Growing, Growing, Gone!

Yep!  It was time...

My hair has been driving me crazy for a while now, and I finally got it cut last night...almost two feet of it!

Starting late last summer, I would periodically have friends and family ask if I was growing my hair out to donate it.  At that point, I definitely wasn't.  I thought that colored hair wouldn't be accepted as a donation, so I hadn't even considered it as an option.  Then, in November, I went to get my hair cut and highlighted with the plan to have it cut just past my shoulders.  As we were talking, my sweet hairdresser, Sarah Bryan, asked if I had ever considered donating it.  When I told her that I hadn't because it was colored, she said that you could donate colored hair as long as it was healthy!  At that point, I decided to have her add some long layers to give it a little change, but I opted not to have her cut it too much so that I could get all the info and cut it for donation at my next appointment.

When Sarah sent the information to me, we were both disappointed after looking at the details and learning that they (Locks of Love) will accept colored hair but not bleached hair (most highlights, including some of mine, are bleach).  At that point, I had made up my mind that I wanted to donate, so I was really disappointed.  I started doing some research of my own and found several organizations that accept hair donations (if interested, see more details below).  Each one has different length, color, cut date and other donation requirements.  Exactly ONE of those organizations accepted bleached hair.  I was thrilled to email Sarah with the results of my research!

It was a long time coming, but I finally got an appointment scheduled for "donation day."  Stephanie went with me to take pictures and also got her hair done.  It was a fun evening with Stephanie and Sarah.  It was wonderful to finally get a lot of my hair cut off, but it made it even more exciting that I was going to be able to donate it.  Sarah was thrilled and made it that much more fun as she chopped it all off!

Plus, how can you not be excited about helping improve the self-esteem of a child who does not have hair of his/her own?

Photo Credit

Before

Braided and ready to go

Cutting

Feels so much better!

After

When Sarah got ready to cut and style, we talked about it more and ended up deciding to cut it shorter than we had initially planned.  We probably could have cut more for donation.  :o(  Oh well...the braided pony tails were 14.5 inches, which means the actual hair donated was even longer.  One hair pulled from a braid was 20 inches long!  Sarah also thinned out my thick hair quite a bit.  Even after cutting off all those pony tails, there was a lot of hair on the floor when she was finished!

It has been a long time coming, and I love it!  Michael was so excited to see it!

Sarah, thanks for the great cut and color.  I have gotten several compliments today, and you have gotten some as well!  :o)

If you are looking for a new place to get your hair done, I highly recommend Sarah's Salon.  Sarah is super sweet and has very reasonable prices.  If you schedule an appointment, let her know that I sent you to get a discount on your first appointment!

*****

Organizations that accept hair donations (Click organization name to go to donation requirement page.)

1. Children with Hair Loss:  Hair must be at least 8 inches long.  They do accept gray hair and chemically treated hair!
2. Locks of Love:  Hair must be at least 10 inches long.  They do accept gray hair and  colored and/or permed hair but not bleached hair.
3. Childhood Leukemia Foundation:  Hair must be at least 10 inches long.  They do not accept colored or chemically damaged hair.
4. Wigs for Kids:  Hair must be at least 12 inches long.  They do accept gray hair, but they do not accept hair that has been chemically processed (perms, color-treated, or highlights).
5. Wigs 4 Kids:  Hair must be at least 10 inches long.  They do not accept hair that has been colored or  chemically damaged.
6. Pantene Beautiful Lengths:  Hair must be at least 8 inches long.  They do not accept hair with permanent color, bleach, or other chemical treatments, and it must be <5% gray.

Chihuly Nights at the Arboretum

When I went to the Arboretum with Mom and MaMa a few weeks ago, they were starting to set up a new exhibit - Chihuly.  We saw one of the displays that had been completed, and they were in the process of working on a couple of others.  I knew that I wanted to go back when the exhibit was complete.

Not long after that trip, Michael and I were presented with the opportunity to go...for FREE!  Yes please!  We went tonight and had a wonderful time.  We were able to stay for the concert and the night exhibit.  The weather was great, and the exhibit met my expectations.  It was so pretty!

This display was made of over 1,200 individual pieces of glass, and we were told that it took them over four days to assemble it.  Incredible!

While impressive during the day, the entire exhibit was even more spectacular at night!

You should definitely go check out this exhibit if you can.  If you get a chance, go at night!

Ranger Game

We enjoyed the fabulous weather at the Ranger game last night.

Even though the Rangers didn't win, we got to see some Josh Hamilton greatness.

We also got to see a great firework show after the game!

Jenni had invited us to a fund raising dinner put on by Great Cities Missions at the Hall of Fame prior to the game.  We had a great time at the dinner, visiting with Jenni and Rod, Kristin, and Mike and Judi.  Michael also came away from the auction with an autographed ball signed by Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux.

Spring Has Arrived!

Although it has not officially arrived, it already feels like spring is here.  I love it when the flowers start blooming in the yard!  Yesterday when I went outside to check on the progress of Michael's garden, I noticed that several of our trees and bushes were blooming.  It makes me so happy!  Coincidentally this is also usually around the end of my busy season.  Double Yay!

