carrot tops

Being a redhead is part of my identity. My whole life, strangers would stop me and comment on my hair. And when we were children, when Tyler and I were together, people couldn't get enough of our hair. Tyler's being wispy and fine and mine being thick and curly. Until Tyler cut it off, but that is another story for another day. Sometimes I feel like my hair defines me. I blame my mother mainly, because whenever we did something good or bad she would say, "I can't wait for the day when your redheads ________. Like the color of our hair determined our actions. My hair color made me feel rare and beautiful. When I threatened to color it my mom would remind me that people color their hair to get it to look like mine. Do you see what I mean with the mothers and the pressure they put on us young redheads?

Being redheaded has its drawbacks however. It's usually paired with an almost blinding pasty pallor and a healthy sprinkling of freckles. Notice how in the picture I added my skin is the exact color of my wedding gown. It also comes saddled with a lifetime of questions like, "Is this your natural hair color?" and when you answer yes, you get slapped with a suspicious "Really?" It also means I cannot wear green. I don't know why. My mother says it washes me out, makes me look too Irish. And makeup is hard to wear. I don't like wearing black mascara with my fair colored lashes and eyebrows, but the brown is too dull. Since my red hair is ridiculously thick, in the days before the flat iron, I was screwed. I wore it up every single day for about 5 years.

And Lord help me, I hauled off and married a redhead. I was on my 3rd date with my future husband and I made some stereotypical comment about redheads having hot tempers and Nick says, "We sure do." I snapped my head around to look closely at his head and sure enough, peeking under his Jets hat was thick gorgeous auburn hair. Which I had never noticed until that night. Being observant was never my strength. To my credit, he ALWAYS wore a hat. Now that his hair is longer and even more luxurious, he goes without a hat more often and someone, usually Tyler, Sandy, or myself comments on his "Kennedy Hair." The best part of being married to another redhead, is that it gives me great hope that someday I will have Nick's redheaded children and people will envy them their hair. Check out the picture above and try to tell me we won't make some beautiful haired babies.

All of this musing spawned from this website that Nick found. I was initially thrilled to look through it, but after awhile it made me feel less special and less rare so I stopped. But feel free all you brunettes, blondes and silver foxes, browse away.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite scenes from my favorite John Wayne movie, The Quiet Man (but you have to imagine the dialogue in a thick Irish brogue. Promise? Okay here it is.)

Michaeleen Flynn: Forget it, Sean, forget it. Put it out of your mind.
Sean Thorton: Why? What´s the matter? She isn´t married or anything?
Michaeleen Flynn: Married? That one? Not likely. And her with her freckles and her temper. Oh, that red head of hers is no lie.

Or you can watch it here on youtube. The part you're looking for is around 3:00 minutes. Be sure to take time to watch the whole thing!

lotto luck

When I win the lottery, I hope to be like this guy, and not like this guy. By the way, I daydream about winning the lottery ALL the time, and yet I have purchased probably 3 lotto tickets in my life.

I think I'm going about this the wrong way.

What's the first thing you'd do with your millions?

silence that horn

Nick and I live off of a busy street in northwest Oklahoma City. Around rush hour it is not possible to drive down the street without several swear words escaping from your mouth, usually towards other people. There is no left turn lane on this street and very few left turning arrows so if you are in the left lane at a stoplight and someone in front of you is turning left, chances are you will be sitting for a long time. Which is why the city posted signs on a lot of the lights at many intersections along the street that prohibit you from turning left during rush hours like 7-9am and 4-6pm.

So yesterday, Nick and I are driving along said road at 5:30pm and we get stopped at a red light. We're in the left lane, about 3rd in line. The light turns green and the asshole (do you see what I mean about the effects of this street?) in front of the line turns on his left turn signal. Which is against the rules, against the LAW. I was driving so I honked my horn at this person to remind him he cannot turn left and make us all sit here until 10pm when the traffic dies down on the other side of the street.

Nick shrank in his seat and covered his face. "I can't believe you honked at that person."
Once I made the mistake of reaching over and honking the horn while Nick was driving. That was the time where he had to restrain himself from punching me in the face. Apparently that is a NO NO for men. His rationale is, "The guy that is getting honked at is not going to beat you up, but your husband instead" My thoughts? "I'm okay with that." More the reason to honk all I want.

