I can be mean sometimes...

I would say that for the most part I am a pretty friendly person. There are times I find myself in situations that make me uncomfortable and I tend to just shut down and look at the floor, straight ahead, or anywhere other than making eye contact with someone else. I am not proud of this; I don't do this because I don't care about people. It's more that I have so many things on my plate that I sometimes just don't want to deal with random strangers. As I am writing this I realize just how aweful it sounds! So let me give a little example.

Clackamas Town Center Mall has about a bajillion little kiosks throughout the shopping center. T-moble, Tubberwear, random crappy hand lotion, Hermit Crab pets with painted shells, faux hair extensions, those little bags filled with corn and aromatherapy that you heat in the microwave and then wrap around your neck for your aches and pains....etc. I really hate these things, because they are generally unnecessary knick knacks or overpriced junk. In terms of the cell phones, I really hate being approached by them because I ALREADY have a cell phone. If anyone on the planet does not have one but wants one, they can visit a Verizon kiosk at their own free will. Making a trip from one end of the mall to another is like a round of dodgeball. I pretty much press up against the opposite wall and look at the floor to avoid eye contact. Once you make eye contact with these people, they flock to you like moths to a light. They are so desparate to make a commission; even stooping to criticizing my luscious wavy locks to sell me a hair straigtener (totally kidding about the "luscious locks" ;) . So anyway, I speed up my stride and look the other way, but sometimes they still come on over with the, "Excuse me miss. EXCUSE ME, Can I talk to you for a second?" and I just blurt out "NO THANKYOU" and scurry away as fast as I can. It's not very kind of me, I know. But I think that there is just about nothing I hate more than these high pressure sale sitations. It brings out the ugly side of me, as I mentioned before. Anyway, I guess I just had to make that little confession.

Fight

Well I am almost to that point that I can just laugh about a fight Ross and I had. Most of us married peeps don't like to talk about the bad times in marriage because it could make our marriage look bad. We're afraid people will say, "Wow- her husband is a jerk!" or "wow, I bet THEY are unhappy". It's my experience that people who say they never fight or never have hard times are either bored or LYING. I never blog about our fights for the same pride issue, and because it is actually very personal. I don't need to invite my friends and acquaintances into my marital 'tiffs. But I am going to share this fight with you, because it is even funny to me. It was not funny last night, but I already can see some humor in it...

I cut my bangs on friday. I just wanted a new look. Ross and I both bad busy weekends with a girls' night and a guys' night and practice with his band, so we hardly saw each other. He asked me to text him a pic on friday, so I did. No response. I know my husband, and the subtext of his lack of texting was- he didn't like it. I decided- that's okay! I like it, and he will get used to it. He did let me know the next day that he just didn't like the bangs part, but loved the rest of my hair. I was okay with that. So fast forward to last night. I have Tuesdays off, so we were going to go on a little date. I put on my new shirt, put on some make-up, and thought I looked pretty good. And dang it, I wanted him to tell me I looked good. (Now just as side note, I am bad about doing that whole woman thing where we expect men to read our minds and then get upset when they don't- and I'm working on that!). So anyway, he didn't compliment me, so I asked him to. Yes. I asked him to. I was being a silly woman, and wanted reassurance. He looked at my bangs (not at me) and said, looking kind of sad, "I just miss your old hair...The rest of you is beautiful but I just don't like the bangs". This is where things got ugly for a little bit, and I don't need to dish out the rest. I cancelled the date because I was upset. I was so hurt that me cutting my hair was such a big deal to him. He was slightly upset because I changed the way I looked and he liked the way I looked before. You know, like when a dad shaves his beard and the kids freak out and start screaming and crying. (By the way- I hope that blogging about this does not make my husband seem like a jerk- i guess that's the risk when blogging about this! I promise, he is very good to me :) So coming out on the other side of this, I realize why this is such a crisis. I am a woman who is sensitive about her looks and went a little ballistic that he didn't love it. He literally got sad and bothered that I "didn't look like his wife anymore" (which is a bit of an overstatement), and did not choose the best way to react. He sincerely apologized for hurting me. I still don't fully understand his angle, but I won't hold this against him. I guess he's never liked bangs.

The good news is that I like the bangs. They are a little shorter than what I wanted, but they will grow and be perfect in a week or two. The better news is that it is JUST HAIR. Every day I work with people fighting for their lives, and here we are fighting over bangs. For this, I am a bit ashamed. But hopefully there are people out there who can relate to me about fighting about the silly, meaningless things in life. Or maybe Ross and I are pathetic :)

The date is back on for tonight. I will be sure to style my bangs accordingly...and that is not swept off to the side, but proudly over my forehead for him to stare at all night ;)

BUGS!!!

