I've never understood the expression, "Rip it off like a Band-Aid."
Well, that's not really true. I understand the theory behind it. Supposedly it hurts your skin less if you just grab one side of that thing and yank hard and fast.
But that's not how I roll. I have never. ever. ripped off Band-Aids.
My process for removing a Band-Aid involves thinking about it for awhile. Deciding if the grayish-black adhesive that always builds up around the edge is now so disgusting that people are going to start looking at me funny. When I decide it is indeed time, I wedge my fingernail underneath the edge of it and S-L-O-W-L-Y pull. And by slowly, I mean that this process can take ten minutes or more for a normal-sized bandage. Ten minutes of pain...followed by relief...followed by pain...followed by relief...wash. rinse. repeat.
Yep. Same thing with pools and the like. I always get in inch by tiny inch. One toe at a time. It's one of the many reasons I never attempted swim team. I was never gonna be able to dive off of those blocks into the water. I just can't do it. Drives my kids crazy. By the time I'm completely wet, they're long done and ready to do something else.
I approach all difficult things in my life this way.
People think I'm crazy. They're not wrong.
So it's a little bit understandable that I would approach a life-changing move the selfsame way.
~Find out about it in November.
~Feel the need to let kids finish the school year. Buys time until May.
~Decide the kids need one last summer with their friends to finish baseball. Buys time until July.
~Take advantage of brother getting married and not having people in a new place to watch kids. Buy some more time until the end of August.
~Leave all of our stuff in our house in the Midwest until we can close on a house in our new place. Buys a flight back to the home I love for one more visit.
And just like pulling off a Band-Aid, all of these stages have had great pain, followed by relief and ease, joy and laughter, followed by pain and tears and breaking hearts.
So as I sit here in this airport, ready to board a flight that will take me the last leg of this very long moving journey, I realize that I have finally done it. I no longer have any type of residence in Kansas. Our belongings are on a huge truck, en route to a new, permanent home. The band-aid is off. I'm completely immersed in the water, from toe to head.
The emotional exhaustion is huge.
So huge that I feel numb.
And I am sure that my friends and family were looking on during this whole process and thinking, "Oh, For.The.Love!! Just do it already!! Move! Like ripping off a Band-Aid."
Exactly. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Friday, September 6, 2013
Things I Love About Living Here
I have this friend, Renee. Renee and I met through the virtual school where I worked. Renee's daughter is one of my former students.
Several things about Renee~
1. She's amazing. Truly. Amazing.
2. She's living a semi-parallel life to mine.
When I say "semi-parallel," I mean she's also relocating to California after living in the Midwest for a number of years. But she's in the major league where this is concerned and I'm still on a farm team. Because...
Renee is also living apart from her husband. She has three kids. But her OLDEST is the same age as my YOUNGEST. Whereas I am a veteran home schooling mom (meaning I've served in that war. A long time ago.), Renee is active-duty. She is also packing up her own house, trying to get it sold, and is mommy and daddy for three young children--all while teaching three kids full-time.
3. Renee is not a complainer. She's one of the most positive people I know.
Renee does things like make "Top 10 Great Things About Moving to California" lists.
4. When I grow up, I want to be like Renee.
True Confession time--
I. Hate. It. Here. With a white-hot passion.
Everything is complicated here. Absolutely everything.
From taking the kids to school in the morning, to ridding the apartment of roaches, to trying to get C in the correct math class. It's all complicated. Oh, and expensive.
But none of that stuff is as complicated as trying to purchase real-estate in Southern California. Remember how I said that I had hopefully gotten the last You Have So Got To Be Kidding Me With This correspondence about the house we're trying to buy?
Yeah. I jinxed it. We hadn't. We probably still haven't.
At this point, I hope we own this home by the time J starts high school.
I have absolutely no idea why so many people want to live here. This place gets 55 electoral votes. 55! How is that even possible?
It can't be the weather. It was 103 here today.
But I digress.
I've been thinking a lot about my friend, Renee's list.
And I decided that I should start a list of my own. Things I love about living here that I wouldn't have back in Kansas.
Maybe it will help if I can focus on the positive.
And I'm going to put a reminder on my calendar to come back to this list every so often to add to it. If there's anything to add.
So here goes:
Things I Love About Living Here
1. Trader Joe's.
I love that there is a Trader Joe's here. Two minutes from where we live. And there's always a parking spot available.
