The Queen's Rambles

Remind me to never get Christmas portraits so close to Christmas again. The last time I got them done in October, which seems early but who cares? At least there are not five million people waiting for their turn.

The funny thing was, the two people in front of us and the two people behind us were very clear that they were NOT having Christmas pictures done. They were all in to have one year portraits for their little girls. Strange coincidence.

I also found it odd that Erik didn’t want two of the girls to look at him and was being a total pain in the ass, but was really friendly and talking to two of the other girls. This wasn’t even at different times. I don’t understand.

[Total tangent. I may have to go see New Moon. Those werewolves are hot.]

I also don’t understand why they can’t be more organized at the photo place. This was our first time at JC Penny’s. We’ve been to Sears and Wal-Mart and so far the best organized place has been the Wal-Mart in my home town. They had three people working at Pennys. One was the dedicated photographer. The other two were just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They were both editing pictures, answering the phone and dealing with customers. It felt like they were doing a whole lot of nothing, but maybe they were doing something important. I didn’t understand why one of them didn’t answer the phone and deal with customers and the other one could have done the editing, instead of them both running back and forth all over the place. I was annoyed.

At least Erik was mostly good for the shots and tired hard to smile. Too bad his trying hard always led to that horrible teeth baring thing that little kids do. The photographer tried to get him to laugh naturally, but he was not into her jokes. She kept telling him that he had stinky feet, which totally PISSED him off. Can’t way I blame him. I wouldn’t be laughing if someone told me I had stinky feet.

When we came home, he found a spool of thread and I just couldn’t deal with him so I let him string it all over the house. Sometimes silence is worth the price of clean up.

But then I made a mistake. He got himself trapped, so I had to cut him out of his mess with scissors. I put them away, but I saw him go in the kitchen, climb up the counter and grab the scissors. I watched him snip the threads to bits (at least it will be easy to vacuum them up) and was pretty sure he was going to cut a hole in his shirt. He was wearing a shirt with a giant stain on the front, so I didn’t really care. I probably should have stopped him. That’s what a responsible parent would have done, I suppose. But I didn’t have the energy. I thought he would probably feel it if he cut himself and not do much damage. That’s my only excuse.

Sure enough, he cut a big hole in the shirt. He was really scared to tell me and was expecting me to blow a gasket, so it was a nice surprise for both of us when I calmly told him that’s why he’s not supposed to play with scissors. I need to find a new spot for the scissors.

On the baby front, I have to stop looking at the baby center boards. I’m sure there are intelligent, articulate women who post there. They are rare, though. Most of them are either dumb, ignorant or just plain moronic. I’m really interested in what people are naming their babies because I can’t think of any baby names at all. I need inspiration, but I also need to know what really popular names to avoid (Isabella!). One lady says she is naming her daughter Chagrin. I want to send her a link to a dictionary.

*Santa is not going to make Erik happy this year. The child wants a gas station. Not a play gas station. A real gas station, with a real car wash that will sit in our real yard. When quizzed, he says he needs a gas station so he can talk to all the people getting gas and they’ll give him a ride through the car wash. I just don’t know what to say to that.

*Santa will be bringing those building panels I posted about earlier. Just got the e-mail that Hearthsong is having free shipping for the next week. Score!

*I decided against threading, mainly because I know what I’m getting in to with the waxing. Plus, I can walk into Hair Cuttery with Erik and know that I will be seen right away and that Erik won’t be frowned at. The only places I know that do threading are fancy salons that require appointments and would probably be irritated with Erik or the kiosk in middle of the mall. Call me vain, but I prefer not to have my personal grooming taken care of in full view of anyone who happens to walk by. I don’t understand why people would choose to do their threading or teeth whitening in such a public place.

*I probably should spring for electrolysis. They do that for eyebrows, right? I am horrible at beauty maintenance, but shaped eyebrows sure do look a lot better than my big caterpillar bushes. And then I wouldn’t have to drag Erik to the Hair Cuttery any more. The woman doing my brows asked if he ever stops talking. No, he really doesn’t.

*After eating tacos for 10 straight meals, not counting breakfast, I think I’m done. I’m sure Mike will be relieved. At least Erik has been enjoying them. I’ve decided he is old enough to eat what we eat if he’s hungry and he’s been doing really well with that. He still gets weird kid stuff for lunch, but I’m so happy he is eating real food for dinner and not complaining about it much.

