I finally finished my wood carving!  I really enjoyed making it and I think it is so beautiful.  It is the first piece that the instructor always makes his new students do.  One of the women in my class has made two of them (which I did think about doing) but I have decided to make a different project. My next one is a whale but instead of being just a relief carving, it will be a little more 3-dimensional. 

I have been spending all of my free time lately on two things.  The first is Pinterest.  I have spent hours and hours pouring over all of the cool (and not so cool) things that people pin there.  It has made me a bit better cook even!  DH is happy with me trying new recipes (the kids are not).  Pinterest is fun but definitely a time suck.

The second is the Game of Thrones book series.  I just finished the third book (A Storm of Swords) and I am DYING because I do not yet have the 4th book.  I do not have it because I have a book club book to read and if I had A Feast for Crows there is no way I would touch the book club book.  Not that it isn't interesting but I am so wrapped up in the stories and characters in the GOT series that I just cannot put the books down.  And never mind that each book is hundreds and hundreds of pages long.  But they are so good. I highly recommend them.

So, these things, along with hockey and basketball games and practices, have kept me from doing things like cleaning my house, updating my blahg and exercising.  Yeah, Pinterest and books are to blame for my potato-shaped body.  Totally.

My dear poor neglected blahg.  I have said this many times yet I continue to turn my back on you.  Please forgive me.

This past month has been a busy one.  The kids missed 3 days of school for snow days one week although it seemed like more because the Monday there was no school for MLK Jr. Day and then Tuesday was a late start because of the snow and then we received messages from the school district to pick up the kids early for a snow emergency so that day they were only in school 3 hours, of which 1 hour was lunch and recess!

The snow days were also ice days and the region was hit hard with an unforecasted ice storm.  So the day they promised warm weather we got an ice storm which knocked out power all over.  We lost it for "only" 22 hours.  That is a long time when it is cold out.  We had a generator but dolts like us forgot to buy gas.  And of course the nearest gas station had no power and the roads were too tretcherous to drive.  Our very kind and helpful neighbour helped us syphon gas so we were able to get the generator working to power up the fridge, freezer and a lamp.  Later, we unplugged the freezer (it was packed FULL and in the garage so nothing was going to defrost) so we could watch a dvd on tv.  Our wood stove helped keep the family room warm and we slept fine until 3am when it got a little chilly after the fire went out.  I restarted it and at 5am we awoke to the sound of the computers powering back up.  Hurray!

Then we had a week of catch-up since so many things were canceled due to the storms.  And hockey, hockey and more hockey, of course.  Plus Dex started playing basketball at the Boys and Girls Club so that has made our Saturdays a bit hectic.

I finished my first wood carving session and start up again next week.  I finished carving my piece but now I have to paint it which I hope to complete shortly after our first class.  Then on to my next carving which, at this point, I have no idea what to carve.  Lots of thinking to be done in the next week.

Book Club is this week and I am way behind on my reading.  The book has finally piqued my interest so hopefully I will find some time to plough through it in the next two days.

And now it is time to make dinner.  Dear Blahg, I will write again soon.  I promise.

2011 Book List

I had a goal of reading two books per month last year and while I did not actually read two books EACH month, I did read 24 books during the year.  One thing that made it easier was that I used the iBooks and Kindle apps on my iPad.  I would browse some free books and download them or when I was finished with a book and needed a new one, I could easily buy it and be good to go.  I do prefer hardcopy books still though.

The other thing that made it easy to read that many books was that I read some awesome books, including "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series and the first book in the "Game of Thrones" series.  Great reads!

What great books did you read this year?

