Tangled Mess

I was born bald. I remained so for the first couple of years of my life. Once my hair grew in, it grew in straight and thin. It remained that way for the last 29+ years of my life. 

As a teenager I attempted to curl it and do things with it for dances and other events but it rarely worked. I remember one homecoming dance in which my best friends mom curled my hair and used a whole can of hair spray to keep it curled... only to have it disappear soon thereafter. 

Last August (2013) my husband (then fiancee) twin sister got married and I went to get my hair curled for the party. 

It also didn't last very long:

For my wedding they had to spend a long time taking small sections of my hair and putting them into spirals, wrapping them in aluminum foil, and then putting a flat iron on them. 

They also put a lot of hair spray on... and it sort of worked. It lasted through the day and I looked gorgeous. 

When I started planning my honeymoon to Argentina I thought I'd go ahead and get a perm while I was there (since it would be so much cheaper than having it done in the US). Unfortunately I didn't find the time to dedicate to the perm. 

I still wanted to get it done, so on Wednesday I headed to JC Penney's Salon and requested a perm that would give me some body but not ringlet curls. Purple was the color for me, I was told. 

They promised me that my hair was in good shape and that the perm would take. So far, so good. 

The only problem is that I don't know how to have wavy hair. I don't know how to care for it or manage it. I was told to wait 72 hours before washing my hair, so as soon as those 72 hours were done with I went ahead and washed my hair out and blew it out with a diffuser (which is what I was told to use). 

Then I was stupid. Then I threw all thought out the window and got my hair tangled on a round brush. My husband was sleeping at the time and I had to wake him up but he was unable to do anything. I called my mom and dragged her over to my house (luckily a block or so away) to see if she could help me. She attempted to cut off the brush points and slide my hair out as I sat on the floor and pouted. 

When that did not work I decided, before it got to be too late, to go to Super Cuts (my hair person closed at 6pm, and it was 6:30 at this point) and see if they could help. 

With some pulling, shoving, and hard work they were able to get the hair off the brush. The brush took some of my hair with it, however. 

I can't be mad, though, because it was my own stupid fault. Plus, with the volume and waves in my hair now I can hide it pretty well. 

We'll see what happens and how I deal with the hair... since I will have to wear a clip or pin for a while. I do have to go back to JC Penney and show the guy that part of my hair is still straight as can be so that he can re-do it. I just don't know when I'll have time for that to happen. 

Weekend Wrap Up

I got back from our honeymoon last Monday and I got to work on unpacking right away. My office/game room was full of my boxes that needed to be unpacked and sorted and I just couldn't stand it. 

I took the entire week off from work (I got 3 days bereavement for my sisters' death, and then I took an additional day off) and so I spent it unpacking, organizing, cleaning, and shopping. There were still many things that needed to be purchased for the house - including food. 

Thomas had Monday off (since we arrived in the morning) but he had to work the rest of the week so I had my mom help me. (What would I do without her?). When the weekend came, though, I told Thomas he needed to sort through his things. 

That was the difficult part. I guess I now understand what married couples always meant by nagging wives and men who sit around all day.  

Thomas had a dentist appointment on Saturday morning so I went over to my parents to finish packing some things and enjoy some time with my mommy and daddy. I had planned on going to the bank during the week to close my account since I opened one with Thomas at a different bank, but I hadn't gotten around to it so instead I went with my dad on Saturday to close my account and then to close my sisters' account. 

While I was at the bank I ran into an ex-boyfriends' mom. This guy had been the first guy I had actually thought could go long-term. I was with him when my aunt passed away and he was very kind to me. I run into his mom every now and then and she updates me on his life and I tell her about mine. He married the girl he met right after me and has a baby. 

I was happy I could show her my wedding rings :). 

Saturday night was interesting. I was finally able to wash my hair after the perm I got on Wednesday, and then... then I fucked it all up. You will want to come back tomorrow for that story and pictures. 

