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Lately I’ve been feeling like I have a major case of The Frumpiness. I’m not sure why, I’ve just been feeling sort of… blah. Very boring suburban mom-ish. Which, well, I AM a suburban mom, so I don’t know why it bothers me, but it does. Maybe it’s because I spend almost every day in a hoodie and jeans. I sort of miss having an office job (or fancy events) to dress up for.

Also, when Cate and I fly to Mississippi next week, we’re going to be meeting up with a few girls from high school, who I’ve reconnected with via the Miracle That Is Facebook. It’s not a bad thing, I’m actually kind of excited about it. But I feel like I need to look cute and make a good impression since I haven’t seen any of them in about fifteen years or so. Maybe it’s because in high school, I was sort of a non-entity; I only had a couple of friends, I didn’t date at all, I wasn’t involved in any extracurricular activities. Basically, because I was fat, I tried to be as invisible as possible. So I’d like to show that I’m cute and sassy and fun and all that good stuff.

Really, I’m sure that our get-together will be fine. After all, we’ve all grown up since high school. One girl who used to be head cheerleader is now a lawyer working for the state attorney general’s office. I’d say it’s a safe bet that she isn’t the same person she was 15 years ago either, right? And we all have little girls around the same age, so it should be a lot of fun. I’m just being unnecessarily neurotic.

But anyway, back to the issue of The Frump: I recently found out that one of my neighbors is a hairdresser. I wouldn’t have booked an appointment with her, because what if she sucked, and then trying to explain why I never went back to her would be super-awkward. But she did my next-door neighbor’s hair, and she looked fantastic, so I thought what the heck, and I asked for her card.

Today I went to her salon and got a haircut and an eyebrow wax. It’s kind of amazing how something so simple can make me feel so much better about myself. Seriously, I feel about a hundred times less frumpy now than I did this morning.

You can’t really tell in that picture since Cate is obscuring half of my head, but I think my haircut is basically “The Rachel,” just a little bit longer. I like it a lot so far, although the real test will be to see how it looks when I have to style it myself later.

So, yay! I have groomed eyebrows and a new haircut, which cost less than half what it cost me to get the exact same thing done in Washington, and I’m feeling pretty cute for the first time in a long time.

Cate says, “Just don’t go thinking you’re the cutest one in the house, lady, cuz you ain’t.”

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Today is my birthday.

It’s weird that it’s been kind of a non-event on my mental radar. I’m really excited about Cate’s first birthday in a couple of weeks, so I kind of keep forgetting about mine. Strange how that works, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not like 32 is some big landmark number.

Looking back at my blog entries from last year, I see that I forgot about my birthday last year as well. Of course, that was because I was so preoccupied with feeling miserable and wanting my pregnancy to be over and done with.

I do have a couple of nice birthday things going on, though. I went shopping yesterday and got myself some jeans, thanks to my sister. I’m getting a massage and a facial, courtesy of my parents and Dave, respectively. And tomorrow night, I’m having dinner with Kris. So it’s definitely a lot better than last year - if nothing else, I’m at least going to get out of the house.

Plus, Cate is at daycare today and I don’t have any major pressing deadlines going on at work (at least not right now), so I can kind of enjoy some Mommy Downtime. I think I might take a bubble bath and a nap. Happy birthday to me, indeed.

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Sorry the blog posts are so few and far between these days. It’s frustrating that every time I have a few baby-free minutes to write something, my web site is down. The tech support people at my sucky web hosts say that this isn’t related to comment spam, which is what they claimed it was last time. Now they’re saying it’s a server problem on their end, and they’re trying to fix it. Hmph. Apparently changing web hosts involves something to do with the exporting and importing of databases, so I’m waiting until Dave can help me with it because I know I will screw it up. Hopefully the fact that I mentioned it here will shame him into doing it sooner rather than later. (Thanks, sweetie!)

So, new topic…

At some point when my folks were here, my mom looked at me kind of hard and asked me how long it had been since my last haircut. I remembered that it had been about 6 months because I had gotten it cut right after Cate was born. My mom asked me if I would get it cut if she gave me the money for it, and I told her not to bother because I’d do it after I start working again and have a slightly more flexible cash flow.

Sure enough, the next day, I found my wallet on top of the diaper bag and some extra cash jammed in it. My mom is not very subtle, but I thought it was sweet of her. She knows how important it can be to feel cute when you’re a new mom and everything else on you looks like crap on a stick. Might as well have sassy hair, right?

So, I decided that it was time for a change, and I went ahead and had my stylist whack several inches off. I told her that I wanted it to be low-maintenance, and long enough that I can still get in a ponytail. This is why I adore her, because she can take a totally vague description of what I want and turn it into something I love.

Behold, the before picture:

And the after:

I’m quite happy with it. And I can still get it in a ponytail, so hooray for that.

In other news, today we met up with my friend Janet and her baby at the park, and gave Cate another try on the swings. She didn’t like it all the first time, but today she seemed to enjoy herself for a few minutes, so I guess that was an improvement. It was a fun afternoon.

P.S. Happy birthday to my sister, who’s turning 29 tomorrow. For like the 8th time.

