eager little mind

Today I took my hair from dark brown (as brown as you can get without going black) to Scooby Doo Daphne orange, and finally back to maybe a shade lighter than my natural color. Why you ask? Well…

One thing that I’ve had to give up, since not returning to work full-time after Daphne was born, is having my hair professionally colored. I have a ridiculous amount of gray hair, which looks like someone threw some cheap Christmas tinsel icicles (remember those?) on top of a brown tree. It’s bad. And, dang it, I’ve got at least 30 years before I give in to the gray, or *gasp* go blond. So with the dark brown and the silver, yeah that sounds better than gray, I currently have to touch up my roots at least every 3 to 4 weeks. When I was having my hair highlighted, I had to get a touch up every 6 weeks. I’m lucky to get my hair cut every 6 weeks and shelling over a $1000 a year just to get my hair colored isn’t happening right now.

But I do hate coloring my hair at home. I just let my hair go about 6 weeks between root touch-ups, mainly because I was not looking forward to it. And also because I wanted to get enough root growth for me to tell exactly what my natural color is these days. Besides changing texture, my hair has really darkened up. On the chocolate spectrum of browns, I’m a dark chocolate. Or maybe it hasn’t really darkened up, I’d just been coloring it more of a milk chocolate for so many years I didn’t realize it until the last year or two. Who knows?

I was able to tell that the dark brown shade I had been using was an exact match to my natural color. That’s good, I guess. I’ve just heard several women lately talk about their “vampire” or “Elvira” hair after going dark brown and I started to think, “Oh crap! Is my hair too dark? It would be different if I wasn’t so pale. Maybe it is a little on the vampire side?” And my color was looking a little dull, and heavy on the ends ( I swear I only touch up the roots). So I picked up a box of Colorfix to remove the color in my hair, a low PH conditioner, a box of Medium Ash Brown dye and a really good after color conditioner.

Just so you know, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Don’t try this at home, hehe. At least without doing your own research. I’d used the Colorfix before after the time I accidentally colored my hair blue-black. (Oops!) It takes the dye out of your hair and leaves it this really freaky orange color. I went from Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands to Winona Ryder in 20 min.

Or you can do a slight color correction that takes it down a shade or two. Then I used Porosity Control conditioner, and applied the medium brown dye. Then I conditioned the hell out of my hair. The result? A little lighter than my natural color, not much. I’m sure it will fade over the next few days. Pretty even and very, very shiny and soft. The only thing I need to do is buy a toner or something that will counteract the red in my hair that’s there now that it’s a little lighter. I’m thinking Ardell Unred. I’m not completely sure that the Colorfix was necessary, since I wasn’t changing my color that much. I guess I wasn’t sure how the lighter dye would work on my hair, since the color was a little uneven, especially at the ends.

Any home hair color experts out there? Any tips? What works for you?

Have you seen the Ross sister’s Solid Potato Salad bit? If not, then you must see it. Stephanie Nielson linked to it and I watched the first minute and thought, ok, that’s kind of retro, kitschy, cute… Then my reaction changed to, “Um, that’s disturbing!” I’m sure to have nightmares about the 2:22 point, hehehe. And the finale? That’s just all kinds of weird, cool, bizarre, unbelievable. Here’s the clip. Enjoy:

- You might remember that Daphne is really into Kai-Lan. And if you don’t know who I’m talking about, lucky you! Just kidding. There are worse programs on Nick Jr. So, after watching the Chinese New Year episode about a million times, we decided to take Daphne to Chinatown for a Lunar New Year festival. I fixed her hair in Kai-Lan buns and promised her we’d see a dragon. She was ready to go. Unfortunately for Daphne, we got there crazy early. And we’d have to stand around for an hour or two with a 2 year old who had missed her nap until the dancing started. Yeah. We bailed and went to see friends. Maybe we’ll try it again next year, or pick a different celebration to attend.

- Did you catch the Project Runway episode with the little girls? Ack. Total cuteness. Did anyone else think Amy’s scalloped pants looked like one of Joel Dewberry’s Manzanita fabrics? And I thought it was hilarious that the guest judge said that blue and orange are not complementary colors. Let me just whip out my color wheel. You know, I think that’s exactly what they are.

- We’ve been working on a re-branding project for the photo biz. New name, website, logo, marketing materials, etc. It will be unveiled soon! I’m happy to say it’s more of a collaboration between me and my husband, whereas the old site was more his thing. Plus I hated the old name. Hated. More on that later.

