Mary has moments

Sometimes when I am really really hungry or really really tired I have these minor freak outs that sometimes involve crying and Barret likes to call them "Mary Moments". This weekend I think that I had one of my best. You have to keep in mind that these moments are not normal and usually are over something very small that breaks the iceberg of something else going on that is probably bottled up. Like one time I cried because the sheets were not on my bed right, or because someone looked at me the wrong way and then it's water works. Can't help it, it just is part of the package deal I tell Barret. So anyway on Monday we were on our way home from a great weekend in Virginia Beach for a wedding. It was Barret's birthday, the sun was shining and everything was just perfect, except that I was beginning to have stomach pain because I was hungry. I don't know where this has come from, but I think it has something to do with my gall bladder being gone. It is like this horrible pain in the pit of my stomach that somehow effects my brain that my tearducts. I wanted to eat at the hotel before we left, but Barret had getting home on his mind and it was his birthday so I wasn't going to push it. We decided we would get some food on the way. We passed quite a few exits where there were food stops and I swear I could hear them calling my name, but I just kept telling myself it is Barret's birthday maybe there is something special he wants to eat so I will just bite my tounge. Well sometime when I start biting my tounge I become a bit snappy and finally I said "Look! Hardees!" Barret pulled over because he has learned about the hunger pain and cranky that comes with it. There were a couple of fast food restaurants at this exit, but Barret had agreed Hardees sounded good and I started thinking about those damn biscuits, seriously I think they are the best. Well Chick-fil-a was there too and a little closer so Barret said oh never mind we will just go to Chick-fil-a. Well you would have thought someone had just killed my best friend. I screamed like a young child "NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I DON"T WANT CHICK-FIL-A!!! I WANT HARDEES!!!!" Not to mention there were tears, actual tears, not like the ones I try and fake to my brother Geoff, but real ones. We are lucky Barret didn't have a car accident, he swerved because I guess it sounded like the shriek I give before he is about to hit an animal! Folks, it was bad. We got to Hardees and Barret who usually handles my Mary Moments very well, I mean he gave them the name for crying out loud was not happy at me. Which sent me into hysterical laughing. Jesus Mary, I mean what is wrong with you, it is all chicken and biscuits. I tried to explain it to him, but there was no hope. Of course because he is the most wonderful guy in the world, didn't stay mad long and I kept laughing. I took a sip of the diet coke and a bite of the biscuit and all was great in the world again. It is a very strange phenomenon, kind of like a mutlipe personality. Not Roxie though, that is my party alter-ego who is tres fun! This one needs an evil name. I am open to suggestions.

Run it Run it

Have you ever seen the commercial with Ellen DeGeneres commercial for VISA where she is at a Board Meeting surrounded by animals and says her dream was to work with animals? This is my life. I am surrounded everyday at our new doggie daycare with lots of puppies wanting to help me work. They like to take the trash out of my trash can that now sits higher than my head, they like to chew on the cords when I am not looking to help me fix my computer, they like to sleep on pillows like I would like to do while I am busy, and sometimes best of all they like to leave me little puddles to slip that send me sliding into the other room. I laugh every time I see that commercial and just think be careful what you ask for. I love all the puppies, but they are like children, I am glad they are someone elses and not all mine. Although I wouldn't mind a friend for abbey, but we won't go there today. Anyway sometimes we get dogs that belong to famous people, my boss has trained for Jimmy Dean, Don Henley, Richard Petty and many others. Well it always sends everyone crazy and everyone wants to work when these dogs are being brought into the office. Although the famous always seem to have someone else bring their dog in and then it is not that exciting. The latest buzz was a famous nephew of someone with the last name Brown was coming in for training. The aunt said her nephew had gone through a bad breakup and the dog needed some help. We were convinced it was Bobby Brown after the break up with Whitney, which spun the whole convo into that we could not believe Whitney was dating Ray-J! Oh and all of this was during a staff meeting. Again are you remembering that commercial? So this morning our new front desk girl brought the cutest pit bull puppy into my office and asked me to introduce her with the other dogs. Love to! She said, this is the Brown dog. Bobby Brown? i ask. No someone named Chris Brown. Now I am not a big R&B person, but I know who Chris Brown is because he is from Tappahannock. He is what has all the young boys in Tappahannock thinking they can be famous. It is hilarious. So my boss called a few minutes later and I answered the phone singing, "run it run it" and she had no idea what I was talking about, much less who Chris Brown is so i explained and she thought that was just great. The other girls in the office were drooling over the dog, because apparently they are in love with this 18 year old from Tappahannock. Really this just cracks me up. And I am really leaving this all for a 401K?

