Hairy Situations

Any of you that have known me for any prolonged period of time understand that hair has always played some kind of role in my life. For those of you that don't know this you are going to get a crash course in the hair cutting stages of Katie. You should definitely be excited. :-)

When I was born I was one of those babies that came out with a full head of hair (as the picture above demonstrates). One of the earliest stories associated with my life is when my mother was being wheeled to the nursery to check on me. As she rounded the corner and got the first glimpse of the wall of windows she was a bit perplexed by the small crowd giggling and pointing at one of the babies. You can only imagine her hormonal response once she realized that everyone was pointing and giggling at me, the "Don King" baby with the hair. My mother quickly made them all feel bad by sobbing and pointing out that I was a beautiful baby, but the relationship between me and hair had begun. :-)

As time went on the gravity defying features of my hair calmed down and my hair grew quite long and lovely. Below you see my hair pretty close to the time of the next story in the hair cutting stages of Katie (I thought the barber chair was a nice touch).

One more shot of the long and lovely locks before...

Before I decided to cut my hair on mother's day. :-) Yes, I really did do that. Yep, on mother's day. Was it a mother's day present? I don't know, but it certainly was a mother's day surprise.

The events were as such: my mother was taking a nap, my dad was supposed to be watching us but instead left me in the care of Kelly (who was probably about 6) while he mowed the lawn (You have to understand that at this point in his life the care of the lawn was sacred, and we were pretty good kids).

Kelly and I were watching something on TV and playing with some craft stuff when I started playing with her Hello Kitty scissors. Now you have to understand that Kelly's scissors were AWESOME because they actually cut things, and at this point in my life I still had the fake scissors unless I was under direct adult supervision (which was apparently a good idea). So, as I was playing with Kelly's super cool scissors I decided to see if they could cut my hair... and guess what? They could! But uh oh, now my hair was uneven... hmm... how to fix that? Oh I know, take a little off the other side. Ooops, now I have two fists full of hair, hmm... I better hide the hair in the couch cushions. Let's take a look at that hair, oh no, not even yet, lets take off a little more. Now we have more hair, I know hide it behind the books in the bookcase.

So it went, for who knows how long, until I got caught. True to my form the picture below was from a planned (pre-haircut) family photo session, my poor parents. What are the repercussions of cutting your hair at that age you may ask? Are there any? Oh yeah, there certainly are:

1. I had to leave preschool for a while, so that I didn't tell the other kids what I did and start a haircutting fiasco.

2. I had to get a haircut to try to repair my piecemeal work.

3. I had to get my ears pierced and wear more dresses so that my mom wouldn't cry when people said, "what a sweet boy you have."

4. My parents kept finding little clumps of hair in random places around the house for months.

I don't regret it though, and I doubt my parents do either. It's a pretty fantastic story. Below you can see a few months after the cutting incident as the hair was growing out. :-)

So began my haircutting adventures. There aren't many adventures in my haircutting life, but the few that exist are fun and entertaining. There was the one incident where a boy in my first grade class refused to take his "rat tail" off of my desk (for those of you not familiar with the term, a rat tail is when a boy basically has a crew cut, except for a very long small portion of hair near the base of his neck) . I asked him once, I asked him twice, and SNIP, I didn't ask again; I simply handed him his rat tail. Unfortunately that turned into a parent teacher conference, but I don't really recall getting into trouble for that. :-)

My next real haircutting adventure did not occur until I was about 25. Pre-chemo my Aunt Laura decided to donate her hair to locks of love, so in her hospital room I cut the ponytail, colored her hair and gave her a bob. I have to say that I think my haircutting skills immensely improved over time (Perhaps it was all of the "practicing" I did on Barbie dolls).

My next haircutting adventure happened yesterday. I had the immense pleasure of spending the day with my Aunt Patty. We watched Price is Right, went to the mall, made a bunny at the Build a Bear Workshops, and Patty got a picture with the Easter Bunny. While walking around and teasing her about getting makeup for her upcoming prom she mentioned it might be fun to color her hair. To be fair we, as a family, had teased her the night before that maybe she should color her hair purple for Easter. Those of you that know Patty know that she would have giggled and dismissed the idea. However, it seems as though she was paying more attention that night than I thought.

So yesterday at dinner we asked what color she wanted, she said blonde or red. After dinner we went and bought some dye, she had decided to go with an ash blonde. Below you will find the picture by picture steps of the events that unfolded.

