Hey, thanks everyone for the ideas and comments.  I'll respond shortly to everyone, but for now, I've been playing with a virtual makeover site and have come up with two looks that I like more than the others.  That makeover thing is fun, though.  I made myself look like Mimi from the Drew Carey show.  It was teh awsum!  Not sure about the color, but I'm almost leaning toward the second one more.  The first one just looks weird on my head, though it could be because of some adjustments I've made.  The end.

This is me.  The first photo was taken last summer, when Melena was about 4 months old.  The other photo was taken three years ago, when my hair was a bit shorter and purple.

I have not had a haircut in nearly two years.  My hair now reaches my buttcrack.  I've almost always had long hair, though one time I did cut it off to my shoulders.  I suppose that's still long.  I haven't had bangs since 1992, when I was letting a HORRIBLE PERM grow out.  My hair is very fine and stick-straight.  I don't do anything besides wash it, condition it, and brush it.  I usually wear it up in a clip because it is just always in the way.  Sometimes, I pull some of it back in a barrette, mostly when wearing it up gives me a headache.  I wear it in a pony tail when I'm at home.  My hair is healthy, and not overly-processed; but for lack of a trim, I have some bad ends. 

I am in DESPERATE need of a hair cut and / or style.  One thing that is a MUST:  I will be getting blonde chunks put into my hair so that the purple shows more vibrantly.  I haven't colored my hair in over six months; maybe closer to a year.  I would love to have something funky and low-maintenance but not lose all my length.  It must also look decent on me; I've gained weight since the photo, so I'm sure my face is rounder.  Heh. 

I have never had a style.  Seriously.  Rosalynne has agreed to go with me when I get my hair done, but I ought to have an idea of what I want, don't you think?  I have no idea.  I'm in some trouble, and I'm starting to get tired of sitting on my hair. 

Ideas?  Thoughts?  Raucous laughing and pointing? 

There's a lot of stuff to watch on the DVR tonight, so I may make this short.

Brandon TOTALLY HEARTS kindergarten.  He's doing very well, too.  He needs to practice his writing, his address, and his phone number, but he's having a great time and we are very proud of him.

Even when he gets sent to the principal's office.

You read that right.  Brandon has visited the principal's office!

It happened last Friday.  After lunch, all the children make a stop at the bathrooms.  From what I understand, one of the boys splashed water on Brandon.  Instead of stopping to tell his teacher, he splashed back to make him stop.  It ended with a lot of water on the floor and two very wet little boys.  They were made to mop up the floors themselves, visit the principal, and sit at their desks during nap time.  Brandon was very upset that he missed nap time, but he did say to me "Well, a good thing happened.  I didn't have to clean up after nap!"  So kudos to him for seeing the bright side.  He didn't incur much wrath at home, mostly because we knew it had been taken care of at school.  We did have a long talk, though, and I did make him write an apology letter to both his teacher and the principal, to help him understand that he needs to follow the safety rules and that we do take them seriously in our home.  The principal was surprised that we made him do that, as she says she deals with children who are much worse.  Also, we've discovered that the boy who was also involved has been in trouble several times already.  Bran's kindergarten teacher says she hasn't had any problems with Brandon and suspects he was the follower and not the instigator.

Also, soccer is going well.  We were late to the first game because all the water from our shower decided to back up into our basement, but that's now fixed.  Brandon's team got severely spanked, as in 4893217431 to 1 (and the one goal was made accidentally by the *other team*), but they had fun.  Brandon says "he's the best player on the team".  When I asked him how he got to be so good, he said "Oh, I read a book about soccer and watched a few movies".  The book was a Berenstain Bears book, and the movie?  A Backyardigans episode.  He are an expert!

I am actually getting more involved in my Pagan life - I've gone to a few rituals now with a cousin and a friend, and am going this weekend to Columbia MO for the Pagan Pride Day festivities.  I just finally felt that I needed that spirituality in my life so that I had answers for Brandon when he comes home from school.  It's also giving me a chance to get out without family and be who I need to be *for me*.  The downside is that I've been feeling guilty that Craig doesn't go out and do anything fun without the family - but he also doesn't make friends easily.  As much as he doesn't complain (because he gets his own time with the kids), I still feel bad.  I think it will work out, though. 

The Halloween party is in a month, woot!  I'm excited, and have only committed to making two items!  I can't believe it myself.  I'm not even making my famous Sangrias, because that stuff is NOT CHEAP.  I still need to clean the house, though.

Okay, so that's got to be just about it, the baby is waking up and it's probably my turn to make her go back to sleep.

Wait.  Okay, she's quiet now, but I still don't have anything else left to say, and I have to pee.

Melena is a talker.  We were honestly worried from the beginning that Brandon would do all her talking for her, since he likes to talk a lot, but no, she's shown us that she can talk as much as, or even more than, her big brother, and that's a huge feat.  She also talks in complete sentences, most of which I don't understand.  I do understand a few things, though, because they're really clear.  When you give her something new to eat (chocolate milk!), she will excitedly exclaim "I like it!" or "I likey!".  She will point outside and say "go outside", she says bye-bye (often inappropriately), can now say "Brandon" instead of just calling him "Bah-Bah", though she still calls him "Bah-Bah", and has even been known to say "I love you".  She says "up", "down", "done", "night night", "bath" (that one is usually said like this: "BATH!!!!!!!!1").  The list goes on and on.