Quote of the day

"Curly hair is like a forest. It's very dense. You have to cut paths in it."
-Howard McLaren, creative vice president, technical director of Bumble and bumble

AMEN!

They see me rollin

Every Thursday night I have the wonderful invitation to go hang out with my girls. I look forward to it every week so I can catch up on gossip and of course watch Grey's Anatomy...(sniff sniff season finale next week). Anyway one of my dearest friends is getting married in June and I am a bridesmaid. I have the dress, needs some help from a tailor, I have the shoes, they need to be broken in, but by and by I am doing well for someone who has been known to wait til the last minute for things like this. So last night I brought up to the bride, what in the world am I going to do to my hair. I have a blue halter silky dress that is fitting, but sways at the bottom from J. Crew. It is also a black tie event. To me curly crazy hair does not scream black tie. So we started flipping through all of the magazines that 3 girls collect and looking things up on the Internet. UGGG if you Google bridesmaids updos, you get lots and lots of tendrils. Someone should tell these people that tendrils went out in the 80's and really were not that cool then. Yes I had them for one dance, but never never never again will I have them. As I have said in other blogs curls are in. Great. Not my curls. I don't see anyone with Shirley Temple curls on the cover of Vogue. I see people with straight hair and a personal assistant putting each of those curls in with a curling iron. I am sure that I pointed my view about this last night, and somehow the velcro curlers came out of the closet. (Bad idea number 1) Caroline gently brushes my hair (bad idea number 2) and places each one into what my mother used to call a rat's nest. (Bad idea number 3) I sat patiently while McDreamy thought about hooking up with another girl and daydreamed about how these rollers were going to change my hair and of course my life. They cooled and plop I was back in front of Caroline ready to take these puppies out! Then the peanut gallery starts a little snickering. Caroline says wait, lets brush them out for a second, bush brush brush. I stand up to look in the mirror when one of the girls cracks up and says hahah Mary you look like you are in a Miss America pageant. I did. All I needed was a sparkly dress and a baton to twirl and I was on my way. Now I will tell you that my hair should win an award for staying however you put it. I can wear it in a ponytail and take the rubber band out and it still looks like it is in there. So just imagine what it looked like with rollers. Needless to say Caroline made me sit back down and put my hair in a ballet bun and said, yep I think this would look great for the wedding. So the lesson for the day is NO ROLLERS...but maybe I will try one of those BIG curling irons.

Barefoot Garden requires shoes

I love summer, I love sunshine and I have taken an interest to the garden in our new fenced in oasis. Every summer I start out filling my pots with pretty flowers and planting new perennials and annuals in the garden. When we first moved in I started calling it the barefoot garden, because I don't really like to wear shoes. Especially when winter is over and it is warm enough to feel that sweet Virginia dirt in between your toes. Then at some point I decide I have to put shoes on because something triggers this necessity. This year it is no different. I made it a whole month in the barefoot garden with no shoes, until yesterday. I generally don't find a lot in my garden except plants and the occasional presents that Abbey has left me, I thought my mom was lucky when she found a bottle of bourbon that she had buried for good weather for some event. (it really works) This kind of finding would have me popping a top not putting shoes on. Anyway as I said before we have recently put a fence up around our back yard and found out some of our neighbor's property was actually ours, so we fenced that in also. Barret and I found this very exciting as we could expand our garden! So yesterday I went out and decided I was going to clean out the part that we recently took back. Our neighbor had planted vegetables there last year so I planned on finding those remains. Yeah, not so much. I started raking and immediately came across a condom wrapper. This made me think about that wonderful article about the police cracking down on the hooker services in alleys. http://www.richmond.com/news/output.aspx?Article_ID=3916348&Vertical_ID=2&tier=1&position=4

