Day 58-a picture with your hair all done.
I’m pretty bad at styling my hair, so it’s either straightened or natural curls. But, for a special occasion, I might take a shot at something vintage-y.
Well, fancy that! I still have a blog!
The long-neglected 100 day photo challenge that I refuse to quit quitting–Day 57: a picture of you in your backyard. Or, a family member’s backyard, because any time I’m in my own backyard, its to weed and I hope nobody is taking pictures of me in my dirty yard-work clothes!
Sock it to me!
Ah, Febru-hairy. My favorite made-up month, as of this moment.
The idea, I suppose, is to try a different hairstyle every day. My plan is to occasionally try something new, and also try different variations of stuff I already do.
Today I tried a different way to do a sock bun. I discovered sock buns a couple weeks ago, but they use a lot of bobby pins and I always end up with sock peeking through my hair.
This way is so much better.
The video’s not the greatest, but it’s short. In short: Put your hair in a ponytail, cut the toe off of a sock, roll it up. Slip the sock donut around the end of your ponytail, and then roll the hair around the sock until you have a bun! I like to tuck my hair into the donut a little bit more than this girl, mostly because it makes the rest of the rolling easier. Her look is a little drunkier messier.
Breakdown of Cleaning Time
V & I are having Christmas tomorrow (finally!), so I need to clean my room up a little bit. Here’s how I expect tomorrow morning to go:
Just substitute “cat” with “myself”, and it looks pretty accurate.
. . .and maybe I found this lovely chart yesterday while I was “cleaning my room”. . . just maybe
Oh, and I also need to wrap V’s presents. Because, you know, 3 months wasn’t enough time to get that done. . .
Go Babies!
Day 56 – A picture of you all bundled up
This seems particularly appropriate for today.
This is from the 2011 March for Life in Washington. Today marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v Wade. And since I’m not feeling particularly preachy this evening, let’s just leave it at “hopefully there won’t be a 40th”.
Oft Forgotten But Not Abandoned
The 100 day challenge–part 55: A picture of your last year.
I think that about sums it up.
Dance Step Demons
The Charleston is a devil of a thing. I love it. And I hate it.
We have a history, you see. It took me months, months, I tell you, to learn how to get into side-by-side Charleston without getting completely flustered. And once I learned side-by-side, turning Charleston didn’t seem so intimidating.
Except that I couldn’t turn in the shoes I had. Luckily, my birthday came a few months early, and with it my magic dancing shoes. Suede bottoms = Laurie, the turning Charleston rock star.
And finally, after several more months of frustration, I have (mostly) mastered getting into tandem Charleston. Getting out is SO easy, now that I’ve gotten an explanation.
But last night, various leads broke out not one, not two, but seven new Charleston variations.
Good grief.
I feel a bit like Calvin–there are so many variations that I will never catch up. But at least I’m trying.
*This shows several of the variations I mentioned. I can probably do about half of them.
Lindy Love
Once upon a time in college, I went to Virginia Tech to visit a friend and ended up at a swing dance. I was very excited that I could step-step-rockstep and was ready to swing around any dance floor available.
Fast-forward about 7 years.
In the summer of 2010, my mom was visiting in MD and saw an ad for a swing dance in my area. I decided to brave it and go by myself, and discovered that my limited repertoire was not going to go very far.
Another 18 months later, I’m totally hooked. I’ve been dancing almost every Friday since late September and finally signed up for lessons.
I even danced in my first jack & jill competition at last Friday’s dance.
And I’ve watched this video of Frida Segerdahl about a gazillion times.
I want to dance like Frida when I grow up. Or at least have that much fun until then!
Let’s eat Grandma! In which we learn why punctuation is important and how can serve more than one purpose.
Hello, dear reader.
Oh, no! You didn’t think “dear reader” was my signature, did you?
Good. One point for you, dear reader.
Today I had a customer phone in an order for a personalized frame. At the top it was to read, “Happy Birthday”. And in the interest of protecting the customer’s right to punctuate as she pleases, her words will be completely unedited.
Me: And what would you like the bottom to say?
Customer: i love you daddy
Me: Do you want all first letters capitalized? Or just the “i” and the “d”?
Customer: all first letters i guess
Most Wonderful Shop Girl In the World: And would you like a comma after “you”?
Grammatically Ignorant Customer: no because then she would be signing it and its not from daddy
Me: Oookay. OR you could be addressing the person to whom you’re speaking. It’s called an appositive. It renames the pronoun you just used with a slightly clearer proper noun. Any other punctuation? Do you want an exclamation point after “Happy Birthday”?
Customer: no i think thats good
Me: It’s a good thing you can’t see me roll my eyes at you through the phone.
Customer #2
Me: Okay, so on the paperweight you want, “I carry your heart in my heart Mom”? Do you want a period at the end of that sentence? Say yes. The correct answer is, “yes”!
Customer: No. But can I add “love” here?
Most Wonderful Shop Girl In the World: Sure. Do you want a comma between “love” and “Mom”?
Customer: Should I have one there?
Most Wonderful Shop Girl In the World: Grammatically, yes, unless you want it to be a command–Love Mom!–in which case I would suggest an exclamation point.
Customer: Let’s put a comma here.
Me: Okay, sounds great! If that’s really what you want to do. Personally, if I was buying a gooshy paperweight for my grown son to put on his desk at the office, I would go with the command form.
And just for fun (if you’re still reading and also think being grammatically correct is fun), here’s an old story…
Customer #1: Should it be “Directors’ Award,” “Director’s Award,” or “Directors Award”?
Boss Lady: Umm.
Customer #2: I think there should definitely be an apostrophe.
Customer #1: But which spot? (to Boss Lady) What do you think?
Boss Lady: Hey, Most Wonderful Shop Girl In the World, you taught English. Aw, man, there’s another of those pesky appositives.
Me: Well, is it one director or a group of directors giving the award?
Customer #1: One.
Me: Is it an award that belongs to him or is he, as the director, responsible for awarding it?
Customer: I guess it’s his award.
Me: Okay, so you want an apostrophe before the “s.”
Customer: But what if you’re wrong?
Me: Well, none of the three of you could figure it out, so your odds are good nobody will even notice.
In other news, I’m trying to improve my posture.
For real.
Stop laughing at me.
Jefferson’s Rock
Oh vacation, how I miss thee. This was a day trip last summer, which is the closest I’ve been to a real vacation recently. There’s always next year. . .or the off season.
happily ever onward 