"A Christian should be an Alleluia from head to foot." - St. Augustine
I'm about 12% Alleluia on any given day, but I'm working on it.

THE PINISHERS, Volume 3: Adventures

May 13, 2013 By 10 Comments

Hello again, Pinishers and Pinish-enablers! Nice to see you back, especially since I totally, totally did not forget until just now that today is Tuesday! You know, like for Pinishers!

Pinisher blog linkup
The theme of this week’s PINISHER linkup is “Adventures,” and have I got an adventure for you! Woo-hoo!

Yes, sir-ee-bob! This adventure, I’m telling you–it’s—well, it might be too much for you to handle in one sitting. Why don’t you go make a cup of tea and, you know, settle in, and I’ll just—look through my Pinterest bookmarks for a few minutes.

(frantic scrolling)

(sudden Photoshop crash)

(quick once-over of the recent cell phone pictures)

Aha! You’re back! That’s great, because this adventure is—going to be—about—THE TIME I CUT MY OWN HAIR! Yes! What an adventure that was. Fun for the whole family. Highly recommended.

Pinisher---flag

Link to Original Project: This basic YouTube “Cut Your Own Hair” video, and this advanced YouTube “Create Sexy Waves or Curls or Something While Wielding Scissors on Your Own Hair, What Are You, a Glutton for Punishment?”

Link to My Pins: The basic video and the advanced tutorial with the sassy lady who will show you how to “get that really pretty, sexy look that the Victoria’s Secret models use, and I just think it’s so adorable.” My outcome was…different.

Follow me on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/dorianspeed/

So, ha ha, here’s what happened.

It’s kind of a blur. One minute, I was fretting about my upcoming speaking engagement at WordCamp Austin and the next I was Googling “cut your own hair.” I emailed my star chamber and did some focus group testing via the Scrutinies Facebook page – you know, “should I cut my own hair?” “I’m thinking about cutting my own hair.” “When I say ‘cut my own hair,’ what pops into your head?” And while they were responding (consensus: “NO!”), I got out my scissors and went to town.

Haircut

So…it’s not the WORST haircut in my lifetime—doesn’t hold a candle to the Fantastic Sam’s era, 1985-1987. (Photo not available)

It also was the gateway to my exploration of yet another Internet subculture: the Curly Girls. There’s a website, there’s a book which you can order INSTANTANEOUSLY on Kindle, if you for some reason you’re feeling a bit frazzled about your decision to lop off half a foot of hair.

There are rules, with this way of life. You identify the TYPE of curl, using the descriptors, and then you follow the regimen, even the part about how you don’t brush your hair. Understand? Brushes are right out. Brushing, uh, stresses out your hair, or something, and then it rebels in a cloud of frizz and you have to start from scratch. The first rule of Curl Club is Don’t Talk About Brushes.

I was along for that ride for a good four hours, the first day, but then I surrendered to the Call of Clairol. I couldn’t take it anymore, and my daughter was starting to ask Questions. I brushed. I brushed, and I’d do it again, 100 times in a row like Honey in the Trixie Belden books.

She’s still asking questions (my daughter, not Honey), but it’s been a few weeks of following most of the rules and I think it’s getting a bit curlier, maybe? Here’s a terrible selfie:
Curly hair attempt

At this point, it’s too late to get my hair cut again someplace decent before Saturday’s speaking gig, so if you check out wordpress.tv and are like “who is the frizzhead with the hipster glasses?” you’ll know you’re in the right place.

Okay! That was an adventure. Time for you to join in the fun! What adventures did you go on this week?

If you’d like to use a handy-dandy template for your post, here’s the basic template, or here’s a special version for this week’s adventure-themed badge. (And here’s how to use the templates.)

If you just want the snazzy adventure-flag badge, here’s the code to copy and paste. Make sure you’re in HTML mode (switch to the tab that says “Text” or “HTML” in your blogging editor) and not regular composition mode.



Filed Under: No redeeming value whatsoever, The Pinishers 10 Comments

Seven Quick Takes: Wonderful Internet Things

April 21, 2013 By 6 Comments

Very excited to link up to Grace’s 7QT this week, and not just because she’s hip to the new trend of showing the LAST post in the linkup FIRST. I didn’t intend to be the absolute last one through the door, but now that it’s Sunday night and I’m just recovering from a post-parish-festival nap, I am counting the minutes left before the linkup ENDS. For ALL ETERNITY.

