Sure, it really is an honor just to be nominated, et cetera and so forth...

So, the ever-fantabulous Hartley, amazing author and tireless champion of parents with SPD/ASD/special needs kiddos, has a little awards shindig going on over at her blog.  Nominations have been going on for the past few days, and I just received the news that my blog has been nominated for an SPD Blogger Award!!  In the category for "Humorous Blog" no less! (I've checked out the competition and it is fierce, *gulp*!)

This is literally the first good thing to happen to me this year so far.  Yes, I know we're not even 3 weeks into 2011 but so far? It has bitten the big one.  We're in the midst of another major battle with the school district regarding Kiddo's current IEP and have further heard that it is 99.9999999999999% sure that Kiddo will not be granted an aide for next year (or ever again after this year) when her CSE meeting rolls around in March.  Kiddo has now been examined by a pediatric pulmonologist, who confirmed what her pediatrician has been suspecting for several months now - Kiddo has asthma, and with the relatively "late" onset of symptoms, it is likely that she will have asthma for the rest of her life (as opposed to kids who have it as toddlers and then outgrow it).  Have you ever seen a major sensory seeker on not one but two asthma meds simultaneously?  Holy bouncing off the walls, Batman!  We're working out an appropriate med regime that controls the inflammation with the least amount of disruption to her life, but the working out phase involves dealing with issues like difficulty falling asleep/restless sleep and other fun stuff like that.  (If you think a major sensory seeker hopped up on two stimulant asthma meds is a scary enough sight, add to that a lack of adequate rest and we have a new horror movie franchise in the making.)  On top of that, Kiddo has just been more challenging than usual behaviorally.  I won't go into details, but she was Majorly Grounded for almost a week, which effectively killed our wedding anniversary date night out plans (and on top of that, it's never fun to have to be the Grounding Enforcer/Prison Warden anyhow).  Last but not least, she's been sick for more days this January than not, so we're stuck inside with playdates and birthday parties falling by the wayside thanks to those evil, evil germies.  (Side note: someone told me that the odd years are always more challenging than the even years.  Six was pretty dang delightful around here, especially in light of how seven has been.  I'm willing to believe that at this point, especially if it gives us a light at the end of a tunnel that will only go another 5 months... Anyone else ever hear that one?)

So, like I said, 2011? Not the best year so far.  (Isn't this the big Mayan Apocalypse year?  Are all these issues actually harbingers of the impending doom - and if so, where the heck are Dean and Sam and Castiel when I need them?  Will I start dreaming of Phyllis Diller again?  Did I mention that coming up in December, I turn the big 4-0?  Isn't that bad enough for one year in and of itself?)  

But... then I received the news from Hartley that I've been nominated for an SPD Blogger Award - and it's a MAJOR AWARD, you know.  I'm hoping the prize looks something like this:

And yes, it's just an honor just to be nominated, especially since I didn't nominate myself - someone out there likes me!  But then again, if you really do like me, please drop by the voting page starting tomorrow at 6am and help me stuff the ballot box, mmmmkay?  I mean, George Clooney and Hugh Jackman have presented Oscars and Golden Globes before, so what if it's one of them presenting the SPD Blogger Awards?  Do you want to be the one to make me miss out on that?  Let's reverse the trend of craptastictude for 2011 by landing me a Major Award!

I promise I'll mention you in my acceptance speech - maybe even give you a shout-out from the red carpet when Ryan Seacrest stops me to find out who I'm wearing..... "Microfleece yoga pants from Target, Ryan, of course!  Mind the sparks, now..."

Phriday Photo Phun - Phull of stuph

Yesterday, I made two more trips to our home away from home, or at least, the home away from home for approximately 75% of our belongings. When I was finished jamming Load #2 into the teensy amount of space that was left, I took a picture of the storage unit:



and then promptly emailed it to Hubby at work with the subject header: FULL.

Hubby, being the wisenheimer that he is, replied with this:

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have highlighted several areas for more stuff…

When I read that, I immediately responded, declaring SHENANIGANS upon him. ('Cause that's how we roll in the Smith house: wisenheimery is promptly put in its place with a declaration of shenanigans. Even Kiddo will declare shenanigans upon us and/or have shenanigans declared upon her.)

So Hubby was out in the garage this morning, taking inventory of what last, few things need to go over to our 10x10, maxed out space. Seeing as how he thinks that there are all these spaces where things will fit, he will be the one making the trek over to the storage facility to cram them in tomorrow morning.

Maybe, if I'm lucky, he'll locate my wits when he's over there. Not that retrieving them from storage will free up that much space as I didn't have many to begin with, but I do miss them so...