- Daphne has been making her toys “fly” for quite some time. But now they are all flying IN SPACE!! She threw her underwear in the air the other day and said, “Flying panties in SPACE!” I’m not 100% sure where she got the space idea. Maybe she was in the room when my husband and I were watching a Discovery channel DVD set about the space program? Well, and she’s watched a lot of BSG with us. We might have to take her to NASA when she gets a little older, since it’s about an hour away.

- Speaking of Daphers, that girl has been wearing me out. Last week was just crazy. She was moody. Her sleep schedule was off. She’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Mommy wanted to scream. She had expressed interest in sleeping on her twin bed, but after a few rough nights I decided to put her back in the crib. Maybe the potty training and big girl bed was just too much for her at the same time?

- I’m looking forward to more Jenny time this week. I need to get caught up on my correspondence, sew up a bunch of things for Daphne and get started on her baby book. I bought a few digital kits at Two Peas in a Bucket (like Peony Place Skylit). Now just to find enough time…

How was your week?

- We had free passes to see a preview of Shutter Island last night. It was pretty good. The people watching was pretty good too, since the theater was inside the loop and not out in preppy Suburbia. I had my first real life sighting of the stereotypical hipster guy wearing skinny jeans and eyeglasses bigger than his face, which contrasted nicely with the pre-teen boy sized Members Only jacket he was wearing. Seriously? The sleeves barely made it to mid forearm.

- During hard economic times, occasionally I’ll see articles or news segments about bartering for goods and services. I’ve never done it, but I might have to look into it after checking out Knock Off Wood’s blog. Holy Crap, people!!!! It makes me want to go to Home Depot and buy some lumber. I’m not sure how far I’d get since the only tools I own are a Dremel and a jigsaw. On the plus side, I’ve seen just about every episode of This Old House ever made, and many episodes of New Yankee Workshop. Unfortunately, I’m a klutz and would probably cut off my hand. And my husband has zero interest. So….. will trade photography and sewing skills for a few knock-off Pottery Barn Kids and Land of Nod pieces.

- We went to Costco today to stock up. I love Costco. I picked up two Hanna Andersson dresses for Daphne, $13.99 a piece. One dress was even something that I wanted to buy her last year and wasn’t able to. Score!! Especially since they were probably $30+ retail. The HA pieces I’ve bought for Daphne over the last two years still look brand new, even though I’ve washed some of them 100 times. This tunic dress/top, in particular, has had everything from chocolate milk to spaghetti sauce spilled on it, and was worn constantly last year (and even some this year) and still looks new.

So YAY for cheap Hannas!

- I think I need to work on my amigurumi skills, because my nephew Oliver needs a Star Wars Amigurumi set:

From Etsy seller lucyravenscar. So stinking cute.

- I learned this week that apparently it’s crazy to carry 11 tubes of lipstick around in your purse. You mean, everyone doesn’t do that? We had one of those mixer games before my Wednesday morning mom’s group and you got points for a bunch of random things in your purse. Everyone thought my lipstick collection was hilarious. All MAC, and all different shades- berries, pinks, bronzes, peaches. Cause you never know what you’ll need, right? Is that really crazy?

- Daphne has been crazy fussy this week. I have no idea what is going on. Here’s one of her rare smiles today:

Have a good weekend, everyone!

While I was on Twitter tonight I noticed someone tweeted that tourists frequently ask the front desk people at the Alamo why it was built in the middle of downtown San Antonio. Uh, what?!! Setting aside that dumb question, I’ll admit I was tempted to tweet back “At least the question isn’t, Where’s the basement?!”

Do you think anyone still asks to see the basement of the Alamo? At least anyone under the age of 30? Do any of you know what I’m talking about? Hahaha.. I know a few of you do. For those of you who don’t, it’s a reference to Pee-wee Herman’s first movie, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Here’s the clip:

I actually love Pee-wee. (Why don’t you marry him?) Not so much his movies (I admit I liked them as a young teen), but his early 80’s stage show with the Groundlings was hilarious! You can YouTube some clips if you are interested. If I was anywhere near Los Angeles, I would have gone to see his new stage show. Funny, funny.

And something else that is funny, well, more sad/funny… I still can’t say the word adobe without thinking of Jan Hooks.

So you remember how I was DREADING the whole potty training thing? I kept putting it off, even though Daphne would occasionally ask to use the potty and go without any problems. I wasn’t sure she was ready. Or, more accurately, I wasn’t ready. Getting Daphne to sleep and eat has always been a fight, why would potty training be any different?

After a rocky first three days, mainly due to us both being really sick & crabby the week I started, Daphne has now been accident free for almost a week. She even wakes up dry from naps and overnight. This is just shocking to me. Shocking!! I do still feel like I live in the bathroom now, since I take her every 30 minutes. That’s all I do, sit in the bathroom with Daphne and clap for her bowel movements. They leave that info out for new moms. Someday you will have to stand next to the toilet, cheer and do the Dora “We Did It” dance more than a dozen times a day to encourage your little one to use the potty.