Pez's 2011 Book List 

1. The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein, 336 p *also read previously
2. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, 576 p
3. Rough Country, John Sandford. 400 p
4. Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss, 672 p *also read previously
5. Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss, 1008 p
6. Little Bee:  A Novel, Chris Cleave, 304 p
7. The People Code, Taylor Hartman, 336 p
8. Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides, 554 p
9. Miss Bossypants, Tina Fey, 288 p
10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
11. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, 416 p
12. Replay, Ken Grimwood, 320 p
13. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 600 p
14. The Girl who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 630 p
15. The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest, Stieg Larsson, 563pp
16. Marley and Me, Grogan, 320pp
17. The Lion’s Game, Nelson DeMille, 448pp
18. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 192pp
19. Plum Island, Nelson DeMille, 704pp
20. Room, Emma Donoghue, 321 pp
21. Shanghai Girls:  A Novel, Lisa See, 336pp
22. Bad Blood, John Sanford, 432 pp
23. Still Alice, Lisa Genova, 320 pp
24. Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, 864 pp

To Dye For Saga

For the past several years I have had someone come to my house to cut my hair and also to do foils (low lights).  My grey hair saga through the years had led me not to do all over colour on my hair because it is just too grey and I just cannot keep up with it.  But under A's urging that I decided a couple of years ago to start doing low lights to make me not look quite so old.  A used to work in a fancy salon but stopped when she had to get a job that provided benefits.  She'd come to my house usually on a Thursday or Friday (her "weekend").  It was very convenient and a very good deal for me.  A few months ago A's work changed so she had the "real" weekend off so she'd come on a Saturday or Sunday. Stephen did not like her coming to the house when he was home.  He told me he wanted me to go get a "real" haircut, meaning in a salon.

A few weeks ago I tried setting up an appointment with A but we just could not get our schedules to align with hockey games and her kids' things.  So I decided to do what Stephen had been telling me to do for ages and I made an appointment at a fancy salon/spa for a "real" haircut.  I made it at this particular salon because I had gift card for $100 that Stephen had given me two years before for a massage (but I never went!).  In spite of the gift card, it was still going to be pricey but that is the price of beauty, right?  I made the appointment was for 1:30 and I figured I would be there until 3pm.  Stephen had the day off and would be with the kids.

When I arrived at the fancy salon, a fountain was gurgling and soft music was playing.  I was offered a nice cold glass of lemon water and then I met the stylist.  She was very friendly and easy to talk to and we chatted about colour and she decided to do two colours in my hair - dark brown to match what little natural colour I have left and a caramel to match the faded brown low lights that were already there.  And then she got to work.  Now, she did warn me that because my hair was so thick she would have to use extra product and there would be a charge for that (I figured that already so I agreed).  She got to work putting in the foils and it a long time!  She ran out of product and got more and kept going and going and going. Shoot!  She ran out of colour again and had to yet again go get more.  This was taking forever!

She checked the colour as it developed a few times and then it was time to wash it out.  Nothing seemed amiss.  She mentioned the curl in my hair and suggested that I wear it curly and she cut it so it would curl up more.  At this point we had of course run well over the one and a half hour allotted time and since I was going to wear my hair curly, she "styled" it and put me under a heat lamp to dry.  Finally it was dry enough for me to leave.  I liked how curly it was but thought that my part looked a little funky - kinda a zig-zag part that is not really in style anymore.  At this point I'd been there 3 hours and wanted to go because I still had Christmas shopping to do.  I paid (and extra $50 in product!!!) and left.  Holy crap I could not believe how expensive it was - the foils, the cut, the extra product and the tip was close to $300!  Thank goodness for that gift card - but still!

After I arrived home from shopping it was late.  Stephen said he liked my hair and was glad that I got a "real" haircut and colour.  I was in my bathroom and decided to fix that stupid part she put in my hair but when I did I freaked out!  OMG I had a diagonal strip across my head right where my part was!  It looked like someone had taken a brown sharpie and drew an angled line on my hair! 

The photos are a little over exposed so it is hard to see the diagonal stripe just to the side of my part - actually on my left side but on the right in the photo

I called the salon first thing the next morning and said I needed it fixed and made an appointment to go back in. Then I thought I will just part my hair on the other side so camouflage the brown line.

