A vow very happily broken

So before I tell you what I've done to myself, I'm going to tell you about the vow I made.

A bit over three years ago I got my hair cut in a bob, which was my way of celebrating my last big haircut. As I was getting my hair cut, I made myself the promise that I wouldn't get my hair cut short again until I had a baby--as in, in my arms, not just in my womb.

So why the vow? Well, I love having short hair but wanted to try long hair. However, I don't usually last longer than a few months of growing my hair out before I'm done and get it cut. Unless I have a goal. Then I have a vague end date in mind, so the irritable stages of hair growth are manageable. My last goal of this nature was made during my freshman year at BYU when I decided I'd grow my hair out until I got married, expecting it to get very, very long, since I had no intention of getting married before I was 25. Yeah, I got married approximately a year later, maybe not even a year.

So this time I thought, what's a good milestone to use for this next hair growing experience? And then it came to me: a baby! I'd just graduated from BYU, so Sam and I were ready to add #3 to our happy family of two.

This goal was made back in the days when I thought I'd be like all my friends and get pregnant within two months of quitting The Pill. [You'll notice, M.C., I didn't use the term trying to get pregnant, since I know it makes you feel awkward and I'd hate to alienate you. Do you even read my blog? Anyway. There's my shout-out to you.] This meant I'd have approximately a year to grow my hair out, which was more than enough as far as I was concerned.

You might have noticed we don't have a baby and it's more than three years later. This little vow of mine, and how stubborn I can be, is Heavenly Father's idea of a joke. I'm almost positive He's laughing about it.

Anyway.

So I've been very patient about it. I've cut off about three inches total in the last 3+ years, mostly to even out my hair, which was in somewhat awkward layers from the bob. I've been a very good girl.

Then when we applied and were approved for adoption, I decided the vow didn't entirely apply to me anymore, since I would not be growing a baby in my womb. Actually, I decided the vow was pretty much finished, since it was sort of like tempting/taunting Fate as well as somewhat discouraging to me, since it was a reminder of everything I wanted but didn't have.

So . . .

Here's how long my hair was last weekend:

Remember, it's missing a few inches from the whole evening-out business. And don't judge the unevenness of the bangs. That was my attempt to trim them between appointments. Obviously cutting straight lines wasn't a skill I mastered in kindergarten.

I think you know what's coming next.

Yes, this is my hair as of last night. Love!

Isn't it ridiculously cute? Ugh, I'm in love.

The best part was I made up my mind to do this almost right after my last trim (two months ago), but I wanted to make it a surprise for everyone. However, I was a little thrilled about the possibility, so I told my carpool buddy. Give me a break, I'm trapped in the car with her two hours a day three times a week and it was news I was dying to spill. Of course I faltered.

The point is, no one else knew. No, not even Sam. He was pretty shocked. [i.e., he was staring at me all night] But he likes it. And I love it. As I might have mentioned.

And p.s., don't judge the pictures. They were my first attempts at the whole using-a-mirror-and-camera-on-your-phone-to-take-a-picture-of-yourself business everyone seems to be doing nowadays. Also, notice the faces. These come from my incapacity to smile normally for most pictures, especially ones I take of myself.

So now I don't look 12 anymore, right? I look like an honest-to-goodness adult. Right? Right?

[If you don't think so, just lie. I'm tired of being mistaken for a middle/high schooler.]

And p.s., feel free to tell me how much you love my hair and how cute I look. Thanks.

xoxo

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

Cold, darkness, and other things I'm not a fan of

It's getting to be that time of year when I wish I had a little space heater under my desk at work. And when I seriously consider packing my large at-home space heater in the car every day and trucking it to work so I don't have to wear two sweaters.

However, when I woke up this morning my iPhone told me it was 50 degrees outside, when the high for the day was 49 degrees, meaning there was no ice to scrape off my car, so I guess I can't really complain.

In other news, how about that daylight savings time or whatever we went through yesterday? I was looking forward to having a little bit of sunlight at some point of my drive to work this morning, but was there any?

No. Not even a hint over the mountains.

