Snail mail

Do you remember when you'd take a pen, paper, and actually write letters to people? Then pop it in an envelope, slap a stamp on it, the drop it in the mailbox? Sure we still mail things sometimes. Rebates. Bills. And people still mail us. Utility companies. Bill collectors. Credit card companies. I think we've become desensitized to mail. We're so used to the snail mail being a request for payment that we hardly look at it. So imagine my surprise when I had a real snail mail letter yesterday!

My good friend, whom I usually converse with through email, blog, or cell phone, actually sent me a letter via snail mail yesterday. She took time out of her busy schedule to sit down with pen and paper and sent me a 6 page honest to goodness letter! Ok, so some of it I already knew because I read her blog. That's not the point. The point is it came in the mail. She helped to keep the economy going in several cities by having mail for the postal workers to sort and deliver.

So here's my suggestion. If you love someone and you want to show it, give them a warm fuzzy by sending them a snail mail letter. It doesn't even matter what you write. (We used to write letters to each other that rambled on about nothing...as a matter of fact, that was our goal!) Tell them a story. Write about something that happened to you or that you're looking forward to happening. Write about nothing. (Seinfeld would be so proud!) Just get out the pen, paper, and have at it! It will only cost you a little bit of time and 42 cents (or if you have it, a forever stamp). They'll be glad you did!

Bad hair days

I've had it with my hair! Every now and again I just reach that point that I can't stand it anymore and I get it cut. Well that day was yesterday.

My hair is thick and as a result, it can get kind of bushy. When it gets like that my head gets so hot because there's no where for the heat to escape. (Yes, I'm a hothead. Your thinking has been confirmed!) Anyway, I decided yesterday that I needed a haircut.

For my birthday a year ago, John, my husband, got me a gift card to a walk-in style salon. I had gone there in the past so he thought it would be a good choice. Usually it is, but yesterday, I didn't have the best stylist.

I told her that I wanted it thinned out and shaped up. She needed to cut the top short (I had about 7 inches on the top) so I could just fluff it with gel or mousse or taffy to give it that wind blown look. She ended up having to cut about 4 1/2 inches off the top. I was ok with that.

Before cutting I went back to the shampoo chair. Before she started to shampoo my hair she was rooting around my scalp. She asked if I had changed shampoos recently or something like that. I said no why? She said that my scalp looked red and irritated. (Oh no! My scalp is irritated! Might as well cut it all off!) I explained about how my head gets very hot from all the hair and so she had a great idea. She shampooed (is that spelled right? It looks weird.) my head and rather than using a regular conditioner she used a men's cooling formula conditioner. She thought it would cool off my head. Alright, cutting off 5 inches of hair...that will cool off my head just fine! I don't need men's conditioner too!

Anyway, that stuff, although it smelled nice, had like a cooling mentholatim in it. Remember she said my scalp was red and irritated? Do you really think that mentholatim is the best choice right now? Well, if it was irritated before, it certainly was now! And the rest of my body was catching up!

As I said, she cut a lot off the top, the sides, and shaved down the back. Then comes the styling part. She put gel on my already irritated scalp and blow dried my hair. I told her that I don't usually wear bangs so she dried it all pulled back and poofy. I was so unimpressed that when she asked if I wanted hairspray on it, I said no, secretly counting the seconds until the Florida heat would melt it all and it would fall flat!

I checked out using my gift card (which still has $3.40 left on it) and left. When I got to the car, I started to rub and pull at my hair to get rid of the poofiness. It wasn't long before the heat did a number on it and was drab and lifeless as ever!

I guess it looks ok, but it's not exactly how I envisioned it to look. If I had to rate it on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best, it's about 2 1/2...maybe a 3. I guess I'll just have to suffer with a couple of bad hair days until it grows out and the way my hair grows, that won't take long!

Great blog news!

It started out to be your average Thursday. I had to get up very early as I had a workshop to attend. With any workshop, there's always the "breakfast meeting" which means I have to get up even earlier! So when my alarm went off at 6:00am this morning, well let's just say it wasn't pretty.

Anyway, up I got and off I went to breakfast with a few friends. Afterward we went to the workshop. As far as workshops are concerned, it was a pretty good one. We're starting a new reading series this Fall and this workshop was a training for using the new series and all the accoutrements that come along with it. At least I feel like I learned something.

After the workshop I did a little shopping. I was passing Big Lots on the way home so I figured I'd stop and see what they had that I might really need but didn't know I needed it yet. By the time I got home, it was about 2:30.

I decided to rest a little (6:00 is just too dang early to get up when you're on summer vacation) and ended up snoozing right through a couple of my judge shows. I awoke to my phone ringing. It was my niece back in Pennsylvania. She called to tell me the good news...she's pregnant! Woohooo! I'm going to be a great aunt! She's due sometime the end of February beginning of March. (That's a Pisces for those of you keeping zodiac track at home.)

I have to tell you I am probably a little more excited about this then I should be. I can't help it. I love babies. And now my baby (I helped raise Sara since she was a pup!) is having a baby! So I started searching for names for babies. There are a lot of crazy names out there but I painstakingly took the time to go through several websites in search of the perfect name. I have come up with a few suggestions and I'm waiting to hear a reply from the expecting mom and dad. My original list had some good names like "Pepper", "Snowflake", and "Indiana". That was just the starter list. I figured if I sent a list of some wild and crazy names then when I send the real list, they'd be a little more receptive.

