Friday, February 29, 2008

Pulled Back Pieces

My little girls BFF wore her hair like this yesterday. Of course, we have to be just like her BFF. So we copied the do. Just two pieces on the sides pulled back. The top was still damp when we took the picture so ignore that. Wait, now you WILL be looking since I said that.

To get the hair under the two pulled back pieces to stay down, I soak the top half of her hair and then comb some Infusium through it (which by-the-way is in my list of MUST HAVES now) as well as some super strength hair gel. I comb it down as flat as I can and then pull the two pieces over it. The ends were a bit damp when I curled her hair, but it made the curls a little more defined and wavy. Once I curled the ends with the flat iron, I finger-combed them and then sprayed them with hairspray and scrunced them. Then I sprayed her entire head.

Come back on Monday. I am working on the French Twist tutorial this weekend. And on red or blonde hair. How fun!

Oh, and don't forget this shout out. If YOU have a hairstyle that you simply adore and you want the world to see it, e-mail me at blackeyedsue2 at gmail dot com (avoiding those spammers) and I would LOVE to feature your favorite do.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Two Braided Buns




Separate the hair into two high ponytails.
Divide each ponytail into two sections.
Braid each section down and secure with a clear elastic.
Wrap one braid around the base of the ponytail and secure with a bobby pin.
Repeat with the other sections.
Tie a ribbon around the base to hide the ends.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

time flies

Dogs….
The Guest Dog (from my previous post) and Finn had met before, and it was these folks who had introduced us to the Marymor Dog Park. So we didn’t have any reason to believe that the dogs wouldn’t get along. And they did get along, only “having words” when they both attempted to chase the same toy. But I swear Finn would look at Guest Dog and then look at us as if to ask “this guy isn’t really staying here, is he?”

Finn giving Guest Dog the evil eye....


Finn posing in the garden.

Yard….
We took full advantage of Swanson’s Early Spring Sale and bought a bunch of bare root plants, in addition to a few potted numbers. We removed the camellia over the winter and replaced it with a trio of vine maples, and where we removed a cotoneaster, we planted a hydrangea, and Eric planted a heather garden. Then last week we removed a couple of scraggly unidentified bushes from the back yard, and replaced them with three dogwoods: Ivory Halo Redtwig, Ivory Halo Yellowtwig and Cardinal Redosier Dogwood. Thinking about the garden already, we (finally) pulled out the roses and planted two raspberry plants and a dwarf honeycrisp apple tree. The blueberries have buds that are about to pop, as do the clematis that surround the front door. The crocus have been showing off for a bit now, and the garlic bulbs are popping up. We’ll be starting vegetable starts this week: scallions, spinach, peppers, and herbs.

Eric's heather garden


garlic sprout


clematis by the front door


crocus and bearded iris


a veritable dogwood forest

Luna….
Just for fun, I took a photo of the lunar eclipse, though it pretty much resembles a cottony, half -eaten blob….


Knit….
After much hemming and hawing and generally avoiding the tiny yarn and swizzle sticks, I am attempting my first sock. I flew down to Irvine this weekend (business trip, really, but I only had to work on Monday, so I flew down early to spend the weekend with Zoe and her parents [and grandparents!]), and as I awaited my outbound flight, I cast on and got to work on the Yarn Harlot’s Basic Sock Recipe. I was seated facing east, and as the sun rose, I basked in the sunshine and took more pictures than was really necessary of my meager progress. Mind you, all this photography was not an attempt to brag—I didn’t even think the subject matter was so spectacular, but the lighting was great. I have been forced to take so many photos for the blog with a flash or with terrible artificial lighting over the winter (since we’re typically not home during daylight hours), that I jumped on the chance to take about twenty.


