November 15, not the highlight reel..........

So, I just returned from a wonderful vacation where I blogged daily, uploaded lovely pictures, and basically had a great time. And the whole experience reminded me how social networks show us the "highlight reel" of our lives. For instance, I'm not always frolicking in a national park, tossing fall leaves like I haven't a care in the world:

But, that's what makes the social networks, because who thinks to take pictures of the embarrassing things? 

Like that time in the Baltimore airport (last week) when I had to go to the bathroom and there were no seat covers and I didn't want to take time to cover the seat with toilet paper because I had to pee so bad. So, I squatted and I.......missed. Yes, I dribbled pee on the back of my jeans and underwear. It wasn't a lot but enough to make me think "Shit, how am I going to dry that out when I'm about to sit in a rental car for an hour?" So, I did the only thing I could - I grabbed a handful of paper towels, folded them, and shoved them down the back of my pants to absorb the dampness. And silently cursed the Baltimore airport for not having seat covers. (Fun fact: there were NO seat covers ANYWHERE on this trip - not a single public restroom had them - why?? Is that an East coast thing? Because, gross). Anyway, no picture of THAT! You're welcome. 

Also? Sometimes I wake up and my hair looks like this: 

Today, November 15, 2015. Not sorry. 

And today, since it was the day after returning from vacation, I had to go to the store and stock up since the kids ate food while I was gone (imagine!) and the cupboards were bare. Not really, we had plenty of food, but Cheez-Its were on sale 2 for $5 and who am I to pass up a sale? So, off to the store I went. On a Sunday. Just before the Seahawks game. GREAT timing. Several thousand of my closest friends were there so maneuvering the aisles was a challenge. In the produce section, right next to the (appallingly sparse) display of tomatoes, stood a woman, doing absolutely nothing. She was blocking the aisle, holding a small basket of groceries and staring into space. I think. She was wearing sunglasses so I really don't know where she was staring. The point is, she didn't MOVE when I came barreling through with my cart and instead of politely saying "Excuse me!" I tried to squeeze my cart between her and the sturdy post next to me. Calamity ensued. I brushed up against the fire extinguisher secured to the pole (clearly not very well-secured) and it sprang free from its holder and went clattering to the ground. I instinctively turned away because I was certain it was going to break and spray white foam everywhere but, thank goodness, it didn't spring a leak. However, imagine a full metal fire extinguisher hitting the concrete floor from a three-foot height and I was an instant (dubious) celebrity. Every head turned. I fumbled to replace it on the holder, but was unsuccessful. I scanned the area for an employee to help and said to the first name tag I saw "I knocked that off the wall" to which she replied "I know" with an eye roll. Well, excuse me! Clearly she had it under control so I gingerly placed it upright on the ground and walked away as it fell over again. 

See? No picture, but a video would have been awesome, right? 

Also, today at the store, I was innocently browsing the clearance racks when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was like a fly, only much bigger. I saw something move on the shoulder of a sweater hanging on a display. I seriously thought it was a mouse or a rat for a second and I thought, "Well, there goes the neighborhood" but I realized it was a BIRD! The bird puffed out his feathers and made a hissing sound. I shit you not. He HISSED. I was terrified but also intrigued. I wanted to snap a picture with my cell phone which was in my purse and out of my reach. So, I inched closer and the bird flew erratically to another display. Undaunted, I grabbed my cell phone and snapped away. Closer, closer.........I entertained thoughts of being beak-mauled by this puffy sparrow, but I soldiered on. Because, sometimes you DO get pictures of the not-so-awesome moments: 

He may look cute, but, believe me, he will CUT YOU. 

Finally, today I deep conditioned my hair. This involves glopping copious amounts of conditioner on my hair, putting on a shower cap, and then a towel wrap and letting it sit for twenty minutes (or an hour because I got distracted by the laundry). Anyway, when I was done, I just sort of quickly pulled my hair back in a clip and then decided to put on my new sparkly headband. Which, as you can see, perfectly matches my sparkly gray hair. Which I just colored two weeks ago. So, yeah, I get about nine days of coverage from one $7 bottle of hair color. Embrace the gray you say? I'm SO not ready for that. I also can't afford my awesome colorist's services every two weeks, so this is my life now:

Highlight reel? Most of the time. But this is me, keepin' it real. Hope you had a great Sunday! 

