Everything Joy

New Blog

2009-02-22T13:07:00.001-05:00

Thank you everyone who has faithfully followed this blog for over 2 years! after an important psychological breakthrough moment, I have consolidated all 4 of my blogs into one, called HouseFairy. Please join me over there for continuing discussions of ALL things Homeschooly, Birthy, Homemakingy, Fashiony, Rock n Rolly, and all things intelligent happy sad funny cool unique dreamy inspiring supportive contemplative and beyond!

Click here for the new blog!

Warmly,your Housefairy,MamaJoy

Hey there, skirt

2008-10-24T15:13:00.004-04:00

Although there is a long lineage of oppression and repression associated with the skirt or dress as women's garb, there is also a rich history of this comfortable flattering garment as worn by both men and women. **In this post, I am referring to a twirly skirt, a spinny skirt, nothing tight or short.**

I am just in love with my skirts. I have three of them that I really love. Being a woman who has borne 5 children, there are regions of my body that would take a great great deal of effort to become pants-attractive, and frankly, it just isnt on today's to-do list. Ive said it before and ill say it again: in a great skirt, nobody knows if you have a flat tummy or a pillsbury doughboy pooch and same goes for your booty. I love blue jeans, god knows they are as American and as rock n roll as forever, but I just cant cant cant embrace the mom-butt, I cant I cant I CANT. Plus if they fit when I stand up, then they will dismember me when I sit down--and sitting on the floor, as in, a hundred times a day when raising little kids will find me, fugeddaboudit! OW. So if the jeans are comfortable enough to sit and bend and squat and crawl, then they are ugly or huge when I stand up and choose them in the dressing room---it all is bad.

So, on to skirts. I thought I hated them, or I thought they were for funerals, church, or, a few inches shorter, for the dance clubs, bars and slut-o-ween costumes. I had all of this stuff in my head when I thought about skirts:

one breeze and you just gave everyone a free undie-show

cant play on the floor, cuz of the undie thing

cant play in the jungle gym (back in schooldays) cuz of the undie thing

too cold when it was cold out, too tangly and thigh-chafey when it was hot out

hard to find tights when you are 6 foot one....much harder when you are 6 foot one and overweight

so, when and how did the turn around come about? I guess it was a couple of years ago, maybe 3? I wanted something gentle on my cesarean incision area after Charlie was born and I ordered 2 soft flowy elastic waist skirts from OldNavy.com I was just gonna wear them around the house, with a tshirt and sandals. i instantly loved the look, and the "coverage" of the mystery tummy and mystery butt this 4th baby brought on.... but I was bummed out about undies showing and so DUH I slipped on a little pair of "bike shorts" and voila the best of all worlds was realized right then and there. These are not tight shiny gross Milli Vanilli spandex, just some little softy leggings I guess but that happen to be about knee length or a little shorter. Now I could have the happy freedom and dignity that pants afford us, as well as the cute twirlyness and happy modesty of my new skirts! Also, no thighs scraping, also, no cold breezes, also, no more hunting Scandinavian websites for Extra Tall 1X tights--now all I needed were knee high socks and thus the wonderful look was born.

I will never be without my skirts, nor will I ever be without my little undershorts-thingies. Today's bloomers, I suppose.

I have a beloved skirt that is very long and that everyone who knows me is probably so sick of, and it isnt available any longer, and me and my mom are gonna try to make some ourselves. Cant wait to unveil them, I want about 2 or 3. It is almost floor length and made up of 8 triangular panels.

I still like jeans but none look good right now and none feel even slightly tolerable. If you see me in jeans, know that my incision hurts and that I am slightly irritated.

Even when there is no hope of a morning shower...

2008-10-13T15:24:00.005-04:00

...there is always NOXEMA. Remember Noxema, actual Noxema?

I used to put this stuff on my face and leave it on for a long time, sort of a poor (wo)man's version of a mask...I would envision it burning out the zits...and it did help wake me up, that sizzling minty stuff.

Well, so much hip and exciting stuff has come about now for the home face washing, alpha hydroxy acids, scrubbing beads, blackhead eraser machines, biore pore strips...that poor old Noxema kind of seemed like maybe it was bad or --gasp!--"clogging". but I miss it! So I got some and WOO it is great!

When i first wake up, all puffy and horrified looking and feeling, I pull my hair back and put that on. As it fries my senses into morning-dom with its blaring Eucalyptus-y goodness, I make the coffee. When the coffee is done, I put in the cream and sugar, take the hot cup to the bathroom, and scrub off the Noxema with a cold washcloth. Or hot. Depends. Then with my bright pink minty soft face I drink the coffee. Success!

Medium Ash Brown. Sounds gentle. I need it.

2008-09-10T13:34:00.006-04:00

Even though spring of '07, when I had the blue hair and the bangs was by far the happiest I have ever been with my looks, e-v-e-r, (and I mean even counting 90 pounds ago, even counting pre-baby having days) I am going brown and staying for a while.

As a symbol of my commitment to healing, rest, and simplicity, coloring my hair a very plain, very subdued dark brown is meaningful to me. I found a Garnier Nutrisse shade called Medium Ash Brown which is just a deep dishwater haircolor. Perfect. Seriously.

I might get whims (who, me?) and I might get bored. But I have TONS of goals coming up for 2009 and beyond, and long hair is one of them and if I cannot stop the bleaching and stripping out of zany colors, I will have to keep chopping it off due to it being too damaged.

I have very fast growing hair, and would love to just settle in to a nice long winter of dark brown, little fun barrette, poof, thats it. I imagine in a year I will have healthy longish jumbly hair and then we will see what is up with bangs and blue and purple, etc. I will get a really nice haircut by then, and see where I'm "at". Maybe I won't want blue hair anymore. Maybe I will be some big yoga hotty hip super funky person with 15 new Mama friends at the school. Its fun to not know. but protecting my hair over the upcoming months feels like an investment in my unknown beauty future, so here's to the Brunette Mama Joy! (....clinking of sippy cups)

Labels, Identity crisis, Finding myself...

2008-09-04T13:32:00.004-04:00

I am a homeschooling Mama who just sent her children to school this year.

I am a homebirthing Mama who just had an elective c-section.

I am a vegetarian/natural foods Mama who eats meat again, and waaaay too much processed junk.

I am a cloth diapering Mama who only has a few cloth diapers left, in nobody's size, that are smelly and stained and who spends too much money a week on Pampers but cant afford to buy new cloth ones.

I am a babywearing/attachment parenting Mama who can't wear the baby or the sling even for a minute, whose baby hangs out in her carseat alot. She is happy, and I am right by her, but it IS alot.

I am an alternative hippie punk rock a billy blue and green pigtail'ed, tattoo'ed fierce and righteous politically active combat boot wearin kick ass superstar Mama who is dressed from head to toe in Old Navy and Crocs, kicking no ass whatsoever, barely aware that there is an election, sporting a sensible/matronly/preppy dishwater blonde bob. With no tattoos.

At least I am still breastfeeding. Both the youngest children. 11 years and counting :)

A whole lot to be thankful for

2008-04-21T18:25:00.004-04:00

I dont know where to post anything lately, which blog to put what on anymore,but just wanted to give a cheer for spring and for new beginnings, since I have devoted so very much time to griping about winter and sickness and confusions and such!

My husband brought me home roses tonight, on his bike, no less, and the whole family is now outside barbecuing on a nice old time charcoal grill. the smell is so good, music is spilling forth from out (finally!) converted backroom that is now a true "gym/playroom" for the kids, complete with slide and baby pool filled with plastic balls, etc. too fun!

My mom and sister took me out to dinner last night for my birthday, and we had a wonderful time!

We moved our birdfeeder right out front and the wonderful birds that have been coming have entertained us all, all day--Cardinals sparrows pigeons starlings cowbirds bluejays goldfinches grackles mourning doves and a downy woodpecker--so awesome! We worried that being right by the kids and so close to the house would make them scared but they still came, all day, and squirrels, too! This weekend we even had a pair of Mallard ducks, really wacky because we live in a suburb/urban area, right off a busy road, no lakes super nearby...but there they were, waddling around people's yards...so funny!

My pink hair washed out in ONE SHAMPOO, so I colored it brown. It is the only color (besides green, haha) that EVER stays in very well. It looks cool with the little bob/bangs and I guess it was the blond that was really buggin me. I might have to buy some of those little fun color strips and just take a break from the hairdying--I wish I knew the secret to this stuff, but in the meantime, I have to wash my hair so I have to be realistic : ( Maybe someday I will have dreadlocks and then they can be left colored and not washed!

It is a nice day and there is so much pettiness that can bring people down, but also so much beauty and simple goodness. the other night Mickey said at dinner how happy he was that he had arms and legs (!!) and I thought about the sincerity of a 7 year old just bursting out with that, and it lead to a wonderful conversation --not against quadriplegics, mind you-- but about how beyond blessed we all are just to not be dodging bombs, eating food at all, safe from the elements, alive period. good stuff.

There is a Woody Guthrie song that, from the first time I ever heard it, I had always intended on it being what I awoke to each morning. Some people might think it is "sad", but the message just jolts me with a really sensational and --I am at a loss for words--right and good feeling, and I think I am going to figure out a way to play it every morning for real. Coffee music, in my eternal quest to wake up before the kids and be a real live upright Mom....somedays it works, somedays well Charlie just wakes up too darn early! But anyways the song is called Dust Can't Kill Me and it is perfect. I will figure out how to embed songs into the blog and come back and pop it in here but for now, go check it out yourself, it rocks my world.

Also, my work decided to finally pay me and so all is well with our bank account, a lovely thing.

Pink is the new green

2008-04-14T19:36:00.005-04:00

Oh, beloved HAIR, how long has it been since I have not discussed this very fab-u-lous subject? (air snaps) Too long.

I have been a fine and upstanding ashy-blonde laydee bob for a few months now, and well, it SUCKED! I felt like most folks would feel if their hair was pink--haha--only guessing here--but-slightly ashamed and embarrassed to be seen by folks we admire, looking like that? SO not me, such a weirdo statement, I really could barely look in the mirror it was getting all brassy and Mrs Bradyish... Eww eww eww. Plus the chick that cut my hair last time did not listen to me at all, big shock, so I am being so so serious when I proclaim that this DIY stuff is truly meant to be for me. So much creativity in my life has come out of feeling forced to do stuff myself--and I hope that down the line my dreams of creating clothing and films and a band or three will follow this same vein. Dissatisfsction with what is currently available, and inventing what I need for myself! Like recipes and fun hairdos right now, and down the line, who knows?

So the other night I meandered over to the Manic Panic website again, and started to look longingly at the rainbow-haired people, how awesome and happy they all looked! I freaked out and cut my hair in the bathroom and slapped all of Greta's hot pink semi-permanent color all over my newly cut hair, showered, cleaned the whole mess up, got dressed and came back to the family anew! They were loving it, and even though the pink isn't very bright at all, MAN do I feel better! Phew! I looked about 50 years old and it stunk. Bla. I shaved off the weird neck flap and cut the bangs that took me 7 months to grow out. SNIP! just like that...I love it. I am not trying to look like a kid, but looking like a granny dog isnt exactly what I was cool with, either. I feel cheerful and true to self now.

There are only a couple of people who hate when I have fun colored hair, and BOY do they hate it. I mean , H-A-T-E--but what can I say? They are in the vast minority, I rarely, rarely see them, and everysingle other person I ever meet, all of my friends, all of my kids, strangers, hairdressers, fashion-fun people, always tell me they like it...plus, the only person who I mega-seriously care about their opinion of how I look, my husband, LOVES it! So fooey. Anyone who actually gets morally worked up about this kind of stuff anyhow, probably needs to r-e-l-a-x and grab a jar of perspective, KWIM? I am sure they do their own things everyday to look and feel the way they want to, and this is what I do : )

I have always been under the impression that any haircolors under the pink/red spectrum are all wrong for me, but I must say that I am pleasantly surprised with how neutral this pink actually is. Given the fact that I have NO pink clothes whatsoever, the old worries about my head matching my clothes too much is no problem. I think I will stick with this for a while, maybe go brighter sometime soon.

Happy B-Day to meeeeeee

2008-04-03T11:20:00.004-04:00

Today is my birthday! I am 33! Three was my favorite number my entire life so this one seems extra lucky. We are planning on a nice day out with the boys, parks and such, it is sunny and fifty! WOOHOO! Greta is at Girl scouting events, we miss her.

I got 2 fifty dollar checks and am going to FINALLY get stuff for the homeschool gym. I am not being a martyr-mommy, this is going to be very beneficial to me, much more so than a clever t shirt or whatnot. I am also going out with my mom and sister next week, super excited!

I love how no matter how old I get, when I see "April 3rd" written somewhere, I get a little thrill. I wrote a check dated 4/3 and got all giggly--is it just me, or does anyone else still do this?

Nag Champa makes soap?!

2008-03-21T11:29:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, I ran into the health food store for some kind of nice new soap, (being pregnant and using daddy's blue man soap seems extra depressing somehow)and I found one little dusty box that really intrigued me. It was SOAP made by Nag Champa, my favorite incense that I buy by the boxfuls everytime I can. I was so excited to think of smelling like incense that I bought it.

I went home and took a bath, (something that always sounds so nice but always ends up being lame because our bathtub is little and weird and the water drains out and the hot water runs out before you want it to and your imagined luxury turns into weird cold beached whale badness. But I digress!) and while I was semi-lounging (freezing and sort of stuck) in the bathtub, looking over my darling little new soap box with the intriguing (Indian?) sayings on it, and I noticed that it was quaintly called Beauty Soap. How innocent, to call it that. No big promises, just beauty! So cute. Now, mind you, this was like month 6 of me having the worst acne of my entire life, not even acne, more like burnt red bumpy face, and this thought crossed my mind, what if I washed my face with the beauty soap? Would it burn and be horrible? I thought of all the gorgeous Indian ladies who never seem to have acne and went for it, strong fragrance and all.

The very next day my skin was WAY clearer. I took out all the facial cleansers with all of their shelf-life extending chemicals and preservatives and poisons and replaced them with the humble little tan bar of Nag Champa. I wash my face with it morning and night, as well as the rest of myself, and I love it. I do not even wear foundation anymore, just a couple of dabs of concealer over some of the alarmingly dark marks from some old zits, and I have just good old skin on my face now, not some rugburnt freak out. It was such a nice surprise, this special little soap. If and when I see them again, I am buying them all up for friends and our family. Cheers to Nag Champa soap!

5 more weeks

2008-02-24T12:39:00.002-05:00

Well, about 5 more weeks of work, and the Curling Club will be closed, and life can get back to normal in time for the whirlwind that is a new baby! I am so glad.

I love my job, I really do. I love the people, I love pouring the drinks, I love making the popcorn and I even love doing the dishes in the big industrial 3 compartment sink (isn't it funny how cleaning at someone else's "house" is so different than your own?) and I love getting away from the house and the kids and having a car ride and listening to my Michigan Public Radio all the way there and all the way home.

But, as I have said before, having a household with no Mama is nothing to be taken lightly. Our routines and structures have all but been destroyed, and the toll this has taken upon our family has been hard to forsee and will be slow to rebuild. I am flattered, honored, and sometimes a bit overwhelmed to really realize how much I do and how much me being gone can mess stuff up--and this isn't some bit about a lackluster husband who pretends he doesn't know how to do stuff--Our Daddy cleans and cooks and runs a great, great ship, and we are eternally grateful for him...but its not the same as 2 adults. So we are looking forward to this all being done.

I have said this a million times, but it would be the perfect job if it went until about 9pm. Midnight is just too late, even if I wasn't pregnant. So, I will miss it and I won't. I plan on visiting often next year, and keeping the option open for working there in 2009....but certainly not 3 nights a week.

fake bare minerals

2008-02-11T13:39:00.001-05:00

Do you know that makeup that has the big infomercial, the bare minerals? Well, now all the drugstore brands of makeup have a fake kind that is much cheaper and i got one--I got the Maybelline kind, and it is quite nice. Good "coverage" and just an overall skin-tone to the otherwise pale and blotchy warzone that is the 5 month pregnant face of a very sick and tired girl in February. I now could go out of doors and be looked upon in the daylight and not cause screams of horror.

So...I recommend it but have a sneaking suspicion that the kind on TV is better. Mine was 8 bucks and that one is 30 or something...but you do get this fabulous "kit" and all this stuff...ahhh informercials, how you seduce me.

best cards ever

2008-01-30T15:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, alot of these are dirty. Dirrrrrrrty. So you have been warned! I didn't make em! (but I wish I did!)

But if you cant deal with pink lacy kinds of insincere stuff, or just have a twistedly hilarious someone in your life who would appreciate amazingly insane e-cards, then you must visit this website and start sending like a maniac. Heck, send some to me!

when will i change the name of this blog to simply, "hair"?

2008-01-26T18:58:00.001-05:00

The shortest Ive ever ever had my hair--but I love it!

The green really did come out, and I got a fun new head out of the whole (or)deal. I used very strong "bleach" powder with 40 level lightener, and then cut alot of it and then used a toner (#303D Clairol Professionals, Champagne Beige) with a 20 level developer. I spent about $11 on all this stuff, and couldn't help but grill Steve about what he thinks it would honestly cost to get my hair completely stripped, colored, toned, washed cut and styled at a salon. "More than eleven bucks?" was his wise guy guess and he was damn right!

Whats fun and really different about this hair-do is that it looks better when it is all lumpy bumpy and messy--I wash my hair at night now and sleep on it wet on purpose--then I use the large curling iron to turn the ends under on the big front part and that's it. I can part it on either side and throw a little barrette in or whatnot. I really like this, I think it is a good one i will stick with for a long time. Somehow I have stumbled upon a look that can have me be "socially acceptable" (eyes roll but true) and still not feel like gross old soul-less random sheeple.

:)

I like makeovers...alot...

2008-01-19T19:59:00.001-05:00

I'm gonna try for short blonde hair. I am gonna cut it as short as possible with still looking edgy or cool or whatever not looking like a spinster or a dude will involve. Hopefully cutting off all the hair that simply will not bleach out will be a great start. Once it is cute and blonde and healthy, I will feel alot better about things right now. Then if I want to do like a little pink streak or something (colors in the red-pink spectrum don't have the staying power of the greens and blues) I will do that but not my whole head.

I think it will be a good thing.

I like to switch things around, ALOT. My house, my hair, I really really get a kick out of makeovers, re-do's, but after about 3 weeks or so, the thrill is gone, or I am "used to it" or sick of it, or ready to try something better, newer, more exciting, convinced that the newest idea will be THE awesomest!

I have from time to time, worried about this part of my character: Whoa, doesn't that sound like those people who jump from lover to lover, who get involved in crazy pyramid schemes, who gamble all their money away, who do impulsive things to their own grave detriment?