Observation….
My photo fervor continued on the plane, where I took pictures of Mt Rainier (as usual). Being a land use planner and a quilter, I always study the land uses and landscape patterns in a quilty context when I observe the earth passing below, but I was especially intrigued this time with the patterns created both by nature (topography, waterbodies) and by man (straight property lines), and then man trying to imitate nature (the “freeform” clearcuts). These features become especially salient during the winter, when the remaining snow—that which melts out of the snow and water but stays on the ground— highlights these aspects.

just south of Mt Rainier, Washington

clearcut
A clearcut is where commercial forestry removes all or most of the standing timber on a tract of land. Companies justify clearcuts because Douglas fir, the most desireable replacement tree over much of the West, grows best in full sun, but the practice is driven chiefly by economies of scale and maximum short-term profit. Unless ecological costs are factored in, it is easier, cheaper and more cost-effective to fall every stem on a given timber sale than to cut selectively. Square-edged clearcuts give a checkerboard or mangy appearance, most visible from the air and in winter when snow accentuates the cut. Molding the cutline to the contours of the land gives a softer visual aspect than rectilinear clearcuts, but it's more difficult to survey, cruise for stumpage, and carry out. While clearcuts promote forest fragmentation, they can develop into vigorous plant and animal communities when neither sprayed nor eroded. Related terms are logging side and logging show, and a current euphamism is "active stewardship." In "Elegy for a Forest Clear-cut by the Weyerhaeuser Company," poet David Wagoner describes "the slash and stumps" and "the cratered/Three square miles of your graveyard."
by Robert Michael Pyle, in Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, Barry Lopez, Ed. 2006.

Zoe….
Aw shucks, this girl is just the cutest thing ever…I’ll just give you some photos….


I made special arrangements to bring rain with me to Southern California, then I made Zoe walk around in it.




breakfast at the restaurant at Crystal Cove State Park




working off breakfast on the beach



dress-up at the Santa Ana Zoo


now you see me...


....now you don't!




I just don't understand what it is that mama sees in these turtle things...

Single Braid



Sometimes simple is so sweet. Today is picture day and we have learned from past picture days that simple is the best and most classic hair to do. From the front it just looks like her hair is pulled back.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Upside Down Knots

I can't believe that I haven't shown this one before. I love this one because my girls don't have a lot of natural body...we have to fake it. I pull the hair up into two ponytails. I take my rattail comb and slide it under the middle of the ponytail and pull the elastic out just a bit. I then stick the elastic through the part that I just made.


Don't mind the off part. I'm kind of having a bad day.


To show you what it looks like underneath.

Side Ponytail

The older she gets, the more she wants trendy hair. Today it was a side ponytail.




Sunday, February 24, 2008

Two 1/2 Ponytails



Another more traditional hair-do. In my opinion, my girls look best with side parts vs. center parts. I do the same thing with this style.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

I Just Want My Hair Down.

Is what my daughter said to me today. Sometimes my kids get tired of my art expressions via their heads...imagine that! I willingly oblige when they ask me this. It gives me more leverage when I feel the need to create something on top of their heads.
I don't do down well. Most would think "down" means all of it down. Um, for me it means MOST of it down.

So a simple triangle ponytail up top to keep the hair out of her eyes is as "down" as she is going to get today.

Knots of Three


I pulled her hair into three ponytails on a diagnoal. Then I knotted them. Knotting...for those who are new to this, is putting her hair into a ponytail and then parting underneath the elastic and pulling the elastic through the part.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Chuck Norris wouldn't apply for a Student Affairs job....


He would just take it- b/c everyone knows that Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.

So- As of this very moment I have officially applied for 9 jobs. It's a daunting tack but you just have to sit down and start applying. I recieved a sudden jolt of confidence after I was offered interviews from two different positions at the same school where my best friend will soon be working. So, I applied to a few more places and hopefully I will continue to have a quick turn around of interview offers/declines. We all know how much I love feed back.

As I sit on the computer typing my "hire me please; I'm the greatest ever and oh-so-qualified" coverletters, I noticed that the "recreational TV" (praying for your Lenten choices, Tif) in the background is showing an episode of CSI. I know nothing about the plot, but I found myself getting over-annoyed by the constant use use the word "dorms." I looked sternly at the television and stated, "Residence Halls- not Dorms." THIS is how I KNOW that it is time for bed.

Speaking of bed- "Dormatory" comes from the Latin- "dormere=to sleep." Here's the deal- residence halls should not only be a place where students sleep, but a place where they LIVE. (I'm such a higher education nerd.) BUT o-so-hireable.

Valentine's Gift Round-Up

The UPS man must've thought that I was a two-timer this Valentine's day, because the packages just kept arriving! I never get mail so I was super pumped to receive all my Valentines. I thought that I'd share the love with those of you at home.

My mom sent me FOUR pairs of booties that I really like as well as the soundtrack for HAIRSPRAY! Love that movie!