*My wedding ring was hurting the other day so I removed it. Now I can’t get it back on. I think I need to get it cleaned, re-sized and possibly repaired. When I first got my engagement ring it broke two different times. It just randomly split! Crazy! It looks like it has another split in it, which is really irritating. I love my ring.

*I want a new ring for Christmas.

*Erik came in my room at 6:30 this morning, asked if I was ok, then went back to his bed. Very strange. I don’t think he want back to sleep, though, since he came back at 7 am raring to play the goo game.

*I have my car! I called down there to light a fire and see if I could get it in time to take Erik to preschool. They had it an hour before I needed it. Whoo-hoo! They offered to come get me, but it is such a short walk that I decided we could walk. Erik, the child who has unlimited reserves of energy, suddenly decided he was tired and didn’t want to walk. What the hell? I was about ready to beat him right there on the street. Even with him dragging his feet, it took less than 10 minutes to walk to the shop. When we arrived, Erik started begging for water and the guy behind the desk brought him his very own bottle. You’d think he had won the lottery. Simple things, right?

*I’ve been feeling the baby all day today! I’ve felt it in the past when I’m laying really still in bed, but today it has been a non-stop tap dancing extravaganza in my belly. I’m excited! I remember being so sad at the prospect of not being able to feel Erik kick me any more. Ha! He had a major time out for hitting me today. I had no idea the kicks on the outside would be so similar to the kicks on the inside.

*My house is semi-clean. I was supposed to teach my friend how to quilt, but she ended up being a no show. She sent an apologetic e-mail later, saying she was sick. Honestly, I was relieved. The house was not quite in company order, but now at least the dining room is pretty much cleared out and the floors have been vacuumed. Tomorrow my big plan is to get a big bucket of hot, soapy water and clean all the baseboards and wainscoting. Wainscoting my look really cool and sophisticated, but man oh man does it collect dust.

*My friend and I are sharing Thanksgiving cooking duties. We flipped a coin to see who will host and she won (or lost, depending on perspective). Instead of a full meal, I just have about five things I’m responsible for. No potatoes! No turkey! No gravy! I’m making two pies and some side dishes. It’s going to be nice to have the meal feel like a holiday with other people, yet not have to do all that work. Usually I do it all for the three of us and I’m the only one who even cares. Mike enjoys it, but it is not his tradition so it is not as important to him.

*Ellen asked about my prenatals. I am currently taking folic acid and children’s chewables. In some ways I feel very guilty. What if I am ruining my baby’s chance to be a super smart astronaut doctor? I don’t feel like the baby will be deformed since I didn’t stop the prenatals until the second trimester.

*I spent most of the afternoon uploading all our pictures from the year so I can start working on gift calendars and photo books. My new camera is insane! The photos are typically 4 megs or larger, so it took all day. I really should edit things out as soon as I transfer them to the computer, but it is so hard to delete a single Erik picture even if I know it is not ever going to be printed.

*Erik and I had quite the photo session this afternoon. He decided to take pictures of me, but I couldn’t just smile at the camera. I had to “smile cute and perfect” and he had very definite ideas of how that would happen. He’s a little dictator. He did get a couple of good shots, so maybe he knows what he’s talking about. I suppose this little snippet would mean a lot more if I posted some of the pictures, but you know I hate posting my own pictures, esp when they are very uncomplimentary.

*I think I am feeling well enough to get my eyebrows waxed tomorrow. I like to get it down because it really does make a difference, but when I’m feeling sick and gross I can’t bring myself to do it. Now that I’m back to life, I should suck it up and get it done. Has anyone ever tried threading? How bad does that hurt? How long does that typically last?

All I want to eat is tacos. In fact, if I had any cheddar cheese left, I’d go make myself a couple right now. They have to be “real” tacos though. Instead of using the pre fried crispy shells, I limber up some corn tortillas in grease, drain them on paper towels, fill them with meat and cheese and then pan fry them. So, so yummy. Would someone please go buy me a block of cheddar? I’ve had tacos for my last four meals (not counting breakfast). Poor Mike and Erik had to have Italian cheese on the last batch, but I don’t think either of them noticed.

I am feeling MUCH better, as you can tell from the taco talk. I am crossing all possible crossing body parts that I stay well for awhile! I even had the energy to go to Latin Cardio today and shake my money maker. Now, though, my leg joints are hurting so maybe I over did it.

