Deconstructing Jen

ahhh

As she gets older Evey is starting to have such a juxtaposed personality. One day she's having tantrums and taking 15 minutes to put on her shoes and other days she says the sweetest and cutest things. Just now she said...

"Mommy, you have the best music on your iPod!" as she pirouettes around my classroom on a Sunday afternoon.

"Ah, thanks, honey."

p.s. We aren't listening to kiddie music. The last song was Not Ready to Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks and the current song she is rockin out to is It's Still Rock N Roll to Me by Billy Joel. The girl's got style, I tell ya.

straighten

so tell me about hair straighteners. The two things I know about them are this - one you can buy something called a Chi that is like $200 and it's awesome and you don't always need curly hair to need a straightener. That's all I know. Someone suggested I get one to make my hair flip better on the ends. I'm not sure I want a Chi cause what if I don't use it. So tell me about them. Are there any tricks to know? Any good brands besides a Chi?

the hair

Well how should I begin the story of the hair cut from hell? Let's start with a positive note. Ben's haircut went perfect. He didn't cry, she let him play with rollers, he sat really still and it looks great. My hair cut not so much. I ask her to cut off 5 inches. SHE CUT OFF 8 INCHES.

I asked her to give me long subtle layers. SHE GAVE ME BIG CHUNKY NASTY LAYERS, UGLY UNBLENDED LAYERS. Dramatic much? Maybe.

I tried to avoid paying the $50 that a hair cut with my Beauty Brands stylists costs so I started going to a smaller salon. My normal competent girl is, unfortunately for my hair, on a mission trip to Africa. In a moment of stupid, unthoughtful decision making I asked if there was someone else there who could take her clients. STUPID STUPID STUPID. I got the new girl. But they didn't tell me that.

When she cut the length off things were okay but when she didn't check to see if the length matched on the left and right something was wrong. When she started cutting layers and the left side was 2 inches LONGER than the right I knew something was very very long. When it took two tries to fix it and more hair kept coming off I about passed out. Then miraculously when she was done it didn't look too bad. But when I got home to fix it and noticed that the layers on the right didn't blend into the length in the back and it looks like I have a Bobb cut on that side that didn't get finished I about passed out.

Now on the bright side I managed to fix it today and put part of it up with bobby pins and no one can tell it's messed up but I know and it bugs me. Now I'm going to have shell out that $50 I was trying to avoid to get it fixed.

So we'll start with the cute pics of Ben cause they might distract you from the pics of me. Well hopefully anyway. So here goes...Ben before...     (Please ignore all the random pic sizes....I'm lazy today.)

Notice the strong resemeblance his hair has to a mop
 

AFTER:

WOAH, when did he get this big?!?

Of course no picture of Ben is allowed with out Evey sneaking in the pic.

I never was able to get a picture taken before so this is a pretty good approximation of my hair before, it was just a couple inches longer. Unfortunately that pic was taken 2 years and about 30 lbs ago. :(

and this is now (this pic kind of masks the layer problem and I couldn't shame myself into taking one that really showed it off)...

to cut or not to cut...part duex

so the batteries in the digital camera we have at school are dead. bummer. they aren't rechargeable and I don't have a spare set. double bummer.

off to figure out how to get pics off my camera phone.

To cut or not to cut

That is the question. My hair is long. Right now it's the longest it's been ever. And I really need a hair cut - even if it's just a trim.

Over the years I've had short hair, medium hair, long hair, spiral perms (yes it was the 80's), bad perms that made my hair look like my mom's hair (sorry mom, that cut looks good on you but it never looked good on me) and straight, very, very, straight hair.

Today at 3 pm I have a hair cut scheduled for me and Mario. He's starting to look like one of the Beatles his hair is so long.

I can't decide what to do. If I get a lot chopped off I'm sure to regret it right away but I usually end up getting over it and liking the shorter do. I will definitely miss my usual long pony tail if I go this route. But if I leave it long will I end up back at the salon in 6 weeks getting it cut short anyway? What a dilemma.

Well, no matter what happens I need to do something because it's getting so long that my arms aren't long enough to blow dry some curls into any more. A problem indeed.

I'm sure this post will bring with it a request for before and after pics. Hold your horses...I'll get to that a little later today.

just silliness, really

This is kind a sad really. Elementary? Really?

I'd like to see how they are testing that. Maybe I need to increase my vocabulary. Maybe I'll just take it as a compliment seeing as I bet it would be kinda boring and dry if it was a college reading level. I don't remember college text books being all the entertaining. But those elementary books - those were nice. Lots of pictures.

i must be talking to myself

seriously. I must be talking to myself. Friday: class is wrapping up, students are putting their work away. everyone gets back to their seats. I say, "Okay guys, just a reminder, your final review packet is due Tuesday, your Optical Illusion project is due Tuesday and your FINAL is Tuesday. let me know if you need to take any supplies with you so you can finish up. Have a great weekend, see you Tuesday." (my classes don't meet everyday they meet every other day.)

I've said this everyday for TWO weeks, easy. maybe three.

the first thing I heard when my 7th graders walked into my room today:
student as they read the white board: "WHAT??? the final is TODAY????"
Me: "Uh yeah. I've said that everyday for the last 2 weeks."
student: "WHAT! My homeroom teacher said they were Thursday and Friday."
Me, annoyed now: "Hmm, that's a bummer. Maybe it would be best to listen to ME when I tell you when MY final is for MY class."

I'm sort of getting the feeling that when I talk the kids hear that garbled noise of the teacher on Charlie Brown and not a real voice.

exhausted

i am running out of steam. then end of the school year frieght train is nipping at my heals threatening to run me over. seriously. my beautiful, onery, baby boy (we'll call him Mario from now on) likes to go to bed early and get up early. he also likes to wake up and play in the middle of the night - we're going to have a long chat about that. my sweet, loving, 4 year old daughter (we'll call her Princess Peach from now on) likes to stay up late and sleep in. I am getting smashed in the middle. when school is out i'm going to sleep for a week. okay let's be honest, i'm not going to sleep for a week. i'm going to start staying up until midnight reading and beading and drawing and getting up at 6 with Mario. that's what I'm going to do.

why the name changes for the kiddos? well, Beth of I Should Be Folding Laundry, posted something that got me thinking. people should be able to choose if they want their real name posted, our kids are real people. at 4 and 1 the kiddos aren't really able to make an informed decision so I'm going to give them pen names until they are old enough to decide. goodness, if I have a blog that long it will be a miracle. sorry for the random mid-stream change of post direction.

getting a little dirty

no not that kind of dirty...what are you thinking?

sometimes the only way to get creative is to get a little dirty. Well let me tell you that this weekend was PACKED with creativity. Last year our city teamed up with the secondary schools in the district I work in to put on an art festival down town. It was a last minute deal with rushed planning and a poorly chosen date. This year it was much more appropriately planned, it was held on a Saturday and we combined our efforts with the music department to put on an art and music festival. It was awesome. Well awesome except this year mother nature didn't get the memo that chalk painting and rain aren't friends. About 2 hours into the contest we got about 5 minutes worth of hard rain. Amazingly we were able to cover all but 1 drawing with tarps and blankets and plastic that appeared out of no where (it's amazing what parents keep in their cars). We'll have to work on the weather for next year. Here are some highlights from the day (the battery in my camera died before I could get finished shots of everything)...

These designs were designed and drawn by middle schoolers:

This was the winning High School design. It was incredible.

i spoke too soon

One should never speak of recovering from an illness unless you want it to make a reappearance. Enough said.