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

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.

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.

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.)