I did not complete a Dear Jane block this week. Booo! I thought I did. I even scanned it in, wrote it up, and posted it all over the place. Later, I was going through my Dear Jane notebook and realized the block wasn’t complete. I thought it was just a simple pieced block, but it has to have four diamonds appliqued on top of it. Hopefully I will get to that tomorrow.

I don’t know, though. My car is still in the shop because the mechanics wanted to really examine the brake line when it wasn’t wet outside to make sure there isn’t a leak. I don’t want to be driving around with brake problems, so I agreed. The car is supposed to be ready by noon tomorrow. If I can pick it up by 11:45 I’ll have time to run Erik to school, otherwise he’s just going to have to skip tomorrow. Bah.

Do you realize that Christmas is almost here? Yikes! I think I have something major picked out for Erik (A Cool building set things) and am just waiting until Cyber Monday to order. I’m not sure if Hearthsong participates in the free shipping day, but maybe I’ll get lucky. Other than that I think he’s getting a marble run, a transformer and possible a TAG reading system. I may also look around at Wii games and try to figure out if there are any that he can play and that he would be interested in. He can play Dora Saves the Snow Princess by himself, but he finds it pretty boring. He is obsessed with the World of Goo, a tower building game. Problem? He can’t do most of the levels by himself. Mike is a good sport and doesn’t mind playing it with him, but it annoys the shit out of me, especially since we’ve already done all the levels once. I’m just a girl when it comes to video games. Give me Bejeweled, Tetris or Collapse. Something like that.

I finally made Erik and appointment for Christmas portraits. Now I just have to get him a new outfit and hope the road rash on his face clears up. I kept waiting for various scratches and owies to go away, but as soon as one is gone, another one appears. I guess that makes it more authentic. I just wish I would have tried on his outfit the day I bought it so I would have got the right size. Bah!

Erik was asking a lot of questions about the baby this afternoon, so I pulled out a book that my friend gave me a few months ago. It has lots of pictures of 3D ultrasounds, so I thought it would be perfect to help Erik understand what’s going on.

Ha!

I should have looked through it a little more closely. He was very interested in all the pictures and wanted to flip through the whole book. I didn’t realize it had lots of pictures of women giving birth. “Mommy! Why is that baby’s head in that lady’s butt?”

Oh dear.

I think it’s time to go to bed. Aren’t you glad I had such coherent thoughts tonight?

Now that I’m feeling a little better, I am able to be truly positive, instead of grasping for positive straws.

I still have a bit of a cough, but I have re-entered the land of the living and am ready for food! Except I didn’t have a car today, so we are still out of food. Bah. I made a nasty frozen dinner that made me sick. Now I am eating frosting. It’s all for the baby, right? Ha. I need to go back on those prenatals so I don’t gain 100 pounds with this pregnancy.

I decided that today we were going to make a dent in the pig-sty of our house. I don’t let Erik bring many toys up here, mainly because the living room is a very small space and he doesn’t play with them anyway. He has two beach buckets of toys in the living room and the only play he does is simple: dump them all on the floor and walk away.

Usually I can get him to pick everything up really easily. I just have to tell him he is having a race and bet him that he can’t beat me and he’ll get it done in less than three minutes. Today? Of course not. Today he said it was boring and he wasn’t going to do it.

I brought out the big guns and said he couldn’t watch any of his shows until he picked things up, but he wasn’t biting.

I decided it was not worth a big, showy power struggled but I was going to win. I walked away, and went down to do laundry.

He spent a long time watching the laundry spin. Then he spent a long time watching me scrub the bathrooms and “helping” me. Ugh. I wasn’t going to tell him no because I think it’s good for kids to get a sense of family chores even if they are less than helpful.

I think I may have solved my powder-room-smelling-like-a-men’s-urinal problem. I hope. I pray. I hope.

I often spray down the toilet and the floor and wipe it all down on my hands and knees, but it never seems to help. Today I sprayed down the walls. When I wiped them down, the rag turned yellow so I’m hoping that was the source of the nastiness. It never occurred to me to clean the walls, but maybe his aim really is that bad.

I was finally really bored and decided that if he wasn’t going to get to watch his shows, I could turn on the country music station.

The second I turned that on, he started howling “noooooooo!” and had his toys cleaned up within two minutes.

Poor kid has no taste in music.

