A Super Long Post About My Super Short Hair

For most of my childhood, I had very long hair.  As in, it was so long I could almost sit on it.  And then some time in high school I gradually began cutting it shorter.  And shorter.  By the time I graduated, it hovered above my shoulders.  When I did study abroad, I had the other girls in my group cut it for me, which ended up with very mixed results.  (But probably no worse than if I would have let someone cut it who only knew how to cut African hair.)  (When I returned home, my normal stylist made me promise to not let my friends cut my hair ever again!)

Then I left on my mission and my hair got even more complicated.  Because I was supposed to look my best.  But I also had to wear a bike helmet and be out riding in the rain and snow.  And then-- this was what really did me in-- there were so many Japanese girls with the most adorable pixie hair cuts!  I wanted an cute pixie hair like that!  So I let my companion try to cut my hair like that.  And it looked TERRIBLE.  I remember the elders (the 19- and 20-year-old male missionaries) looking at me in horror and one finally murmuring, "You look like you got run over by a lawn mower..."  My mission president was a little nicer.  He smiled in his good-natured way and said, "Well, don't let your companion cut your hair again!"

And that was that.

Except not really.  Because the other thing the elders said was, "Don't you know guys like long hair?"

And oooh, that annoyed me!  Why should I have to grow my hair long again because-- in theory-- guys would like it?  I really am not a fan of a girl ever doing anything for the sole purpose of attracting the general male population.  Have a little more self respect.  Do things for worthwhile reasons, okay?  (It goes both ways-- I don't think guys should do things simply for girls, either.  Just for the record.)  This did NOT make me want to grow my hair long ever again.  (I also have to point out here that Janine, my back-up auxiliary Mom, once wisely said, "Men all think they want a woman with long Lady Godiva-like tresses.  But when it comes right down to it, they'll think you're cute no matter what length your hair is."  Thank you for those words of wisdom, Janine!)

But.  My hair as it was looked terrible, so something needed to change, and that change did need to involve growing my hair at least a little longer.  (Seriously, it looked so bad.  All of my hair was maybe about an inch long?  And my hair is so baby fine that you could see my scalp through my hair.  I looked like someone who'd either just finished chemotherapy or perhaps escaped from a concentration camp.  Which is fine if you've actually done those things!  But if not...  well, then you should not look as bad as I did then.)

I hemmed and hawed about what to do about it.  And finally decided that-- regardless of what boys may or may not like-- I did want long hair at my wedding, some day, should it ever happen.

So I began growing it long again.  And it took a while and lots of in-between styles before it got there.  But eventually I made it!  And yes, I had long hair, beautifully done up, for my wedding, just like I wanted.

Lovely hair!  Happy couple with cake on their hands!

And ten years later, nothing had really changed.  I mean-- I'd cut my hair different lengths every couple years (and then usually not cut it again for another year) and sometimes end up with different amounts of layering and what-not.  But I feel like it's been the same basic hair style, give or take a few inches, for over ten years.

And all of a sudden, I needed it to change.  Part of the problem was when I realized that all I ever did was pull it back into a ponytail.  How boring is that?  And I don't know how to do anything actually fun with hair, so a ponytail was about my only option.  Not only that-- I've never cared enough to try and learn anything else, so all those hair tutorials on YouTube are wasted on me.  And if I haven't bothered learning stuff like that by now, I don't see it happening in the future.

And then, as if the daily ponytail wasn't boring enough, my hair developed these weird cowlicks on the side of my forehead that wanted to stick out like an owl no matter what I did, necessitating the use of gel to pull hair back into said ponytail.  So now I had a gel-ed back ponytail???  Why was I bothering to wash my hair at all (and blow dry it every day) if this was how I ended up looking???  It was driving me batty.  I began looking at women with short hair and trying to figure out how I could pull off that look, too, even with my stupid, thin hair.  I started feeling resentful every time I'd try to leave it down, only to have Camille grab fistfuls of it, yanking out as much as she could.

Finally, I got it trimmed in time for our Christmas pictures and I chatted with the salon girl about how to pull off a pixie cut with my hair.  She assured me it could be done and told me to do a google search for exactly that-- "pixie cut fine hair"-- and then show her exactly what I wanted.  She promised that she would deliver.

I told Craig I was chopping my hair after Christmas.  (Poor Craig!  I announced this the day after he bought me a curling iron for Christmas!  Oh, well.  I did manage to use it once before I cut my hair!)  I pored over pictures until I picked my two favorite haircuts-- one of Jennifer Lawrence and one of Carrie Mulligan.  Pro tip: do not spend hours looking at stunningly beautiful women before you cut your hair just like them.  You will be disappointed when you see that your nose is not nearly as petite and adorable as their noses are, and no haircut in the world is going to fix that!