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This may be the first time I have ever posted a recipe on my blog, so to compensate for the Domestic Goddess Overdose-ness of it all, here’s the background story…

I’m pretty good at making entrees, but I’m not very adept with desserts. I’ve tried to make my grandmother’s buttermilk fudge recipe on numerous occasions, and I have about a 30% success rate with it; most of the time, it turns out like caramel. Still yummy, but not what I was going for. And a few weeks ago, I tried to make homemade cookies for my neighbor - the one who checked on our cats when Dave and I were flooded out of our town - and they were a disaster. I was trying to make sugar cookies, and even though I followed the recipe directions exactly, they ended up tasting like hard, flat breakfast biscuits. (Note to you Brits: biscuits are not the same thing as cookies in this country. They’re more like dinner rolls.) I ended up making her slice-and-bake cookies and then smearing them with homemade frosting so she wouldn’t know the difference. As it turns out, frosting is pretty easy to make.

Point being, this whole Holiday Baking Day with the girls had me a little anxious, since I was pretty well convinced that I suck at making desserts. I asked my friend Janet for ideas, and she directed me to Martha Stewart’s recipe site. Riiiight. Because that’s attainable. Well, it is attainable if you’re Janet; everything she makes looks like it should be photographed for a magazine. The girl has seriously got the Mad Cooking Skillz. But Martha Stewart’s name alone scares the bejeezus out of me, so I was too intimidated to try anything there.

So, I asked my mom. She suggested my great-grandmother’s recipe for praline cookies, but she warned me that they aren’t always a hit. Apparently my dad doesn’t like them because he says they aren’t sweet enough. I thought that might be perfect, since Dave doesn’t like regular pralines because he says they’re too sweet. It’s not his fault, he didn’t grow up in this country, so he hasn’t adapted to our super-sugary, make-your-teeth-hurt desserts.

(Random exception: a couple of months ago, I had a pregnancy craving and came home with a box of Twinkies. Dave had never tried them before, so he had one and decided that they were awesome. It made me laugh because who on earth decides at 35 that they like Twinkies? But between the two of us, we wolfed down quite a few before we decided that we were sick of them.)  

Anyway, since most of the people involved in the Holiday Baking Day thing weren’t from the south, and probably had no idea what a praline was to begin with, and therefore would have no basis for comparison or judgment, I decided to attempt the praline cookies. And that, folks, is the very long story of how this recipe came about.

Praline Cookies
(courtesy of my great-grandmother, who in our family is referred to as Ma Mere, because we’re just crazy French-Spanish-Creole south Louisiana folk like that)

* 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)      
* 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* pinch of salt
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup pecan halves

Let butter sit out at room temperature until soft. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
 
In a bowl, mix softened butter and sugar, and beat with electric beater until smooth.

Add egg and mix well. Then add flour, salt and vanilla. Mix again.

Add pecan pieces (then stir, don’t use electric mixer). When well mixed, shape into balls about the size of a pecan, place on a buttered cookie sheet and flatten to about 1/4″ thick.

Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 3 dozen.

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I’ve been so incredibly lazy about blogging lately, mainly because it’s getting increasingly difficult to sit still and string any kind of coherent thought process together. My attention span is virtually non-existent these days. Dave and I have tried to watch a couple of movies together in the past week or so, and I find myself getting fidgety and bored long before the two-hour mark rolls around.

(Which, seriously? The Da Vinci Code? Was ok, but waaaaay longer than necessary. Of course, I think I’m the last person in the English-speaking world who hasn’t read the book yet, which is probably the only reason I found the movie somewhat interesting to begin with.)

So, here are some random odds and ends, which should probably each be their own blog posts, but I can’t make my brain develop them any further than this:

* My last day at work was Wednesday. It was weird, because I didn’t hate my job at all, so I wasn’t excited about leaving like I thought I might be. Most of the times that I’ve quit jobs in the past, I’ve left feeling very “woo-hoo, I’m outta here!” And I was always moving on to something better. It’s strange this time, to leave a job and not know when I’ll be looking for another one. I know that Dave and I decided a long time ago to just roll with it and see how things go after the baby arrives, but I’m usually a bit of a planner, so this is all feeling quite foreign to me.

* The problems that I’ve been having with my stomach haven’t let up yet. (It’s been over two weeks now, lucky me.) I saw my primary care doctor on Thursday, and hopefully I’ll hear the results from those tests tomorrow. She said her initial guess is that I either have some kind of bacterial infection or a parasite. Charming.

* Yesterday a group of women that I’m friends with got together and had a little Holiday Baking Day. Basically, everyone made two or three things, and then we all traded off, so everyone got lots of Christmas goodies to take home. Most of the things that I got (peppermint bark?) are the types of treats that I would never think of trying to make myself, so it was pretty cool. It was also nice to get to a chance to hang out with the girls, since there were a few people there who I only see every once in a great while.

Oh, and if any of you want my great-grandmother’s recipe for praline cookies, let me know, because they’re really easy and quite yummy. (Aside to Alphagal: according to my mom, it was Ma Mere’s recipe. I’m guessing Nahnee must’ve made them too, though, because I had the weirdest childhood nostalgia flashback moment when I first tried them.)

