unless you invent some sort of zombie virus

so yeah, i cut my hair. again. about 2 days after putting up my last hair post about how it was growing so well. hee hee. i cut it because although i do like my curl, i honestly don't really like it on me. it just doesn't suit my face the way straight hair does. and if it's shorter, it's sooo much easier to do straight. (i do use a flat iron, but it just takes a few minutes and right now, it's worth it.) also, i cut my bangs for basically the same reason - to suit my face a bit better. as for the color, i actually meant to dye my hair back to my natural medium-brown, but i messed up and went way too dark. oops! i'll keep it dark for awhile, but will probably eventually end up going back to red. i always miss the red when i stray from it! so here is what it looked like after i first gave it a chip-chop:hmm, now that i look at that picture, i do like how the bangs are looking...i don't know, maybe i should have left it like that. i'll probably end up growing them out again, anyway. but here's what my hair looks like now:i heart headbands - mostly cuz they make me look younger! (except that i look SO tired in this picture!)
so that's that. in other news...
we had a cub scout meeting at our place on wednesday, and pants rushed home from work to help the boys hammer, saw, and nail their way through achievement six.i've also been the lucky one getting up at 5am EVERY MORNING with sharkey...actually, the last 2 mornings he's been rarin' to go at 4:45am. and i do mean rarin'! which means i've been falling asleep at like, 8pm every night like an old person. other than that, it's just been a lot of tree climbing: mexican food making:game playing (sky's been teaching sharkey uno!):and nog sipping:i've also started doing the all-cash budget thing again...hopefully that will keep me on track since Christmas is right around the corner! oh, and today i started planning for sky's birthday party! man, i love planning parties. i found some really good ideas online, and bought a few fun things already. thank goodness the cake sky wants me to make is pretty basic, though. i wish i had the time to really learn how to cake decorate with fondant and all that...maybe soon i will take some classes or something.

and this is totally random, but i made a new friend today, and had to share...somebody likes me!

um...what's he doing with his back end?

bye, friend. (i love his little trail.)

it's hard to understand you when you're drowning.

so yesterday was my birthday. eek! to kick off my 34th year, i decided to try something new last week - the oil cleansing method. you've probably heard of it - it's a way of cleansing your face just using a few natural oils. i think i tried it before a long time ago, but never stuck with it because i thought it was too time-consuming or something. and then i was on a honey kick for a long time. but i decided to give the oils one more try, and i'm so glad i did!
first, it's not time-consuming at all - it's the same amount of time as washing my face takes. and it works! it takes off all makeup (although i do use something separate for my eyes if i have a lot of liner or mascara on), and deep-cleans all those stubborn ickies that get in our pores. using oils also has the added benefit of moisturizing my super dry skin. (this is also a great method to use on any skin type - read the link above for more info that can explain it all way better than i can!)

and i have to say that i like the way my skin is looking - it has a healthier 'glow' to it, and i feel like it's helped my face to look smoother and less ruddy (i used to have reddish patches on my cheeks/nose sometimes). my pores seem a bit smaller and the little blemish spots i sometimes have on my chin area seem to be fading. my skin definitely has a long ways to go, but i do feel this method is really working for me so far...hopefully in a few weeks i can do some comparison shots that have a pronounced difference.

here's the lowdown...
all you need are 2 oils - castor oil (which you can get at any store in the pharmacy section for under $2) and another oil, like olive or sunflower. i have heard that sunflower oil is the best to use, but i was too lazy to go out and get some so i am just using olive oil. the castor oil is the real cleansing agent, and helps clean deep down in the pores. the ratio you use is important, though - you don't want to use too much castor oil. since i have dry skin, i use about 10percent castor oil to 90percent olive oil (i just eyeballed it). (the link above has the specific percentages for other skin types.) you can put it in a cute little jar or whatever, and just keep it in your bathroom.

step 1 - at night before bed, i pour about a quarter-sized amount in my palm, and slowly massage it on my face, focusing on my problem areas. the website says you're supposed to take a few minutes with this and focus on being calm and blah blah blah, but i ignore all that and just gently rub it on my face for about 30 seconds.

step 2 - grab a washcloth (i prefer baby washcloths because they are SO much softer!) and run it under hot-ish water till it's pretty warm. ring it out and lay it on your face. you want the water to be hot enough that it will steam your pores open, but not hurt your skin. you can gently press it on your chin, nose, etc. once it's cooled off (like, 10 seconds later), run it under hot water again and press it on your face again. i do this 2-3 times, then after the last time i rub (but not scrub!) the oil/dirt/makeup off my skin. it all comes right off, and you will be left with very clean, soft-feeling skin!

step 3 - moisturize! after cleansing, i take 2 fingertips and dip them in my original oil blend, then dab/rub it on my face. you can add a tiny bit more if needed. but just a few dabs do the trick for me - too much just makes me look oily and smell like olive oil all day.

