Photo proof of what I did last Sunday

I know I mentioned that I cut my hair and all, but I didn't post any pictures yet. Here's a couple:

The before - so. much. hair ...

From behind - the lumpy bits is evidence of having it up in a ponytail or bun
(which was most of the time)

The aftermath - if I pulled it straight it comes to 10.5"

 I don't have any "after" photos of what my head looks like just yet. I know some were taken at the open house but I don't have them myself. Perhaps I'll leave you suspense! At least, until I can get someone (Colin) to take another picture. One thing I would be interested to know before I send the package off to Locks of Love is just how heavy all that hair is ... I just measured the circumference - just over 3.75 inches:

Maybe not the thickest in the world but according to this page (http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=294247) I've got well more than average. *sigh*

Another thing: It's so much faster to dry it. Colin was quite surprised this morning that I was all done in a lot less time. Plus, no more time spent untangling!

Heat, gardening, wedding planning, and smaller topics

In the words of Neil Gaiman: "Sorry that I've been away. I am a bad blogger." And indeed, it's been two months minus ten days since I've last written.

First, before jumping into what's going on in my life, I love reading the dialogs found here: http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com/search/label/weird%20things%20customers%20say

Summer has unabashedly arrived; the last couple of days has been very hot with the temperature dropping to high 70s at night. I saw 104 degrees on the car dashboard yesterday but that was after it had been sitting in full sunlight in a parking lot a couple hours. The real temperature seemed to hover at 98 and 99 degrees. It's a mere 90 degrees now at noon today.

I've got myself a container garden that was a gift from Colin's mom.
The list:
One zucchini
One cucumber
6 tomatoes
6 bell peppers (3 yellow, 3 red)
An assortment of herbs

There isn't anywhere near enough dirt in the pots so that's my gardening goal of the day. Silly me, I watered the plants this morning so I have to wait a bit. At least I've got all the material. Despite the heat, I've spent the last couple days burying old potato pieces with eyes on them in the clay-ey ground under the eaves (in the late afternoon when watering the garden a second time in the shade). I'm probably drowning the potatoes when I water them but I'm trying to keep them cool. The potatoes are not a high investment project and I needed to dig up the dirt anyway so I could include it in the pots. I'll undoubtedly post updates on the garden. It might even be what prompts future blog posts to happen.

The main reason I've been neglecting the blog is that the big thing happening in my life right now is wedding planning and I wanted to try to tell as many people one-on-one that Colin and I are getting married before I mentioned it here. Which makes it a bit difficult to do any blogging. For those who didn't know yet, I apologize - it's so difficult to get to everyone especially when almost everyone lives so far away.

Let me say right away: This is not a big formal white wedding.

- It is small; just immediate family and close friends. People that have actively been a part of our lives the past 3.5 years we have been a couple. Less than 50.

- It is laid back and casual. I'm only wearing dresses so we can do the whole "bride as the centerpiece" thing. However, I've got plans for the actual ceremony which don't include a white dress.

The wedding is less than two months away. The invitations were going to go out in the mail this week but they won't be done until next Monday. There's still things to be sorted out, but I don't expect the actual planning and preparing to take over as much of my days as it has in the last few days until the time is much closer. (We'll see. This sentence might come back to  taunt me.)

Logistics aside, it's hard for me to put a positive spin on the experience right now. At the same time, I don't want to get into a rant and moan about all the details. I'm kind of confused about this, since it's pretty much a "yay they didn't elope" party, there's so many wedding-y things we're not doing and so many potential fires that aren't happening.  Hopefully things will look better after we spend this weekend with my family; we haven't been to my parents' house since Thanksgiving and my brother's high school graduation open house is on Saturday.

I made zucchini bread a couple days ago that's probably poisonous. So my heart drops with the sight of dropping the whole thing in the trash. I try to keep telling myself "It's better than getting sick from it and next time I won't use the 8x8 pan but have two 8x4 pans like the recipe said to use."

Despite the weather and the stress, I find myself having quite a few happy moments. I wonder if it's my body's way of preventing things from overwhelming my life. Plus, I like the rhythm the garden's needs puts in my day, even the aches and blisters it gives me. Ooo and also I have been reading the Hunger Games trilogy. While not sunshine and daisies, the books are sooo gooood.

I also gave myself a haircut on Sunday. I was so tired of how long it was. It hadn't been that long since sometime in elementary school; it was starting to get caught under my arms and when I had it pulled back (which was most of the time) I would catch my head being tilted too far back because of the weight. I guess the final straw was when I was trying to remake a bun and I broke the pencil when I didn't even think I was pushing it that hard. My hair broke a pencil just by looking at it.