Seriously though, what is the problem with honking when someone needs to GO?!? That is the point of a horn isn't it? To get someone's attention? If people (like my husband) didn't get SO mad when people honked at THEM, maybe we could use the horn when needed and not take offense.

When someone honks at ME, it's usually because I am reading a magazine at the green light and now it's turning yellow, just enough time for me to go through, but no one else. I think someone, someday will make an exception with me and beat up a woman just this once...

100 Nay Facts

It was a long weekend....

1. I was born in Broken Bow, Nebraska.
2. I was the heaviest baby born in the hospital; 10 pounds, 12 ounces.
3. I'm deathly afraid of dinosaurs (in movies, obviously) and whales.
4. I used to be afraid of sharks, but surprisingly I'm not so much anymore. Getting used to them?
5. I feel very narcissistic writing all these facts about myself.
6. 90% of the TV I watch is on my computer or on DVD. Rarely, do I turn on the television to watch my favorite shows.
7. I have an embarrassing long list of favorite TV shows: The Office, Ugly Betty, Brothers and Sisters, The Hills, Peep Show, Gilmore Girls, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Shield, Coupling, The Vicar of Dibley, Bridezillas, Big Love, Entourage, 30 Rock, Sex and the City, Grey's Anatomy, Arrested Development, Project Runway
8. I am NOT a fan of most reality TV: American Idol, The Bachelor, Survivor, Big Brother, The Real World. All of the the people on those shows are self-centered losers.
9. Nick and I had our first date on April 21, 2004 and our first kiss on May 21, 2004.
10. He kissed me to get me to stop talking.
11. I read about the same 20 books every year, very rarely do I let new books into the rotation.
12. My first car was a 1997 red jeep wrangler and I loved that car.
13. My next car was a green nisaan sentra and I hated that car.
14. My next car (also my current car) is a white toyota corolla and I like the car very much.
15. She doesn't have cruise control and the radio is acting up.
16. Her name is Maggie.
17. I'm seriously considering naming my first daughter Maggie. It's been my favorite name for a long time.
18. I love to listen to talk radio, hate most current music.
19. Politicians makes me want to scream. Egomaniacs, the lot of them.
20. I watch a lot of British TV. Sometimes the accent carries over to my real life.
21. I recently discovered I can watch unlimited episodes of Saved By the Bell on Netflix.
22. The show has absolutely no continuity whatsoever. It's annoying.
23. I can't stop watching it.
24. I am a counselor at an agency in Midwest City, Oklahoma.
25. I mostly love my job. Sometimes it's overwhelming.
26. I work mainly with kids and they're hysterical.
27. I'd tell you more about them, but there's this pesky thing called client-therapist confidentiality.
28. I wore my hair in a bun for about 5 years until I discovered the flat iron.
29. It changed my life. I have since turned at least 5 of my friends onto the flat iron.
30. I have since stopped flat ironing my hair and started embracing my natural curls.
31. By the end of the day, my hair is usually in a ponytail or pigtails.
32. My hair color is my best feature.
33. Nick just read that and said, “that's debatable” and then checked out my rack.
34. My hair was jet black when I was born, turned red and curly, went red and straight and now is somewhere in between.
35. I hate spending money on clothes.
36. I'd rather spend money on movies, entertainment and scrapbooking stuff.
37. I like to scrapbook but it's taken me 7 months to make about 6 pages of my wedding scrapbook.
38. No one makes me laugh harder than my mom, dad, brother, brother's girlfriend and husband.
39. I've never broken a bone.
40. Nick has taken up photography as a hobby.
41. It gets annoying having a camera in my face all the time.
42. I wish I could cook.
43. I'm a better baker than a cook.
44. I'm not much of a drinker. I go for months without a drink. Probably because when I DO drink, I drink a bit too much and am turned off alcohol for awhile.
45. I'm a bit scared of heights. Not so much in a plane, but when I'm only surrounded by air.
46. I hate tomatoes, but tomato soup is in my top 3 favorite food.
47. I'm watching the Saved By The Bell episode where Jessie's stepbrother comes to town and everyone hates him at first but then they decide they like him and convince him to stay in LA instead of moving to NY. He agrees to stay and then is never seen again.
48. I absolutely cannot apply eyeliner.
49. This weekend I got a makeover at Sephora. The guy put so much eye makeup on me, it took seven cotton balls to get all of it off my face later that night.