That's it. That's seriously all I've got. But at least it's a start.
Author's Note:
Yes. I am also glad that our family is "sort of" together again. (We miss you, Mik!) But let's be honest here. Really. If I had dug in my heels and decided I wasn't leaving Kansas, we'd still be living there. All of us.
The best line in the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is
"The man may be the head of the family, but the woman is the neck."
Several things about Renee~
1. She's amazing. Truly. Amazing.
2. She's living a semi-parallel life to mine.
When I say "semi-parallel," I mean she's also relocating to California after living in the Midwest for a number of years. But she's in the major league where this is concerned and I'm still on a farm team. Because...
Renee is also living apart from her husband. She has three kids. But her OLDEST is the same age as my YOUNGEST. Whereas I am a veteran home schooling mom (meaning I've served in that war. A long time ago.), Renee is active-duty. She is also packing up her own house, trying to get it sold, and is mommy and daddy for three young children--all while teaching three kids full-time.
3. Renee is not a complainer. She's one of the most positive people I know.
Renee does things like make "Top 10 Great Things About Moving to California" lists.
4. When I grow up, I want to be like Renee.
True Confession time--
I. Hate. It. Here. With a white-hot passion.
Everything is complicated here. Absolutely everything.
From taking the kids to school in the morning, to ridding the apartment of roaches, to trying to get C in the correct math class. It's all complicated. Oh, and expensive.
But none of that stuff is as complicated as trying to purchase real-estate in Southern California. Remember how I said that I had hopefully gotten the last You Have So Got To Be Kidding Me With This correspondence about the house we're trying to buy?
Yeah. I jinxed it. We hadn't. We probably still haven't.
At this point, I hope we own this home by the time J starts high school.
I have absolutely no idea why so many people want to live here. This place gets 55 electoral votes. 55! How is that even possible?
It can't be the weather. It was 103 here today.
But I digress.
I've been thinking a lot about my friend, Renee's list.
And I decided that I should start a list of my own. Things I love about living here that I wouldn't have back in Kansas.
Maybe it will help if I can focus on the positive.
And I'm going to put a reminder on my calendar to come back to this list every so often to add to it. If there's anything to add.
So here goes:
Things I Love About Living Here
1. Trader Joe's.
I love that there is a Trader Joe's here. Two minutes from where we live. And there's always a parking spot available.
That's it. That's seriously all I've got. But at least it's a start.
Author's Note:
Yes. I am also glad that our family is "sort of" together again. (We miss you, Mik!) But let's be honest here. Really. If I had dug in my heels and decided I wasn't leaving Kansas, we'd still be living there. All of us.
The best line in the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is
"The man may be the head of the family, but the woman is the neck."
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Perfectly Paleo
~Disclaimer~
I'm kind of grumpy today. So if this is more acrid than normal, I apologize.
So I thought this move to California would be a good time to turn over a new leaf. I decided I would give organization and forethought and planning ahead a try-on for size and see how I like the way they fit.
So far, they look great on the rack and on other people. On me...not so much.
I did things like pre-emptively get athletic clearances filled out on my kids in Kansas with our doctors. Somewhere between having it in the apartment and getting it to the ASB (I have no idea what in the world ASB is or what it stands for, but that's where it has to go) office at N's school, the form has disappeared. This form has to be in a coach's hot little hands Saturday morning for baseball tryouts. Baseball is what this kid is putting all of his hope on for a successful life here.
This brings us to this thing called Urgent Care. Where I pay $40, wait over 2 hours, and sign my name, give my address, and my date of birth on no less than 8 pieces of paper. Including the paper that I had to sign to say that I had paid my balance in full. Seriously??? Because the signed credit card statement wasn't enough?? So that my son can spend five minutes back in a room with heaven knows who walking in a straight line, touching his toes, getting asked if he has headaches or heart problems, and then gets told to "have a good season and don't get hurt." Oh. And they won't bill insurance.
And then there was the other evening. :o)
I attempted a lovely, Paleo dinner of meatloaf and bacon-n-brussels sprouts.
Cooking is something that I am also trying to do on a regular basis. I've found that the smell of dinner decreases the chance of Better Half glancing pointedly around the apartment and saying casually, "So...what did you do all day today?" And really. It's only fair. I'm not working. You'd think I could at least handle dinner.
