Merry Christmas from the Family!

Yes, I will shamefully admit that I am the type of person who loves to dress my furry children in people costumes.  They say that's why dogs bite people....haha!  Anyway, this last weekend, Jeremy and I had our folks over to help us eat up the leftovers from our annual Christmas party.  Since Mom loves a good photo op, we asked her to take our picture with the dogs in their "reindog" antlers and tiny little elf costume.

I've always loved those calendars and books filled with hilarious photos of people's pets dressed in themed costumes.  Many people have used their pets to earn fortunes that way.  I'm sure you've heard of Zelda the bulldog and Boo the teddy bear Pomeranian.  After our experience with this fun-filled Kodak moment, I understand why those artists earn the big bucks.  I'm also left wondering how they get their pets to sit still long enough for the camera to flash.  Are the pets Photo shopped, drugged, etc.?? 

Getting Barkley, Cash, Cooper and Charlie to sit still for five seconds was like wrangling pigs!  After multiple takes, this is what we ended up with......Merry Christmas from our family to yours! 

December 6th - Tshirt

Okay, so my quest to put up a daily picture for a Christmas countdown may have been a little over ambitious.  In any case, here's my first entry.  I couldn't find any cute Christmas
t-shirts to wear on Christmas day, so I decided to make my own.  I have become addicted to iron-on letters.  It's not quite perfectly straight, but it's homemade from the heart.  What do you think of my PINK tee?

I'm Dreaming of a PINK Christmas!

So I've decided to do a daily "month of December" blog and guess what....it's already the 5th day in.  (Oops)  I'm going to take a photo of something I've done each day to celebrate the season. 

Now you ask me, "Why a pink Christmas?" and I respond, "Do you not know me but at ALL?"  Pink is my flair.....glitter is my lifeblood! 

And so I tell you, it WILL be a PINK Christmas this year!  ; )  

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*** (Pink snowflakes are falling here even though the high is in the 70s this week.)

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I Bleed Pink

original artwork I created with melted crayons,
proclaiming my lifelong motto

Pink is more than just a color.  They say it's an attitude.  I say it's a way of life.  That's why I've chosen it as the namesake of my blog, inspired by a quote from my all-time favorite movie, Steel Magnolias: "Pink is my signature color."

I don't know what it is about the color that resonates so deeply with me.  It just makes me happy.  I suppose it's a tad bit cliche for a self-proclaimed girly girl to adore the color, but so be it.  I am obsessed--and always have been.

I enjoyed a Saturday alone a few weeks ago, and while surfing Pinterest, I couldn't help but notice all the pink baked goods.  It inspired me to bake something sweet and pretty, so my  dog, Charlie and I headed off to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients to bake pink heart-shaped cookies stuffed with cheesecake filling and fresh raspberries.  YUMMY!  They turned out tasty as ever but not quite as pretty as the ones on Pinterest.  Damn Pinterest for setting impossible standards.  In any case, I felt like I had a productive day, and my family and friends enjoyed the treats. 

Since my home away from home is my office, I felt the need to decorate in a way that expressed my creativity and blocked out the grey drab of the cubicle walls.  Pink and zebra print envelop my workspace, along with photos and my original paintings of my other obsession: shoes!

When I move into Jeremy's house, I get a whole room upstairs all to myself that I can decorate as I please.  I have assured Jeremy it will be so girly, no man will ever want to enter--thus making it my "girls only" room.  It will be my music room/art studio.  I went to Home Depot last weekend and picked out the pinkest can of pink paint I could find!  I have already started painting the furniture.  Next up: the walls!  I'm sure that when it's all said and done, it will either look like A) a bottle of Pepto Bismol exploded or B) a flamingo threw up in there.  But you know what?  It will be my new happy place.....a place where creativity is born.

LIVE, LOVE, BLEED PINK!!!!!!!!! 

The "Mane" Event

A recent visit to the beauty shop got me wondering, "Do women really have the right to choose?"  In light of the upcoming election, you may be thinking I'm referring to a woman's right to choose regarding the topic of abortion.  No, I'm not talking about the issue of pro life vs. pro choice.  We talk about things far more shallow than that on this blog.  The issue that I'm referring to involves a woman's hairstyle.  You know--the mane event.  Notice it's not called the man event.  So why do men dictate or influence how we choose to wear our hair? 

Please don't for a second think of me as a liberal feminist for posing this question.  In fact, I'm far from it.  I just feel a little perplexed at my boyfriend's negative reaction to the news that I had, once again, decided to chop off my hair.  We all know that most men love women with long, flowing locks, but let's face it--not all of us were blessed like Rapunzel or you know, Jennifer Aniston!  We have to do best with the hand (or more appropriately in this instance) the hair we've been dealt.  Men just don't seem to understand that not every woman can grow her hair halfway down her back and have it look as though she stepped out of Glamour Magazine. 