Again, hard to see the line in the photos but it goes diagonally across my head

Holy crap!  I have ANOTHER brown line across (not down like the foils were supposed to do) my head!!  On closer examination, there were *4* lines like this running across my head!

The stylist apologized to me and said she had noticed some "bleed through" when she had done it.  Then why the h*ll didn't she tell me at the time?!  Anyway, I was whisked into the "private room" for the "colour correction".

Sitting in fancy salon's private room which is actually usually used for Muslim women who cannot uncover their hair in the presence of men

Ok, so I had no idea what they were going to do with the colour correction.  More foils evidently but I guess also some "colour lifting".  A quick shampoo afterwards and guess what...

Hrmpf!

The friggin' brown line is still there!!!!!  Aargh!  I was not happy (as you can probably tell from my face).  So she says let's try it again.

Third time's the charm?

Nope, still here

I am mad

Ok so now I am really, really pissed off but I held my temper.  I made it perfectly clear that this was not acceptable and it needed to be FIXED.  I was assured they could fix it but now here it is, nearly two hours of this second fancy salon visit and my hair is just as bad it it was when I walked in. The stylist said to me that she is so sorry and she will have a senior stylist come in to consult.

And I told her no that I needed to speak to a manager before I spoke to anyone else.  The senior stylist came in anyway and was trying to reassure me that she could correct it and I said "I am sorry.  I am sure you are very experienced and very nice but I cannot talk to you until I speak to a manager"

The manager came in and I explained that I had no more time to work on this today as I had Christmas shopping to complete.  But, I needed this fixed!  And OMG, I had a Christmas party to go to with brown stripes across my head!

So it was agreed that I would come in the next morning to see the senior stylist (8am on Christmas Eve).  After the appointment was made I said "I will be getting my money back for this".  I decided not to demand the money back for the haircut (it was a good cut) but I did get the money back for the foils, the extra product and for good measure, I even took all of the tip back.  I know accidents can happen but she ~knew~ there was bleed through and she did not utter one word about it to me!

Anyway, the next morning I was up and back at the salon.  The senior stylist thanked me for being so accommodating.  I was thinking "what the else am I going to do?  I need this fixed by someone who is not going to be passive aggressive and burn off all of my hair!".  The correction ended up being putting MORE foils and colour in my hair since the colour lifting had not worked the day before.  I was disappointed because I get foils to avoid the dreaded skunk line that I get from all over colour.  I did tip this one because I think she did a good job and she had really been reassuring to me that my hair was not going to break off.  The salon gave me this uber expen$ive conditioner to use on my hair. 

Here was the final result.  Seven hours in the salon and?  Not perfect but much better. 

Happy that my hair hasn't fallen out from being over processed!  Hurray!

And in the end, I blame Stephen for insisting that I get a "real" haircut.  I am looking forward to having A come over again to cut and foil my hair.  In my kitchen.  On the weekend.  With Stephen home.

My goodness I have been neglecting my blahg!  I hope I still have my handful of readers (hey Mar!). 

It has been a wicked few weeks and the stress finally got to me and I broke down on Sunday.  The tipping point was on Saturday night I noticed something in Cars' hair.  Turned out to be NITS so I ran to the drugstore before they closed and treated him and it was so gross pulling out dead LICE!  I also took him in to a professional nit picker first thing on Monday morning.  I had them check Jax, Dex and me for lice and nits too (we were clean).  We go back again in a couple of days to make sure Cars did not get re-infested.  I washed all Saturday night and all day Sunday and Monday after we got home.  Everything was washed on HOT and things that could not be washed went into the dryer on HIGH heat for 30 minutes.  Cannot wait to see our next utility bill.