My cousin, Johnna sent me sugar free candy, which was welcomed surprise. I really like that girl!


Last but not least- my boyfriend got me a REUSABLE shopping bag from Method designed by Danny Seo, one of my favorite green bloggers. HE also got me flowers, granola bars, and a PEDICURE. My green toes match the bag!


The best Valentine's day yet! What did you get from your special someone's?

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Curling Hair with a Flat Iron v. 2

Go ahead...ask me.

Let me have em! Questions that is. I will do my VERY best to answer them. I can tell you what works for me and what doesn't.

Debbie, I am working on a tutorial for the French twists. I need to ask my friend to demonstrate it for me on her daughter while I take pictures. That is one you definitely need both hands for. I am also working on a tutorial for how to use a flat iron as a curling iron. For now I will just tell you that I clamp the hair with the flat iron by the scalp. I turn the iron as if it were a curling iron and I slowly pull it through keeping the iron clamped and turning it as I move it towards the end. It is important that the edge of your flat iron have a bevel or is rounded. A sharp edge makes terrible lines in the hair. I would love to own a Chi, but I think they are a fad. I have a cheapy from Wal-Mart that has an adjustable heat setting so that I don't get the temperature up to high on my middle daughters blonde hair. Her hair seems so much more delicate than her sisters sturdy brunette hair. It is heavy and it works beautifully!

Ity...and anyone else who was wondering. I try really hard to not get the ends as wet as the crown. If I have gotten them wet...and that happens more often than not, I will pull out the blowdryer and dry them off. You just need to be careful when you do this so that you don't blow dry the hair you just spent all of that time working on into fuzz. Also, I will take the ponytail while it is still wet and I will run the flat iron over it. It makes the hair sizzle a bit (I am sure hairdressers everywhere just cringed) but it gets the excess water out and dries it up a bit.

Also another tip...that I have yet to try...but I was talking to my friend Hilary today and she said that when she gets her daughters hair wet, she squirts some "Infusium" on their hair and combs it through before she styles it. It is a conditioner. Her daughters hair rarely have static, so I am certain it works

Tiny Pony meets Curly Sue



These soft and swishy curls were created with a flat iron. I love using the flat iron! It takes about 1/3 less time than a curling iron and WAY less time than sponge rollers. I love the curl they leave much better than the alternates.

Low Ponytail


Thursday, February 14, 2008

one of those months...

Eric and I are dogsitting for a friend of ours who will be attending her grandfather's funeral this weekend (more on the dogs later). We had barely gotten both dogs settled at our place before I got a phone call from my dad....

My "grand-uncle" Burt, my paternal grandfather's brother, died Wednesday. He was reported by my Uncle Leonard as being fine on Tuesday, but apparently suffered a heart attack on Wednesday and was found by an attendant at the nursing home. He was just a couple weeks short of his 97th birthday. His death was apparently quiet and painless. Those of us that knew him will miss his famous happy nature.

Burt Miner Slusser was born 28 Feb 1911 in Logan, Cache County, Utah and died 13 Feb 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of 96. Burt met Joyce Parry in Hawaii while in the Army but didn't date. They met again in SLC at church and later married. Burt served as a Sgt in the Infantry in Tokyo Japan at the end of WWII.


A family photo I am particularly fond of.... my grandfather, Leonard, is the boy on the left. Grand Uncle Burt at top with my great-grandmother Florence.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Valentine's Day could change your life...



Whether you hate Valentine's Day or long for the moments of digging through tin foil covered shoeboxes to see if Bobby Caudle (with a rat tail, mind you) wrote you a "Be Mine." card, ModMom has some GREAT Valentine giveaways on this blog here.

Enter before the big day (tomorrow) and you could win something amazing!

Impossible to ignore



Above is a photo of Lovelace 1 (bottom floor) and Lovelace 2 (top floor- the setting for my best, and worse, college memories. With a perfect view of the Sugar Shack (a gathering place for students) we would trun out the lights and watch newly formed relationships blosson from our video as we giggled and tried to identify who it was the we were "stalking." Rachel would call downstairs to tell me my guitar playing and singing was "too loud" and I would scream out the window, "Herd of cattle!" at the neighbors as they noisily climbed the stairs. Stefi would call on Sunday to borrow the hair straightener or catch a ride to church or to figured out an excuse for not going. Alice and I would sit on the counter of the kitchen and exclaim that the reason we had no boyfriends was because we are too eccentric for the area. The windows read in my day, "It's all good in the hood!"

