The 'Do' That Wasn't

I've been MIA for a bit. It seems to me, there's been so much sadness going on in the world, that a whiny post would have seemed a bit wrong. But it's time, dear readers, it's time. So here's my whine of the week:

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon at the hairdresser. I've been refraining from applying the usual 'semi-permanent' colour for the last God-knows-however-many-weeks, because I had finally decided that it was time to treat myself to a permanent colour and highlights. This was a big step for me.

Not quite me...

The last time I had my hair professionally coloured was probably about 20 years ago - and that time I went blonde :-o  These days, I tend to stick to semi-permanent colours, as I like a bit of variety - darker colour (i.e. Black Cherry) in the winter months; lighter colour (i.e. Warm Chestnut) in the summer months. To be honest, they all look pretty much the same (my hairdresser calls it 'build-up'), and sadly, they no longer cover the increasing amount of grey hair I've developed over the years.

I refuse to go grey. I mean, I'm sure I'll capitulate eventually, but Not. Right. Now. D'ya get me Mother Nature? So it was with some trepidation that I entered the salon yesterday at 1pm and prepared myself for the hours of 'pampering'.

Hmmm, does something tell you I'm not a great fan of going to the hairdresser?

Three hours later I emerged: full head tint coupled with highlights, hair cut back into shape, conditioning treatment applied. I even spent the 'developing' time reading fanfic on my iPod (thank God Stanza has an option to increase the font size - I was unable to wear my glasses!). I was happy with the result - my hair felt manageable once again and I thought the lighter colour made me look a little fresher and - dare I say it - younger.

I arrived home to positive feedback from my sons, Thing1 and Thing2 (I clearly have them well-trained!). By the time my darling husband (she says with gritted teeth) arrived home, I was well and truly at ease with my new 'do' and looking forward to some positive husbandly feedback. By this time, however, I was also cooking dinner. This is what ensued:

--------------

Hubs arrives home, plonks his bag in the hallway and enters the kitchen. I have my back to him, so he should be able to see - immediately - that my hair is shorter.

Hubs: [peering into the pan] Hmmm, what are you cooking?

Me: Well, I didn't have enough time to roast this, and Delia's cookbook says it's a pot-roast cut anyway - so I'm gonna pot-roast it [endeavours to disregard his lack of attention to the 'do']

Hubs: Hmm, okay [he walks away and doesn't comment on the 'do']

Hubs re-enters kitchen a little while later - and still doesn't comment on the 'do'.

Me: Ummm, have you not noticed anything?

Hubs: Huh?

Me:  My hair, perhaps?

Hubs: [gazes at my head for a moment] Well, it's a lot shorter... [he pauses] Um, and it's ginger.

He pauses again, then leads me out through the back door into the daylight.

Hubs: Why did she leave the grey in? [he plucks a grey hair from the top of my head]

I give up.

--------------

Needless to say, despite his numerous apologies, I haven't let my DH off the hook...

But, you know what? I like my hair. I can see the difference. And that's what matters, right?

This post was brought to you from the UK by CC x

*tap tap* Is This Thing On?

Hey, um, what's with the lack of whining?

Are you telling me that our collective lives have been so fucking great for the last THREE WEEKS that we have no whining to do?  I call bullshit!

Actually, I call too-busy-to-whine.  I'm also not up to another round of the One Lovely Blog award, although we won it!

Thanks to smartEpantz, the Borderline Phenomenal BFFs, and Smitten who have bequeathed unto us the distinguished honor of the OLB.  Here are our 7 facts:

1 - TwiKiwi50 lives in New Zealand.
2 - inotu is gluten-free.  And dairy-free.
3 - jaymes805 has touched Jackson Rathbone (although not his Rathboner, I don't think).
4 - Living with Edward is fucking hilarious. Fact.
5 - Jelena wrote a fan fic (and you should read it if you like fan fic).
6 - Chloe Cougar is building a summer house in her backyard.
7 - Twired Jen is getting married this year!

How's that for seven random facts? (Feel free to correct me if I got yours wrong... except you, LwE).