Now I put forth this truly perplexing question to you: Of what use is daylight savings time (or un-daylight savings time or whatever the heck we're in now) if it can't afford a poor girl a little sunlight before she has to slink into her office? I ask you.

But really, does anyone know what the use of daylight savings time and its counterpart is? Besides ruining my life? And why they changed it so the switch happens at random times of year nowadays instead of the nice, predictable April and October pattern we enjoyed for so long?

The things that keep me up at night.

Okay, not really. But it is a question I've pondered before.

Here's another question I've pondered before, many, many times: Why in the world did I stay up so late last night when I knew I'd be getting up at 5:30?!

It's a tired day. But at least it's raining, not snowing.

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

Confession . . . possibilty a guilty one

So when Sam and I got home from our adoption training meeting Thursday night, we may or may not have left the door open longer than necessary and allowed a fly to get in.

Well, it taunted me all day yesterday while I was working from home. It would land on my computer screen (like it knew I didn't want bug guts on my screen) or fly around my head and land on my hair, always moving too fast for me.

Here is my confession: I think I just killed it.

Most of you are likely applauding me. I applaud myself. However, I slammed a stack of papers against its body just over where Sam has his sleeping bag laying out (he went camping with his brother last weekend and is airing out his stuff), and its body disappeared. It wasn't a gooey mass on the papers, and I haven't seen it buzzing around since, and I don't see its body anywhere.

My fear is that it's lost in the folds of Sam's sleeping bag, and the next time he goes camping he'll find it resting alongside him.

Eek.

Just don't tell him, K? What he doesn't know can't hurt him . . .

Did someone say birthday?

No? No one said birthday? Well, I just did.

That's right, it's that birthday time of the year. As in, mine and Sam's. Within 13 days of each other. Heck yes.

Mine came first, and Sam made it very special for me [as usual]. I've made a collage so you can appreciate the hard work he put forth for me.

This was all a surprise for me when I got home from work. Well, except for the party hat on the car headrest--that was a surprise for me when I got in the car to go to work. Both the driver's and passenger's sides got a hat. It was a party in the car. [Yes, I actually worked on my birthday. What's wrong with me? Don't I know what a vacation is?] He wasn't home when I got home, so he missed my reaction, but I'm sure his imagination is tuned enough that he pictured it fairly well.

As you can see, he taped balloons to our front door, got me a "happy birthday" sign, gave our stuffed animals party hats so they could join the fun, arranged my gifts on the table very prettily, bought me flowers [white daisies--my absolute favorite], and even gave one of the birthday balloons a hat. He also packed a birthday hat in my lunch, too, as a surprise. I taped it to my cabinet/shelf/thing above my desk of my cubicle so everyone passing by at work would know it was my birthday.

Don't I have the sweetest husband in the world? He made me feel so special.

Oh, and he made me goulash! It's a recipe from his mom and is basically pasta with a tomato kind of sauce [I've never actually made it, so my understanding of what goes into it is a little vague], and it's possibly one of my favorite meals ever. Not only did he make goulash, however. Check out the pasta:

It's a little hard to see [getting that picture was nigh on impossible what with the glare and lighting], but yes, I got to eat replicas of Mickey's head and hands for my birthday. Shazam. [My mom sent us this pasta from their Disneyland trip in June, in case you're wondering. We don't store it or buy it in bulk or anything, though that would be amazing.] Talk about a thrilling dinner.

So it was really fun. The following gift was "from" our landlady's cat [he's a Siamese]:

I realize it's sideways, but I couldn't figure out how to flip it in Picasa. Don't be a hater.

It says, "Holly, Happy Birthday. Love, Buzz." Isn't our landlady the cutest? We love her.

So that's Holly's Birthday 2010. Now for Sam's. He didn't feel the need to photo document everything, so this part will be relatively short.

Since Sam's always doing super sweet things for me because he loves to, I thought I'd try to return the favor this birthday. Please note that everything that follows is extremely out of character for me and that I'm not cool enough to do this kind of stuff all the time. K, glad we got that settled.