As you may know, my undergraduate institution, Union University was devastated by a tornado recently. Since the tornado, I am surprised about the effect this has had on me. Its reallhy hard to be here, when people I love are there. Its really hard to see the destruction of the physical without experiencing the embrace of the community and the spiritual.



If you would like, you may give to the disaster relief fund by clicking here.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The MOMENT you've ALL been waiting for......



And the winners are......



So- Liz and Alice, please send me your mailing addresses (via facebook)and I will send you both FREE shopping bags- handmade by ME!!!! Yay!

Alice Said:
I miss you and I want a bag. That is a GREAT Idea.
I might pass it on to the Anna Mags so she can start your chain up here...You're already going global with this thing.

Liz Vailes Said:
Can I tell you this is quite possibly the coolest idea ever!? You are SO crafty! I love it! Hey, by the way, I am in need of a serious update with you. Baby Vailes (the second) is due ANYTIME now!!!

Feel free to use the comments section to congratulate the winners.

But to you losers- there will be more giveaways soon. (If you still want a bag, I have many more- at a cost...just let me know.)

Monday, February 11, 2008

An Oldie But Goodie



This seems to be a standby in our house. I part her hair on a slant and then pull up two half ponytails. Add some delicious ribbons and curl the ends and VOILA'! Easy Peasy.

Excuse the pictures. That is what happens when she is trying to decide what would look cute for the pictures.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

We are starting a revolution!!!!

This is eryn....


She is star wars fan from Anderson, IN who apparently LOVES broadway musicals. But that's not why her picture is posted on "the blog." Eryn, by way of random events, stumbled upon the 30 Things Thursday idea and is now embarking on a Fifteen Things Friday. Check out her blog in the inspiration section of the link to the left and hold her accountable.

I'm going to give Eryn one of the "coveted" upcycled t-shirt shopping bags as a "thank you card" for the compliment of immitation.

Don't worry!!! I will still be drawing TWO names for shoppers TOMMORROW!!! So check back to see if you've won. (Or enter by clicking
HERE!!!!!

Saturday, February 9, 2008

gig harbor & caucusing

Eric and I took a drive out to Gig Harbor today (just west of Tacoma) to pick up a serger sewing machine I had found on craigslist. We made a morning of it, taking a walk along the waterfront and having lunch (possibly the best clam chowder I've ever had) at what was obviously a local favorite, Tides Tavern.

The Gig Harbor waterfront -- old boat dock

The water in Gig Harbor was so clean and clear, we got to see lots of thriving harbor wildlife.

We drove back to Seattle just in time to get to our caucasing site. We were a little hesitant about the time commitment (I think I thought it was going to be more like jury deliberation, with everyone in the precinct having to be in agreement on a single candidate), but felt that we ought to see what it was all about. Our caucasing site was at a local middle school, and was actually the site for several different precinct, and as we approached and saw the parked cars all down the street and the sharp increase of pedestrians hoofing it towards the school, we pulled over and joined them. The line of voters snaked out the front door of the school and around the corner, so we stood in it. Inside was a bit chaotic for people like us who arrived without our presinct number, but when we all got to the right place and our precinct leader showed up and got us all signed in and recorded our initial candidate preferences, it went pretty smoothly. We sat and stood in roughly a circle, sharing the school library with another precinct. Our leaders tallied up the initial preferences: the Obamas and the Clintons and the "others": two for Kusinich and three undecideds. Two of those three undecideds were Eric and myself. Then about eight folks volunteered their opinions -- who they were voting for and why -- then the leaders asked if anyone wanted to change their preferences. Still not totally convinced, but swaying enough to write down a name, Eric and I went and changed our paperwork, the leaders retallied and based upon the nearly three-to-one Obama to Clinton ratio, we broke into two groups and elected a total of seven delegates (and a few alternates) to represent our precinct at the County caucus in April. That done, we headed home.

The line to get into our caucus site, when we got there...

I'm glad we went. It was good to get out and feel like we were participating, especially in such a different sort of atmosphere than your basic rickity voting booth.