So here is what I ended up with:

It was more over my forehead, but old habits die hard and I promptly pushed it all to the side. 

 It was fine.  Exactly what I said I wanted.  But I didn't quite love it.



The next day when I (rather trepidatiously) styled it, I ended up with this:

And THIS I love.  This suits me.  And it doesn't take any longer than what I was doing before.  And I think it's adorable.

Hallelujah!!!  Yay for change.  Yay for looking in the mirror and smiling at what you see, rather than thinking you look like an owl.  Yay for a hairstyle I can live with. 

Maybe even for the next ten years.


(And in case you were wondering, Craig loves it, too.  He was pretty nervous about the whole thing.  But he really likes it.  So Janine was right all along!)

I Stand Corrected

Of course, as soon as I blogged that Camille couldn't stand up, she figured out how to do it.  Nothing gets the women in my family motivated faster than telling us we can't do it.  (This is the main reason I changed my name when we got married-- I hadn't really made up my mind what I was going to do until my oldest sister tried to tell me I shouldn't!  Craig is still thankful to her for starting that argument and thus saving him a lot of time trying to gently persuade me to change my name to Smith!)

Anyway.  Yesterday, Camille suddenly turned into a standing fiend.  Every time we turned around she was standing against something!

I'm pretty sure she could have done it the day before, but I left her in a sleep sack all day because it was so cold.  I'm not even sure that I could figure out how to stand up in one of those!

So, yes, another milestone reached!  Camille can stand up without any help!  That baby...  She'll be walking earlier than any of my other late-walking kids!  As soon as we tell her how much she can't!



*The pun in the title of this blog was totally intentional.  Obviously!

Storm Prep

So if you're the type to watch the weather channel or if you live around here, you probably know that we're expecting a big winter storm today, dubbed Winter Storm Jonas.  There have been pictures of Wal-Marts with hardly any food left on their shelves because of everyone buying everything to stock up for the storm.  We got the call yesterday that school for today is cancelled.  Everyone is all scared and nervous about it all.

And I am, too.  I mean-- I have no idea how easily Charlottesville loses power or what to expect from this house if that happens.  (I suspect we will be freezing; this house is hard to heat even with power.  We do have a gas fireplace, so worst case scenario will involve all of us camping out in front of it.  But you can't really cook over a gas fireplace...)  A friend here worried that we might lose water.  Does that happen around here?  I have no idea.  And it's the not knowing what to expect that makes things a bit scary.

But I'm noticing that my storm prep has taken a slightly weirder turn today (as the snow flakes are just beginning to fall).  I've already been to the store, I think we're pretty well stocked in the food department.  Craig just hit Lowe's for a carbon monoxide detector and witnessed people buying five snow shovels at a time.  (Why would anyone need five shovels???) 

No, our storm prep has involved me cleaning the house.  Yup-- I've been vacuuming, starting laundry, and bathing the kids extra.  BECAUSE WHAT IF WE LOSE POWER?!?!?  Laundry piles up incredibly fast when you've got a family of seven (especially since several of those people regularly spill food on themselves and/or have leaky diapers).  And our floors get disgusting really fast.

So yes.  I'm cleaning.  Because there's a storm coming



Who have I become?

Demanding Baby

As an infant, nothing made Camille happier than being held.  We referred to her as "She Who Must Be Held At All Times" or "She Who Must Not Be Set Down.  Ever."  She's the only kid I've had who hated her swing-- she just wanted to be wrapped up safely in someone's arms.

Now that she can crawl all over the place and get up on her knees (not much standing still-- we like to take these things very slowly here), she does not need to be held all the time.  So thank goodness for that.

Somehow we've managed this rather awkward position without figuring out how to stand up against the couch...?

However.  (You knew that was coming.)

Now, she likes to crawl all over the house.  Which is fine.  But while she's busy exploring things, she insists that I stay in one place.  If I move around, she gets very nervous and starts following me around crying after me.  It's a bit hypocritical if you ask me-- oh, sure, you're mobile but I don't get to be?  But regardless of my opinion on the matter, it's the way things are now.  Mommy moving around = grumpy Camille.  (And of course, the closer she's getting to nap time the more unhappy this makes her.)  And it turns out that there are very few things I can get done while staying in one place.  Even yesterday when I was making something in the crock pot-- which ought to just have meant standing around in the kitchen chopping and stirring-- I was constantly getting called hither and thither to stop a fight, wipe someone's tush, get drinks of water, feed the chickens, put clothes in the dryer... (Don't worry-- I was washing my hands a LOT during all these tasks!)  So, yes, staying in one place is challenging.

