I am so. tired.

I tell you this because it’s pertinent to the story. And the story is this: My husband came home from a 26 hour shift yesterday (and I’M complaining about being tired, ha) and I got up off my rear to serve him an early dinner. Yesterday was one of those rare needed days where plucking my eyebrows while watching movies is at the top of my to do list. I had spent the past couple days doing some much-needed cleaning, and while the house wasn’t (isn’t) perfect, it was clean enough that I could sit down for a few hours without obsessing over what I wasn’t doing. All day while plucking my eyebrows, watching movies, and enjoying the general splendor of my children bounding in and out of doors, I thought of my husband. He was working so hard, such long hours. I wanted to do something nice to show my appreciation, so at 2 pm I got up and made an absolute mess of my kitchen.
Two hours later as my husband came through the door, I served him up a big steak sandwich on a homemade bun and freshly squeezed lemonade on ice. My husband was MORE than happy to come home to Steak on a Bun, and after a quick shower and change of clothes, he took us all out to the movies. I couldn’t believe his stamina.
Once home, the people -both great and small -all around me started dropping off.
First, my husband.
Then my son.
Then my daughter.

Though the time was growing later and later, I kept my eyes pried open for one sole purpose: I wanted to bask in the silence and feel the joy that comes with being completely left to yourself. No one wanted anything. No one needed anything.
And because I hadn’t spent my energy, um, AT ALL yesterday, it wasn’t a big sacrifice to stay up late.

I streamed a television episode.
And as I streamed, I felt myself drifting off. I fought off sleep by getting up from the couch and walking to the closet to fetch a big comfy blanket. The closet isn’t easy to open. It sticks. And creaks. It’s also right next to the kid’s room AND our room (The joys of little houses, where love grows best).

I walked over to the closet,
Just as quiet as could be.
I opened it up really wide,
And a mouse jumped out at me.

Literally. It JUMPED. Right out at me!
I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t yelp.
But what I could do was throw my hands in front of my face, jump up in the air, take two giant leaps away from the closet and one final grand leap onto my very own occupied bed.

Have I ever told you that my bed frame creaks? Like my closet door, it can’t be touched without whining. The slightest movement will set it off. If my husband rolls over in bed, it wakes me up. This isn’t a huge bother since I’m pretty much pro at falling back asleep. My husband doesn’t wake up as easily, so we’ve gotten on very well this way for 6 years.

BUT I’ve never flung myself at full speed onto my bed while my husband was sleeping on it.
Finally sleeping on it.
After 26 hours of not sleeping on it.

He shot up out of bed, “What?! What is it? What’s going on?! Honey. ARE YOU OKAY?!”
Remorse shot up from the bottom of my heart and pretty much ate my head. I apologized to him as best I could through a quivering voice, telling him what had happened and also telling him to go back to sleep.
“So long as you’re okay…” he muttered.
I told him I was, but I wasn’t. I was rooted to my bed, peering out my door at the crime scene. My teensy attacker was out there. Then again… so was my Netflix.
I gulped, pretending that my gulp was actually my swallowing a big Pill of Courage. And I ran full speed back to my couch. I was shaking like mad, and all thoughts of drifting off were far, far away.

I tucked my feet under me and I rocked myself on the couch. I pulled my lap top onto my lap and I started calling it Wilson.
We were alone… stranded… on the Island of the Couch. Rather than being surrounded on all sides by water, we were surrounded by fear. FEAR was holding me hostage. I had no materials around me to wade through it (no bee keeing suit, for instance), and so I opened Wilson and blogged a little.

The clock continued to tick, and I knew my alarm would be going off in five hours.
In four and a half hours…

I felt a slight dip in the temperature -not the kind that made me wonder if dead people with unfinished business might soon appear, but the kind that make me really, REALLY wish I had a warm blanket. Because going to the closet was completely out of the question, I knew I had to go to bed.
I also knew the large soda I had shared with my husband during Kung Fu Panda 2 was starting to get to me.
The only course of action was an immediate return to my bed… by way of the bathroom.

I started talking to myself, “You’re being ridiculous. It’s just a mouse. You’re a grown woman putting off going to bed because you’re afraid of a little rodent. You’re pathetic. Get up and stop acting like an idiot.”
So I did.
Bullied by an unwelcome disease-ridden house guest, I took refuge in my own bathroom.

My assailant was crafty and took full advantage of the fact that in my present condition I could NOT elevate my bare feet, and he assailed the crap out of the situation…. right out from under the laundry hamper.

It didn’t take me all of four second to get OUT OF THERE and into my bed where I shuddered, shook and generally swore that there was a reason FOR ALL IRRATIONAL FEARS.
And then I curled up into a ball and apologized to Heavenly Father for not kneeling down to say my prayers.

Today a trip to the store is in order. Traps, poison (for outside, promise), and traps, traps, traps!

“There will be blood tonight!”

I’ve been messing a lot with my hair lately.  Thanks to pinterest, I’ve stumbled onto a LOT of great hair ideas.
That said, my hair is brown and long. It is neither thick nor thin. It is neither curly nor straight. My hair is about as indecisive at its master. And I use the term “master” loosely on account of my hair wearing the pants in our relationship 7 days out of 10.
I sported this look at church a few weeks ago:

The lady sitting behind me latched onto my shoulder and said, “I just LOVE you hair. It reminds me of your grandmother.”