I'll give a small armchair shrink nod to this momentary assessment but just as quickly I can refute it. I find great, great comfort, wonderful security and deepest love and pride in my 16 year relationship with my husband, in my daily devotion to my children whom I have homeschooled from the get-go, in my commitment to persuing my passion for helping people and my persuit of midwifery...and the idea of gambling makes me shudder....Ihave never been to the casino and I never want to...I just really like art, and I really like creating, and I really really am an astheticist who is very moved and influenced by the way things look. Period. It isnt about vanity--I go grocery shopping in polka dot pajamas, I dont know, I cant think of any examples right now, but this certainly isnt about being vain...

My idea of a fantastic weekend is cutting off my hair, or anybodys hair....coloring it three different shades, and switching around several rooms completely stripping them and replacing everything---and painting!!! I adore painting and if I could afford it, I would either hire painters twice a year to completely repaint my house, or use the money to hire babysitters so I could do it myself :)

So, I like to re do stuff. Sometimes I get it right and it is something I can live with, and sometimes I do makeovers and changes that are a bit harder to undo than I anticipated, like green hairdye over blue hairdye over green hairdye over highlights.

always learning, always creating....hopefully posting new hair pics soon enough...

MamaJoy

2008-01-17T18:36:00.000-05:00

I would like to start off this article with a blanket apology to anyone whom my tastes may clash so harshly with your own that you mat feel personally offended. These are MY hang-ups, and they truly do not apply to others. I found thousands of celebrity short hairstyles that looked awesome but gave me the cold chills when i thought about myself having them.

So, ummm, Im a beauty schizophrenic and I hate my green hair now. It is yellowy and minty and freaky. I cannot deal with how much it fades when I wash it, yet how much it wont bleach out when I try. I am pissed off, frankly--my sense of bravado with the haircoloring has taken a ego-blow. I cant get with why or what the #$%ing deal is with this color not coming out when I wanted it to. Being trapped against my will is not my favorite sensation, and I feel annoyed, sad, freaked out about this.

So, do I bore you or amuse you with why I want the green to go byebye? Well, it was great, and it made me feel really adorable and fun. and now, well, I feel weird and like it isnt me right now, and like the people who "dont get" radical color would have no problem understanding, I feel like I am meeting alot of people and traveling in circles right now where what was once fun and adorable and kool is now limiting and depressing and even embarrassing. I swear I am not depressed! It just isnt working for me right now. the color doesnt stay bright, it doesnt go with my maternity clothes, I am just done with it. I dont feel righteous and different and empowered, I feel trapped and like I need a hat. This isnt about wanting anyone to write and say "your hair is great! dont do it!" this is about me needing to get this bleached out professionally and just chill out for a bit.

I am going to need to talk to one of my friends who actually works at a salon and talk about gettting this taken out professionally, hopefully for a babysitting barter and not real money ; )and I know I am gonna have to go short. This is the thing: and the thing where I might make someone sad or whatever, I never EVER want boy hair. No spanky no spunky, it is my nightmare, it symbolizes to me the ultimate thing like that Saturday Night Live sketch of M.O.M. jeans---and it is seriously something Steve and I discussed as our little pre-marriage stuff; for him, no moustache, no mailman socks or tighty whiteys, for me it was no "Sandy Duncan" hair, no trousers/slacks/brown pantyhose scary powdery perfume, you know....

so, how to get through this quickly and painlessly? Tons of barrettes, etc I suppose. I R E A L L Y dont want to be fat pregnant lady with the pin-head. Repeat. this is my hang up but man o man it is a big one.

Here are a couple of cool chicks i found online who have short hair that I could deal with owning. I wish i could pull a Britney and just shave it off, but again, I am just not feeling very punk rock lately, just kind of want to have simple normal hair and not deal with this right now. Sigh.

Rainbow of beautiful, (HAPPY) hair

2008-01-08T21:40:00.000-05:00

In a better world, Pantene commericals would feature women in slow motion, under bright lights, whipping and flipping and twirling their hair, their soft and shiny hair....but it wouldnt always be the long blonde curls...it would be long blue curls, long pink curls, short green spikes, glorious black dreads, vibrant orange stubble, bright grey bobs, silver white pin curls, neon red 'fros.....all soft and smelling of the lovely Pantene, all hairdos and haircolors making the woman who sported them feel HAPPY and COOL.

I love my hair and it has never, ever felt softer. It is shiny and nice, and yeah, I can and do whip it around when I think of it. TV is so ridiculous anyhow, why not something like this? I think it would be cool as hell.

No more secrets!

2008-01-02T08:22:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

So, as you know, I am a bartender at a Curling Club. On December 21st we had, instead of regular Friday night curling, a sort of Holiday party/Potluck event. I have been thwarting the kids' begging me to come to my work for weeks now, mostly out of worry that it goes until Midnight, and them being tired/fussy and with me being there with our only car, there would be no "out", etc if someone freaked out. But for the party, I decided to bring Greta with me. She was SO excited!

We got there and she sat at the bar and had a pepsi with maraschino cherries in it while I set everything up-- lots of opening of fridges, setting up drinks, turning on the keg, prepping the kitchen/pantry, putting out all of the things on the bar, making the popcorn, etc. She brought paper and pen and did some of her drawings. I introduced her to anyone who came by, and they all seemed impressed and charmed by her and she was loving the spotlight ;) as she drew her dragons and goblins and eyeballs and rabbits and cats and people genuinely were asking her "did you draw that??" she was loving it.

Soon some of my real friends there came in, and were smitten with her. They couldnt believe she was TEN and wanted to take her out with them! They were cracking up at her sarcastic/witty observations, but, unlike some of the things she might have done last year to get a laugh, I didnt feel nervous that she would say anything "weird". she has got a good sense of what is outrageous enough to get a laugh but not so over the top as to put people off (a skill many adults do not have a good handle on I must say!)

Soon some of my friends took her away to play a fun board game called "Smarty Party" and that was about the last I saw of her all night! I kept mosey-ing over there to see if she was becoming "this little kid who is wrecking our game" and they were like NO SHE GOT US 5 POINTS DONT TAKE HER AWAY!! I was so proud and she was having a blast.

Now, I had not told anyone at work that I was pregnant yet--first I was just following the rules of etiquette that you dont go around announcing your embryo to any old person, because, lets face it, if you have a miscarriage, aka, "it doesn't work out", then it is all weird when they ask you how its going and you have to not cry and its all weird and sad. Well, that, and I think the timing was totally weird to get pregnant the millisecond I start a new job and wanted them to totally love me before I go busting out big news and possibly special requests, although I do not plan on needing any special requests, some people still do that for pregnant ladies, no carrying out the trash at midnight to the scary dumpster alone, etc.

Well, Greta was chitty chatting away with my three "closest" female friends at the club, and they were asking her "now, you have 2 sisters? 2 brothers?" and she said, "no, no, I have three brothers and Mama is pregnant and I hope it is a girl" and my face turned beet red and they just dropped their jaws and looked at me and I smiled and they all did the classic squealy "OH MY GOSH CONGRATULAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOY! HOW FAR ALONG ARE YOU OH MY GOSH I WANNA HAVE A BIG FAMILY I AM SO JEALOUS THAT IS SO AWESOME YOU ARE SO LUCKY YOU LOOK SO GREAT BLABLABLABLA"

It was so neat to be that girl, like the ones on TV,where the response is 100% "hooray". I felt like I was in the convertible in the pageant, waving a cupped hand, the pregnant super star, just for once, so cheesy to admit, and so so fun. So Greta dropped the bomb for me, and the response was totally positive. It was actually perfect, as I was expecting Maternity clothes for xmas and they way they are cut, you go from looking a little chubby to very much pregnant, and I was getting to the point where I didnt know how or when to tell them and was stressing about it. I was told that I am not allowed to lift any kegs anymore (I never have had to yet, and they probably weigh less than Casey who I carry many times in the day but I appreciated it still) and was told that gossip spreads fast and that i dont have to worry about telling anyone now! Cool by me, I just wanted it to be out there so I could continue to do my job without carefully planning baggy shirts each night :)

I have been off work for almost 2 weeks and it has been NICE! I have gotten to put my children to bed each night, gotten a major wrangle on the laundry (not a single dirty thing in any hamper, lots of clean to fold) and been cooking nice dinners again, too. (Steve cooked last night, the best spaghetti ever known to humankind) I have been going to sleep around 10, and feeling humanish at 6 am when the first peeper wakes up.

I am happy to go back tonight, but still hate the hours. i am looking forward to seeing everyone and to being no longer concerned about secret-pregnancy. Phew. Greta wants to come back with me sometime soon, but we are trying to get them back on a more normal sleep schedule after the holidays, sickness and odd schedules keeping them up late and having differing wake times and such, it is a burden to have 3,4,5 different breakfast times!

Wish me luck as I start back up at work!

lemon blue

2007-12-27T14:50:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to surprise grandmas for x-mas, I decided to bleach out all of my brown and blue hair and be a blonde again. I was planning on bleaching it all out to a light blonde and then maybe leaving it that way for a while. It needed a trim, it had lost all of its color and coolness and shape and I wanted a nice new look.

I used level 40 with a strong powder bleach kit (if you know about the beauty supply type of stuff this is the strongest there is) and slathered it all on. As the natural "roots" got blonder and blonder, the blue wasn't doing much of anything...wow...I have experimented with color since I was 18 years old and this was news to me. I let it sit and sit and the roots went as light as they should be allowed to and still, over 50% of my hair was blue, bu a lighter blue. A beautiful if I may so say, very special shade of light light blue which i have always wanted but you cant really buy (that i know of)

So I washed it out, deep conditioned it and cut it a bit. Yellow head with 1/2 minty blue. I was pretty mortified but as we had a family party to be at in a matter of hours, i dried it and curled it and slapped in a semi-festive red flower thingy with red earrings, held my blue and yellow head up high and went to the party.

I don't know what to do now. I could try to go for a light blue or let it grow and grow and keep cutting the blue off and remember that blue can be verrrry hard to remove. I could re dye it blue which would be really vibrant with these freshly bleached roots. Ideas?

Makeup talk-- feels so girly and forbidden!

2007-12-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

Iam 32 years old and I have been wearing makeup since I was about 12. Crazy huh? Back then, i did it for fun, or because if you didn't have a little blue stripe under your eye it meant social death in my school or whatnot. I would get the occasional zit and spackle it and enjoyed choosing different lipsticks to go with my outfit. But I didn't feel like I NEEDED makeup until way, way later. Like after my third child.

Go ahead, call me whatever you want to call me. I'm a card carrying member of the third wave-- I read The Beauty Myth the day it came out and Ive gone 2 years without shaving before. Ive been there and done that from different decade-era styles to a seriously short lived period of au natural, dying my hair back to light brown, and eschewing even earrings and bras. (College, what can I say) Where I'm at now is just evening out, perking up, and doing it cheaply and quickly and I think wriitng about it will be of interest to my readers ;)

I think I am doing the world a favor, and certainly my own self esteem in presenting a face that looks like I feel inside. Because the person inside of me does not have grey lips, blotchy broken capillaries on her cheek, straight blonde eyelashes, or light purple sacks under her eyes. The person inside of me is cheery, rosy, sparkley, and yeah, I'm gonna say it, youthful.

So here is the makeup basics that I do to look like myself. I will start with the Wintertime/Bad skin version:

Pluck a few eyebrow hairs. After years spent overboard with that whole thin arch look I endured a long time of looking pretty freaky to have my eyebrows back. I shape a little to enhance the arch that I have which makes me look more awake and friendly and less neanderthal and cross.

Concealer on my zits and my blotches and my scars and my undereye circles.

Mix a tiny tiny amount of some basic beige foundation with some water to make a very translucent and thin wash of color-evening tone in the palm of my hand. Smooth over my face.

Cheapo-bronzer gel on my cheeks for blush. This is a little tube of Bonne Belle that I have had forever but it is so nice and foolproof.

Then I do a big-brush of powder over the whole thing to finish it or whatever the professional term is.

I use lipbalm mixed with red lipstick on my lips and I line them with a darker reddish brown lipliner. I know lipliner is out of style but i need it. My lips are GREY. They need edging. If you don't understand then you are not blessed with grey lips. I applaud you.

I curl my eyelashes. Yes, the scariest of lady-devices, the eyelash curler is now my friend. I used to be afraid f this thing but it is great. You look perky or happy or something when your eyelashes are curled versus straight.

I often wear mascara, but it is double edged sword for me. I feel too fancy with eyemakeup on unless I "do" my whole self up, you know, with an outfit, etc. I have never liked or known how to do too much fancy stuff with the eyemakeup and always feel like I look like a hooker or an old lady or a newscaster and so I shy away from it. So alot of times I don't wear the eyemakeup, just curl the lashes. I had a wealthy friend when I was young whose mom let her get her eyelashes dyed black. She was a very fair girl and had very blonde eyelashes. I thought this was the most exotic thing I had ever heard of and it was only $8. Now I worry about going blind, a little bit, and I just never remember to think about this procedure, but it would be so cool to have dark lashes without gooey glop.

Then, being truly addicted to blush, I usually put on even more blusher in the form of powder blush, a goldey-pink one I have had forever as well.

In the summer, I just do my lips and put on the gel blush and that's it! Even though I haven't purposefully"tanned" in years, I always have a clearer complexion and colorful skin tone when it is summertime.

So, in a way, it is nothing, a little color on the lips and cheeks, but in a way, I feel like I cant believe how rough I look without makeup, after so many years of it being just for fun. Thats ok. I am 32 1/2 years old and it could definitely be worse!

Real youth and 10 minutes of product, side by side.

Tattoo dreaminess

2007-12-13T11:16:00.000-05:00

http://blog.tokidoki.it/?p=17

Ummmm
I knew if I waited long enough in my life, and I have, I would find the perfect tattoos for me. Now I have found like a million of them. (see above)

I also want a huge atom on my arm, with maybe little electrons for all of my children, and then the rest, along the lines of these that you see above. I really cant quite fathom how somethings can be so cute.

Yippee!

TV

2007-12-12T17:03:00.000-05:00

London Ink! Who knew?

I adore the tattoo shows but the people are so cheesy...like, I like their tattoos but hate the whole Florida/California vibe. But LONDON ink, now? TiVo here I come. I got to watch some of one episode last night and the people couldnt look cooler. I feel a kindred with folks who do not surf 12 months a year, you know? (I also hate Rockabilly style with any smidge of a tan, ewww)

So go watch it on TLC if you have cable and if you want to see beautiful people get incredible tattoos. Sure beats network sludge....

The History channel has completely freaked out! Whereas of course, it was always a noble and austere and "good" thing to watch, I will be the first to admit that World War One shows were usually my natural sleep aid if you catch my drift. But this season, they are doing all these amazing and exciting shows! Shows about death and danger and intrigue and I am really excited to TiVo them (and have no idea when I could watch them! )

I watch Survivor but since my wrestling Playboy freak girl got kicked off, along with my James, I have been kind of disappointed. Its a weird show, but a tradition.

I watch Heroes when I can and am caught up for the season.

With the kids we watch How Its Made (Science channel) and Yo Gabba Gabba and Teletubbies and thats about it. Greta liked Goosebumps for a while but now hasn't asked to see it.

Winter. Sigh. Wish I was doing something jaunty but it seems so difficult once the cold really comes!

Wassup tonight

2007-12-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

Hey there! I feel like so many people are not blogging lately-- "holidays" perhaps? I don't know. I have blue hair now and I adore it. the green was kool but this is me fave of all time. I feel like this is what I look like. I used Manic Panic After Midnight Blue. The places in my hair that were nice and damaged took the blue like a sponge-- like the most brilliant indigo, and the healthy newer parts of my hair hardly took the color at all.

Work is still cool, after a little pouting attack on my part last week that "they" were picking on me in the form of new checklists and repeated sticky notes everywhere reminding "us" of the most obvious of our tasks, I had a small paranoid/defensive freak out but I am over it. At 12:15am I am actually kinda grateful for a checklist of all the things we are supposed to do before we can officially close the bar, so I am fine with it now. The customers still love me and tell me the greatest stories! Tales of drunken escapades, curling stories, stuff about their jobs and their grandmothers and their children and The Olden Days. I can't get enough. My face hurts from smiling, and I wonder if they know how genuinely I am enjoying their sharing these things with me. Braggadocios stories of golfing, fishing, bowling, curling and hunting prowess. Embarrassing stuff, personal stuff, wild stuff. Why does the bartender always end up being the shrink? Hey now Grandma can't keep saying I didnt use my degree, heh heh. I listen to peoples problems, I nod and laugh and shake my head at the appropriate times, I care, I worry, I give gentle advice when prodded to, and I remember a good deal of it next time we meet. They tell me thanks for listening, I feel so much better, you really helped me....how is that not psychology? Oh, I know, I don't wear pantyhose, sit in an office, or have to put my children in cindercare for 80% of my income.

Well thats my little contribution to the Everything Joy blog tonight. it is Tuesday and so me and Steve have been having an All American Classic Evening of eating dinner at the actual dining room table with our kids, folding and distributing laundry mountain, reading bedtime stories to one kid while assisting in the teeth brushing of another kid, hanging visquine plastic stuff on our windows with the blowdryer to keep out the drafts, trying to download anything by the incredible band Slumber Party on SoulSeek and being mortified that noone has anything by these guys, laying out little outfits for the kids tomorrow, semi cleaning the kitchen, checking on fantasy football guys online, taking showers, sweeping up Christmas tree needles, and getting ready to watch Heroes and make a little fire in the fireplace while hanging out with Kitty.

I CANNOT believe this is what we used to do 7 nights a week. I am happy for my job but so excited for it to be over, too. Unlike so many couples, we love this and need this, and it has been creepy and sad to not have it. Our household has suffered from the complete cessation of this second part of the day, but hey. We will get used to it, but there is definitely a need for 2 adults here to keep it all going.

minty cold chillin

2007-11-29T09:49:00.000-05:00

I am so sorry I haven't written in so long. I have a big case of writer's block and it sucks. Then I get no time on the the computer anymore, work from 6 to midnight, and think when and if i finally get to write, it must be "profound" and voila! I don't write. Lame.

So here's something not profound: I tried to strip out the green hairdye in order to try a new color, and it didn't work very well. This is new for me, I am quite adept in the realm of haircolor and haircolor removal! Why take out the green which everyone seems to love so much? One reason: All my clothes are green! I am serious. It is too much, and I can't take it anymore.

Today it is mint green and blonde and doesn't look very nice, but I am not going to freak out. I am at peace in my warm home while the harrowing, sub-freezing winds whip away all traces of the gorgeous autumn we have had here and make everything harsh and brittle outside---no running to the store for a new color for me today. We are staying in, cuddling, reading, cooking, and enjoying each other. As much as I complain about summer heat, winter really IS a pain in the arse. So stressful to shiver and have to tense up your body just to get the mail. So scary to think of toddlers getting frostbite, keeping up on all the little mittens and boots....definitely have to get our "Mitten and hat box" going again ASAP.

Anyhow, I love you all, I have minty half bleached out hair and I am cold. That's Everything Joy today. :)

"add to cart"

2007-11-13T17:25:00.000-05:00

http://www.zappos.com/n/p/dp/15323537/c/91286.html
Why are all the cute things so expensive? Someone out there is trying to make all the rich people super cute. What a ripoff!

