Month: February 2014

Well I missed posting last week because I was not home at all during the week and was busy all weekend too. Story of my life. But I almost wouldn’t trade that for anything. (Though some days I wish I had more free time than I do.)

Last weekend was insanely busy for me, as I alluded to. I decided after two months of thinking about it, to chop all my hair off on Saturday. It’s been growing out for almost two years and was halfway down my back. Now, it is chin length, the first time I’ve had hair that short in at least 15 years. We had a lot of work to do on this head of mine and I spent four hours in the chair. Now I have a super fun hair cut with vibrant color streaks. I look so totally different now that at church the next day, some of my friends, having only seen me form the back, thought I was a new member of our class, only to be stunned when they came to welcome the newbie to class and find me instead. Everyone at work has only ever seen me with super long hair so they were all stunned to see me Monday and I got some very comical double takes and surprised looks.

After getting a total hair reboot, as I dubbed it, I had to rush on over to the far side of the Metroplex to make it to Jaye Wells’ book signing for hew newest book, Dirty Magic (which I should be reviewing here at some point… as soon as I catch up on some other books I need to read). I got there with about half an hour to spare before the signing was over. As soon as I got my books purchased and signed, and said a quick hello to my friends who were there, I had to rush off again.

One thing anyone who gets to know me finds out is that I have a huge heart for single parents. I always had empathy for them, but it became a passion of mine when my sister got divorced several years ago and I saw the impact of a divorce on the children first hand. For a few years I’ve been volunteering at my church with the Single Parents Ministry and I’ve headed up one program for them, our “Kids Night Out” monthly events. Once a month, the parents drop their kids off at church for a few hours on a Saturday, knowing we will feed them, entertain them, and just shower love on these kids. It gives the parents a night to take a break and just do whatever they want to do, not having to worry about their kids. Saturday was my absolute favorite event we do all year long. It’s also the one event where the parents come with their children for the evening. We do a big dinner dance for the families. We give limo rides, horse and carriage rides, feed them a feast of a dinner, have a DJ to entertain with great music all night, arts and crafts, and family portraits. I just love this night because it gives me a chance to see these families together in a relaxed setting, and have a good time. Most of them get dressed to the nines and it’s just an all around fantastic evening that always fills my heart to bursting. I wish I had gotten some pictures, but I am the official dessert person, a job I’ve done for several years on this night so I was too busy cutting and serving cake, cookies, and cupcakes.

Sunday was eventful as well. I already mentioned my Sunday class at my church and the shocked reactions from my friends at my new appearance. Typically, I spend a few hours on Sundays at my local yarn shop, crocheting or knitting and talking to the other women (and men – yes there are one or two). However, this past week being Super Bowl Sunday, I of course was going to a party so I had to rush home after church to cook the food I was taking to the party. We had a small group, only about 7 people or so, but we had enough food between all of us to feed twice that many people! I had no stake in the game this year, not really excited about either team, but of course, the commercials are not to be missed!

I belong to multiple book clubs and this past week we had our monthly meeting on Monday for one of them. My other book club we were supposed to meet on Thursday but the author who was coming to our meeting was sick and cancelled. We also got some of that Arctic blast on Thursday which had many members of our group not wanting to go out in the cold. Me? I went to dinner with a friend.

I think I’ve rambled on enough for this episode of “And in the Real World,” since I don’t want to bore everyone when we are just getting this feature off the ground so I’ll sign off for now. Hopefully I’ll get back on track with weekly posts now!