Saturday, December 12, 2009

This Past Week

O.k., I'm back to a pleasing shade of light-medium brown with beige highlights. The box actually says, "beige highlights that are flattering to maturing complexions", or something like that. Really. Hmm.

It is so nice to look in the mirror and not cringe. When we bleached my hair the second time, to get as much red out as possible, things got even worse. Most of my hair was a light banana yellow but still had a lot of red. There I was with braces and hair in an unbelievable shade. I was miserable.

But now that's all behind me. I am very happy with this color and, hopefully, they won't discontinue it.

On a sad (and obviously more important) note, my favorite (and last) uncle died last week. I couldn't make it to the funeral. Sometimes it's tough to be so far away from my family. With kids and all, I just can't jet down for things like that. This uncle always called me "Chatty Cathy", which was the name of a doll that came on the market the year before I was born. I actually never saw this doll until the last few years, when a company re-issued it. Apparently, it was a new kind of talking doll and when I was small, I chattered quite a bit (not unlike my own daughter). My family calls me Kathy and my Uncle Derrell dubbed me "Chatty Cathy". The name stuck.

My daughter, Carmen, was chatty all day long today and I finally asked her why she was talking so much. She sighed in exasperation and said, "I just don't know!" I said I'd start calling her "Chatty Carmen", to continue my uncle's tradition. I haven't seen him since 1999, but I miss him, knowing he's gone.

We also got news last week that the husband of friends of ours passed away this year. It's been a long time since I've received news like this so this week has been rather sober.

The good news is that after more than a week of bright sun and temps during the day of high 20's to mid 30's, with lows in the low 20's at night, we finally got to 40 degrees today! It was down right balmy! I never thought I'd be happy about 40 degree weather! I'm always so cold but after freezing temps for so long, you can really feel the difference in just a few degrees. At least I can.

Now I need to start work on my Christmas letter. Make it short, funny, informative but not too much detail. I hate writing these things but people say they want to know about the family. I got the annual Christmas letter from a dear friend of mine that usually expounds upon how brilliant her children are and how many trips they've taken but this year was different. She was rather subdued. It's been a tough year for many. Praise the Lord for keeping them afloat. Praise the Lord for keeping us afloat, as well!

4 comments:

jugglingpaynes said...

My condolences for your losses. Our last school year I lost an aunt, a great uncle and a great aunt. It is never easy, especially when you aren't able to keep in touch as much as you would like.

I'm glad your hair is back the way you like it. In hindsight you should have spiked your mishap hair and worn a biker jacket. You could have pretended you were a punk rocker. :o)

Peace and Laughter,
Cristina

call*me*kate said...

Dang! I wish I'd thought of that! Of course, if I were 20 years younger, I would have taken advantage of the situation. Age has a way of mellowing you - even if you don't want it to.

- Kate

Cat said...

So glad that you sorted the hair situation, and very sorry for the loss of your uncle.

Enjoy your balmy weather - I'm sure that it's going to get a lot colder up your way yet!

Mama Self said...

Well, Kate, I laughed SO HARD that I started to cry when I first read about your hair mishap. The kids ran in to see what was going on, so I read it to them, but I think they were actually more amused by my reaction than the story. That's when I thought, I had better wait to comment for fear of hurting your feelings. I know I am SO much more tender when I feel bad about myself...
Anyway, I am glad all is well again in the hair department.

I'm sorry about your uncle and your friend. I am glad you found a way to pass a memory of your uncle on to Carmen, though.

Things are much better with Trey, as he has received a couple acceptance letters to two other schools. Now we are waiting on some scholarships to make it happen... :)

Thanks for your prayers about my mother and Lee. Lee is doing better, and we hope to find out soon if he has a torn ACL in his knee...we hope not!

Glad your kids liked the pics of our trip. The buffalo pic was the tower! (Good eye, Chad!) All my real buffalo pics came out way to blurry. We all thought the cell tower was great. They had one of an Indian on horseback, too. They are so much better than regular towers!!

Enjoy the Christmas season. There's so much to be thankful for, and seemingly too little time to focus on it. (We made our 1/2 page newsletter in telegram style this year...short, sweet, and to the point!)

And thanks for being an encouragement. I thank the Lord for my blog friends, too. =)