The other topic: Our Lemon Saturn

I called the mechanic and he said not to drive it under any circumstances. You don’t want to mess with bad brakes. I have AAA, so I called them and the tow truck driver was here in less than 10 minutes.

He took the car down to the mechanic and I sat around waiting to hear the bad news.

It wasn’t that bad, but it will still set us back almost $1000. I don’t know what bad would have meant. In addition to the brake problem, they said that something with the steering would not pass inspection so we’re having that taken care of as well. I tend to believe them because I’ve noticed steering problems lately.

I should get the car back tomorrow afternoon. I am ready to drive it straight to Honda and trade it in for a mini-van. I think we are going to wait until February since that is supposed to be the best time to buy a new car. Can we really afford to wait? What other bombshells will the car drop? As Mike pointed out, it should be a damned good car now. We’ve replaced just about everything on it except the engine.

At least all my bathrooms have been scrubbed down and my living room has been vacuumed. I don’t feel like I am living in a hovel anymore.

I also decided to do a couple of things to make myself happy. I’m getting my haircut Saturday and I just ordered a pair of titanium earrings. I hope my sensitive skin can handle them. Everyone says there’s no way my ears will have a problem, but knowing my skin I am proceeding with caution. It would be fantastic if I could finally start wearing earrings again, though the selection doesn’t seem particularly great. I love earrings, a little known fact since I haven’t worn them in years.

Grain Damaged has challenged me to do one Dear Jane block this week and my week is running out. Now we know what I’ll be doing tomorrow during preschool.

Last Friday I went up to my quilting room, determined to do some quilting. I looked at the table and turned right around again. It all seems so overwhelming. But I’m going to do it. I’m going to pick a simple block and knock it out of the park. And then I’m going to organize the sewing table a bit so it doesn’t drive me out of the room.

I think I am going to pull out my square top

put a border on it and get it quilted even if it kills me. I love the top and want to use it on the guest bed, but have no idea how to quilt it. I think it would be cool to incorporate squares into the quilting, but I just have my little home sewing machine and that is not going to work well for me. I am a piecer, quilter. I guess I’m going to bite the bullet and do some kind of diagonal grid quilting. It will be fine. Right? Surely it will be fine. Just not perfect. I need to accept the fact that I will never have a really fancy QUILTED quilt. I have to be content with having the colors and fabrics being designs that I love.

I am tired of complaining all the time. I hate complainers. I complain about complainers, which makes about as much sense as spanking a kid for hitting. Me, I am so very sensible. Ha!

But seriously, I am ready to be more positive.

Today I am thankful that I had enough energy to go to Target, purchase all kinds of cleaning supplies and scrub down a bathroom. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

I’m also very, very, very thankful that I took my Be Vivacious life plan seriously and made myself some friends. Those friends were a lifesaver today. As much as I love my friends inside the computer, friends in the real world are so much better. They can actually do concrete things to help out a dire situation, instead of just wishing they could be there and sending you good luck vibes.

I went out to the car this afternoon, started things up, and wondered why the heck the car wouldn’t move. I finally figured out that the brake pedal was stuck to the floor. The car wasn’t going anywhere.

I was due to pick Erik up in 10 minutes.

Thank god for friends.

Dr. Saturn, the lady who had a baby less than three weeks ago, drove out and picked Erik up. Then she took him to her house, left him with her sister and son and came over and got me. She took me over to her house for an afternoon of socialization and dinner! Score!

I was feeling pretty panicked, hopeless and just generally down in the dumps. Sick again, car broken, kid stuck at preschool. Life was most assuredly Not Good.

But it could have been so much worse. What if I didn’t have a friend? What would I have done? I have no idea. I am just so grateful that I’m in a place where I have that kind of real life support that I need.

Ever since preschool has started, I’ve had these horrible visions of getting in a wreck on the way to pick him up and not being able to get to him. Hopefully this is as close as that vision will ever come to reality.

I don’t know what to do about preschool. Today was the third day that Erik dug in his heels and refused to go into the classroom. I wanted to talk to his teacher about it this afternoon, but that wasn’t meant to be. I’m so sad that his first real school experience is not what I was hoping it would be. I tried to get him to open up and talk to me, but talking to a four year old about something serious? I might as well have been talking to a parrot. He says he doesn’t like it because it makes him tired. He says he doesn’t like any of his school friends and just wants to play with his real friends (kids from co-op preschool). I know that isn’t true since he’s always happy and playing with kids when I pick him up. I just don’t know what’s going on and I’m really frustrated.

