What Has Susie Been Up To?

Trying to crack hairdresser code. You heard about Logan’s first haircut and how well that went so I thought I’d take the other two boys for a little trim. Jess was thrilled. He loves to get his hair cut and if I don’t take him when he feels he needs one, he cuts it himself. In fact, the front of his hair was finally growing in from his last attempt this spring. So up into the chair he went and I explained that I only wanted the sides and the back trimmed and to leave the top the way it is. She started cutting and just didn’t stop. Jess is happy with his military-style but I of course, am left wondering what language exactly do I need to speak to get hair cut the way that I want. I mean, why ask me what I want anyway? He’s going to Kindergarten, not BOOT CAMP. Geeeez.

Then it was Dean’s turn. Now Dean has been sporting a trendy surfer-boy shag that looks really good on him. And I promised that we would only get it trimmed so that he could see and not change the style at all. He flat out refused to get in the chair. This annoyed me at first because he used to do this when he was four and for an entire year his hair never got cut. But after looking at Jess’ hair, I really couldn’t blame him. So we left it alone for the time being. After all, it didn’t really look that bad. But when we got home, Dean cut the front of his hair himself so he wouldn’t have to go back to the salon. This was a very bad idea - I’m sure you can imagine why. “But this is what you wanted!” he protested. I countered with, “But don’t you see, now you have to go so they can correct this?” We haven’t yet. You can see why I have little faith that his hair will get cut in a way that we have requested.

And don’t even get me started on my own hair. If you know me at all, you know how I have been know to walk out of a salon looking like a displaced 80’s pop star. One time, I cried all the way home because I took my long, thick post-partum hair to get trimmed and came out looking like Reba McEntire circa 1980-something. Seriously, feathers? It’s one thing when I leave the house with my hair looking terrible because this is the South and it’s humid here. No one can blame me. But walking out of salon looking like I meant to do that with my hair is just embarrassing. I am old enough to know that hairstyle is out of date, not “retro.” And I’m young enough to give a damn, thank you very much.

Prepping the Kids for the First Day of School. I spent an hour yesterday filling out all the forms that go with the first day of school. Mind you, I just filled out a tree’s worth of paper for kindergarten registration but apparently our school system does not own a copy machine and I had to refill out all the same forms for the classroom, PE teacher, and cafeteria. I also had to fill out three different forms for each child regarding how they are getting to and from school each day. And a fourth one for emergency closings – this does not include the one required by the bus company. And then I filled out several forms all asking how to get in touch with me in case of an emergency. Mind you, this info is required on all of the other forms. Not the most efficient system. Condensing all the info into one form and then making copies for all the appropriate departments would save time and resources. Just a suggestion.

After the paperwork was done, we went through the supply lists like we were having a scavenger hunt and packed our backpacks with our almost $300 worth of school supplies - but not before labeling each and every item.

Pruning Back the Piles. Taking advantage of camp and babysitters, I have recently taken some time to de-clutter and reorganize a few things. I even cleaned off the top of the fridge, which oddly gave me a huge emotional boost. And if that wasn’t fabulous all by itself, some charitable organization called saying they would be in the neighborhood the next day and if I had any donations to please leave them on the front porch. To which I replied, “Why yes, my new best friend, but please pick up my stuff before my kids see it and schlep it all back into the house.”

Reading this Book. Translation: dieting. The title caught my eye because I feel like my emotions are completely out of control most of the time. I have no patience for my children unless they are doing everything that I want them to do every minute of the day, and really, what are the chances of that? I feel like I am PMS’ing all the time and I’m tired of feeling like crap. So I’m willing to try something that promises to improve my mood. The principles of the diet are sensible and easy to follow. It’s called balanced nutrition. The key is to spread out your intake of carbs, fats and proteins out over the entire day. It’s not as restrictive as some diets I have explored and I’m not feeling hungry at all, probably because I am eating all the time. It’s a lot like the diet I followed when I was pregnant which is really the last time I remember feeling good. But just like when I was pregnant, feeding me is now a full-time job that costs a lot of grocery money. I’m not sure if I am in a better mood or not (Dean says I am) but I do feel like I am doing something healthy for me. Now the diet is also supposed to promote weight loss but I’m not hanging a lot of hope on that. The last time I purposefully dieted, I gained several pounds. I have pretty much maintained this same weight (with the exception of being pregnant) since my second child was born so I don’t see that changing much. I’m right at the one-week mark so I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Catching Up on All of You. I’ve been trying to catch up on all my usual blogs and some new ones. But you’d be surprised to find out how many times I might get interrupted trying to read a one-paragraph post so I don’t always comment. If I haven’t left a comment on your blog yet, it’s just because I was distracted by something noisy or I haven’t thought of something witty to write.

Speaking of comments, I was reading all the comments left for Erika regarding this post. I love reading the comments and this post’s comment section did not disappoint. I found about 20 people I have flagged to go back and read. And while I risk giving the incident anymore thought and time since it already got way more than it deserves, I just have to ask, “Why?” I agree with a lot of what folks were saying – that you can’t be nice all the time and still be authentic, that you can be not nice while not being hurtful for no good reason, that you can have your own opinion and twitter it all you want, and so forth and so on… So Blogger A can totally share her opinion that Blogger B is a poser – but what was the motivation do so? Can someone less naïve than me explain? Was it for attention? Was it for the blog traffic? Was it just to agitate the waters and provoke some thoughtful commentary? I don’t get it.

One of the reasons we blog and read blogs is for the connection to people like ourselves. We search for that commonality. So with over 70 million blogs out there, undoubtedly there are some that are similar in style and those are the ones to which we are drawn. No one has the market cornered on wit, style or clever, my friends. You can blog about whatever you want and I can choose to read it or click away. Ah, America.