I have a very real phobia for bugs. This somehow started when I was a young girl. I remember my dad being out of town one night and it was just my mom and I. I was probably 13 years old. I was asleep in my bed and heard something tapping against my wall. I turned on my lamp and discovered a HUGE mosquito eater flying into the wall repeatedly. The thing honestly had a wingspan of 3" (maybe?). I jumped out of bed, ran into the hall, slammed my door, and begged my mom to take care of it; however it was likely very late and she was sound asleep. The rest of this story is a blur. However, I do recall a very dramatic moment in which I covered myself from head to toe to avoid the bug from getting in my hair. I think I caught it and then mashed it with a fly swatter repeatedly in a fit of rage. I guess this has stuck out in my memory as a defining moment in my long history of bug hatred and phobia. I am sad to say that things have not changed a lot since then. I don't wear special outfits to kill bugs in, but the sight or thought of them make me nauseous. Ross' parents have a wonderful garden that yeilds many delish home grown veggies. I can't eat the broccoli, because little bugs just love to crawl into the little branches. I once found a little green worm and it was all over. The same thing goes with store bought organic produce as well- especially leafy greens.

This brings me to my latest crisis. I have discovered that there are these little beetles that get into your pantry and carpet- I can't remember what they are called, but I have found them in my mom's flour before. Appearantly they are very common; a lot of times when you buy flour, the beetle eggs or larvae are already in it, and they just hatch over time and then *poof*. You have little bugs in your flour. GROSS!!! I am wondering if anyone out there knows of these and if they have any recommendations. My flour appears to be safe (so don't be freaked out if I ever bake you anything). But I have found a couple here and there in my cupboards. I am very concerned about this, as you can imagine. On top of this madness, it is spider season. I feel like my house is a freaking bug farm. I need help!

Just call me Suzie Homemaker Disaster

I have been talking about painting my downstairs bathroom for a long time now; and yesterday I finally did it. I drove to my neighborhood Lowe's and got an instant endorphine rush. It reminded me of my old days of being a night nurse and having nothing better to do during my 4 days off than work on house projects. I am not the best about planning these projects either- I'm more spontaneous. I wait until I get to the store and then pick whatever looks right to me (this is not good, I know). As I walked up and down the aisles I saw a bird feeder and decided that we HAD to have a bird feeder. While waiting for my paint to be mixed I picked out the "perfect" bird feeder, seeds, and stand. I skipped on home and just gleamed with my visions of watching birds flock to our back yard. Ross helped me set up the stand, which just needs to be stabbed into the ground. I filled the cedar feeder and hung it with pure joy and excitement. Then- *woooooop* (sound effect in cartoons when a flower suddenly droops because someone stinks or something like that). The stupid stand was too cheap and flimsey, even though the guy at Lowes said it would be "perfect". So in an act of desparation, we simply hung it on one of the fence posts, in manner of a trailer park. As I sulked in my kitchen, I watched a beautiful blue jay fly over to the feeder to take a looksey. I had hope for a minute, but that vanished as I watched the fairly large bird awkwardly try to find a way to perch on the feeder so he could eat. He kind of stood on top of the birdfeeder, cocked his head, bobbed around, and then eventually fly away out of frustration. I bought the cheaper, smaller feeder because I was too cheap to spend $30 on a more practical, larger one with a larger perch. It looks like the Lowe's guy was right about one thing- he told me to go for the larger one. What did I think; that these big birds would just float up to it and hang out mid-air?
This huge dissapointment taught me a lesson. PLAN house projects! Next time I will break into my Martha Stewart Living magazines and take some much needed advice from the domestic genious herself. I was very foolish, and now I get to trek back to Lowes to return that stupid awkward pole. Sadly, the larger birds in my backyard are just going to have to go hungry.
I did have a successful project though. I really like the color of my bathroom. I managed to prep and paint the whole thing in about 4 hours. The entire time I had old episodes of "The Hills" playing on my laptop, so it was just fun little "Amy time". At one point I had to sit on the toilet backwards in order to paint the wall behind it (I know that sounds really weird, but its not- just picture it). Ross walked in the bathroom and got this HUGE loving smile on his face and said, "That is the most adorable thing I had ever seen- I need to take a picture". So I felt cute and figured I had a little bit of paint on my cheek or something. So I held up my brush, looked over my shoulder,smiled big, and posed for a picture. Well it turns out that I actually had a major "plumber" crack going and managed to get blue paint on it as well. So we have a pretty ridiculous picture of me posing for a picture, but looking quite silly. I would post it on here, but I would need to crop it first :) Martha Stewart, I am NOT!