and that's it! it takes like, 2 minutes, tops, and if you do this method at night, then there is no need to also cleanse your face in the morning - just going over your face with a warm, wet washcloth in the shower will suffice. i will say that sometimes your skin can get worse for a little while when trying this method...sometimes the oils can draw up impurities that have been clogging your pores and bring them to the surface. that adjustment process shouldn't last long, though. and the more water you drink, the more it will help your skin get healthy faster! try it!ps - you may have noticed my hair cut/color is different...yes, i cut my hair again! more pictures and a full explanation are coming in my next post!

it's a lot like driving a mo-ped...it's fun till somebody sees you.

this weekend was such a mix of fun and frustration...a typical weekend, i guess! friday was hectic but a good time, somehow ending up with 3 of sky's friends unexpectedly staying over for dinner. after the boys left, pants pulled out the Christmas decorations - yes, i know we are TOTAL early birds with the holidays around here! although honestly, i think i'm still trying to recover from halloween. but it was cute to see the kids so excited.

sharkey loved helping hang the ornaments...right on the verytip of each branch.he also enjoyed decorating his tree all by himself:

um yeah, those are our fireplace stockings they're wearing on their feet.

i definitely need more Christmas-ness for the mantle...i'm still working on it.we also did a few inexpensive home projects. i thought i was cool when i found some frames for $1 each and made a little random picture wall for the downstairs bathroom...until pants totally trumped me by making a super awesome headboard for our bed.he said it only cost him $10 for the wood, and it was done in a day. geez, what can't this guy do?i will say, though, that there were many times this weekend that left me a little puzzled. like here:

and here:

and here:and, um, here:

i think my family's weird. anywho. the rest of the weekend was spent making some good eats, making some not-so-good eats, cleaning, grocery shopping, snapping at pants (24-7 sick kid childcare makes me cranky and exhausted!), watching dirty jobs, laughing at funny things sky says, weighing the merits of p90x, falling asleep with my jeans on, pants leading worship at church, and combing google to see if dinosaurs still exist today. (ps. i think they do!)

do not taunt happy fun ball.

pants took a few snaps when he was in chicago over halloween weekend, so i thought i'd post them here. few things make me yearn for the midwest, but seeing these pictures really has me missing that great city. i've already decided that i'm going along on the next trip!

there is nothing ironic about show choir.

so here was the problem - we needed a new dining room table and chairs. ours was just a small table that was supposed to be temporary...5 years later, we were still using it. with the kids getting bigger, the 4 of us could barely all fit at it comfortably for dinner. and also? 3 out of the 4 chairs that had originally come with it have broken in the last few months. so, yeah. we were needing a new dining set.

my suggestion was a nice quality table that we love and can make family memories at for the next 20 years - like a big rustic 8-10 seater. pants' suggestion was a cardboard box, since apparently he couldn't care less about family memories and was only looking at the bottom line. so we were kind of at a standstill for awhile. i'd been trying to thrift/craigslist one, but no dice. the one i really loved and could envision serving family Christmas dinners on for years to come was from world market, and was $1000-ish for the table, 2 benches (i LOVE dining benches and have always wanted them for the kids), and chairs. i thought it was actually a good deal, considering the quality of the pieces. but pants was like...no, seriously, i have a box out in the garage...

so after a few, um, discussions about it, pants went and looked at the world market table and actually ended up really liking it, too. he still did not like the price tag, however, and when he was looking the table over, he said, 'you know, i could make this table and benches for $300 bucks out of wood from home depot.' and i said, 'yeah, but...will it LOOK like you made it out of $300 bucks of wood from home depot?' he assured me it would not.

so we compromised. pants all of a sudden got super excited about building a big old table and 2 benches. i knew he would do a great job, since i love everything he makes. he actually made it over a weekend (which was good because that monday night we were having people over for dinner, so that was the deadline!), and yup, ended up spending just under $300 for wood from home depot. (btw, a HUGE thank you to my parents for not only listening to me whine incessantly about how i needed a new table, but for giving us our Christmas gift early so we could pay for it!)

and i gotta tell you. this table is freaking A-mazing! i have actually been parading all the neighbors in to see it - it's SO beautiful! i love it even better than the world market table, and it's EXACTLY what i wanted - big (8-10 seater), solid and rustic (the kids can knock it all up but it will still look great), and with 2 benches for either side. i am sooo excited about it, and i swear having such a nice big space for eating together/playing games/doing art projects/making holiday memories/etc. has seriously improved our quality of life! even pants now gets the significance that it's more than 'just a table'.

so i guess the moral of the story is that nagging and crying to get what you want actually works! thank you, pants!!as usual, sharkey was a big help.

(that's our teeny old table in the background. ugh. our new table is literally 2 and 1/2 times the size of the old one!)the stain was still drying in this photo (which is why they look kind of blotchy), but here are the 2 benches. they seat 3 large adults comfortably, or 4 kids. and i LOVE the reddish-brown color of the stain! pants hand-selected each piece to get just the right wood grain/knotty look we were going for.he made this cool leg detail on the benches and the table.
i love the finished edge he put on it.

pants also made the benches the perfect size to slide all the way under the table, if we ever need more room. ignore my half-finished tablescape, but you can see the size of the table/benches by the place settings.
now, just to get a rug...chairs for the ends...more curtains...