50. I can't believe I'm only halfway done with this.
51. As a therapist I'm always very offended when therapists sleep with their patients on tv and movies.
52. I feel like that is SO unbelievable, but it real life that is the #1 reason therapists lose their licenses.
53. My least favorite chore is putting away laundry. Most of the time we end up pulling clean, folded clothes out of the hamper to wear.
54. I also hate going to the grocery store and try to figure out how to get Nick to go without me.
55. Nick and I drink about a CASE of diet coke every 2 weeks.
56. We're losing our short term memory because of the aspartame in the diet coke, but we can't cut back.
57. I hate drinking water.
58. Nick and I are trying to watch all the best picture nominated films since 1970. We've seen about 95 out of 195. Yikes.
59. So far the favorites have been Chinatown, Deer Hunter and Coming Home.
60. I planned on being an elementary school teacher my whole life until I took a psychology class freshman year and was hooked.
61. I've been out of the country 3 times. All three times I went on a cruise to the same beach in Cozumel, Mexico.
62. I collect baby-sitter club books.
63. I have about 150 of them.
64. Our books are arranged on our shelf by color.
65. I am a terrible decorator.
66. I LOVE to dance. In my car, at home, at work anywhere.
67. Nick and I go to the movies about 3 times a month.
68. I don't think we'll turn into those people who say they “don't have time to see movies.”
69. I have very lame taste in music. I blame my parents.
70. Even though I am a married lady now, I still look at wedding planning websites.
71. I chipped my tooth when I was eight years old. I never got it fixed.
72. I use terrible language. I cuss all the time.
73. My kids are going to be the potty mouthed ones on the playground.
74. I love playing board games but Nick gets mad at me when I win so I avoid playing with him.
75. Nick and I did not live in the same state until 2 months after we were engaged.
76. I read magazines and books in the car. While driving.
77. I like to talk to kids in grocery stores.
78. I had a crush on Nick the first time I met him.
79. One of my pet peeves in movies is when there is a strong woman who comes across kind of bitchy and says she doesn't need a man and then she gets drunk and admits that she is lonely and falls all over the man. Examples: The Wedding Planner, Medicine Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Two Weeks Notice and many more.
80. I think I could eat pizza everyday for the rest of my life.
81. I used to think fall was my favorite time of year but end of spring/beginning of summer is changing my mind. The weather brings back some strong memories.
82. My engagement ring is a moissanite, not a diamond. The reasons for this are: a) I didn't want Nick to spend a fortune on something I will probably lose, but I also didn't want a tiny speck of a stone on my ring. b) The markup on diamonds is so ridiculous, I can't even talk about it. c) Diamonds aren't rare and the reason they are so expensive is because the DeBeers company controls the market.
83. If I had my way all my children would be girls.
84. Nick has turned me onto football. We've been to 2 Jets game and they lost both times.
85. I really want to ride on a Segue and a moped someday.
86. I'm shopping for a bike right now.
87. I've always felt there is something so magical about summer nights. They make me wish I could go back to high school.
88. I've got the baby fever real bad right now, but Nick won't let me.
89. I used to be more extroverted, but now I feel very anxious in large groups of people.
90. I love office supplies.
91. I read a lot of blogs of people that I don't know, or I just went to high school or college with, but we're not really friends.
92. I think everyone probably does this, but we all keep it a secret.
93. I like cats more than dogs and I think it's stupid how people can say they hate cats but if you say you hate dogs, they look at you like you said you hate money or democracy or something.
94. I'm a total slob
95. I hate being woken up by a loud clap of thunder. I usually sleep badly for the rest of the night after it happens because I'm waiting for it to happen again.
96. I used to have a fairly good singing voice but I feel like it is getting worse the older I get.
97. The bathroom at Target smells like my kindergarten class in Ohio.
98. I want to get my brain scanned.
99. Going to the movies is my favorite date. Going to a bookstore is second.
100. I'm going through a phase right now where if I agree to hang out with someone or go somewhere, as soon as I get there I want to leave.