* This same group of women has also organized a book club, which I’m trying to participate in. Our first meeting is next Saturday, so between now and then, I’m supposed to read “The Alchemist.” Which is another book that it seems like everyone in the world has read except me. I found Dave’s copy, but with my non-existent attention span, so far I’ve only made it as far as the preface. Luckily it’s a short book, so hopefully I can hammer through the next 175 pages sometime in the next week. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with the book club after the baby arrives, but I like the idea of it, so I’m going to give it a try. 

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I’m officially 24 weeks pregnant today. And since I’m trying to keep up with tummy photos every six weeks or so, I figured that I would combine them with before-and-after pics of my hair. Two birds, one stone, yadda yadda.

So, this is before the haircut:

There was this whole other drama yesterday afternoon about getting the crib delivered to our house, and how the delivery guy was well over an hour late, and how I almost missed my haircut appointment because of him, and how I almost yelled at him that he shouldn’t come between a crazy pregnant lady and her hairstylist because dammit, this is all I have left when the rest of my body is going to hell!

I didn’t yell at him. He was very nice and apologetic about the delay, and I managed to be pretty darn polite, given how tense the whole thing made me.

Oh, but hey, I have a crib! It’s still in a box by the front door, but at least it’s here. The website I ordered it from had made it sound like it was going to take 4-6 weeks to receive it, and I think it showed up something like ten days after I ordered it. And I was only five minutes late for my haircut. So really, no complaints.

My hairstylist is great - she’s one of those rare finds who genuinely listens to my incredibly vague description of what I want my hair to look like, and she executes it very well. Although she has, on occasion, told me that there was no way on earth that what I described would work on me, and I appreciate her honesty. The bangs, she said, definitely would work, and she thought it’d be really cute. So we decided to go for it.

She also has a three year-old daughter that was born on my due date (February 2nd), so we talked pregnancy and baby stuff the whole time, which was fun. Because, you know, I don’t get to talk about that stuff nearly often enough. Like with anyone who’ll listen to me. And even some people who only pretend to listen (hi Dave!).

As for the final results… Well, I’m still a little in shock.

I haven’t seen myself with bangs in probably a decade, so I keep doing double-takes every time I pass a mirror, because it just doesn’t feel like “me.” I think I might like it, I’m just not used to it yet.

Dave says he likes it. And my mom (who demanded that I email her a picture the minute I got home from the salon) says that I look like the pictures of herself when she was pregnant with my sister. Which I’ll take as a compliment, because she was 23 years old at the time. If having bangs means that I get to shave off the better part of a decade, I think I might keep them forever.

I suppose I should have some sort of “I’m six months pregnant and here’s what I’ve learned so far” update here, but I’m drawing a blank, so I think I’ll leave that for a future entry.

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Thank you all for your suggestions on the previous post. I found an Episcopal church that’s relatively nearby, and I went ahead and called them to ask what the services are like, because I really don’t like walking in not knowing what to expect. It sounds good, and the guy on the phone promised that they have no bongos. (Yes, I specifically asked.) I think I’m going to give them a test run on Sunday, and I’ll report back afterward.

Honestly, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of the Episcopal church before. It’s essentially the American version of the Anglican church, which is how Dave was raised, so it makes sense to at least check it out and see how it feels.

I should add, though, that one of the Methodist churches that Kris and I tried was actually pretty nice. It was a little modernized, but not to a scary degree like that last one. I liked the minister, they do lots of really good local community work, and they had a church member who’s been HIV-positive for the last 12 years get up to speak because she had just gotten back from the United Methodist Church’s nationwide summit on global AIDS in Washington, D.C. Who knew that such a thing even existed, but Kris and I both thought it was cool.

In other, totally unrelated news, I am having some major issues with my hair lately. Ever since my gastric bypass surgery (four and a half years ago), I have noticed two very strange changes with my hair: it grows crazy fast, but it also falls out in large amounts. This means that there’s always a pretty large amount of “new growth” sprouting up on my head, causing those annoying little fly-away hairs that stick straight up. For the last four years, it’s been irritating, but at least somewhat manageable.

However, it would seem that another side effect of pregnancy is the acquisition of thicker hair, which means that I now have even more new growth showing up on my head. I’m honestly not too excited about the prospect of thicker hair, since my hair was plenty thick before I got knocked up. And besides, I hear that it all falls out when you’re three or four months post-partum anyway. So I’m not getting attached to this new stuff.

In the meantime, it’s everywhere, and it’s driving me insane. The worst place is right around my forehead - I have all of these short little hairs along my hairline that make it look like I started to go for bangs, and then changed my mind when I was about 20% there.

So, I gave up. I called the salon, made an appointment, and tomorrow: I am getting bangs.

I’m sure this will all end in tears, since I usually hate the way bangs look on me. But if bangs can make the stupid new hairs a little less obvious, I’ll give them a try. And I love my hairstylist, so if anyone can make bangs look halfway decent on me, I think she’s the one who can pull it off.

Pray for me. (See how I tied it back to the religion thing? Wasn’t that clever? Yeah, I know.)

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