So dinner is nicely cooking. There are about 15 minutes left on the timer, and I have to go pick J up from dance.
So I tell Better Half:
"Dinner will be ready in 15. I know that you guys have to leave. Just stick it back in the oven after you eat. J and I will be right home and we'll eat then." We have no microwave to reheat food.
I pick up J. And as I'm pulling up to the apartment, I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one you get when you realize things are gonna go terribly wrong. I had given C my apartment key earlier in the afternoon and forgot to get it back.
Better half is with the boys on his way to C's baseball practice--20 minutes away. I'm locked out of my apartment and dinner is still in the oven. Which is still set at 350 degress.
See why organization doesn't look so hot on me?? If I hadn't come up with a dinner plan, we could've just had In-N-Out Burger. Better Half wouldn't have had to race home. J and I wouldn't have been shaking the living room window screens to see if we could remove them when the neighbors walked by. They wouldn't have had to say, "I sure hope you guys live in that place." And we wouldn't have worried that every beep we heard was the smoke detector in our apartment.
Oh, and it was 100 different kinds of hot and humid outside.
So better half finally gets home. He lets us into the apartment and I pull out dinner. The meatloaf is just a little bit crispy on the outside. Not bad.
But the bacon and Brussels sprouts, well...
J took one look at it and said, "Ugh! It looks like dead roaches!! Is THAT what you've been doing with all of the roaches, Mom??"
I really don't see the problem. I'm gonna guess roaches are Paleo.
Maybe we'll try "eating local" on for size as well.:o)
In other news--My friend Jaime (who, incidentally, I met on my VERY FIRST DAY of KINDERGARTEN) is a GENIUS!!! It's not exactly Princess Kate, but it certainly isn't Peg Bundy, either:
And my friend, Jennifer, is also a genius. Because the first kid to open a fresh, sassy mouth or who says something hateful to a sibling on a school morning is getting me...walking the offender up to the school building with my head full of these:
I'm kind of grumpy today. So if this is more acrid than normal, I apologize.
So I thought this move to California would be a good time to turn over a new leaf. I decided I would give organization and forethought and planning ahead a try-on for size and see how I like the way they fit.
So far, they look great on the rack and on other people. On me...not so much.
I did things like pre-emptively get athletic clearances filled out on my kids in Kansas with our doctors. Somewhere between having it in the apartment and getting it to the ASB (I have no idea what in the world ASB is or what it stands for, but that's where it has to go) office at N's school, the form has disappeared. This form has to be in a coach's hot little hands Saturday morning for baseball tryouts. Baseball is what this kid is putting all of his hope on for a successful life here.
This brings us to this thing called Urgent Care. Where I pay $40, wait over 2 hours, and sign my name, give my address, and my date of birth on no less than 8 pieces of paper. Including the paper that I had to sign to say that I had paid my balance in full. Seriously??? Because the signed credit card statement wasn't enough?? So that my son can spend five minutes back in a room with heaven knows who walking in a straight line, touching his toes, getting asked if he has headaches or heart problems, and then gets told to "have a good season and don't get hurt." Oh. And they won't bill insurance.
And then there was the other evening. :o)
I attempted a lovely, Paleo dinner of meatloaf and bacon-n-brussels sprouts.
Cooking is something that I am also trying to do on a regular basis. I've found that the smell of dinner decreases the chance of Better Half glancing pointedly around the apartment and saying casually, "So...what did you do all day today?" And really. It's only fair. I'm not working. You'd think I could at least handle dinner.
So dinner is nicely cooking. There are about 15 minutes left on the timer, and I have to go pick J up from dance.
So I tell Better Half:
"Dinner will be ready in 15. I know that you guys have to leave. Just stick it back in the oven after you eat. J and I will be right home and we'll eat then." We have no microwave to reheat food.
I pick up J. And as I'm pulling up to the apartment, I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one you get when you realize things are gonna go terribly wrong. I had given C my apartment key earlier in the afternoon and forgot to get it back.
Better half is with the boys on his way to C's baseball practice--20 minutes away. I'm locked out of my apartment and dinner is still in the oven. Which is still set at 350 degress.