But this is all about the positive, right?

I’m really thankful my friend was able to lend us a pair of underwear and pants this evening, after Erik had a major accident in his pants.

What the hell?

But my friend saved us!

I have to keep focusing on the silver lining, or I’m going to go lay down and cry. I’ve already been tearing up, and you know what that does when you have a cold? Nothing good!

I’m also thankful to have a wonderful public library that has saved us hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars in the past few years. Paying $25.95 for a book that was already damaged when I checked it out is just like giving them a thank you gift, right?

Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m so thankful we have AAA, because I’m going to have to have the car towed somewhere. I looked up the problem, and even though I was able to eventually pop the brake pedal back up, it is very dangerous to drive it right now. The master cylinder (whatever that is) is probably ruined, meaning we could lose our brakes at any moment. I’m very thankful we discovered the problem in a safe way that didn’t end in a wreck.

I’m so bored, I’m watching Dancing with the Stars. I don’t have anything against the show, but it is just not on my TV rotation.

We had a bit of a desperate situation earlier this evening.

I put my laptop down so I could do some laundry. When I came back, I had a big error message about my internal hard drive needing to be re-seated. The computer wouldn’t boot, and I would have had a panic attack if I would have had that much energy.

Mike is my fixer man, but he didn’t get home until after 8:30 tonight so I figured I would be screwed.

He removed the battery, put it back in, and things are fine. Whew!

Why no energy? My cold is about a thousand times worse than it was yesterday. The snot is back in full force. My throat hurts and I really and truly have NO VOICE today and my ears hurt. I’m taking Tylenol, but trying to take it easy. I know it is safe for the baby, but I don’t want the baby to OD and have liver problems.

Erik had preschool today, so that was good (except for the part where he refused to go in). I don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow if I don’t feel better. He was going nuts this evening because I wouldn’t take him outside and I wouldn’t play tag with him.

That about sums up my day. What a thrill! I think it’s bed time for the sicko. Does someone want to come disinfect my house?

I am very slowly rebuilding the sidebar on this new blog. I am no longer using blogrolling because they have ads now, so I’m re-entering all the blogs I read by hand. Ugh!

It is a very, very slow process because I am lazy. If you’d like priority in getting your link back up, please leave a comment here and it will be done a lot faster. Loyalty pays, right?

What a rotten weekend. I’ve had a sore throat and a cough all weekend. Today I have no voice. Erik is very concerned about me losing my voice and wants to call everyone we know to ask them if they can help me find it. Silly kid.

As much as it sucks, though, it is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than morning sickness. There’s always that.

Are any of you watching FlashForward? I thought it was supposed to be great, but thus far I am pretty bored. I doubt I’ll continue watching it much longer. Just like Project Runway! What a horrible season. I don’t think I’ll even watch the finale. I can find out the winner from the Project Rungay blog and it will be much more entertaining to read their take than watch the show. Thanks, Lifetime, for ruining the best reality show on television!

I am on the verge of calling a cleaning company and getting someone in here to do a one time spring clean of the house–dust, vacuum, bathrooms, baseboards, and so forth. I’ve been feeling poorly for so long that things are out of control. Mike has been working more than ever, and when he gets home I am feeling so bad that I prefer him to take Erik instead of cleaning the house. It seems like if we could just get a fresh start with all the rooms being really clean, maybe I could keep up with it after I get over this cold. Our big plan for the weekend was to clean like maniacs, but obviously that didn’t happen. I barely got out of bed yesterday.

I also really need to return the holiday sweater I got for Erik and get a smaller size. Bah humbug! Normally I would just keep it so he could grow into it, but I don’t want him looking like a slob in his holiday photo. I have finally learned, after four years of motherhood, that it is ok if they look a little slobby when you first buy them new clothes because that means the clothes will last longer. Can’t do it for the pictures though. Just can’t.

I guess I also need to make an appointment to have portraits done, which is another bah humbug moment. Mainly because I am sick and tired and don’t want to think of everything I need to do. Last week I was so full of energy for the first time in forever, and now I am back in my “I’m sick and overwhelmed mode.” Hopefully this cold will be short lived and I will be back to myself very soon.

