Party like it's 1998

Karyn posted a pic of us (check it out here) taken at the Jenny Jones holiday party. (That's where we worked, it wasn't Jenny's private party)

Surprisingly, not much has changed for either of us. But the funny thing...my hair color is now that same brassy yellow in the pic due to my do-it-yourself color job.

Karyn's IMing me a fix for this now which she's confident will work. I'll give it shot. What have I got to lose??? Other than bright yellow hair!!!

The only thing remotely entertaining about watching golf-

-after the golfer hits the ball and some crazy fan yells, "GET IN THE HOLE!"

I LOVE that.

We went to the Senior Open in Newport Beach a few weeks ago and that's what I yelled (rather emphatically, I might add) after every hit or putt. Other spectators thought I was a HUGE fan...of everyone.

*And just when I thought Golf was over for a while, Tom informs me that the Big Break Ka'anapali premieres tomorrow night.
GLORIOUS.*

Deep in the throes of a closet re-org

I have less than 12 hours to relinquish all castaways lurking inside my closet and I'm at loggerheads.

There are two things I despise when undertaking a monumental closet purge such as this:

1) I never seem to have enough hangers (even when I'm giving clothes away)

and

2) Inevitably, a spider will dash across the floor halting all closet related progress.

That's where I'm at right now and until Tom can locate and extract the exact spider from the crime scene, there's a full on closet embargo.

I took some before pics earlier today to showcase this barrel of fun...

Head on view: Stuff is shoved and smushed into these wire shelving units. I want to be able to locate anything I'm looking for by sight, rather than my current method of tossing 10 items onto the floor to find a coin purse.


Looking further down: I want to keep the floors clean of excess stuff too. I'm always tripping over shoes, clothes from the laundry basket, purses, or stuff I tossed down from the shelves while searching for that one item. Oh, Hi Wrigley!


To the left: This little shelving unit serves no purpose other than to provide Chumley with direct access to all my hand made shawls. He's been destroying them over the last two years by pulling and chewing on the yarn. (And of course both animals had to be present for this year's closet purge. God forbid they miss out on all the excitement!)


To the right: I can't get the photo to flip, but this area here is just a hodge podge of nonsense. I want to get everything out of these bags and into a permanent place, preferably out of my house. What's in these bags? God only knows. That's part of the reason for this purge.



Alrighty. Time to scream louder for the Exterminator!

Plastic bag surcharge

YES! YES!! YES!!! It's about time.

Even though I've used these bags for poop pick up, I feel .25 cents is a small price to pay for cleaning up the environment and protecting our wildlife.

California spends $25million a YEAR on plastic bag clean up. What I want to know is, how the heck did they figure that out???

Either way, I'll support this charge.

Junk Drawers

I'm in the process of spring cleaning and decided to tackle the trivial crap first - Junk Drawers. Both Tom and I each have our own drawers, and I think they're an unavoidable "must have" in every household. We'll continue to keep junk in our drawers but it's good to clean them out every once in a while. I'm ransacking the entire house (again!) because tomorrow at 7:30am we have a HOPE truck coming to pick up all our giveaways. I've known about this for over 2 weeks and it was my intention to spend the weekend weeding out, however I got sidetracked so now I'm scrambling to get this done in a few short hours.

And I'm distracted by the contents of our junk drawers.

Here's what's in Tom's drawer:

-golf balls
-golf tees
-golf pencils
-golf scorecards
-Costco receipts
-a coupon for free tow service (great place to keep this don't ya think?)
-needle nose pliers
-coins and euros
-deck of cards
-extension cords
-3 sets of airline earphones
-my Dad's bouncy ball (SO glad I found this)
and
-a few PSP game discs

Guys are boring.

Here's what's housed inside MY (much more interesting) junk drawer:

-perfume samples
-emory boards
-an eye patch
-flea collar (for the dog)
-stretch Dudley (however mine is a rabbit, not a smiley)
-swim goggles
-a pipe and some herbs
-a doily
-large egg of silly putty
-chapsticks
-chalk
-a rosary
-gummy teeth
-cough drops
-mace
-a mini bop it
-word search puzzles
and
-sea shells

So what's in your junk drawers???

Think you live in a bug free home?

Just watch a daddy long leg take up residence in a corner of your home for a weekend and see what kind of beastlies he'll attract. I'm not sure if I'm more freaked out about the spider or the creatures flailing around in it's web!

My breakfast this morning-

-was the size of my head.
I had a delicious California grown Pomelo, which tastes just like a grapefruit but costs about 4 x's as much. And come to think of it, the edible part is not much bigger than a grapefruit because it has such a thick outer skin.

That's the last time I let the friendly grocer talk me into buying fruit.

What a rip off.

Laundry 101

For the past two weeks I have been using what I thought was laundry detergent but was in fact just a fabric softener for our wash loads. Could this be the reason why our Dryer stopped working???

Why the heck do they make the fabric softener in 67 ounce sizes now? Isn't that regulation detergent size?!? How else are we supposed to know that it's fabric softener (aside from the fact that "fabric softener" is printed on the bottle) BUT it's in really small print. I'm sure I'm not the first to do this.