THAT, reader, is a supreme compliment. Not just because my great-grandmother (who sported a braided look daily) is amazing but because my style has always leaned toward the grandma edge. And I’ve got the closet to prove it.
For a tutorial on the hair style, go HERE.

I have yet to try this one, but I will JUST as soon as I get a trim.

Something great about some of the styles I’m finding is that they’re actually GOOD for your hair! Yesterday, for instance, I took a bath and then styled my almost completely dry (air dried!) hair. I slept on it and then woke up with pretty curls.

Of course I can’t get a better angle. But this girl used the same technique:

Here’s the video:

Once you’ve got all of your hair tucked up in a head band, it looks pretty flapping awesome. And by “flapping” I mean “flapper.” I may or may not have clipped a vintage flower onto my head band. It looked amazing with my face. which didn’t have any make-up on it. And it looked amazing with my clothes. which were frumpy dumpy.
But the flower, while making the rest of my face and ensemble look shamefully inferior, cheered me up.

Another great style I found that is conducive to keeping your hair from looking like it’s 85 is this style:

An adorable bun made with hair that hasn’t been washed in three days. I tried this out about nine times before I finally got it to work with my style. When I make mine like hers, I look like I’d fit better into a corporate office and a dress with (hurl) shoulder pads. Shoulders pads always make me hurl because these farm girl shoulders don’t need no paddin’. They’re already NICE and wide and square and bordering mannish.
Anyway, I figured out how to make my bun work for my head and then ANGELS sang.
Click HERE to watch a tutorial on how to make it. It’s easy. TOO easy. So easy, in fact, that I hooked my sister-in-law on the idea.
Please know that we did this around 11 pm on Saturday night. We were just playing around.

We also happened to do this around 11 pm:

The writer in me did back flips of joy.

The last link to a tutorial I want to share with you is one I can’t wait to try. All I need is the right size curling iron.

CLICK HERE to see it. It’s done by the same girl who gave us the bun above. I feel like maybe I ought to capitalize that. The Bun Above.

NOW forgive me while I just say a quick word about the creator of The Bun Above. She is inspiring. I tell you that for one reason and one reason only: SHE LIKES HERSELF! She is happy with the person that she is, and as a result her true self shines like cuh-razy! When you read her tutorials and her posts, you end up thinking, ‘hey. I could totally DO that’ instead of something mind-mangling like ‘she’s cuter than me. she’s awesome. I hate myself. I hate my body. I hate that I hate my body. I bet my husband would love me if I were her…’

So if you’re needing a little inspiration to pull you to a higher level of awesome, check HER SITE out.
I’m not good at fashion or hair or make-up. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this girl sharing what she knows. I also can’t tell you how much I appreciate the fact that she gets most of her stuff at Wal-Mart. And I’m not ashamed to admit that after browsing her site for nearly an hour, I made a firm decision to buy hair ties (because I don’t have a single one that shouldn’t have been thrown away last… year), bobby pins (because I think those things really are disposable), a few hair products, a self-tanner (my husband won’t know me), and nail polish (because I have two colors).
I stepped away from her site and realized how much I don’t do for me and IF I DID, I would feel SO much better about myself and I know for a fact that my husband would appreciate it.
But you don’t need me to explain all of that. You’ve got Dr. Laura.

Go forth, you. Go forth and love yourself. Go forth and love yourself and be inspiring (which, as I mentioned, is a natural side-effect of loving yourself. I didn’t happen to say whether it be good or bad because you -naturally -are good. Hitler on the other hand??? Though he DID inspire. Too bad it was all eevil).

I’ve always been young.  I’ve never known any different. What’s more, I’ve always been the youngest of my friends.  I got married young, pregnant young, pregnant again young… and everyone would tell me when they saw my ring or my protruding belly, “you’re so young.”  They’d tell me they wished they were young again.

And I vocally admitted that I didn’t mind aging.  I sort of took to it, actually, because it seemed no matter what I was still young.  Birthday after birthday passed, and I didn’t “age” age.  I just had to write a new number on forms and stuff.

But something’s flipped inside of me.  Something’s gone haywire with my logic.  Part of it has declared “MUTINY” on the rest of it and there’s this bloody battle raging in my head.  I know I’m young.  The nice part of my brain tells me that (it’s trying to keep up moral, all that).  But part of me FEELS old.   I mean… physically.  My lower back hurts all the time.  My knees hurt.  I’m gradually going blind(er).  And I move like an older person.  I don’t run.  I don’t sprint.  I’m not agile and I can’t roll around with my kids like young people do.

As I watched a few of the youth from our church scale sand dunes like it was nothing, I felt that my body is older than my age.  So I went walking today.  Is my back screaming?  Well, yeah.  But I’ll get it a massage later and it’ll get over it.  I’ve got to win back my health -my youth…

Most importantly, I need to help the Good Guys in my head win.  Don’t feed me any line like “age has nothing to do with birthdays or years or what-have-yous.”  I know that bit.  Where I’ve got my hang-up is that my body thinks it’s much older than 25.

Which, let’s face it, is still young.

I should enjoying it and literally running with it.  I should be feeling the energy of youth tearing through my body, but all that’s tearing through my body now is the pointed pang of fatigue.  It’s wrong!  It’s wrong!  How did I let this happen?!

Today I’ll eat better than I did yesterday.  How’s that?  And every day I’ll fight a little harder and gain a little more ground.  It’s bound to turn out all right in the end if I work hard enough.

And here’s a taste of youth -directly from the sand dunes to you: