My Mop

My hair grows fast - it always has.  Since high school, I have let it grow long for a while, then I chop it all off and donate it to a hair charity.  Or I think about selling my hair and let it sit in a box for a while while  I dream of all the money I'll make, and then I send it to a hair charity.

I've always gotten lots of comments and questions about how I can get it to grow so well.  Unfortunately, I don't have any good answers, since it kind of grows all by itself.  I have no hair elixirs or magic tonics - just the thick, fast-growing hair my mom and dad blessed me with.  They each had a pretty good head of hair so I know where it comes from.

Mostly, it grows so long because I am too lazy to get it cut often.  I've tried it short (like every few years when I chop it off), but it grows quickly enough that I'd have to go to the hairdresser every couple or three weeks, or it loses its shape in a big, messy way.  It's not that I don't like the salon - in fact I have a favorite hair center where I go (maybe yearly?) that I love.  Mostly because the hairdresser has known me since I was a wee little girl, because she loved my mother, and that Trent and I met because of that hair place.  Not getting my hair cut often, on the other hand, is cheaper and easier.  That's the win right there!

When we bought our fixer-upper house this spring, I vowed I'd cut my hair off because I knew it would get in the way.  And it did, but I just didn't want to take the time out to 1) figure out what kind of a style I wanted, and 2) actually go to the salon.  So I put up with it.  And put it up a lot.  Yes, I did almost dip the end of my braid in the paint can multiple times.  Yes, I did get stuck a few times when my hair wrapped itself around a raw piece of lumber.  Yes, it did get full of dust and sheetrock mud.  But I bought a couple of Flexi-clips, and they were amazing!  I've never found anything that would hold up my heavy hair consistently and without pulling, but I am totally sold on these clips.  No product affiliation or anything, just an ever-so-happy customer.  And they are so pretty!

Anyway, I still have my long hair, and it's still attached to my head.  It was my Halloween costume this year. - we were Adam and Eve.  Actually, it was a reprise from last year, but hey, if you have a costume this easy, why not?  I did Lady Godiva for part of the time too, and handed out chocolates.

I do love my long hair, but it does tend to get in the way.  Like when I get in a car - I always close some of my hair in the door.  Or buckle it into the seat belt.  How about when you unbuckle your seat belt and the belt gets retracted back into the... wherever it goes... and it sucks some of your hair down there, too?  Love it.

I tuck my hair into my pants.  When I get dressed and pull a shirt over my head, I can't just flip the hair out of my shirt.  It takes three or four pulls to get it all out.  I've started zipping my hair into the fly on my jeans.  If I put on a coat over my hair, I'm frozen like that and can't move my head.  And static!  Oh, it's bad.  I'll zap everyone in the room at the same time if my hair starts getting big and charged.  Which is all winter long.

We won't talk about how really long hair is a liability in the bathroom.  Let's just say that I love my Flexi-clips and they are really, really fast at making and holding up a bun.  Because sometimes you need to be fast.  Showering, on the other hand, takes forever.  I can't roll over in bed because I'm laying on my hair.  Sometimes I can't roll over because Trent is laying on my hair.  Hair gets stuck in your armpits or wraps around your body, especially if it is wet.  The hair, not the armpit.

And the vacuum hates me.  There is always shed hair on the floor and it winds around your toes as you walk across the room.  I've never had hair this long, and it is pretty interesting to see how it is like a toddler and gets into everything.

But I like it.  It's flowy and feminine.  It keeps me warm in the winter - like wearing my very own fur coat.  And it's pretty.  The bottom of the braid is still beautifully brown, which is more than I can say for the hairs sprouting out closer to my head.  My hair is a beautifully fun accessory that I can do differently every day.  It's part of me, part of my identity.  One day I'll cut it, but for today, it's in a really cool 4-strand braid.  And I found a new bun I want to try for tomorrow!

Dirty Dishes

Oh, I have a lot to say about last week's DesignMom feature!  I still can't believe that they really wanted to feature my house - my family.  I'm pinching myself.

I had so much fun with the photo shoot.  A friend came over and helped me scoot chairs and plump pillows and remove clutter and laugh.  Mostly, it's laughing that what is normally an every-day scene can be dolled up into a fancy-pants fashion photo.  It was so satisfying to see the inherent wonderfulness in my life - the beauty that I'm usually too busy to acknowledge.