7 quick takes

By the way, as a precinct chair for Procrastinators International, I have to say that I think the last-post-first setup benefits everyone—everyone—because there’s always something fresh and new at the top of the list for readers to check out. See? It’s not just about enabling the latecomers.

Shoot shoot shoot. 19 minutes left and my computer is acting stubborn. I just spent three minutes waiting for it to finish typing “latecomers.”

Here are seven great things I found on the Internet this week:

1. Hagia Sophia Cat. Apparently, there’s a kitty cat who lives in the Hagia Sophia. I’m not embedding any of the photos because there’s no TIME people! I’m on a deadline! And it looks like most of the photographers who submitted photos reserved their rights. But I really liked this one in particular. Fun times.

2. The new Dappled Things issue is up, because I define “Candlemas” as “más candles have to be burned before I will find time to put up the content for Dappled Things on the website.” Bad joke. (14 minutes! The pressure!) Anyway, it includes a terrific interview with one of my favorite writers, Ron Hansen.

I’m particularly drawn to outlaws and outsiders, to characters who don’t fit into the general milieu or who have chosen lives that seem outrageous or strange. Hence, historical figures like Jesse James and Hitler’s niece, or a group of nuns, a mentally disturbed artist in Mexico, a couple who execute a murder in order to get rid of the nuisance of a husband. Each is “out there” in some way.

Enjoy the whole interview, conducted by my dear friend and Korrektiv Kompatriot Joseph O’ Brien.

3. Another fun tumblr, this one about a barista who creates works of art using only coffee, steamed milk, and various other acoutrements of cofeemaking. Barista Art, featuring the works of Mike Breach, International Barista of the Stars!

4. Also in this issue of Dappled Things, poetry by our own (“our own” meaning “the Internet’s own”) Sally Thomas:

I was never a believer

In resolutions. What's resolve 
	But another word for wish? 
Ask the fisherman's wife

	How far she got on wishes. 
Would I resolve, say, to let
	A third child choose

Itself? What can I 
	Say I wish for? Just now
My two already-wished-for

	Children, resolved into flesh,
Gallop down the hall,
	Speaking in whinnies. 

I wrench the door open 
	And shout, Inside feet! 
What are inside feet? 

	They'd be justified in asking. 
We have the same feet
	Wherever we go. Instead

They say, Okay. They wait
	for the door to close. Gallop
gallop, neigh neigh. Does control

	End at conception? Or
Only our belief in it?

 

That excerpt is a chunk out of the middle of the poem, which I probably wasn’t supposed to do, but I have NINE MINUTES LEFT and I’m making bad choices. Go read Sally’s whole poem “Cambridge, January 2001″ and drink deeply of its imagery. (Yeah! That’s good! Keep typing, keep typing…)

5. Food on the Table appWe are trying to pass for normal around here and meal plan like proper grown-ups. This is week three of our using the Food on the Table website and app, and I am really enjoying it. I wrote our menu on the refrigerator like a real mom and everything. Now, did we stick to the menu? No. But did we end up having cereal after Little League practice yet again? No. Because we had options.

6. WHAT WERE THE OTHER TWO INTERNET THINGS? WHY IS CHROME RUNNING SO SLOWLY? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

Oh, I know – I’ll show you the mourning dove who has taken up residence on our patio fan.

It’s weird how I generally think birds are disgusting poop-generators but have tremendous affection for this beautiful little mother.

Mourning dove nests above ceiling fan

7. NOOOOOOOO. ONE MINUTE LEFT. And I was just about to hint at an exciting new linkup that lies on the horizon, shrouded in the mists of procrastination, waiting for you and all the other heroes who have ever attempted to actually complete a project they saw on Pinterest…Pinisher

Ah, well…guess I’ll go not hit up Grace on Twitter and insinuate that I would appreciate her re-opening the linkup list for three minutes more, because that would be wrong, and I’m a professional. I have standards.

