if I have just sat through Hannah Montana and Justine is asleep on the couch? 

Are you jealous?  Wanna come over and watch with me?  Hey!  I think The Suite Life of Zach and Cody is on soon too.  LOL!! 

Being the psychology freak that I am, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable and adept when it comes to understanding people and their emotions.  I know that no matter what the intentions are of ones actions, the feelings they generate in others are something the "actor" cannot control.  Feelings are personal.  Feelings are something that are shaped by the experiences and environment of the person experiencing them.  Feelings are never wrong.  When there is an emotional reaction to something that is unexpected it takes time, communication, and true open mindedness to over come and change the once natural reaction or feelings to certain things. 

People don't become who they are overnight, and you cannot undo bad habits or remove triggers to certain emotional reactions overnight.  Attempting to force someone to change simply will not work. 

Do not tell me how I feel.  Do not tell me how I should feel.  Let me be who I am.  I will never be who you want me to be; as I can only be myself. 

The older my kids get the more I learn about their friends and respective families.  Naturally this is because when kids grown they lean on their friends for support and share the intimate details of their family dynamics.   One of Jeremy's friends [we'll call him Russell] has an alcoholic father.  He has been battling this disease for many, many years.   About 4 years ago Jeremy came home one day and told me that Russell's parents were getting a divorce and selling their home.  Sad times.  Jeremy and I talked about ways he could be there for this friend. 

Although Russell moved, they still stayed in the same school district and the boys remained friends.  His parents never did divorce.  Over the years Russell's dad has been in and out of alcohol rehab programs.  He has gotten several DUIs.  The last one resulted in him having to wear one of those alcohol monitoring ankle bracelets like Lindsay Lohan.   He remained sober during that time.  He attended his kids sporting activities.

Until 3 days ago.

Anyone want to guess what happened 3 days ago?  If you guessed the anklet came off  you'd be correct.

Jeremy was sharing with me a conversation between Russell and his dad from last night.  Russell shared with his dad how badly it hurt him that he was drinking again and not participating in Russell's life.  My heart broke for Russell as I listened.  My heart broke for his siblings and his mom. 

We all can be there fore them, but we cannot make this man get help.  We can only pray that he'll seek drug addiction help on his own.  I know that there are many different types of drug rehab programs in which he could participate.  Participate being one of the keys words in that sentence.  He has to want to change and grow.  I pray that he does one day soon.

My heart hurts sitting here watching from the sidelines.  I can only imagine how painful the whole situation is for their family.  I am praying for them all.

No matter what I do, I just cannot convince myself that I like my hair. *Sigh* In order to get a curl without frizz I go through an enormous amount of prep. I shampoo and condition my hair in the shower each morning. Immediately after I get out I put on mousse. I then mix leave in conditioner and gel together and put that in my hair, wrap it in a towel and finish getting ready. That takes about 45 minutes, so my hair drys just a tad. I remove the towel and then apply a spray gel over all my hair. Then I stand there and use the diffuser to blow dry my hair for a good 20-30 minutes. ALL THAT WORK gets me a "wet" look. Not too bad, but not a look I consider good for work. It looks like this:



Slowly on the drive to work I use a soft cloth and crunch or squeeze my hair to get rid of the crunchy wet look. That works fairly well most [but NOT all] days. I end up with something like this:




When it turns out like that, I like it. The problem is that it RARELY looks that soft and curly. It usually just looks wavy and frizzy - with a few great curls here and there. And by about 2 in the afternoon, no matter how great my hair looked when I got rid of the crunchiness, it just looks out of control and frizzy. *Sigh* I looks like this [well - you cannot really capture the frizz in the picture]:



When I'm at work I am so self-conscious about my hair. It makes me feel like I am not "pulled together" and professional. The really sucky thing is that I cannot seem to capture the reality of my misery in pictures. I am certain you're all going to think I'm crazy.

Why can't hair just be easy to deal with and not frizzy and messy!?! WAH.

I returned to the city in which I was born to see my cousin get married.  I was born in Bellingham, Washington and lived in Ferndale, Washington until I was two.  I honestly don't recall any of this area at all. It was really neat to come here and see where my mom and aunts were raised.  It was cool to finally meet family I had  never seen in person before.

I posted a few pictures of our adventure so far here: And To Think.