Hair Today...

...Gone to Locks of Love tomorrow.

11 Step Program

An old, dear friend re-posted this on her facebook page and I truly cannot remember ever laughing so hard that I couldn't pry my eyes open to continue reading. Mr. Price and I had to take breaks from reading for bouts of laughter.

I thought about putting something together like this... but it is too perfect. my favorite parts have to be the "...softly in the dark..." and melon. Mr. Price thinks there needs to be a section on trying to keep the little monkey from eating everything in sight - similar to putting a starving mouse in a box with a bunch of cheese and then attempting to keep it from eating anything. But I'll let you skip ahead to the good stuff. So perfect.

Enjoy!

11 Step Program for those thinking of having kids

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

This is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say 'it's all worth it!' Share it with your friends, both those who do and don't have kids. I guarantee they'll get a chuckle out of it. Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you'll need when you become a parent!

Cabana Fever

Between the generosity of family and friends' overwhelming bounty of toys for the shorty and his new-found mobility... I feel like the walls of my recently expanded home are closing in on me.

It doesn't help that I work from home most days and the nanny, my shorty and the baby we nanny share with are all sharing the same walls every other week.

As such: I am feeling highly motivated to clean up the cabana and do a bit of renovating to turn that waste of space in the backyard into a usable living area. I won't even be so picky as to identify the space as a playroom or office for me... it just needs to be usable muy pronto before I lose my mind.

I oscillate between just wanting to do the whole darn thing now (as in everything from painting all surfaces, new flooring and ripping out the bathroom and rebuilding it from scratch) to tidying and cleaning the front room ASAP and leaving the rest for later. With this newly found impetus, I went ahead and took the liberty of having the whole darn thing bid out this week. I know I should probably get estimates from others before pulling the trigger. but that just might take too long, now wouldn't it? **note the irony here that we've owned this house for 6 years in February(!) and moved out of the Cabana 5 years ago Christmas Eve. Yet, suddenly there is no time to spare and it has to be done immediately.

I'll post pictures and would love thoughts/insight/advice on what to do with this disaster in my back yard. The question that is currently puzzling me is: to paint or not to paint the cedar-lined room in a white (sure, a grey-ish-taupe white, but white nonetheless). the whole room (ceiling included) is covered in six inch wide cedar planks. beautiful and functional... but dark.

Beads, Blogs and Butts

I'll spare you the resolution talk... we know i don't believe in those anyway. but happy new year!

BEADS
While in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains I began beading Shorty's Christmas stocking (yes, the week after Christmas) but there was no getting to it sooner and it was a lovely thing to do while relaxing in NC. I haven't beaded since living in Dallas with the good ol' "Stitch and Bitch" group. For all the creations I made along the way, I was surprised to realize that I gave away almost all of my creations with the exception of a couple snowflakes I found shoved in with my bead and sequin supplies. It's still a work in progress, but the most time consuming part was designing and cutting out the items. So while i was at it, I cut out an extra set to make a 'kit' for future stockings. good times.

BLOGS
Sadly, though my mind has been cranking away on blog posts, i've not been cranking them out. it takes a lot longer and a lot more body involvement to type these days. However, i go back to the doctor at the end of next week and we'll see what he says about the hand/brace. cross your fingers!

BUTTS
And the most shocking post-holiday news of all: I have been working out. yep. gone twice now to my neighborhood non-chain gym and am 50/50 on enjoying it. However, i'm hurtin' today. Not because of the dinner last night celelbrating Mr. Price's company being funded. And not because the baby woke up after we got home and remained awake and unhappy until finally giving up around 3:30. I'm hurting because of Tuesday's equipment pilates class (my first ever! which I would have enjoyed, I believe, if not for the raging b!tches in the class that I had to contend with) and yesterday's 'boot camp' style class with an inspiring and energetic (but not obnoxious) teacher and interactive and fun class. Hopefully i'll keep it up! You never know. =) The fact that it takes under 6 minutes from my door to walking into the gym and thatI can go during the day while the shorty is with the nanny makes it much more likely that this could continue.


Hitting the ground running this week. It's been great to be back home and have a smooth re-entry into work after a couple weeks off. Thanks to CES, collegues both internal and external are all doin' it up in Vegas - leaving me to actually get some stuff done. yay.

Deer watching from the house

Merry Christmas Eve Eve

Numb thumb

So this is my brace, which i'm grateful for because: 1- doc wanted to do a cast and I can remove this to bathe 2- i have a lot less shooting or burning pain

Seems that when I hurt it at the beginning of November I sprained it and broke a small little bone in my hand which is *bizarre* since MY super power is super strong bones. But I digress... I pressed on thinking it would get better and it didn't. It got worse. Like when I picked up an envelope (not kidding) and it damn near brought me to my knees in pain. Or when I went to pull my hair into a pony tail and just about cried. So to the PT I went for a few sessions. Stayed the same then got worse. Funny, once my thumb went numb I about lost my mind. You know that throbbing sensation right after your thumb gets slammed in a door or under a book or something? Yeah, well, a few days of that will about put you over the edge.

So on to another sports medicine dr who X-rays and does a few other tests and voilà! Hand out of commission.

So there it is. The story of my gimp hand and why I've not been emailing/blogging/texting/ much for the past couple months. As it turns out: you can opt-out of those activities. You cannot, however, opt-out of: diaper changes, bath time or general baby holding and picking-up. So I'll do what I can and hopefully when I go back in 6 weeks to the dr, it gas improved and I don't have to get that cast afterall.

Mind crossing your fingers for me?

Brain Teaser

As I was cleaning up tonight, I asked myself: Which of these items seems out of place?

Hot Mess

Me or the shorty?

 Photosession yesterday =disaster. Missed nap, refused bottle. Stoic, spacey, red-faced, non smiling Shorty. Poor little buddy. But Ashley is incredibly talented -easily the most gifted photographer I know or have met - so I'm sure she did something magical. 

Meanwhile, I talked the dr out of a cast today so instead have a massive brace that seemingly has my arm on lockdown. More to come on that. 

Typing (well, almost all tasks that involve hands and/or arms) is especially challenging and I've realized that while I write left handed- I do almost everything else right-handed. 

Happy hump day team! 

Sent from my iPhone

Roots

My paperwhites are well on their way to a lovely post Christmas bloom! I feel like a kid all giddy each day when I see that they've grown some more.