I love these shoes and they even come in 11. Did you know that I wore a size 10 womens shoe from age 10 until I had Mickey? Then my feet were an 11 to stay. Darn! A whole adult life's worth of cool shoes, all too small, and now out of the regular size range. More and more companies have size 11 and 12, but it is either Payless or super expensive high quality places. Sigh. I do not even know how I happened upon shoe websites today, ridiculous but fun. Todays version of window shopping, minus the hot pretzel and parking lot stress? Sometimes I will quite seriously "Add to cart" 3 or 4 hundred dollars worth of stuff online, just to erase it and breathe away the shopping urge. Very harmless, and possibly normal, if I cared.

you know what else I do which is ridiculous? I get all involved in following an Ebay auction for some crazy thing that I would never really be able to buy. Vintage telephones, Mod lounge chairs, paintings, double and triple jogging strollers from Europe, fancy little baby shoes, TShirts from threadless, rainbow wigs, Japanese shoes,Vans and campers and RV's ....don't even get me started on Amazon.com..heehee good thing I am poor huh?

Any other fantasy online shoppers out there? Guilty materialistic shameful pleasure or sensible alternative to actual buying? It is usually fun and then I will sort of blink and think what in the heck am I doing??? and log off.

Work Updates

2007-11-10T19:28:00.001-05:00

I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have I said this too many times now? I work at a historic curling club-- do you know about curling? Have you seen it on the Winter Olympics, or do you get Canadian TV where you live? Well, we have a curling club in my town that goes back to 1885. And I am the bartender! I absolutely love these people. I talk and talk and talk to them and may I be so bold as to say they love me! "Hiya Joy!" "Joy's here!" "Joy, whats your next haircolor gonna be?" "Joy's here, we finally get to drink!" (6:01 pm, totally joking with me)

I have alot of responsibilities, but now that I know what to do, I feel so proud to keep a nice bar and kitchen and have answered the phone, too--these old guys are PRANKSTERS! They call up to the club and pretend to be so-and-so's "boyfriend", or they ask for married women, just to stir up "trouble"-- it is just like Cheers, in a way--except it seems to me that 90% of the people there are "Good Old Joe, John, Bill, Henry...." from forever. So I am just trying to get all their names straight but I love them all. I have yet to meet ONE person who isn't super nice-- even one guy who was kind of gruff to me opened up one night and told me this SAD SAD life-story kind of thing (he had one glass of beer) and now we are bonded!

It isn't all old guys, there are plenty of women and a good deal of younger folks. This is very cool. Unlike a lot of other jobs I have had, where the women are sort of snipey and snooty and clique-y, these ladies are just, cool! They tell me about their cats and their gardens, their husbands and jobs, their cars and their curling injuries, their new shoes and their holiday plans. They trust me with their purses and their cell phones and I keep an eye on all this stuff for them even though they have lockers. I am better at remembering the women's favorite drinks and treats than the men's, although I don't get why yet. There is one young girl who has blue streaks in her hair, which prompted me to tell my bartending superfriend that I used to have blue hair, but I had to get rid of it for job-hunting, and she was like DO IT AGAIN! So I did-- but this time green. Everyone loves it, even this one lady who is quite austere and quite a high ranking female in the club looked me over very sternly the night I walked in with short green hair, looked me over, and did not say anything. Crap! I thought. Maybe it was too soon to do this, they don't really know me yet....

But a little later that night, she came up to me and said "Turn around." and I did, and she said in the same serious voice, "Your new hair is completely darling. I could never do that. Very very cute."

!!!

So, so much for worrying about hair. These people want someone who is nice and cheerful and who makes them feel welcome at their bar. It is a members owned club, and this is the first year they have even had a bartender every night so they are happy! I make popcorn in the big machine, I know alot of drinks now, and mostly, I pour pitchers without any head on top, and I talk talk talk to them all. They keep telling me that I need to get out on the ice, and I laugh. Maybe someday. For now, I am happy to keep all these nice people happy, and I am forever grateful for my friend who got me this ridiculously nice job. it took me a solid 2 weeks for it to sink in that there was no mean boss there was no scariness, there was nothing to be nervous about, and this was not one of those nightmare jobs. I think I carry myself like someone who truly wants to be there, and that hopefully shows, because I do. I am already sad for it to be over in the spring. I work Monday Wedensday and Fridays from 6pm until midnight.

I also have been working all day Saturdays downtown at my friend's technology lab doing office work. It is super boring yet mostly therapeutic and relaxing rather than tedious. We chat some but mostly we are quiet.

So, I am a "stay at home mom", and a "working mom". I look forward to Sundays and Tuesdays when I get to see my husband! Ta ta for now...

Yay, that was so easy!

2007-10-27T23:46:00.000-04:00

It is 11:25pm now, and I feel M U C H better! Goodnite!

This simply must be done

2007-10-27T22:01:00.001-04:00

So here's the hair story for tonight:

Last November, I went into my bathroom armed only with a dull hair scissors and a box of brown hairdye. Medium Chestnut Brown it was called. I went in with a scraggly blond-with-overgrown roots all one length bob and came out with a deep auburn new hairdo: heavy straight bangs, my home attempt for a Bettie Page kind of bangs, and two little spoinky pig tails. I decided then and there to never be a frump random 30-something Mom-lookin person again, and me and my good friend Amanda worked on little "Paint" program drawings of how I envisioned my cool new self to be. When I thought she would maybe laugh at me, she said in all honesty, "This is how I think of you anyways". I was touched and encouraged to be on the outside the way that I felt on the inside. Strange, eclectic, colorful, artistic, kooky, different, perhaps more Icelandic than Michigan suburbanite, more Martian than Earthling, and within a couple of months, Christmas and little purchases here and there found me with a small pile of new fun socks, a new pair of green buckle shoes, ridiculously great red sunglasses from Target, and bright blue hair that as you all know, made me feel as happy as a lark. The kids were so proud of me and my visionary bravado and they just adored my blue hair, and super importantly, Steve just ADORED my new level of confidence and comfort in my own skin, so to speak. Mama's bright blue hair was just a real positive family event, thats all I remember. I love our family.

I got it in my head that growing this new blue hair long was the next quest. For those of you who have been following this blog for some time, you will recall the pictures I posted of fairies and models with long blue locks. I was convinced that at age 32, it was now or never as far as getting very long hair. I felt like if I grew it long now, I could still be that girl with long blue hair, versus growing it long at say, age 50, and risking looking like some kind of embarrassing midlife crisis person. Ridiculous premise, but I felt so sure that this time, my long hair attempt would not fail, and I would not give up, as it had so many other times, because this time I had the cool color and the darling bangs and the attitude and the wardrobe. I was gonna be a living anime poster, yessiree.

Well, I had to bleach out all the blue in a show of faith that I was job hunting, and that along with some toehr stuff did alot of damage in the meantime. Then the blonde looked brassy and whore-ish and so I colored it brown. Then the brown was too muddy and so I threw in some highlights. Then summer sun and chlorine and constant ponytail holders had gotten my hair in such a state that in my heart, I was beginning to really realize that by the time it was "long", it was gonna look like a haystack. Women's smooth, soft bobbed haircuts began to entice me. I remembered the nice fresh feeling of having newly cut hair, and even started liking the gross and gorrilla-transvesite beast-looking Posh Spice's hair, just because her choppy angled bob looked so much like my old haircuts I used to have. But I thought surely I would regret it, surely I haven't grown this head of hair for a year just to whack it all off, right? Remember my post about loving braids? I gotta have long braids for when I'm a midwife, right? For when I am living on a houseboat in Oregon, right? Long rainbow colored braids were gonna be my thang.

Then Steve called me from work one day and talked to me about getting my hair cut short again. I was so surprised! I wanted to and yet whoa, would I be all sad? I wasn't sure. It seems that the 3 other major times in my life that I grew my hair past my shoulders (age 19, age 25, age 29) I freaked out, cut it short, and then pined away for how long it "almost was".

BUT

I really look pretty bad. I CERTAINLY do not look how I feel inside anymore. I look weird and I don't want to have this dry yellow and brown ponytail anymore. I want soft hair, and I want to look like, I dunno, like I have a look, not just some dangling rug lopped on top of my head.

SO I am gonna cut my hair. Right now, at 10:40 pm in th bathroom, with our friends over and everything. If it turns out bad then by this Friday I can afford to get it fixed, but with my intense distrust of terrible haircutters ignoring me, I need to do what I need to do first, at home, with the dullish hair scissors that are hidden so high away from the kids.

Wish me luck!

YAY

2007-10-26T14:50:00.000-04:00

I love my new job!!!
It wasn't scary at all!!!

It was so cool. everyone was so nice to me and the whole place is just cool and friendly. I absolutely loved it. the only thing is that I got home about 12:30am and was kind of "wired" from the upbeat attitude I needed to maintain the whole evening, so I couldn't fall asleep until after 1am, then Charlie cried at 3 am and I dealt with him for a bout 20 minutes, then Casey came in our room at 5:50 and we shoo'ed him out, then he fake went potty THREE times, slamming the door and the toilet seat so many times and stomping and sighing that Steve left the bed and camped out with him on the couch, then Steve's alarm went off at 6:20 and 6:27 and 6:34 and 6:41 and then "wahhhhhhhh" Charlie was crying to wake up for the day before 7, when Steve needed to be at work. Yikes. So, I am tired. But it was really fun and saying that being a busy bartender is different than doing dishes and putting kids to bed and lounging around with Steve is a huge understatement! Its really cool and I look forward to going back tonight.

I wore a very plain outfit--a white t under a blue v-neck sweater and blue jeans, with my hair down and a decent amount of makeup. I wasn't sure. But I feel like if I am going to be stylish or funky I had better start tonight.

I met a guy who, after talking to me for a few minutes, realized that he had met me before, over the friend's home who got me this job--and he was like YOU LOOK SO DIFFERENT! DIDN'T YOU HAVE LIKE< UH< PIGTAILS OR STRIPED STOCKINGS OR SOMETHING?

Yes, I said, That was me. (last spring)
I think "you look so different" means "you look way better now", just guessing from the way he said it. Unfortunately, I liked the pigtails and stripey socks me much more! I even told him a little bit that I have procured more "normal" hair for myself as of late because I wanted to get hired and he looked verrry confused and just said something like "I don't think anyone really cares about any thing like that."

I am beginning to realize that it is only a couple of people that hate the crazy hair colors :) 100% of all people I have ever mentioned this idea to (needing blond/brown to get a job)have just given me a blank stare. Yay!

Well, I'm off to go plan an outfit for work. More updates tomorrow!

new job

2007-10-23T14:53:00.000-04:00

Tonight I go to my new job and get a look around at what we will be doing--I am very excited! I am going to working as a bartender at a place where indoor sports are played. I don't really want to say where because I have fake ideas that "the stalker" will come get me, but it is a small place, members only, and not seedy scary crusty or smoky. Very cool.

I am going to be working from 6-midnight Monday, 6-midnight Wednesday, and 7-11pm Friday. This will effectively change our family dynamic dramatically. Since Steve works late on Thursdays, and we both work on most Saturdays, we will now only have Tuesday evening and Sunday to do it all. I am bummed, but happy for the work. I wish it wasn't so late, but it is only until spring. We will have to make every penny be worthwhile, whatever that means. Being less poor for 6 months, in some capacity, sounds good to me!

I think we start for real this Friday, and I have not finished my online liquor training course--whoops!! I have to do a good chunk of it tonight, for sure. It is fifteen dollars and 4 hours long, so I have been avoiding/forgetting/reforgetting about it--but none of the other folks did it yet either so I don't feel quite as badly :)

I'll let you all know how it goes!

Björk - Jóga

2007-10-17T22:00:00.001-04:00

How much more could I love a song? How much more could I love a singer? Following my daughter's footsteps, I now can add videos to my blog, so enjoy my beautiful Bjork.

No green hair/job updates

2007-10-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

I cannot dye my hair because I have a job interview. I will not reveal anything about it because everything I ever blog about is a jinx :)

So, no green, but I did put in some big blonde chunks and I like it.

Steve's "job" has been a flop so far, it is nothing like they described and mostly he is not able to attend impromptu trips across the state on a Sunday evening or 30 miles away at 9 pm until midnight--hello!?

They told him 7 to 8 pm, near your home. I just hope I get something quick so we don't have to deal with this unprofessional shady side business anymore.

I am still working some light clerical on Saturdays with my friend. I like it alot and will be bummed when the project is through. MAYBE there will be more for me to do when this job is done.

Its so weird to not spend very much time with all of us as a family, but maybe somethings can change down the line and we won't have to be apart as much. I would like some combination of Steve getting appropriate pay like he was before his idiotic pay cut this past spring, and living in a tiny cabin, making soap and knitting sweaters and eating rice and beans and homemade lemonade and being off the grid greenies--but with Internet access ;) of course.

Walking

2007-10-02T13:02:00.000-04:00

Walked everysingle day, one or two outings, about a mile each. I tried to run for a house or two and, well, its a no go until magical iron bras are in my budget.

My calves hurt and my foot hurts. Looking forward to keeping this up and lengthening the times of walking!

First exercise update

2007-09-27T20:21:00.000-04:00

Today I walked for about a mile, fast, with plenty of stops and starts, with the kids.

Then tonight, I walked fast for about 40 minutes with just Casey and Charlie.

A little story

2007-09-26T10:25:00.000-04:00

The summer after Casey was born, 2004, I went to the mall to buy a few new things for myself. It was about 11 months postpartum and I wanted some jeans, and maybe a skirt or a t shirt. I went to the Gap, because they had some really cool full skirts in the window, kind of '50's looking, and I was intrigued. I knew that Gap's things, when not on clearance, could be expensive, but I was going to maybe get one skirt.

I looked on the racks, and they were number-sizes, not SML, XL. So I grabbed a 16 and an 18, which was the biggest size in the store. (Gap online has 20. Apparently if you go online, you are allowed to be one size fatter. Silly, huh?)

If these sizes sound "big", or "small", here's a little perspective: I was a 14 when I got married, and I was normal-to-thin. A men's medium or large. I am 6 foot one, built more like a 2-Liter bottle than the typical pear or apple choices.

So, I also grabbed a few tank tops to try on with the skirt in the dressing room, just to make a cute little "outfit" in which to gauge the skirt by. I grabbed XL and XXL tank tops. Off I traipsed, to have a fun little moment with my potential new clothes!

Then, reality shone its oft-cruel light upon me and my crusty mirror.

I couldn't zip the skirt. Not even close. the 18. Wow.

The tank top was nasty--my whole stomach was showing, and it fit like something made for my then 7 year old daughter. Short and thin and w-r-o-n-g. Big armholes, so my bra and fat arms were all flailing out--it was really really outrageous how unflattering this whole scene was.

What only moment ago I had thought was going to be so breezy and darling, was so, so not.

I then did what momentarily sounded familiar and comforting, something I have done time and time again since I got to be this tall in 7th grade: I went back out and went into the men's section. I grabbed a huge sweatshirt, a huge rugby shirt, and some guy's jeans. Screw these slut clothes, I tried to tell myself. I am a mom, I need to be comfortable, I tried to tell myself.

I put on the huge, heavy men's clothing--and the dark, stiff jeans. (Remember it was July and I have a very, very low tolerance for heat) I looked like I have usually looked my whole life--like a big bulky gangsta guy with a girl head, with too big clothes on that were for the wrong season.

I was at a crossroads. Sweaty, hot, pissed, sad, frustrated, disappointed, confused, I could either cry or get it together. Miracle of miracles, I chose to get it together! I quietly took all the stuff, the skirts, the tanks, the jeans, and the huge heavy men's shirts all out to the dressing room attendant lady.

"How did it all work out for ya?" she asked.

"I am officially too fat for The Gap, and I need to go buy some running shoes instead", I told her with not a sulk--but a genuine smile.

And that's just what I did. I got a pair of New Balance sneakers, and a pair of "yoga pants" instead ($6 from old navy!) and went home.

I started walking the next day. At first my legs burned, just from the way that I was walking. But I could walk much farther within a week, with no pain! Soon after, and I mean really soon after, I was walking for up to 2 hours, all around the town!

This kept up into the fall and even holiday cookies and meals didn't do anything to stop my new found weight loss. I bought 2 new pairs of jeans, and those immediately became loose. I swore I was not going to weigh myself, but I did, over at my mom's house, and I had lost 28 pounds by week 11.

I got pregnant with Charlie in January, and that was that.

Some Mamas can keep it all going when they are pregnant. I've known them personally. I think it all seems dynamic and positive and four times I swore "this time will be all different"

and then,
as likely as one is to go on a jog during the lowest lows of a food poisoning attack,
came the puking. and the fatigue. Ten sleeping pills during your food poisoning attack. and the sore boobs. (Is sore possibly a strong enough word? how about please don't tap your foot anywhere by me cause that hurts my whole chest?)

Add to the beautiful little flower that is "Joy while pregnant"--the fact that one of the top triggers to my nausea and vomiting and dry gagging was--get this-- cold air breathed in through my mouth!! Not kidding! Remember it was January? Yep.

So out the door went the walking. My baby was due in late October and I was HUGE by June. Yeah. With a 12 pound kid brewing in there, he could have weighed 7 pounds by then , who knows? Anyhow, that's my story. I had a c section, etc, and here I am today. I got on track to fitness and felt great and strong a few years ago and I can do it again. But this time, I am gonna run.

I will be a running girl someday soon.

2007-09-25T21:02:00.001-04:00

You know, my body feels like it is falling apart. I used to be a sports girl, a sports star, even, in a few of my seasons. I played Field Hockey, Volleyball, Soccer, Basketball and Swimming every semester except one, from 6th grade until 12th grade graduation.

Then, at 17, I went to college. You ever hearda the freshman fifteen? I gained about three of those. I went from Mommy's home, and her normal meals, and being a athlete, a decent one, too--to the Krazy world of my own dorm room, and nachos and beer and pop and pizza and beer and pop and nachos and beer and pop and....oh whoops I just wrote out my whole menu plan from college. Running? No way, I laid in bed, read books, ate my treats. Went to classes, got back in bed, watched some TV.

I am kidding, sort of. I actually was not some big drunk. I still bought groceries from the grocery store, and who knows what I bought. I know alot of nachos and nacho supplies and nacho accoutrements were involved, that's for damn sure.

Then I moved in with Steve when I was 20, and we chowed merrily.

Then I had a baby at 22 and gained 55 pounds. (Lost 30)

blablabla

So what I am getting at is not some self hate thing, but a genuine concern for my poor old bod. I want to walk, hell, I want to RUN again! I want to hold my skeleton up with its own musculature--can't even remember that feeling. I want to stretch and strengthen, and I want to feel firmly planted on this Earth, not tipping, leaning, tottering, teetering, tight, mincing steps, burning backaches, etc.

I would like to become a runner.

There is alot of symbolism in this for me, as I am doing some personal training mentally for some stuff that I would like to see happen in my life over the next year or two. But the idea of becoming a runner, like my first midwife was, always has been at the back of my mind.