November 1, 2015 and gray hair.......

It's National Blog Posting Month (NaNoBloPo) and National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). A couple of times I've registered for these challenges and failed. Who has time to write 50K words in a month? Who has time to blog every day?

So, this year I'll do something different. I'll SAY I'm going to blog every day, but I won't register for anything and I won't make any promises, so that if I fail, I haven't let anyone down. And, worst case scenario, I crank out a few blog posts, since my blog has been a little quiet lately.

So, why the "gray hair" in the title? Because today I washed away my grays. Except, they didn't all wash away. Damn it. I just did this two weeks ago. This is my life now - every two weeks, I get visible gray, no, WHITE hair at my roots and I have to "do my roots" again. EVERY TWO WEEKS! I'm so sick of this but I'm not ready to embrace my gray. NOT READY AT ALL. I've let it grow a few inches before and.....oh my gosh, it's scary. I mean, I can actually get a glimpse of what I will look like as an old lady and it frightens me. I'm 47. Maybe when I'm over 60 I'll cave to the gray, but not now. I just wish there was something that would prevent this from happening every two weeks. Does my hair really grow that fast? Do the gray roots just resist the color? I can't afford to see my hairdresser that often. I've pretty much stopped going because I have to take care of my roots every two weeks, so what's the point? Even when she does my hair, I see gray in two weeks. I hate it! After I colored, I decided I needed to cut and thin my hair too. Which basically just involves me cutting randomly and dragging the thinning shears through my hair. You can't tell if I did a bad job because my hair is so curly and thick. But you also can't tell if I did a good job because my hair is so curly and thick.

Yesterday was Halloween and we have leftover candy. Which is so bad because I don't even really like candy but since it's RIGHT THERE I've been eating it randomly. I mean, I pretty much never just buy a candy bar. But I'll eat five of the bite-size ones out of the Halloween bucket. Why? They're not even very good. Hopefully the kids will eliminate the excess calories by the end of the week. I'm trying to cut back on sugar but it's hard with all the candy, the soda we were gifted when we got "Boo-ed" the other night, and the SIX varieties of ice cream my husband bought when he went to the store for ONE half-gallon of vanilla because "it was one sale" (trust me, it was not a great sale).

Today was daylight savings time (FALL BACK!) so I got an extra hour of sleep, I guess. Except I got up at 5:30 a.m....on the one day I could sleep in. I put away all the Halloween decorations, put a roast in the crock pot, did all my laundry, planned (in detail) an upcoming trip, put up all the Thanksgiving decorations, dusted, and gave away stuff on my Buy Nothing site. It feels like 9 p.m. but it's only 6. And, true to form, I started panicking about the holidays. I mean, Thanksgiving is only four weeks away and Christmas is like one minute after that, so it's time to panic, right?

Planning holidays with older kids is tough. Everyone drives, has a job, lives their own life. It took us almost the whole month of October to plan a short trip to the pumpkin patch. We spent $70 on pumpkins we didn't even carve! What was the point? Thanksgiving is tough because, since we're a blended family, we have three households to consider. I booked a plane ticket for one kid to spend Thanksgiving with her mom, and figured the other three kids would be spending the holiday with their dad and his fiancee at their new house. This might actually be the first Thanksgiving I really do have tacos for dinner, since it will just be Jeff and I, and we can do whatever we want. We can't leave town because he's on call for work, so it might just be really low-key. It's bittersweet because there's nothing I love more than a big family Thanksgiving, but I won't miss the big family dinner because I'll just do it the weekend before.

Christmas is fun, but also a nightmare of logistics. Plus, every year I think we'll do something "different" and every year I end up buying too much, and it's all over in a matter of minutes. I much prefer all the fun activities leading up to Christmas. It's the "stuff" that gets me. Recently, all of my kids have produced boxes of "giveaway" items that included unopened Christmas gifts. How much do they really need? I think the whole holiday needs a major overhaul, especially as the kids get older. But what changes should I make?

These are the things on my mind on November 1. We'll see what the week brings!