Oh, and I have several blogs to recommend - they're over on our blog roll, and I like to call them our other blogs. :)  So, thanks, E, J, D, and S!*

 

*Updated to include all blogs that nominated us!

I can't have kids and eat them too...

*Disclaimer: this whinefest is NOT about cannibalism. I just found this title fucking hilarious*

I’ll start this rant by saying I always wanted to be a Mommy…or so I thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids and can’t imagine my life without them blah blah blah. Seriously. Then why do I find myself so unsatisfied and unfulfilled as a Mother?



Is it possibly because it’s an almost entirely thankless job? Maybe it’s because I’ve grown tired of changing poopy diapers (which I have been doing for over 8 years straight now)? Perhaps it’s because there is always something more to do and the “job” itself is never done? All are possible answers, but I think more to the heart of the matter is that regardless of the fact that I have always seen myself as a mother, I find myself actually HATING this position. Not all the time, but a fair amount of the time…probably more time than is normal.

 

See the smile on her face? It's because she's heavily sedated.

I’ve come to discover that I possess very little maternal instinct. My patience is wavering at best, downright non-existent at worst. I struggle with performing the most mundane tasks repeatedly only to watch all the hard work I do get undone right before my eyes. Just about every day my 3 year old pushes me to the point of homicide. I swear to all that is fucking sane, I have actually sympathized with women who have drowned their kids in the bathtub! I’ve thought “ Yeah…I could totally see how that would be a rational idea in a moment of extreme stress.” Not that I would ever do that. Hopefully. At least if it ever comes to that, this post may come in handy if I’m on the witness stand. Just kidding! Probably…

 

This is what I look like most days.

I have been a stay at home Mom for over 3 years now, and I find myself longing for life outside my family. I miss the sense of independence and the pride which comes with bringing home a paycheck. I have always liked working outside the home and if it weren’t for the fact that it would actually COST me money to have a job that required me to leave the house, I would be out there again quicker than a crack whore picking up the pipe. Trust. But, would that actually make me happier and more satisfied as a person? Would it make me a better Mother? Would I be blissfully rewarded with a more well rounded sense of self instead of feeling like I’m drowning in a sea of lost identity? My guess is no.

I think I suffer from “the grass is greener” syndrome. Ya know? Whatever I don’t have is always the most appealing thing, until I actually have it…and then I realize that I’ve made a huge mistake and become filled with regret? I can’t be a stay at home Mom and constantly yearn for a life outside these four walls because I’m fairly certain that as soon as I have that, I won’t be able to focus on anything except for the fact that I feel like I have failed my children and effectively qualify as the WORST. MOTHER. EVER. Yep. I’m fucked good and proper like.

 

I want what you have...I think.

Now, some of you are Mommies and can relate to some of what I’m spewing. Some of you aren’t Mommies (yet) and probably think I’m off my fucking nut right now. So, I’ll state again…I love my kids and no matter how frustrated I get, I wouldn’t wish them away for anything. But I do get really fed up with this bullshit from time to time! I wouldn’t be human otherwise, and anyone who tries to tell you that being a parent is always sunshine and rainbows is lying right out of their face.

On a side note: Thanks to MB for inviting me to word vomit all over this here blog. I heart her hard. A lot.

Be prepared for more whining in the future!

Xoxo
E

I can't see clearly now, and I'm OVER it

I love that I have a place to vent.... here goes nothin!

So, here's my really awkward story. I broke my glasses last week - like, they completely self-destructed. This happened about two hours before I was due to give a presentation at a conference, so I had to make a mad dash to an optometrist for some super glue. Cos that was really what I needed to help my nerves.

The glasses aren't that old and are still under warranty so I went to get them fixed on my day off yesterday, thinking I could wait, and get them back right away. Ahhh, no. They're keeping them there for a week. At least. I have no spare pair of glasses. Shit!

Pretty much like this.

I have a couple of options. None of them are ideal and all of them piss me off, hence the need to WHINE!