Daphne is in cloth training panties most of the day, with Pull-Ups for nap and nighttime. She hates the Pull-Ups and thinks her cotton panties are awesome. She also hates using public restrooms. In fact, she’s only used a public potty once when we were at the library. At our Wednesday morning mom’s group, I took her before we left the house, once we got to church and before we left. You’d have thought I was trying to torture her in the bathroom. So, she held it until we got home. I’m really surprised she didn’t have an accident.

Next week we are going to pick out a few big girl gifts, including Ni hao, Kai-Lan panties. Go Daphne! Woo hoo!

- I recently won a blog contest. I. Won. Shocking really, since I never win anything. I’m very unlucky. And it wasn’t just one prize, but 8 awesome prizes from great Etsy/indie craft shops. It was better than Christmas! Especially for a girl who has that whole “mommy shopping martyr” thing down. “No, don’t worry about getting anything for me, just buy for Daphne. No, don’t buy me anything for Valentine’s Day. I don’t need anything. Blah, blah.” And I rarely buy anything for myself. One of the prizes was a $25 gift certificate to Pink Loves Brown, and I plan on ordering a custom stationery set. Doesn’t this have my name written all over it? Well, it will once I order it.

- My Flickr pro account expired and I had planned on renewing it in February. I found out today that because I don’t have a pro account, I can only view the last 200 photos I’ve uploaded. WHAT!?!?! That’s insane! Very, very, VERY irritating.

- Last Sunday, Masterpiece Classic aired a new version of Jane Austen’s Emma. It was awesome!! Clearly the best traditional adaptation of Emma I’ve seen. (Clueless is still my favorite.) The only distracting bit? Emma had some facial expressions that reminded me of BSG’s Starbuck (Katee Sackoff). Anyway, catch part two this weekend. Or you can watch online.

- I’m ready for LOST!!! Hurry up Tuesday!

- If you are on Facebook, you might have seen the “Change your profile picture to your celebrity doppleganger” thing going around. I have a few things to say about that. #1- some of you are dreaming!!! You wish you looked like a supermodel (hehe, just kidding)! #2- Hubs asked me who he looked like, so I told him- a mix of George Stephanopoulos, the Dog Whisperer guy (when he has a tan and a goatee), Tom Cruise, and Chris added this one… Curious George. Bwahahaha! He went with George Stephanopoulos, which looks a lot like his senior picture.

- The one thing I really wanted to get Daphne for Christmas, but wasn’t able to, was an American Girl Bitty Twin. Couldn’t justify $95 for 2 dolls, and didn’t have time or reason to drive all the way to Dallas to the AG store to buy one single doll. But it’s definitely on my list of things I want to buy for her this year. I realize there are a lot of AG haters out there, but after buying a Fisher Price bitty twin knock off at Costco, I’m done with buying cheap, crappy dolls. Poor Daphne’s Sweet as Me doll has the worst hair. Like it was electrocuted. Everyone who sees it comments on it. “What happened to your doll’s hair?” Ooops! I think it looked like this for about 3 seconds:

And when I do get her a new doll (and trash that sad FP doll), I’m going to make them matching ModKid outfits. Cute, huh? Maybe for her birthday.

Enjoy your weekend!

There have been so many potential blog posts that have simply fallen through the cracks over the last few months. I’ve been busy. But it’s been running around in circles busy, not accomplishing things busy. So, here’s what you missed.

- In December, my little sister had a healthy baby boy. His name is Oliver and he’s the cutest little ball of baby chub you ever saw. And at 6 weeks (or is it 7 now), he weighs the same as Daphne at 10 months old. He’s a big boy!!!!

- Got my hair cut recently. It’s shorter than it’s been in months, between shoulder and collar bone. Lots of layers. Cute, but as I feared, my suddenly curly locks are even springier. I have two problems. Well, make that three. Problem #1- My CHI sucks. My mom has an older style CHI that survived being bashed against her car window when she was stuck in the flood last year. Her CHI still works better than mine. Mine just doesn’t straighten as well. And just a little trivia. Did you know Mr. CHI, Farouk Shami, is running for governor here in TX? Problem #2- I have no patience to sit and section out my thick hair to flat iron. So, I end up doing a decent job on the sides and then skimp on the back. Problem #3- I live in Houston, TX in a humid sub-tropical climate. And for the first time this weekend, my somewhat straightened hair (I had hot rolled it just to smooth it out) started to curl on me since it was humid out. And the funny thing? It wasn’t even August humid. You know, the humidity that makes the air feel like a swamp. It was just a little humid. My bangs started to wing out and curl on the ends. Oh boy. This hair thing is rocking my world. I repent from all the years in my youth spent perming and teasing my hair to get that 80’s style. Curly hair sucks. Please let me have my straight hair back. Please.

