All the Hair Angst in the World . . .

I've been thinking about my hair lately. A lot. Because hair sucks. And the real problem isn't even that hair sucks it's that changing your haircut/style sucks. Because you aren't just making a decision that will affect your life right now, you have to live with what you do to it. Unless you are rich and can afford to have extensions put in if you chop all your hair off and you don't like it? Sucks for you. And you decide to grow it out for whatever reason you have to live with it in all it's awkward stages.

I love Facebook. But I hate it. Sometimes it's really useful and awesome and you can share exciting news with everyone at once and you can keep in touch with people that you might otherwise never talk to, but other times you want people's opinions and they don't take you seriously. Like today. When I wanted hair ideas. My uncle suggested a mohawk. Typical of him really. Actually that would probably be fairly typical of any of my uncles. They are just cool like that. Another friend gave me a one word suggestion, "bald." Really? My problem with these suggestions are such: 1) Am I that suggestible? Does it just take a one word suggestion of some outlandish idea for me to even consider? No reasoning? No "and here's why" ? Not that I have never considered the bald look, or even the mohawk. But I've ruled them out long ago because a mohawk is more work than I spend on my hair now, and I have a funny shaped head so if I were bald it would probably be all lumpy or something. And some people CAN pull off the bald look. Even some women. But it's not usually a look of choice. I'll wait until I have cancer for that one, thank you very much. 2) Sometimes, however small a percentage of the time, I want to be taken seriously. Considering how much I think about my hair, this is one of those times.

My biggest problem is that I think I should just be able to roll out of bed, throw on some clothes and just look fan-freakin'-tastic. I want hair that will let me do that. But I also want something ridiculously fun. The problem is that low maintenance haircuts tend to start getting boring after a while. At least, the ones I've had have.

I'm tired of hair angst. It just never goes away. Either it's there to tell me I need a change, or it's there to tell me I need a trim, or it's there to tell me that no matter what I do to my hair it's always gonna be blah (which isn't true, because I've had many a blah free hair day, but hair angst just gets you down).

I'd actually like to try a fauxhawk-able look, but I wonder if I can pull it off. Will it be too short? Will it draw attention to or away from my overweight figure? (Don't lie to me, I know it's there). Will Darrel sequester me to the closet to live the next year in shame while it grows out? (This is unlikely, he might pout though).

Right now I catch myself thinking about the scissors in the bathroom drawer. My bangs are too long and are irritating my eyes. I decided that if I keep my hair long my bangs need to grown out because they are all weird (from me trimming them myself and trimming more of my hair than are supposed to be bangs), but I can't stand the hair in my eyes on top of my allergies. It's just too much! But I know either I'll get the scissors and go to town and then realize what I've done, or Darrel will catch me in the act and I'll be in trouble (like a child). I've also thought about the hair clippers and how easy it would be to just make all the hair go away. See, I have thought about bald . . .

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for . . .

Ok, so i know I've mentioned that at some point there was going to be this totally epic post about the bed I made, but first I have to give credit where credit is due. I owe thanks for the plan idea to ana-white.com. I owe a ton of thanks to my dad for letting me use his tools and for his general knowledge and help with the actual construction. And I owe a ton of thanks to my mom who did the majority of the painting.

Ok, so basically for the first 6 or so months of our marriage Darrel and i slept on a mattress and boxspring on the floor. Initially i figured I would shell out the $25-$50 for a metal bedframe and just call it good. But then I got inspired by Ana White and her building designs and figured for $150 plus some good old-fashioned elbow grease I could make a headboard/footboard and it would look amazing and last.

Here's a picture documentary of the process:

My beautiful lumber. This was obviously the most expensive part of the project-around $120

After the majority of the cuts have been made.

The main part of the footboard assembled.

The main part of the headboard assembled.

Headboard and footboard assembled!

And painted!

Here's the bed during the practice assembly. The bed had to be completely assembled and then taken apart to be transported from my parents house to our apartment.

And last but not least: Completed Farmhouse Bed!

So yeah, pretty crazy awesome. I figure if I'd actually had the time and energy to be working on this project without distraction it could have easily been completed within 3 days (aside from the painting). As it was it took a 2-3 months because I could only work on it when I wasn't working. Also, since I'm just learning at this, I only worked when my dad was close at hand to answer questions or to show me how to do something. I would say that after doing this project I'm a lot more comfortable using power tools.

If I can do it you can do it! Here's to not spending a fortune on having a well-furnished house! Buying a bed like this would have easily cost at least 10 times more than what I spent on it.

Chaos

My office is a mess and I can't find the cord that goes to my camera so I can upload photos. This is seriously putting a cramp in my blogging plans.

But I just watched this video which made my day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XID_W4neJo

but what made my day more is the fact that I've been married for 6 months to the most amazing guy ever! Yay!

Why I don't post as often as I should

I feel like stuff that I post here should be more epic. Like it should show that I'm actually doing something instead of just sitting around on facebook or sleeping in whenever possible or something. I don't know.

And I keep thinking that my next post is going to be about this totally awesome project I've been working on since July or August, but that project keeps taking longer than I think it should so I keep procrastinating putting anything here.

