Guest Post: Finding a Special Someone . . . For Your Hair

Today's guest post is by Brittany. She's has a super tall husband, two awesome kids, a dog, and a part time grad school habit she's trying to kick. You can read more of her awesome and funny adventures on her blog.

There is nothing more daunting, more perilous, more necessary than finding a good hair dresser. It is the difference between feeling like a rockin’ super star and feeling like Britney Spears circa 2007 (Google it. It’s not pretty).

About a year ago my go-to salon closed down and I was devastated. I’d rather walk across burning coals than go through the trial and error of finding that one special someone who gets me. 

Case-in-terrible-point: After said salon closure, I went to a hair dresser who came highly, if not unreliably, recommended. Let’s do this, I thought to myself. How bad could a hair dresser really be? 

(Hint: Really bad)

All I wanted was my dark hair to be a little lighter. A nice, light brown. Is that so much to ask?! (Hint: Yes. It is.)

What I got was bright yellow streaks throughout my still-dark hair. There are few words to describe how terrible it looked. 

It gets better…

My hair was so over-processed it literally just started falling out. Running my hand through my hair produced such a large amount of fried hair in the palm of my hand that it was absolutely panic-inducing.

Did I mention I was 8.5 months pregnant? And that the purpose of my appointment was to make myself look fabulous for the impending birth of my second kid. 

Total. Failure.

Enter my personal hair-angel. A neighbor revealed to me that she did hair out of her house and she could take a look at it.

Not only did she save my hair (save? Salvage? It took 5 months before my hair grew out enough for me to sport my trademark blunt bangs. My BANGS FELL OFF.), but she restored my faith in hair-doing-humanity.

And today, 1 year and 2 months after what I call “that one time my hair died and I looked balding-ly terrible right before having a baby” I finally was brave enough to ask her to make my dark hair just a little bit lighter.

Not only is it THE PERFECT COLOR, but my hair isn’t even damaged. And my bangs. They’re still there!

My confidence is through the roof and I’m feeling not at all like having panic attack when I look in the mirror.

Total. Success.

My advice to you? Find your special somebody. Find the person that knows you, and loves you for you…find your perfect hair dresser.

Being Good Enough

A couple of months ago, I was having one of those nights that I'm pretty sure most new mothers have at least once every couple of weeks. (Actually, I'm not sure how long this period lasts, but I'm pretty sure right now I can still lump it officially in with normal baby blues.) I was sobbing to my husband about how I was failing at everything and not doing enough, and I hated that I could never get everything done, and who knows when the last time I managed to vacuum was, and now that the baby is crawling she'll probably find something I didn't vacuum up off the floor and choke on it, but she's just so clingy right now and she hates the noise of the vacuum, and so on and so forth.

And after I'd collected myself a little, my kind husband said, "Meg. Think about what you did today. You got up and nursed the baby. You ate breakfast. We played with the baby. You worked on your lesson for church tomorrow. You nursed the baby again. You took half an hour off to read a book while the baby napped. We went to babysit your brother's kids. You came back, put the baby to bed, finished working on your lesson, and cleaned up the kitchen. Just when were you going to do something else?"

He then went on to tell me that if I was feeling overwhelmed and he wasn't, clearly we needed to reexamine our division of labor. (For the record, my husband is a rock star. He cooks dinner at least as often as I do, is great about taking care of the baby, changes his share of diapers when he isn't at work, and is really good about picking up after himself and doing the dishes without me nagging him about it. I wasn't feeling overwhelmed because he is a bum - just because we're still figuring our lives out.) We talked about adjustments we could make to help me feel more in control of my life, but also talked about how ultimately, I might also need to adjust my expectations about what success entails at this point in my life.

Because honestly, I'm still pretty new at this whole, "My life revolves around a tiny person now" thing. I don't know why I assumed that less than a year in I should have the whole thing figured out. When my daughter is learning something new, I never get frustrated at her because she doesn't do it perfectly at first. I clapped for her the first time she rolled over, even though it took another two months before she could do it on purpose every time. I watched with delight as she tried to sit up and would fold in half and tip over while she tried to grab her feet. I relished her ridiculously ungraceful army crawl with her legs flying in the air for no apparent reason. And then one day, she suddenly had all of these skills mastered.

