What would you do?

What do you do when a solicitor or some such person comes unexpectedly to your door?

I always try to be as nice as I possibly can to anybody who shows up at my house, be they friend or... random person (of course I'm careful and safe too) but hey, door-to-door salespeople are humans just as much as I am, and deserve human decency and kindness just as much as anyone else.

Today, though, oh today, I got home from a lunch date and laid down on the couch for a moment, and the longer I laid there, the more I felt I could not be prevailed upon to do anything else for the rest of the day (don't worry - I did eventually get some things accomplished).

I've been having some pretty bad tension in my neck off and on since New Year's, and it returned in full force today, so I got myself a book and settled in - curled up under the warmest afghan in the house, by the fire and the Christmas Tree. I felt perfectly cozy.

Then came the knock at the door.

I propped myself up on my elbow and looked out the window of the front door.  I couldn't really see a person, but I saw a clipboard with some colorful pamphlets on it, and assumed there was probably a person carrying it.

My couch is situated in just such a way that if I'm lying on it, you can't see me from outside the house, so I just stayed right where I was because I did. not. want. to. move.

But y'all, I felt bad about it - it's the silliest thing, but I really felt sorry that I didn't answer the door for that poor person, from whom I certainly wasn't going to buy anything anyway.

This is my house, for goodness' sake, and my front door, and I can choose to open it or not as I so please, but I still feel a deep sense of obligation to open it to everyone who happens to knock.

So, what do you do?
I actually want to know if I'm the only person who feels this way.

I guess I'm just never satisfied with my hair.

***First, let me take a moment to solemnly apologize for the "apart" that appeared in my last post where the should have been "a part" - I was so ashamed when I discovered it.  I changed it immediately and am working on mending my sloppy proofreading ways.***

Now, onward: My poor hair has been in a constant state of change for basically my entire life - I can't learn to just leave it alone!  I've never done any chemical treatments on it at all, but other than that, it's been put through the wringer lately.

You may remember when I stopped washing it - that lasted about 6 months, just like no-poo before it.
(I cringe every time I type that...)

It's not that there was anything terribly wrong with not washing my hair.  My hair actually looked and felt about the same as it did when I washed it and it maybe even had a little more volume than with normal shampoo, but, honestly, I just really missed my hair smelling nice, so here we are.  I'm not going back to drugstore shampoos, though - I'm just buying high-end shampoos in large bottles when I see them on sale, and I'm pretty happy with it.

But, of course, you know I had to branch out into a new hair experiment, because, as we've already established, I can't just leave it alone.

So, now, I'm cutting my own hair.  Yep.  You heard me right.

Kids, don't try this one at home, because it really could have disastrous results, but, personally, I'm loving it so far, and haven't had any disasters.

Well, maybe I should say I've had minimal disasters?

The first time I did it was unexpectedly stressful.  I just got out of the shower one day and decided today was the day, and I went to town on it - chopped off about 8 inches.  That's kinda the way I generally do things - last minute, and all or nothing.

Then I stepped into the living room to model for my sister, who was sitting on the couch with her fiancee - the fiancee whom she was going to marry in two weeks, and here I was the Maid of Honor having just chopped all of her hair off too short to go into an up-do of any kind...

Oh man did I have a moment, but she was totally fine with it - she could not have cared less how I did my hair (except maybe if I had dyed it teal or something).

From that point on, I've just kept it fairly short and Ive thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm getting antsy to grow it out again.  The thing is, though, for the last 8 years or so, I've had my hair in pretty significant layers, and I've had bangs just about every other year, so the amount of different lengths in my hair has been overwhelming.  I'm finally to a point where most of the layers are pretty long and blended together well, but those bangs, man.  They're taking forever to catch up with the rest of my hair.

I want to grow it out, but with almost all of it the same length.  I think I need to keep some layers in it, but I want them to be minimal and long.  My hair's pretty thin, and every time I've tried to grow it out in the past, it's started to look scraggly past a certain point, and I'm just kind of wondering if that's because I had too many layers in it?  So, we're going to try this, and see how it goes.

I'll keep you posted!

Small Changes

I'm tired of making promises I don't keep - not promises I can't keep, just promises I choose not to keep after a while, for whatever silly reason I choose.

I've never been one to make New Year's Resolutions (and I'm still not), but I do frequently shout forth giant plans and promises for my future, and then utterly fail at following through.

I'm the queen of not following through.

I've actually been feeling pretty discouraged about that lately - I guess that's part of the process of acknowledging that this is a part of who I am that still needs a lot of refining.

In order to cheer myself up a little bit, I decided that, instead of resolutions, I'm going to start doing a little review of various small things I set out to do, and actually accomplished, at the end of each year.
Uh-oh.  Did I just make a resolution by accident?