I also had purchased a new vacuum on Friday so I used it heavily on Saturday night and Sunday but I noticed that the power brush head did not always go on then on Sunday night it would not go on at ALL.  I swore up a storm and Stephen talked me down and he took the vacuum back to be exchanged on Monday.  Then I was freaking out that they might not take it back and if they did maybe they would not honour the 20% off discount that I had received on it.  (I got 20% off at Bed Bath and Beyond because it seemed that one coupon mistakenly had omitted Dyson in the exclusions because every other BBB coupon I had said Dyson was not eligible for the discount). Anyway, I fretted all day long until Stephen came waltzing in with the new one. 

On Saturday, Cars had a hockey party after his 8am game.  There was a "secret Santa" and they passed out all of the gifts but there was no gift for Cars!  Turns out one family did not bring a gift (but were happy to take one  - asshats!).  Cars was looking around wondering where his gift was and fighting back tears.  The team manager, who is a wonderful person, ran to the snack bar and grabbed a bunch of safe snacks for Cars and wrapped them up in a table cloth with some balloons.  She totally saved the day.

After the party, we bought a Christmas tree and went home to put it up. Stephen and I had a fight about the lights on the tree and after we each had a hissy fit, we were able to get the lights on.  The kids and I decorated the tree Sunday morning, with Jax standing as far away from Cars as possible so he would not catch lice.  *sigh*

And of course Christmas is coming and I am getting fat.  I am stressed because once again I am not organized and have so much left to do.  Why oh why can I not start shopping/baking/decorating early?

Holiday stress at its finest.

Now that I have long hair for the first time in years, I have been trying to figure out different ways to wear it other than just long and straight (normal is long and frizzy).  I was looking at some youtube videos and I did try to make sock bun curls (  Sock Bun Tutorial ) but my hair was too thick and coarse to properly roll up into a sock bun.  Then I saw this video (Vintage curls ) so I thought I would give it a try a couple of nights ago. 

As instructed, I dampened my hair and used a stretchy elastic headband as instructed.  I slept on it and in the morning I pulled my hair out and what a disaster!  My hair looked like I was a mid-70's disco queen!  Huge puffy curly hair!  The method worked but it did not look attractive (at least on me).  I quickly tried to brush it out but that did not work.  I plugged in the flat iron but that made my hair look puffy and frizzy so I had to wash my hair to get the curl out.

I had a bright red straight line across my forehead from the hairband and I figured it would eventually disappear (like pillow-lines).  But two hours after I took the hairband out, I still had a bright red mark across my forehead.  I had to use concealer on it but it was still noticeable. 

Throughout the day I kept glancing in the mirror and the mark was still there and just as red!  It wasn't until late afternoon that I realized that it wasn't a pillow-line like mark but it was now raised and bumpy.  Doh!  It was a reaction to the latex in the hairband! 

I had mentioned before that I have developed a latex sensitivity.  I cannot wear latex gloves or be in a small room around latex balloons.  And apparently I cannot wear a hairband with latex for elasticity on my skin for 7 hours!  This morning is has faded some but it still there and has developed some bumps in it like an allergic reaction (which of course is what it is).  I will put some Benadryl cream on it to see if that helps. 

Anyway, so a hair disaster has turned into a skin disaster.  Maybe I should just keep my hair long and lose and straight.

The other day I bought a pound of almonds in the shell. They reminded me of Christmas when my mom used to buy a big bag of mixed nuts in the shell and over the holidays we'd eat them. It was so fun cracking the nuts and extracting a whole nut from the shell.  The exception of course were the Brazil nuts which stubbornly held onto the nut and we'd always have to pick it out of the cracked shell.

Anyway, almonds is one nut that is "safe" for us so I brought the bag home, hoping to share the nut cracking tradition with my kids.  One problem...no nut cracker.  So today I bought a nut cracker and I could not wait to finally crack those almond shells and eat the raw nut.  However, cracking nuts has been harder than I remember!  First I could not get the cracker to get a good grip on the nut.  Then when I finally cracked it, the cracker went right through and broke the almond meat inside into a million little pieces!  Noooo!  I tried again and the same thing happened.  I have not cracked 20 of them and have yet to get a whole almond out of the shell.  Just itty bitty little pieces that I have to pick out of the cracked shells.  Not fun!