1. I created my "hair station" in the kitchen.

2. Patty pre-hair adventures.

3. On goes the color. (yeah, I am rocking a candy corn apron and yellow cleaning gloves. I make that look good! ha) On her lap you can see Patty's bunny Hoppy that we made earlier in the day.

More color.

4. Processing time. Patty decided this time was best spent picking out clothes for my mom to buy her.

5. Washed, combed and ready for a cut!

6. We somehow missed getting photos of the actual cutting, but here we are with the styling. (I'm concentrating)

7. A little bit of hairspray... and Patty asking that I make the bangs a bit more short.

The finished product! :-)

So there you have it, the hair cutting adventures of Katie. I have to warn you that for my planned mother's day post we will revisit hair a bit, but it will be worth it. And yes, you heard me right I am actually already planning another post. You should be pleasantly surprised I have a few more in the works, so I hope to improve my posting speeds.

She's done it again.

Who? Martha Stewart, who else? Once again Martha has ruined the Dove chocolate wrappers. What's my fascination with Dove chocolate wrappers? I blame the professor that I was a G.A. for in Grad school. Don't get me wrong, she was one of my favorite people and professors, but she was a horrible influence when it came to chocolate. :-) Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Periodically (who am I kidding? weekly) she would bring in bags of the Dove caramel chocolates and we would line the back of the office door with the wrappers.

So this is why I have a fascination with Dove candy wrappers, and why I take it so personally when the phrases go downhill. Back to Martha. It took me a while to amass some of her "Valentine's Day" collection of phrases, but here is what I have thus far:

1. Use a heart-shaped punch to create Valentine cards.

- Yeah... cause I keep my heart-shaped punch handy just for things like this.

2. Rewrap a store bought chocolate bar with a love note.

- Ok, I'll admit it, this is a good idea, but you know that if Martha was doing it she would have vintage paper with hearts on it that would be "just right" for this kind of a project. Then she'd show off her calligraphy skills, which in turn pisses me off.

3. For a Valentine card photocopy a rose between sheets of acetate.

- I am so glad I have all of those sheets of acetate hanging around, I keep them with my heart punch.

4. Try wrapping a floral bouquet in a classic love poem.

- I don't know about you, but I think Martha is issuing us a challenge here. Just read it again, she is daring us to wrap a floral bouquet in a classic love poem because she knows the following.

a) We don't know what size paper to use, which will take time for us to perfect, because I know that an 8 x 10 sheet of paper will not actually fit around a bouquet. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

b) What kind of paper should you use? I mean it has to be strong enough to not break apart once damp flowers (we don't want them dead) are placed in it. etc.

5. wait for it... this one is one of my favorites.

Use the cut end of a head of radicchio to form a rose stamp.

- Riiiight. Umm...I can't tell you the last time I saw fresh radicchio in my grocery store. Perhaps it's just not in season? But I bet that the bagged stuff won't make as good of a rose. We can't all grow radicchio on our ridiculous estate like you Martha.

6. Create a heart using two pats of your own ink-stained finger.

- Yep, you all should expect a 2"x2" card in the mail with a heart made out of my finger prints. Oh wait... no you shouldn't, I'm not Martha. :-)

So to all of you who are preparing to enjoy the long Valentine weekend, have fun. To all of you who do not have plans for this weekend...I bet the bars have pretty good two for one deals. :-)

Confessions

I have a confession to make...I fear that all my years in the south may have contributed to me becoming a lover of turkey jerky. Yes, I fear I may be a bit of a redneck.

Now before you ask, I have not mowed the lawn and found a boat (or car) and my porch has never collapsed killing any kind of animal (for you Northerners, these are all "You might be a redneck if" jokes). I do not own any camouflaged items and I do not drive a pick-up truck. I do however LOVE my big redneck wedding whenever I can find it on T.V., but admit that the hunting and capturing of the "wedding feast" makes me change the channel.

So maybe and hopefully I am not actually a redneck. In fact, I bet if I was a redneck they would revoke my redneck card for the fact that I buy "fancy" organic jerky. Whew, that makes me feel better.

