Very rarely will a hair stylist admit the truth: they know nothing about cutting naturally curly hair like mine.  Often they are familiar with wavy hair.  Or super kinky hair.  But the in-between-kind-of-curls-a-different-way-every-time hair like mine?  Nope.

I have been lied to in many height-adjusting chairs about their expertise with my texture, just to have them try something completely counterintuitive.  The fact that the last lady I went to had never heard of the products I use (a fairly common line) should have sent me running out the door.  But I stay because you just never know.  Until they cut it and you wait a couple of weeks you can’t always be sure how it will grow out.  Sometimes it works, and most often it is a disaster that keeps me hiding in ponytails for the next four months until I’m brave enough to try someone different.

I even know why they do it.  Why lose a customer who has made an appointment and might give you the chance to practice something new?

I, however, am done with being experimented upon.  I found a reputable salon in which they quickly recognized someone as skilled with all curly types (and whose costs were only marginally higher than what I was used to).  My skepticism washed away when he started to describe the shapes curly hair can take and how different techniques emphasize or reduce those looks.  I sighed with relief when he said he’d had several training sessions with the woman who wrote the book known as the curly hair bible.  I spent the rest of the day elated that I didn’t need rush out of the salon and into the shower at home to redo my hair the way I normally do it and see the REAL outcome.

I don’t care what line of work you do – if you want my loyalty, be honest about what you can and can’t do.  If it isn’t what I need, at least I can recommend others to you who would benefit from your skills.

Our sermon today was on families – what causes the relationship breakdowns and how God loves us in spite of them.  Though the focus was on nuclear families, I quickly extended this to groups of friends and eventually my church family.  What really struck me was the ways breakdowns (or even compete breaks) can happen – or should I say this: Here’s some ways it has happened to me.

1.  Lack of Communication – When I think of this, it isn’t just not talking to one another.  I used to do that – only share or discuss when it was positive or if I knew the person to whom the negative feelings were directed wasn’t going to find out.  And guess what?  My relationships weren’t good, because I wasn’t sharing all of me and learning how to deal with both the good and bad.  The “ugly” emotions simmered always just beneath the surface and came out in unhealthy ways.  This is what my husband had to coach me on the most at the beginning of our marriage – I could not longer hide and just go about my business because it was affecting our relationship with each other (it doesn’t help that he can read my nonverbals like it is size 200 font plastered across my forehead).

2.  Unforgiveness – My best example of this?  An ex-boyfriend.  Not really him, per se, but one of his teachers, a lady he looked up to and admired greatly.  A lady that he was mentored by the year that I was at college and far away.  A lady that never acted inappropriately but whose advice and counsel led him a different direction than the one we were planning.  This person is well known in several circles and for that reason I will not go into more detail.  While it didn’t take me long to get over the boyfriend, any time her name was mentioned for many years following, I had silent shivers.  Others spoke very highly of her.  I refused to join in.  I instead, behind closed doors, mentioned her lack of mature boundaries.  My roommate finally mentioned after one of my emotionally charged ramblings: “It sounds like you haven’t forgiven her.”  I thought I had (silly me) – but every time I was willing to bring up her past missteps I tore one of my Sisters in Christ apart.  It made me wonder who was saying those sorts of things about me, remembering only my transgressions but never my accomplishments.

3.  Selfishness – I wish I could stop counting the number of times this has happened, so I’ll give just one example.  A friend of mine threw me a great birthday party, and when it came time for theirs, I blew it off.  ”It was the start of the school year,” I said.  ”I am so busy with everything to prep for teaching and I’m not getting enough sleep that you shouldn’t have the right to be upset.”  I refused to apologize even though they were deeply hurt, and I asked they find someone else to plan their party.  Truth: I could have done it, and I was using my “I’m not really the party planner of the group” to hide behind.  I didn’t want to take the time, even though it would have been easy enough for me to take her mention of it as a starting point for planning.  I’m very sorry about it now, but my reluctance to admit my selfishness cost the depth of relationship.  We still remained friends, but a small separation started to show.

