Going to Unreasonable Lengths:

Every person has three ranges of hair length:

1. The range at which they consider it "too short to be functional."
2. The range at which it is "just about right." ( Though no woman appears to be entirely satisfied with her hair, even at the "right" range.)
3. The range at which it is "entirely too much to handle."

Moodles chews a package of #7 round needles.

These ranges vary from person to person, and some people, much to their chagrin, don't seem to be genetically capable of producing enough hair to hit the "enough" range much less the "too much" category. Being half-Japanese, and therefore having received the "OMG, HAIR!!!" gene, this is not my problem. I have extra-ordinarily healthy hair growing in places I really wish it wouldn't, but lets not go into that.

For me, the "too short" range is anything above my shoulder blades - mostly because I am routinely too lazy to do anything with my hair, and if it is above my shoulder blades, my hair will not stay behind me when I lean forward. PLUS, my hair is naturally curly, and if I get too much above my shoulder blades, there isn't enough weight in my hair to keep it from turning into ringlets. Let me assure you, I am entirely too sarcastic and deadpan to run around looking like Shirley Temple.

The "just about right" range is anything between the bottom of my shoulder blades and the top of my belt. I have kept my hair about there for most of my life. As I mentioned, I am not entirely satisfied with my hair at that length, but I can do 80% of the things I want with my hair when it is that long. (I still can't do that neat "crown of braids" thing, though, because I have a big, fat head. I know. It's a terrible fate... However I have determined that having hair long enough for a braid crown puts me well into the "too much to handle" range...)

Because I haven't managed to get to the stylist since before Moodles was born, my hair is now in the "too much to handle" stage of growth, and it's making me a little insane. I am ok with "hair past my waist," as they say in the romance novels. I am NOT OK with "hair past my butt." This was underscored for me twice yesterday when a colleague mentioned my hair in a very complimentary way, and I brushed her off with a litany of complaints. (Sorry, D. What I meant to say was, "Thank you.") And again, when I got home from work and had a chance to shower and deep condition, because Mom kept the baby for an extra half hour, so I wouldn't have to worry about running out of the bathroom naked and covered in soap because Moodles found a way to destroy herself in an empty crib.

I know that at least half of you reading now hate me because I'm complaining about hair growth that you've been trying to achieve all your life, but let me tell you why hair past your butt sucks the big one:

1. You sit on it. Your dog sits on it. The stinky guy next to you on the bus sits on it. In all three situations you end up trapped. The dog will take advantage and lick your face until you asphyxiate. You PRAY that the stinky guy on the bus will only take advantage and talk your ear off, but you sometimes worry that he might also lick your face.
2. You have to un-tuck your hair from your pants every time you go to the bathroom. This wouldn't be as annoying if it wasn't winter and you weren't wearing a wool sweater. But because it is winter, and you are wearing a sweater, un-tucking your hair will generate enough static charge to shock the shit out of you when you reach for the stall door, and your hair will stand out around you like a three foot halo in all directions. If "hair by Vandegraph" is not a good look on you, you will be irritated for the next 20 minutes until the charge wears off... By then you will have to pee again... Rinse, repeat.
3. You have to be careful when you potty. I will leave those details to your imagination. Let me just sum up by saying that if you were formerly a braid chewer, the potential for utter grossness here might cure you of the habit forever.
4. This one is my favorite: Showering becomes disconcerting. Picture yourself in a nice, hot shower, deep conditioning your hair, because that's what Lady Godiva would want... When the time comes to rinse, you let down your luxurious locks from where they were piled on top of your head, sucking up all the lovely moisturizers... In the last two minutes on top of your head, those locks have become cold and clammy. Where do they go when you shake them out? They go right into the crack of your ass, that's where. Not cool. 

Hat for Matt. Needs to be blocked.

Problem #4 can repeat itself as you dry your hair with interesting and, at times, utterly humiliating variations. You lean forward and flip your hair upside down to towel it off, but then how do you get back into the upright position for take off? Especially if you happen to be preening in front of your newly minted boyfriend? You don't just wad it up and stand - no! You fling it up over your shoulder and arch your back majestically like a surfacing mermaid! And then... Oh... The horrors...

Arching your back makes your hair effectively a foot longer, which means that when it lands, it will go BETWEEN your legs (COLD! CLAMMY! AUGH!) and then up over your thigh. Because it is squeaky clean, it will STICK THERE AND NEVER COME OUT. I don't know if you've ever tried to balance in a position wherein your boobs are pointed at the sky, but it's quite difficult... Especially if it's not a position you intended to be in, in the first place. If you are a klutz like me, and start thrashing around like an idiot, this will cause you to fall over in an entirely ungraceful tangle of limbs and hair and land on your head. LOUDLY. At this point, you can only hope that your newly minted boyfriend is sensitive enough not to laugh at you when he comes to rescue you from your poorly planned attempt to be irresistible.