There are a few phrases she babbles, though, that we can't make any sense of.  They're phrases she uses a lot, and we try to understand the context and / or usage, but they baffle us.  Until now.  One phrase, in particular, she uses as an exclamation, it appears, and it sounds like "oohdadap!".  It has been puzzling us for DAYS, but I think I've broken the code.

She said it again at breakfast today, and with a little more clarity.  I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure "oohdadap" is "Oh, SHUT UP!"

Craig now calls her his little valley girl.

EDIT:  Okay, so "oohdadap" may also mean "ooh what's that?".  The jury's still out.

I don't know what to do. 

Brandon wants to be a ghost, and wants his sister to be a ghost, too.  I've teased him about getting floral-print pillowcases to do the job, but *he just doesn't get it* because he's 5. 

But really, good costumes for kids?  I run screaming from the room. 

I went to a "Halloween Superstore" with a friend yesterday, and was disappointed for two reasons:  first, for the lack of thoughtful decorations, and secondly, for the crappy "I want to be a slutty nurse / Queen of Hearts / Pirate" costume - and that was nearly all costumes!  I did find a cute little witch costume in Melena's size, but....something about store bought costumes just irk me.

Okay, okay, so Brandon's first costume *was* a store-bought dragon costume, but it was cute, and well put-together.  The things I'm seeing at this place are all shoddy, cheaply made, itchy, and ....meh.  I'm creative, sure, but when it comes to working with fabric, well, I may as well be Melena. 

I need some great ideas for costumes for the whole family - I'd considered being a devil, and getting some horns at Ren Fest, but I don't know.  What else would I wear?  It would be fun to come up with a theme for the whole family, but aside from being "Dysfunctional Family #42", I can't come up with anything.  My brain doesn't work like it used to.  In fact, I'm fairly certain it isn't working anymojfdlakjpreiuqpujerqwmfdsajfdsajfda........

I am officially a soccer mom now, fuckitall!  Brandon started U6 soccer yesterday...well, let me clarify.  We had the handing out of jerseys and balls (yeah, my son got a ball yesterday.  Insert inappropriate humor here, because you know I did!).  I know he's going to like soccer, but I strongly suspect he's going to be the kid tangled in the goal net at the end of the field while everyone else is out running around.  He might prove me wrong, though.

I think I'll have a problem with the parents, though.  Back before I was a fat housewife, back before I was a drunken college student, even, I was a soccer player / referee / coach.  I started playing when I was nine, started coaching when I was twelve or thirteen, and I started coaching when I was fifteen, so yeah, I suppose I know a little bit about soccer.  One of the things that was *very* important to me as a referee and coach was that the children learn the fundamentals and have fun, and not be pressured into playing competitive soccer.  (It must be noted that I refereed games for U10 teams and younger, and I coached a U10 girls team, so these were beginner soccer players).  I would frequently toss parents out when I was a coach if said parents tried to coach the girls inappropriately from the sidelines.  Keep in mind that I was FIFTEEN, and really, not very intimidating.  But if these parents got overzealous and tried to get in the way of MY TEAM having fun and learning a little something, they were not allowed on the field.  I had one mom who did not like how I played her two girls - they were good, granted, but they were ball-hogs and not team players; can you imagine that their mom encouraged that behavior?  I did not, however, and would dole out laps or bench time until the girls learned team work.  Each and every one of my girls played every position, because you never know when someone wouldn't be able to play.  My best goalie was the younger sister of another girl on the team, and the daughter of my assistant coach.  She was all of four or five, maybe six, playing on a team with ten year olds.  She wanted to be with her sister, and with her dad, and she wanted to be my goalie.  That girl was FEARLESS.  And good.  REALLY good.  She was a tiny little thing, too.  I often wonder what happened to some of those girls.  Many of them would be almost thirty!!!!

So there are some parents of children on Brandon's team who kept telling their daughter "Daughter, no!  HANDS OFF THE BALL!  You NEVER hold the ball when you play soccer!"  I so badly wanted to say "hey, what if she's a goalie?  What happens during a throw-in?  Do you realize that you're going to confuse her?  Besides, BE NICE!"  The dad is the assistant coach.  He admitted he watched about 5 minutes of Olympic soccer this year, and then changed it.  Great, right?  The coach also knows nothing about soccer, but he seems willing to learn.  I'd mentioned my background, but was looked over initially, but I again told the coach if he needed any help at all, let me know.  We'll see what happens.  I just want to make sure the kids learn basic fundamentals and have fun playing magnet ball...er, soccer.  Because that's what it's about, right?