Clearly my fond memories of how fun cracking nuts can be are false memories!  I just showed Cars and Dex how to do it and they were like "meh"  and asked me why I didn't just buy a can of already shelled almonds.  Goodness knows it would have been cheaper.  The almonds were $3.99 and the nut cracker was $4.99 and a can of dry roasted almonds is $3.69 (or less if on sale!).  *sigh*

Cars had his last "expander" appointment at the orthodontist today.  He will keep the expander in as a "retainer" and we'll go back in three months to see if his lateral incisors have grown in by then.  The baby ones were knocked out in May 2010 and the orthodontist says there is a chance the adult teeth are impacted.  Hopefully not because I don't want him to have to have oral surgery!

After the ortho appointment, I took all three kids for their flu shots.  Dex said he would go first then got all teary-eyed because he was scared.  I think in the end he was rather shocked that the shot did not hurt much.  Jax said it did not hurt at all but later complained that his arm was tired.  Cars freaked a bit too and cried.

But I took them to the frozen yogurt place (which is awesomely allergy-friendly!!).  All is good.

Quiet weekend. Lots of rest for everyone. I think the early hockey Saturdays are wearing us out.

Book List 2011

To date I have read 23 books this year which is much better than last year (I think I only read 18).  Many of the books I read this year were long too (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series).  I also downloaded some books onto my iPad this year for the first time (using eBooks and the Kindle app for iPad).  While I do enjoy the electronic format, nothing beats the smell of the paper when you have your nose in a book.

Here is my list for 2011:

1. The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein, 336 p *also read previously
2. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, 576 p
3. Rough Country, John Sandford. 400 p
4. Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss, 672 p *also read previously
5. Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss, 1008 p
6. Little Bee:  A Novel, Chris Cleave, 304 p
7. The People Code, Taylor Hartman, 336 p
8. Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides, 554 p
9. Miss Bossypants, Tina Fey, 288 p
10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
11. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, 416 p
12. Replay, Ken Grimwood, 320 p
13. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 600 p
14. The Girl who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 630 p
15. The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest, Stieg Larsson, 563pp
16. Marley and Me, Grogan, 320pp
17. The Lion’s Game, Nelson DeMille, 448pp
18. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 192pp
19. Plum Island, Nelson DeMille, 704pp
20.  Room, Emma Donoghue, 321 pp
21. Shanghai Girls:  A Novel, Lisa See, 336pp
22. Bad Blood, John Sanford, 432 pp
23.  Still Alice, Lisa Genova, 320 pp

My 24th book is "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" by Joanna Weaver.  I am reading this book with my Ministry of Mothers Sharing group but I am not sure we'll be done by the end of the year.

When I was sick last week, I completely blanked on all of my to-dos for the day.  I did call the school and tell them I could not do either of my volunteer stints.  And I did let my book club know that I would not make that night (although it was a shame because I really was looking forward to the discussion (Still Alice by Lisa Genova).  But I totally blanked on Jax's guitar lesson (only our 3rd week of it so easy enough to do, I guess) and also on the flu shot appointments I had made for Jax, Dex and Cars.  And those I just realized yesterday!  Thankfully I was able to get new appointments for them for next week (and am assuming I will not be charged for missed appointments since it is only with a nurse and not a doctor?!).

Anyway, I have written the new flu shot appointments in very large letters on my calendar, have put it in my cell phone appointment calendar with a 15 minute reminder.  In fact, I think I will put the reminder on every appointment I schedule into my phone calendar from now on.  Getting old and forgetful stinks!

Ok, I watched what I ate today ( even though it wasn't all exactly as planned - I really did not need that rice crispie square).

