Hackers

This morning, filled with despair over the current state of my hair, I grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped several inches off the length.  I don’t think I did too bad of a job, and besides, my hair is very curly.  I can get away with uneven.

It made me recall though, a haircut years ago, when Amy was a baby, and I guess I’d read too many articles about the ease of super short hair for busy moms.  My hair was shoulder length at the time, and I figured that getting a pixie cut would be just about as easy care as I could get.  Are you sure?  My hairdresser asked, with deeply furrowed brow.  I assured her with a confident Yes! as visions of my cute pixie cut self-now transformed into the coolest mom on the block-ran through my head.

By the end of the haircut, I was probably in shock.  The paramedics may even have been called.  I don’t remember.  Everything is a blur now, as it was then.  Leaving the shop, I fought to keep the tears at bay, my pace brisk in hopes of getting home as quickly as possible before running  into someone that I knew.  And as for the haircut freeing me up to be super mom?  Hardly.  I must have spent hours in front of the mirror, trying to figure out a way to salvage what was left of my hair, and my self esteem, while Amy screamed for attention in the back ground.

Luckily, bad haircuts grow out.

So I think I did ok after all today, playing beauty parlor at home.  I’m writing this, instead of standing in front of the mirror, obsessing over the damage I’ve inflicted on myself.  But tell me.  What was your epically worst haircut ever?

 

Technorati Tags: bad haircuts,motherhood

Ship Out!

Well, not exactly!  Don’t worry, my dear readers, you don’t really have to enlist.  The kind of fighting I’m talking about is the fight to replace plastic grocery bags.

To help do that, I’ve sewn these two reusable shopping bags. 

 

You can see them both here. 

MAN OVERBOARD!    (Just kidding…)  Happy Wednesday!

The Best Ever

I can still remember the way they tasted.  Sweet.  Sour.  And deliciously crisp.  No matter that I had to watch out for the occasional worm.  Small and green, with peels a tad on the tough side, they were hands down the best apples I’d ever had. 

The old apple tree,  standing just a pace or two away from the back porch steps at my grandmother’s house, must have been planted decades earlier.   Now gnarled and stooping with age,  it was still bearing fruit.   That I could simply waltz out to the back yard and pick some of that fruit whenever I pleased never ceased to be a novel experience.  It’s not that I’d never seen an apple tree before, or picked apples for that matter.  It was the idea that my grandmother had her very own apple tree.

Where we live now, we too have our very own ancient back yard apple tree-gnarled, and stooping as much as my grandmother’s tree did.  Though I don’t know what kind of apple tree it is, the apples are just as sweet, just as sour, and just as deliciously crisp. Occasional worms, and peels a tad on the tough side-our apples have those too.

I know new varieties of apple trees come along all the time, in the quest to make a better apple. Granted, some of those apples are pretty good, with their thinner skins, bigger sizes and absence of worms.  But our apple tree is like an old familiar friend.  Blossoming in the spring, and quietly going about its task of making apples while we go about our own garden tasks of planting and weeding and watering.  And when fall starts to creep in, and the garden begins to die back in preparation for winter-leaving us feeling melancholy that another summer is ending, our apple tree beckons us with a sweet promise, just as my grandmother's apple tree beckoned me.

Come have an apple!  The best you’ve ever had!

Technorati Tags: apples,apple trees,childhood memories,gardens,gardening,grandmothers

Wildfires. Enough is Enough.

First there was the Taylor Bridge Wildfire last August.  It destroyed dozens of homes and millions of dollars worth of property.  While the fire was eventually contained, it is still burning.  And now this area is being devastated by the Table Mountain Wildfire which was sparked September 8th when severe lightening storms moved through the area.  The outlook is bad, too.  Dry lightening is predicted for this weekend, and there is no rain in the forecast for the next seven to ten days.  Adding fuel to this fire as well, so to speak, is that it’s burning the very forests that we visited when my niece was here-I remember seeing many, many, dead trees, victims of the spruce bud worm and pine beetle.  Trees that are now providing a huge amount of “firewood.”

I read yesterday that the Table Mountain  Wildfire is now burning roughly 30,000 acres and that the plumes of smoke billowing into the atmosphere have reached as high as 40,000 feet.  Once again, lives and property are in peril.

Here in town, air quality is consistently classified as being in the extremely hazardous zone, and while it’s unsafe and highly inconvenient for us, I worry about the firefighters who are out there on the fire lines.  They are suffering from exhaustion, frustration, and the overwhelming uphill battle to contain this fire. And in the worst kind of news, sadly, last Monday, a firefighter died.

In an effort to continue helping, I’m extending my 20% Etsy shop donation through October, with the money I raise going toward fire fighter relief-buying supplies like bottled water and high energy snacks. 

Our local fairgrounds, where just a few short weeks ago we were all having fun.  Now it’s a base camp for firefighters so that they have a place to rest, eat and get away for a while.

Now, if I could only donate some rain and snow.

Avast, Me Hearties

 

Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

This day, not only do me mark th' passage 'o another year 'o me life, but this day be also international speak like a scurvy pirate day. Either way, a scowl 'n an arrrrr be in order. If ye’d like to spy wit' ye eye ye moniker translated into a scurvy pirate moniker, ye can take 'tis quiz. I guarantee it be pretty silly, but I like me moniker fer this day!

http://www.piratequiz.com/

After ye take th' quiz, then be tellin' me what ye moniker be if ye like, me bucko!

Mad Mary Flint

Fresh Air

I have to admit that I’ve been in a bit of a funk today, sad to see the weekend come to an end.  Amy and I had so much fun together.  We canned peaches, made soup, and even went shopping to pick out a few Halloween decorations.

The thing is, I love my daughter.  And not only that, I really enjoy being around her.  I’ve heard that it’s common for kids this age to prefer the company of just about anyone other than their parents.  But not Amy.  We get along as companionably as those two peas in a pod.

Amy is a junior this year.  Next year she’ll graduate, and leave the nest.  And after having her at home for more than 18 years, it’s going to be a huge adjustment.  True, the day she does leave for college is still well into the future, but sometimes the thought of it overwhelms me.  Like today.

Not long ago, I found the following quote by Ann Frank:

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

I went out into my garden this morning and really took the time to appreciate the flowers that are in bloom-like my chrysanthemums.  I love that mums seem to be everywhere this time of year, because they are nothing short of spectacular.  What would fall be without them?

Ann Frank was a very remarkable young woman, and at the time of her death at the tender age of 16, she already possessed more wisdom than some of us gain in a lifetime.  It makes me so sad to know that during the last years of her life she was denied the remedy of  peace and comfort she wrote about.  There is so much truth in her words.

Happy Monday, dear readers!

A Reminder

I love this quote by Sailor Jerry, legendary American tattoo artist known for his high standards regarding his own work. 

No matter what your art or craft, calling or vocation-don’t ever doubt the importance of who you are and what you do.  

Have a great weekend, dear readers!