A night or two later, I was headed to bed, trying my best to ignore the whisperings of the dirty dishes on the counter.  I really shouldn't leave them until morning, I know.  Not just because of flies and the health department, but mostly because my sweet husband does breakfast and a messy kitchen makes him crazy.  I appreciate that he takes the morning shift and I don't want him to have angst that early!

I was so tired, though!  I walked back to the bedroom with the image of the stack of soup bowls and piles of dirty spoons still flitting around in my head.  I'm grateful for those dishes.  It's a testimony that my family was well-fed tonight.  Before I could climb into bed, I just had to grab my camera and head back to the kitchen.  It only took a moment or two to grab the shot (and then I went to bed anyway).

The next day, I was looking through the raw files, getting ready to crop and edit the pictures to the format DesignMom wanted.  There, with all the pretty pictures was the shot of the dirty dishes, awkwardly hanging around the cheerleaders like a seventh grader with braces.  Oh yeah, that was me.

I don't know why I included that late-night picture.  I was sure they wouldn't use it in the article.  It wasn't prepped, it wasn't pretty, no natural light...who wants to see my dirty dinner dishes?

It's part of our life, and they included the picture in the home feature.  I gasped when I saw it, then bubbled up with giggles.  Really??

I guess we don't need to look that hard to find beauty in our lives.  Dirty dishes and all.

Easter Ants

I was too tired to do a big Easter this year.  I didn't do Passover or Easter egg hunts or coloring eggs or even Easter dinner (we had Easter tacos).  Trent, remembering the big Easter celebrations of his childhood, put together some Easter baskets for the kids with random stuff he had on hand.  I am always amused to see what random stuff he can pull out of his sneaky hiding places!  I did get Angel a new dress, because they were at the store and she is so cute.  After church and before we started getting dirty making Easter tacos (I think that should be a new tradition... wait, Sunday tacos IS our tradition), I pulled one of the boys outside to take a quick snapshot of our Easter dresses.

We posed for about 20 seconds before we realized we were standing in an ant nest and they were crawling all over our legs.

Yup, that's how holidays seem to go down around here!

Meeting the Queen

I heard her voice before I saw her.  It was husky and low, but surprisingly gentle, like she had just spent the past 17 hours crooning lullabies to a nursery full of colicky babies.  I turned the corner and she was the one waiting for me, helping me. Helping me!  I had a nearly irresistible urge to help her, to wait on her, to peel her some grapes.

This woman is 108!  I'd love to hear her stories.

She was short and stocky, her perky head sitting atop her shoulders like a queen on her throne.  I'm not sure she even had a neck.  Her short, white hair was in precise curls around her head, and I'm sure not a hair dared to be out of place.  Her face was full of wrinkles and her perfectly lipsticked mouth was tight and prim, but her eyes sparkled and smiled.  She did not gesture with her hands, but with her head.  I was mesmerized watching it bob and point as she spoke.

The thing that really got me was her clipped British accent.  No, that was the first thing.  After that, I was in awe at how firm her words were, but how kind the tone.  I wanted to hug her and beg her to love me - but I knew she already did.

I've met many women like her, beautifully seasoned ladies wearing their gorgeous silken robes of wisdom.  The world may pass them by, smiling condescendingly at their un-Botoxed faces, to their own detriment.  These women of experience know.  They know the good and the bad of the world, of humanity, of human nature.  And the best of them have learned how to love anyway.  In spite of, or maybe because of it all.

It makes me want to get old so I can be like that.

Mission Monday

I love Monday mornings.  I really do.  I wake up slowly (because I am not a hop-out-of-bed-at-first-light kind of person, because Trent kindly takes care of that job for me), pry my eyelids open, and reach for my tablet.  Then I get to lay in bed and read precious letters from my boys.  No, I got that backwards.  Letters from my precious boys.  Love the letters, but I love the boys more.  This morning I got a new surprise - a connection with the mother of Ben's new companion.  Now I can let more stories and pictures from this new area he's in.  And it's gorgeous.

Fort Dauphin, Madagascar.  From Elder Pinson's blog.  