Not that that has ever happened to me... Ever.

Anyway, I need a haircut soon before I manage to injure myself.  Also, I made this hat last night for the imminent in-laws. Moodles helped.

Checking things off the list:

Or not.

I was hoping to cross off a few things from my "Things In Process" list... Instead, last night, I started an entirely new thing. A hat for one of my 3 male in-laws that are coming to visit this weekend. I will make two more with slightly different patterning and call it done.
I took this opportunity to use up some of the zillion yards of handspun wool I have lying around the house from the last time I went on a spinning bender. I used my dark natural grey and my white wool, and I'm fairly pleased with the results. I knit the largest size hat on the pattern, since I don't have anyone's measurements. I figure, if the hat is too big, they can wear it into the shower until it fits.... Yay, wool! And yes, those ear flaps do actually come out of the hat all together. Those are functional buttons you're looking at, yo! One gift down, eleventy more to go!

Honestly, I'm glad that that part of the evening went according to "plan," because it was that only part that did. When I left the office, my plan was to go home, pick up Em, do some work at the Bar, eat dinner with Eithni and Teffan, and then maybe make a set or two of hand warmers for the student-gifts. You know what they say about a plan only lasting until you first engage your opponent? Right. Last night, my opponent was Angus, who - though I love him with the nuggies normally reserved for brothers- has displayed an amazing ability to obliterate any semblance of "plan" through his very presence.

So my evening actually consisted of fixing the printer (Which the bebe had messed up by using it as a standing assist, thereby pressing all the buttons and re-setting the IP address to something useless...), ordering Thai food for Myself, Husband, and Angus, failing to get HD, due to stupid trees blocking the satellites, making the aforementioned hat, and watching the A-Team movie with the guys. It wasn't an unpleasant evening, but I still need to go down to the bar at some point to set the security feeds for unreasonable levels of networked convenience, rather than just CCTV... And I need to talk someone into cutting down a &*%# tree so that I can get some HD* TV.

*What truly irritates me is that I cannot solve this problem by switching satellite providers. Both Dish Network and DirecTV use the same satellites. In some ways, I feel that this defeats my freedom of choice. And don't tell me about Charter Cable. The rant I posted about their idiotic customer service is still in the top 10 things that come back if you Google "MightyJesse."

Things in Process:

Welcome to the holiday season! That time of year when I discover (while frantically cleaning my house before guests arrive) that I have 10,000 more things in-process than I thought. I had thought that maybe I should photograph them and post them for you so that the shame of unfinished projects would drive me to completion... Thus, I give you, the bullet points of half-assery: (If you check back later, I may update with more pictures after I get home tonight... You never know...)

• Mint chocolate chip hoody (knitting)

• Black embroidered jumper (hand embroidered, for Moodles, of course!)
• "I Poop Alot" onesie (hand embellished commercial onesie)

• New wool tunic (hand sewn with seam embellishments, for me)
• New wool tunic (hand sewn with seam embellishments, for Husband)
• New wool tunic (hand sewn with seam embellishments, for Moodles) 
• Flower diaper cover (Despite my ability to draft a diaper pattern for an adult, NO ONE needs to play that much Warcraft. This will be for Moodles. Duh.)

And then, the really, real reason I'm not posting all the pictures... Moodles was teething and clingy all weekend, so I didn't have much "spare time" for photography after attending the AWESOME variety show at the Knuckle Down Saloon on Friday night, and doing the usual 28,498,348,049 loads of laundry (OK, really it was 6, but it felt like more.)... Every sheet in the house was dirty, owing in part to Moodles' new passion for "finger-painting*."  (I was also supposed to attend Boar's Head, but due to being down a vehicle, and the sudden snow, I just wasn't feeling organized enough to obtain a ride, or talk Husband into a "ninja run" in my crappy car on un-plowed roads with 2 hours of sleep.... So we skipped it, because we'll be attending 12th Night, FOR SURE, due to our respective obligations at that event.)

* SUPER GROSS. Moodles used to just throw up and leave it at that. NOW, she throws up and smears it all over everything, in what she assures me is "art". As you can see by my use of quotation marks, I remain unconvinced...

In which we are somewhat blurry:

I wanted to show you a picture of Moodles' fantastic morning bed-head, the only problem being that the bebe is blurry in the morning. Initially, I thought it was just that there isn't sufficient time for my coffee to start working by 7:00 AM, or perhaps the lack of glasses - that item often being misplaced the evening before by one of my "helpers." Usually under the couch. However, it has been confirmed, and my camera agrees. Moodles is, in fact, blurry until close to 9:00 AM. (At which point the need for a nap finally slows her down...)