So I lopped off more than enough for what I think is my third Locks of Love donation. I can still pull what's left into a small pony tail and I need to trim it since one side is longer than the other but otherwise I like the layered and slanted bob look. The very instant after I had fully cut through the thick rope (the scene in Princess Bride when Vizzini is cutting the rope at the Cliffs of Insanity doesn't do cutting my hair justice) was the most shocking and relieving. My hair was still in shock for a day or so but I had been looking forward to cutting it for so long I adjusted much quicker.

Okay, it's time to get back to what needs to be done before we leave tonight for Michigan.

A bun!

My hands have been covered in pen marks all day, from various attempts to get my hair into a bun - without bobby pins or elastic bands. And ta da! It is currently securely held together with two pens! This, I can assure you, is indeed an accomplishment. I've been making more buns lately as my hair gets longer and even the ponytail is getting to feel a bit in the way. I've done this with the old "twist up, wrap, and secure with band." This is always a hit-and-miss and can unevenly put all the weight of my hair on a few strands which is not comfortable.

This morning I started out determined to find another solution. Went through many tutorials, with some of them *almost* working (including one with no utensils needed at all!) and others I didn't even try because I started to realize this: My hair is much thicker than the average tutorial guide's. I've never actually measured the circumference of the ponytail but I started to despair. Plus, it has been a freak summer day (got above 80 degrees!) and I was sweating slightly from all the activity.

Later on, I looked up how to make buns for thick hair, abandoning the idea of looking only for buns made without the usual hair accessories. Turns out I'm not alone, which I guess I knew all along but it is still a relief to find strangers bemoaning of the same difficulties. Most suggested that all they could find to work was the same old method I've been using. Or something even more complex and requiring sectioning hair and using bobby pins. And then, I found ...

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP70xftdDn0)

I tried a few times, watched the video at least 3 or 4 times, and then - it worked. Now, the problem is I don't want to take it out and retry because I'm afraid it won't work again. It's so nice to have it in a good bun! But I will need to go to sleep sometime soon and having pens stuck in my head will impede that, so we shall see how much is plain dumb luck or not next time I try it (tomorrow). But for now - bliss, or something like it.

Wavy hair

Every once in awhile, I get bored with my thick straight brown hair. I do love the color, with all the different tints (mostly gold and a hint of red), the really thick almost black strands and the really light almost invisible blonde strands. But overall, it's just plain brown. I've never dyed it, only done highlights once and even then I was pressured into it. I did like the red tint but was glad to get to grow out completely so my mom would stop nagging me about "touching it up" because it looked weird (this was while in high school). Anyway, like I was saying, every once in awhile, I get bored with it. Sometimes that involves a haircut (like when I cut it reeeeally short a couple summers ago - Colin didn't really care for it) but other times it just styling it differently.

Last night while we were watching an episode of Smallville, I made my hair up in two French braids and slept with them in. Since it was an off day for washing my hair (I usually wash it every other day, often shampooing twice and conditioning once - it's a pain in the butt to dry because it's so thick, but I need to do it before putting my aids in), I just made sure it didn't get soaked and even then I blow dried it while still in braids.  Then I took the braids out and it was nice and wavy. I don't have any hair spray (I did but I used it so infrequently it went bad before most of the bottle was used) so it'll eventually straighten back out as the day wears on. That is, if I don't get exasperated with having it down and put it up in a pony tail like I almost always wear it. I took some pictures but it's hard to take pictures of your own dark hair to show waves and to not show a scary face.

Kind of a long detailed way of saying "I was bored so I made my hair wavy. Here's a pic."

Sometimes, I find myself staring at wavy and curly hair because it reminds me so much of waves and rivers and trees and wind. I don't know how else to describe it. I just get mesmerized by the beauty of it. Does anyone else feel this way or is it just me?

Hair and Hoppers

(Photos posted at LiveJournal this time.)

I figured it was about time to upload those highly demanded hair photos. It's been about a month so the obnoxiously too short hairs are much better and I've had to trim my bangs, faux side burns (not sure what else to call them), and the hair on my neck, which was starting to bother me in this heat. The one above, is the before picture, if you haven't figured it out already. The following are the after shot (oh so short! scandalous!), a shot inspired by Whitney, and the last is an unrelated picture of Happy and Grumpy, before they are set free in the ravine behind my building. I am raising treefrogs who climb anything as high as they can. Aren't they cute?! We set Doc free Friday and Dopey today. Hungry will be next. Nemo aka Bashful escaped in Colin's kitchen and successfully evaded recapture. The last dwarf, Sleepy aka One-Eyed Bill, may remain in captivity because of his impediments which make us suspicious of his ability to survive in the wild. Next up - the four Tiny T's (Tim, Tom, Tam, and Tum) which all have their backlegs now. My, how fast they grow up and hop away.