Besides my awful nose, I've inherited baby-fine, limp hair from the gene pool of my family.  It's okay--I've learned to live with it, and I'm forever on a quest to locate the "holy grail" of volumizing hair products.  They must exist--glossy magazine ads indicate that other women have stumbled upon them.  Thus far, I'll I've been able to successfully do is disappoint myself, lighten my wallet, and amass a stockpile of useless products that go under my bathroom sink to die.  As I've gotten older, I've determined that some of us (myself included) just weren't blessed with enviable heads of hair...but by golly, I'm going to cut and style my tresses in a way that best suits the hair I was given.

Though I've often had dreams where I've been the central character in a Pantene Pro V ad, I have always woken up to reality that I'm just a short-haired kind of girl.  I have a long face and an almost giraffe-like long neck, and short hair just looks better on me, and it happens to suit my personality.  Though my style has varied a little over the past decade, I always seem to return to the reverse-angled bob, which I must confess, I believe Victoria Beckham stole from me as I was rocking that style long before she had even shed the pseudonym of Posh Spice.

Though people have often asked me in the past who cuts my hair and my mom has reassured me countless times that it's always been her favorite cut on me, I have tried to grow it out---if nothing more than to please Jeremy.  While he prefers me tan and blonde, God created me a pale brunette.  When I pulled into his driveway yesterday, he reaffirmed his position that he had always hated my short hair.  I reminded him that the repeated bleachings last summer had taken a toll on my hair that I had been trying to grow out for nearly a year.  I really did give it the good old beauty college try.  I avoided the salon (save for the occasional trim) and even took biotin to help it grow.  It just didn't work for me.  Maybe had I forgone the bleach in favor of my natural brunette coloring, I wouldn't have needed to chop it off and start the growing-out process (yet AGAIN). 

While I may never fully admit it to Jeremy, I just may never have long hair again.  My high school days are over, and my hair is half as full as it was back then anyway.  Besides, in addition to the fact that I don't have the type of hair it takes to make men swoon, I also don't have the time it takes to achieve the look.  And it does take time.  We all know it's true--Truvy said so in Steel Magnolias:  "There is no such thing as natural beauty."  Women have to work at it.  Only celebrities have the luxury of carting around a personal hairstylist as though he was a chihuhua in her Louis Vuitton.  Us "regular folks" have to do it ourselves.  And until a magical hair genie pops out of a shampoo bottle and grants me fuller, thicker hair, I'm just gonna have to continue with the hairstyling ritual I've developed over the years.  Backcomb the $#*+ out of it and spray, spray, spray!  After all, every true Texas girl (despite her hair type) longs to have BIG hair.

I HATE the Gym

I have finally come to the conclusion that I can no longer eat junk food like a college student and process it with the metabolic rate of a 5-year-old.  After growing a tad bit soft around the middle (despite the scale readout, which remains the same as the day I graduated high school), I have reluctantly decided it's time to re-join the gym.  Yes, I said "re-join"...as in, I was a member for a month or two before, but I quit.  It was much easier for me to "quit the gym" than for Chandler Bing in one of my favorite episodes of "Friends."  Poor Chandler ended up going to the bank to cut them off at the source and ended up with a joint checking account with Ross.  (See, everything in life really does related to an episode of "Friends!")  In order for me to quit, I just have to quit going.  Maybe there's something to be said for that monthly fee automatically deducted from your paycheck.

The gym downstairs in the basement at work really is a nice, state-of-the-art gym, and it's located right by the exit to the garage, so there really is no excuse to skip.  Although forgetting my gym bag and workout clothes has lately been my most-used "excuse."  Whenever I pass the gym for the exit to the parking lot, I sometimes feel a small pang of guilt--but it's usually silenced by a detour to Tappy's Frozen Yogurt on my way home.  Then the guilt that returns is two-fold.

Well, I finally committed to another membership and have gone a grand total of three times in the past two weeks.  I tried yoga and discovered it was far more difficult that I expected.  I'm not flexible AT ALL, so the instructor's direction to bend over and touch my toes left my arms hanging awkwardly in the air far above my bare feet.  I did enjoy the 10-minute rest period at the end of the workout where we laid in the dark and focused on relaxing.  In fact, I thought I might be unable to drive home immediately after the class for fear I would fall asleep at the wheel!

When it comes to going to the gym, it is my belief that there are two types of people in the world: 1) those who admit their hatred for the gym and only go out of necessity and 2) those who declare their love for the gym (and who are coincidentally what I believe to be full of $#!%).  Let's face it--no one likes to go to the gym. Anyone who says otherwise is either showing off or is clearly in denial.  I feel like a hamster on a treadmill, and all those weight machines give me sore muscles the following day that I didn't even know I had!  Now every time I unwrap a candy bar, I'm left looking at the wrapper wondering, is this Snickers REALLY worth 40 minutes on the treadmill?! 

The fact remains that I love to eat.  It's seriously one of my favorite past times.  While I've been blessed with a high metabolism, I'm kidding myself if I think it will last forever.  The day it slows down is the day I'm in trouble if I don't jump start some healthy habits now.  That's why I decided to re-join the gym.  Like I said, I'm still just starting out, but hopefully, I can ultimately view it as a necessary life change that I will need to maintain forever--unlike a yo-yo dieter who tries Weight Watchers to lose 30 lb. for a high school reunion then falls off the ice cream wagon and returns to old habits soon thereafter.