Anyone want to go in on buying a summer home here?  Man, I think I could live here forever.  What an amazing world the Lord made for us!


From South Africa:

On Wednesday, we had to say goodbye to Elder Si'ufanua. He got the call that he was headed out to go to George. Which call means that there are only going to be two of us here in Paarl now.

I do have to say, that after six weeks of teaching with three missionaries, it is kinda hard to transition back to two. So now it is just back to the two of us here, Elder Castro and I. It is weird to just have one companion now, but that is what is in stock for us now.



And from Madagascar:

Well. Fort Dauphin is cool.  Yeah.

It has like all of my favorite things in one: a beach, nice mountains, jungly stuff, a crazy sweet language, and super awesome people!  Yes, the beach looks good. It especially looks very good when I look out my window in the morning and it's right there.

Any way, have a good week all of you, wherever you're at, and don't forget that Jesus died for you and your family so you can be with them throughout the eternities. It doesn't hurt to be a little more grateful than we usually are.

Perspective

We had some time to kill recently.  Angel, the curious little thing that she is, was quick to find a waterfall and rocks to play in.

It was a little bit windy, but she loved playing in the water.  It was a beautiful day, and I loved watching her excitement.

She found a sparkly rock and wanted me to take a picture of it.  Too bad the sparkles don't show up very well.  I don't know which sparkled more: her rocks or her dancing eyes.

I'm glad she had this time to play while the twins were sleeping in their car seats after a long drive.  Isn't it wonderful how we can find beauty and wonderment anywhere we look for it?  The Lord made an awesome place for us to enjoy, and we ought to.  It was a magical time for her to be in the glory of nature...

... in the middle of a parking lot.  I wish I could be so quick to find the magic and the wonder, and a little less quick to complain about the asphalt or the long wait.  I need an attitude adjustment.

Find Good Things

I've been thinking of product placement.  And Facebook ads.  And Google's new "privacy" policy.  I understand that advertising pays for a lot of what we consider "free."  Like radio.  And search engines.  And this blog.  So I appreciate that.

But for today, I'd like to go back to good-old sharing stories about things without worrying about whether we are holding the label facing outward, or getting compensation or perks from it.  This is not the Truman Show.

Because I'm going to tell you about a few of my favorite things in my medicine cabinet.  These things make my life a little bit better, and I've decided to recognize them and be happy about it.  Too many things are annoying, and make us frown.  Maybe we ought to get in the habit of smiling for good things.

This is my moisturizer - coconut oil.  I feel fancy when I say moisturizer instead of lotion.  I use it on my face and hands and I love it.  It's not slimy or greasy at all.  And it's cheaper than any moisturizer in the beauty department.  More love.

Burt's Bees lip balm is not as cheap as others we have in the house.  But it works, smells nice, and best of all, doesn't taste like chemicals.  I use it all the time - see how the print is worn off the tube?  I have to hide it from the twins, who like to each chapsticks.  Eat the cheap ones, small fry.  Not Mommy's.

This one makes me laugh at myself.  I don't necessarily love this toilet paper.  But I do like the wrapper.  The swirls make me happy.  Maybe one day I'll paint my bathroom in swirls like this.  Then I'd smile every time I went in there.

Just for today, take a look in your cupboards and drawers and notice the products that you really like.  Maybe even smile at them!

More Mirror Happy

What an interesting experiment that was - to look at the lovely parts of my face in the mirror instead of pointing out the flaws.  I can honestly say that I feel just a leetle bit more beautiful today.

My husband's aunt has a marvelous, magical mirror.  It is gorgeous and old and elegant.

It's not this mirror, but it looks a lot like this one.  This is a picture from when Trent and I got married, and down the hall in the middle of that picture is the hallway where the magic mirror lives.

It hangs at the end of a long main floor hallway, so you watch yourself walk all the way down the hall when you have to visit the loo.  But we all love the mirror.  Somehow, it squeezes your image to make you taller and thinner.  I'm sure Aunt's hallway powder room gets more traffic solely for the purpose of seeing ourselves in the mirror.  I've seen groups of women, giggling in front of the mirror.  Oh, if we only really looked like that.

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My full-length mirrors at home, and the reflection on the car, and the plate-glass windows at the store... they all make me look like the image on the left, I'm sure.  Because all I see is my tummy.