I got home from work [again, working on a birthday--for shame], and gave Sam the first clue for a scavenger hunt I made for him. The scavenger hunt/clue/puzzle was a poem set approximately to the meter of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." I'm not posting the poem here because I sort of can't write poetry, even pretend poetry, to save my life. Besides, it would embarrass me like nobody's business. You'll just have to content yourself with imagining it. Basically, each stanza led us somewhere new--to the theater to pick up play tickets I'd reserved for the next night, to pick up pizza to bring home for dinner, to get an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, etc.--until we got home with the loot and settled down for pizza, root beer, and a movie. It was a lot of fun. :)

That was Sam's Birthday 2010 Day 1.

Day 2 involved going to the play Tuesdays With Morrie, which was ridiculously good. Day 3 involved going over to our cousins', where I snuck in the DVD Prince of Persia [which we saw at the dollar theater and which Sam loved and which oh-so-conveniently came out before Sam's birthday] and gave it to Sam. He was so, so surprised. What's really funny is just that morning we'd been in the grocery store and we'd seen a display of the DVD and he said, "Man, I'd love that movie!" I said, rather convincingly innocent, "Do you want to get it?" He looked at it wistfully then said, "No, we ought to just leave it on our Christmas wish lists." Mwahaha. Shazam, if you will. He totally didn't see it coming. 

And that's the basic rundown of birthdays, Sam and Holly style. We rocked it this year. Welcome, ages 27 and 24, respectively. It's going to be a good year.

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

Accomplishment

After many failed attempts, I have finally managed to make a button linking to our adoption profile. [This was made possible by a very helpful tutorial at Oikology 101.]

Please take a minute to look at my beautiful button, test it, and tell me how awesome it looks and how wonderful it is. As you can see, it's past 12:30am here, so I'm using my sleep for this, meaning your praise should be on the gushing side.

Also, I included the HTML for our button in case you happen to want to add it to your blog so everyone can see it. The best way to get the word out about adoption is, after all, to get the word out all over the place. [We wouldn't cry, either, if you happened to mention us directly in a blog post, too, with links to our blog and/or our profile. Just sayin'.] Yes, this is me rather shamelessly asking you to promote us and our awesomeness. Please, please, please? If you don't mind.

You guys are all awesome and I love you. And . . . I'm going to bed. Coworkers: Don't judge if I'm a little slow on the uptake tomorrow, K? Or is it today? Hmm . . .

November ruminations

Apparently it's November already. I'm sort of wondering what happened to October.

Time slipping by aside, November is a very exciting month for me. Why is that?

Well, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I comes out in theaters!

I'm sort of excited about it. And by "sort of" I mean "I already have our tickets for the midnight showing and am restraining myself from making a pull-down calendar of how many more days/hours/minutes I have to wait and/or from trying on my homemade costume every day from now until the 18th."

To settle my nerves and increase my excitement (and, possibly, yours), here is a picture of the last time I was this excited about Harry Potter.

This is from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release party in 2007, when we were in Troy, Alabama, all summer for an internship. You can tell by the slightly crazed look in my eyes that the handing-out-the-books time was drawing near.

In other news, November is national adoption month, apparently. So spread the word about adoption. And, you know, if you happen to know anyone considering placing their baby for adoption, Sam and I wouldn't mind you recommending us as the incredibly cool individuals that we are.

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

Elevators, BOO-ing, and Awesomeness

Talk about an eventful morning.

So the elevators at my work may or may not be the slowest moving elevators seen on the planet since the '20s (ever seen Thoroughly Modern Millie? Slow like that). There is one in particular which, every morning, just has the doors open so no one can use it.

I think you can see where I'm heading with this.

This morning when Heather and I called the elevator, that happened to be the elevator that opened for us. We had some misgivings, due to it usually being inaccessible in the mornings, but we got in anyway. The doors closed, and that was the end of that.

We pushed the button for 8. Nothing happened. I swiped my key card to see if that would help, even though the button had lit up when I pushed it. Still no movement. We tried 7. Then 6. Then "Doors Open."