My husband is my biggest inspiration. He is getting so in shape it is kind of making me feel weird. If he can do it, the last person on Earth can. No offense to him, on the contrary, he is living proof that complete piglets and couch potatoes can totally transform their body shape by exercising less than 60 minutes a day. He eats more than ten freshmen, I promise. He had to get all new jeans this weekend, and new shirts, too. He looks so cute I want to fold him up and put him in my purse and set him on the dashboard of my minivan when I am driving. All he did was ride his bike 2 miles, four times a day.,then he started doing push ups and some crunches.

So, I think I am going to wait until the mercury goes below 80 and start walking. Fast. By myself or with the stroller and Charlie. I just can't stand feeling like a bag of jello anymore. Its kind of scary and powerless to feel this floppy and brittle. If I end up looking hot then hallelujah. But I really, really do not care. As you well know, I enjoy happy hairdos and funky shoes, and definitely have no money for new clothes.

This is about something totally different. Power.

I know, I seriously have a problem: a study in pictures of my hair coloring madness

2007-09-25T19:16:00.000-04:00

All of these hairdo's are from this March until now. I think I was in denial about exactly how many hair colors I have had in 7 months. I think this is all of them. I always thought the people who said "We never know what you'll do next, Joy" were pretty lame and that they were making fun of me or something but now I can see some validity in the statement.

Looking back, I think that blond is photogenic, but the hardest to make work in real life. (I just can't seem to make the black and white with a tinge of pink lighting guy follow me around the town! Damn.)

I also miss my official bangs, having sort of given up on them for a little casual side-swipey thing since early summer. But with the real bangs, I did have to dry and curl them and use hairspray--none of which I am really very interested in doing. Now I wash my hair and let it dry and that's it. If I blow dry it, it gets so fluffy and weird, I don't like that at all.

These last three are from tonight. It is all dull and brownish and brassy and scraggly, so I am going to trim the bottom a bit, put in some big blond chunks and color those chunks iguana green. Wish me the best. I've heard that green doesn't come out. Which is fine by me, because red lasted about one shampoo!

Iguana Green

2007-09-24T12:40:00.001-04:00

Steve got a second job!!

I got a job!!

He is going to be cleaning T-Mobile stores for one hour a night, dust-mopping and mopping and buffing the floors. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays after work.

I am going to be doing some office work (putting papers in order into folders) with my friend on Saturdays.

SO...you know what this means: I GET TO DO A FUN HAIR COLOR! WOOHOO!

I am going to do a chunk or two of GREEN. I think it will be awesome. I will post pics as soon as I get a chance to do it. It was hard to find green hairdye, I actually had to go to a a local "famous" sex shop. It was still mildly hilarious in there, but I tried to act cool and not embarrassed or silly. I asked for my green 'dye, paid and got out. HAHAHA we used to go in there as teenagers and gawk and giggle and now I just didn't really care. I was way older than the leather dudes that worked there, whom I used to fear and be so amazed by, while we perused the Doc Martens and naughty bumper stickers, fishnet stockings and skull earrings--now I could see them for who they always were: 23 year old boys who wore some black leather.

"Iguana Green" by Special Effects is what I got. I am going to put in some bolder blond pieces and then do a couple of them green.

Show ya soon!

Survivor girl hair

2007-09-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

Hey, so are ya watching the new season of Survivor? I like that professional wrestling girl's hair so much! It is cool. I was looking online to find more pictures of her and WHOOPSIE! Apparently she was a Playmate and such. I love survivor, but I never get all into reading about the cast members or anything, so this was all news to me. I set the Google search preferences back to "strict" ;)

Her "cool" hair is apparently a new thing for her, most of the pics online it was just all bleached yellowy blonde. Now she has a pink stripe and some black underneath and it looks cool. She also has the lip piercing (2 of them) which has seemed to be the new hip piercing for faces I have noticed. I would never get a facial piercing but I do not have a problem with them at all. Some people look totally interesting with them, and some people look like idiots. Its hard to pinpoint the different vibe, but its real when you see it.

Her hair inspired me to plan a funky streak or two in my hair and not dye the whole head. Kinda weird that I would be inspired by some playboy chick but whatever. Playmates, when their soft focus photoshop and tacky outfits and corroded makeup is all taken away, and they have messed up hair with pink and black streaks in it and pierced lips and are all filthy and camping seem alot more like just some pretty chick who is not a frosty lunatic, I suppose. Ok, I am just backpedaling now, in order to lower my embarrassment at wanting anything to do with this girl, hahaha

(Cheesy, huh? I like it, though!)

Fashion opinions, from someone who wore pajamas grocery shopping tonight ;)

2007-09-10T19:30:00.000-04:00

So this weekend, we went to the--gasp!!--MALL. We had heard about a terrific sale on something we needed, and also wanted to share the one day we had together this weekend doing something OUTSIDE of this house!

So, I got to see a bit of the trends and fashions both in the window displays and on the sullen teens themselves--and here are my latest opinions, hot off the presses:

Maternity/Empire waisted shirts: NO
Still everywhere, still hate them. but I am learning that not everyone is pregnant, even though it is taking time. (When I walked past Motherhood Maternity, and the clothes were the exact same as the ones in every other store, it gave me a little secret chuckle.)

Euro-Trash/80's look: mostly NO
Fun and ironic on the VERY young, completely despicable and aging on anyone over 20.
You see, (and I don't think for a minute that I am the first one to ever point this out) when the world of fashion gets all caught up in "bringing back the ___" such and such decade, there is a dangerous fine line that gets crossed when you "bring back" something that just did not happen all that long ago, and that is this: Alot of folks still dress like it is the 80's. Folks that you do not want to emulate, I promise. So therefore, it can be a really really tenuous thing, this whole "hey remember last year?" thing. If you have 80's clothes on, then maybe you are just...from the 80's...which could make you 40 or older...get it....?

Young skinny boys in razor haircuts and red and black striped leggings and gobs of eyeliner and baggy shaker sweaters: kind of cute!

Wierd moms with white plastic hoop earrings and gold flats on: kind of Tanya Harding-ish!

Jumper dresses over ankle-tights, off the shoulder flashdance crop tops, and bubble skirts: I say no. I think in the NY indie scene, about 5 to 10 years ago, there was no way else to go that wasn't already taken, so people like Chloe Sevigny, right when the worst thing you could look like was some 1985 lady, did exactly that, and it was ironic and amazing. Huge brown sunglasses. Light blue roller skating shorts. Terry cloth tank tops. Red plastic earrings. But again, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah and je ne sais quoi and youth and purpose to pull this off. I feel quite certain that this was never, EVER meant to happen full time mainstream, and I just feel sorry for everyone.

I wonder what else from the 80's will make a comeback? Hideous tapered jeans that make even 15 year olds look like they have Mom-Butt? Huge rooster-combed bangs in the front, with wet, scrunched "spiral" permed hair dangling in the back? What about banana clips, acid wash, or fringe? What about roach clips in your hair--a real thing they did in my school--with the dangling down feathers of course--Or does this look actually still remain firmly in the grasps of the real burnouts, and do their numbers still rank high enough to keep this look forever relegated to the timeless world of the carnival and the biker? (Anyone notice how hard I am trying not to say white trash? I know it is offensive but it is harder than you think not to say it when discussing 80's fashion!)

Oh-- and p.s.-- giant hideous belts on the outside of your shirt??? Come on. Unless you are actually being a disco diva for actual Hallowe'en, or you are an actual pro-wrestler...no

Way, way far to the side parted hair: YES
I completely approve of this one. All my life I thought that people whose hair was parted way over to the side looked darling. think about it: Early episode Marcia and Jan Brady. That kid from Flipper. The early Beatles. Any baby you ever met. Little boys on picture day. ITS CUTE!!

Middle parted hair has come and gone in history, most of the images in my head are not too flattering: Alfalfa. Burn outs. Farrah Fawcett.

You have to have the right face for a middle part. Bo Bice looked darling in his hippie inspired locks. But noone looks bad with their hair parted on the side, if you ask me. Its just so cute!

Well, thats it for my fashion trend-watch. We got the kids their awesome new shoes, $8.49 a pair at Children's Place Outlet. We got some exercise, and we got out of the house. Until next time....

Outfits

2007-08-29T08:49:00.000-04:00

Here is the best outfit ever kit.

For boys and girls, men and women.

Jeans

Converse all stars or some kind of skateboarding shoe or really any cool cheerful shoe

Colorful socks (striped would rock)

A T Shirt from threadless.

If you are lucky enough to have it be cold outside, add:

A hooded zip-up sweatshirt

A long sleeved T under your T from threadless

A cardigan sweater

Bright colors, please.

I also would approve (haha) of a zany skirt with tights under it in lieu of the jeans.

too too cool.

2007-08-29T08:45:00.000-04:00

http://www.threadlesskids.com/
This fantastic website is where a couple of my tres hip friends shop, but I never took the time to check it out until now.

The shirts are absolutley amazing. 10 dollars for alot of them. SO, so gorgoeous, different, unique, awesome.

We have 3 shirts from this site and the cotton is think and soft--no Hanes here. I love the kids stuff and I love the adult stuff.

I will never ever buy another TShirt as long as I live unless it is from here, I VOW.

We have been searching for matching shirts forever, and I have been mulling over "Homeschool" T shirts as well as just plain ones, but this is it. They have tons of designs that are available in kids and adults. Just beautiful, strange stuff. The little one that is brown with the water cycle and the little raindrops going up to heaven gave me chills.

Ok, so when I get some money, we're gettin some shirts!

8-23-96

2007-08-23T15:20:00.000-04:00

ELEVEN years ago today, I was walking down the aisle!

I loved my wedding day, not only for the major fact that I was marrying the coolest boy on Earth, but for how we made the whole thing happen on so little money and how such personal and cool stuff was involved!

I made my veil out of tulle and a white comb and glue.

I wore white slippers. Yes actual slippers. They looked like ballet shoes and didnt show anyhow.

I invented a hairdo that I got alot of compliemts on. It involved rolling my hair up into curls and then pinning them that way. It made myhair look alot longer than it was! The back was a french twist that was pretty sketchy, but under the veil, who can tell?

We got our flowers from a nursery out in the country. Big Gerbera daisies, white and yellow.

One of our gifts was our cake.

The "photographer" was just a friend from my work with her regular camera. The pictures turned out SO awesome!

The "DJ" was Steve's cousin with a stack of our CD's with little sticky notes on the covers of which tracks to play. Although we did not think this was hilarious whatsoever, I do laugh warmly at just how much Sonic Youth and R.E.M. was involved.

We dined to an instrumental Beastie Boys album; The In Sound From Way Out. It was fantastic, and so was the mostaccioli we had feared would be tacky or bland.

I did my own makeup and nails. The last thing I needed on my wedding day was some freaky make up job! I knew from my own disatrous graduation pics that Big Days are NOT the time to try new looks! Shudder...

We got married in a historical Farmhouse with significant meaning to us.

My grandma played the piano for the ceremony.

Steve and I practiced our kiss so it wasn't a harsh peck or a make out :)

We were wedded by a local radio celebrity that Steve's brother knew from going to blues bars. He was awesome, and really gave a great speech!

I got a bee up my dress after the ceremony, during the hot outdoor picture taking time! Luckily he didnt sting me! I felt all old-school and squealy, lifting up all those layers of tulle and having girls helping me as I shrieked help! help! LOL

We didn't want or need a limo, so we had Steve's brother drive us in his very swanky Cadillac to the reception nearby!

We had fish Christmas lights on our head table as a swag. For the life of me, I do not remember how this fish thing got started, but we had swedish fish as a treat on the guest tables, along with fish and under the sea themed confetti! So silly.

Our wedding guests were a very divided crew. There were the fancy dressed up adult family members, and this small hodge podge crew of our friends. The pictures are adorable and hilarious, with the little punk crew and their fish nets and black lipstick and bobby socks and ironic bow ties and converse on, most of them not even 21, drinking and smoking and doing goofy cafeteria-esque things with the items on their table, like making little fork and salt "sculptures", waiting patiently through the mainstream music we had to include for the next fun song to come on! Even our best man wore his black ADIDAS, (love ya Jake!!!!) and crazed sunglasses. It was so great.

I was in fact, just 21, but was incredibly shy about drinking in front of the moms! hahaha!

The bartender must have thought I was quite the little lush, because I woiuld go up, ask for a gin and tonic, and then some great song would come on, and I would leave my drink somewhere, and never have gotten one sip! So I would go back for another one, and the same thing happened again and again! I in fact, did not even ingest one full drink that night. Busy bee!

Ours was the first wedding I had ever been to that everyone stayed at until the end! until it was closed! finis! goodbye! midnight! Thats how fun it was, even to the random aunties and such. Too, too cool.

Our honey moon was fun, too I will write about it next!

countin down the days

2007-08-16T14:55:00.000-04:00

I am t h i s c l o s e
to dying my hair back green or blue. I want to swim in it, to be slimed like Alistair by buckets of manic panic. (He was my true love for many years)

I cant deal with this purpley grey and brown, even the cool red already washed out.

I need to review. why did I bleach out my blue? Do get a job.
Did I apply at lots of places? YES.
Was I a good little girl with my brown and my blonde? YES.
Did I dress conservatively, was I cheerful and upbeat and bright and did I say all the right stuff? YES.
Did I triple check my spelling, did I call back as appropriate? YES.

and still nothin
Kroger
Rite Aid
Borders
Barnes and Noble
Trader Joes
Comet Burger (still SO depressed about that one!)
Telemarketing
Chocolate shop
Cocktail waitress at concert place

My good friend told me last week he had a potential job for me working from home, doing some data entry. I am ecstatic!!!!! If it all goes through, it should start in a few weeks!!!! I will type my little fingers to the bloody stumps, just to get out of this poverty hole we are in, and to start paying back my dear mom, who helped us out tremendously, two months in a row, when we were verrrrrry close to being homeless.

BUT
if I work from home,
and my husband begs
and my children beg
for me to have fun hair again

then

i should go for it, right?

Dear me what would i even write about if it werent for hair?
LOL

I never ever knew I was so obsessed until this whole blog thing started!

braids

2007-08-13T23:32:00.000-04:00

Hair braiding is an ancient art, that truly does span all races and hair types, and I, for one, have always been fascinated by braided hair. I used to do my little sister's hair in 20 or more thin braids, secured by the teeny rubber bands they gave me at the orthodontist for my braces--I didnt know about the Nubian hair supply stores back then, and would use up all my teeth elastics on doing tiny braids. I have always loved the idea of having long, loooooooong hair that hung down my back in 2 braids, only to be undone at night like Ma Ingalls, or a mystical queen.

I like braids on boys and girls, men and women. they are fun to touch and they look awesome. Braided hair can mean so many things for so many people.

For me, I think that I look kind of dumb with long hair that is hanging there. BUT, UNLIKE everyother time I grow my hair long, decide I look lame and chop it all off into a neat and tidy little BOB, this time I am going to triumphantly ignore all those despicable hairdo-mags that tell you "if all you do with your long hair is pull it back then you need short hair"!!! I say NO WAY!

I LOVE having long hair, for the specific purpose OF putting it into a pony or braid or braids, so there! I almost freaked out today, this very afternoon, when I pulled out my ponytail for a sec and saw the lumpy bumpy dry and funky mass that is my hair. I wanted a soft and well mannered socially acceptable cheek length bob that lovingly cupped my head and never acted up soooooo badly. But then I remembered: THAT IS NOT ME ANYMORE!!!! I AM NO LONGER INTERESTED OR CAPABLE OF "PASSING" AS LUXEY LAYDEE!

So, I am NOT going to cut off my hair, even if it is all freaky and damaged and uneven and mismatched and home-made and strange. Because so am I, and it is going to be super super beautiful, to me, someday. Long and wild and green and blue and decidedly, intentionally, happily, unique and uplifting and cheerily, radically, me.

books someday

2007-08-13T23:20:00.000-04:00

I am wanting to write two books.
One is going to be called; EMERGENCY! MOTHERHOOD! that deals with all the money grubbing patriarchal misogynistic fear mongering ways that us girls and women are being taught to buy into the culture of materialism and fear and dependance on BigBusiness as a surrogate Daddy that we do not want or need. From prepubescence on, the YOU SUCK BUT WE CAN SELL YOU A TEMPORARY CURE FROM THE HORRIFICCLY WRONG-NESS THAT IS YOU message---well, stuff like that. You are ugly and fat and everything that is natural and normal and human is gross and messy and scary and wrong and how you can spray all that instinct away for three easy payments...from pregnancy and prenatal (s)care in this society, to birth and mothering in a realm of lawsuit avoidance rather than sound ancient wisdom. Believe me, even if it is just ends up being a collection of essays, there are TONS of other mamas out there writing this kind of libertaing message of freedom that comes when we refuse to walk in fear and doubt and how fun and great it can be to get to a place where we can laugh heartily at the whole emergency that is supposed to be our lives.

My other book is going to be called GROWING UP UNDERNEATH A ROCK, and hopefully will contain true stories of what it was like to be a human child living in a decent sized metropolitan area, within a very liberal family unit/circle of friends, and turning out one million percent fine despite being so "sheltered" as a result of being homeschooled. Hopefully victorious and cheerful stories of enlightenment and simplicity that cast a great deal of light upon how absurd it is to fret when we rear our young outside of the government schools.

Dark red for a change o pace

2007-08-08T13:47:00.000-04:00

Well, I have been itching to have "cool" hair, and even if blue is not appropriate at this time, I had some old Manic Panic Pillar Red in the cupboard, and this Henna Kit from my good friend, so I thought, hey, lots of upright citizens have red hair, right?
So I did the Henna kit which was supposed to be Earthy Red, and it didnt look like too much happened. Then I put in a few chunks of the manic panic and I got super bright burgundy!

I have no idea why my eyes look blue in this pic but I took this yesterday. I feel like my hair is wierd enough to make me feel Joyish and normal enough to not bowl over Mom or the "employer" (ha).

Yay for free old stuff in the linen closet!

insincere trashola plastic junk yawn

2007-07-30T22:04:00.001-04:00

I know they said this when we were young, but seriously, WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO POPULAR MUSIC?

I got to go out last night, and on my way, I indulged in some radio-blastin. I found a few random songs I liked, but good gawd the "Rock" music that as on last night was so, so SO ---can I say rediculously soulless?

Where is the SINCERITY? When was the precise moment in music when it became completely acceptable to just yell and fake it? When did it start to become so commonplace to sound like a lyric-reading, karaoke fool that that sound itself became The New Sound?

Look, I am obsessed with lead singers. If your band is the greatest band on Earth, and I don't like your lead singer, its over. I don't want to be this way, but its true. How am I suppossed to overlook THE SINGER'S VOICE?? Come on. thats like asking me to overlook THE FLAVOR of food when partaking.

That being said, I cannot and have not ever been able to deal with any band or any singer whatsoever unless they are incredibly, incredibly sincere. Earnest, demented, passionate, flipped out, under great duress, extremely convinced of their predestined plight to sing this very song, urgent, on the brink, on another plane. Not some yellin idiot with good eyebrows.

