Great Delight

Top o the mornin' to ya! By 8 o'clock I had the kitchen clean and muffins baking. It's going to be a good day!

Need some morning inspiration? I read this and felt a bit happier:

"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." -Zephaniah 3:17

I especially love the part that says He will take great delight in me. Sometimes I tend to forget that God is happy when I'm doing the things I love to do and using my spiritual gifts. It was a sweet reminder this lovely Wednesday morning.

Yesterday was nice.

I got out of the house sans husband and child. No offense, family...but it was glorious... UNTIL My Weekly Insult reared her ugly head. You already know what I'm going to say, don't you?

Let me set the scene:

I just escaped the walls of my house to get into my brand spankin' new under-two-hundred-miles-on-her Jeep to go get my hair cut for the first time in a long time. Looks much better, eh? Anyway, I decided to go to a new hairdresser. If you've been following along long enough, you know my struggle with finding an acceptable one here and every other stinkin' duty station we've been stationed. Just when I find a good one, it's time to move!

I sit down and this lady seems nice enough. But then it happens- the due date conversation.

When I tell her what my projected due date is (Dec. 7) she says, "That can't be right! You're SO BIG!" 

"There goes your tip", I silently say to myself and put on my best southern charmed smile just like my Mama taught me.

The lady continues to talk about my upcoming delivery and when she does, she refers to "the babies" - as in PLURAL, MORE THAN ONE BABY. I correct her only once that I know it must be baffling, but I am not, in fact, pregnant with twins. I suppose that was just too much for her to believe as she continued to talk about the nonexistent twins for the remainder of the appointment.

I know I'm short and I waddle a lot, but I think I look alright for someone who recently had a baby and will soon have another. Cut me some slack, people of Louisiana! That or just don't mention to me how incredibly huge and gross you find me. I'd be just fine if you kept that to yourself. That would be great. Thanks.

(I'm linking up with these lovely ladies today. If you're new (or old!), thanks for stopping by. Pleasure to meet ya!)

A Hair Post for the Extremely Bored...

Two Fridays in a row without doing 5QF? What is my deal? To be perfectly honest, I was embarrassed of my hair. For the past month, I've been going around Fairbanks in hats because I needed a cut and color so badly. It was  "terrible awful" as a character in the novel, The Help, often says. I'm happy to report that my hair looks much better and I can resume going out in public again without something to cover my head.

While at the salon, I was reflecting on the whole process and decided it was a very intimate thing. I mean, usually when one lets someone brush up against them, massage their head with shampoo, and run their fingers through their hair, it's typically a much different situation. I let a stranger do all those things to me yesterday. I can't help but to find it odd.

Anyway, when do you consider a trip to the salon a successful one? I think my definition is pretty simple. I think it's successful if I look better as I'm leaving than I did when I was coming in. Is that too relaxed, though? It seems like I'm never ecstatic about a certain cut or color anymore. I don't want to knock the girl who did it because (bless her heart) she did an excellent job considering I was her first customer for color (more on this in a sec).

My experience at this place was a good one. I tend to be impatient when it comes to these things. Sure, I enjoy relaxing but after a few hours have passed, I simply feel slightly narcissistic. I mean, do I really need to spend that much time on my outward appearance? Does it take that much time to make me look acceptable? I hope not.

The lady who did my hair was fairly new. She later told me that she had only graduated from beauty school in April. I liked her, though and I trusted her almost immediately. Trust is such a big part of getting one's hair done, isn't it? I do long for a day when I can find someone that I can say, "Do whatever you want to it!" But I digress...

The styler was very nice and I trusted her right away because she was so dilligent in everything she did. "Would you like some tea?" "May I turn your head?" Stuff like that. I cannot tell you how many times she stopped the haircut or coloring process to ask a question to one of her peers. This was when I was alerted to the fact that she really wasn't very experienced. The nervousness crept in for a split second until I realized that she was asking so many questions because she wanted to get it right just as much as I wanted her to get it right.

Later, I walked out of the salon feeling like a million bucks. Well, maybe half a million since I hadn't donned any makeup that day, but I definitely felt better leaving as I did coming in. Job well done to her! She might just have a returning customer on her hands.

Did I really just write an entire post about my haircut? My apologies! Perhaps the next entry will be a little more interesting.