill your cup with ice, pour cold sweetened coffee over, and add milk to taste. 

That's it.  That's all you need, and I promise, it was great.  One little extra that rocks?  Make coffee ice cubes for this drink.  Yowza!

And I'll be pulling names for the drawing tomorrow and posting them tomorrow night.  If you haven't entered, you have until midnight Eastern Tuesday night to enter on the post two down. 

If I owe you an email, it's coming .  Probably by pony express, but I promise it'll get there.

A sight for my poor, sore, tired eyes

Lunch bags and book bags for all of us.

Ready to greet the day.

Mission Monday - Winter Holidays are coming

Today is Monday, August 27.  Saturday was the 25th - aren't you glad I can read a calendar?  Sixteen weeks from Saturday is Christmas.  I THINK - don't quote me on that.  Hanukkah this year begins December 4th.  Winter Solstice is December 22nd.

That means, my friends, that we have FOUR months to get our planning and purchasing done.  Four months.  If you are paid bimonthly, you have 8 pay periods.  We have 4 in our house.

Make a list of who you need to purchase gifts for.  Who will you make cookies or treats as a gift for?  (Two sentences ended in a preposition - yuck.)  Budget out how much you will need to buy everything you want to give as gift - do you need to pare down the list?  Do you have someone on the list that is IMPOSSIBLE to buy a gift?  What gifts were dismal failures last year?  What did you hit a grand slam out of the ball field with?  (Another preposition!  Geesh.)

I know, it smacks of greed and we shouldn't be all about the presents.  You know, though, that the vast majority of us gift others.  If you don't, what about decorating, or foods? 

______________

Don't forget to enter the contest below - some of you have some really AWESOME reasons to need a purse organizer!

Major, Massive Give-Away

Or, at least I think so.

Real Simple sent me five purse organizers to give away on my blog.  Are you interested?

They are black pocketbooks with silver circle handles, and they can be filled and slid inside your regular purse.  You can also carry them by themselves.  I LOVE mine, and blogged about it here. 

If you want one, leave me a comment.  I'll give away three to random drawing, and two, with a few goodies inserted, to two readers who can tell me the reason that they should be picked.  Why are you the one most in need of organization?

This contest is open until midnight, Tuesday, August 28th. 

Grumplestiltskin wants a do-over

STAT.

This tale of woe really begins last night.  After "meet the teacher" day, after "meet with the school nurse and drop off inhalers, epi pens, ibuprofen and doctor notes and realize despite your careful planning that you are short a note - which means another drive to the doctor - and the epi pens are all expired". After soccer practice and Boy Scout Court of Honor.  After cleaning the kitchen and a late night trip to Wal -hell to replace the fried phones and buy milk and $100 worth of necessities.  After school shoe shopping with six kids. I was on my way to bed when The Hubster arrived home, and I stayed up late to talk to him.  I was in bed, asleep, by 11:30. 

The grand plan for the day was to begin the new workout schedule.  With my return to work on Monday, I won't be able to laze about in bed until 8:30 and then go to the personal trainer and work from 9-10:30.  I'll have to be at the gym by 5:15 Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I was planning on easing into the schedule today, and set my alarm for 5:45.   Let me insert a bit of wisdom right here:

I am not a morning person.  I also do not do well without enough sleep.

Riley woke up at 4.  4:11, exactly.  She never went back to sleep, but tossed and turned in my bed, rubbing my arms, pressing her forehead between my shoulder blades and generally being a pain in the rear end - literally, at times.  5:30 came, and I decided to skip the working out.  Not so, said The Hubster.  He put Riley in bed with another kid and drug me to the gym.

Where I was grumpy and short tempered with all people in attendance, especially my really nice trainer, who was trying to compliment me and I bit his head off his neck.  And everyone was at the gym this morning, and I do mean everyone. Not only that, all were unfailingly polite and friendly to me, and a couple of people tried to joke me out of my mood.  I wanted to sit in it, wallow in it, and bathe in the unhappiness and exhaustion that I felt.  Do you know how hard it is to do 40 pound stiff legged deadlifts, or 160 pound leg presses, when you've had about 4 hours of sleep?  I let everyone know what a bad day I was having and how rotten it was to be me.  I think it was more rotten to be NEAR me today - my poor hubby, who had to ride home with me. Poor, poor me.  Wah, wah, waaaahhhhh.

I raise my 4 shot espresso to all of us who've had no sleep, who deal with crabby kids, and who STILL have school shopping to do - like me.  Lots of little things - one needs a personal hand sanitizer, one needs the manila communications envelope laminated, one waited until this weekend to do the summer reading and doesn't even HAVE the book to read.  All of the green knee socks for one are mismatched and I've got to buy new ones, one needs a new t shirt for field trips.  The new shoes I bought for Riley yesterday are, inexplicably, both left shoes. The week before school just stinks in a big bad way, especially on no sleep.  The tantrums and the fighting between the troops makes the Vietnam conflict look like nursery school, and I've put all of the kids on alert today.

