The Demon Curl

So I have not blogged in a month, and the last time I blogged, my husband was in the hospital. I blogged from his hospital room because we live in that in-the-moment live-as-it-is-happening world. And then I didn't blog for a month for a variety of reasons. But rather than bore you with details of why I have ignored you for a month, I will sum it all up with one word:

Vomiting

There was vomiting involved and therefore I did not blog. Now aren't you glad I'm not including details?

Warning: that does not preclude me from including details at a later date. I'm just not going to do it today.

I have lots to tell you about the state of my husband's health, but I'm not going to blog about that today either.

Big important stuff has happened in our family, but I don't really feel like talking about that either. So instead I'm going to blog about my hair.

I certainly have my priorities in order.

Every so often I get in this grow-my-hair-out mood. Apparently I also occasionally fall into the string-all-my-words-together-with-hyphens mood as well. At any rate, everyone knows that when you are growing your hair out, you have to go through the growing out stage where your hair has no discernable style, and you pretend to deal with it by incorporating various hair accessories such as scrunchies, clips (or in my case) combs and headbands. You push and hold all this extra hair in place until it grows to the length you want it to be. Then you can have a normal hairstyle again that doesn't involve sticking something plastic into your tresses each day.

Can I just say, I'm never very good at the growing out stage. I know I'm impatient, but in my defense, my hair has a mind of its own. I never wear hats because my hair literally grabs any headcovering I attempt, and throws it off my head. Seriously. It's happened more than once. So when I start using combs and headbands, I'm trying to push down and conceal rogue hair strands that want to strike out on their own. Inevitably, I get tired of rogue hair long before I achieve the length I want, and I end up getting my hair cut again.

This time around I went without getting my hair cut since September. Can I just say, that's a lot of wild hair. Someone advised me that, instead of getting it cut, I should have it thinned because then it would be easier to control. That made sense to me so I had someone thin my hair with a razor.

I ended up with rogue hair that had no back up. Just wispy, long curls and trendils that stuck up in every direction. And it wasn't in that wildly sexy, uninhibited way that curly hair is in the movies and on TV. It was just nasty bristle-brush wild.

I finally gave in yesterday and went and got it cut. While at the salon, I got a text from my hair-thinner, who is not a professional stylist. She couldn't believe I was giving in when I had worked for so long to grow it out. She continued to fuss until I got home and showed her the results of a moderate trimming. Then even she agreed that it looked much better.

As I detailed how much I hated when my hair stuck out in every direction, she contradicted me and said it never did that. Except for the demon curl.

The demon curl?

"Yeah," she said. "Sometimes you run your hands through your hair and then you have a curl in the very front that stands straight up and points at people you're talking to."

And she was just now mentioning this to me?

At any rate, the demon curl is no more. And I think I'm over trying to grow my hair out for a while.

I also think I'm not going to listen to her hair advice anymore.

Now wasn't that more interesting than talking about vomiting?

Full Speed Ahead

So since I took most of the month of December off from blogging, I should have a lot to say. I thought about doing a recap of our Christmas, but that's old news now, isn't it? And anyway, I can probably sum it up with one word:

Wonderful

It wasn't perfect. For some reason, Matt and Kylee felt they needed to travel up to spend the holidays with her folks. I agreed to let them go because I had no choice I'm unselfish like that. After all, I insisted on having them here last year, so it was only fair.

On the plus side, our daughter was home for Christmas for the first time in four years. That definitely made the holidays wonderful!

I also thought I could celebrate my return to blogland and my first post of the new year by writing something profound.

I got nothing.

So instead I decided to write my first post of 2012 from the emergency room. Because nothing says Happy New Year like taking your spouse to the hospital in the middle of the night because he woke up with chest pains.

Yes, I'm blogging from his examining room. Don't judge me. It's helping me stay awake.

I am not a calloused woman. I waited until we we sure he was out of immediate danger before I started blogging. They're not sure what the problem is, but all his tests look good so they're pretty sure it's not his heart. Probably. No one really likes to say for sure because people in the medical profession hate to be wrong.

I will say this--if you've ever had to sit for hours in an emergency waiting room, try telling them you have chest pains. They move pretty quickly for that.

So no heart attack, but his blood pressure is quite high. He has a tendency towards that. And it just got higher when they came in to draw blood. Because he has a fear of needles like that.

Can't imagine what's causing Indiana stress. Couldn't be the six kids-- they're always good as gold. Except when they aren't. But we're getting even. We snuck off to the emergency room during the night. Won't they be surprised when they wake up.

Won't we be surprised if they're all still asleep by the time we get home!

Might be Indiana's job is causing him stress, but I can't see why. Everyone knows that being a pastor is not stressful. They only work on Sundays, don't they?

Sorry. I tend to get a little sarcastic and cranky when I've had less than four hours of sleep.

Right now I'm cranky because we're sitting here killing time. Once all the initial tests were done and they discovered we were in no immediate danger, they've left us alone. if we weren't directly across from the nurses' station, I might try to take a nap. Guess that's first on my to do list when we get out of here.

So Happy New year. Hope 2012 is all you want it to be.

We're starting it out with a bang.