I started thinking about all of this since I hope to be relocating at some point in the near future to somewhere outside of the South. Maybe because of this move, I am slowly becoming more conscious of things that I do that are very southern. Luckily it isn't going to be like that Miley Cyrus movie that I never watched but I think was along the typical Disney movie lines of girl goes from big city to a farm, or vice versa, I can't remember. Either way I have always been much more comfortable in the city than in the country, so I am not worried about fitting in where I relocate.

That said, I am sad that there are some southern things that I am not well versed in. I would like to say that I am an avid horseback rider, after all the community horse stable is only 5 houses away, but I am not. I suppose this is due to the fact that I really don't like things where I can't be strapped in which means you won't see me riding a Harley down the road anytime soon either.

Finally, this brings me to my public service announcement of the week. I know that Florida is the southernmost state in the United States (Key West is the southernmost point for all of you that just went to google that), however we aren't exactly "southern." Whaaaa? I bet you are all scratching your heads right now, OF COURSE YOU'RE SOUTHERN! While I will agree that on a purely geographical note we are southern, that cannot be refuted, but when it comes to social graces, we are not southern.

I honestly don't know what "we" are outside of the weird melting pot that is Florida. I have wondered if maybe it has something to do with all the Northern transplants? Maybe Georgia refused to share the pecans earlier in American history? Whatever it is, when people think of the "south" they rarely think of Florida. Why? Who knows? I am not a social expert so I guarantee you that I don't know the answer, but I figured you could all think about it a bit. Maybe the entire United States is just trying to not get too attached to Florida as a southern state since we will break off or be flooded at some point in the future.

Gasparilla Invasion Photos

Come to think of it, I think we are a pirate state, and I mean that as in "Arrrrrggg" pirate. After all, Jose Gaspar is a huge part of Tampa lore, and we have the "pirate invasion" every year (this past weekend, the photo at the top) to honor that. Yep, I think that's it, Floridians are really pirates. That's awesome. :-)

Aren't you glad I remembered to start up my random ramblings again?

The Disney Vault

"Get them now, before they go back in the vault!"

The Disney Vault, it gets me every year. It's so nice that they conveniently advertise right around the holidays, so my mother always gets a frantic call "Mom, please get me Sleeping Beauty! They are going to put it in the vault!! You should get it for Kelly too." Why do I keep falling for it? If you look in my movie drawers you will find all of the past vault movies still in their packaging untouched, so what is it that makes me like a drug addict looking for the next hit?

I think it's a combination of things. This year, as mentioned above, the movie was Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty is hands down my most favorite Disney movie ever! Although I cannot remember the last time I watched it, I know that five year old Katie was pushing for this year's vault choice. I also think that five year old Katie is one of the main reasons why I get suckered into the vault movies every year. She keeps telling me that if I let them go back in the vault who knows when I will have the opportunity to buy them again? Especially when every time I go to Disney they have the walls and walls of movies, who knows if Sleeping Beauty will be there... No really, who knows? Do they REALLY put the movies back in the vault, or do they just scare us (me)?

Another excuse I always offer when it comes to falling for the vault gimmick is that I appreciate good marketing. This is like saying chocolate is a vegetable because it comes from the cacao plant. It's me rationalizing a choice that I was going to make anyways, so I just want to feel better.

Well, I am confident I will fall for it again next year so you can be sure to find whatever the vault choice is added to my movie drawers by next Christmas. (btw... I also got Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which we also assume will be going in the vault soon and as it is my second favorite movie I had to have it!)

I wonder what else they are storing in the Disney vault? ;-)

Last Christmas...

(This is one of my favorite pictures for many reasons. 1) My sister and I are SO stylin' 2) I have the chubbiest cheek smile going on and 3) Apparently at this point in the Christmas festivities I decided that I was going to sit in the new stroller for my baby... if you look closely you can see that I am sitting on top of the baby.) Yep, the baby doll mother of the year award goes to me!

I think it's funny some of the things that we carry over from our childhood. For me it is the little things, like Stella D'oro breakfast treats when my stomach is upset (this was my mom's cure-all treatment for an upset stomach), coordinating pajama's for my mom, sister and I at the holidays, and lyrics to songs. Lyrics to songs?? What? Did you read that right? Yep, I find that since I was little I have never questioned 5 year old Katie's translations of songs, which leads to some pretty funny mix-ups. My all time favorite is associated with a Christmas classic, Wham's "Last Christmas."