At least this explains that weird rash...though our clothes have never smelled better. No wonder Tom has a trail of bees following him around on the golf course. He smells like a walking lilac bush!!! Holy Cow! I wonder if this is why his allergies have been so bad lately too! Oh I feel really bad now. You know, you can put the wife into the house but that does not make her a house wife. 

Brandi needs to go

I just finished watching The Big Give and I'm disappointed that there was no elimination this week. I felt it was Bradi's time to hit the road (back to SIERRA VISTA!) God that was annoying. I just think she's phony. Did anyone notice how she kept saying to every little boy as well as BIG BOY John Travolta, "Oh you're so handsome!" And I swear to God, if I heard her say, "Miss Sierra Vista" one more time I was going to throw my chicken leg at the tv. (we had KFC tonight). Not only that, I thought her entire Give was just lame. Was it the little girl's wish to be crowned "Miss Sierra Vista" for a day? Or did Brandi just decide to do it herself so she could relive her days as "Miss Sierra Vista?" And what the hell kind of crack was she smokin' to call a 20 foot drive-by in a convertible a parade??? Sorry to sound so negative about what she did for these people but if you compare the other two givers accomplishments to her meager efforts, she should've been sent home to...

FLIPPIN' SIERRA VISTA!

I hope she goes next week.

Overall,

I'd say it was a pretty productive weekend.

What's been on our TV the entire day:

(and why I've been blogging most of the night)

• MASTERS TOURNAMENT

• CUBS GAME

• BOXING MATCH on HBO

• NASCAR (ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?)

and now...

• HOCKEY
  

Where's my GIN???

We're all nuts

When we entertain (which has been a lot lately) I like to use a mish mosh of special serving bowls and dishes. I don't even care if they match just as long as they are cute. We always have a bowl of nuts (cashews, almonds, honey roasted peanuts, what have you) and I've yet to find something cute for the nuts so I always put the nuts in a dull glass bowl. I want to spruce up our "nut service" so today while Tom and I were browsing the aisles of Tuesday Morning (he gets corralled about 4 times a year for this type of shopping) I came across a tiny bowl that I fell in love with. It's by Portmeirion (all their stuff is AMAZING) and it retails for about $28. But! Here at Tuesday Morning it was a measly $13, which, perhaps is a high price to pay for housing nuts- but I looooooved it. I said to Tom that I'd like to get it and asked what he thought.

His response?

"I think you're nuts for spending 13 bucks on a bowl for nuts!

But isn't it cute???

                                                      MY NUT BOWL

However once it's filled with nuts you won't be able to see the little creatures inside the bowl.

Maybe Tom was right.

Our house.

If you could see our house right now you would think an earthquake/tornado/tidal wave struck our town. We inherited a console table from my sister and her husband and are trying to find the perfect place to put it. I originally thought it would go in the family room so we moved around the furniture, unplugged lamps, displaced plants and positioned the table in various places around the room. Nothing worked. We left the family room and headed into the living room. Same thing, rolled up the rug, moved the couch away from the wall (which by the way was THRILLING for the animals - both Chum and Wrigs ran back and forth behind the couch like wild apes because it was something new and exciting for them) moved around the existing end tables, unplugged lamps, etc. and still not loving it. Tom's threshold for making furniture placement related decisions is about 3.4 seconds so after all this he heads back into the family room and plops down on the oversized chair (that is now sitting in the middle of the room) to watch the Cubs game.

I say "stuff it" and leave the living room in shambles and head into the kitchen for a cold beverage. Today was the first real hot day of the year (in the high 80's) and in my book there's only one drink that completely cools and refreshes the body on those hot summer like days (aside from lemonade and iced tea). It's an iced cold Gin and Tonic with a splash of Rose's Lime Juice and several full squirts of fresh limes.

Hello old friend. I've missed you.

A compromise

I ate breakfast outside this morning and got completely sunburned and don't want to broadcast a pic of my freckly face. So here's a pic of the back of my head...
The color is a bit brassy but over the next couple weeks it should tone down. I went to see a "professional" (using that term lightly here) and was made to feel a fool since I attempted to color my hair on my own. I could have had it re-done (for $125) but the risk would have been more breakage (aka "pube head") and even more dryness. So instead I opted for a deep conditioning treatment and will continue to use a deep conditioner at home twice a week. The color still seems really bright and the stylist suggested I use an ash blonde shampoo (something they sold in the salon for $40) which would help tone down the brassiness but I'm pretty confident I can find a drug store brand that will do the same thing for a lot less. I'm thinking this might be worth a shot.

As for the pubes that lined my face, they are no longer there because I plucked them. I realize that is the sin of all sins when it comes to hair care but what the hell, they were gray anyway so what's the big deal if they grow back gray again!?!? Or does that myth "for every gray hair you pluck, 10 more will grow back in its place" apply here? Oh well. Bring it on - I've got lots of tweezers.

Hair update

"It's just hair right? It'll grow back, right???"

What cheap ass trying to save few bucks said that???

So the look I was going for was sort of a soft buttery blond but what I got was more along the lines of oh, I don't know...shockingly bright MARIGOLD?!?!?

