craptastic to fantastic

Just plain shitty.

That sums up my weekend.

As terrifically awesome as the previous weekend was, this weekend was perfectly horrible. A quagmire of suckage. A morass of yuckiness. Bad.

In fact, it is way up there with the worst weekends of my life, and that is saying a whole lot as nobody died or is getting divorced as a result. Everyone here in the Big City of Kelford is fine. It was/is a family situation. And that's all I will say, since it involves sensitive information about a family member and I have to respect his/her privacy.

The highlight of my weekend was coming home late Saturday night after dealing with all this sadness and unpleasantness since Thursday. No matter how much bad icky poo life throws at me, nothing can beat the look on my Little Dude's face when he's been missing me and I walk into the room. There's nothing that I can think of that a sticky four-year old boy hug can't cure. I feel like I can withstand anything just to be able to be there for him, be strong for him, be good to him. Being a parent is the greatest joy of my life.

Although, coming home to a husband that *really* missed me ain't half bad, either.

I forgot this post was quietly waiting in my drafts folder...about 10 minutes after I wrote this, I got the call on my bat phone and headed out to take care of some 'family issues'...and promptly forgot all about silly stuff like blogs. Well, it's not timely anymore, but I still feel this way, so hey, here we go.

10 years ago today, right about now (it's 1157a as I write this), I was poised at the top of a staircase in a beautiful froofy dress, getting ready to descend and take my grandfather's arm and walk down the aisle for the first time. I was giddy, giggly, nervous and overjoyed. It was the happiest day of my life, the nineteen years leading up to that point, anyway.

If you had asked me on that day, I would have told you that in 10 years, of course we would still be married, and we would have a house, a dog, and a child- maybe even a picket fence.

I am married, with a house, dog, child- but not with the same man I married 10 years ago. The happiest day of my life is now the day my son was born. If you had told me this 10 years ago, I wouldn't have believed you.

I'm glad that no one told me. While I do regret things that were done and said, especially the things I did or said that hurt someone I loved very much, I don't ever regret falling in love, or getting married, even if things didn't go as planned. Some of the most intense emotions that I have ever felt were a direct result of that relationship, and while some were frightening (anger, jealousy, resentment), most were exhilarating (love, passion, desire). My life is more reasonable, calm, contented now, and for that I am glad- but I am also glad that I had the thrill of that kind of love.

And I'm glad that I can look back on it all now with a certain fondness. I feel mostly wistful, instead of despairing, when I think of what we had and lost. I'm not sure how, or if, he looks back on it all. I think that we're both much happier now that we aren't together, which is a bit sad, but at the same time, comforting. I may not actively mourn, but I will always grieve and always remember.

But life goes on. I have a wonderful family, including my Big Guy and Little Guy, for which I am very grateful. I have a terrific group of friends, including old ones that I had lost track of after the breakup, and new ones that I gained when I married again, and for that I am very grateful. And days like today, I look back on what I had, and for that, I am also very grateful.

still recovering

I keep meaning to write a long blog post about what an awesome weekend it was, but I am still recovering from all the awesomeness. The below pictures can give you a pretty good idea, though...







The only representative photos missing are drinking good beer with Sheila and Taylor at McCouls and staying up until the butt crack of dawn watching movies and making our own special effects sounds at Bill and Rae's. Use your imagination. Hey...wait...we were all clothed! And there were no hamsters present. Sheesh. You guys are terrible.

A hearty thank you to Sheila, Taylor, Mick, Eddie, Ruth, Chris, Carrie, Melissa, Tony, Brandon, Lucy, Justin, Bill, and Rae for too much fun of the foam and fried variety, and most of all to Barbara, Vince, Robbie and Julia for keeping the 'kids' this weekend so we could pretend we're not still grown-up, just for a little while.

an unexpected repercussion of being a hipster hippie

Naturtint Herbal Hair Colour 5C - Light Copper Chestnut



Gabby's Hair on Naturtint Hair Colour 5C - Dark Cherry Armoir



Naturtint is a vegetarian, no animal testing, sweet hippie hair color. I've been trying to switch over, where possible, to low-impact on the environment, animal-friendly, organic and natural products. We've mostly achieved this with our food, while realizing that sometimes it's not feasible (like when you eat in a restaurant, which we do infrequently), but we feel like we do a pretty good job on balance and that the bulk of our choices are very responsible, which makes up for our minor transgressions.

Hair color was one area where I hadn't yet 'gone green', and I was excited to pick up the Naturtint the last time we were blowing a wad at the friendly Raleigh Whole Foods. My foray into natural moisturizer (Jason- the natural cosmetics company, not the husband), makeup (Burt's Bees) and body wash (Dr Bronner's- works great with Noah's excema, all the 'flavors' we have tried smell terrific, and it gives me something to read while I'm on the pot- check out their labels next time you see a bottle!) has so far gone swimmingly, so I was naively expecting the same...or at least, something closer to the color I saw on the package.

Oh well. No good deed goes unpunished.

I was just trying to help out all the poor bunny rabbits that are blinded, injured, or killed during scandalously evil animal testing. But the truth is that almost no companies animal test in that way, if at all, for cosmetics these days. They don't have to- the ingredients in today's cosmetics have already been tested by and large, and all those poor bunnies were already crippled or dead years ago. But it was the principle of the thing, man!

Now, all I have to day is, screw my principles and the bunnies. I'm going back to L'Oreal. If it's good enough for Andi McDowell, it's good enough for me.



You better watch your back, man.