The lovely and talented Karen over at Chookooloonks has been having a fun little share-fest with her readers in which she shares random facts about herself and her readers share theirs.  I’ve been commenting almost everyday and have assembled quite the little collection.  So, here are some fun and random facts about me:

• I must have something over me when I sleep. Even if it’s just the corner of a sheet or a tiny baby blanket over my shoulder and arm, I can’t sleep without it. Somewhere in my childhood I convinced myself that if a psycho-killer broke in at night he couldn’t stab me through my sheet. And to this day I have to have something over some part of me.
• I don’t understand women who refuse to learn how to use a lawn mower on “principle”. That irks me to no end. Same thing for refusing to learn how to change a tire.
• My dream home has to be on the water – I don’t care if it’s a big lake or the ocean. It can’t just be near it, I have to be able to see the water and hear from my house. Someday…
• For the longest time I couldn’t stand having anything between my toes – flip flops, toe rings, etc. Then a really cute pair of sandals called to me and I got over my “nothing between the toes” thing. I would wear flip-flops 24/7 if I could. I still can’t stand toe-rings, though.
• I hate logos plastered all over things. I don’t care if the handbag is the perfect shape and price, if some damn logo is all over it then no way!
• I have to sleep with a fan on. I cannot sleep in a silent room.
• I often find myself having to hold back from jumping into water when on boats/bridges/etc. When we vacation in British Columbia’s Gulf Islands it’s hard for me to stand at the ferry railing as I fear I will take the plunge. I just love water and want to be in it.
• I CANNOT stand karaoke and can’t for the life of me figure out how that is fun for either the singer or the listeners.
• I tried to give up meat once and lasted for about 6 days.
• My husband and I tried to take dance lessons to prepare for our first dance together at our wedding reception and failed miserably. We both fought each other for the lead. After 2 lessons our instructor (who was also a friend) gave up on us. Now, nearly 8 years later we’ve hardly ever danced together. I think we need to take lessons again – I hope we’d be better at sharing the lead now.
• I have never broken a bone. I’ve hurt tendons and ligaments and have had ACL reconstruction but never a bone.
• I can’t remember my first kiss.
• I have had my tongue and navel pierced – in addition to several holes in each ear. Other than a single hole in my lobes, all the others are gone. I regret losing the tongue the most.
• If I could pull off a pixie haircut I would in a second. I hate hair – seems like such a waste of time and resources.

How perfect that I just start reading Moosh In Indy with this very funny post that won her some serious moola!  Now, she has partnered with the lovely and talented Whoorl to make the world a better place with pretty hair.  I’ve been reading Whoorl for awhile (and of course am now reading Hair Thursday as well) and I know need some serious help but she’s got like a billion people in waiting…what’s a girl to do?  How about post my entire hair history for the world to see in hopes of winning a fabulous, Whoorl-selected and Moosh-funded hair make-over?  Here goes…

I have THICK, straight hair.  It is so thick and unruly my mom kept it short so I rocked the Dorothoy Hamill cut from about birth to 7th or 8th grade when I started caring about my hair.

During that time my mom sometimes experimented with perms – home perms (how I loathed you, Toni!) and in my thick, curl-resistant hair they lasted about a month.  I can’t even tell you how many times I sat in a kitchen chair while my mom tightly rolled all my massive amounts of hair on dozens of rollers so I could sit with stinky chemicals on hair and my head rapped in a plastic bag.  It’s amazing I have any hair left after the punishment I put it through.

gotta love the mullet

In middle school I thought a “professional perm” would last longer so I saved my babysitting money for months to get a salon perm and I thought I looked RAD.  Let’s not talk about the chemical burns I got on my forehead and scalp – they were healed by time I posed for this:

Then the 1990’s and high school came a long and as a two-sport athlete hair just got in the way.  I hated styling it since it never held (my curing iron was covered in purple Aussie hairspray residue) and it was so thick I was always hot.  My thick, heavy hair laughed at ponytail holders and broke free most days.  So, I ended up with basically a Dorthoy Hamill cut again, but this time with an at-home-dye-job:

note how the eyebrows don’t even remotely match the hair

College came and I was every color in the book:  I tried black with a bleached streak in the front which looked like a skunk when pulled back into the almost daily ponytail.  It was super-short, shoulder length, middle of the back long; bobs, straight cuts, bangs, no bangs.  From kool-aid dye jobs and manic-panic to double process salon coloring, basically I tried it all:

The belt, the bangs, the blond, Oh my!

hungover and home for Easter – could my eyes look any glassier?

Ahh, keg parties – how I don’t miss you!

here I am posing with my Grandpa the Senator (on the right) and the State Auditor, I have a turtleneck on because I had HICKEYS all over my neck – I was mortified!

Again with the dark eyebrows and light hair – how did I not notice this?