See why organization doesn't look so hot on me?? If I hadn't come up with a dinner plan, we could've just had In-N-Out Burger. Better Half wouldn't have had to race home. J and I wouldn't have been shaking the living room window screens to see if we could remove them when the neighbors walked by. They wouldn't have had to say, "I sure hope you guys live in that place." And we wouldn't have worried that every beep we heard was the smoke detector in our apartment.
Oh, and it was 100 different kinds of hot and humid outside.
So better half finally gets home. He lets us into the apartment and I pull out dinner. The meatloaf is just a little bit crispy on the outside. Not bad.
But the bacon and Brussels sprouts, well...
J took one look at it and said, "Ugh! It looks like dead roaches!! Is THAT what you've been doing with all of the roaches, Mom??"
I really don't see the problem. I'm gonna guess roaches are Paleo.
Maybe we'll try "eating local" on for size as well.:o)
In other news--My friend Jaime (who, incidentally, I met on my VERY FIRST DAY of KINDERGARTEN) is a GENIUS!!! It's not exactly Princess Kate, but it certainly isn't Peg Bundy, either:
And my friend, Jennifer, is also a genius. Because the first kid to open a fresh, sassy mouth or who says something hateful to a sibling on a school morning is getting me...walking the offender up to the school building with my head full of these:
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
A Little Bit of This...A Little Bit of That
~The Weekend~
I adore three-day weekends. It's nice to know that I have reinforcements in the form of "Daddy" for three entire days. There is something delicious about Sunday evenings. I think it's when you start to gear up for a typical Monday and then get the delightful surprise reminder that you have one more "weekend day" left.
We had a really nice three-day weekend. In reverse order--
Yesterday we took the kids to the beach. J has been DYING to go since we got here. I'm a huge fan as the kids and Better Half are all happy to mess around in the freezing cold Pacific and I am happy to lie on a blanket, read, and nap. We had a great time. Saw a seal. In the wild. And a pelican. Got a fantastic parking spot. Experienced no traffic issues. It really was magical. Except for the sand. Sand is glorious on a beach. Not so much anywhere else. Despite our best efforts I now have sand all over my car, my clothes, and my apartment. We went to the beach with Better Half over spring break. He says he was STILL cleaning up sand when he moved out of it three weeks ago. For. The. Love.
If you removed the mountain backdrop behind the field, our Sunday looked identical to every Sunday we've spent in Kansas for the past 6 years in the summer. Baseball. But we can cross "find the kid a baseball team" off of the list of things to get done for C. Lesson learned on Sunday--Rednecks are everywhere. Even in Southern California.
On Saturday some of our dear friends (who happen to live in California) drove two hours to come see us in our tiny, temporary apartment. More on the apartment later. It was wicked hot and sticky. Basically just like Kansas. We took all the kids to the pool, tried to feed everyone out of Better Half's dorm-sized refrigerator (I am so not making this up) and off of his six dinner plates. Then we all sat around the kitchen and tried to think of things to do. Entertainment pickings are slim. A deck of cards and a game called "Pass the Pigs" is about all I can offer until the rest of our stuff gets here. Oh, that, and a whole lot of verbal teenaged sibling sparring. Anyway...it sure was nice of Andy and Amanda to schlepp their kids two hours to hang out with us in our roach-infested apartment. I'm sure they're super anxious to do it again real soon. Which leads me to...
~Housing~
Yes. There are roaches in my apartment. When your husband is able to locate a "month-to-month" rental in a city where no one does "month-to-month" rentals, you have to understand that you get what you pay for. When we procure the therapist for J, I'm sure he/she is gonna want to spend significant time on the "I opened the cabinet to get a bowl for cereal and a roach fell on my head" incident. I don't want the trauma of that one coming back to haunt her in adulthood.
This address should be very temporary. As in "we should be outta here by the end of the week" temporary. I am so hoping that we have gotten our last You. Have. Seriously. Got. To. Be. KIDDING. Me. About. This. text/email/phone call from the Realtor/Lender/Escrow company with one more thing to do/hold-up/potential disaster that is going to cost us the house we are trying to buy and all of our earnest money.
When we first got here and I saw the apartment, I had a very "zen" attitude about closing on the house. If it worked out, great. If not, there'd be another one and we'd be fine to live here for awhile. Once I saw the first roach, I lost my "zen" space. I think it went back to Kansas.