After my emergency trip to Super Cuts Thomas and I went to Target to pick up an entertainment center/TV stand. We had our living room TV placed on the wall on Thursday, but I wanted to have a stand placed under it so that we can put our DVR and other electronics as well as decorations. 

By the time we got home it was late and dark, so Sunday morning after breakfast we began to work on it.

It was a very complicated and long process but we were able to get it done! 

After we finally finished getting it done I did some wifey things like grocery shopping for the week. 

Thomas' parents invited us to dinner at their house Sunday night. Grilled steaks! Yum!

Bridal Shower @ Work

Also a bit late on this one... but better late than never! 

I was very lucky to be given two bridal showers! The first was the one I talked about here thrown by Thomas’ family and then 2^nd was thrown by my co-workers.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I really love my job. Like any other there are things that annoy me, but the majority of the people around me are amazing and caring and I am so lucky to work with them and call them friends.

The bridal party wasn’t a surprise because they all knew that I would find out by one mouth or another, so I knew it was coming from the week before. I just didn’t know what it would be like and who would be attending.

I could describe how amazing everything was, but let me have the pictures (I remembered this time!) speak for themselves:

One of the games was for them to make things out of toilet paper, these are the results.

I was so surprised at all the presents/gift cards I received! I definitely was not expecting their generosity!

Bridal Shower - Family Edition

I know that this is super late, but better late than never, right?

My bridal shower was put together at just about the last minute. My Maid of Honor lives out of state and I wasn’t expecting her to come down for a shower as well as the wedding itself. Also I really didn’t think it would be something that I would enjoy. I am not one to choose the limelight and my anxiety in those situations goes through the roof (and if you follow me on Twitter you will definitely know about this). However, his cousin and aunt were really interested in throwing one for me and even though my initial reaction was to say no – but I didn’t want to be rude, though, so I agreed to it.

They planned and prepared for the shower without much help from me. They asked me some questions and got names for invitees, but it was a complete surprise when I arrived at his cousins’ house on March 30^th.

But let me backtrack a little bit. As I mentioned this type of event makes me very anxious and I was already in pre-panic attack mode the day before. Right before heading to the house I took 1.5mg of Ativan to calm my nerves and anxiety. Let me add that it is prescribed to me for just these occasions. It worked. I felt calm during the entire shower (although I did learn the side effect of depression that night – that was horrible).

My mom was in the hospital with  my sister that day so I had to pick her up and drive her home so she could shower and change before going to the shower. She was exhausted! But she was a trooper to accompany me. We arrived and there were balloons in front the house. My friend and Thomas’ aunt and grandmother were arriving at the same time. As my mom held Thomas’ cousins’ 2 year old one of the balloons popped startling the whole crowd.

The house was decorated amazingly and I was worried that they took more care in making center pieces than I did for the actual wedding!

I was excited to have some people there that I don’t see too often and also to have my future in-laws sharing the celebration with me.

We played a few games. I was bad blogger and didn’t take good pictures, but we played the “what’s in your purse” game, “unscramble the words” game, and then, of course the toilet paper wedding dress game.

I think everyone had a great time. Especially with all the food that was available for us to eat!

I was also spoiled with a ton of presents! We got a lot of very useful and practical gifts and some very thoughtful ones as well. We are so grateful and amazed at everyone’s thoughtfulness. We are blessed!

Graduation - Throwback Thursday

This week's topic is Graduation (very timely, Amanda Nicole!). 

I'm still in the midst of moving/unpacking/organizing my life house, so I don't have pictures, but I thought I'd still join in and share some memories. 

Kindergarten: None. At least I have no recollection of one nor are there any pictures. 

However, on Tuesday it was my nephew's kindergarten graduation and I do have pictures of that!  My nephew, Jonathan, is an awesome almost 6 year old. When he started pre-school when he was 4 he had very little in the way of attention span. His pre-school teacher (which we grew to really really despise) referred him to be evaluated by Los Angeles Unified to see if he was autistic or had any other "disability". 