- After my marathon crafting session last week for my workshop, I’m taking a break until at least February. If I see another piece of felt, I might barf. Eventually I’ll do a post of some of my recent projects, because I did have a lot of fun making things out of a few felted wool sweaters. Easy and cute!

- While I’m on the topic of my workshop… I taught three classes. My public speaking skills have improved slightly since ‘95, but not much. Hahaha! And let’s just ponder for a moment why I can remember that the last presentation I had to give was in my Women in Contemporary Art class (on Faith Ringgold) back at OU in ‘95 and yet I can’t remember my own stinking zip code when the Michael’s cashier asks me at checkout. Cashier- “What’s your zip code?” Me- “Um. Zip code? What’s a zip code?” My mind goes blank. Once I rattled off something that was a hybrid of my TX, AL and old OK zip codes. Did you know I was once a card carrying member of Mensa? No really, I still have the card. Not that you could tell if you met me now. I’m such a dingbat.

There’s more, but it’s potty training week here in the Denbow house and I have to get back to Daphne. Until next time…

January is my least favorite month. The combo of the post Christmas let down, crappy weather and usual cold and flu season makes for a depressing month, in my opinion.

I’ve chosen to fight the January blahs by being crazy busy. Insanely busy. Too busy to be posting on the blog right now. Ha!

Currently working on:

- Website design for a special sermon series at the church we attend. Hubs and I thought we had ironed out all the bugs, until this morning when we started to get reports that the header image was being cut off. Unfortunately, NONE of our 4 computers at home could duplicate this. We chose to create a static site using Wordpress, and I think our theme is flaky. I’ve been tweaking the CSS & HTML all day and I’m ready to pull my hair out. Hopefully it’s fixed. I’ve run the site through browsershots.org and it looks OK in all browsers/operating systems. Next step, either new theme or I’ll have to create a site in Dreamweaver, I guess. Dreamweaver will be my last resort, because it’s been a few years since I’ve worked with it and I’m not entirely confident I can embed the necessary media. Nothing like flying by the seat of your pants. I will say, that after January is over I need to totally redesign my blog. No excuses now with the amount of time I’ve spent sifting through the Wordpress forums this week.

- Getting ready for my crafting workshop next week. Making up samples, drafting the Make & Take pattern. Not stressing out yet. That will be next week.

- Need to get my college applications in, and figure out if I still have my FAFSA pin#. I know I’ll be applying to the University of Houston, but haven’t figured out what my second option will be.

- I’m ridiculously behind on my correspondence. Lots of emails to answer.

- And I’m trying to do all of this while chasing my 2 year old. She’s suddenly decided that I need to be involved in all her daily activities. Like at the park… “Mommy’s turn to slide?” I can’t sit at the park bench and wave anymore. Or, “Come here Mommy!” as she leads me to her room, or the pantry. She’s hilarious.

Up next? A Daphne update.

Until then…

As I was going through my Google Reader today, I came across several posts that made me say to myself, “You know, I’ve never tried/seen that. Hmm.” Like, normal things. Things you take for granted that everyone has experienced. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. When I found out my husband had never watched Gone With the Wind, we sat down and watched it one night. After the final scene, Chris turns to me and says, “You mean I sat through that entire movie and THAT’S how it ends???!!” Hahaha.

Anyway, I started to make a mental list of my “nevers”. Here’s just a few:

- I’ve never seen the Godfather (or any of the sequels), Goodfellas, The Sopranos, Scarface. Not a mob movie fan.
- I’ve never watched a single episode of CSI. 10 years and one of the most watched shows. Meh.
- This one is a little more surprising to me, since it’s more my taste, I’ve never seen an episode of X-Files.
- I’ve never tried Nutella. I’m pretty sure I would love it, though.
- I’ve only watched one season of American Idol, but only because my husband was Ruben Studdard’s boss before he went on to AI stardom.
- I didn’t start watching Sex and the City until after the series finale.
- This isn’t necessarily a never, but I don’t get the Seinfeld hype. I’ve seen a handful of episodes. Don’t get it. I think they are really, really annoying. But I adore Arrested Development, which is another show about quirky, unlikeable characters. And proof of how much AD has invaded my psyche, 2 sentences ago I originally typed annoying as annyong.

Do you have a list?