~California~
You have to have a "food handling license" to work at any restaurant in California. It sounds like it's a certificate that states that you understand that handwashing prevents disease and you should use gloves and not sneeze or cough or pick your nose while making my hamburger. This is amusing and terrifying to me on so many levels. I am also interested in how much one must pay to obtain such a credential.
I'm not sure which "California Girls" Katy Perry is singing about, but she's sure not singing about the ones who live in this town. J's public elementary school dress code states that all shorts must hit below the mid-thigh. No makeup may be worn. All hairstyles must be of natural color and shape. "Daisy Dukes and bikinis on top" don't fly here. Believe me. I'm so down with kicking it old-school. None of this is a problem for me at all. It's just not at all what I expected. It doesn't jive with my stereotype of this place.
Neither is the policy for the high school baseball team that all hair must be cut above the ears and off the neck.
Or the fact that there are technically school busses here, but no one uses them. Everyone drives their kids. That doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to me. Just saying.
N on California--"This is a great place to be during the weekend. The week? Notsomuch."
~Exercise and Health~
I have been self-medicating with food for the past week-and-a-half. Don't judge. It's really easy to do when you have a roach-infested kitchen. You pretty much want to be out. And eat out. And eat badly. And often.
So I have this friend, Jennifer, who, several years ago, had this blog titled, "Exercise is a Reasonable Substitute for Love." This amazing lady, while dealing with some pretty life-changing personal stuff, used exercise and healthy living as a means of coping with the crazy. In the process of all of this, she found love and had to start calling her blog something else. :o) Now she never posts because she's wicked busy going back to school, running her own business, parenting her kids, and doing lots and lots of healthy and wicked-cool exercisey things like running multiple marathons every year.
I'm going to steal a page out of her book and try an experiment. I'm going to see if "Exercise is a Reasonable Substitute for Friends." :o)
In that vein, I went to a CrossFit gym today. It was completely un-air conditioned. Just like mine back in Kansas. I felt right at home.
I don't want to go as far as to say that I've missed things like rope burns on my legs, but the constant burning pain above my right ankle is reminding me even as I sit that I accomplished something good for my body today.
And it is also a constant reminder to quit going to class without first checking out the WOD. Forthelove. Today was definitely a knee sock day.
Except that my knee socks are still in Kansas...
I adore three-day weekends. It's nice to know that I have reinforcements in the form of "Daddy" for three entire days. There is something delicious about Sunday evenings. I think it's when you start to gear up for a typical Monday and then get the delightful surprise reminder that you have one more "weekend day" left.
We had a really nice three-day weekend. In reverse order--
Yesterday we took the kids to the beach. J has been DYING to go since we got here. I'm a huge fan as the kids and Better Half are all happy to mess around in the freezing cold Pacific and I am happy to lie on a blanket, read, and nap. We had a great time. Saw a seal. In the wild. And a pelican. Got a fantastic parking spot. Experienced no traffic issues. It really was magical. Except for the sand. Sand is glorious on a beach. Not so much anywhere else. Despite our best efforts I now have sand all over my car, my clothes, and my apartment. We went to the beach with Better Half over spring break. He says he was STILL cleaning up sand when he moved out of it three weeks ago. For. The. Love.
If you removed the mountain backdrop behind the field, our Sunday looked identical to every Sunday we've spent in Kansas for the past 6 years in the summer. Baseball. But we can cross "find the kid a baseball team" off of the list of things to get done for C. Lesson learned on Sunday--Rednecks are everywhere. Even in Southern California.
On Saturday some of our dear friends (who happen to live in California) drove two hours to come see us in our tiny, temporary apartment. More on the apartment later. It was wicked hot and sticky. Basically just like Kansas. We took all the kids to the pool, tried to feed everyone out of Better Half's dorm-sized refrigerator (I am so not making this up) and off of his six dinner plates. Then we all sat around the kitchen and tried to think of things to do. Entertainment pickings are slim. A deck of cards and a game called "Pass the Pigs" is about all I can offer until the rest of our stuff gets here. Oh, that, and a whole lot of verbal teenaged sibling sparring. Anyway...it sure was nice of Andy and Amanda to schlepp their kids two hours to hang out with us in our roach-infested apartment. I'm sure they're super anxious to do it again real soon. Which leads me to...