Filed Under: No redeeming value whatsoever, Scrutinies, The Pinishers 6 Comments

A Wallflower at the Opinion Dance

March 21, 2013 By

I just want to put it out there that I have nothing original or insightful to say about Pope Francis.

I had this post teed up that included an annoying SNL sketch and took a firm, but vague stance on the question of having opinions about popes, but after waiting for a few hours to let it simmer in my Drafts folder I decided it was pretty pointless.

I quite like our new pope, just as I quite liked our previous one, and I suppose I could go read a bunch of other people’s opinions in order to have an opinion of my own to blog about, but I think I’m happier over here by the punch bowl.

Maybe it’s because I threw my entire self at the computer (not as successful a tactic as you might imagine) for a few weeks in order to make the website*, promote the website, read all websites everywhere, live updates on Facebook, tweeting, typing, scanning. Now I keep reading but it somehow feels like when branches of the family are fighting and you’re just hoping it will all cool down. It’s not that I didn’t expect people would be instantly jumping to compare Francis with Benedict.  I did. But it still stresses me out. I jump when I hear the phrase “news cycle.” (I hear it in my head, not from my children, who are busy asking me about words they learned from Pearls Before Swine.)

Having shared this with the ether, I now give myself permission to blog about Failure to Gluten Free and other workaday, insignificant matters, or even to go on hiatus.

Here is a picture I took of a squirrel:

_MG_2730

*ElectingThePope.net is going to morph into a more general “why Catholics do stuff” site, but not for a couple of weeks, as I’m super-behind on other projects.

Filed Under: No redeeming value whatsoever

7 Quick Takes: Nightmares and Visions

December 14, 2012 By

— 1 —

You know that nightmare where you totally forgot you’d enrolled in a class, and you find out just before finals, and you have to go talk to the professor and plead for your life because otherwise your GPA will be ruined and you’ll be kicked out of school and forced to busk for the rest of your days?

Busking

THIS IS BUSKING. THIS IS HAPPENING.
Photo credit: leudh from morguefile.com

It’s pretty much my most common nightmare, followed closely by the one from teenagerdom where I get pregnant from taking a defective Excedrin and nobody will believe me, which my history teacher told me was “the most Catholic nightmare he had ever heard.”

Anyway, the point is: that came true for me this week, except (so far) for the busking part. I have been so busy that I totally forgot about this amazing awesome tremendous class I went to this summer and was supposed to be working on over the course of the year. I got a very kindly worded email from the course assistant asking if there was anything she could do to help me, so I threw myself at her feet, virtually, and begged forgiveness.

Who’s the patron saint of not living up to the expectations of authority figures? I need some intercession, stat.

— 2 —

So, this happened:

Dorian 11.12
By which I do not mean “I had a non-bad hair day right before I got my hair cut, and now I will never have another one because I went and got a haircut.” I mean that I got glasses.

Right before our big trip to France in October, I took the kids for checkups  like a responsible adult and everything. I was patting myself on the back until the nurse told me, very concerned, that my older son basically can’t see anything at a distance.

Oops.

I mean, he was reading so well! He never complained about blurs on the horizon! How was I to know?

So, we rushed around town to find an optometrist who could fit him with glasses before the big trip, so that he could actually see the big things and not just contemplate whether French blurry horizons are inherently more sophisticated than those of Texas. I decided – hey, let’s get my eyes checked, too. Might as well.

“When was the last time you had your eyes checked?” they asked at the front desk.

“Well…” and then I lied, because I am pretty sure the last time I had my eyes checked was in seventh grade. I said something like “ten years ago” which seemed more reasonable to me because I know nothing.

Concern was again expressed. I’m telling you – disappointing authority figures. It’s becoming the story of my life.

The upshot was that there actually is not a government conspiracy to obscure the words on the signs at the end of grocery aisles;  I, too, need glasses.

I don’t need them need them. Like, I can go about my life, squinting but successful. Except, now that I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing them most of the time – I notice when I don’t.

It was fun for the first few days, because hey! A new accessory! And now it’s kind of a pain, because I have  a weird head and/or ears, and the glasses slip down my nose and off my face when I lean forward. I guess I need to have them fitted, or something?