I don't know what happened. It's just REALLY REALLY bright - it looks like it's reflecting the suns rays when I'm standing in a windowless bathroom in the dark. So, I'm meeting with a stylist for a "consultation" later today.

And a few of those sprouts that I was worried about popped up too. But they aren't stick straight, they're more like short curly pubes randomly poking out the top of my head. And for whatever reason they didn't take the color so I have what looks to be gray pubes framing my face. Yeahhhhhh, that's hot.

All over the place today

I'm organizing old photos from files, e-mails and cell phone downloads and found two pictures that I haven't seen in quite a while.

This one was taken several years ago after my Dad's second stem cell transplant. He was neutropenic and we could not be around him for more than a few minutes at a time and we had to be covered in sterile gowns from head to toe. (and my hair is not ear length, it was tied back in a bun).


This next picture was taken just a couple weeks before he died. He had to take so many pills several times a day so instead of just throwing them into the pill cup and swallowing them down, he would make little faces and objects out of his colorful pills.


I was sitting next to him as he arranged these pills above and I asked him, "Is that a clown face?" And he looked at me and said, "No it's a lady. Can't you tell?" (of course, I should have known, my Dad LOVED the ladies). And then he pointed to each side of the lady's face and said, "See? These are her earrings."

I'll never forget that. I'm so glad I took the photo even though I felt weird at the time. Snapping photos of the pills on his tray, knowing that my Dad knew why I was capturing these moments on film and trying to smile through the pain wasn't easy. This was the last photo I took while he was alive.

Life with Roomba

Genius!

Time to Change

My hair, or to be more specific, my roots, are REALLY bad. I've been wearing head wraps for the past few days to cover up the stripe-age. It's like a ring of steel wool gray atop rusty dishwater blond. It's embarrassing that I've let it go for this long and the thing is, I really don't like my overall hair color anymore. So I'm going to try something new, and I'm going to do it all myself. (I'll never forget this encounter from almost a decade ago when I was working 60 hour weeks in Chicago and had neglected a few hair appointments. I was in a meeting with a very opinionated gentleman who looked at me straight faced and said, "You have such beautiful blond hair, why must you darken your roots?" It made me laugh out loud and it's something I'll never forget).

I've colored my hair before but I typically try to match the existing color and just touch up the new growth. But this time I'm trying something different. I'm going to try for a light buttery blond instead of this caramel corn/dried apricot color I've got going on now. I've got the box of color sitting atop my bathroom counter so I'm all set - and if I don't like it or if my hair singes off to 1/2 inch sprouts it'll grow back, right? I just feel the need to try something new. After all it's springtime, and it's time for a change. We'll see how this goes.

Nordstrom Online Rocks!

Nordstrom's online is running this incredible deal, if you spend $100 in Beauty or Fragrance you get this pink tote filled with all sorts of sample sized goodies. I got my mom's birthday gift online (which is the same thing every year, some form of Shalimar - be it perfume, body lotion or powder) and qualified for the tote!

Here's what you get:

Bare Escentuals® RareMinerals™ Facial Cleanser (0.05 oz.)
Bliss The Youth as We Know It Moisturizer (0.1 oz.)
Clarins Advanced Extra-Firming Eye Contour Serum (0.1 oz.)
DKNY Delicious Night Eau de Parfum Spray (0.05 oz.)
Donna Karan Cashmere Mist Body Lotion (0.2 oz.)
Erno Laszlo TranspHuse Topical sample
GoSMILE AM/PM Whitening Protection Toothpastes samples
Juicy Couture Royal Body Crème (0.25 oz.)
Kinerase® Cream with SPF 30 (0.1 oz.)
Lancôme Rénergie Double Performance Anti-Wrinkle and Firming Treatment (0.5 oz.)
Lancôme Rénergie Night—Night Treatment (0.5 oz.)
L'Occitane Shea Hand Cream (0.3 oz.)
Missoni Acqua Eau de Toilette Spray (0.07 oz.)
Narciso Rodriguez For Him eau de toilette spray (0.04 oz.)
Origins Modern Friction™ Nature's Gentle Dermabrasion (0.17 oz.)
philosophy hope in a jar eye & lip cream (0.25 oz.)
Prescriptives Lash Envy Volumizing Mascara (0.08 oz.)
Smashbox Photo Finish Foundation Primer Light (0.5 oz.)

The thing is, they will only send the tote to the same address where the product you are purchasing is being shipped. And since I was purchasing for my mom in Illinois, the tote of goodies was headed there as well. However, I was having issues with the online system, first with my credit card (it expired and I had to call the hotline to activate the new card but during the time I made the call and then went back to ordering online, the online system was not recognizing the new card and kept freezing up). So I had to contact Nordstrom online via telephone and because of the hassle the wonderful woman on the phone said she would ship the tote and goodies to another address. I offered to pay the shipping charge and she insisted that it be waived. How incredible is that? So I got my goodies in the mail yesterday and I LOVE them. It's so fun to test all the tubes and smell the pots of creams. Good Golly I love products! And I love being a girl. If I was born a guy I'd be soooooo gay.