I'm building a bed. Or rather a bed frame/headboard/footboard thing. Everything except the boxspring and mattress. I found the plans here. And I keep thinking, oh it's almost done I should be able to post something. But it's not. It's definitely closer to being done and progress is being made at a faster rate than usual, but it's not done :(

The other problem is that this project is the first step in a chain reaction to getting our apartment in working order. The bed needs to be done so the room can be arranged and so the extra stuff in the office can be put under the bed so I can organize the office so I can work on my quilts/sewing projects so I can stop living in chaos and de-stress.

Luckily, or sadly, the reason this project is going faster now is because my mom's been very motivated to help me so my stuff can be out of her house so she and my dad can tear out and completely redo their kitchen so that my mom can finally be happy with her house.

It's all hinging on this one project. I'm tired, and I want it done. NOW.

It's All In Your Head Mr. Tweedy . . .

I am experiencing some moderate back pain. It's something that I've had before but not quite to this extent, since typically it tapers off after a couple days and this is currently my 3rd week and counting.

It's lower back pain, and off to one side and bad enough my husband made me see the doctor about it. Which was a hassle for the most part, but I did it because seeing me miserable was making him miserable, and I don't like for him to be unhappy. And the doctor gave me meds for it :)

Anyway, that's not really the story here. The story is that I think this is all in my head. For the past 6 months work has been a nightmare. From the pharmacy manager quiting to two lead technicians quitting to the more tolerable pharmacist quitting it's gotten to be a more than a little hectic.

After months of pharmacists-on-the-go and management being temporarily taken over by not the most organized of pharmacists we finally got a new manager . . . and that's when things started really getting bad.

What I'm saying is, I dread going to work. I hate it. I go and I'm mad about how crazy and stupid things are and then I come home and obsess about how crazy and stupid things were. My dreams are filled with scheduling nightmares and insurance company phone calls, and once images of our disorderly file box exploding from the volume of unsorted papers being stuffed into it.

But here's the kicker, yesterday, my back didn't hurt a bit. It was one of my days off, and I was just enjoying spending time with my hubby. Then about 5pm rolled around and I started thinking about the next day and every so slightly my back twinged a little, that twinge gradually grew into a steady dull ache, and by this morning it was back to it's lovely stabbing pain at any twist, turn, or bend.

I just don't think I should have to deal with both the crappy work situation and a sore back. And since the back doesn't seem to be going anywhere . . .

Stumbling Block

Yesterday, I mentioned something to my husband about it being September 11th. He responded with "so? all that 'never forget' crap is just stupid," which kind of startled me at first, but then really got me thinking about things.

Once I got over the initial "what??" moment of his comment, it actually kind of made sense. What exactly are we remembering?

Are we striving not to forget the people that died that day? Or are we dwelling on the violent, hateful, evil act that caused all those deaths? When we think about that day to we remember the images of the planes crashing into the buildings, or do we think about the courage of the people on Flight 93 that attempted to and, at least in part, succeeded to thwart the terrorists plans? It seems that generally the focus is a negative one.

I believe that in most situations, our inability to move on only serves to handicap us. When someone offends us, focusing on the slight only makes us unhappy and spiteful. And obsessing over something we have no control over will only make us crazy. Though this was an intentional act meant to strike us to our core, it is not that different. Our negative focus has only served to create an abundance of misplaced distrust and even hatred of a culture and system of beliefs, who are likely just as horrified by the actions of the extremist groups that are truly to blame. Dwelling on the past only makes it easier to stumble and fall because we aren't looking where we are headed; to the future.

Dark Secrets

I collect dark secrets.

Not my own of course. That would be weird, I mean, how many dark secrets can one person have? When that person is me, not very many. What I'm talking about ties into this post that I wrote over two years ago. Apparently, in addition to asking me for advice about various subjects, people also like to tell me their dark secrets.

I know so much about people it's scary. I fear for my life. One of these days someone is going to do something really bad and then tell me and then they are going to change their mind about wanting me to know it. And then I'll have to make a break for it. Because even though I've taken self-defense classes twice, I know that I would lose in a fight against most people. Especially if they are someone I care about in any way. I would tell you where I plan on escaping to, but then I'd have to come up with a whole new plan because you'll know exactly where to look for me.

I have a talent for attracting confessions of past misdeeds. Or just plain regular lesser known details of people's lives. In fact, telling people that I have this bizarre gift seems to inspire more dark confessions. I don't know what to do. I should write a book. "Eris Tells All: a collection of unknown facts of the people around me" by Eris, Goddess of Discord. I could make millions! bwahahaha!

Ok, so probably not. Sorry, but even if I had the time and the guts to put together such a book, I don't think people would really be interested in buying it. Someone spilling someone else's secrets just brings to mind the tabloids at the check-out counter. Most of it could be denied. I have no proof about most of these things. Nothing would hold up in court. It's much more entertaining when someone decides to spill all about their own hidden lives. And in all honesty, there's not much I could write about on that.

How would that even go?

I ate those Hershey bars that you put in the freezer mom. Years ago. Matt helped me. Sorry Matt, but I'm not going down alone on this one.