But there is an upside to this.  Now, when I decide to take a break and sit on the couch, mindlessly staring at my phone for a few minutes, I tell myself: I'm not lazy-- I'm just keeping my baby happy!

2015 Books

For some reason, Goodreads won't let me just link this, so I'm showing you a screen shot instead.

Over the last few years, I've become kind of obsessive about writing reviews of the books I read.  Even though it sort of feels like homework, it makes me so happy to keep track of my reading.  (Any book I read is a few minutes that I wasn't wasting on facebook, after all!)  Plus, I've gotten to a point where it's hard for me to remember everything I've read or why exactly I did or didn't like it, so I like that this acts as a sort of journal for my reading.

And beware-- if we're friends on Goodreads, there is a decent chance that I will mine your 5-star reviews for ideas of what to read next!  (And if we're not friends on Goodreads, why aren't we???)


And also, since I'm already bragging, I do feel the need to point out that I didn't bother including the four Harry Potter books that I re-read this fall, so I actually read more than what is listed here.

I've known some people who don't read much.  Or if they do, it's only like a book each month for book club or something.  They always tell me that they don't have time to read, which I don't understand.  They say that and my mind thinks, "Does. Not. Compute."  Maybe if it weren't for books, I'd find time to take up crafting or pay attention to my kids or something.  But I'd be so miserable, what would be the point?


Yay for books and public libraries and all that good stuff. 

Our Backyard Freeway

One of my requirements in a home-- which we've been able to make work in all three of the homes we've had in Virginia-- is that the house backs to trees.  I grew up in the middle of the woods where I couldn't see a single home from any of our windows, so I like being able to see green and I like the privacy.  A home on a few acres would be my ideal, but until we strike it rich,I'm pretty happy as long as I have trees in my backyard and no houses looking directly into mine.

This house fit that requirement, but it also has a major freeway not too far behind us.  I'll let Google Maps give you the idea:




































I knew I-64 was there from the beginning-- I'd studied the map before I looked at it with our agent, so I was on the lookout to try and decide if it bothered me.  One of the things I noted when I first came was that you couldn't see the road, but you could definitely hear the trucks whooshing by.  And I was fine with that.  Our house is never particularly quiet, and in our old neighborhood there was always some sort of outside noise happening, whether it was someone running a chainsaw, or the water works plant letting off steam, or blasting at the quarry across town.  Also, there were always planes flying overhead on their way to Dulles.  So, yeah, I'm pretty used to white noise.

More worrisome was the view.  I figured as soon as the trees lost their leaves, we'd be looking at a big ugly freeway.  And I sort of dreaded that.  But since that freeway was probably one of the reasons that the house was in our price range at all (albeit barely), we went with it.  Besides, our house in Manassas had a really ugly lime green house that we could only see from November until April, so I figured this would be about like that.

So the bad news is that I was right, and we can clearly see the freeway from our house. 

But the good news is twofold: we ALSO have a view of the mountains!  Lovely, not very tall east coast mountains that still light up pink when the sun comes up and make my ears pop when we drive over them.  So yes, that means they're mountains.  (I'm convincing myself of this fact, not you.  It's taken me a long time to finally be willing to accept that anything on the east coast could be a mountain and not just a big hill.  But for lack of a better term, they've finally become mountains to me.)  I love getting to see mountains again.

The other good news is that I don't really mind looking at the road, either.  Something about the constant traffic fascinates me.  When I have to get up in the middle of the night for some reason, I like being able to look out and note that-- yep, even at this insane hour, someone is out driving.  It makes me feel like I'm not alone.  It makes me wonder who's out there and why.  It helps me remember just how many people there are in the world.

There are worse things than that to contemplate.

(Slightly Irreverent) Christmas Thoughts

Since having babies and being pregnant and giving birth, Christmas means a lot more to me as a time to focus on a little baby being born in the most humble of circumstances.  The story has taken on so much more beauty and significance for me.

But I also have a lot more questions about it now, too.  I like some of these speculative blog posts that I have read: this one that explains a bit more about what an "inn" really was at the time; and this one, that offers an alternative explanation for how they ended up in a stable, with the idea that Mary doesn't need to be the passive little creature we sometimes portray her as.  I love that people manage to find new ways to interpret the nativity story.