The crazy thing was that once I was finished with the workout, I was in a better mood.  Punishing myself with lots of weights and reps was good for me, even though I hated it with a passion great than death. 

Looking back in the archives, last year and the year before were just the same.  It'll pass, it always does, but it's complete and utter chaos getting past the avalanche.  I've just got to try to keep my bad mood to myself. 

Next time, I hope we are just as lucky

Yesterday, around 3, the storm warnings started. "Severe weather is coming off the mountains.  Be prepared."  Yeah, whatever.  A storm coming off the mountains?  Hours and HOURS away - in fact, I don't think I've ever heard a warning like this - it's so far away as to be inconsequential. 

We did our normal stuff, including soccer practices, dinner and errand running, and got the little girls to bed.  I came back downstairs and couldn't find the Hubster anywhere. A quick search and he surfaced in the back yard, kicking soccer balls over to the side of the house and taking the canopy cover off the sand box.  When I asked him what was going on, he said, "There's a bad storm coming. Can't you hear the thunder?"

Yeah, I could.  As I stood there, I realized that the lightning was amazingly bright, with no delay between bursts.  The trees were bending nearly in half and the air had that funny ozone smell of an oncoming storm.  We barely finished the pick up and were just inside the door when the rains came down.  We looked at each other, faces illuminated by the lightning, and I realized that I'd need to turn off the computers. 

The lightning continued, one flash after another, lighting up the house through the blinds and curtains.  The thunder boomed and the wind howled, and I was really stunned at the ferocity of this storm.  Computers off and unplugged, I told the bigger kids to go to bed and after a brief skirmish, we let the middle ones lay on the downstairs sofa while the big kids watched television with us.

Ka-BLAM!  We jumped as the loudest thunder I'd ever heard cracked, as loud as if it was inside the house.  Simultaneously, the entire downstairs was lit up like the fourth of July.  The house shook as if there was an earthquake.  Beep! Beep! Beep!  All of the smoke detectors in the house began to scream, and the kids flew off the sofas as The Hubster and I jumped up.  "We've been hit!" we both said to each other.  Weirdly, the alarms stopped after 30 seconds.  Grabbing a flashlight, he climbed up into the attic.  I checked on the little girls, who were still sleeping, and then looked out each window, peering through the rain to try and see if there was a visible, gaping hole where the bolt had struck. 

Nothing.  I could see nothing.  Yet, I knew we'd been hit.

A Lesson Learned

When I was a child, my dad was a weekend mechanic.  I remember him taking the engine out of our van - school bus yellow, totally embarrassing - and completely rebuilding it.  Of course, I had no desire to learn.  I didn't want to watch, didn't want to learn, and had zero desire to hear about anything car related.  How to change oil?  Who cares, just go up the street to JiffyLube.  Flat tire?  That's what AAA is for. 

When I turned 17, my dad helped me to buy a car.  It was an old, 1976 Ford Pinto, with the floorboards rusted through on the drivers side - which I didn't discover until much later - and choke trouble.  My father installed a manual choke, and taught me how to accelerate and baby the car along by opening and closing the choke. 

Today I went to get some coffee and parked next to a GMC Tahoe.  There were two people inside, a guy behind the steering wheel and a girl in the passenger seat - both, at the most, 20 years old.  They had the windows open and were arguing furiously. Averting my eyes, thinking it a lover's argument, I went in and bought my coffee.  When I returned, I saw that the hood of their vehicle was up, and they were still arguing.  "How could this happen?  Who's going to help us?  I guess I can call my mom, but, boy, is she going to be pissed!'  He tried to crank the key, and there was no response from the engine.

"Got a dead battery?"  I asked.  He looked at me and shrugged.  "I have no idea.  How would I know that?" he muttered.  I told him I had cables and I'd be glad to give him a jump, if he needed.  He nodded and climbed out of the car.  I asked him what side the battery was on, and he pointed to the washer fluid.  Ooookay, then.  I popped my own hood and handed him the ends of the jumper cables, which he started clanging together, like cymbals.  "No, don't do that!"  I warned.  All I needed was for the guy, who was clearly inexperienced, to blow up his engine or mine.  I connected mine, connected his, and he was able to turn the key and the engine started right up.  I disconnected his car, and he was gone.  Off.

Which brings me to the whole point of this post.

What are you happy that your parents taught you?  What skills do you think today's kids should have before they move out of the house?  What do you want to make sure your kids know? Necessary skills are so different today than 100 or even 50 years ago.  I learned to make bread from my mother - how to knead it, shape it into loaves, and let it rise.  I'm not sure that this is a skill I'm going to insist my kids, both boy and girl, know.  Jump starting a car, that one is necessary still, I think.  Cleaning an oven, not so much.  Cleaning a refrigerator, definitely. 

I'm glad that my parents taught me to be polite.  To say thank you.  And to know  where the battery is located in my vehicle.