~Housing~
Yes. There are roaches in my apartment. When your husband is able to locate a "month-to-month" rental in a city where no one does "month-to-month" rentals, you have to understand that you get what you pay for. When we procure the therapist for J, I'm sure he/she is gonna want to spend significant time on the "I opened the cabinet to get a bowl for cereal and a roach fell on my head" incident. I don't want the trauma of that one coming back to haunt her in adulthood.
This address should be very temporary. As in "we should be outta here by the end of the week" temporary. I am so hoping that we have gotten our last You. Have. Seriously. Got. To. Be. KIDDING. Me. About. This. text/email/phone call from the Realtor/Lender/Escrow company with one more thing to do/hold-up/potential disaster that is going to cost us the house we are trying to buy and all of our earnest money.
When we first got here and I saw the apartment, I had a very "zen" attitude about closing on the house. If it worked out, great. If not, there'd be another one and we'd be fine to live here for awhile. Once I saw the first roach, I lost my "zen" space. I think it went back to Kansas.
~California~
You have to have a "food handling license" to work at any restaurant in California. It sounds like it's a certificate that states that you understand that handwashing prevents disease and you should use gloves and not sneeze or cough or pick your nose while making my hamburger. This is amusing and terrifying to me on so many levels. I am also interested in how much one must pay to obtain such a credential.
I'm not sure which "California Girls" Katy Perry is singing about, but she's sure not singing about the ones who live in this town. J's public elementary school dress code states that all shorts must hit below the mid-thigh. No makeup may be worn. All hairstyles must be of natural color and shape. "Daisy Dukes and bikinis on top" don't fly here. Believe me. I'm so down with kicking it old-school. None of this is a problem for me at all. It's just not at all what I expected. It doesn't jive with my stereotype of this place.
Neither is the policy for the high school baseball team that all hair must be cut above the ears and off the neck.
Or the fact that there are technically school busses here, but no one uses them. Everyone drives their kids. That doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to me. Just saying.
N on California--"This is a great place to be during the weekend. The week? Notsomuch."
~Exercise and Health~
I have been self-medicating with food for the past week-and-a-half. Don't judge. It's really easy to do when you have a roach-infested kitchen. You pretty much want to be out. And eat out. And eat badly. And often.
So I have this friend, Jennifer, who, several years ago, had this blog titled, "Exercise is a Reasonable Substitute for Love." This amazing lady, while dealing with some pretty life-changing personal stuff, used exercise and healthy living as a means of coping with the crazy. In the process of all of this, she found love and had to start calling her blog something else. :o) Now she never posts because she's wicked busy going back to school, running her own business, parenting her kids, and doing lots and lots of healthy and wicked-cool exercisey things like running multiple marathons every year.
I'm going to steal a page out of her book and try an experiment. I'm going to see if "Exercise is a Reasonable Substitute for Friends." :o)
In that vein, I went to a CrossFit gym today. It was completely un-air conditioned. Just like mine back in Kansas. I felt right at home.
I don't want to go as far as to say that I've missed things like rope burns on my legs, but the constant burning pain above my right ankle is reminding me even as I sit that I accomplished something good for my body today.
And it is also a constant reminder to quit going to class without first checking out the WOD. Forthelove. Today was definitely a knee sock day.
Except that my knee socks are still in Kansas...
Monday, September 2, 2013
Hair Affair
Before moving out here, I tried to be uncharacteristicallly proactive and organized. We visited the doctor. We got updated eye exams. At the advice of my dear friend, I got copies of medical records. Yada. Yada.
The thing I failed to do was get my hair cut one last time.
I usually get my hair cut every 8 weeks or so. But this has been a crazy summer, folks. So with the exception of a couple of whacks at my shaggy bangs when I just couldn't stand it any longer, guided by a perky sixteen-year old with too much eye makeup on a youtube video, I haven't had my hair cut since before spring break. I am not even kidding about this.
Fortunately, it is finally long enough for a decent "messy bun."
Anyway...
We arrived here on a Thursday. By Friday, my hair was an emergency. So I Googled hair places.
Can I just say that I love Google?
It never seems to have a problem with all of the words I use. So when I Googled "Absolute best place for a woman to get her hair cut in _____________ CA," It didn't freak out or tell me I've used too many characters. It just pulled up like six places with really good "Yelp" ratings.