I have contacts, that I rarely wear. I have allergy eyes and contacts irritate the fuck out of them. I can manage for about three hours... so, for a few hours this morning I fooled myself into thinking everything was fine. Oh, and contact lenses don't correct my stigmatism, so it turns out the ole vision isn't that sharp with them in anyway. Safety first.

So, about lunchtime I switched to an old pair of glasses I had at home, but they're an old prescription so they hurt too, especially staring at a screen all day. Oh, and has anyone ever gone from glasses with a coated anti-glare, anti-reflect lens, to a pair with neither? It's like a disco of light reflection is going on around the outside of your eyes. Cos that's not annoying AT ALL.

I spent the afternoon alternating between this fun party laser light show, and my third option - wearing my prescription sunglasses. They're perfect in terms of vision, it's just that.......they're sunglasses. 

I'm inside. In an office. With sunnies on. My colleagues alternated between calling me Barry White & Stevie Wonder. Fun times.

I'm so sexy right now. 

Umm, yeah. You can laugh.

OK, end rant. I feel better. Thanks for listening. This week can't pass quickly enough.

Now I need to go lie down and get rid of the frontal lobe headache I got goin on. Over and out.

Forecast Your Face

I'm pissed, and not for the first time.  I was promised snow, dammit, EPIC fucking levels of snow.  First, the meteorologists said it was going to hit Wednesday, but then the cold front was moving so slowly they said it would hit us overnight on Thursday.  This turned out to be true.  HOWEVER, when I looked out my front door Thursday morning, after finding out all the schools had closed and hoping fervently that I could justify calling out from work, do you think this is what I saw?

Holy snow!

Or do you think I saw this:

I'll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn't count.

The first picture is the view after opening my door in December 2008, during one of the biggest snowstorms we've ever had during my lifetime (we don't get a lot of snow here.  Rain? Yes. Snow? No.).  The second picture is my front stoop Thursday morning.  AFTER they closed all the area schools.  What you see is less than one inch, and that's at my house in the East Valley.  Closer in, it looked like this:

Wait, no. Sorry. That's 2008 again.

 

Yeah.  Fear the frigidity.

I went into work, of course, thinking it would keep snowing (as the fuckers promised me it would) and I could leave early once it started to look like a justifiable reason to be home in my jammies.  And then the shit all melted.  It snowed several times during the day, with nothing to show at the end, and I got home and what do you think I found here? The 1/2" still on the ground, and the newspeople still flipping out about it.  Assholes.

It just seems even more ridiculous (because they do this every year) after the epic blizzards that stormed the rest of the country this winter. I mean, fucking Texas was snowed out.  And they're still gonna make a big deal about 1/2" of sticking snow?  I'm done with you, meterologists of the PNW.  You're dead to me.

A Simple Slice of Toast

I sit here today having just eaten a single slice of toast - and I'm regretting it.

You see, over the past few months I think I've narrowed down the cause of my frequently rumbly tum - and it's wheat.

Yes, it looks innocent enough, but beware - it is a thing of the devil!

Now I know that this may resonate with more than one of you here, since I recently had a conversation on Twitter with a few others about it. I was shocked to find how widespread an intolerance to wheat actually is.

I don't think it's gluten per se that's the problem. I just think it's wheat - or anything containing wheat for that matter. Slowly but surely, I've tried to eliminate it from my diet and I do believe that I've been proven right. But that doesn't make it any easier to handle... I mean, look at the list of foodstuffs I should be avoiding:

• wheat, wheat berries, wheat bran, wheat germ, wheat grass or any form of the word wheat
• flour, bread, cakes and cookies
• semolina, pasta, couscous, tabbouleh
• doughnuts, pies, pretzels and other baked goods
• gnocchi, chow mein
• snack foods
• soups, gravies and thickened sauces
• breaded meats or vegetables, dumplings or meatballs (no fried chicken for me!)
• salad dressings, Worcesteshire sauce and other condiments
• beer (say what???)