I'm in this for the long haul.  So until they invent a pill that allows women to eat WHATEVER THEY WANT WITHOUT GETTING FAT, (which, ironically, is every woman's biggest wish), I'll be that hamster on the treadmill, sweating to stay in my current-size jeans.  I can still most likely be persuaded to meet you for frozen yogurt afterward, though!

Skating to the Oldies....as an "Oldie"

A couple years ago, a friend and I decided we were going to take up roller skating as a way to get exercise that didn't involve A) the boring old treadmill or B) a weekly commitment to the dreaded gym.  Now I'm not talking about rollerblading--I'm talking about old-school, 4-wheels-with-a-stopper-in-the-front roller skating.

After all, I was close to achieving pro status as a kid, and the exact same roller rink I visited on a regular basis still happens to be located almost exactly 5 minutes from my apartment.  Since my once-cherished white, pink and purple skates Santa Claus brought me for Christmas were long-gone and would never fit my size 7 feet anyway, I was on a quest to locate the perfect pair of brand new skates.

I decided on a pair of killer black derby skates, which are just like roller skates--only they hit below the ankle like regular shoes.  To this day, one of my biggest fears (no lie) is falling and breaking my ankle--thus, having to forgo wearing high heels.  For me, life would be unthinkable in that condition!  As a result, I concluded that an ankle-baring derby skate would allow for "give" if I happened to trip over a small child and fall flat on my face.  Since ankle injuries seemed less likely and they were super-cool looking, I dropped the $70-or-so bucks on a brand spankin' new pair.  I was so excited!

I discovered on my first outing that re-learning to roller skate would be a bit of a challenge since I hadn't attempted to do so in about 20 years--literally.  I'm happy to report it's probably the cheapest form of entertainment one can find this day and age that guarantees a good time (and sore muscles, too, I've recently learned).  I was shocked, however, when I was asked to sign a waiver before I was presented my wristband indicating admission to the rink.  As it turns out, anyone over the age of 18 is required to sign a waiver, ensuring the roller rink won't be sued, should said person fall and break an ankle or a hip.  Ah, lawyers...they always find a way to spoil the fun--and make you feel geriatric at a mere 30 years old. 

It was a tad off-putting to be discriminated for being too old to enjoy my favorite childhood past time in a totally risk-free environment, but I understand the ways of the world have changed.  One signature later, I was off to change into skates and lock up my shoes and handbag in the same lockers we used as small children.  Looking around the rink, nostalgia overtook me-as did the familiarly faint smell of giant pickles from the snack bar.  The place hadn't changed much, except for the new brightly colored carpet that replaced the hideous orange carpet of the early 90s.  Plus, I was cool again--I brought my own skates!

The baby learning rink in the back was my first stop as I became re-acquainted with the foreign wheeled objects on my feet.  It was like a scene right out of Bambi.  I can imagine I must have looked like a baby deer learning to walk to all the happy-go-lucky kids and their onlooking parents.  Not so much like "riding a bicycle," roller skating wasn't so quick to come back to me after a 20-year absence from the activity.  Maybe I should have started with a glass of wine to calm the nerves; however, at this point, it was too late to turn back.

I mustered up enough courage after a few laps on the kiddie rink to make my way to the "big" rink (which, I must admit, looked a tad bit smaller than I remembered as a kid).  My fear kept me from taking off like a bullet.  Instead, I had to ease a bit more into it.  After all, I had a lot further to fall than I did as a 10-year-old.  Kids shot past me as I got my bearings, leaving me to feel like the "old person" I used to weave in and out of as a roller-skating champ some 20 years ago.

After a few laps, I felt more assured that I knew what I was doing, and it all started coming back to me.  The music was different--as was the scenery from an older woman's perspective. I found it ironic that the once-craved snacks from the snack bar seemed to entice a gag reflex rather than a rumbling stomach.  But all in all, it was like I was a kid again.  Only my sore muscles and heavier breathing indicated I didn't have the endurance that once came so easily as a child.  Did I mention getting older sucks??

As the music blared and kids whirred past, I was reminded of the countless birthday parties and random Sunday afternoons my childhood friends and I had spent at the Interskate roller rink, clad in colorful Lycra skating outfits we adored.  I used to feel like a United States Olympian as I twirled and turned in the center of the rink where the more "experienced" skaters showed off their tricks to the addictive thumping beat of songs from New Kids on the Block, Milli Vanilli and Michael Jackson.  At this point in my 30s, however, my main objective was to stay upright and not worry about crushing a small child. 

It really was a thrilling experience returning to a place where I had once felt so alive and free.  Though the music was a little different, with the same old wooden floor I'd circled hundereds of times and the God-awful floor-to-wall carpeting, it felt for a second like merely days had passed, and I couldn't help but smile.  And despite the waiver I was required to sign that indicated otherwise, I really was a kid again...and I had finally returned to pay a visit to my old stomping ground.