Except it wasn't sudden, because it took weeks of less-successful practice before she figured out that skill. And now she'll move on to learning to walk and talk and pee in a toilet and a myriad of other skills that she will take some time to master, and I will celebrate her progress along the way - not just when she's totally grown up and has her act together.

So why don't I celebrate my own growth the same way? I may not get the vacuuming done very regularly right now, but I am very good at making my baby laugh. I've figured out how to make baby food; nursing is something that has become completely second nature; I read my baby's cues and know when she is tired, hungry, overstimulated, or just lonesome for Mommy. I've gotten very good at a lot of things that I didn't have a single clue about twelve months ago. And right now, that's more than good enough.

Staff Picks: Sounds of Summer

There are a few quintessential things that trigger memories of summer: smells (sunscreen, freshly cut grass, tomato plants, warm rain after a storm, watermelon, campfires), sights (fireworks, warm sunsets, pool or lake splashes, sandals, sunburns...), and sounds (thunderstorms, soft rain, motorcycles, bicycle chains & gears shifting, and, of course, music).  Here are some of our favorite sounds of summer if you're working on your road trip playlists for summer adventures!

Cara:
For me, nothing says “summer” more than a few familiar tunes. Every time I hear any of the following songs I’m immediately transported back to memories of warm temps, sunshine, and thunderstorms. Sometimes it’s just because I discovered a particular artist during the summer (usually resulting in me listening to their album nonstop in my car during road trips). Most of the time, however, it is because I heard the song while having a blast with friends during summer adventures. Here are a few, in no particular order:

• Colors by Kira Willey
• Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson 
• Don’t Stop Believing by Journey 
• Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not) by Joey Scarbury 
• Miss Magnolia by Matt Costa
• A Good Day (Morning Song) by Priscilla Ahn 
• That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings
• Canned Heat by Jamiroquai
• Heart by Track a Tiger
• Pinball Wizard by The Who
• Swingset Chain by Loquat
• The Frog Prince by Keane
• Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler
• Phantom Limb by The Shins
• I Will Follow You into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie
• Birdland by Weather Report
• Kaleidoscope Heart by Sara Bareilles as it leads into King of Anything
• I Was Made for Sunny Days by The Weepies 

I could go on forever, but if you’d like to hear all of these tunes together, check out this playlist.

Melissa:
Growing up (in the days before iTunes) my dad would make a summer soundtrack to take us across miles and miles of road trip fun. To this day there are certain songs that conjure memories of California coastline or the smell of sulfur in Yellowstone. Some of those songs are included in this list, others are new editions as I make my own memories with my children. Truthfully, my summer playlist isn't complete without a whole lot of country music. Nothing says summer like the sound of a guitar and the poetry of pick up trucks and broken hearts.

• King of the Road by Randy Travis 
• We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel 
• Mr. Roboto  and Sailing Away by Styx 
• Goodbye Earl and Cowboy Take Me Away  by Dixie Chicks 
• We Are Young by Fun.  (and the more age appropriate version for myself) 
• Drive By by Train 
• Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts 

Megan: 
The summer playlists of my youth are kind of like Melissa's in that they involve a lot of things my parents listened to (The Limeliters, The Kingston Trio, John Denver, Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel etc.) But I do remember that summer music took on a whole new meaning when I could drive and therefore pick the music, and there are some artists that I listen to almost exclusively in the summer. Here are a few favorite songs for driving around with my teenage/college self. Of these, I have to say that I barely listen to Vampire Weekend, Panic at the Disco, or Mika the rest of the year, but I listen to them ALL SUMMER LONG. They are just happy pop fantastic, and as soon as I can roll the windows down, I start feeling like listening to them. (Disclosure - I linked to videos where you can listen to these on Youtube, but didn't watch the videos all the way through once I was sure it was a good verson of the song, so don't yell at me if the videos are randomly offensive.)