Also, there are a few of you that I've tried emailing evites to, regarding the Halloween party.  I've gotten some bounce notices.  If you're interested in an invitation, please send me your current email address.  If I don't know who you are, I'll promptly ignore you.    Otherwise, look for an evite!

The rumors are true!  We are, indeed, reviving our annual Halloween Party!  We did such a bang-up job getting the house a tiny bit cleaned up for Becky and her family that we figure two months is certainly enough time to clean the rest of our pigsty!

We're excited!  We haven't had a Halloween party in probably three years, which is TERRIBLE for us, especially when we used to have a party for Halloween AND St. Patrick's day every year.  Alas, parenthood got the better of me.

BUT NO MORE!  Okay, well, I'm still a parent, of course, but...I'm hoping you get my meaning.

The party will be on October 25th (that's a Saturday, right?!) at our humble abode.  I am going to TRY to only make a few goodies so that we can have a real potluck, and not me cooking all damned day as always.  Still can't decide if I want to make red or white chili, either. 

Want more information?  Contact me and I'll give you all the details I haven't given you here, such as the fact that I'm charging a $150 cover charge and...wait, I just told you that.  Dammit.  Also, it's a BYOB and I will enforce a "drink responsibly" rule.  Srsly, you don't want me to have to beat you down.  And bring one spooky dish, and you can dress up, if you'd like.  And children are always welcome, we have two fire chimneys, a gas grill, and a charcoal grill, so I'm sure there will be enough space for them there.   

Also, for those that wanted to know, yes, we had a great time with Becky and her family, and they are even welcome to come back to our house.  The boys played a whole lot of VIDEO GAMES most of the day.  The baby just wandered around babbling about baby things, as always.  It was a good, not rainy day!  Or as Brandon would say, "It's a tasty day!"

Boys are weird.

After several years of corresponding online and one long phone call through a thunderstorm AND a power outage, I am finally meeting wildboysmama and her family today.  She and I used to belong to the same local stay-at-home mommies group, but we'd never made it to any of the same functions together.  We initially bonded over our mutual dislike of another mommy, but found we had a lot in common (we're both crazy and like to swear.)  She moved before we could ever get together, and has lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (hey, it feels like it!).  She moved back to Kansas City the week of Bran's 5th birthday, but because of some missed connections, she was unable to attend his party.  I invited her family over today (with the promise of showing her husband some things that go buzz in the night), and they're supposed to be here around 3. 

EXCITEMENT!

I am nervous, though.  I haven't met an online friend in years like this.  Most people I meet are friends of friends, or something like that.  I wasn't nervous about meeting Acorn7, because I kind of knew her (read: saw her) when we worked at the H&R Block call center together, and I had known her boyfriend for years.  howl_at_the_moon was a friend of Acorn7, so that didn't make me nervous, either.  I've known discorara since 1987, so she doesn't count.  We *almost* met lilms_sassy last year at the Renaissance Festival, but it rained terribly that day, and she didn't go. 

We are so excited that we cleaned the house some!  The living room has ROOM, the bathroom doesn't look like a pig sty quite as much - the only thing that looks terrible still is my desk and cart.  She'll get over it, I'm sure.  This is big time, folks!

By the way, we're considering reviving our annual Halloween party this year, but are unsure about it; there's the cost of food (and even if we do a potluck, I still *have* to make finger-cookies and other spooky items!), the cleaning of the house(!!!!), and....who knows what else.  Oh, my niece is due in early October, I'm *sure* my brother would be irked if I had a party when the baby is that little, but HEY EFFYOO, right?  My house, my party?  I really do want to have this party, as I miss throwing parties so much, but .......

Would you show up if I invited you?  And would you bring food? 

Let me preface this by saying I DON'T RIDE.  I wish.  But I haven't found a bike that has training wheels attached, so I'm stuck with my little lime green and lemon yellow tricycle from my baby days.

Anyway, I got an email from a good friend of mine today about his participation in the local Bikers for Babies March of Dimes ride.  This is an awesome event to see, if you haven't seen it before.  Five bazillion people riding around on bikes all to raise money for a great charity, which is close to my heart for very personal reasons.  I plan on sponsoring him, and I'd love it if you could, too! 

http://www.bikersforbabies.org/personal_page.asp?w=10371

EDIT:  His girlfriend, Acorn7, who is ALSO a good friend, is also riding, so you could sponsor her, too, or instead.  http://www.bikersforbabies.org/hdsqrl

We dropped Brandon off at school this morning, and were talking with an old school friend of mine - she and I used to attend the same Catholic school together many many years ago.  Her son and Brandon also went to the same pre-K last year, and are now at the same (different) grade school.  We were talking about snobby people, and she'd mentioned something about the parish she works in, St. Michael the Archangel.

Fast forward to Craig and I in the car.  He says to me "So who is this St. Michael the Dark Angel, anyway?"

He *claims* he was just being funny, but I don't know.  For any of you that personally know Craig, you know he doesn't often make a good funny, so....

By the way, Craig, yes, I love you, and YES, you just knew I'd blog about this! 

I can't help it if you're the most entertaining part of my day.  Please, take that as you will.