New Art at the Shop

The birdhouse lamp I finally got around to decorating...

...love Black Apple soooo much that I made a little banner of her art...

...some new, some re-runs just waiting for the perfect adoption situation. Thanks for looking!!!

And...

Oh, and I played with the deck more this year than usual.

Before and after, part 2975

I started on this "porch thing" about 5 years ago by campaigning for a new one when I saw ours was rotting. The last 2 years I've been pointing and begging and threatening to cut off the rails.

When there was snow still on the ground we made a list of things we were going to fix in the spring. The porch was at the top of the list. Okay, some of us know that when you make the largest investment of money in your life you're going to have to maintain it. Some people like to buy quality and be done; it's nice enough to stay that way forever. I can show you the car later if you don't believe me. Spring comes and we have our builder-turned-home-improvement-contractor come by and give us separate quotes for all we want/need to have done. Front porch, awnings (the upstairs cooks, Paul's dad freezes in the basement), fixing the dropping driveway, replacing the broken outside water valve, replace the burned out attic fan. I didn't even push for the new windows we need and would pay for themselves the first year. So far, we did the cheapest-we had the attic fan replaced. It's July. We have no future appointments with Robbie at this time. So, while Paul was gone, I took out my saws-all and took those railings down-yes-the ones rotting and missing pickets like lost teeth and loosing more every day. Paul doesn't like it. Ha! If he doesn't like it he'll can have a new porch put on. ;)

Here it was before. The missing pickets on this side are being hidden bye. the fig tree. Bub, bye.

You've Got Hair

This is not going to be as satisfying as you think but please read anyway. I finally, after THREE YEARS, went to get my hair cut. If you weren't here or forgot, exactly three years ago I accidentally burned (chemically) all the hair off my head. I immediately started wearing wigs. Through the first year I would trim and cut and try to style it to no avail. My hair had grown back but thinner (never thought it could be thinner than what I already'd had all my life) and had changed direction in several places (yes, that can actually happen, usually from chemo or extreme stress or African American Hair Care Products), so I didn't know what to do with it. I used to be a hairdresser and I have cut my own hair most of my adult life. Not that it's right, but I was pretty good at it. This was the first time I had no idea what to do. It was down my shoulders and had not been that long in about 25 years and only two or three times in my life. So I didn't want to go back to the pixie cuts I'd had most of my life. I'm usually in control. This is the first time EVER that I have not come home and redone and recut my hair after someone else has done it. I can't seem to get a good photo of myself with it yet but as soon as I can style it right and get a good pic, I'll post it. I'll just tell you that it's a bob. A BOB! I still have hair I can actually run my fingers through and a hairstyle at the same time-ingenious!

I first got really antsy before my reunion. I mean, if it got screwed up I could always slap a wig on like I did anyway but I knew that making a decision before going was going to skew my thinking, so I waited. I'm also sick of, after 3 years, wearing wigs. Thousands of dollars on them, hundreds wasted on ones I ended up not liking when they came in the mail, not being able to find the ones I liked again. Success in Style has benefitted from my mistakes; at least I can feel somewhat good about that. And it's summer, not Texas summer, but summer no less. When I was bald I didn't feel so bad but when it had grown out I felt more and more like a phony. I always wore really tousled-looking ones so that often even my family (critics) would ask if it was my own hair. Boy, had we all forgotten how little had been up there! It Was Time.

So I had been to this hairdresser once years ago. My friend, Glenda, has gone there for 15 years and she kept "nudging" me to go. They just moved into the most fabulous place. Well, they just decorated a new place fabulously. Seats from airplanes, airplane panels as dividers...I promise I'll take photos next time...too shy to do it the first time. Now, I forgot my receipt so, I don't know how much it was but you know if you get a card for a $20 discount on a haircut for anyone you refer, it's expensive. Thirty years of saving money cutting and coloring my own hair-check. Check, not "right". Paul is going next week. He said, "$20 off!!! I can get a haircut for $10". True, but he needs to have it styled, very different. Twenty something years cutting my kids hair, fifteen years of cutting my husband, his father, and my youngest's hair-check. I think I've earned it. And I like it and I feel kinda normal now! P.S. You know when you get a goodie bag with serious goodies in it, that it's expensive. But I'm worth it.

A Good Plan

I had a great idea...finally! On July 4th I suggested that we go to the mall which is right across the street from the lake where the fireworks are. Go to the mall early and see movies which we've been wanting to see. Then we could eat dinner and walk over to see the fireworks. Otherwise we would have to go almost as early to find a parking space or end up watching them, as every year, from afar. I HAD AN IDEA EVERYONE LOVED. Historical. So I went to see Larry Crowne. Loved it. They should make most movies like that. No bad language, no violence, and very entertaining. We had recently watched Knight and Day on cable and I couldn't believe the gratuitous cussing-rediculous. And it was a pretty good story and movie and could have been PG if they had wanted to. Couldn't they make more money that way? Even PG-13, but I got so tired of hearing it; it was interfering with the regular dialog. Movies should be like Larry Crowne. Soap box, down. Matt and Paul saw Transformers. Matt had seen it but wanted to see it again with his dad; not my cuppa tea. However, my movie got out 45 minutes before theirs so I snuck in and watched a lot of it. It was okay except when we got up to go afterwards I suddenly felt something soaked through to my skin on my rear end. How I didn't feel it at the time I have no idea because it went through my pants and undies to my skin. Eeeeewwww. Of course, the first thing I thought, after ewe, was new shorts! And, yes, the mall was closed. So I had to live with it through another 1 1/2 hour as a sacrifice to see the fire crackers. Other than that it was great for all!

The fireworks were much nicer that these cheesy photos I took. I just wanted some sort of record but my camera is old and doesn't adjust well to different lighting. Sound familiar?