LAUSD evaluated him and determined that they would give Jonathan services under the autism spectrum. In order for him to be diagnosed officially he would have to be taken to the Regional Center, which we never did. That didn't affect LAUSD's services to him. 

For the last 2-3 months of pre-school Jonathan was placed in a special education pre-school within LAUSD (his first preschool was a private one not associated with the district). This preschool and the teacher were amazing. Jonathan blossomed and grew incredibly. 

After pre-school he was mainstreamed into a regular Kindergarten. I made sure that he was placed with the same teacher his sister had years before because I knew she was the best person to help guide him into school (as well as, you know, teach him). 

Jonathan has done so well in kindergarten! We are so proud of him. Here are some pictures from graduation:

I was blowing kisses to Jonathan, and he was imitating everything I did. Same for the next picture. 

This is Jonathan with his best friend and his friends' sister. 

He looked so dapper! 

Middle School: I did have an 8th grade graduation. I wore a red dress with hearts on it (all like a velvet material). Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Wormell presented us with our diplomas as we walked across the stage. The school sold balloons and my mom bought me some, but beyond that I don't remember much. 

High School: It's been 12 years, but I somewhat remember this graduation. Ms. Wormell had retired by this point, instead we had Mr. Johnson, whom I butted heads with often - he did get my name right, though. I don't remember what I wore to this graduation, but I do have some memories. My eldest niece was just a couple of months old and my sister and husband came down from San Francisco to be there for me. My best friends' (at the time) brother bought us each a pink lei. and after the ceremony (which included beach ball throwing) we went to lunch at Macaroni Grill. 

That very night we had our grad night which is (traditionally, in SoCal) at Disneyland. We get there around 10pm and stay until 5 in the morning (or so). That was a great night. Maybe I'll make a post about just that another day. 

Maybe one of these days I'll have pictures! 

Linking up with...

Time To Start Life - Again

As I start this post I am at Ezeiza, Argentina's main international airport in Buenos Aires. This is my 14th time at this airport, but I very much hope it will not be the last and that I will be back here soon. 

I had a great two weeks here. I so enjoyed spending so much time with my extended family. It had been nearly 6 1/2 years since the last time I came. That is a long time without seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

While we did have our disputes during the trip, there was nothing that we didn't work out within a short amount of time. I basked in the food and language, while I think Thomas couldn't stop searching for places where people spoke English and sold American style food. 

Our traveling was pretty easy and we had a lot of luck with both flights and weather. We didn't have as much luck with hotels and internet connections, however. 

I will go into details on the different aspects of the honeymoon over the coming weeks (months?). But I have so much I have to get done in the more immediate future that I can't wrap my mind around blogging about the trip yet. Not to mention I still have to blog about our wedding day! 

Here are a few pictures from the honeymoon:

Heading to Argentina via layover in Dallas.

The view from our first hotel room - Plaza San Martin. It's hard to tell from this picture, but in the far left we could see the city's Cathedral.

This is a typical offering from hotel's for breakfast. 

We headed out to Iguazu our first week there to see one of the 7 Wonders of the World. Gorgeous waterfalls. I will definitely post more of these in posts to come.

This was our view from the hotel in Iguazu. Gorgeous.

The view of Iguazu from Brazil.

This is at the "Hito" which is the corner of Argentina which is across from the river from Paraguay and Brazil.

There were many Coati's on both sides of Iguazu. They are pretty cute. They look for food. Thomas got scared and shooed this one off, but I liked it sniffing around.

Breakfast at a family favorite.

This is half of my family that made it to our reception in Argentina.

Cold weather in Bariloche! 

I have a ton more pictures (I think I took over 2,000 pictures). 

Shopping Annonymous

I might need help.

I was itching to write but had no inspiration. I tweeted about it and Amanda sent me over to Kay’s blog and her 32 blogging ideas (Thanks Kay!). One of the ones on the list was to pull out your last Target receipt and talk about what you purchased. I knew I had to go with that prompt.

These days most couples are living on their own and so when they get married and/or move in together they have household items. Thomas and I both lived with our parents before moving in together. Which meant we had NOTHING to bring to our new home so we had to buy EVERYTHING.