— 3 —

I mostly cleaned out our office this week, and I have been feeling such a glow of accomplishment that it doesn’t even faze me that I had to reschedule the carpet cleaning twice because I haven’t had time to deal with the Cheerio situation in the carpet-to-be-cleaned rooms.

This whole “carpet cleaning” concept is new to me, because I grew up in a house with hardwood floors. Also because I am a terrible housekeeper. I am still unclear as to what people mean when they refer to cleaning baseboards. But my mom and stepdad are coming for Christmas and the dining room looks like an army of children make PBJs in there every day and then grind their feet into the blobs of strawberry jelly that inevitably result from poorly supervised lunch preparation. It looks like that because that’s how we live.

— 4 —

Just as I was heading to the computer to double-check the tracking information for my sons’ big presents, my older son came to me and said “I’m so upset right now.” He’d answered the door when the package was delivered and saw that they came from LEGO. “I spoiled my surprise.” I explained to him that he would have figured out what was in his big box as soon as he shook the wrapped present, and also that is the only thing he ever asks for, ever.

“I just hope if it IS legos, which it is, that it’s Lord of the Rings legos.”

“It’s not! Get ready to be surprised!”

— 5 —

My youngest has had some Stern Talkings-To and Consequences of late with regard to how we respond to disappointing news, like “you can’t erase something in your coloring book with a baby wipe” or “you have to eat one bite of broccoli and then you can ask to be excused.” His go-to phrase was “I WANT TO KILL MOMMY!” and we had to nip that in the bud. So the next time he got really really mad, he paused for just a second and yelled, “I WANT…YOU TO GO TO PARIS!”

As I observed to a friend on Facebook: I did the crime – I’ll do the time.

— 6 —

I still haven’t found the Advent box, but now I think I can blame it on someone else. My husband is pretty sure he put it up in the rafters of the garage last year along with some other seasonal stuff. He’s still recovering from knee surgery so he can’t get it down, and I – well, I am busy, is what I am. Let’s keep the focus where it belongs: not on me. I am going to claim the spousal-knee-surgery-exemption for at least the next 15 months.

— 7 —

Here is an impulse purchase I made recently:
golden section finder
Isn’t that totally amazing and necessary? It’s a Golden Section Finder! I need this because it is a thing! It makes me feel smart even though I do not understand how to use it! I bought two!

(They are $6 each. Well worth it. One for my purse, one for home.)

I mean, the opportunities for social interaction thanks to this item are limitless. I almost wish I were back out there, needing a pickup line, because I could size someone up and be all, “hey, baby, I noticed when peering at you through this yellow credit card that your proportions are perfectly proportional.” All you single ladies, feel free to use that anytime. Meanwhile, I’ll be viewfinding it up all OVER this town.

The thing is, for me to be able to use this – I have to be wearing my glasses.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Filed Under: Family, No redeeming value whatsoever, Scrutinies

7 Quick Takes, Swim Cap Office Supply Edition

July 6, 2012 By

— 1 —

VICTORY IN OUR TIME: This week, the kids started swimming lessons at the YMCA. Yesterday, I woke up late and hadn’t done any laundry, so I had nothing to wear. (And I don’t mean “nothing cute and kicky for poolside rapport!) I had the thought: “You could always just swim laps during their lessons.”

AND I DID.

I tried to replicate this feat today, but I hadn’t checked the pool schedule ahead of time, so it turned out I only would have had 10 minutes of swimming time before they shut down the lap lanes. A true athlete would have said “10 minutes is better than no minutes” but I already felt awkward about the lifeguard having to explain this to me so I said something insane like “then I will perch myself on a chair in style!” and tried to disappear into the earth. It was at that moment I regretted buying the cat’s-eye sunglasses. I generally go for eyewear that gets me Not Noticed, but I had a moment of weakness and my old pair made me look like Charles Nelson Reilly.