My Fourth of July

I got my haircut last Wednesday. Super short too! Possibly Lenya short, or, if you don't know Lenya, it's the same length as a many boy haircuts. I sent pictures to Becca and Colin's sisters that night. All, including Colin's mom, thought it was cute. My new friends down here didn't think I was ugly; "ooo look at you!" Then Colin came to visit Thursday night. I was excited and really missed him, so much that I had to run out to the road a couple of times. Then I saw his car turn all the way down at the intersection and just watched as I could tell he tried to figure out if it was me or not. "Who are you?" I asked if he liked it and he said something about it being different. Still shocked, I guess. But not terribly, since we'd decided not to tell the other when we were getting our haircuts and just surprise each other whenever it might be. I'm pretty sure he likes it now; he can actually play with it and play with it he does. Plus, more kissing spots available. I kind of miss my long hair but I sure love how easy it is to wash now.

Friday (the fourth) we went hiking. It rained some but it was a nice place. There were a
gazillion sinkholes in the park and we went into a cave too. I didn't want to go very far in, but Colin managed to coax me quite a ways before I scurried back to the safely daylighted opening. We hiked more than the listed miles because the trails all loop into one another and run into roads and stuff. We saw a lot of cute little toads and a couple of this weird insect that closely resembled a rose chafer but bigger with a fatter butt.

Friday night we stopped at a movie theatre that I'd spotted on the way to the trail. If it was less than $8 (roughly the price of the theatre in Lisle), we were going to see Wall-E. Well, it was and the movie is AWESOME. Hands down one of the best movies I've seen in awhile. And, with me getting like 3 or 4 movies a week, watching something about 2 out of 3 nights, I've been watching quite a lot. I don't think I have anything to complain about when it comes to Wall-E.

Saturday we went hiking in another park nearby (Yellowwood Lake). We were going to do a trail but the actual parking area was on a road that was blocked off. At the ranger station, they told us the trail was do-able; the road was closed because they did construction on the dam during the week but it was fine to go back there on the weekend. We went back and attempted to hike but found it too overgrown and watching our every step for poison ivy for over six miles didn't appeal to us. It was well-traveled, but we were wearing shorts. We did do some hiking on the "shore" of the lake (the water level was really low, the opposite of most Hoosier lakes right now) near the campground where people were continuing or wrapping up their holiday festivities.

Day-hiking was a Plan C for us; we were going to backpack, but it takes more prepping and equipment than we had and we were both pretty busy (yes, I was, for once - I had a fairly large assignment, reading, and a presentation to put together that week). So I was like "Let's just try to focus on having a good weekend and not make it stressful." Plan B was car-camping. That fell through mainly because of the quick switching of gears and the impossibility of finding a site even less than an hour of check-in at one of like two campgrounds that supposedly had spots that weekend. It was first-come-first-serve. Then it was Colin's time to say "Let's make it simpler." Anyway, just walking near the campground on Saturday made us thankful we dumped Plan B; people were cranky and noisy and, well, just plain annoying.

When we got back to the car, we decided to catch tadpoles and put them in an empty tupperware. We caught fifteen, four which already had back legs, and then researched online how to keep them alive while we kept squealing about how cute they were. The two most advanced died within 24 hours but the others have been wiggling happily around. One sprouted its front legs today so it got to go to the teenager tadpole pool and have it all to itself. I can see where its lungs are developing. Even if most, or any, don't make it, I won't be too sad; I know there's a high mortality rate for tadpoles in the wild. That's why there's so many that grow at the same time. It would be great to help the amphibious population though (they're probably toads, but they could be any kind of frog, newt, salamander, who-knows-what).

Sunday we just bummed out around my apartment. There were many reasons, such as me not feeling so great, it be really hot, and we being tired of chasing stupid trails.

Sunday night we hung out with Matt Vazquez and his brother Tim. Matt, or Skez as he is usually known, is helping with some research project at IU for his SIP a few weeks this summer. Something to do with verbs, children's lit, and psychology. It's neat that he's in town. We watched "Nosferatu" which is a German silent movie about Dracula. The boys kept adding their own subtitles. I enjoyed it, even if I can't tell where the historical intrigue ended and simple fun (if any) began.

Monday (yesterday) I was still not feeling great when I woke up. Mostly fatigue and some dizziness, and I suspect it's probably allergies. Then Colin left. Then I watched "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and did some homework. Today was hot. I had class. The guest speaker was boring. I doodled a LOT. Then I did some homework in the library. It was still hot when I walked home. I changed the tadpoles' water again and ate dinner while watching "Hang Up." Now I'm tired of typing. I hope you all enjoyed this update.