For being an English major, I'm really bad at stuff like this.  I pretty much stick with what I know, and rarely delve deeper into a text unless I am forced to write a 5-page paper on it.  (Then I can whip one of those out like a boss.)  But this Christmas, the more I sat thinking about Mary laying the baby Jesus in a manger, the stranger it became to me.  All those paintings (many of which I love) that depict Mary sitting perfectly upright gazing at her tiny baby are so beautiful, but they are NOTHING like how I feel after giving birth...

By Carl Heinrich Bloch

This one, by Walter Rane, is closer to how birth feels to me, with Mary huddled around her baby...


But notice this one doesn't have the baby in a manger, which has sort of become a key point of the story.

I wondered, Why in the world Mary would put her baby there???

And then it hit me-- with all the messiness that goes along with giving birth, after it was all done with, Mary would have needed to stand up and clean herself off a bit, get herself put back together (so to speak).  And you really can't hold a baby while you're doing that.  And she probably would have needed Joseph's help, too.  She would have looked around at the mess of the stable and thought, Well, I can't set Him down in all this animal poop.  There's got to be somewhere cleaner I can lay my baby just for one minute...  And then she spied the manger in the corner.  And, of course, right before she picked him up again, that was when all the shepherds arrived.

In my head, I can see Mary rubbing her forehead in embarrassment and thinking to herself, "Seriously?  I just set him there for ONE MINUTE and THAT'S what gets recorded in the scriptures for everyone to read???  Ten minutes into this mothering gig and I'm already making a mess of things and everybody knows it!"


Welcome to the Mommy Wars, Mary.

But it's okay.  Your Son turned out just fine anyway.



Honestly, when you look at it this way, I think there's a certain beauty in the idea that this little, beloved detail may not have even been what Mary would have wanted us to remember.  That God can take even the insignificant things we do and make them into something exquisite and meaningful.  Especially something as messy as giving birth in a stable.

It's Time to be a Big Girl Now

So the thing I may or may not have already whined about is that Craig is really busy.  We're lucky on the days when he makes it home for dinner.  He never gets home before then.  And he frequently has meetings in the evenings so we don't see much of him at all on those days.

Now, most of you are probably thinking: Yeah, sounds like a normal job, Alanna!  And I suppose it is.  But you have to remember that for the past nine years Craig has been a teacher.  And there are many difficult things about that-- most notably the crappy pay.  But the one wonderful thing about being a teacher was that Craig had quite a bit of time to be home with us.  A bad day was when he left work at 4pm, and he frequently came home even earlier than that.  (He also left a lot earlier in the morning-- I think he put in an 8-hour day; he just got his late afternoons to be home.)  And if the kids weren't in school, the odds were pretty good that Craig would be home, too.

So we had all these oodles of kids with two grown-ups around a lot to take care of them, especially in the evenings when they're at their worst and I'm trying to cook dinner.  Craig's job was almost always to keep the kids out of the kitchen so I could cook.  That, and grating cheese for me.  And it was busy and hard, but it was also pretty manageable most of the time.  That was part of the reason we had all these kids-- we usually felt like we could manage them just fine.

But now I have these oodles of kids, but it's a lot more of just me running the show.

And it's been hard.  And I may have had some inner monologue of whininess running through my head at times over how difficult it is.  There have been times when I've been too overwhelmed to try and leave the house with everyone.  And there have also been times when I've been too overwhelmed to cook anything real for dinner so we have macaroni and cheese.

But I'm trying really hard to get over that.  Because two things are gradually sinking in:  1) Craig is not going to get less busy.  But at the same time, 2) The kids are going to get easier.  Sure, they'll turn into teenagers and get all cranky and hormonal and stuff.  But they'll be able to get their shoes on and we'll be able to go to Target without me needing to restrain 60% of them.*

So in the meantime, I'm trying to grow up and Own This.  Own my crazy brood of kids and not be afraid of doing stuff with them even when Craig can't come.  Own the fact that we're one of "those families."  And sometimes I fail miserably and it kind of sucks.  (Note to everyone: don't bring your kids along to give blood.  The kids were great, but the Red Cross workers were NOT.)  And sometimes despite my best intentions, by the end of the day I throw my hands up and we eat frozen pizza instead of whatever real food I was planning on cooking.  And I'm trying to remind myself that that's just fine and that I had days like that even when Craig was home more.