• Solitary Gun by Rogue Wave
• Have I The Right covered by Vampire Weekend
• Nine in the Afternoon by Panic! At the Disco 
• Clark Gable by The Postal Service
• Janet by The Format
• Roll Away Your Stone by Mumford and Sons
• Australia by The Shins
• Tables and Chairs by Andrew Bird 
• I Need You Back by Ben Kweller
• So Far Around the Bend by The National
• The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) covered by Keane
• Wake Up by The Arcade Fire
• Cannonball Days by Ryan Adams
• Do You Want To by Franz Ferdinand
• We Are Golden by Mika

Miri:

Is it weird if my contribution to this list is an audiobook? Because I honestly can't think of any songs that I really associate with summer, and it was actually a thing this past year that every time I walk around Orem, Utah, it makes me remember last summer when I was listening to all the Harry Potter audiobooks while running. Even before I listened to the audio, I always associated Harry Potter with summer; the books always start out at the end of summer, and summer is when I always start feeling the itch to reread them. Listening to the audiobooks was a whole new Harry Potter experience, and now it is associated with summer, too.

Lindsey
Before summer starts, I get the hankering for new music.  That's usually when I splurge and buy a few CDs to carry me through till Fall.  Summer usually means popular music.  I've been known to buy a CD or two and just listen to them over and over.  My first summer CD (once I made it past listening to Disney songs on tapes with my mom) was Semisonic.  Other favorites were Maroon 5, Rooney, Weezer, and Vampire Weekend.  Of course, there's always some Top 40 and 80s songs thrown in there.  Here's what I've been addicted to this summer. Warning: I'm real random.

• My Name is Jonas by Weezer
• Surf Wax America by Weezer
• I Love It by Icona Pop
• Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus
• Stickshifts and Safetybelts by Cake
• Sister Christian by Night Ranger
• You and I by Ingrid Michaelson
• Wouldn't It Be Nice by The Beach Boys
• Give Your Heart A Break by Demi Lovato
• Anything Could Happen by Ellie Golden
• Bulletproof by La Roux
• Big Parade by The Lumineers
• Love Somebody by Maroon 5
• Come & Get It by Selena Gomez
• A-Punk by Vampire Weekend
• Just What I Needed by The Cars

Yeah.  I just wrote this all out and realized there are too many former Disney Channel starts on this list for a 30-year-old woman. But I don't care. I love it.

Lis:
I love to roll down the windows in the car, turn up the bass, and blast some musicals or movie soundtracks. I bet all the punk rockers and rappers think it's pretty lame, but I'm having fun and that's what matters! I love to sing along to Newsies, That Thing You Do, Shrek, or Enchanted to name a few. For the cloudy and dark days I go more for Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, or Aida. It's fun to sing along and picture the scenes in my head.

Elise:
I didn't get my drivers license until I was 19 and it had a few downsides (not being the captain of my own destiny wasn't that awesome) but it had some upsides, one of which was the fact that I always had company when I was in the car. Most of this company came in the form of my friends and we always had music playing. I can't remember what we listened to specifically, but the songs we enjoyed the most were the ones that made you giddy when you sang them at the top of your lungs. These songs bring back a little of that feeling (regardless of how trashy the song may be--I'm looking at you Miley Cyrus!):

• Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet
• Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus
• Island in the Sun by Weezer
• Everything by Michael Buble
• Cave In by Owl City
• Rhythm of Love by Plain White T's

Jill:

My dad is a road trip fiend. He always has been. In fact, he already has the entire first year of his life post-retirement planned out and that plan involves an RV and a cross-country road trip. From the earliest days of our family we have been epic road trippers (think: a three-day, non-stop drive from Mexico City to my grandma's house in Utah) and, like many families, most of those road trips happened during summer break. For years, our go-to soundtrack on these summertime adventures were a series of cassette tapes called "Cruisin' Classics." We have longs since lost the actual tapes and I have had to work hard to try and recreate them in playlist form (my parents and sisters and I aren't known for have great memories). We still have a long way to go before we have them all, but what we have so far still makes me want to hop in the car and drive!