I giggled for a minute and tried to convince Barret to keep some Ivy so I could put it in a hanging pot. He tells me he does not like Ivy and convinces me it will take over the fence and we decide to pull it out of the garden. I begin raking again and Barret starts pulling the ivy, when I hear "uh oh". Never a good thing. (please remember that I am in bare feet) "Ummm, Mary you might want to come and see this." I walk over and look at what he is pointing at...nice a black widow spider with her eggs. Great. Barret goes and gets tire cleaner spray, because that is what we had I guess and I go and get shoes. I don't mind spiders, I mean I don't like them particularly, especially black widows, but the don't really bother me. Barret does not like them. He sprays the spider and squishes her with the shovel. Ok, where there is one there is probably more, but now I really want this Ivy gone. It is a mission. I make Barret give me the gloves and decide I will take the ivy down. Here I go pulling quick and watching everywhere my hand goes. Then it starts to happen. I pull all the ivy off the corner of the garage and get it all off, when this vine that seems to never end drops a snake skin. I let out a little scream and realize it is just the skin, but start to worry, because where there is a skin, there was a snake. Barret assures me I am okay and to just keep going. Ok, I have shoes on and now gloves, long pants and a sweatshirt. I assure you this is not what I envision wearing in the barefoot garden, but I am hellbent on getting this garden clean. I was pleased at how much ivy I had gotten out from the corner and decide to look up the side and make sure I got it all out, I don't want to have to do this again next year, and then it happens. Where I had just had my hands pops out a snake head. I start screaming, "Barret, Barret, SNAKE!!!!!" I HAAAAATE snakes. They just freak me out. I now standing on the side of the fence on any ledge I can get on almost is tears trying to show Barret the snake. Good old Barret pulls the snake out and just like the Queen of Hearts "off with its head". We examine it and of course anytime I see a brown snake I am convinced it is a copperhead. Although I think this was probably just a nice little brown snake who didn't know what was coming, either way I don't like them. So I think my season on barefoot in the garden is done for 2007. Things are starting to grow, but also things are starting to come out of hibernation and I realllly don't want to step on one. After all was done Barret and I got a chuckle out of our neighbor serving lettuce with a side of condom, black widow and snake.

Abbers

This girl is getting her hair cut on Sunday!! She will look like a different dog. So lets call this the before picture. Thanks Melissa!

web site

Here is the web site for all the herbal essence new products. http://www.herbalessences.com/us/