So far I've only focused on girl names. Not that I have a particular preference, girl or boy, as long as it's a healthy baby, I'll be happy with either! No, I've just focused on girls names because there are so many zillions of names to choose from that adding both genders at once proved to be too daunting a task. I've got a list of about 10 girls names that I kinda like. Emily is one of them. I also like Kali, Kyra, and Zoe. I'm still working on the list. I've got a lot of time. She's only 8 weeks along so I'm not in any kind of hurry.

I'm so excited! I can hardly wait for the new baby. I've already started shopping! By the time this baby is born, I'll probably have purchased every single item to get him/her through to age 3!

The best part of all is this will be great for my blog! I'm sure I'll have lots of baby stories now.

The movies

I don't get out to the movies very often. Over the summer months, my husband and I will go moreso than during the school year. Since our schedule frees up more in the summer, we're able to do a little more. So far this summer vacation, I've made it to three movies and I've noticed something that I am a little miffed about.

When I was a kid, you'd go to the movies and spend about $5.00 for admission and snacks. (I know you're trying to calculate my age in your head right now. Don't bother. I'm OLD!) Then you'd walk into the theater, find your seat and hunker down for the flick. Next would come the previews. Three, maybe four, previews for upcoming movies would flash onto the screen and you'd sit and munch your popcorn while enjoying snippets of what's to come in the future. Then, of course, the obligatory reminder, in the form of a short commercial, about keeping the theater clean and throwing away your garbage. No worries about turning off your cell phone...we didn't have them then. (See, I told you I was OLD!) Finally, the theater would darken and the film you'd been waiting for would begin. That's it. A movie that was to start at 2:15 actually started at 2:15. Not anymore.

Now when you go to the 2:15 showing of a movie, it doesn't start until 2:45. First you have the television commercials. They are now advertising television programs for you to stay home and watch on your TV. Ok, does anybody else see a contradiction here? Are they telling me to stay home and watch TV and NOT come to the movies? Monday nights be sure to watch this show. Tuesdays this fall be sure to see this show. How crazy is this? I'm at a movie for crying out loud! I don't need to know what's on my TV. That's why I'm here. There wasn't anything on my TV that I wanted to watch. Whose idea was it to advertise TV shows at the movie theater?

After about 15 minutes of TV commercials, then they start in with the "keep our theater clean" ads and the "turn off your cell phone" ads. That takes up another 5 minutes or so. Next come previews. Now previews should be previews of movies to come, right? That makes sense. But as I'm watching these previews, I'm seeing movies that are currently playing in other viewing rooms within the theater as well as some of the movies that are "coming soon". Well, if I wanted to see that other movie currently playing, I would have gone to it. I don't want to see a preview for a movie that I could just walk down the hall and see. But I digress.

So after about 10 minutes of what's to come in the future or what I'm missing that's playing now down the hall, I see one more "keep our theater clean" and "turn off your cell phone" commercial and the lights in the theater finally begin to dim. At last the moment I've been waiting for...the movie I've been dying to see. Uh, what was it that I came to see again? I can't remember anymore since I have all these stupid TV commercials going through my head now. Plus, after waiting a half hour for it all to begin, my popcorn is gone. And that super large Coke I bought doesn't seem to be as great an idea now as it was 30 minutes ago. Now I gotta pee! How can I enjoy a movie if I have no popcorn and I have to pee?

Maybe I should have stayed home and watched TV.

Thoughts of early retirement...GONE!

Yesterday, I was feeling good. I had happy thoughts of early retirement. Why? Because I was going to hit it big at the casino.

There's a casino about an hour from my home. Periodically throughout the year, I visit the establishment in the hopes of hitting it big! Yesterday was different. I could feel it in my bones. I knew that was the day that I was going to beat the house and go home a winner.

If I win big, I'll retire. I'll travel. I'll spend some of my free time working with kids by volunteering at a school. I figure I'm still young (shut up, I am so!) so I could still have a lot to offer. I have high hopes of being a philantropist (sp). But once again all those lofty thoughts and high hopes are quickly vanquished by the push of a button.

Oh I tried to make my dreams come true. But all my friends let me down. Shrimpmania, Lobstermania, Tabasco, Wheel of Fortune, Catch a Wave, Texas Tea...they all had other ideas. They took and they took and they took yesterday and left me with one dollar and seventy-eight cents.

I guess it's back to work for me. Dang!

The beginning of it all

This is it! My first ever blog entry! Let me just sit back and savor the moment...
Of course, now that I've made the leap, I can't think of a thing to say. And let me tell you, me being speechless is a rarity! Usually I'm quick with a comment, remark, or trivia tidbit. But apparently not today.

Ok, I know what I can talk about...my dog! This is a picture of my dog.

My dog is part Black Lab, part German Shepard. She weighs about 100 pounds and she thinks she's a lap dog. And, she has a gift. Not many pets have a gift, but my dog does. What's her gift you ask? Well, she has the gift of "inthewayedness". It seems no matter where I go, every time I turn around, she's there and in my way. I usually have to move around her in the kitchen when I'm cooking, or climb over her in the middle of the night when I get up to go to the bathroom. She has a knack for laying or sitting in just the right spot and ends up blocking my way for easy passage. I don't know how she does it, but she manages to find the perfect "inthewayedness" spot every single time! It's her gift. Drives me nuts! Of course, she's quite the source of amusement as well. I'm sure you'll being hearing Shae stories in the future.

Alright now. Except for the different color font and underline problem at the top of this blog, this hasn't turned out too badly. It's a first attempt so we certainly can't say too much about it. I'd like to change the background and template to something more original, more "me", but I'm just not talented enough to do that on my own. I'll have to recruit some help. For now, this will work.

I think I'll be able to sleep better tonight knowing that I've started this. I just have to be careful I don't trip over the dog...Good night everybody!