And yes, I do think that it is a classic. I think that another thing I carried over from my childhood is my taste in Christmas music. Little Katie enjoyed all songs that had enough of a beat to allow me to run around the house "dancing" and trying to get my cat to dance with me. We had this fantastic layout when I was little where there was basically a track through the middle of the house. You could start running in the living room, go through the kitchen, the dinning room and the foyer and end up back in the living room. Lucky for my parents I did this quite often and for quite long periods of time. I am sure they enjoyed it.

Anyways, back to Wham. At some point during the holiday season last year I stopped to actually listen to the words as opposed to mindlessly repeating what I have had stored away in my brain and I realized that I had made a mistake in my 5 year old translation. The part of the song that actually goes, "This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special," I had, up until last year, sung along singing "This year, to semi frontiers..." What? To semi frontiers?!?!? Yeah, I can't explain my reasoning, that would require a time machine, but I bet I would have a pretty good explanation.

Since this discovery, I have started to pay a bit more attention to the songs I am singing and have found some other funny gems (I think everyone should pay close attention to Lily Allen's "Not Fair." It was huge this summer in Italy, and I am guessing they didn't really get the translation either, or there would have been more laughs.).

Here are a few of the Ogden girl Christmas photo classics to brighten up your Christmas week:

I can't explain what we are doing here. We are on the mantle (which was also our "stage") and I suppose I was so incredibly happy with something that I needed to use my hands to get the most out of my smile. Perhaps I was super excited about my little house on the prairie dress? I hope not. (the haircut will have to be explained at another time)

I include this photo not only to show off my awesome wheels, but to also showcase my sister's range of smiles. For those of you that are not experts in the translation of Kelly smiles, this one is a hybrid between "you caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing" and "I am still contemplating how to finish what it was you caught me doing." The worried look on my face makes me worry for what happens next. :-) Just kidding Kelly!

This is a testament to my ability to spot the creepy guys in places. I guess it was a talent I picked up early, I mean look at that Santa's face... Creepy!! Also, my mom is rocking the Farrah Fawcett hair! Bravo mom!

Every Christmas that included My Little Pony's as a gift is worth a cheesy smile! :-)

This is, by far, my favorite Christmas picture ever! It is photographic evidence of "we woke up too early and have hit a wall". I can almost hear my parents giggling as they took this.

This may not be "Christmas" (however, the inclusion of a sweatshirt does mean we were in the "cold season" in Florida), but this is one of my favorite pictures of Kelly and I, and it gives you a visual of the kitchen to dining room turn of my "track" that I mentioned earlier.

And we end with a sweet one. My sister and I on our first Christmas together. And yes, we are wearing matching dresses... as a matter of fact we decided to revive that tradition this year, so if you see us on Christmas Eve take notice! (we did decide to opt for different colors of the same dress, but it still counts!)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! STAY SAFE!

Is it really a good thing?

The Holidays are upon us, bringing us packed parking lots, screaming children and way too many get togethers with people we enjoy not having to see the rest of the year. However, this is not a gripe about the holiday kind of post, in spite of all the craziness I actually enjoy the holidays. It is the one time of the year that I get to see my sister with any regularity, and lots of friends that I don't get too see to often I get to see now.

The purpose of this post is to explain my problem with one thing, one person, one woman in particular.... who???.... who else, Martha Stewart. I started my friendship with Martha Stewart at a young age, I was that girl that really did want to make pies from scratch, etc. One year when I was about 13 all I wanted for Christmas was a stand mixer and some other baking accessories. When K-Mart started carrying Martha Stewart items I was in heaven, I too could own all of the many items that she used to make her house and projects perfect.

My parents never minded because I would end up reorganizing their linen closets, pantry, etc following the "rules" set forth by Martha. However, overtime our friendship became strained. It started with small things, you know me not thinking that hand washing a sweater utilizing 3 sinks and about 10 towels was worth it. Then I started to find some of her craft ideas either unattainable for me or flat out ridiculous. As the years passed I started to realize that Martha was evil. She presented a view of life that was completely impossible for the normal person, and yet she mocked us for not attaining it.

Our final falling out occurred when she went to Camp Cupcake. I can't say I care about why she was in jail, but I enjoyed having a real reason to not like her.

I have managed to keep my Martha annoyance to a minimum and avoid her. I find her daughter's new show hilarious and watch "Whatever Martha" whenever I come across it. I have to admit I probably wouldn't mind the person, but I do mind the brand that is Martha Stewart.