— 2 —

SO, now that I am going to start swimming again – and I really do enjoy swimming as exercise – I need to figure out what to do about my hair. I have finally given in and started coloring my hair due to the influx of gray and my belief that 90% of women my age (young!) also have gray but we’re all covering it up, so it makes me look older. But chlorine is bad for the hair, particularly the Fake Reddish Auburn Pink With Way Too Obvious Roots look that I’m currently sporting. I think this means I may need a swim cap. Which…I really don’t want. My general rule of thumb when forced to wear a bathing suit in public is to try to blend in with the foliage. Any advice for what to look for in a swim cap? I’m hoping for something unobtrusive, like this:

I’m concerned that the flowers are too subtle.

— 3 —

I feel like Facebook was more fun before everyone started posted pictures with text on them. I know this is heresy.

— 4 —

My youngest turns four – FOUR – in a couple of weeks. We got him this:

I am sure they will be a big hit. We have many, many puppets in this house, and I have noticed a pattern with the script for most of their performances.

PUPPET ONE: (opens mouth, bobs up and down)

Offstage: “Lookit this puppet!”

PUPPET TWO: (opens mouth, looks at PUPPET ONE)

Offstage: “What if it eated the other puppet?! Hahahahahaha!”

CURTAIN DESCENDS as PUPPET TWO chomps down on PUPPET ONE.

~ fin ~

— 5 —

I am letting the children watch mindless television all afternoon, as  yesterday we got an overabundance of education when we visited not one, but TWO museums.

We started at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, touring the new paleontology hall. Am I the only one who didn’t know that mastodons could not only swim, but could be eaten by gigantic sharks? This and many other facts were acquired by our brains as we and the rest of  Houston enjoyed the exhibit. For we had gone…on the free-admission day. I didn’t realize it until it was too late. I’m all for free admission, but I think it would have been a less stressful experience for me (as herder of children) had there been smaller crowds.

Then I took leave of my senses and decided we’d stop by the Children’s Museum around the block, because it was ALSO free. I figured if we were able to find a parking space, it would mean the crowds were not too bad. I’d forgotten why I never go to the Children’s Museum without another adult: the instant scattering of my children to the four winds (and I only have three children) within moments of entering the museum. It’s like a particle physics simulation or something – we walk in the door and suddenly I can’t find anybody. “Mom! Over here! Look at this mirror!” “MOM! Hey there’s legos on this level can I go I’ll just go check!” (The 3-year-old sprints, silently, into the tiniest remote corner of my peripheral vision to play hide-and-seek.)

The Children’s Museum of Houston is great, but it really is like an indoor amusement park. Next time, we’ll go at dawn, and we’ll all be on leashes. (For more actual information about the museum, here’s a review I wrote a couple of years ago.)

— 6 —

What is the deal with security system solicitations during the summer? This is the second one this week. HE INTERRUPTED MY SEVEN QUICK TAKES.

I used to think my mom was so rude to solicitors – couldn’t she at least listen to what they had to say? But now I have come into my own. “We’re not interested, but best of luck.” Close door. No guilt.

— 7 —

These are my new second-favorite office supplies: woodless colored pencils.

woodless colored pencils

So calming. Photo cropped to exclude dead fly by windowsill.


 I would have staged the photo to include some of the ingenious doodles I created with them but it appears all I did was write my own name fifteen different ways and draw a candle, because I am still in seventh grade. So perhaps another time.

If you want to see some actual cool sketches and read about design, though, check out StudioPress designer Rafal Tomal’s blog post about sketching your design ideas. Rafal is incredibly talented and has started posting more about how he implements the many creative ideas he has. You should really check out his blog if only to hover over the circle sketch images for each post. So clever.
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Filed Under: Houston area, No redeeming value whatsoever

How to Be Married to Me, Paleo Edition

July 5, 2012 By

I married a great guy, I really did. He’s blithely oblivious to most of my character flaws and tries his best to accommodate the latest version of whatever Best Self REINVENTION NOW plan I’ve implemented (currently on upgrade 157.2, version 3.0).

Nevertheless, I think it may be confusing at times to know what approach to take when the chips are down and The Wife wants chips and/or ice cream and/or coke and/or enchiladas and/or chocolate. I have thus prepared this helpful flowchart. Feel free to substitute the carb of your choosing for “chocolate.” I certainly do.

Dealing with loved ones' changes in diet can be stressful

DANGER WILL ROBINSON

Filed Under: Food Glorious Food, No redeeming value whatsoever
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