I remember thinking I was sooo cute when this was taken

me and my wonderful hubby in Vancouver on what would be the trip when we got engaged – just days after college graduation (circa 1999)

one year later on our wedding day

After college I went through some crazy hair – a lot o f very bad, very short cuts.  Then I would start to grow it out and get sick of it and cut it off again.

I grew the back out to the flippy style that was popular in about 2001-02

ugh! bad, bad hair!

Once again on the long road to a grow-out (2005)

I usually come back to a bob of some sort.  Lengths vary, but I haven’t had bangs in years, I kind of want them but haven’t yet make that leap.  What I do know is that my hair takes close to an hour to dry with a hairdryer, so I try to wash it at night; this usually backfires as I try to sleep in the next morning and leave precious little time to do any styling.  It doesn’t hold a curl so I don’t even try anymore.  I spent nearly an hour executing the perfect Whoorl Curl only to have it fall straight within 2 hours – sob!!!  The times I really make an effort are in the weeks post-cut when I’m excited about my new ‘do – I’ll even straight iron in the mornings!

These are before and after pictures from last summer when I had 10 inches lopped off for Locks of Love.  I loved the shorter cut and it’s about as close to a good hair day I’ve had in the recent past, but it’s still the same old cut I always return to.  I also really like my hair in this family picture from last summer, pre-haircut, but it hardly ever looked that that.  I remember spending about 1 1/2 hours getting it to that look.

(family photo by the awesomely talented Ron Cowie)

This is me on a typical day…right now it’s just below my shoulders, air dried with very little styling.  Usually by noon it’s in a low ponytail because I can’t stand it on my neck.  I keep a pack of super-duty XL ponytail holders in my desk for this purpose:

Help me!!

Sometimes the blog world baffles me.  Anyone who blogs, especially about their life and their kids, needs to understand that by putting something “out there” you are inviting the world to comment on it.  In the mommy-blogging world people can get downright bitchy, especially if you happen to post a different viewpoint.  Now, I’m not talking about the trolls that start bashing every little thing (like on ParentDish – gees that can be a wicked place)…I’m talking about mostly joyful places when you comment in a nice way but then get bashed by other commenters for having a differing view.  

Case in point – I commented on Amalah’s recent post about having an awful time with an over-stimulated toddler at an overly-expensive Thomas the Train event.  In the past Amalah has also written about dumping a ton of money on every Thomas the Train playset know to man even though her son never really plays with them. So, after reading about 25 comments from others recalling having the same miserable time at similar TV-show-themed events with cranky and overloaded kids my comment was this: “Sorry, I just don’t get outlaying that much cash for a 2 year old to see a train. Just like I don’t get paying tons of cash to get tix to a Hanna Montana concert for your 5 year old. Does any kid or parent actually enjoy this stuff?  Noah would have had the same enjoyment in the Thomas section of Toys R Us and you could have saved $$. Does make a good blog post, though.” 

And I get return comments like this from commenter Sarey: “Wow, ikate has forgotten how to play. why would you go to a concert or a play or any experience that isn’t in front of a tv?”  I guess what Sarey doesn’t know is that Thomas is a TV SHOW(!) and what I am suggesting, especially for the two-year old set, is why do they watch so much TV that they get so obsessed with a character?  And why do parents feel the need to outlay that kind of cash for a kid who would know no different from going to see a (free) train yard..or even a commuter train?  Why does a great experience for a child have to involve some marketed character? My guess is that any child obsessed with trains would be flipping out and “screaming and squealing with total kid joy” (which is why Amalah said she did it and would do it again).  Commenter Cagey hit the nail on the head with “We have two major rail lines running through our town and we go to watch the trains running by about every other day. My kid still goes spastic every single time we see a train coming through..” but then still managed to slam me by the end of her comment.  

And, of course  you wouldn’t get this from my short comment, but the reason I included the Hannah Montana part is because right after we moved to Cleveland she was performing here and there was a photo of a father with his 3-year old at the concert.  He “just had to get her the tickets” when he found out she was performing here…sounds to me like dad was the one who wanted to see HM perform, because I seriously doubt a 3-year old would know the concert schedule.  

I guess what I’m getting at are two points:  One being that I don’t get the backlash from other commenters on a blog when you post a dissenting viewpoint.  I’ve been reading Amalah for over two years now and in the last year or so her commenters treat her like a goddess who cannot be disagreed with so I hardly ever comment there – even if I agree or liked a post.  Sites like Ask Moxie are blissfully bitch free so I know it can be done, but it’s pretty rare.

Second is that I just don’t get the consumerism we heap onto our little ones.  It’s one thing to visit American Girl for a tea party when a 7-8 year old has been reading the books for a year or two and will remember the special day; or to see HM with a school-age child who knows every word to her songs.  It’s another thing altogether to spend an entire day with a tantruming, screaming 2-year old because you get 2 minutes of joy from the nearly $70 you just shelled out for the experience.  There is so much lost in that exchange – it has become all about the parent being the “Best Parent in the World” and nothing about exploring a child’s wonder.