This year has been so crazy! It feels like I haven’t been normal since my birthday in March. We were so sick for so long with (I suspect) H1N1 and pneumonia, then we went on vacation and I couldn’t handle the stress of my sister being herself, then we got home and found out I was pregnant, then it was months of prenatal vitamin sickness.

I look into the future and see a few years of sleep deprivation and catering to the needs of a caterwauling infant. I might have energy again before my 40th birthday.

Speaking of the infant, I was looking through the baby name book and can’t find a single name for a boy or girl that I even remotely like. Other than Kai, of course, which Mike will never agree to. Maybe once we know the gender and I start feeling the baby moving around more I’ll feel more connected to this pregnancy, but at the moment I am kind of ignoring the reality of a baby on the way.

*I almost killed a teenager on the way to pick Erik up from school. We live kitty corner from the high school and they let out about five minutes before I have to leave. I always feel like I’m in a video game, trying to avoid frogger like pedestrians and teen drivers. Today I had a green light. I noticed the van in the far left lane was stopped and sort of saw a flash of running kid. I decided I better slow way down. Good thing I did, because right as I came up to the intersection a kid dashed in front of me. If I hadn’t been paying attention I totally would have plowed into him. The car in the right lane came even closer to hitting him. A group of girls saw all the stopped cars and decided to saunter across the road against their light. I was sure we were all going to get rear ended. We have a lot of pedestrian deaths in our area and the newspaper is always talking about the horrible, reckless drivers. Of course I feel bad for the kids who are killed and my heart goes out to their families, but it is not always the drivers’ fault. I feel like calling the police and demanding a crossing guard to keep the kids in control.

*Erik decided he wasn’t going to school today. I don’t know why. When we arrived, he hid behind my legs while we were waiting for his classroom to open. Once open, he refused to go in. Eventually the secretary asked if I wanted her to take him in. He was clinging to me, totally weepy. She pried him out of my arms while he punched and kicked her. It was heart wrenching! I kept waiting for the school to call and tell me to come get him, but they never did. He was happy and playful when I picked him up, so I don’t know what the problem was.

*When we got home from preschool I had a really weird message on the answering machine. It was some lady, who happens to have the same name as one of my real life friends who calls a lot, so I was really confused because I knew it wasn’t my friends voice. The person acted like we were best friends and said “I wanted to hear more about [mumble mumble] so I’ll try your cell phone, or you can call me back.” I was going to call my friend to figure out what was wrong with her voice, but when I checked caller ID it wasn’t her. I googled the name and number and came up with an employee of THIS SITE. I can’t figure out if it was a journalist or telemarketer. Either way, I’m not calling back. It was very curious.

*I took Erik out for a scooter ride and we ended up going to visit one of our neighbors. I was trying to make conversation, so asked how she had met her husband. My jaw hit the floor when she explained it was an arranged marriage (they’re Indian). She met her husband for the first time the day before the wedding! I asked if she was afraid, but she said no “I knew his family so I knew he wouldn’t cheat me.” I honestly have no idea what that means. I really wanted to ask if she was afraid of the wedding night. I would have been terrified to know that I would be having sex with some guy I didn’t even know! Sure, people do it all the time with people they pick up in bars or whatever (or maybe that is just on tv), but at least that is not really planned out and it is your choice. It sounds like she did get to approve this guy and she had a friend who had a friend who had a friend who was his cousin, but still! To know months in advance that you would be having sex with a guy you don’t know and that then you would be his wife and have to live with him and all that. I would be terrified!

*After the arranged marriage discussion, she hit me with another whammy. She asked me how I make my hair so straight and finished looking. No one has ever asked me for any type of fashion advice before! I generally hate my hair. This woman is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Her hair is gorgeous with some natural waves, but not exactly curly. It is no surprise she was chosen for an arranged marriage. The guy is very, very lucky to have her if we are basing it on looks alone (I don’t know enough about her to make judgements on any other criteria). And here she was asking me for hair advice? I don’t do anything to make it straight. I use a big curling brush to give it some body, and finish it off with shine serum. I think shine serum is the secret to finished looking hair and am so happy I discovered it (thanks Kisha, for taking me coupon shopping!). That’s the extent of my fashion advice. Oh, and if you have big boobs, you should wear v-neck clothes. Avoid scoop necks like the plague.

*I watched the Dead Like Me follow-up movie this afternoon. It was beyond lame. How disappointing.