Finally, I had to pick her up in order to keep her still enough to capture her fantastic 'do. (In future years, I'm sure she'll spend HOURS in front of a mirror trying to accomplish just this look using all manner of hair product and a curling iron...)

A train ate my breakfast:

 Being a dork in high school can make one long to be popular. It may not be until one spawns that the drawbacks of popularity can be observed and appreciated.

Last night, I was trying to get some work done on a new, wool tunic* for Boar's Head this coming weekend, but was having trouble making any progress because Moodles wasn't content to play with her toys. She wanted to be on me. She didn't want to be held. She wanted to use me like a jungle gym. So I was trying to finish up the seam embellishments on my tunic with an 18 lb baby hanging off of one arm, while trying desperately not to poke out her eye with a needle, or gouge her rhumpusing feet with a stray pin.

Maggie was only able to resist the "dog pile" for about 5 minutes before she had to join us, despite her previous experiences involving close proximity to Moodles. (Once again proving that a dog's memory lasts for about 3 minutes... tops.)

Eventually, I had to give up on my project all together in order to save poor Maggie, because Moodles figured out how to ride her like a pony, and despite the fact that the dog was laying down on the couch; Moodles had somehow managed to hook a finger under Maggie's eyelid and was attempting to steer with it.

Popularity is a bitch, yo. Everywhere I go, I am shadowed by my two, dedicated groupies, one of whom is bent on self destruction (Moodles) and the other is sure that she is mortally starved for both attention and food (Maggie). Both are convinced that the other has the better toys and snacks, and every once in a while, I consider getting the dog a teething ring and the baby a rawhide chew. Unfortunately, I know that this would not solve the problem, as it's all a case of "the grass is greener on the other side." They will ALWAYS want what the other is playing with no matter what.

***

So, this morning, Moodles woke up half an hour early to poop. I know I've told her repeatedly that we get up early so that we can be productive, but that's really not what I meant.

Nonetheless, as I crashed around the house in a blind, coffeeless stupor (Because I was up 1/2 hour before the coffee pot was ready for me. TRAGIC.), I did make up a short list of things that I could accomplish with my extra half hour. I could get the bebe to Grandma's house on time for once, and do all the dishes, start a load of wash, check my email, and still have time to eat a bowl of cereal!

Everything was going according to my plan until I loaded Moodles into the car to go to Grandma's house. The dishes got done, and the email was at least thinned out to a manageable level. I was 15 minutes early leaving to drop Moodles off, and I figured I could start the laundry and eat breakfast in peace when I returned. Sadly, this was not to be - for in the middle of the 4 block distance between my house and my Mother in Law's there is a train crossing. And for some reason, they decided that 7:15 AM, in the middle of morning rush-hour would be the ideal time to block off a major through-way with 20 minutes worth of rail car changing.

So there I sat, listening to Moodles in the back seat, composing a complex, gargled ballad to her toes; getting more and more incensed at the seconds lost every time the train reversed directions, but failed to get the hell out of my way. Did they have any idea what I could have accomplished had I at least brought a knitting project along? Did they care that they were eating up literally 1/3 of my private time for the day? And my breakfast... There would be no time for it by the time I got home. About 15 minutes into my inner tirade, when I was nearly foaming at the mouth and weighing the pros and cons of getting out of the car to throw rocks, I noticed that one of the slowly moving box cars had been tagged. All the cars were tagged, but this tag in particular short-circuited my rage-party:

CDC

BABY!

Er. What?

I'm not sure that that means what I think it means... Or that they mean what I mean. Center for Disease Control represent a noble set of objectives, certainly, but I've never been exited about them in quite that way... What could possibly make someone so pleased with the CDC that they would feel the need to immortalize the emotion in spray paint on the side of a moving bill-board?

Cure for cancer
Cure for herpies
Cure for AIDS
Treatment for Syphilis?
Erradication of small pox?
HPV vaccine?

Who gets that excited about a vaccine? Surely not.

My brain chased its tail for the last 4 minutes of train crossing, coming up with more and more elaborate and improbable reasons that someone would be that thrilled with the CDC. I did momentarily consider the idea that maybe "CDC" is a person, band, or gang, but dismissed it, because my scenario was far more entertaining.

Eventually, I did get the bebe dropped off at Grandma's house, and managed to catch the bus to work, but the Train still ate my breakfast time, and now I have to spend all morning Googling alternative organizations represented by the initials "CDC."