So, without further ado, 2015 in review:

1. I committed to a 30-day green smoothie challenge, and completed it (and I'm in the middle of another one right now...)
2. I committed to a 21-day cleanse, and completed it (and I'm starting another one in February)
3. I told Baby Sister I would knit her a hat, and I did (even if it did take me 4 months...)
4. In the last 4 months, I journaled more than twice the amount I did earlier in the year
5. I made a decision to pick myself up when I fail, and keep going, instead of just brushing my failures completely under a rug off in a corner somewhere, and I've tried to incorporate that principle in my life
6. I made a decision to use up all the makeup I have before buying more, and I've stuck with it
7. I dedicated my bedroom as a technology-free zone, and, while I haven't stuck with it 100%, I'm pretty convinced it's a good idea, and I'm still chipping away at my bad habit of browsing social media at all hours of the night - now I'm just reading books at all hours of the night...

That's a pretty good little list - here's to more small accomplishments in 2016

Also, can I just say, some strange girl has taken over my body today:

• She only snoozed her alarm once
• She actually went to the gym
• She came back home and did a small home improvement project (Project New Year - New Bedroom coming soon to a blog near you hopefully)
• She got to work on time
• She came home and wrote a blog post
• AND NOW SHE'S ABOUT TO BE IN BED BEFORE MIDNIGHT!

Who is this person?
If this is what happens when you decide not to make resolutions, put me on this boat for the rest of my life.

Such a Good Day

Baby sister is home. (FINALLY!)

Blue Bell is back, and just as good as ever.

I saw four shooting starts tonight, all while driving and not even looking for them.

And that's about all, folks!

Where I Want to Be

Y'all.  It's Taylor Swift's birthday today, and she's two years younger than me.

And she's built an empire.

I, ummmmm, well... I own a car, so there's that.

Of course, that's mostly a joke, but I do sometimes envy people the things they have that I don't, so it's nice to remind myself that I wouldn't really want to be in T-Swift's shoes.

Remember when I decided I just wanted to disappear for a little while and live life beyond a screen, with real people?  Yeah, I kinda doubt there's much in Taylor's life that she can just cancel in a flash and run away to spend time with friends.  I mean, maybe, but I highly doubt it...

I, on the other hand, have that chance more often than not, and that time showed me I should take advantage of it more often than I do.

I visited my dear friend Kae, who is just a fantastic hostess, among many other things.  I love to pop in on her from time to time, and just be a part of her life - we don't make big plans for our time together.  She just has a peaceful, quiet, intentional way of life that I, in all my rushing, overly-social, never-take-a-breath, unpredictable intensity, need to soak up every once in a while.

I mean, the first night I was there, we finished dinner, and sat around talking for a minute, then, when I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, I glanced over at the tabletop and realized it was a perfect still-life:



Kae and her husband James have a little baby girl, Rose, and they like to carefully preserve and cultivate "Adult" things in their life after she's in bed by lighting candles and having long conversations over dinner.  They've done a good job of that from what I saw.

One night, Kae and I had a little tea party and read together - it was such a perfect re-set time and a reminder that this quiet little life is exactly where I want to be.



And one night, we made homemade pasta, because if we don't cook together at least once a visit, something has gone terribly wrong.



It's our happy place. Can't you tell?



One of my favorite moments of the whole trip, though, was one afternoon when Kae was washing dishes and I was in the living room (probably having just finished my 14,973,587th reading of Rose's favorite "Mary Had a Little Lamb" finger puppet book) and Rose was just floating back and forth between us - she went into the kitchen with Kae, and Kae began singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to her in Chinese.

Just a normal moment in their day, but so incredibly poignant for me.
Yeah, there's something about music in languages other than English that gets me every time, but this was different.

When Kae and I first met, neither of us would ever have imagined we would be in that moment right then.  But somehow it was exactly right - exactly the way things were supposed to be from the very beginning.



I don't think either of us would trade to be where we pictured ourselves 7 years ago.

Cooking Club, Round 1

So, today was my first "cooking club," which I'm trying to model off of Shauna Niequist's concept (at least my understanding thereof). By the way, if you've never read any of Shauna's books, double-time it to the nearest bookstore now, and get both Cold Tangerines and Bread and Wine.

Go ahead! I'll wait here til you get back...

Or if you don't go buy her books immediately, at least please follow her on instagram. She is a really awesome human.

She's done this thing called cooking club for years now, where the same basic group of women gathers once a month in a different person's house each time on a steady rotation, and each person brings ingredients for parts of a meal, centering around a theme (Mediterranean food, for example, or miniature food). Then they all cook and eat together. It's a great purposeful way to cultivate vulnerability and community and also to learn how to cook new things from each other, and not get stuck in a food rut.

So a friend of mine hosted cooking club tonight, and there were about 5 of us, and most folks brought already prepared things, so it didn't quite go as planned, but it was a really good group, so I'd say all in all it was a good start.

Next time it's making homemade pasta and sauces at my house!

The Last of the Birthday Celebrations

Tonight, I went to a performance of excerpts from Handel's Messiah.

It is simply awe-inspiring.

Every year that I can, for at least the past 8 years, I've gone to this same performance, and for 3 of those years, I performed in it. There is nothing like that music.

It kind of accidentally became a birthday tradition for me, because it happens either the weekend before or after my birthday every year - one of those years, I even got to sing in it on my actual birthday!

Now I hope that, wherever I live for the rest of my life, there will be a production not-too-far-to-travel-to, because I honestly can't imagine the Holidays without it.