Regular Men

I need to preface this by saying this was originally going to be a rant about my husband, but when I had time to think about it more it turned into a rant about Hollywood. Let me explain...

I just finished watching a lovely movie called P.S. I Love You, starring Hilary Swank and Gerald Butler. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone here, but I'm pretty sure Nick is the only one who reads it after I tell him to. So, Holly (Swank) and Gerry (Butler) are married for nine years when he discovers he has a brain tumor and dies. Holly is obviously wracked with grief and finds it difficult to move on with her life until she starts receiving letters from Gerry, from beyond the grave. In the letters he gives her all kinds of advice and reassurance that he loves her and everything you would expect in a letter from beyond the grave. (It seems more meaningful in italics) He evens plans a trip for her and her two best friends to Ireland, where the friends find letters from Gerry waiting for them as well as Holly. As you might expect, there is one last meaningful letter from Gerry in which he tells her he WANTS her to move on and fall in love again and Holly eventually sleeps with someone else, starts a new business, becomes rich and moves on. Lovely, indeed.

So I finish the movie a little teary-eyed and lovesick and then Nick comes into our bedroom and sits next to me on the bed. I snuggle into his chest, ready for a little sweet talk and this is how the conversation goes:

Me: Babe? Will you promise me something?
Him: Depends on what it is. (already it's not going as planned)
Me: If you have a terminal illness, will you write me letters and arrange them to get to me after you're dead. You know, from beyond the grave?
Him: Are you crazy? You want me to spend my final time on earth writing you letters? I'm gonna be livin'! I won't have time for that! You know I love you, I don't need to put it in a letter.

I punched him in the arm and got into the shower in a huff. While shampooing, I was steaming over what an asshole I'd married. How dare he? If he really loved me, he'd promise to do whatever I asked, especially if he was dying, the selfish bastard. About the time I started with the conditioner, I got a shock to my system and realized this wasn't Nick's fault (there is a first time for everything). It was the movie's fault. They put these ideas into our heads and set us up for disappointment in our marriages! So I started thinking about other movies that I love that set regular men up for failure and I came up with SEVERAL examples which I will now outline for you here

I'm calling this list What Regular Men Won't Do So Don't Get Your Hopes Up And Just Learn To Love Them For Who They Are:

1. Pretty Woman - regular men won't pick you up from Hollywood Boulevard and give you $3,000 to go to work parties with them and then fall in love with you and buy you a lot of clothes. Nor will they spend all day shopping with you. I don't need to tell you what a regular man might do with a prostitute, do I?

2. Return to Me - regular men won't get on a plane and fly to Italy and search the country to find you and tell you it's okay that you in fact are host to their dead's wife's heart and it's okay. You've got an uncomfortable email coming your way instead.

3. Win A Date With Tad Hamilton - regular men who are secretly in love with you won't tell the guy that you are dating that you have six smiles: one when something makes you laugh, one when you're making plans, one when you're laughing out of politeness, one when you are uncomfortable, one when you are making fun of yourself, and one when you are talking about your friends. There is no way Nick could tell you how many smiles I have, but he could tell you how many stages of crazy I have in a heartbeat.

4. Love Actually - regular men won't show up at your door with a set of poster boards with a dozen reasons why he loves you or whatever. They may send a drunken text message, however.

5. Only You - regular men won't fall in love with you after you slam into them looking for another man and then do ANYTHING to get you to fall in love with them, including lying about their identity, planning a huge elaborate hoax to trick you into falling in love with them and then helping you find the supposed man of your dreams.

And here's the ultimate thing regular men won't do...
6. Dirty Dancing - regular men won't come up to you at a social function in front of your parents (especially in front of your dad, who fixed a botched abortion for someone he thinks your man got into "trouble") and dance with you on a stage in front of hundreds of people. They certainly wouldn't tell your dad to keep you out of a corner, if your dad saw fit to put you there in the first place


Because I don't want to leave you women (and men) out there is despair, here are some examples of what regular men WILL DO...(this is based off my own personal experience)
1. They will always pump your gas.
2. They will hug your mother when they see her.
3. They will bring you Diet Coke in bed after a hard night of drinking.
4. They will call you wifey (not in front of other people, mind you.)
5. They will take out the trash.
6. They will rub your feet after a long day (but they won't paint your toenails, that's Hollywood and a Justin Timberlake video)
7. They will absentmindedly stroke your neck while you drive.
8. They will still insist on paying for meals even after the money all comes from the same place.
9. They will send you messages throughout the day when they see something that makes them think of you.
10. They will dance with you in the kitchen (only sometimes, because they don't want you to start expecting it).

I am ever thankful for my regular man. And I should point out that after I told him what a jerk he was for not agreeing to send me letters, he relented and said he would use an email service that lets you post-date emails for several years ahead. That's what we call love in the digital age.