My hat...

COVID, COVID, everywhere.

Think I'll just destroy my hair.

This pandemic has been just...awesome. Babe has been working from home since March...last year. He first planted himself on the couch in the living room, but we home school and live here all day, so he made his office in the classroom (did I mention we home school?) and just recently moved into a bedroom that had earlier been vacated by another of our children because she's nineteen and that's enough of a reason. Thankfully, I really like that guy, so it only annoys when he snaps at us (as much as Babe ever snaps) if we get too loud, which happens sometimes because, and I can't stress this enough, we home school and also live here. 

As a result of the way we were already living our lives, the pandemic and resulting shut down of all the things hasn't been as traumatic for us as it has been for the rest of America. My kids continued their educational pursuits without needing to transition from anywhere, but the classroom to the kitchen. See above paragraph for reference.

I decided the best way to treat COVID fever (not the actual virus) was to experiment with my hair, and have done so with reckless abandon. I've pinked it, blued it, blonded it, pinked it again, silver toned it, blue silver toned it (for Ennie's wedding) and then copper-toned it. I've loved every iteration of my lovely locks, but this treatment has caused a lot of damage, as you can well imagine. Thus I have made it a point to keep it well managed.

It ain't cheap to fiddle with one's hair if one desires to keep said hair locked onto one's noggin, so I was getting the work done by competent individuals, because I know what I am and it ain't competent. So, because I sometimes make poor decisions, and hadn't made one in a while, I decided to get my hair cut at a place that shall remain nameless because 1. I'm embarrassed I sunk so low and 2. They should be embarrassed by what they did to my hair.

The air head who cut my hair had a far away look and was humming to herself for the duration of my hair cut. Why didn't I stop her, you ask? Because sometimes you have to trust the process. This was not one of those times. 

When she "finished" the cut, she asked what I thought. I showed her the picture of the cut I had asked for. Note that this:

Does not look like this:

Not even a little bit, yet she seemed to think it was spot on. She called her manager over and this lady must have suffered from the same myopia because she seemed confused by my insistence that no, it wasn't the cut I wanted. No one in their right mind would ask for this on purpose.

The manager apologized and said she would comp my haircuts until it grew back. Jokes on her, I'm NEVER going back because I have learned my lesson.

I slunk back to my hair dresser and asked her to do what she could to fix the mess on my head. The photo above is what she was able to fix. There were long pieces and short pieces and pieces that I'm still trying to grow out and this happened in October. 

While I appreciated what my hair dresser was able to accomplish, it was still not cute, so I decided to make a hat...some hats. I made so many hats.

I wore a hat every day for months. 

It's nine months later and my hair still isn't long enough for the the style I wanted, but at least it doesn't look like I've got a raging case of the mange anymore. Lesson learned and little victories are still victories. Email me if you would like me to make you a hat. I still have plenty of yarn.

Musing...

I've been reading a lot of opinion pieces or "news" lately, and I've decided if other people can post unverified, inflammatory or 100% wrong swill, then I can too. And if I write enough fluff and foolishness, maybe some of those new sites will find my writing "hard hitting" and "on the nose" (whose nose by the way?). Maybe they will be so enamored by my ability to write farce with a straight face, they'll be beating down my virtual door! Then, I can be a freelance writer. Heck, I won't even have to proofread (I'll be starting right now) because if they aren't interested in fact who the heck even cares about misspellings, poor grammar or proper formatting. Even if I wasn't a grammar Nazi (and I'm not) my little pea-pickin English lovin' heart has clutched the pearls so often I'm afraid to wear jewelry. 

Anyone who knows me knows I have opinion to spare, so why not get paid to spew? Does anyone out there care what I think?

No, but why should I let that stop me? 

Hey There Stranger...

 I know it's been a while since I posted, but maybe some one is still out there, eager to hear my newest tale. Let's get started shall we...

 On July 4th, Babe took Miney and Moe out to see the fireworks. They stopped along a bridge with approximately 700 other people to watch said fireworks. I didn't go because I didn't want to. About an hour after they'd left, Babe calls me up to ask if "I'd heard". To which I replied, "heard what?"

"We've been in an accident," he tells me.

Fabulous.

But it gets so so much better. Babe was parked facing South. Dude comes up the road headed North and just wandered to the other side of the road. He hit our car in the back passenger door and because my daughter is ten feet tall, her head grazes the ceiling at all the times and she hit the window, causing a slight concussion. Dude being the gem he is, tries to drive away, but his car was busted too, so he got out of his car and jumped the railing! Dude straight up ran away. Also, the car had paper tags...that were expired.