And then, occasionally, there are days like today, where I manage to make a "real dinner."  Early, even!  And I pile everyone into the car and we go to Target and buy pants for Kendra (I swear I already did this in September, but all her pants are super short on her now).  And we swing by Panera and grab some bread bowls for tomorrow night's dinner.  And we get to the church so Bentley can go to scouts and I run all over the building hauling Camille in her carrier trying to track down the bishop so I can get his signature on some forms before we head to the library and then back home for bedtime.  And it's more exhausting than this paragraph even made it sound.  But I did it.  And those kids are in bed now.  And I survived.

I even left some dinner in the fridge of the church for Craig (who will most certainly forget about it, but I had to try, I felt so bad for him not getting any dinner!).

For today, I feel all grown up and capable. 

For today, I win.



*At least, I sure hope so.

Our First Charlottesville Christmas

I can't believe the kids are back in school tomorrow!  We had a really nice vacation, and I had a lot of fun, but I will admit that I'm okay with getting back into our routine again.  (And I won't miss taking all five kids to Costco with me!)

This year we had our first Christmas without any additional family here.  I was kind of excited to just have it be our little family, but Craig was worried about how things would go without any grandparents around.  So, of course, I spent a few minutes Christmas morning crying because I missed my family (in my defense, I haven't seen three of my sisters since April!!!) and Craig had a great time.  Typical.

But despite those few tears, we really did have a wonderful Christmas.  Craig spent the two days ahead of time baking up a storm while I made numerous trips to the grocery store to get all the things we forgot to have on hand.  (It's lucky the grocery store is really close!)  And we simplified things some (like having Pillsbury cinnamon rolls instead of making them from scratch) and made a lot of our Christmas dinner the day ahead.

Bark, Spritz cookies, fudge, salted caramel Rice Krispie trests, fudgy toffee bars, and twixster cookies.  Yum.  All of it-- yum.

Christmas eve, we followed my family's tradition of ordering pizza for dinner and eating off paper plates.  Then we took plates of cookies to friend and neighbors.  I wouldn't have minded Christmas caroling as we went, but Craig and Bentley weren't thrilled with that idea, so we just wished everyone a Merry Christmas and hurried on our way.  I'm sure they were busy enough that they weren't sad to not be sung to!

We wanted to look at Christmas lights while we were driving around, too, and managed to find this awesome house not too far from us!  They were so decorated we went ahead and parked the car so we could walk through it all, and right at the entrance was Santa!  This was great, since I hadn't managed to have the kids visit Santa at all.  We even got a pretty decent picture with him, all things considered!

I love Camille's leggings!

When we got home, we sang all the Christmas songs we could think of and read from Luke 2 together.  The kids opened their Christmas pajamas from my parents and I had even managed to get a pair for Craig, too-- pure luck that I saw some when I was at Target after we'd ordered them for the kids!  Bentley and Kendra put out cookies and milk for Santa (and a carrot for the reindeer) and we sent them all to bed.  It was a perfect evening.

I didn't get any sleep that night.  I had a hard time falling asleep at all, and then I kept hearing a bedroom door opening and shutting.  I finally investigated and discovered Kendra sitting on her bed crying.  She wasn't sure what time it was, and with a full moon shining in her window was worried that she might be missing Christmas morning.  I assured her that we wouldn't let her miss it, and tucked her back into bed.  An hour later Ryder was awake, and a few hours after that Camille wanted a bottle and Colton was awake.

So I was very bleary eyed all day.  But opening presents with the kids was perfect: they took turns nicely, they got excited over everything they opened (yes, even the underwear and socks in their stockings!) and they were just polite and happy.  We had our (Pillsbury) cinnamon and orange rolls for breakfast.  Craig made a turkey and I made a ham for dinner (that's what we call "compromise").  We both spent a lot of time on the phone with our families. 

Smallest present goes to Bentley!  (It was a paper informing him that we will take him to see the new Star Wars movie!)

Colton with a new airplane

Ryder is excited for his "Winja Turtles"

Kendra with the new stuffed animal rooster my Mom sent for our chickens!

There was one pretty funny mishap.  Craig and my Mom usually publish all my blog posts for the year in a book and we got a bit of a surprise when this year it looked like this:

Not our family.

In defense of the blog book company, this family is eerily similar to our family: they're Mormon, have five kids (three boys, two girls) and chickens.  They just aren't us.  And the Dad in this family is the bishop, so let's hope that doesn't happen to us!  Anyway, it was pretty funny opening this present.  Hopefully MY blog book will be arriving soon...
  
Other than that, it was a wonderful day.  Exactly how you want Christmas to be!