That's the tummy that has grown and shrunk and grown and shrunk and accommodated eight different children.  And to me, it still looks pretty stretched out with twin skin.  Because there was a time when my belly needed its own zip code with two small fry in there.  It will never be pre-pubescent flat again.  You know what?  The rest of me will never be pre-pubescent again, either.  And I'm honestly glad about that.

But when all I can see, when I look in the mirror, is the tummy, I miss the rest of me.  Like the waist that is thinner now than it has been for five years.  Like my broad shoulders.  Or my great hair.  Wait, that was yesterday's like.  I can be happy about my hair again today, can't I?

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What part of you is beautiful?  Or wonderful?  Or strong?  Or improving?  Look at that for a change, instead of those trouble areas that we tend to hyper-focus on.

Just for today, look in the mirror and admire something about your body.  It's pretty amazing, all the things it can do.  And smile.

Find the Happy in My Face

So I found my little clicker and used it to count how many times I smiled.  I found that, with the clicker in my hand, I was going out of my way to smile more often.  At first, I thought that might be cheating.  But it's not.  That's the whole point.  Sometimes we have to do things that feel slightly fake before we practice enough to make it second nature.  Not that smiling is a fake thing to do.  We just don't do it as often as we ought to.

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(The only part that might have been a little cheating was stopping a smile so I could smile again and count it as two smiles instead of one long one.  But I only did that when my smiler started wearing out.)  :-)  I got 51 smiles clicked in an hour or two before the clicker got set down somewhere.  It's hard to click and cook at the same time.  Roast clicker for dinner.  Yum.

I still like looking at my smile in my new, shiny mirror.  should have cleaned that a while ago, hmm?  And while I was looking at my happy me, I realized something.

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I am not usually happy when I look in the mirror.  My kids have not become as jaded as I am.  They love to look in the mirror, make faces, laugh, and play.

When I look in the mirror, I am usually looking at that stray lock of hair that is sticking straight up, alfalfa-style.  Or the new zit popping up on my cheek.  Or how tired my eyes look.  Or the new wrinkles that seem to multiply every night.  Oh, I'm getting old.  And one negative glance leads to another, because I can always find bad things to pick out.

Pretty soon, there is no smile.

But there are always good things to pick out, too.  I have fabulously hair.  How often do I think about that?  I have a nice smile.  I really do.  And my lashes are naturally dark.  My ears line up with each other!  And one positive glance can lead to another.  Before I know it, that smile may reappear.

I think we are often looking too hard at what we are not that we don't see how lovely we truly are.

Just for today, every time I look in the mirror, I am going to pick out one thing that is lovely, and smile about it.

Where in the World?

Man, we went all over the place.

In almost 2500 miles, we crossed 10 state lines.  We probably spent 50 hours on the road.  But we made it to Paris.

And Garden City and Green River (in two different states).  Gould and Moriarty.  Opal, Diamondville, Groom, and Mead.  Kirtland, Monticello, Jamestown, and Memphis.  Trinidad!

Cheyenne, Las Vegas, Denver, Albuquerque, Amarillo, and Salt Lake.  We drove the Oregon Trail, Route 66, and the Lincoln Highway.

We saw Rocky Ridge, Mesa Verde, Arches, Castle Rock, Pike's Peak, Signal Mountain, and the Rocky Mountains.  Shamrock, Price, Cache, and Helper.  Victory.  Three Air Force bases, several Army outposts, and a half dozen Indian reservations.  And we visited Sinclair (the town and the gas station).

I love looking at the names of places and wondering how they got them.  History - the real what-happened-to-people-here history, not the names-and-dates-of-rulers-and-wars history fascinates me.  I loved looking at the ghost towns, the deserted homes in the middle of the prairie, the old pioneer trail tracks.  I like to think of who would have wanted to live there.  What were they like?  How did they live?  The empty villages depress Trent.  He thinks I'm crazy that I'd like to camp in one.

Mostly, I loved seeing a different part of the earth.  Mountains, mesas, plains, and flatlands so flat I felt we'd fall off in a few more miles.  Loved it all.

We wrote down a list of "Family Choice Awards" as we went along.