Recently, I happened to mention my discovery to my GP, in the hope that he might be able to suggest a cure (stop sniggering). He launched into this big spiel of how I would need to go back to eating wheat for about six weeks before having a rather invasive test (yeeuuuww!) and then explained that - should the test prove positive - it would indicate that I am, in fact, wheat intolerant (no shit Sherlock!). When I then asked what the treatment would be, he looked down nervously at his prescription pad and mumbled something about 'diet'.

So, let me get this straight. First you want to make me eat wheat-laden foods which I happen to know will have me in agony for the next six weeks. Then you plan to poke about in places I care not to mention in order to get a 'sample' (yeeuuuww again!). And finally, if all of your torture proves my self-diagnosis correct, the only thing you're going to suggest is that I don't eat wheat? Um, hello? Isn't that what I'm doing already?

Errr, that would be a resounding "No!"

Needless to say I have declined to be tested. What's the point? And in the meantime, if I feel the urge to eat the odd slice of toast (when I really, really crave some comfort food), I'll do it with my eyes wide open to the fact that I will - indeed - probably regret it once it's been devoured. Oh, and I'll make sure there's a bathroom close by to deal with the aftermath.

Apologies for giving you TMI there... ;-)

This post was brought to you from the UK by CC x

Thankgawd For This Blog

Seriously, thankgawd I have a place to come [aside from twitter] to bitch and whine. Speaking of wine, I have had 3 small glasses thank you very much. Technically, two...in the grand scheme of things. But who's counting?

Anyhoo, I had a shitty day. I got to work, optimistic as ever, cheery as a cheerio [are they cheery? Fuck if I know] and my day is moving along great...until a restaurant we work with eff'd up. I had a VERY important client meeting booked in their private room. Low and behold they double booked the room. Really? I called to confirm the date was a go, I changed the status to definite when I sent out t-holds, I even sent you the damn BEO. 2 hours later and 3 days prior to the event, you decide to tell me the girl that is recently "no longer with you," booked something while I had it on hold... AND she failed to mention this when I called to confirm it was a go. I have a signed contract with my client... FUCK YOU. Ok fine, I get it. I know people mess up. But today? When I was feeling all confident and smooth...when I was thinking this week was under control. When I was all stoked for to see Mr. MOS on Sat, when I was excited about my birthday, even though I have to work late and can't do anything fun... You made me look like an ASS. And, after my boss argued with you for a good 20 minutes, you still decide to keep the group of 20 that was booked AFTER my group... You do this even after you called us months ago bitching and whining because you don't get enough business. Times WERE tough asshole, but business is picking up now and this is when you decide to screw us over?!? Lovely. See if you get more business from us.

I'm about ready to.
PS....you scare me Ronald.

Thankfully the problem was solved.... But guess what...about an hour after said problem was solved, I started to get that feeling you get BEFORE you get a sore throat. You know the one? Where you gland on one side feels a little off, then starts to feel like a tiny rock, then starts to feel a bit swollen. YUP. Damn you germs!

Yah, I'm talking to you.

I am dead serious when I say that I have not had the flu since1999. Now I consider the flu to be in bed, fever, feel like you're dying kind of illness. Some people consider it a cold. Waah, get over yourselves. Sure I have had sore throats (that seems to be a recurring symptom when I'm sick) and I have had colds and coughs...but that's it. In fact, the last time I had a cold was over a year ago. True fact. I did have a minor stomach flu about 8 mos ago...no puking though!

Anyhoo, it's just a very very minor sore throat. It could be nothing. It could be gone in the morning. I could have give RPattz too much head....BUT SERIOUSLY, I CANNOT GET SICK RIGHT NOW. Why not?

1. I have a huge, expensive event at the Hard Rock Hotel on Thursday night. Along with about 10 other minor dinners Wed & Thurs night (stuff I have booked)

2. My birthday is Wednesday.

3. 100 Monkeys is Sat.

In regards to #3, I'd have to be practically dying to not go. Trust. I figure IF I am getting sick, I should be on the upswing by Sat right?

I better.

Ok, I feel better, sorta.

XOXO J