4. The Scapegoat – I know the proverbial answer is “Christ”.  I’m not her to preach to you, though – this is more of a confessional blog today.  I’ll just say this: it is easy to blame someone else.  Very easy.  And this happens so often when we don’t want to take the blame for a bad situation.  In fact, it happens so often that it becomes natural, and deflecting the situation becomes second nature.  My inability to have healthy boundaries as a teacher was always someone else’s fault, be they the principle or the student and parent expectations or the example set by my parents.  I wouldn’t take ownership, but I was quick to blame all of those outside influences.  I made them appear unsupportive, and I never fixed my own problems.  I ended up having to remove myself from teaching completely because I couldn’t deal with my own insecurities and frustrations.

I see some of these situations now, but being in the middle of them often meant I was blinded to my own input into the problem.  Part of me wanted to make this just a funny blog or give vague explanations, but it has meant so much more to me by making them specific.  I hope it has meant more to you, too.

 

Sweet tea sounded satisfying to me.  Ordered some from the restaurant.

No, they didn’t have it.  Would I like regular tea?

I was surprised until I realized – Oh, yeah, I’m in Indiana.

Slowly becoming a Texan…where the sweet tea is as ubiquitous as the barbecue.

My husband LOVES to organize and put items in their proper place.  Our garage, for being dubbed “The Man Cave”, is rather close to immaculate.  We now have color coded folders for our file drawers: yellow – house related; green – car related; blue – finance related; and so forth.  People are asking whether we are close to being done unpacking – the weekend we moved in, the answer was already “YES”.  For him, organizing is energizing.  Making spaces more efficient brings order, which means the process itself is enjoyable because the outcome is so desirable.

I am not an overly messy person, but the act of organizing is not thrilling to me.  I see it more as a necessary evil, and once you’re done it just means you can wait awhile before you do it again.  This doesn’t make me lazy – or mean that I won’t do it – it just means that I’m not the type of person that thinks the process itself is a moment to grow excited about.  This is especially true if I have to to the arranging myself.  Having someone to do it with makes it a little more worthwhile, but it’s still not my favorite activity.

I’m pretty sure that by now, had we unpacked my way the house would be ready to go.  I wouldn’t have been able to wait more then a few weeks to unload the boxes and have the place looking pretty good.  Still, I appreciate my husband’s zeal.  We’ve had an incredibly busy month with a lot of unexpected, needs-to-be-dealt-with-immediately situations.  Had we waited on the setting up the house, it would have been harder to go through some of those moments.

So thank you, Hubby, for being the organized one between the two of us!

NOTE:  This does not mean I don’t strive for cleanliness.  Extreme organization and appreciating a clean house are two different ball games in my opinion.

The weather in Dallas is finally cooling off.  After too many hot months the temperatures have plunged to truly fall-like weather with highs in the mid 60s.  Many people around here are complaining, but I’m reveling – it’s harder than I thought to kick the Northern habit of wanting to snuggle under a warm blanket while the snow falls outside.  Add hot tea and glowing fireplace, and you have what I call a little peace of heaven.

My husband just said I’m a Texan now, and that I can’t really label my post as it is.  I’m going to leave it that way, though, because anyone who wishes snow and ice would come cannot be a true native.

Right now I have Fall on the mind.  This isn’t due to the caramel apple cider I had today or that the apples at the grocery store hit 25 cents a piece.  It isn’t because pumpkins started popping into store fronts and street side stands.  And it isn’t because of the slowly cooling weather (bring it!).

Lately I have noticed the changing of the seasons because we’ve also been hit with the ramifications of THE Fall, as in back to the Garden of Eden and the beginning of the end of earthly life.

For the second time in three weeks, we are patiently waiting to hear news of death on my husband’s side of the family.  Once again, it is a grandfather who has been struggling for several months.  We understand that it is part of life, like the beautiful bursts of orange and red that appear in the trees until they let go of the branches.  We know that there is more – that unlike the leaves we will have a new life after we have crumpled up and decayed in the ground.