Which means I have A LOT of receipts. Luckily we were given a lot of gift cards and cash for our wedding, so a lot of this was subsidized by those gifts.

So… let’s go through them:

/ / Bed Bath & Beyond

Okay, this receipt has a couple of items that aren’t mine (DripStik!), but what I did buy was:

• Flexible spatula for my egg and cookie making (not at the same time). I did receive some kitchen utensils, however they were plastic and I needed something that wouldn’t melt.
• I needed to reach $15 so I also bought a little friend that will help me pull pans out of the oven when they are hot – I am known to burn myself with the oven.
• Finally I bought lamps! We’ve been living in the dark – dark living room, dark bedroom, dark office… so now we have night stand lamps and a tall lamp for the living room.

On a different trip (of many) I went with Thomas to get one item (because I only had one coupon!)

• A super-duper expensive kitchen trash can. The one I had was too low to the ground for Thomas (he’s 6’3”) so we got a taller one that opens up with a wave of your hand!

/ / Target

Many trips have been taken to Target, one always forget something.

Receipt #1:

• Okay! Okay! This one wasn’t totally home related. I got peeps! LOTS of peeps! I also got some Reese’s and milk. The milk WAS for Thomas, that counts, right?

Receipt #2:

• Food. I got lots of food for Thomas. At the top you’ll notice steak marinades. I bought one at Wal*Mart (see Wal*Mart receipt) and I really like the flavor it gave our steaks, so I’m hoping these will be delicious, too!
• Lunch for me! I was running low on TV dinners which I take to work daily, so lots of Smart Ones on the receipt.
• While I use the same towel twice (it’s clean!) Thomas refuses to, so I had to buy more towels. I purchased a couple on a different trip to Target, but they were on sale this day so I bought some more (and made them give me the whole $1.50 more that I paid on my previous trip).

Receipt #3:

• More food, mostly for Thomas.
• I bought a Finish brand bottle to clean our dish washer. The people who were living in our place before were dirty and I wanted to make sure it was sparkling.
• Here are those other, more expensive towels, that I bought.
• I also picked up a dish drain thingie to put next to our sink.

/ / Ross

• T-Shirts. I admit, I browsed and found two shirts – both on clearance! That I really liked!
• I bought a welcome mat with cute owls on it.
• I bought a present (perfume) for my aunt in Argentina who has been helping us out in planning our reception there.
• I got a neat clock for the kitchen! I had been eyeing it for a while!
• I also got some ear buds because Thomas doesn’t like to hear what I listen to sometimes.
• I also got a colander scoop! I’m excited about this one!

/ / JC Penney

• I had been looking for a hamper EVERYWHERE and no one had the shape I needed, until JC Penney. Never thought I’d find it there!! Plus from $36 I got it for less than $20 PLUS I had a gift card and there is still $7.44 left on it!

/ / Anna’s Linens

• Curtains! This is definitely for the house! I got these for the dining room, and then found some at Kohl’s (receipt is with my mom) for the bedroom. I love them both! Now I need a set for the office.

/ / Macy’s

• Sheets! I had purchased sheets in Queen size but had to exchange them for Cal King. Luckily the sale associate hooked us up and we got 2 sets for $63.60! If you look closely you’ll notice that I paid $46.95 for the sheets but she returned $60.21. Yea. Exactly. Love it!

/ / Wal & Mart

I have 2 Wal*Mart Receipts and they are LONG!

• A lot of food was purchased to stock up the house.
• Garbage cans for the bathrooms as well as the laundry room were purchased.
• I got some painting supplies
• Toothpaste!
• I got a dish for our butter
• I got a spoon rest!
• Hangers! Thomas has more clothes than I do!!
• Trash bags! 

This may not be SUPER interesting post – but it’s near for me to reflect on all the items I purchased. I avoided adding up all the money we spent, but at the receipts you can see that a lot of it was paid with gift cards – and I still have some left!