Nothing.

That's right--we were locked in the elevator.

Heather reenacting our apprehension/slight hysteria.

We pushed all kinds of buttons to try to get out--all the floors, "Doors Open, "Doors Close"--and still nothing. After approximately five minutes, we were desperate enough to open the little door at the bottom of the elevator and push the "Call" button.

Note: This is a reenactment. During the event we were too worried about getting out alive to take pictures.

I pushed the dreaded button. [p.s., It was really nasty in the box. Possibly years of dust bunnies there. Not even kidding.] There was ringing. Then an operator picked up. Here's an approximation of the call through the speaker hidden in the door:

Operator: Hi, how can I help you?

Me: Yeah, we're locked in an elevator.

Operator: *slight pause* You're locked in the elevator?

Me: Yes. We got in, the doors closed, and it hasn't moved no matter what buttons we push and the doors won't open.

Operator: *longer pause--obviously this is something she's never heard before* Well, okay. Try holding down the "Open Doors" button for ten seconds.

I do so.

Operator: *after about twenty seconds* Anything?

Me: Nothing.

Operator: Okay. Let me verify your address. Are you at [rattles off my building and its address]?

Me: Yep.

Operator: Okay. I'll let your maintenance people know. In the meantime, I want you to push the "Emergency" button every two to three minutes until you're out. [Note: This was one of the buttons we had not yet pushed. We hadn't quite dared. Who knew if the building would go into lockdown?] Do you need anything else?

Me: Nope, I think that's all.

Operator: Well, good luck!

By happenstance, Heather pushed the "Open Doors" button again a few minutes later and the doors magically opened. We got out of there like nobody's business and finally made it up to work. About halfway up to the eighth floor it occurred to us that we ought to have left a note of some kind for the maintenance guys, but no way we were going all the way back to the parking level and facing our nemesis. Hopefully the techs figured it out.

Random, huh? I thought that kind of thing only happened in movies and books.

What's really random is just yesterday Heather and I were discussing what to do should your elevator go crazy and drop all Tower of Terror style, and I mentioned getting stuck in an elevator at one of my old jobs several years ago (i.e., approximately four), but only for about thirty seconds and in the middle of a ride, not the beginning. So I totally jinxed us. Good thing I don't have our deaths riding on my shoulders.

Now for the BOO-ing.

Yesterday morning, I came in to find this treasure on my desk:

I got BOO-ed! [Have you ever done this? It usually goes around neighborhoods and is really fun.] Talk about exciting. Heather, it just so happens, also got BOO-ed yesterday. This means we spent our break yesterday morning at Smith's, which happens to be just around the corner, buying candy.

This morning was our day of BOO-ing. We were a little behind schedule, due to our elevator fiasco, but it worked out. As it happens, Heather and I seemed to be the last people in our department to get BOO-ed, so we decided to spread the love to IT.

You may recall me mentioning the raptor awareness of the Help Desk team. In lieu of that, I used one of my sheets to BOO them, crossed out "BOO-ed," and put "raptor attacked." My dearest hope is that their little chart of days will say "0" when I walk by next. This little joke totally made my day. I'm still chuckling about it. Man, sometimes I'm so funny I just can't stand it.

Now, for the last order of business: awesomeness. In particular, mine.

If you've spent any amount of time with me, you have likely heard me utter the phrase "made of awesome," usually in reference to myself or someone else I'm giving an A+ in awesomeness to at the moment.

In case any of you haters doubted me being made, in fact, of awesome, here is proof on Wikipedia:

Sorry about the cross-outs--it has to do with us trying to be private about who, exactly, we are when it comes to strangers. Lame, I know.

As you know, if it's on Wikipedia, it's the dead truth, so obviously I am, in fact, made of awesome. And it's an incontrovertible fact.

[Heather, my carpool/elevator fiasco/BOO-ing buddy, was kind enough to make this Wikipedia entry for me and take a screen shot of it within the forty seconds or so before Wikipedia shot it down as spam. She is, to continue the theme, made of awesome herself.]

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.