So, barf barf and three pukes to the gobbeldy gook I tried to jam to last night in my car. Tryin like hell to rock out in the minivan, little red sunglasses on, 3 empty carseats...I was ready to hear something, but the AOR man had other plans, it seems.

Glory glory so so happy

2007-07-26T21:44:00.001-04:00

THE most incredibly great thing has transpired. SageFemme, a blogger who is a very special Oregon midwife, a woman I have admired and turned to on Mothering.com's discussion forums time and time again, has posted about MY blog, Breast and Belly. I almost fainted when I saw her name in the comments of one of my recent posts. It was a normal post, just something I jotted down in True Joy style, just ranting and tellin it like I lived it and I guess she liked it enough to say something!

HUGEST GRIN!

The thing I had written was a pretty good post, and I am not trying to be all "aw shucks" about it. I know when I get all fired up (think the white eyeballs on Heroes) I write my best. In fact, anything I write when I am not all fired up always is crappy and dull. But now I am getting comments from all these new faces, all these new mothers, women all over the place and I really really get it now about blogging. I get it!!! Virtual community, an electronic tribe, oooooh I have goosebumps!

I always fantasized about being a netroots activist or something but this is close enough for me for now. I just feel so happy and purposeful. These blogs have been a total fricking blast, but very rarely did I ever get any comments from anyone besides my local pals (love you guys! thank you eternally for always reading!) and sometimes it felt like I was writing some self-obsessed diary or something, like a colorful version of email, that noone who really might actually feel uplifted or inspired by anything I have ever written ever would get to--if that makes any sense?

I have been pouting for years that I didnt have a hobby besides my guitar which i dont play very much, but now I am definately, definately a writer. If my husband wasn't such a precious hottie who I actually want to hang out with every night, I would be much more prolific--not complaining tho!!

Thank you SageFemme and hooray for blogs!

wow such important news harhar

2007-07-20T20:05:00.000-04:00

Keeping with the rediculous idea of this being a hairblog, I am so officially announcing that I intend to grow and grow my hair and not screw with it because I want it to be long and blue and it will all be worth it. The months of shabby blob-ness will all be worth it. I have even tucked the baby-bangs away into the safe cocoon of the barrette, so I do not use any heat styling machinery anymore, just shampoo, conditioner and the barrettes and ponytail holders. No heat, no dying, equals no having to cut it, equals longer faster. See?

tattoo dreams

2007-07-18T11:47:00.000-04:00

I finally came up with the tattoo(s) I want. After deep consideration since I was 14, and thankfully, the wisdom to know not to rush into anything that was not perfect, I want to get snowflakes, all different ones, one for each of the children. I want to find some simple atomic design types. It will be vertical, up my right arm or up my spine.

I also have a huge fairy prototype that I want someday, too---she will have tons of options for add-ons such as roots downwards and radiant beams upwards with all sorts of Joy's LifeStory symbolism embedded inside the artwork.

re-excited, cuz I am like that

2007-07-14T23:08:00.000-04:00

Oh my gosh
So many new jobs are posting on CraigsList tonight! Dare I get excited?

Barnes and Noble in the cafe section! Permanent part time it says!
My fave local club/theatre wants cocktail waitresses, 2-3 evenings?!
A big nearby restaurant is hiring all positions, come in person anytime get an interview on the spot?!
Dave and Busters wants restaurant staff??! SO FUN!!!

Ok
So tomorrow, I get dolled up to the hilt and go try to get a damn job.

Do you even understand how much I want a "fun, vibrant, people oriented job"??? Ill even go as far as to say a SEXY job? an ADULT job? Something K-O-O-L?!!??!

If there is anything getting me up and out of here just 'round about when I am ready to pull on my snowman pajamas and cuddle up with Steve to a nice round of dishes and watching BigBrother, it had better be something really COOL!

Ok, I am in no financial position to ask for it to be fun sexy or cool, but goddamnit, why not?? Why do I have to be fake sad that Kroger didnt call back? I want this to be something really exciting, a new chapter for me, I really want to be somewhere neat-o, where there will be people whom I want to make eye contact with, where I am not deeply humiliated and on the verge of tears, and lets face it, where I dont get tempted to call in or quit as soon as Steve gets one fat check.

Cross all fingers for me, tomorrow is a ray of hope. Im getting a damn job, and once they love me, with my college degree and my prompt and courteous reliable freindly dependable work ethic, maybe o just maybe I can GET AWESOME HAIR AGAIN
Kisskiss
Love, Joy

Little updates

2007-07-09T15:35:00.000-04:00

So, I applied at Trader Joe's and it was a weird experience. It took almost an hour to do the big application with math problems, and me thinking off the top of my head about the dates of jobs I held in the late 90's. then at the end the manager said they arent really looking to hire right now and that they can only keep my application for 14 days.

My mom has found a job listing for me online that claims to pay 11 bucks an hour doing some kind of telemarketing in the evenings. Iwonder if it is one of these "Up to 11 bucks an hour" scams...but I applied anyhow.

I wonder why noone will hire me. Is it because I am listing picky hours? Don't lots of people say they can work 6pm to close on weekdays and Open to Close on weekends? Isnt that called a second job?

I am still steadily and slowly losing weight on my new lifestyle plan. Very cool.

I have been staying away from the hairdye and scissors, hard for me, but when I have a goal, I am pretty focused.

My house and brain are really coming together, as well as my relationship with the kids and Steve. I have been getting really realistic about time and money and plans and goals.

I got a tan on my legs for the first time since maybe 1996---floating in the pool on a raft during Saturday's naptime. Its insane, I do not even recognize my lower body being not light blueish grey.

I figured out how to put polls on my blogs! Thats fun, right?

I am back in love with fireworks, and want to go to all the shows next year!

Kool is in the heart...(for now)

2007-06-27T15:36:00.000-04:00

I cut my dead yellow broomstick hair a few inches and dyed it a very sedate and Mom-ly brown. Got a few reddish tones in there, which is a bit of an aging and unflattering color tone for me, but hey. I'm just tryin to grow this hair out LOOOOOOOOONG so I can someday be a psychotically amazing blue-green-turquoise fairy from outerspace with azure locks to my waist, famous throughout the land for being so breathtakingly effervescent and inspirationally true and pure to the spirit of color and art. At least I am smart enough to know that I will NEVER get there unless I can stop coloring and let it grow in peace. le sigh. Why does patience have to be a virtue? Why can't impulse be a virtue?

I look fine and dandy. My summer clothes are pretty soul-less anyhow, so here we go, just havin a summer. A little brown haired chicky-mama with a tshirt, birks, and cut-offs on, playin with her babies. Totally chill.

Joy's fashion opinions and BaaBaa Beauty Kit

2007-06-25T18:28:00.000-04:00

Well, my dear hair is now absolutely JACKED. It is long, crisp as a broom, yellow as a broom, hard as a broom...gee...alot of broom and straw references come to mind. As you may recall, I had to bleach the hell out of it to remove the gorgeous and extremely life-affirming neon blue that it was, to get a job, which I did not get. So now I am poor and heinous when before I was poor and well...I don't want to sound vain, so I will say happy. but what I wanna say is fantastically blissfully unique. I would sit in the parking lot in the minivan sometimes when Steve would run in to a store and I would think stuff like, "there isn't likely anyone in that whole Target with blue hair." Then I would wonder if there was anyone in my whole city with blue hair. Is that crazy?? I would wonder how many people in all of Michigan had blue hair, I really got into it. I LOVED IT.

So before I divulge my future dreams, here I am, with damaged yellow hair. It is so fried that special deep conditioners won't touch it, they make no diff. I have to put it up into a bun, can't even fake it with ponytails or braids, because there is just this brillo-poof that crinkles and crunches in the breeze and I feel like BadBarbie, like maybe some wierd fake Kmart brand Barbie that you got when you were little from a raffle-Christmas party at your mom's work or something. In a grab-bag marked "Girl", or found in the church nursery. Even real Barbie's hair was shiny and whitish, despite the political implications of her foot size or breast-to-waist ratio, she did have that nice hair...

I still need to try to get a job, and I still need to know that the reason they are not calling me back is because the economy blows or they wanted someone who could work days, not because of my appearance. So I am thinking about dying it brown. Not a chocolate DYEJOB brown, but like a medium, casual, this-could-be-my-real-haircolor kind of a brown. I will also need to cut it a bit. 2 inches most likely. When you run your hands down my hair, it goes soft, soft, soft, soft, burnt to a crisp! So all of that bad part will need to go, losing me months of growing but gaining me a nicer look, I can only hope.

I still adore the rockabilly bangs, but they look sick and terrifying on light hair, like some ghastly 5 year old, and so I have been scooting them over to the side and feeling very very very boring and invisible and lame. I am hoping the brown dyejob will get me back to rockin the bangs, because, with 98% of chicks I see with the same side-swept and overly layered gently frosted hair do's (and of course, the omnipresent empire-waisted maternity shirts grrrrrrrrrrr), I enjoy being as far from that sheep-clone world as possible,

It is aging and just sick to me how everyone looks the same same same lately! On TV, in the town, BLABLABLABLA I could sell these women a little KIT, and they could just POOF have it all in one box.

Here is the Baa-Baa Beauty kit:

Shagg shagg shagg chunks missing like Billy cut off your ponytail in class.

Maternity shirt to give you an imaginary giant belly even if you weigh 100 pounds.

Flipflops so you can look like you shop at the store that is at the campground and you can walk wierd.

Huge huge transvestite sunglasses so you can look like your English teacher did when she went on boat rides with her swinger friends in 1982.***

***these can occasionally "work" when they are paired with an actual cool outfit that your English teacher would never, ever wear on any boat--But no brown tint unless you are SO ironic-hip that you are pretty much Beck or Bjork. Maybe. No, I take it all back. They do not work.

Low-Rise jeans no matter what

When you do not have the bod for this product, why anyone would want to do this to themselves or to the public is just beyond me. How do you sit? How do you breathe? Why o why must we deal with this? You can still have nice boot cut jeans without this scene being involved. Trust me. I'm a thousand times bigger than this girl, and she doesnt even have any stretch marks, and NOBODY is subjected to this when they are around me.

Bright orange tan. I am including faux-tans and tanning booths here. What gives? When you go and spend a day out of doors, you might get an adorable splash of pink across your nose and cheeks, some color on the sunny places, but not and entire corporal dip in carrot-oil whatsoever. I hate this whole-body-orange thing, it is wierd and gross. I have even used the self tanners on my legs because they were literally 9 shades paler than my arms and face (with horrific results) but to think that places like the undersides of my arms, behind the ears, and the entire foot should mysteriously be, well, orange, is apparantly the new thing.

French manicure. It is not french and just looks so 80's and so porno and trashy and Klassie and, well, no. It makes me think of some horrific wedding where lace parasols might come into play and well, no.

___________________________________________________________________

So, now that I have insulted 95% of the suburban babe dreams, let me leave you with some cool fancy makeup girls who I think should replace Kelly Ripa and Carrie Underwood as icons of unattainable gorgeousness. Then I want to take a big break from all this shallow stuff so you all don't think I am this evil superficial terrible girl.

I really like people with clean faces and rosy cheeks and real smiles and bubble gum and chapstick.

Best accessories of all time: High IQ and a guitar.

updates

2007-06-15T10:27:00.000-04:00

I am totally used to my blonde hair now. I guess this is a good thing. When I first stepped out of the house with blonde hair I felt as weird as most people would stepping out with, say, BLUE hair :)

but now I feel ok. I had blonde hair, both natural and fake, for most of my life, so I just look like "Joy" again. It is getting really long, which is cool. It is pretty fried from the bleach it took to get the blue out, but ponytails braids and buns help to hide that mostly. I need to cut it but don't want to yet. I think at New Year's time I will get a good haircut. For now, I just deep condition and pull it back, letting it grow and grow and not do anything else. It is resting :)

I have started up with my...dare I write the evil word, diet, again, for the first time since '04, and so far so good. It isnt about self hate or anything negative, just wanting to be healthy. I had eight kidney stones last week and read online it can be from being overweight and really cringed.

The secret goes something like this: Instead of troughs of food, I eat a plate of it. I do not eat Fourth Meal anymore, and I do not drink pop anymore. For me this is a drastic reduction in calories. I drink tons of water and really really do want to exercise, except so far it has been too hot too tired too busy, too something and I have not exercised yet beyond the daily insanity of running a home which never, ever seems to tone anything, haha.

I bought a gel seat for Steve's bike and am going to try riding it today. I want to walk and even run someday but have continued ot be plagued with the mysterious hurt foot/ankle several times a week. Arggg.

More soon!

what is everyone thinking?!

2007-06-05T15:47:00.000-04:00

I am in pregnant-lady-alert-overdrive! And it is all due to this hideously unflattering new fad that has been cruelly unleashed on women:

These "baby-doll" tops with the empire waists look exactly like, no, they are, maternity tops. Everyone who is skinny and wearing them, guess what--you look pregnant. Everyone who is heavy and is wearing them, guess what--you really, seriously look pregnant. And to all the mamas who think this is a forgiving and flattering style because it isnt clingy, or because it is long/offers "coverage"---you really, really, really look pregnant. And to top it off, it is in style to have flip-flops and capris---the absolute hallmarks of late pregnancy when you cannot get your foot into a shoe anymore and your thighs are so deathly wrong that you had better cover them things up. Trust me, girls, I have done this four times.

I don't have to tell anyone that I love pregnant women and I think they are beautiful. I also love the idea of cropped and tight shirts coming out of favor, as I am 73 inches tall with a stomach that will never, EVER see the light of day so long as I live---BUT--well, I guess I already explained how I feel about this whole thing...why not long and NOT empire waist? Blousy, billowing fabric starting right under the boobs? I can't believe it, I can't I tell you.

Whats funny and ironic is how I spent four long pregnancies looking, searching the malls stores boutiques and the 'net for one--ONE top long enough or flowy enough to cover my pregnant belly and the weird panel on my maternity pants. It did not exist and I suffered mostly in overalls, even in the heat. Ask steve how many gallons of tears I would cry about this whole thing. Many, is what he will tell you, many. Now this garment is at every single store in the mall, and at regular prices, forget "Tall Maternity"!!!

Sheesh.

I probably sound like Bill Cosby telling kids to pull their damn jeans up or something. But I don't care. Every girl on Earth looks pregnant now, and I am going to get in a car accident looking at them all.

still a dream for now

2007-06-05T10:07:00.000-04:00

The band, lead by insolent 32 year old frontwoman, white pigtails flailing, tore up the stage with intense fury and a wall of experimental noise that could only be described as a once-in-a-lifetime journey through time and space. Playing well past the 11pm curfew set for this all-ages festival, this was one show that will go down as a pivotal event in the history of American music. Not since 1991 breathed new life into us all, and 22 year old kids in flannel took Whitney Houston off the top of the charts and deposited her upside down on her head, replaced with gnarly, heart wrenching power chords and a whole new outlook of hope, has an entire scene taken us all over by storm like this, leaving a deep tangible divide between the people who "get it" and the squares who do not.

ow

2007-05-31T15:03:00.000-04:00

Do you like how the swelling is going down into my jaw and neck? Do you like how my entire eyes are swelling up?

I like how Vicodin doesn't work anymore and I like that I only have 2 left and I like how the amoxicillin is destroying my insides.

Waiting for the life lesson to hit me this time...I guess brush yer teeth is the lesson. Except that I do.

Sorry for the pity-blog, but this is my life today.

fatty tooth face

2007-05-29T13:29:00.001-04:00

My lovely face one day after the surprise/emergency root canal

I always wanted a celebrity mugshot teehee

Next weekend they want to pull one or more wisdom teeth...who knows how sexy I might really look then! :)

toothaches

2007-05-28T21:19:00.001-04:00

This weekend was really, really awesome until yesterday at noon. The bad tooth/teeth that I have been avoiding getting taken care of finally won the battle and I spent 24 hours in howling pain, then mercifully found a dentist with holiday hours and had a root canal done and was prescribed antibiotics and vicodins for my broken wisdom tooth. I am suppossed to get it removed next Saturday. Through the power of Steve being home today, I go tto go to the doctor by myself while he was home with the kids.

So I might be away from the computer for a little bit here, but I'll be back soon as my pain and sleepiness and everything are more managed.

jinx jinx jinx

2007-05-25T18:15:00.000-04:00

I really either need to shut down the blogs or start treating each entry to an Opposites-Day approach.

Everything I ever write about gets jinxed. I was thinking this even before the dishwasher flooded the floor just as Steve was out the door tonight. I was thinking this even before my pride and joy blue hair went byebye and now I look like a deep-fried lemon chicken wing from 1983. If you ever see any kind of entry entilted "Yippee" or "Im so happy", know in your heart that its a trick.

I am literally afraid to blog about anything I am happy about. Because then it gets a 24 second shot-clock for something bad to happen.

scary scary stuff

: (

no wait--here ill give the new approach a shot--

I hate money! I really want to get into this poverty thing! I hate hair and I hate 50'sfashion! I never want to be in a killer kick ass French indie garage techno band! I want to get much, much fatter! I hate hanging out with friends and I hate rock and roll evenings with Steve! I hate not being sick! My back doesnt hurt, isnt that lame??? I hope gas prices go way, way higher! I didnt like the dishwasher anyways, it was loud!

mew-zeek

2007-05-25T11:40:00.000-04:00

Now that records are gone for the most part, and cassettes, too, we miss knowing what side of the album the various tracks were suppossed to be on; but since alot of the music we have been listening to lately was from that era, it is cool to really dig into why the artist put that track there and why. (We is me and Steve and we are listening to MP3s and such...this is what we do most evenings/into the wee hours/wasting the hours gladly that the little ones are asleep/I hope there are listening parties in the afterlife, but I worry/So I gladly skip on sleeping and try to live instead/clock be damned)

So, there is the opening track, track one. This is the one they want you to pop in, and go yeah, ok, sweet, here we go, I love this album.......then the second song is like the debut of their 'new sound' if it isnt a first album...seems like track three and four can often be where the radio single is buried, if applicable, and then you have some sort of meaningful 'last track of the side one' song--which may be a dying or already dead art form. Next to the lable, on purpose. (In recordville, where I still live)

Opening track, side 2. this sets off the whole 'feel' for exactly where this album is going. Where the band sees themselves now. Oftentimes a superjam, unless it is meant to be 'the slow/makeout side of the album. Side 2 is usually cool, more story-telling, sometimes more raw or experimental. Last track, side 2--a big shebang, a Purple Rain, a Diamond Sea, a 7-8 minute behemoth that you can easily skip by simply leaving it out, turning it off. Cheesy, classic, awesome. Sometimes. But sometimes, the trash tracks get buried here, the concept and feel of the album starts to get weaker, or they throw on the random effort by the guy or girl who "doesnt usually write the songs".