I'm not really sure what "Yelp" is, but having "Yelp" rate you well is a good thing out here.
I called the first place on the list.
Yes. They could get me in for a haircut. Tomorrow. With a girl named Aimee. I loved this place already.
Aimee has magic hands.
A quick word about magic hands: If you have ever--1. Gotten a hideous haircut. 2. Attempted to hack at your hair yourself, thinking, "This can't be that big of a deal. I can't believe you have to go to school and get a license for this" and then had to wear a hat or a scarf for three weeks. 3. Had a preschool child practice his/her newfound cutting skills on his/her own locks or that of his/her siblings--you understand the importance of a hairstylist with magic hands.
This sweet girl took my hair...that hadn't been cut professionally in over SIX MONTHS and made my hair (Not my face. Unfortunately, someone would have to have an M.D. to fix that) look like this:
And all she used to accomplish this feat was a round brush. And some expensive serum stuff that I'm not ever gonna purchase in this lifetime, so the trick had to be the round brush, right?
I watched Aimee like a hawk as she worked on my hair. And she lured me into that very dangerous place. The one where you think, "THAT doesn't look SO hard. I can do THAT."
And I fell for it. I went out and bought a round brush. Brought it home. And pretended to be Aimee with the magic hands.
It was a sight for America's Funniest Home Videos. My hair was getting caught in the brush. I was smacking myself in the face, ear, elbow (yes, elbow!) with not only the brush, but also the hairdryer. When I was finished, I was red-faced and dripping with sweat and my hair looked just like this:
So I'm giving up. I've put the round brush in the pile of things to take to Goodwill. I bought a brand new package of hair elastics and bobby pins. I will proactively schedule hair appointments on days where I have to take family photos, driver's license pictures, go out for dinner for my anniversary. That sort of thing.
Otherwise, I'll be the girl sporting the messy bun.
The thing I failed to do was get my hair cut one last time.
I usually get my hair cut every 8 weeks or so. But this has been a crazy summer, folks. So with the exception of a couple of whacks at my shaggy bangs when I just couldn't stand it any longer, guided by a perky sixteen-year old with too much eye makeup on a youtube video, I haven't had my hair cut since before spring break. I am not even kidding about this.
Fortunately, it is finally long enough for a decent "messy bun."
Anyway...
We arrived here on a Thursday. By Friday, my hair was an emergency. So I Googled hair places.
Can I just say that I love Google?
It never seems to have a problem with all of the words I use. So when I Googled "Absolute best place for a woman to get her hair cut in _____________ CA," It didn't freak out or tell me I've used too many characters. It just pulled up like six places with really good "Yelp" ratings.
I'm not really sure what "Yelp" is, but having "Yelp" rate you well is a good thing out here.
I called the first place on the list.
Yes. They could get me in for a haircut. Tomorrow. With a girl named Aimee. I loved this place already.
Aimee has magic hands.
A quick word about magic hands: If you have ever--1. Gotten a hideous haircut. 2. Attempted to hack at your hair yourself, thinking, "This can't be that big of a deal. I can't believe you have to go to school and get a license for this" and then had to wear a hat or a scarf for three weeks. 3. Had a preschool child practice his/her newfound cutting skills on his/her own locks or that of his/her siblings--you understand the importance of a hairstylist with magic hands.
This sweet girl took my hair...that hadn't been cut professionally in over SIX MONTHS and made my hair (Not my face. Unfortunately, someone would have to have an M.D. to fix that) look like this:
Except that I have bangs.
I watched Aimee like a hawk as she worked on my hair. And she lured me into that very dangerous place. The one where you think, "THAT doesn't look SO hard. I can do THAT."
And I fell for it. I went out and bought a round brush. Brought it home. And pretended to be Aimee with the magic hands.
It was a sight for America's Funniest Home Videos. My hair was getting caught in the brush. I was smacking myself in the face, ear, elbow (yes, elbow!) with not only the brush, but also the hairdryer. When I was finished, I was red-faced and dripping with sweat and my hair looked just like this:
So I'm giving up. I've put the round brush in the pile of things to take to Goodwill. I bought a brand new package of hair elastics and bobby pins. I will proactively schedule hair appointments on days where I have to take family photos, driver's license pictures, go out for dinner for my anniversary. That sort of thing.
Otherwise, I'll be the girl sporting the messy bun.
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