But still the evidence all around at this time of year serves to make it more piercing.
If only we could skip the suffering and be right away at the Tree of Life.

And, in a way, we already have…

Definitely a bacterial infection.  The name was so long I can’t remember it but “conjunctivitis” was part of it (I can’t believe I remember that much!).  Awesome*, right?  I am staying home from work today so that every hour I can put another drop of medicine in my eye.  Can’t wear a contact in it until Tuesday after my follow-up appointment.  Should be an interesting weekend considering my mom is visiting and we are painting two rooms!

* By “awesome” I mean really gross and disgusting.  Just in case there was any confusion…

I am not going into work yet this morning because my left eye has been bloodshot for about 18 hours.  I was kind of hoping it would be better when I woke up this morning, but instead it is now also constantly watering and a little bit painful.

I want to take the whole day off of work.  I have the sick time to do it, but another guy in our department has torn ligaments and a hairline fracture in his foot.  That trumped me yesterday when I wasn’t feeling too bad, but I can’t put in my contact and don’t really need to drip eye juice on everything at work.  It is highly noticable, so I don’t really want all of the comments from people, either.  All of the drainage from my eye + allergies = coughing.  Also not good, especially as most people will misinterpret the cough for the swine flu (I don’t have a fever, people!  lay off it).

I’m still waiting to hear from the doctor’s office about when they can fit me in.  I’m hoping it is soon and that my eye needs to rest today in order to recover fully…

When I was little, I thought mashed potatoes took hours to make.  That’s because we only had them, the real kind where you boil them first then whip them with milk and butter, on major holidays like Thanksgiving and birthdays.  It wasn’t until three years ago when my brother and I figured out that the problem was actually how many cooking implements needed to be washed afterwards.  My mom, of course, acted like we were silly for not realizing earlier how quickly mashed potatoes can be made, and we had to remind her that we grew up on the instant flakes (the thought of which now makes me shudder just a little on the inside).

I bring this up because I made another item this evening that doesn’t take that long, just some forethought.  I figured that lemonade from scratch would be more involved than “boil the water and sugar together.  cool.  add squeezed lemon juice.  serve over ice.”  The cookbook’s description of the wonders of lemonade were longer than the actual recipe.  The hardest part was for me to be patient while the simple syrup cooled in the fridge.  Sugar is cheap.  So are lemons.  Why did it take me until age 26 to make it from scratch?  Seriously?

I don’t think I’m being silly here.  And I’m not trying to speak poorly about my mom, who provided balanced meals as I grew up.  I mention these because they taste so much better than their store bought counterparts and yet making anything from scratch is becoming a less frequent occurrence.  It makes me nostalgic for a time I’ve never lived in.

To counteract this unusual sentimentality, I will also list some items that are WAY better from scratch but take long enough that I am better off buying at the store or ordering from my favorite restaurant:

Bread – love doing this but don’t love the at  least 4 hour it takes
Chicken Cacciatore – I never got to the point where the wine evaporated completely (or even very much at all).  Takes forever.
Enchiladas – Uh, I live in Texas.  Less than 15 minutes and 8 dollars is all it takes for excellence.

P.S.  Add fresh strawberries to the lemonade for extra goodness

We bought the house!!!!

I walked back into it today and remembered many of the reasons I fell in love with it.  The paint in the kitchen and master bath turned out PERFECT and they put a great texture underneath.  We walked around and planned for over an hour, just imagining what life will be like.  I even physically jumped up and down at one point!

A friend gave us the name of a good moving company.  I’ve never moved with one before, usually because across states becomes rather expensive.  But a couple hour in town move was comparable between that company and U-Haul, and combined with how much it lowered our stress levels not to do it all ourselves, this will be totally worth it.  I feel a little lazy, but that quickly passes…

After receiving the keys, we’ve had to clarify what we mean when we say “going home” – does this now refer to the new house or the old apartment?  We still have the apartment for over a month and a half, and I admit that until we are done with it I won’t feel like the house is completely permanent.

It doesn’t really matter how I feel, though, right?  Because to the lending companies holding our mortgages, it is set in stone!