So this is what we do late at night. we sit and go "THIS is your opening track? THIS? Who do you think you are???" Its really fun. we have also been watching alot of concert footage and discussing what is up with bands and how they act onstage. What are these bands about, you know--producing recorded song, or jamming together, or creating masterpeices, soundtracks, or partying and entertaining? Some or all of the above?

albums to revisit and think about what was up with all that track placement:

In Utero-Nirvana

Life's Rich Pageant- REM

Fables of the Reconstruction-REM

Bizzare Ride II--the Pharcyde

Rubber Soul- the Beatles

Paranoid- Black Sabbath

Chocolate and Cheese-Ween

minty

2007-05-17T10:14:00.000-04:00

It took two full bleach cycles and I was up until 2:45 but here is whats up with it now: Light blonde with some aqua.

damn.

2007-05-16T21:43:00.000-04:00

Tonight I have to bleach out my blue hair and try to get a job passing as a regular girl. Comet Burger man was pretty mean when I called back today and said "Naw, we already got someone".

I bought 40 volume developer, the bleach powder, and toner. Like I can afford all this crap. I have to make some money for my family. If times get better I can have fun hair again.

So, tonight, I hope it all comes out.

To explain:

2007-05-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

A little more information about this whole me-getting-a-job thingie:

My husband's job started paying him less and less and less, around February. We were initially able to shoulder the "hit" with our tax return, but the slippery slopes of quicksand have only gotten steeper. First it was not paying the utilities--only rent, food, and gas. Then we all got sick, and the 30 dollar co-pays, prescriptions, refills, and endless trips to Rite Aid for more sudafed, kleenex, motrin, tylenol, humidifiers, vicks vaporub, chapsticks, benadryl, claritin, nose sprays, robitussin, mentholated baby rubs, mentholated baby bath, 12 dollar rash creams for the hideous antibiotic-diaper rashes, cough drops...then I started in on Echinacea, Wellness Pills, and expensive acidophilus and other supplements for battles of the yeast that the antibiotics always seem to bring....soon we weren't able to even make the rent, and here is where we still are today. I buy a few groceries and put little 10 bucks here and there in the car and try not to go anywhere.

So.

Obviously things cannot continue in this manner. We need more money and we need it now!

So, seeing as we are not to the point where we are about to abandon homeschooling or any of that, (there is a small but convinced group of people who think it would be best if I put my 2 oldest children in public school, somehow accquire full time daycare for my 3 and 1 year olds before I even receive my first check and got myself a real lady job) either me or Steve needs to work a night and weekend job. The kids will still be homeschooled and raised by their own family, and childcare expenses will still not be an issue.

Now, even though I am up 3-5 times a night with baby Charlie, and Casey comes blasting down my door no later than 6:15am on a good day, and even though I alreadyhave a full time job, thank you very much, I do think that I should be the one to try and take a night position. The idea of getting semi-dolled up at 5pm and knowing I am going to be be-bopping out of here to my hopeful fun and interesting world of The Diner sounds way better than No Daddy Ever Again/single mother nightmare. Which would be my life if Steve was really gone all day and all evening, leaving me with no "break" whatsoever, bumping my hours up to 24 a day instead of about 10 with the just me and the kiddies. Uh-uh. I know better than to think that would be cool at all. I think any glue that is holding us all together would be gone, and in a marriage that runs on tons of love and reciprocity and egalitarian household duties as much as humanly possible, this could spell disaster, frustration, burn-out, resentment and utter and complete exhaustion, which in our lives seems to lead us right back down the path to getting sick again! Argggg! No.

So that's the deal. We are dead meat, kinda waiting for eviction or something, do not know what the hell else to do.

We looked at an adorable house this weekend with a rent payment that is $255 dollars less than we are paying (or not paying!) here. We would love to move there---the kids liked it better than we did, they were ecstatic about moving. (So there goes the theory that it is so sad and mean to shuffle them around) But how to go about it all?

Our lease here is officially not up until August, and if we broke it, I don't see how we could get our enormous deposit money back. But to move we need a deposit for the new place!

I need about 1 to 3 thousand dollars. Thats about what Steve's work has gouged from us out of the blue, and about what we would need to get into the cool new place I found us. It is another 3 bedroom house, with a giant backyard, really cheerful kitchen, attached garage, on the block of this amazing huge forest park with trails and paths and a creek. It is also 2 miles from Steve's LOVELY job, so he could still ride his bike on the days we might need the van. It is a real gem of a find, and the landlord was a cool laid back friendly normal guy.

So. Scary times for us right now, trying to be all positive and excited. Sitting here at 8pm with my eyes all bleary, my shoulders and neck burning from all the housework I did today, lifting, nursing, laundry etc -- on about 4 hours of broken sleep (hey it was Sopranos AND the Survivor finale I stayed up too late) and I think: How in the world could I be at some restaurant right now, be-bopping back and forth and attempting to charm the Harley guys out of their 3 bucks?

But you know, haven't all of us felt really tired around 6, 7, 8 pm and didn't wan't to go out at all, but then we do and we have this big sassy night out and party and socailize 'till 2:30? I'm hoping that whole thing kicks in.

So thats what the job thing is all about. Please wish us luck and don't be afraid to send me ideas, either here or in email. Oh and yes we are going to have a garage sale and try to ebay stuff while we can still afford internet.

Kiss kiss

Off to go watch Heros before dishes time. At least our water isn't shut off. Then I wouldnt be able to wash dishes and clothes and kids and cook all day....hmmmm JUST KIDDING!

Burger Queen

2007-05-13T19:13:00.000-04:00

Omigod I just put in an application at a cool place. It is called Comet Burger and it is like a little 50's diner place on a strip of an extremely populated Main Street near us. They are looking for a waitress. I havent done this in 11 years.

Although I am a little afraid to leave the cocoon of not-gainfully-employed-mommyhood, I am also excited. It seems fun and easy and if they get busy, hey, I'll just go as fast as I can without getting flustered. Years of serving my own impatient oftentimes demanding and particular "customers" at home have gotten me some good training for being a rock-n-roll waitress.

I have fantasies that my uniform will involve pink, black, and a cursive J...but just the fact that the guy couldn't have cared less that I came in there with a bright blue high ponytail was tres cool to me. He asked me if I was in school, which could have meant anything but I felt young! WooHoo!

I hope it is cool. I hope I make some money. I hope I get hired. But I must admit, on some nights, just to get out of here with lipstick on and the car all to myself will be......awesome

dork

2007-05-10T16:25:00.000-04:00

Billie B sprained her foot. Getting out of a chair.

Why do I have to be such a dork? When will I be normal? How am I going to rollerskate when apparantly I cant be trusted to walk or stand without crippling injury?

What a freak. It pisses me off.

why I am not going to color my hair green after all

2007-05-07T12:25:00.000-04:00

I love the blue and I mixed in some purple and I love it.

My eyes are green and purpleish blue helps them look greener more than just matching them would.

At least 75% of my shirts are green I am realizing and then I would look too green.

I don't want to look like a Disease Ridden Sea Monster, I want to look like a Futuristic and/or Magical Atomic Candy Fairy. You know that would make a fantastic battle of the bands or something---DRSM versus FMACF.

I want my hair to kind of look like it would smell awesome, like how Strawberry Shortcake had that one friend Blueberry Muffin*?

Blue fades to light blue.

Green fades to gross.

and the real final reason: I can't get this blue hairdye to come out at all!

*my actual 1980's childhood toy not the new reissued crap

finally

2007-05-04T09:42:00.000-04:00

I got two dresses! Real dresses! 50's dresses! They fit me! I am sooo happy!

Billie B.

2007-05-03T17:40:00.000-04:00

I am a complete tough guy when it comes to some stuff--actually a lot of stuff--Billie Badass, I guess.
If I get hurt, like something bangs into me or I whack into something, I don't usually care. I'm clumsy sometimes. Like if I fell off my bike in front of people I would jump up and laugh even if I was like pouring blood. I would be glad to be pouring blood because it is lame when it hurts super bad but there is no mark. Plus I miss knee bandaids I think they are awesome with tube socks it looks like you actually are having a summer, you know?
I will light the stove (its old we have to use a lighter) with my hand-- my husband would never do this---he will use this big intricate stick or long wadded up piece of paper. I don't give a crap if I get a tiny bit burned. I unscrew lightbulbs right out of the hot socket. I bite stuff off with my teeth. I use my "eye" rather than any mamby pamby measuring devices, and I will and have and do hop rusty sharp fences. I open beers before I bother to read that it is not screw top. I strum my guitar with the back of my right index nail/cuticle and I prefer to throw stuff across the room such as dirty laundry, mail, loaves of bread (ok not loaves of bread) to try and sink imaginary shots, hoops, dunno--just to score I guess. I DESPISE instructions, directions, recipes, or suggested useage. I think duct tape belongs in any girls purse and I can take pills without a beverage.

I like maritinis--but the way I make them is like this: Some Gin. Some Vodka. Some pop or tonic. Some ice or fruit if times are good. I have been laughed at for years for making this concoction yet it tastes awesome and you will get drunk. Is that a problem? Perhaps I have a different idea of just exactly what it is that a martini is suppossed to do for a chick or a fella but helping to keep sane and sober aint one of em.

I like to nail stuff up with enourmous roofing nails WHAMWHAM right into the walls. I feel certain that kicking is a perfectly acceptable way to get somethings done. Like repairing tables. I like to get filthy and I like to write on myself. I HATE asking for help and I HATE being sick injured helpless needful incapable or really bad at something. I hate slow songs. I dont want a pastry, I want a sub. I dont drink diet pop or light beer. I dont go to Thai restaurants and ask if it is gonna be spicy.

Yes I want to play Street Fighter
Yes I want tickets to the game
Yes I can stay up super really extremely late-life's short ever heard of coffee?
Yes I want a beer
Yes I want some nachos
Yes I can reach that/lift that/get that through the door
Yes I want to do a fire
Yes I want to go camping
Yes I want a tattoo
Yes I want to draw hundreds of rude pictures all day(comic book style)
Yes I want to go to the concert and yes I want to stand up front.
Yes I want to drive
Yes I can totally play that
Yes I will mess up and yes it might suck but it might be awesome and it is worth it to find out
Yes I want to hit the road
Yes I want to do something way way weirder
Yes I would rather laugh than giggle
Yes I would rather scream than whisper
Yes I would rather break shit than keep the peace
Yes I want the squares to not get it
Yes you want to pick me for your team

best sox ever

2007-05-03T13:38:00.000-04:00

http://www.skatersocks.com/

So, so awesome.

fresh air

2007-04-30T17:00:00.000-04:00

Well its been awhile, huh?

I am no longer sick. It is no longer cold or drizzling or snowing. I am literally on cloud nine, in heaven, all cares are back to their rightful places in the background, major upsets are back to minutae, I can now re-relate to hallmark slogans such as dont sweat the small stuff and stop and smell the roses and enjoy the little things and live for today and bless this mess and....ok ill stop.

Although I do like the idea of fall and winter, the flash imagery of being covered in clothes (haha), cozy times, spicy drinks...the reality is it is messed up to be indoors all the time, to get to the point where crumbs and stains and where is my scotch tape are somehow something you should give one crap about, to just obsess and fret and stagnate, its really jacked.

So now we have opened up our windows, opened up our eyes, opened up our hearts and opened up our minds, as a people, or at least I have. It feels so damn good to have my self back, I feel as if my proper and rightful place as an upright citizen/homo sapien (sapienne?lol) to roam the good Earth has been reestablished and I like it. I am going to sit outside for a long long time tonight past sunset past dark and enjoy it all. Besides---no mosquitos yet :)

Dedice a la musique, les cheveux verts, et la future

2007-04-21T18:58:00.000-04:00

It is such a gimmiky thing, and yet I fall for it EVERY time: lead vocals en Francais. Hip-Hop, trance, and scads of other electronica use this technique to marvelous effect. Especially if the singer is female, and french is not her native toungue. Perfection!
I want to do a bit of this in my band, and I am sort of coming to grips right now with how much studio and non-organic kinds of music I love and how it all works out with my garage and low-fi budget and sensibilities and roots and how, oh how, will I work in some gorgeous french stuff about les reves, and les bouches, and les nuages, and les bicyclettes and je veux te la donner mon couer, when I have no studio or money but I do know alot of french, and actually I am gonna say right here and now that godarnit there will be french and it will all work out and ummm yeah. Stuff like that. See? I am getting a little bit better. Cough cough sniff.

Bjork is on Saturday night Live Tonight! I hope she rocks.

missing out

2007-04-18T23:19:00.000-04:00

I am too sick to blog
I will be back when I can
Trying to become healthier as a lifestyle...

: )

green hair

2007-04-12T14:39:00.000-04:00

It is more than official.

After 6 months, which has really been 20 years, of searching, I have decided upon my final dream hair.

It is going to be deep green, like forest green. It is going to be long with bangs. I will curl it all beautiful in pink curlers or I will do braids. This will finalize all of the issues and displaced, misplaced asthetic problems I have run into since adoloescence. My love of punk and glamour, my not knowing if I wanted to be a skater boy or a screen siren, my desire to look super wierd and super pretty, to have grannies say "shed be cute if that horrible hair wasnt green" and to walk around and feel like myself!

So I am quite ecstatic. I need to bleach out all this blue and purple and faded lavender and get the green and maybe even a haircut at a place, just a trim on the bottom. Then I just need to keep on growin! It was a tiny bob at xmas time and now is to my shoulders in the back, so by next year, it should be super long. Too excited.

vrrrrrm

2007-04-09T17:46:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, two very cool girls were convinced that I was from Detroit Roller Derby. Convinced. This was the biggest image compliment I have received in I don't know how long, if ever. I feel like the ball is truly rolling now on my new look. Hooray!

Lady clothes

2007-04-05T15:45:00.000-04:00

A topic near and dear to my heart: my interest in fashion and my deep vomitous aversion to lady clothes---and how I have been misjudged,mislabeled and misunderstood as a tomboy when in fact I am a girl girl girl.

When I was 10 years old, starting 6th grade, I was five foot three. By the end of that school year, I stood five foot eleven. I wonder if I even weighed 100 pounds.

So there I was, taller than all the women's clothing made in the world, barely eleven years old, size ten shoes, the largest size you could get in normal stores. Years before I was old enough for high heels, I was already too tall to wear them, and so, I never learned how to walk in 'em. This is how I started out! Way before I was even a teenager, I was severly limited in my options. I wore my school uniform by day, my field hockey, volleyball, and soccer uniforms after school, and on the weekends....ewwwww you don't wanna know. Wierd flood everything--and there was no "cropped", these were floods---hard to blame my mom when I grew 8 inches in 8 months---but there were flood pink pants, flood acid wash jeans, and flood black pants. Random sweaters from christmas,( ladies' medium, too wide and too short for the stalk of spaghetti that was me) and perhaps a pastel polo type of shirt from kmart or kresge.

Fast forward to when I "turned cool" --- I had a depeche mode Tshirt, a new order Tshirt, flood jeans and a jean mini skirt. Everything else has been forgotten. I had black chucks, black tights, and a few shirts from my boyfriend. Anything skirt or dress in my closet was so far out of the realm of what I considered even remotely attractive, modern, current, or wearable, that it soon became this thing that I was some kind of tomboy, masculine, manly, and my *family* liked to rub that in. but it wasnt really true! I had a CABOODLE (remember those, anyone??) of makeup, a zillion earrings, probably 8 perfumes, and --ahem-a decidedly not tomboyish underwear collection. Did my hate of FLATS and PUMPS and sickest of all--PANTYHOSE--really make me a mans man? I grape-sprunch sprayed my sun-in'ed bob while curling my eyelashes before dawn every single morning, blue eyeliner, turquoise eyeliner, peach gloss, pink gloss, dozens of nail polishes----black bikini, peach bikini----but no love for the LADY CLOTHES. Ever.

To me, since somehow, someway, there seemed to be no cool feminine clothes in my world, maybe Madonna or Bjork or the rich kids had awesome stuff like I would have liked---but in reality, the skirt or dress came to symbolize deeply irksome events ONLY. Family portrait, Church thingamabob, Holidays, forced visitations to Moms Work or Sisters Recital. I felt so ugly so itchy so gross gross gross gross, in the hand me downs and borrowed 40 year old womens stuff that vaguely fit me (with safety pins) that it wasnt until my first dance that I wore a dress and felt ok. But a dance doesnt count.

Fast forward a long way...to my first grown up job. Age 19. Corporatesville. Crap! Will I need lady clothes???? Im making $9.25 an hour---astounding money for me, minimum wage was 3.90 or maybe 4.15, but it was part time due to the fact that I was a full time college student, and so it was good money and yet not enough to get some sweet new wardrobe....so I kinda faked it. I wore black cotton tights. Black buckle Doc Martens. ($130 bucks in 1993 you better believe they were my only shoes!!) One little short black A-Line skirt from the "new store" Old Navy. Cardigans from the thrift store, and one white t shirt. oh--and a pink, purple and yellow swatch watch with a huge eyeball on it. Every single day. With a long silver necklace from contempo! hahahaha! Remember Contempo!!!?? Sheesh.

My older co-workers loved me, and said nice things like "you can get away with that", "youre so cute" and scarier things like "i dont know how you dont get written up", "that is bullshit"....and this was when NOBODY dressed the way they do at work now. It was 3 piece suits, power shoulder pads, hose, pumps, period. Except I did not.

I got married, loved my wedding dress. Duh. But beyond that it has been years and years of concert T's, jeans, chucks, with dreams of fun dresses, dreams of stripey tights, and kind of growing into the not working/wear what u want/but some image as a mom to work out stuff.......and well somehow here I am!

I still detest powder-smelling stinky stuffy itchy vile lady clothes, but now I know what it is exactly that I detest. It isnt anything about being a girl. I have never ever been happoier to be a girl. Its about being ME. Maybe I will never have enough money to own all the outfits I dream of, and maybe creating them will be my only option. But the world of fashion has become ALOT more accessible, I see what the magazines are calling "Work jeans" and i am so curious to see if this is really true or not...but for something as near and dear to my heart as outfit-imagining, I will never be sad if purple hair, cherry barrettes, chuck taylors wth tights or shirtdresses in psychotic fabrics turns popular. because I love that stuff, and I would relish the idea of it being easier to obtain.

Somedays I am a girl and somedays I am a woman---but I never, ever want to be a LADY. Unless we are playing tea party. (But even then I might fight ya for dibs on being the cat or the baby or maybe even the grampa.)

********************

boo hoo

2007-04-03T08:46:00.000-04:00

I have only a few birthday scenarios and they play out again and again---

1)Me being sick

2)It snowing really hard

3)It being eerily, creepily warm and humid

Today is my birthday, and although I am very happy about it, I am also very sick. I think it is suppossed to be wierdly warm, too, like 74 and thundershowers. See?

Its crazy how many little blurred memeories I have of trying to sit up and be cheerful about the present, trying to taste cake or special meal without my tastebuds, head spinning, chest tight, throat clogged, ears stinging, face pounding.

Next year I will try with all my heart to remember to go on some secluded health-vigil the last week of March! But for today, I will try to savor the strong deja vu and look SO forward to my new year. 2007 has been extreme, and so to me, a-la Chinese New Year, TODAY marks the "new year". I am 32 now--lets let the good times roll.

they pay me to turn 32?!