• He's So Fine by The Chiffon's
• Crocodile Rock by Elton John
• My Girl by The Temptations
• That'll be the Day by Buddy Holly
• Travelin' Man by Ricky Nelson
• Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis (fun fact: for years I thought that Elvis sang this song and I was utterly crushed when I found out it was him singin. CRUSHED, people!)
• Uptown Girl by Billy Joel
• Fishin' in the Dark by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
• Roasanna by Toto
• Sherry by The Four Seasons
• Your Mama Don't Dance by Loggins and Messina
• Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Barry
• Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac
• All I Have to do is Dream by The Everly Brothers
• Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino

P.S. If there are any other Cruisin' Classics fans out there who can remember more songs, by all means- send them my way!

What are you listening to this summer?

Confessions of a Screen Addict

I always swore I would never get a smart phone.

I don't have anything against smart phones. I think they're neat. I like playing Fruit Ninja and Pudding Monsters and Toca Band. I think it's cool that people can answer my emails without actually having to go to their computers. (Side note: the first time one of my professors sent me an email "sent from my iPhone" when I was in college, it blew my mind a little bit. Why on earth was my professor answering me when she was clearly not sitting at her desk during working hours? But I digress.)

My problem with smart phones is actually just my personal problem with being a screen addict. Even with just a laptop I checked facebook and my email more than is strictly necessary for anyone who isn't an extremely narcissistic teenager. And seriously, do you know what I get in my email? About a million different mailers from companies who have my email address because I entered a contest on facebook by signing up for their email list. All of which I delete without reading. And yet.

But then my baby drooled on my faux-Blackberry with no actual features, and I had to get a new one, and honestly, the smart phones were just neat and not that expensive compared to the really terrible flip phones and . . . well, there you have it.

Which is great except that I am a stay-at-home mom, and sometimes my days get a little boring because I spend them with someone who doesn't talk yet, and I need someone to talk to. Plus, I take about a million pictures of her a day, and it seems a shame not to show them to people - message them to my mom, upload them to Instagram and Facebook, make a collage of her eating bananas, etc. (My life. It is one big roller coaster of excitement.)

Which brings us to my screen-free week challenge a few weeks ago. I set very specific rules for myself, and honestly, it started out great. On Sunday, after a nice day of spending time with my family, going to church, cooking a nice dinner and putting the baby to bed, Eric and I played Zombie Fluxx, followed by a round of Scrabble where, because they were on our minds, we got extra points for words that could be linked to zombies.

Can you find "eater," "alone," "meaty," "ax," "goon," and other words that got me extra zombie points?

And on Monday, I cleaned my house while my baby was napping, because I wasn't getting sucked into reading some article someone posted on Facebook while I was "making sure she was asleep." And I cleaned faster because I didn't have Netflix going on the iPad! I did laundry! I did dishes! I mopped the floor! I baked bread! The angels rejoiced! When the baby was awake, we went and played in the grass and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. All was good in the world.

And then a cold front came in on Tuesday and we were stuck inside for the rest of the week. Of course.

By about Wednesday, it was starting to get a little old. I was sneaking a few extra looks at Facebook while I was nursing the baby. I was looking completely unnecessary things up on Wikipedia. (Yes, this children's book that Eric brought home from the thrift shop because of the illustrations WAS written by James Carville the political strategist! What do you mean I could have just gotten out the CD player and listened to the reading to see if it was him?) I was sick of my Pandora stations. (Okay, people need to stop making recordings of Les Mis. You can't listen to a Broadway-themed station (especially when your tastes in musicals tend the way mine do) without hearing "One Day More" about 14,000 times from every different recording.) I was out of podcasts (which I figured I could listen to when I set the phone aside, because that totally worked). And on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, my husband was gone late because he was filming a conference of green dentists. (Do you know how bad dentistry can be for the environment? Apparently it's really bad.) Thursday I was a good girl and read Watership Down while I waited for him to get home at 10:30. But by Friday I was just lonely, and it was quiet, and the rabbits were talking about something boring with a seagull, and I caved. I watched an episode of The West Wing while I ate dinner. I scrolled through pictures of my baby on my phone. I looked at Facebook without commenting on anything in the hopes that no one would notice I'd been online.