Hello Hydration

Shampoo and I do not get along. We do not have that lovey dovey relationship like Adam Sandler and his shampoo in Billy Madison. I was on a DOVE shampoo and conditioner kick for a while and that was working well until my hairdresser made me feel guilty that I was basically buying over the counter shampoo when I needed the stuff you can only get in her shop. So I looked at her stuff and it sure felt good when she put in my hair but the prices are ridiculous! So I started not to feel so bad about my over the counter stuff...until I ran out and had to go and get more. I started to feel bad about my hair again and decided to check out some of the top shelf shampoo that you can still get over the counter. I found some that looked great and was on Sale! My favorite four letter word. I bought it and headed to Warsaw for the Bluegrass Festival. Before dinner that night I took a shower and was excited to wear my hair down, uggg this shampoo and conditioner made me feel like I was putting sand paper on my scalp. I thought to myself, it cannot be this top shelf stuff, it must be the motel shower. At home a couple days later I noticed the same feeling, this can't be good. Good old boy scout Barret always has some extras of everything in the closet, I must investigate. Sure enough he had this blue bottle of Herbal Essence. Fine, this will work. OH MY GOD. It is the best stuff I have ever put in my hair. I more closely examined the bottle and it was calling my name "HELLO HYDRATION". What a great name for a shampoo. I am always upset when I have to buy shampoo and conditioner for "dry and damaged" hair. Is my hair damaged because it is curly? I know it is dry and sometimes feels like straw...but do we have to use the word damaged? That is like in IKEA when you can get already cheap things for next to nothing because a piece is missing, and then it doesn't work, so you still have to pay for it...BUT it is cheaper. Not my new shampoo...HELLO HYDRATION! So of course Barret doesn't use conditioner, which amazes me, how can people not use conditioner...anyway...so I went to Target today and bought the conditioner and noticed a whole new Herbal Essence world. They have shampoo and conditioner for everyone, and they speak to you. My new Hello Hydration says " let us soak it to ya. we're all about the moisture, so let us quench your tresses with lush hydration." That is soooo much better then for dry and damaged. They totally understand the problems that I am having. Also it smells delicious of orchid & coconut milk. UM...YUM! I am in love with it. When you put shampoo in to the dry and damaged hair you can actually feel your roots drinking in this sweet goodness. Well I had to look at all the other stuff too, they had one there for curly hair also, which Barett wouldn't have bought because his is straight. So I bought some product for that and this one is called Totally Twisted. Love it. And it says to me "make a curl's life happy. we're for girls who want curls, and babes who want waves that are smooth, lush and defined." Again how much better is that then, dry and damaged. This one has Lavender twists and jade extracts. yum! They have all these products for every kind of hair, from dry and damaged to you are trying to hard to cover your greys. Except they have nice names and speak to you and your hair will love it! So trust me on this one, if you are in need of some hydration get it and let me know if you feel the same way about it as I do.

Intro

I did not always have curly hair...it was wavy, but not like the tight ringlet curls that it is becoming. It was not until I hit about 12, those wonderful teenage years when everyone is trying to fit in and look like their favorite pop stars, that my hair went curly. Rough rough years for someone with curly hair. Well...maybe not for those people who knew what to do with it. I spent nights crying to my mom that I wanted straight hair like all the other girls in my class, so we would bring out the hairdryer...BIG MISTAKE. Side note for anyone with children with curly hair when yours is straight...DO NOT USE A HAIRDRYER. It would be straight yay!, but also very frizzy and usually about 3 times the size of my head. Not quite the look we were going for. So then I decided to chop it all off, another not so good idea. Imagine the first day of middle school, with a boy haircut that had waves, purple glasses, braces, a pleated blue knee length skirt, a white blouse, not shirt, but blouse, a sunflower vest and to top it all off corduroy multi color converses. Yes ladies and gentlemen this is how I started middle school. Luckily there is the yearly first day of school picture to prove it. Finally at summer camp I met another girl who had curly hair and it actually was curly, not frizzy and looked GREAT! I immediately flocked to her and asked her what she did to her hair. PRODUCT became my new best friend. High School started much better with a cute ponytail that draped curls down my back and it became an envy to those straight haired girls.
Now 2007 I try to embrace these curls that seem to get curlier every day. I get a lot of comments at the hair places where little blue hair ladies are getting perms wishing for my hair...talk about a confidence builder. I have people everyday telling me I should wear my hair down, or get it styled..(no names...mags). The thing about styling curly hair is it is nearly impossible, I should also let you know at this point that it is not only curly, but thick...I am talking that I probably have three peoples worth of hair on my head thick. My favorite is to watch the TODAY SHOW and have their little fashion guy tell me that curls are in and all the stars are going with curly hair. It is a tease because then they show the pictures and great some cleb has had her own personal hairstylist put big bouncy curls in with a curling iron...THOSE ARE NOT CURLS. I cuss at the little man at this point and tell him that one day I will make it up to New York and show him curls. I also Google all the time curly hair styles, again the bouncy curling iron curls... then I get frustrated and throw my hair up into a pony tail or the two buns on either side of my head...critical for me.
So with all of this being said I have decided to start a blog for curly hair people who would like some ideas on what I am doing and trying, what works and A LOT of what doesn't work. And for all of those straight hair people who are just dying to have curly hair...live through my pain and perseverance.