And I wonder why I never seem to get anything done...

* I notice that Amazon.com has 100% wool suiting/60" wide for $4.99/yard. If I didn't already have a ROOM FULL of unused wool, I would be all over this.

You're probably wondering why I've asked you here today:

If you know me in person, or are familiar with my facebook, livejournal, instant messenger, etc, you may be wondering why on earth I decided to set up a brand new blog? And why, in setting up this new blog, did I choose one with ads on it?

Well, I'll tell you: College is ridiculously expensive.

I'm 33 years old, and never finished going to college myself, and I'm only just now paying off my student loans. Husband is even older than I am, and he's got student loans too, and the cost of an education is rising.

I have the usual Roth and savings accounts set up for Moodles, but I'm very worried that they won't be enough to send her to school, and I can only put away so much per month before we have to start telling her that she's going to need to cut back on her formula intake if she wants to be able to go to a good school. I think that's kind of sad, and that's where all of you, this blog, and the advertising come in.

Any and all funds that I receive from the ads on this blog are going to go straight into Moodles' college fund. It would be the coolest thing ever if someday, she is able to say, "the internets paid for me to go to college."

I don't intend to run any more than the one ad at the side of the page, and the relevant links to Amazon.com (This includes the little store widget under WELCOME, because after two days, I've decided that I'm too lazy to keep up this constant linking. I'm doing it all once and putting it where y'all can find it if you're interested.). To keep things from getting obnoxious, I will only ever link to things that I own*, or am saving up my allowance for. Moodles will only make a commission if you actually BUY the thing in the links or the store widget, so there's no point in me linking to a bunch of useless dreck that none of us needs**.

If you share this blog with friends who have kids, or friends who like crafts, or friends who are going to college and wish their parents had had this idea first, I would be much obliged to you. But in the end, I hope you're all just here because I am sometimes funny, or interesting, or creative, or inspiring and make your work day seem that much shorter.


*I have paid for this. Twice. (Once for myself, and once as a review copy for a friend who writes for Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.) To say that I have buyer's remorse would be understating things egregiously; however, if you are the kind of person who enjoys the tantrums and obnoxious behavior in "reality TV", this might be the novel for you. I did write a review of the book on the product page, if you want to know more.

**I don't need this, but that won't stop me from licking it if I ever see it in the store...

Cleaning out the animal cages:

Yesterday for breakfast, Moodles and I made some honey wheat bread in the bread-maker.

• 1 1/8 c water
• 3 T honey
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 T molasses
• 1 T gluten
• 1 1/2 t yeast
• 1/3 t salt
• 3 c whole wheat flour

Add all ingredients to bread maker in order suggested by machine manufacturer. Set machine for light crust. Entertain bebe and goggie intermittently for 45 minutes watching the dough go 'round in circles. Go do something else for the other 2.5 hours... Sadly, bebe will only watch the dough for so long before she tries to figure out how to open the bread-maker and presses a bunch of buttons, resulting in the machine getting set for "pasta with medium crust".

Moodles greatly approved of the resulting bread, and nommed on "heel strips" all day long. She'd get about 1/2 way through each piece of bread before Maggie would interpret all the delighted bread-waving as an invitation come eat. There were crumbs EVERYWHERE in the bebe enclosure. If I find a musical toy with a bread crust in the battery compartment, I'll know how it happened.

Eventually, I had to take the bebe enclosure apart, shake off all the stuffed animals, and sweep, because Moodles was trying to "save" little bread balls in the corners. I felt rather like a zoo-keeper, cleaning out the lion cage. I transferred Moodles to her jumparoo, from which she supervised me with a grave countenance and violent bouncing. Maggie took notice of all the uneaten food while I was sweeping, and decided that the inside of the bebe enclosure was an untapped source of mana that she should harvest at the first opportunity. A few minutes later, I had the bebe changed and dressed, and the enclosure back together with the bebe inside. Maggie implimented her plan with all due haste, and found out almost immediately why Jasmine had declined to join her:

She had failed to realize that being inside a bebe enclosure would limit her ability to back up or turn around, while giving Moodles an unprecedented "reach advantage." And adding insult to injury, was the fact that there weren't even any treats in the enclosure anymore, because Maggie executed her plan right after I cleaned. Maggie is just lucky that she's a short haired pooch, or Moodles would have had her in corn-rows and bows by now. Jasmine and I sat at safe distance on the couch and laughed up our sleeves while Moodles stretched out Maggie's lips and drooled on her ears.

Despite being somewhat embarrassed over this mistake, I still managed to convince Maggie to clear all the crumbs out of the bebe enclosure this morning... But only if I took the bebe out first...