Sadly all of my tactics that I have in place to avoid Ms. Stewart cannot safeguard me forever. The other night I ate a dove chocolate and was eagerly waiting to see what kind of wisdom the Dove promises would impart on me (for those of you that don't know, Dove promises are little sayings on the inside of the wrapper) when I saw the following:
"Turn old toys into nostalgic ornaments. Martha Stewart" WHAT???

What on Earth were the good people at Dove chocolates thinking when they decided to use Martha Stewart as the Promise writer for the holidays?? Obviously they weren't thinking too clearly. When the holidays come women typically resort to the Dove chocolates when they have hit their limit. This typically occurs on the night when the presents have to be wrapped following a day of shopping for last minute gifts all while mentally preparing for all the things to come the following day. This is when someone will reach for the chocolate, when their Christmas is spiraling out of control, and WHO is going to comfort them??? Martha? Nope, she is going to taunt them. Why didn't they think to grab Timmy's old radio flyer and tie it to the tree? That's what Martha would do.

So yes, Martha is back on my naughty list. Not so much for me, but for the wellbeing of all people everywhere this holiday season. :-)

Freakin' Cold Runnings

I know I have been neglecting you, I am a horrible blog mother. The only real "excuse" I have is that I haven't been doing much. I finished up my thesis, went to visit some family in New Jersey, and went to the Art Basel fair in Miami. I suppose any of these things could have been blogged about, but I have become horrible at taking pictures and figuring out what is worthy to post, so I apologize. However since it is the season to be giving I have not come to this post empty handed. Sadly, I did not get you all that luxury car you have been lusting after, or the blueray player, or the Jimmy Choo's, but what I did get you is a new blog format.

I realize that if I use my Amelia adventures as the benchmark of whether to post or not, I will never post again. I mean Amelia is like when Dorothy woke up in Oz in pure technicolor glory, and now that I am back in black and white on the farm how can it ever compare? So, I have decided to share with you some of the random thoughts that come in my head to see what you all have to say about them. I encourage participation (and if you are anything like my students, by saying this I have just cut participation down to about 2% of people) so please feel free to post your ideas too.

So yes, my Christmas gift to all of you is a peek into my mind and the odd things that run around inside there. :-)

Having spent some time in the North recently (where all of my friends and family could see what a wimp I am when it comes to cold weather) I understand that there are a lot of things about cold weather that I just don't understand. I don't understand how to dress warm. In Florida you can buy sweaters, sure you can! However, the purpose of the sweaters you can buy here is fashion, plain and simple, not warmth. So I get very confused when trying to amend my Florida wardrobe for Northern temperatures. I know, LAYER, and believe me I do, but it is still a trifle hard to pack within the 50lb limit and bring everything I need to layer.

Moving on. This is not something I don't understand, but something I do find worth noting, the igloos in all towns near the major highways that have salt in them. I know you need to have salt to de-ice the roads, but igloos of salt look weird to me, the out of town guest. I always wonder if there is a equivalent to the igloos in Florida... is there something that doesn't even make it on my radar that you guys would say, hey screw our igloos you guys have __________? I wonder.

Next, how do you stop your nose from running? ALL THE TIME!?!!?! And more importantly why does the nose start running when it is cold, when you are outside with gloves on, and when you really can't find a lady-like way of holding a tissue because you have gloves on and they aren't allowing you the typical dexterity you enjoy without gloves???

I could go on for days, but I will stop here and try to focus on why I started this rant. Again, I know there are a lot of things about cold weather that I just don't get, but can anyone explain to me why there is always a lone jogger whenever pictures of record snowfalls are recorded?? I would like to direct your attention to the photo above. That was taken this morning in Wisconsin and smack dab in the middle of the photo is a jogger. What are they thinking? Is this some kind of extreme sport I don't know about? Do news trucks employ joggers to make their snowy photos more interesting? And more importantly how does one jog in temperatures like that? My throat starts to burn when it gets in the 50's.

Maybe it's something I don't understand at all... maybe because you can't drive until they plow the roads this person is merely trying to be a good employee and get to work? Maybe they are training for a triathlon in the arctic circle?

So there you have it, the first peek into the mind of Katie, I'd like to welcome you and ask that you keep your hands to yourself and don't touch anything, we don't know how stable this brain of mine is. :-)