2007-04-01T12:54:00.000-04:00

My grandma sent me fifty bucks for my birthday and my mother and father in law sent me 30. i also had five bucks in my purse all smashed so that counts, too. So I have 85 bucks. I am trying to really not pitch this money in to "the family" as I have done with every single penny I have ever received as a Joy gift in ten years of marriage. I am also going to get a night job a couple of nights a week at this one cool beerhaus thing that seems non molesterish and up-beat and clean. I have no idea if they are hiring but I dont care. Maybe they will see my purple hair and think I will cheer up the joint.

I am trying to think of things I want to save up for and so far it is:

pink chucks
all the bumper stuckers i could ever dream of on cafepress.com
a little videocamera/dvd camera whatever those are that are little
a Fender Rhodes
a Mellotron
a mini Moog
a new guitar although that is so mean to my guitar...so maybe a bass. a yellow one.
a non raping bike seat
fountain pop machine
slurpee machine

send me ideas--maybe I am forgetting something I always wanted! My own hair coloring salon-dance club perhaps?

documentaries

2007-03-31T12:36:00.000-04:00

I like to see stuff that is awesome and then go on ahead and do that. Have that. Make that. Be a part of that.

So next on the horizon as soon as I can afford to buy one, is going to be joy and her little videocamera. Because, you see, dear friends, I am going to be filming it all now. Or lots of it. If you never wanted to be the one in the chair on the documentary, fake looking at someone stage left, slightly diagonal camera angle, maybe a little cigarette on the side table, sweet music playing while you are talking (actually playing, not over-dubbed)....well then too bad, cuz its happening sooner than later if you come around me.

As much fun as I am having with the irfanview software for the pictures I have taken with my camera, I can only imagine what i'm gonna do with film, moving pictures. Please someone tell me there is cool stuff I can do with moving video, as far as "effects"---AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I am too excited. So everyone brush your hair and think of something clever to say cuz you're goin' down in celluloid history whether u like it or not
;)

i wanna shirtdress now

2007-03-26T15:56:00.000-04:00

this

plus

this

plus

chucks

plus cardigans

plus blue hair

all

i'm

saying

I have been in quest of dresses since I was a teenager. I want shirtdresses, like from the 50s, but in amazing vintage fabrics. duh. Who doesnt, right? Well, when my only body challenge was being 6 foot 1, it was one thing but now that I have filled out, forget about it. Anything I have ever found in a resale shop wouldnt button around my little finger let alone my bod.

So the semi obvious choice of finding the perfect pattern and sewing it reared its head a few times but didnt amount to much. Still need to persue that one more.....

Right now in fashion, there is a great return to the Dress. By fashion I mean old navy or the mall or something---hahaha but still, i do not LOVE the ones I am seeing. A big problem is the current rebirth of the EMPIRE WAIST which, when I say rebirth, I do mean MATERNITY---

these things look like preggo clothes on the skinniest preteens, why on he good earth would I ever want to wear something so heinously unflattering? Mix the highwaist in with the fact that no matter how "plus size" i go, the thing will be all worng and cut for some one half my height (ok not half my height but probably 5 foot 6)

I am kind of getting to the point where I will have to make my own or find someone who will.

tra la la

2007-03-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

When you are at karaoke, what is your angle?

To sing a song that you think you will sound really good at?

To sing a song that totally and perfectly fits the evening?

To sing a song that the crowd will surely rock out to?

To sing a song that you love despite any hope of a talented effect?

To sing a song that you think will have a secret message for someone in the room? A Little fun twist of a lyric perhaps?

Tell me what you think!

shine

2007-03-25T22:10:00.000-04:00

To rock and be a mother; not necessarily impossible, not necessarily a contradiction, for me a difficult thing logistically...not just to have given birth at some point but to truly live your days with many little children 24-7-365....am I explaining myself or just makin more excuses?....many kick ass incredible women rock hard and have children. How many children and what the whole details are escape me, though.

For me, I didn't pick up a guitar until my first child was 18 months old, and it seems as if the brief sparks of this turning into something I could really do were, like I said, brief. Maybe I suck, I dunno---maybe you feel like a star when you have the stomach flu everyday for half a year. Maybe you crawl out from the bathroom floor and strap on a Fender. Maybe you feel mentally inspired by a steady diet of elmo, stale cheerios, rinsing and wiping little stains, cutting and smooshing tiny lunch foods, and never ever ever sleeping more than 3 hours straight. Maybe I could have tried harder to be able to do all of that, but I did not. Never directly blaming the babies, and ever optimistic (actually 100% confident and patient) that time and music are shapeshifting forgiving malleable things who are not going anywhere, my beautiful guitar sat in its case for years and years. I never felt weird, I never felt worried. I went on to have three more children in 7 more years, and each baby marked very different points in my life. My "comebacks" as I and other veteran mothers call them, have all been very different. Not really measurable in pounds lost or months past, but more in spirit shifts, a re-gaining of the Joy in the Mamajoy, without any kind of tangible severance besides (somewhat) more sleep at night.

What the f am I talking about??

I am ready to jam is all.

I will play just about anything.

I play the kids' guitars, tuning and retuning them until they beg me to stop and then Casey or Charlie will come up and just twist--twist all my tunings away. Usually sounds much better the way they did it. I have been known to play rubber bands. Thats how the old guys did it right?

I play this insanely crotchety bizarre mystery guitar and do not know the name of a single chord. Like I give a shit.

When you listen to the radio, are you like, "oh wowee kazowee this is a jammin Eflat?" Perhaps you do. But I do not at this time. Im not trying to be punk rock or ignorant I just do not, cannot deal with that right now. I need to play songs that are really awesome is all I am saying. I am not detail oriented, as they say. Ill get a secretary for that shit someday, heh heh. You got your big dreamers and you got your people who make little painstaking lists for the big dreamers. Both important folks.

I like songs that sound great and I like to sing. I like to jump and I like to dance. I can say that I am not very good at any of these but the overall effect creates some energies that you do not want to ignore. I am not going to bullshit you and pretend that I dont know that it works all together somehow. It does and it will and thats where Im at today.

I like to rock out and if you put a slow song on the tape you make me I will fastforward past it. Thats all for now.

R.E.M.

2007-03-20T10:30:00.000-04:00

Last night I watched the VH1 broadcast of the rock and roll hall of fame inductions. First of all, they just LEFT OUT some collaboration of I wanna be your dog---what the #@@$@$ would make them do that?? I watched this thing for 2 1/2 hours and got screwed out of the finale. Its probably on youtube.

R.E.M. got inducted by Eddie Vedder. Although the idea of Pearl Jam grates me, Eddie is truly a pal, he really is. Poor sweet thing, he didnt kill himself, he is completely true to himself, and here he is, in 2007, with his moonpie sincere Eddie face, his exact same voice, and what looks to be his exact same shirt. Good. I don't want certain musicians to grow and change physically, and Eddie is one of them. He needs so many hugs, dear Eddie. But we arent that close, its not like that for me and Eddie. And thats ok.

His tribute speech to R.E.M. was the closest thing to perfect I have heard in a long, long time. In a world of bloated speeches and idiotic spraying of superlatives, he followed a very different course, describing his intimate discoveries of the band in 83/84, and the way he descibed how Michael Stipe does his magic gave me chills on my chills. For them to play what they played instead of big hits or new songs was just so kick ass. I was beaming from ear to ear to heart.

I think many many people are aware of R.E.M. as this really solid college rock band, I don't know too many folks who dont have a decent amount of respect or like for them--but thats not it at all for me, you see, these guys are my dear, dear friends, and we have grown up together in so many ways. Shy curly Michael, funny hats Michael, the newspaper suit on SNL with me watching so in love on my black and white TV in my childhood bedroom at 12:50 am with the sound off so I didnt get busted for being up so late... Murmur, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant on the pink boombox on the edge of my bed...GREEN? Jesus Christ the Tourfilm for Green, could I be more proud of my very first true true love? Michael was my first gay boyfriend, before Morrissey, before Bernard Sumner, Andy Bell, Neil Tennant, Martin Gore, various boys at school, or even Andy Warhol, me and Michael were tight. I loved him and he was cool with it. When he got really sassy after Out of Time and started hanging out with all my freinds from the Seattle scene in 92, he didn't forget his roots--or me. I was so proud of my shy sweetie up there in his eyeliner and sparkle pants--you go darlin.
He and Kurt became close, and I hope they shared more than guitar chords. Sweet babies. So sick that he had to kind of hang out with Courtney for a while after, but I would have, too. she was all we had to cling to there for a minute in 94, until we all got our feet back on the ground, or close to it. My feet are still crooked after what happened to K but Im getting there. Time does heal, sort of. (With big big scars.)

To see my Micheal up there with Eddie was bittersweet. I thought it was a painful reminder of so many unresolved early 90's hurts, from Bill Berry leaving the band, to Kurts death, to the shocking disintegration of radio music since about April 6th 1994...but Eddies love and admiration for my Michael really reflected mine, and although I will probably never feel like popping in the Pearl Jam cd outside of a class reunion, I hope that him and Eddie had a great time together that night.

I dreamed about R.E.M. all night last night, and I can't shake the dust off my mind today. I like sleeps like that.

Beautiful swimmers

2007-03-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

I went swimming all by myself last night at the local pool. Since I didnt have the kids with me, I felt silly just playing being goofy...but the crazed old people who swim 355 laps intimidated me so I didnt want to play by them either. So I made up this workout thingy:

In the rib-deep water I walked really fast holding a kickboard out in front of me for balance and resistance. It was hard and fun! It seemed to burn my legs much more than swimming and regular swimming still hurts my back somewhat.

I did my water-walking thing for about 45 minutes! I was so sweaty--in the water! Gross! but it was great. I could feel that my bottoms of my feet were getting harshed up and wished for those water shoes all the aerobic grannies had. My old German guy pal and the Mail-lady told me I was doing great. Encouraging! Emabarssing! they were staring at my blue hair laying on my shoulders but did not ask. What is there to ask? "Is your hair blue?" ---clearly. right? Or maybe they thought I had a terrible chlorine reaction--haha.

Near the end of the hour, (open swim is only one hour on Wednesdays) I realized they let you play in the 9 foot part! whoa! So I did that. Just wierd floating and fake underwater walking and stuff. So fun to just be wierd.

I love swimming for 10,000 reasons--but you know what was really cool? There were these two people, a guy and a girl, and they were doing crazy races in the 9 foot--they swam SO fast, they were making crazy waves, blast blast back and forth back and forth. And when they got out of the water, I saw that they were very large people, maybe 3 or 400 pounds. Thats why swimming is so neat! Good for them! I wish I was that fast! I can still swim really fast but only for VERY short distances as my lung capacity is so so pathetic. I practically drown doing 2 laps, seriously. And if I try to leave my head out like some wierd hair-do lady it hurts my neck.

I love the aerobics class ladies who are there before open swim, because they are getting together in community companionship, they are laughing and having fun, they are taking time for themselves, and they are absolutely covered in cellulite, from head to toe. With bright coral lipstick, and wierd aqua-shoes---they were so beautiful! Am I bizzarre? I enjoy the imagery of people who look like that, it really helps me to see blobby stomachs and lumpy legs and happy shining faces of women.

I started on my media saturation with TEEN magazine at age 11 and until I was about 20 a disgusting amount of my time was devoted to these "plumper lips in 15 days" type of publications. In high school I read Cosmo more than my schoolbooks. Curl your lashes while you sleep. Tone that ass. Keep your highlights shiny. Bigger bust. Long lasting eyeshadow. Learn your skin type. Dont outshine anyone. Force him to ask you to prom. Banish odor. Keep your arms supple. Breath fresh. Eyes shiney. Legs tight. Wax. Pluck. Shave. Tan. Low light. High light. De-emphasize. Enhance. Exfoliate. Moisturize. Count calories. Get rest. Pull an all nighter. Remove callouses. The right shade for you. Dress it up for evening. 23456 simple tips. Shock him. Tease him. Taunt him. Tantalize him. CHOP YOURSELF UP INTO 600 SEXY HAIRLESS MINTY FRESH PIECES FOR HIM.

I went to college and dove so hard into Womens studies I couldnt even begin to explain right now.

So here I am, at 31, 80 pounds heavier than when I was "fat", with zits and stretch marks and rolls and blobs and wrinkles and finally feeling super super happy and cute and sexy and mentally OK with all this shit. I really really took the long road to body recovery, and feel as if all those mega feminist things I read about being truly IN your body, and loving youself and all of that are really in my heart now. Its so liberating and super, I feel shy to even discuss it because I have a LOT of social conditioning in me about "dont brag". But I am happy that I feel good, and I feel like when I look in the mirror that I am seeing JOY and I have never felt that in my life until now! Yay!

For the first time, sex and makeup and clothes and bodies are all in a happy positive fun place in my life. I wish I hadnt had to go through such a long stupid road, but I know tons of women will be stuck on media-row for the entirity of their lives, and for them, I am sad.

This has sure meadered, but it is dedicated to the happy wonderful people at the pool last night.

personal imagery

2007-03-08T10:42:00.000-05:00

How I did it--

2007-03-07T08:54:00.000-05:00

blue it shall be

2007-03-06T15:54:00.000-05:00

Im gonna dye my hair blue tonight!
We took a family vote.
Blue was hands down.

Ill be sure to post pics........

bathin beauty

2007-02-27T10:34:00.000-05:00

I ordered this bathing suit from LandsEnd. It really fits awesome and I am pleased. There is a secret underlayer that is tight as a sausage but then the little overlayer looks floaty and casual. I swam and swam with the kids and I dont think I adjusted it once. no wedgie, no boob-pop-out, nothin!

There is no bathing suit that can help with my new grandma elephant legs but hopefully someday I will be able to work out and all that jazz. Right now I can barely stand up or sit back down due to extreme extreme back pain and stiffness. I cant even put on my own pants or socks.

Looking forward to summer!

wowee airbrush

2007-02-20T15:37:00.001-05:00

http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/bikini1.html
scroll over this craziness

then try the side ones

sigh

eyebrows and ponytails

2007-02-19T12:11:00.000-05:00

I overplucked my eyebrows, big time about three weeks ago. It is easy to do. Just start plucking and go overboard and look like an idiot!

This takes time to regrow but they are looking alot better now. My natural eyebrow shape is very pointed and slanty, and somehow I ended up with more rounded, which looked horrible on me. The eyebrows are the frames of the face, and I am usually pretty good at this. You can tell if you did your eyebrows wrong if you look expression-less and wierd. Which I did.

My hair is finally long enough for ONE PONYTAIL!!!! I am so happy. Yes there are wispies but that looks cute if you have an actual outfit on. (With pajamas, not so much. )

Now I have a more sophisticated option for continuing to grow my hair and have the little bangs. My hair grows really really fast and I am certain that by this Christmas the memories of the little choppy Bob hairdo will be amazing to even recall.

I cannot wait until I really do have the long long hair that I crave. I will have two braids or one ponytail or one bun and I just love that. Hooray!

more special makeover tips for the frugal mama

2007-02-13T17:06:00.000-05:00

So whats a time challenged flat broke Mama suppossed to do to look and feel KEWL? Try some of these cheapie tricks of mine and soon you will be the one who is as righteous on the outside as you feel on the inside!

Buy 2 or 3 essential oils that you love. I use patchouli, orange, dewberry and lavender on a regular basis. If I had my wish, I would also have rose, bergamot, tangerine and peppermint in my home.

These are now your perfume! You can mix them into cheap unscented lotion for body lotion. You can drop them in your bath. You can drop them onto your bed. You can shake them onto little cotton things and put them in the dryer. Now you are yummy and cool.

Wash your face with Neutrogena. It is under 3 bucks and the best stuff there is.

Scrub your face with the best scrub you can afford, and use a tiny bit of it. If you cant do a scrub, wash your face with a washcloth and the Neutrogena bar and dont be afraid to really scrub!

Save up your dollars until you have 20 of them. Do not hesitate one second while you plunk them all down for Origins' Charcoal mask. The stuff it sucks out of your face is worth it, and it lasts for a LONG time.

Cut your own hair
Color your own hair.

Does your hair make you look SUPER CHEERFUL? Do you look in the mirror and feel waaaay different inside than you look on the outside? I lived most of my life this way, but now I am free! Get a hairdo that is HAPPY AND FANTASTIC to you, despite what is in style with the freaks who you hate anyhow.
Get a hairdo that you think someone who would be extremely intriguing to you would have! There! Now the intriguing one is YOU!

If exercise makes you feel great and strong, then make time for it! Like you make time for blogging or watching survivor, make time for exercise IF YOU LIKE IT.

If eating healthy makes you feel great and strong, then take a few minutes and learn how to make a few nice things. Eat some fresh fruits and veggies everyday and you will be on the way to health! Apples are super cheap and so are carrots!

As far as body image stuff, just get some clothes that fit you right now. Dont suck, stuff, smash or hurt yourself. Dont wear giant baggies just to hide. You have a size that fits you nicely, so if it is 4 or 44, it is ok! Start with a pair of jeans. Try www.zafu.com to find a pair that will be cool for you. Mine were 19.99 Levis so it isnt too expensive.

If you are broke, I understand. Try to come up with een one or two shirts a month, just plain basic stuff under 15 bucks. Old Navy and Target are cool enough to not feel like some mutt and plain enough that no one will notice if you wear them ALL the time.

When you can afford to, try to work in a few special pieces. Mine was my magic skirt from www.muddypeople.com from christmas. I wear it twice a week, or so, and thats fine by me! then I can be that one girl with the hippie skirt!

If you do find a key pice that rocks your world then try to get another one when you can. This goes for shoes, too. Be that Mama who has 4 colors of ____. Now you are on your way to a LOOK!

Hilarious cheap sunglasses rule. Get a pair and rock em.

Wet n Wild makes the best lipliner...99 cents...mix it with chapstick and now you look like you have nice lipstick on.

I would not use cheapo foundation. If you wear this, spend as much as u can or just skip it and rub a little bronzer (bonne bell 4 bucks) into your lotion.

2 dolar eyelash curler
Maybelline Great Lash (3 bucks)
now you have fabulous cat eyes!

Citre shine shine spray--the original and best. Now your fried and dyed hair looks shiny ; )

But some lame headbands and cover them with fantastical fabrics. You could hot glue them or just regular glue.

When your baby was up all night for the last 9 years and you havent eaten a whole food in weeks...when coffee is all you drink, there is no hope of a shower today, and all your cool clothes are in the hamper smashed under the spaghetti, juice, poo, and pee things from the little darlings....try this ray of hope:

Spread Noxema (that old minty wierd white stuff) all over your face. Leave it on.
Put on a new outfit, undies, socks, the whole thing. Put on new perfume. Brush your hair and try to scrape it into little pigtails or some kind of barrette or hat. Wash off the Noxema. Brush your teeth. Stretch high high high into the sky. Stretch down down down to your toes. Put on actual shoes. Take a B vitamin and turn on your favorite music.