Shamefaced I will admit that I did not exercise. No excuses. Just laziness. Better luck tomorrow.

Well, I somehow managed to lose a very lengthy post where I admonished myself for carb-loading and not exercising.  Suffice to say I shan't recreate it but when I return tomorrow to post I shall have exercised and recorded what I have eaten.  Baby steps back to good health...

Darn, missed blahgging yesterday!  What a day it was.  The kids had the day off school so we decided to have Cars' birthday party that day (3 months after the fact).

I made just about the worst cake every (well, last year's was worse because the icing melted in the heat and the top layer of the cake slid off the bottom layer as we drove to the venue).  Cars loved the cake but I was a bit embarrassed about it and glad that no other adults saw the cake. 

We had a video game truck come for the party so all of the kids went inside and played video games.  I did say that they could let the kids play Halo (since there is no blood or gore like in Call of Duty and others) but the rest of the games were rated T or E.




It had been a rainy day but during the party we had a torrential downpour which changed to hail and sleet! When the parents came to pick up the kids everyone got soaked, even with umbrellas. And the temperature dropped so quickly that even this morning there is still frozen hail on the lawn and deck.

Woe is Me

I have contracted some sort of stomach bug and spent the day not far from the bathroom.  Totally blew away my plans for the day.  And I could not even go to Book Club!  Also, tomorrow is Cars' birthday party and I do not have all of the things I need for it so I will get up at the crack of dawn to run errands before Stephen leaves for work.  Hopefully my stomach will cooperate. Else I just might need to make the drugstore my first stop.

Time Change

We "fell back" last weekend and am still struggling with the dark evenings and feeling like I am going to fall asleep in my chair at 9:30pm (until my second wind kicks in).

I really hate driving the boys to hockey in the dark. I don't like when we are sitting down to dinner in the dark.

I do like that it is lighter in the morning ( at least for now). I am never comfortable with Jax standing in the dark waiting for the bus. Soon though, it will be plenty dark in the morning and he will be schlepping a flashlight with him.

And I am sitting here yawning as my second wind has died off. And it is gold in the house (did I reset the time in the thermostat??). Time for bed.

This is Jax being inducted into the National Junior Honor Society (wearing his new clothes). 

I am so proud of him.  Of course the ceremony took a while because there were like 200 other kids (the school has 1100+ students).  Hardly an exclusive club but I am very proud of how hard he works at school.  He is a great kid and I love him so.

Jax has been invited to join the National Junior Honor Society.  I don't know anything about it other than he has to be a good student and do some volunteer work throughout the year.  I have been asking him for weeks to find out more about it, including the induction ceremony which is tomorrow night.  He keeps saying that there is nothing going on.

Then today I asked him AGAIN and he said that they said something on the announcements today about it but "I missed it", meaning he did not listen to the announcements.  I looked on the school's website and see that the ceremony is "formal" which means he has to dress up!  Eek!  He has NO dress clothes or dress shoes.  And tonight I had to take Cars to hockey then Dex to guitar while Stephen took Jax to hockey.  Now they have to stop at Fred Meyer after hockey practice (the store is thankfully is open until 11pm) to find Jax some clothes to wear tomorrow evening.

Anyway, I hope they easily find clothes tonight!

Thanksgiving

Stephen and I are trying to decide what we are going to do for Thanksgiving this year. Our tradition was to go to our friends' home for dinner. But last year we went to Minnesota. Then this summer our friends moved to Minnesota. What shall we do?

I guess we could make a big turkey dinner. It has been a long time since we've attempted one. I think the last time was before Carson was born! And it was horrible. We brined the turkey using a recipe from from our newspaper's weekend magazine. The turkey, gravy and stuffing were all inedible because of the amount of salt. Here's the letter to the editor: Salty Turkey

Anyway, it is probably a good thing that we don't cook turkey. :)