Vegetable Garden

Last year, Michael planted four pepper plants in the flower bed out back.  He had two jalapeno plants, an Anaheim pepper plant, and a poblano pepper plant.  We got LOTS of very yummy peppers.  We enjoyed spicing up beans and other things with our fresh peppers, Michael made stuffed jalapenos and fried pepper slices, and we gave away a lot of peppers to friends.  It was great!  After one particularly large harvest, Michael made homemade pepper sauce.

Even though I love peppers and spicy food, I am not a huge fan of pepper sauce.  Michael, on the other hand, loves it!  He also like anything he can make from scratch.  Making homemade pepper sauce (something he loves so much) was a great thing for him to do when I was gone one evening.

After the success of the peppers last fall, Michael decided that he wanted to plant a vegetable garden.  He probably would have planted more last year, but it was a little too late in the year to plant some things when he planted the peppers.  Instead, he decided to go with just the peppers and get started earlier on his garden this year.

While I was at April's baby shower today, Michael was hard at work tilling up the flower bed and planting a vegetable garden.  I got home just in time to see him plant the last plant.

We don't have a lot of space for a huge garden, but he is following the square-foot gardening technique to maximize the space that he has.  This area of the yard gets a lot of sun, and we struggled failed to keep bushes and flowers growing there last year.  Hopefully this will be a better use of the space.

Michael planted jalapenos, banana peppers, spinach, romaine lettuce, carrots, onions, broccoli, basil, and cilantro.  Once we get a little later in the year, Michael plans to add squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and okra.  I can't wait to see how it takes off.  It will be fun when we can start harvesting some of the vegetables!

Christmas Goodies!

At an Apples of Gold dinner, one of the girls gave Stephanie and me the idea to bake Christmas goodies for our neighbors and invite them to Watermark's Christmas Eve service.  We also thought this would be a good chance to hopefully meet some of the neighbors that we have never met before.

We decided to do fudge and mini muffins.  It all started with a trip to the store yesterday afternoon.  Surprisingly, we were able to get everything we needed with one stop at Walmart.  It was actually a pretty quick trip!

Math definitely came in handy on this shopping trip.  For instance, how many cups can you get from a ten-pound bag of sugar?  Of course, the only volume measurement on the bag of sugar is in teaspoons.  How many cups are there in 1,153 t of sugar?  All in all, our math was pretty good.  We had very few leftover ingredients, and the only thing we ran out of were mini cupcake liners.  That was because we underestimated how many mini muffins we could get from a mix that was intended to make 6 regular muffins.  I had originally guessed 12-16, but we ended up getting 20!

We headed home to start making the fudge so that it could set overnight.  We established quite the process!  I lined a pan, measured all the ingredients and gave them to Stephanie as she needed them.  Then as she used them, I re-measured for the next batch.

Stephanie was a stirring champ!  The fudge gets pretty tough to stir towards the end, but she made it through all 11 batches, with me only helping stir on one of them.

Once it was ready to go, I helped her scrape it out of the bowl and spread it into the pan.  Then as she started the next batch, I washed the bowl and got it ready for the first step again.

While we worked away in the kitchen, jamming out to Christmas tunes, the boys were quite happy to entertain themselves in the cafe.  The found a great project to keep them busy!

At one point, we noticed that one batch of fudge seemed to have lost a corner.  Hmmm...I wonder where that went?  I think I know the answer - see artists above!

Finally at the end of the evening, we had 33 pounds of fudge ready to go!  Whew...that is a lot of fudge!

This morning, I designed the card that we would put with each container.  I think it turned out pretty cute for a fast project.

When Stephanie got to our house after church, she gave her approval on the card, and we sent the proof to Walmart for printing.  It was ready in about 15 minutes, so while we worked on baking muffins, my sweet husband went to pick up the prints along with a few more cupcake liners and tape that we had forgotten yesterday.

The muffin process was going pretty smoothly, so when Michael arrived with the cards, Stephanie went to work taping cards onto all the container lids while I finished the muffins.

Finally all 39 dozen muffins were ready to go...Orange Cranberry, Cinnamon Sugar, Wild Berry (blueberry and strawberry), and Apple Cinnamon.  They all turned out great!

Stephanie was in charge of cutting the fudge and filling containers.  Then I took the containers, added muffins and a lid, and stacked them all up.  The boys even got in on the end of the assembly line and helped us finish getting them all ready.

Once they were all together, it was time to deliver!

I was surprised at how many of our neighbors were home.  It was interesting to see everyone's reaction.  A few people seemed indifferent, but most were grateful.  Some were very appreciative.  One lady started crying because she was so touched and excited to get something.  Another neighbor came running out front in her house robe to thank us after her husband had answered the door and returned inside with the goodies.

I'm sure some of the neighbors threw the food away, but hopefully it was still something nice that brightened their day.  Overall, hopefully each one of them saw a glimpse of Christ's love and knows that He is the reason for the season.

Wishing you an early Merry Christmas!