Now you are ready for more coffee and nursing on the couch! But now you feel like a real live Kewl-Mama!

makeover tips for under 10 bucks

2007-02-13T16:25:00.000-05:00

So now that I have the digi camera you will be treated to more real pics and less fantastic wig ladies. I dont know if this is a move I will regret but hey.

So this was my hair. I walked into the bathroom and came out about 55 minutes later .....

And had this hair!

You, too, can save thousands of dollars and scads of horrible humiliating loser idiot hairdressers who dont listen to you and who get rich off of your IMAGINED lack of talents will roll in their graves as you walk in beauty for under 10 bucks
all
the
time!

I put on the brown hairdye. When covering bleached hair, do not use anything that is described as Golden or Ash. You want to look for Natural or no word at all when describing the BROWN. I used Nutrisse's Medium Natural Brown. Then I put in tiny stripes of Manic Panic pillar red.

When cutting your own hair, use a sharp scissors and really study how the hair falls and acts when you are living your life. Figure out where layers and bangs are coming from, like at the top of your head--and then cut! Use two or three mirrors for the back. Allow for shrinkage.

I have re dyed it several time since then (december) always the same Medium Natural Brown. I have cut the bangs MANY times since then. I have opted to not redo the red stripes but am seriously considering Blue, Green, or Purple as an overcast.

Greta suggested that I should do seasonal hair, which I am all in favor of and adore her for her open minded artistic cool.
Blue hair in winter
Green hair in spring
Orange and Pink in summer
Red in fall

LOVE this idea...

To do the overcast (my word) I will be using a highlighting kit, as I like the thickness of the bleach they give you. I plan on doing a large amount of the outer layer of my hair wit the bleach and then after washing it out, and blow drying it (very important when using manic panic!) I will fill in all the blonde parts with the fun color.
I'll let u know!

better times

2007-02-11T13:19:00.000-05:00

Oooooh man things are lookin up.

I got a real live BED! A bed, an actual gorgeous bed! We have been sleeping on the floor on a mattress for years now...and now we are grown ups in a real bed. I went to IKEA with my friend yesterday and got some cool stuff. But nothing wierd or really indulgent or dumb--you cannot shake the "frugal" out of me that quickly, even it is my once a year shopping time.

We got our tax return and it is all allotted out for me to get a car, pay some bills, start a savings account, and some was allotted for a bed/house stuff. Hooray! IKEA is the funnest place ever to me and with no babies with me it was a whole different thing. thanks Dada!

I also got us a vacuum, a fake Dyson--meaning it is yellow : ) but for 70 bukcs instead of 400, it really does clean! It practically drags you across the house! My floors are clean now...

Somehow my hair is loveable now, too--funny how that works--hee hee so nothing off track, still growin and ponytailin...

I almost won a van on Ebay, but lost the auction at the last minute. Im sure there is one for us out there--I am just tired of waiting!

February is hard, and it is already the 11th. Breathe.......soon we can go outside even if we don't have a car, walking and gaining strength. I cannot WAIT.

Here is our bed:

Time for a little boost?

2007-02-08T19:49:00.000-05:00

I dont know what to do now about my hair.

I am trying to keep things in perspective.

Is it my hair or everything in my life that is broken/absent/f#$%-ed up right now that is really wrong.

Do we all change our hair when things are out of control?

Can I really wear two tiny pigtails until it is "long"?

Will I get two tiny bald spots or anything like that?

Do I actually look cute/ok/human?

Would an outer coating of bright red be fun?

When I picture a new hairdo, I always picture this gorgeously made up face, clean and matching clothing, a fresh perky outlook....

So would dirty filthy damaged stump ponytails with a cream cheese, jelly, ketchup crusted too small t shirt, snowman flooded pj pants, woolen legs, pale grey skin and zits on the tiredest tiredest tiredest Mama EVER really look that much awesomer with red stripes in them?

God I cannot wait until my imaginary new life starts soon. Ya know, the traveling jaunty mommy I could be once we get the vacuum, dryer, car and health all back?

Maybe I will wait to do the color-job until then.

i worry/human rights

2007-02-01T16:08:00.000-05:00

As a mother who is home with four little kids all day long,

I miss the human right to have moods. My friends say "Joy, its OKAY to not be happy all the time." But do they really get what this entails? The reprocussions? They do not.

I miss the human right to be ill and have a day off work. God do I wanna call in sometimes. Are my unused vacation days being accrued somewhere?
I miss the human right to sleep and a daily shower.
Like the vast majority of grown-ups, I have someone at home who needs me. A dog. A roommate. Even the jet settiest TV stars seem to have an iguana or something keeping them from true unhindered autonomy. Sometimes I think it is in our nature, to have someone or something that needs us, but mosttimes I think living away from a tribe is unnatural in itself and the root of the problem so there lies the problem right away, no communes in metro detroit, etc.

So If YOU get sick, do you get to "call in"? Do you get to lay on the couch all day? What about if you had major surgery? Do you worry about this kind of stuff?
Sometimes I don't dare try a sport or anything even remotely physical, for fear of the real possibility of a twisted ankle, broken arm, or worse. What would I do?

I think I do not have anyone in my life who could help me out. Is this common?

When I had a c-section, Steves work called him in the second day I was still in the hospital. My friend took my three kids to the movies and cesarland. Steve's parents raked our leaves. My sister, bless her heart, tried to hire me a housecleaning lady, but she turned out to be the laziest most un-helpful hinderance and when I came out at the end of day one with the fact that she did not help at all, and in fact, she made us all feel incredibly indescibably awkward and nervous in our own home, and thanked my sister profusely but asked that the lady not come back, my mom stopped calling me for over 3 weeks because she deduced that since the cleaning lady was of a different racial background than we are, that I therefore taught my children to be racist. But beyond all this initial flurry of drama and bizarre misery, I, like too many other newly postpartum women especially those who have been unmercifully sleep deprived, endured major abdominal surgery, and especially those who have other children at home who need care, was all alone all day long. This is unnaceptable. I could not feel more strongly about any other subject matter. It tears at my soul. this abandoning of new mothers is absolutely unacceptable and across the board unheard of in any other developing, third world or developed nations. But ooooh boy are we shocked and concerned when postpartum psychoses set in, huh...?

What I needed, of course, was my husband--- and this familial support is what we all have a right to, in theory, the free use of the Family and Medical Leave Act. As long as you have over 50 employees at your place of work and you have been there a year or more, you are entitled to up to TWELVE WEEKS unpaid (hey what did you expect this ain't Sweden) leave for anything like birth, caring for a family member, adoption, death, illness, etc. Except if you try to use this, you will most likely get fired.

Makes me wanna sing the star spangled banner just a little more off key at the next ballgame. It will be my secret.
I do hate America. or at least how we treat our women and children and families. Please understand this.Hate is not a family value. This has been a gay support cry for a while but it applies to everyone.

So, with all this knowledge, why would I expect a rally for my imagined recreational sports injuries?

So I am afraid. Afraid to go curling, afraid to roller blade, worried when we sledded. I feel so valued and so terribly vulnerable. For a headstrong experimental feet-first Aries, this is hard for me. I dont want to do the wise thing. I dont want to plan. I hate the Small Details.I want to have a blast. But I worry.
I guess this is true for everyone, we're all one slip on a grape away from utter destituion and ultimate demise.
What would happen to your life if you slipped on the grapes?
and my point:
what can we be doing to prepare for it?

steppin' out

2007-01-31T12:39:00.000-05:00

Ohh boy, after a day like yesterday, I needed to get outta dodge, for sure, so what did I do? I cracked outta here the second Steve got home---well, not the second he got home, because since he is a Sexy Chef now, I ate his spaghetti with homemade sauce, willingly, but THEN, I cracked out. Bye!

So I got in the Volvo, which I have always dubbed "Christine", in reference to the movie about the possesed evil car with a mind of its own. True to her name, Christine did do dome wierd stuff to me like not let me change the radio station, but she does have heated seats and my booty was cold! So that was really never more appreciated. I went to Barnes and Noble, since the delicious and filling spaghetti squelched my plans of getting a little secret treat, I got a fancy coffee and a stack of books and magazines and plunked myself down in a biiiiig soft chair. Ahhhhh is there anything much better to do for free on a Tuesday night, honestly?

I read until I came back into my body and felt a deep disconcerting paranoia that they must surely be closed by now, but they weren't. I read until my eyes went wavy. I read a dirty art book, Mothering magazine, OK magazine, BUST! magazine, and a book about how kids dont go outside enough. I read a bit of Bitch magazine but had to decide which I must buy and which i must simply love and leave. Since my sister paid me for the babysitting I was feelin flush and got both BUST! and Mothering.

They are SPECTACULAR issues, both of them. Mothering is my lifeline, my "people", my tribe, and this issue was just another glorious example of why. Mainstream parenting mags make me as sad and worried for new parents as the What-To-Expect books do......yikes yikes yikes!
This issue had everything from 2 kick-ass articles about homebirth from a skeptical-dads' point of view, an in-depth explanation of how to wear you baby in all these different types of carriers, fanatstic soup recipes for Steve to make us, and more! LOVE it.

this issue of BUST! had Gwen Stefani on the cover, whom I have been very mixed about. I liked her back in the day, but always felt that No Doubt was one small (but critical!) age-group younger than I was in, and that it was more my little sister's music. Their songs were catchy, and I liked her clothes kind of.... but then I thought she was gettin a bit cheesy and I DESPISE her new look, as I am vehemently against all 1980's throwback afshion and am quietly waiting this terrifying trend out. The 80's are the ugliets thing that ever happened toi mankind, and to revive it is just tragic. Gorgeous young girls looking like white trashers on purpose, it makes me cringe....jean skirts and leggings and gold mesh earrings....nasty nasty disgusting....makes me absolutely vomit. Gag me with a spoon ; )

So anyhow I read the G. Stefani interview and I like her again. They way she described her family growing up made me feel so happy. BUST! rocks, I have read it since it was a stapled together 'zine in Beth's basement, printed on a little home printer. I have the book of the girls who created BUST! and it is just always so sassy-kewl. they have a big interview with Kim and Thurston from SonicYouth, which was of course fantastical, and so much more. The ads in the back alone are worth twice the cover price. Anyone wanna borrow my copy when I am through with it is welcome. You won't be let down!

So I got outta the bookstore (sure am saying outta alot, huh?) with my 2 profoundly good magazines, and was happy to see that the pigs didn't give me a ticket even though I was waaay past my meter. I drove to Meijers and bought some grocery necessities to see us through the rest of the week. I put 4 bucks in Christine so Stevie wouldn't have to in the cold. I came home with a decent chunk of money still left, and a great new stride in my step. I Went Out and I had a blast! just me myself and I.

welcome to seattle

2007-01-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

oooh i got it so bad today, a complete freak out of the old-school Joy order: I wanna move. I wanna move out of the state. I want to get outta dodge. I want to run run run runrun.... is it winter fever? is it having no car and sitting in this house with no dryer and poo and pee covered clothes from various little ones piling up as fast as towels, washcloths and jeans are, as fast as quilts, snowpants and throw rugs are, as I struggle not to call the landlord again and SCREAM at him again, I NEED A FRICKING DRYER. (I spoke to him today and he said You can get a dryer for like 100 bucks, They arent expensive at all!) nice. I had no idea money bought things, what a genius he is!

I hang and hang clothes but they do not dry well, it takes over a day, they are hard and stale. Why not go to the landromat? Because I dont have a free day to sit and wait for the dryers. We do not have a bunch of spare time. We do not even have a family car right now.

So I freak out. I picture what city I should click on on employmentguide.com, or monster.com---and what comes to my mind when I try to pick a city for us to live in? Seattle. Portland. Toronto.Vancouver. SanFran. London?

Me and the children, walking down main street, thats what. This is the ESSENCE of Joy: THIS is what I want to do with my life. I know the grown up lesson here is to do it in my own town, but hey its my blog, my fantasy....I would be so dangerous if I had money, we would travel the live long day, just traveling and traveling---and so you see, being truly without transport is maybe sadder for me than others. all we can do is wait until we have some money and then get our van looked at and then pay to fix it or hear that it will be too expensive to fix and deal with that.

I want to be out and about with lots of children. I want to go to places with them. I want to go to Ann Arbor hands on museum, cafes, parks, this is what I "do", in my mind's eye. Picture this scenario that I pictured as I clicked "seattle" while trying to find a dealership job for Steve online today: I have a stroller, perhaps a double stroller, we are jaunting down main street, (fashionable wind in our hair).... Greta and Mickey are skipping up ahead, we are all heading towards our fun meeting of some sort, homeschoolers, or LaLecheLeague, or veggiepals, whathave you. Because in Washington I would mysteriously make friends???? I digress.

We would thus have complete outfits on, and be clean and looking good, put together. We would meet up with my awesomely cool Mom friends and their great kids. Of course, COFFEE would be involved, as well as organic impressive snacks from Trader Joes and local markets. I would remember the hand sanitizer and the chapsticks. We'd be livin large.

We would spend the best parts of the day out and about like this, perhaps meeting up with Dada at 5 for dinner in the park of some sort, perhaps with our musician friends? IS THIS CRAZY? I DON'T THINK IT IS! But it is so far from where I am right now.

No car. Its not cool. I have had enough. I really am getting super sad. When it first broke I had little visions of aww darn, cant go to Kroger--but wait a minute! WE cant go ANYWHERE, not even on the weekends. Our other car doesnt have enough seats for us. So NO outings whatsoever. No COSI. No Mall. No Nature Center. No visiting pals. NOTHING. No Library. I want to scream!
My big magic wardrobe? I havebeen wearing fleece pants for 2 weeks straight. I look like I weigh 350 in them but who cares? I am not going anywhere, right? The kids need good memories of my giant ass to traumatize them, its a basic foundation of any decent childhood, I say.
Did I mention I want a goddamn car?

I hope we get a big tax return. I hope we can put lots of it in savings, lots of it into fixing the van or getting a new van, and I also secretly hope for a jogging stroller so I can go on walks with a baby or two---we have no sidewalks on most of the streets around here, and you can't push a stroller, it is SO hard, the wheels get all jammed, it is horrible. If I had a nice jogging stroller with bike tires, I could walk and feel happy and lose weight and go places. We also need lots of money to wrap up all that was involved in leaving our old house, as well as tons of miscellaneous little bills that we have piled up in some box in our bedroom.
I am dreaming, we arent gonna get that much money. But it sure would be cool. five grand, thats all I want---hee hee---see I am simplistic and non capitalist, huh?

Otherwise, I do not know how anything is gonna change. I hate that money has that power, but it is what it is, our universal currency, and I understand for the most part.
So, I guess moving away would not be the key to making mom friends. I am sure they are right here in town. I have several women i could call today and set up a playdate with, but i always have a reason why i cant, dont want to, or something. Usually someone is sick. Then we have no car. Then the house is a disaster and we have no snacks to feed guests. Then we have no proper outfits cause the dryer. arggggg there are about 5 days a year i feel llike i have it all together enough to warrant daytime company.

Perhaps it is trauma from visits in my past, judgmental non understanding people i have invited into the sanctity of my real mommytime home and it didnt go well. I need to get honest with myself and try to recall which of these bad visits were my mom or mother in law (who many years ago used to come over to visit me, but unfortunately were so involved in snooting around with the white glove-tests that they wouldn't know a precious, poignant moment, a potentially great afternoon if it hit them in the face, sadly) and which were true mom friends.

I cant wait until spring, at the very least we can walk to this one park by us. If we get no car we could go walking. In the mud. No, I will be optimistic and say it will stop precipitating! sigh. im sorry. i cant drum it up today.

Ugg!

2007-01-25T18:39:00.000-05:00

I get it now, the whole deal with people who love WOOL.

To me, before the boots, wool was something sort of itchy and expensive and nice looking. Me and the family went to a "wool festival"a few years back which confirmed what I thought, that wool is lovely and expensive, a true old fashioned wonderful sort of a thing, with afficianados in the parenting world in the way of wool diaper covers and wool for warmth, wool fleeces to lay babies on, and wool in the world of nature-buffs in the way that it is a natural fiber, they dont kill the animals, many small family farms can sustain themselves on wool raising, it lasts forever, stuff like that.
But this past weekend, I really get it now with the wool thing. You see, I got a pair of boots from a thrift store that were brand new, unworn, wool-lined, ugly as all get out, but I am in love! Love, I tell you! They are definately suppossed to be fake Uggs, if you know about Uggs. But instead of being that light beige color that the cool Uggs from 3 (4?) years ago were, these are like a warm carmely color. Uggs are about 100 dollars and people say they are the most comfortable thing they ever wore. I read the tabloids, yessiree, I go to the long line on purpose at Kroger just to catch up, Im not ashamed--and I read all about the celebs saying that you wear them (Uggs) barefoot, as wool has all these natural properties that prevent ANY bacterial growth---no stinky feet, no sweaty feet! The trend started when folks wore them on the slopes of Aspen or what have you (well not ON the slopes, but probably in the chalet haha) and then it was just cool to wear them. Huge things, almost moon-boots. Ghastly. Comfy. I knew I wanted some in a way, but too much money. Now Uggs has all sorts of other popular styles beyond that big beige moon boot, but who cares, they are too expensive.

I ramble. Back to my fake Uggs. They have no brand on them anywhere. I dont know what propelled me to slip them on in the thrift store. But when I did, POOF! Huh? This is a legitamate shoe? This feels like some insane slipper with a big Garfield head on it from like 6th grade christmas! I think I need these! But they are so hideous! I look like....a cowboy? A Rodeo person? Napoleon? Well all I know is POOF felt soooo good---So I bought them, becasue I need boots, mostly. I havent owned a pair of boots since before I was married, and the few times I have to walk in deep snow I have just worn shoes and gotten over it! Rediculous, right?

Once I got home, I did the barefoot thing. My foot started to get warm, warmer, hot! But not sweaty! Warm dry heat--it is so crazy. They do not smell! I wear them all day now, I put them on at 7am and take them off at 10 pm or later! Fresh and soft and I am HOOKED. I want wool socks wool tights wool blankets and wool underwear. I want a wool hat and wool mittens! I want wool flip-flops (they make them! very dorm room looking but hey I dig that)

Wool is cool in my book.

as always, hair

2007-01-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

So, I am growing my hair. I am growing it super long. I say this and then it looks super ugly and I cut it. But this time is different and I'll tell you why: I am getting to be an old house fairy! A little bit old...I feel that I don't have too many years left in which I will not be a complete fool if I have long hair in two braids with baby-bangs. UNLESS...I get this look right now and just stick with it! THEN i will be Joy That One Girl With The Long Long Hair In Those Braids, you know, the one who always has it green, blue, purple, she has had her hair like that FOREVER, I cant imagine it any other way...

See?

So right now, it is dyed dark brown, the bottom is hopelessly shaggy and screwed up, but I put it into two little tiny ponytails. I have little bangs which keep me sane and keep my look vaguely a look. I do not know if they are here to stay (the bangs) but for now they really help!