Best Rest Stops: Texas.  Hands down.  I could spend a day just there.
Most Unique Snack: Garden City, ID - pickle sicles
Best Free Stuff: our British neighbors in the Fort Collins, CO campground who had spent weeks touring America in an RV and were giving away all the stuff they bought before they flew home.  Toaster!  Chairs!
Biggest Bug Party: crickets at the Texas rest stop at night.  There were everywhere!
Biggest Bug Party runner-up: flies in our van.  Always.
Best Windmills: Wyoming

Best Roadside Snack: fresh frybread made by a Navajo lady at a garage sale.  Yes, she taught Trent how.  Score!
Worst Breakdown: tent trailer latches failing on the freeway in WY, making our pop-up pop up.  So glad I married a handy-man who can fix just about anything!

Worst Breakdown runner-up: tent trailer door slowly swinging itself open in the middle of the night and freaking Mom out.
Most Heart-Happy Sight: (besides our home at the end, and besides seeing Alec!) watching Trent sing-sign songs in American Sign Language. Makes my heart melt every time.

Least Favorite Food: the dozens and dozens of hot dogs we had left over from the family reunion - and ATE.  All of them.
Best Establishment Names: "Suds UR Duds", a coin-op laundry; "It'll Do Motel", and the "Cotton Pickin' Festival" in Hollis, OK.
Most Interesting Comment: "These past two days of driving have been WAY more interesting than those first three hours were!"

Tough as Nails

I have great fingernails.  The skin around them is always raggedy, so I'll never be a hand model, but I do have nice nails.  They grow fast, they are well-proportioned, and they are strong.  I used to always keep them short and practical.  Now, Tom thinks they look nice, so I let them grow out - and I even occasionally paint them.  Someone has to do a bit of girl around here.  They grow longer until I get sick of them.  Like when I start wondering if I could type with my knuckles.  Then I chop them off and they start to grow again.

I was recently asked (by Ben) to accompany a trombone solo at a school concert.  Of course.  I am a pianist, even if I haven't played for a while.  It's like riding a bicycle, isn't it?

And all I'm going to say is that my lovely, painted nails and a piano performance don't mix very well.  I knew that.  Sorry, Ben.

Beautiful Eyes

Been doing some thinking since yesterday's post about sad eyes.  I'm supposed to be finding and writing about things that will bring me joy, not things that will drag me down.  Don't want to sound like old Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh and be all depressed all the time.  Life is like that sometimes, but I don't have to dwell on it.  Mea Culpa.

So instead, I went and got a makeover.  Got the old plastic surgeon on the phone and had some work done.  I used Drew Barrymore as my inspiration.  Whaddya think?

I didn't like the "CoverGirl" tattoo on my forehead, and decided that being Drew Barrymore would give me a big head.  So I went Scarlett Johansson next.

Ben said this one looked fake for some reason, so I redid it again.  I did like the eyes, though.  How about Julia Roberts?

Yes!  I'm Julia Roberts!

Really, though, I'm happy to be me, the wife to my husband, the mother to my children.  I like the skin I'm in.  I'm pulling the corners of my mouth up.

Sad Eyes

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, all I can see is this:

And I feel tired and worn out and un-lovely.  I see the blood-shot-ed-ness (new word!) that reminds me that, with sick kids and babies who still wake for a nighttime feeding, I really should go to bed earlier.  I see the messy brows that I really should pluck and groom.  I see the "angry line" between my eyebrows that I remember seeing on my own mother, and I really should learn to not get so mad.  I see the eyeslids which haven't seen makeup since last Sunday, and maybe the Sunday before that, and I know I really should make myself presentable for my husband.  I see the wild, wandering hair, and I really should at least comb it, and maybe even try to tame it (won't even mention the growing gray streaks).  I see the crow's feet and know that I really should try to be more happy, so I can call them "laugh lines" instead.

I really should, I really should, I really should

Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why can't I look in the mirror and see the good things?  Why is it so easy to see the good in others, but so hard to see past the bad or difficult in ourselves?

I think I need a new mirror - one that will show me this:

Or at least a big sticker to put on my mirror.  Because I'm at least as stunning as Marilyn.  Maybe I should just work on looking out and complimenting, instead of looking in and criticizing.  Yeah, maybe that's the ticket.