Just writing it out like this, I feel a little like I am confessing that I am a crack addict.

I really enjoyed limiting my screen time for the first few days. I felt liberated. I accomplished more. I was happier. I just haven't figured out how to translate it all into my every day life except to say that apparently I need more to do than clean my house and play with my baby, because once the house is clean, I need some interaction, and it doesn't always feel like I can just run over to a neighbor's house for it.

BUT. When the weather is good, CB and I go outside and sit in the sun where I can't see my smartphone screen. And sometimes a neighbor comes and talks to us, and sometimes we just look at grass and bugs and feel the wind and check the mail and try to keep CB from eating the mail. So maybe that's a start.

Melissa felt inspired by my goal, probably because she hadn't talked to me yet. Here are her thoughts about her experience, which seems remarkably similar to mine.

Melissa: 

Inspired by Meg’s endeavor, I too decided to participate in a Screen Free week. I mostly wanted to do it for the sake of my children. My three year old has an affinity for my iPod and my husband’s Nexus tablet. She can also peruse Netflix with the best of them. I’ll admit, I have used the TV or other screens as a babysitter so that I could shower, clean, cook, or fall into an exhausted stupor. In fact, I’m doing it right now as I write this with my kids beside me, watching Doc McStuffins.

I decided I needed to prepare my family because it was going to come as a huge blow to them, except apparently it really wasn’t. I told my oldest daughter that we were doing a screen free week and she was pretty stoked. Sure, the removal of screens would be hard at first (she thought it was because she was in trouble) but she was looking forward to playing more and reading more and talking more. She became the screen police, watching me every time I’d text message someone ("A phone has a screen, Mom!").

Was our week a success? Yes and no. I failed in that we didn’t make it 24/7 without the aid of a screen. On Friday my husband went out of town for three days and I just HAD to hand over my iPod a few times, or turn on a movie because being a single mom for a weekend was too exhausting (it also made me appreciate actual single mothers). 

This week opened my eyes to how often I actually defer to a screen. I take my kids to the park three or four times a week. We go to the library and Discovery Museum at least once during the week. We also do some sort of play date or something or other at some point. I’m not entirely neglectful, but I find when I’m not schlepping my children off to some adventure, much of our down time takes place in front of a screen.

I also realized that a huge part of life plays out online. It’s great to be nostalgic and long for the days of face to face interaction, but who would I experience that kind of life with if most people are socializing on Facebook?

Meg: I confess that I give technology the power to take over my life more often than I should. I confess that even though this experience was eye-opening for me, I still do. But I also confess that it fills me with so much joy that my baby loves flipping through books and playing outside more than she likes playing with my phone right now, and I'd like to keep it that way, so I'm going to keep fighting my addiction.

My "Fitspiration"

Look, there's a lot of stuff out there about health and fitness. "Fitspo" is a thing now, and if that floats your boat, more power to you. All that matters is that you feel really, honestly good about it. If you do, then that is awesome, no questions asked. 

You may be shocked to learn that fitspo doesn't work for me (but then again... Yeah, you're probably not). This article explains the problems I have with the fitspo trend, and you should read it, because it was also the inspiration for the image I created and shared at the bottom of this post. To sum up:

• Lots of fitspo is actually advertising. (Obviously problematic.)
• It's often sexualizing under the guise of being empowering.
• It's often unrealistic/extreme/sensationalistic.
• It generally involves comparisons, judgment, and/or shaming.
• Many of those women are probably photoshopped.

So I compiled some inspirational images that do work for me, and thought I would share them with you.

(Needing your body to be fit so you can love it = the same thing.)

(Maybe it's none of anyone's business either way.)
(Also, I know several people this size who do run marathons.)