Captain A$$hole's Stolen (probably) Car

Heartbroken Babe's car.

I hopped in our Teenmobile and rushed out to pick them up. The police showed up, a wrecker or two showed up, people gawked as they passed and weren't terribly concerned about there being minimal space on the road with a wrecked car on either side because apparently there is only one way in and out of Fort Worth and this was it.

Now, I'm not angry about the car. No one got too badly hurt, we have insurance and it's just a car. However, I am nursing a new kind of irritation over the whole thing that I am going to call General Ineptitude or How To Have Someone Else Do Your Job.

It starts like this. Babe called on Monday to find out what was happening with the repair estimate on the car. He is told it's probably about 10K. The next day, the total is higher. Yesterday, he calls again and they tell him they haven't even had a chance to look the car over. So where did those first two estimates come from? He asks if they've includes the damage to the interior. Guy apparently hadn't even considered checking the interior. Babe helped Guy do his job.

Babe has also been following up with the police department. First, they can't find the police report. Then, they find the report, but explain that it has been rejected from the system because of some error. The police department then invites Babe to call the officer and let her know the file was rejected. Seriously? The officer in question works nights and doesn't have a voice mail. I beg Babe not to tell them about the voicemail for fear they will ask him to set one up for her because we're having other people do our jobs these days.

Then he contacts the detective...

Listen, I know no one is perfect and we all have off days, but this has crossed the threshold from ridiculous to enraging. Just do YOUR job. It's one thing to follow up, it's another thing entirely if you can't be bothered to inform your employee of a mistake in her report so instead ask the customer to inform your employee of the mistake in her report. Who does that?! 

Well, three of the companies involved in this accident, that's who.

The New Guy...

My oldest, Eenie, got married this year. For the sake of privacy, the man she has married shall ever more be referred to as B-Mo in this blog. I may also call him B-Mo in real life as B-Mo is a character in Adventure Time and I love that show. 

So Ennie and B-Mo married in March and we had a lovely reception in our back yard. I planted lots of flowers and the grass was a lovely shade of green. The weather was wonderful and it was just a really nice end to a days long activity.

See Eenie and B-Mo wanted to get married in San Antonio. Thus the Thursday before the ceremony, the bride's peeps (that would be us) drove out to San Antonio where we stayed the night. Friday morning was spent primping and prepping, then the ceremony was performed that afternoon. We are Latter Day Saints or Mormons, so the marriage was performed in the temple there. Thanks to COVID, only five from each side could attend the actual ceremony while the rest waited outside. 

The guests who waited outside were some serious troopers, I tell ya. They drove for four hours even though they knew they would have to wait outside. I've never felt such love for my family as those people showed us that day. 

After the ceremony we spent hours and hours and days posing for pictures before the sweet release of dinner, which our new son's parents graciously hosted. Then, we drove home one passenger lighter because Eenie wanted to stay with that guy she'd married. Poo. 

We got back to the house late Friday night then spent the next morning setting up for the reception. Some things I learned through this process:

1. Renting tables and chairs can be pricey, but sometimes it's better to pay the money to avoid the aggravation of finding the time and resources to pick up and drop off those same items from a third location. Thankfully, that last minute revelation didn't bite me in the butt, and I was able to rent the items we needed just in time. 

Aren't they just adorable?!

2. One basically agrees to surrender one's entire house to the wedding for months before, and a solid month after, the event. Those cute cupcake towers and punch bowels do not store themselves. We were very fortunate to have had everything basically handed to us by a woman whose daughter was married over ten years ago. Those bins of lights and tablecloths have fulfilled the purpose of their existence many, many times, and a super bonus is they have already moved to the next family in need of wedding décor. Huzzah!

3. Just rent the dang tent. You can buy one for what it costs to rent one, but it's made of toilet paper and bread ties. The money is gone anyway, so do yourself a favor and fork over the dough.

4. Be prepared to have food and drink coming out of your ears for at least two weeks after the party has ended. We still have bacon wrapped jalapenos in the freezer. I've heard it's better to have too much than not enough. That's what they say, but I'm still not sure. 

5. My mother in law is a SAINT. Marriage is an adjustment and not just for the happy couple. Sometimes, I draw blood for biting my tongue so hard. I can only imagine how frustrating it had to be my own mother in law. DFD, I am so sorry for sometimes making things harder than they needed to be. I hate to break it to all the young people out there, but you've only been adulting for a handful of years. Try to remember that when you think you know all the things. 

So now I have achieved the rank of mother in law. It could be worse...for B-Mo.

Muahahahaha!

Aren't we just adorable?!