Tonight Little Man and Sweet Girl were chasing each other around, yelling, "Run! The tickle monster is coming!" One would chase the other to me, while they were yelling, "Save me, Mom! Help me!" It was funny.
Then Little Man ran up to me, laughing, and said, "Mommy! Help me! Ayudé me, ayudé me!"
He’s two. He shouldn’t be able to correctly use Spanish phrases in every day conversation, right?
Sweet Girl loves clover flowers. Therefore, Mommy must love clover, too.
(and a thank you to Misty for teaching me how to use some of the cool functions on my camera.)
So last weekend I went on a fabulous retreat - a girl’s weekend out with about 75 of my closest friends. Seriously people, I can’t begin to describe how awesome this weekend was. I have talked with many of these women for close to 6 years, and to finally meet them was nearly heaven. One wonderful woman put it as, "Finally meeting everyone was so amazing! The joy in the room was almost palpable. Then I thought to myself, ‘This must be what Heaven will be like.’ Then I made myself stop thinking about it so I wouldn’t cry." Yeah. It was that cool. The first day was kind of a free day, to hang out, go shopping or go to the temple. The second day was Super Saturday - with nifty classes and everything. There was a photography class, a jewelry-making class, a class on car seat safety, a class on how to make adorable girls’ hair bows, a cake-decorating class, a floral-arranging class, and I think something else that I’m not remembering. There were also a couple of quilts set up to be tied, as well as baby-sized quilts to be assembled. There were Pilates and aerobics classes (how’d you guess I skipped those?). There was also one amazing lady that was doing hair - cuts, colors, highlights, whatever. Several girls volunteered to do Locks of Love donations. I was one of them. Now, I was a little nervous, having done that only 14 months ago, that my hair wouldn’t quite be long enough. She played with it a bit and said not only would there would be enough to donate, but I wouldn’t have to go with a super short style, either. She asked what kind of style I wanted. I told her I didn’t want to go much above my shoulders, I needed something pretty low-maintenance in the wash-and-wear category, I hated having hair in my face or over my ears (those last two came from years of having a super-short boy cut). She smiled and nodded. I told her my ‘requirements’ and said, "but really, I trust you to make it look good."
We went down to the kitchen, where she’d set up shop. First, she did the Locks of Love chop, then she started styling. Now, there wasn’t a mirror for me to see what was going on, not that I could have seen anything without my glasses on anyway, but people walking by commented on how much she was taking off. I was admittedly getting a little nervous. After she cut & styled for about 45 minutes, she let me put my glasses on and walked me to the bathroom mirror. WHOA! It was a style unlike I’ve ever worn, and not at all what I was envisioning her doing. It’s a little more above my shoulders than I wanted. It’s pretty high-maintenance (for me); I had to go buy a flatiron to make it look right, and it takes me around 30 minutes to flatiron it after it’s dried. It’s over my ears. It falls into my face. In short, it’s everything I asked her not to do.
I love it.
If I say so myself, I think it looks fabulous. Everyone gave me such positive comments on it - even those I didn’t know too well complemented me. Even though I didn’t know it, it’s exactly what I needed - I’ve been told I look younger, slimmer, happier, more stylish - although to be perfectly honest, that last one wasn’t hard to do, since my previous hairstyles all involved getting out of the shower and putting my wet hair up in a clip. Period.
As I’ve thought about it the past couple of days, I can draw a parallel between my unexpected haircut and how the Lord hears and answers our prayers. I told the stylist what I didn’t want, and she gave me something that I didn’t know I needed, but worked perfectly for me. We tell the Lord what our problems are, and tell Him how we want Him to fix them for us. He smiles, nods, and then gives us something that we totally didn’t think we wanted, but is exactly what we need. We certainly didn’t ask for DH to lose his job; but the blessings he has received from losing his employment are, while unexpected, totally what he’s needed.
I need to learn to quit telling people (and the Lord) what I think I want, but instead, wait to see what wonderful things are in store that I can’t even imagine for my life. I think it’s a great plan.
See?
Sweet Girl had her first experience with a tried-and-true childhood summer tradition.
The little girl next door and the one that lives across the street decided to help, too. It was quite the collaborative effort. A big brother even got involved with ‘advertising’ on his bike.
They still ended up waiting for customers quite often.
They did sell a fair amount, though. I think Sweet Girl made $1.82 once it was divvied up.
Of course, you know where most of her profits went…
When it’s over 100 degrees in the shade, you’ve gotta quench your thirst somehow!