Want to play? Join Candid Carrie for more Phriday Photo Phiesta Phun!!

A Major Crisis of Epic Proportions

HELP! It's a major crisis of epic proportions:

I might cut all my hair off again!

I'm really, really feeling strongly like I should just give up on the whole "growing it out" thing and just go back to a short(er), Mom 'do.

I want something sassy.



Something chic.



Something hip.



Something cute.



Problem is, my hair just. Doesn't. DO THAT. Not without major fussing.

And that, my friends, is the major issue. I want short, sassy, chic, hip and cute hair without having to do anything to it to get it that way. Or, not to have to spend more than, say, 5-10 minutes maximum to get it that way. AND, once I do get it that way, I'd like for it to stay that way. Because remember this hair?



Yeah, here's the thing about this particular look. Within a few hours, and despite the generous application of gobs and sprays and spritzes of hair products designed to keep follicles from frizzing or flying away or even thinking of moving, my hair was back to Wolverine Fawcett Van Beethoven.

ARGH!!!!

So here are some pictures of my hair at present. Let's call these the Before Pics, mmmkay?

Front:


Back/side:


(Please also note the wall of boxes in the background of the top picture; those are the 34 boxes I collected from the friendly and accommodating liquor store earlier today. They've become our own, personal Mt. Everest for both Kiddo and Crazy Cat. I'm amazed the wall is still standing at this point...)

So, you see what my hair does when left to its own devices? See how it wings this way and that, curling at just the bottom in weird, opposing directions? This is the end result of washing, conditioning, towel-drying, anti-frizz seruming and combing, then letting it dry naturally. Not. Pretty. At. All.

*sigh*

Tomorrow, my plan is to go and get my hair cut. At the very least, I need to get it trimmed, to de-split-endify and get my bangs back in their official neighborhood (that being just north of my eyebrows). I can't get rid of my bangs entirely - my hairline at the front is weird and not pretty and I hate my forehead. So, bangs in some form shall stay. (I learned this lesson the last time I grew my hair out, when I grew out my bangs for like 2 years and when they'd FINALLY reached a length that I no longer actually had any more bangs, I promptly marched into my hair salon and had her cut them back in, breathing huge sighs of relief as she did.) If I could achieve one of the cute-n-sassy, short cuts, that wouldn't require crazy upkeep and daily maintenance, I would do it, at this point, I think... But then, there's a whole year (actually, 15 months!) of suffering through the growing-out hell hair that I've done, all down the drain in one, fell cut. Would I regret giving up after perservering for so long? Maybe...

So, dear blogosphere friends (and random strangers who happen across this post), what do you think I should do? Please keep in mind that whatever hair I come up with has to flatter (as best it can - I realize it is just hair after all, and not a full-head plastic surgery substitute nor an opaque, paper bag) my head, cheeks and chins... I'd rather not look too matronly, but it also has to be age-appropriate.

Choices are:

A) Cut it!
B) Keep the faith and keep growing it out!
C) Seriously, Heather, there are way more important things to be carrying on about than your stupid hair! I mean, have you heard about the economy? The wars? Global warming?

If you vote A, any style suggestions (links to actual photos especially) would be greatly appreciated.

If you vote B, any style suggestions for the next interminable stretch of growing it out (links to actual photos especially) would be greatly appreciated.

And if you vote C, I know. I totally know.... And yet, I obsess. I moan, I stare at myself in the mirror, I try things, then I come here and I whinge on and on. It's my blog and I'll foist my follicle crisis upon the world via this post if I want to!

Stay tuned.... I will post After pictures tomorrow of whatever winds up happening atop my crazy noggin!

One more thing about stuff....

So, my beloved hubby, who is an infrequent visitor to my blog, popped in this morning and saw my previous post about stuff. He was surprised I hadn't linked to the George Carlin routine about stuff, and I told him I'd utterly forgotten the routine (sorry, George), so he pulled it up on Youtube and we watched it. After laughing at it all over again, I decided I'd take his suggestion and post it here for y'all to enjoy, too (language warning as this exceeds my usual G/PG rating):

Stuff

I have too much stuff. Physically (hello, cellulite!), mentally (hello, thoughts that won't stop running through my head at night) and especially around me. Confession time: I'm a pack rat. Well, not in the negative sense of the word - I don't hoard old newspapers and magazines and things that out to long since have been thrown away for decades so that one day I'm discovered like this person was... I do, however, have a highly sensitive sense of nostalgia, which leads me to hold on to certain stuff.

Stuff has been on my mind lately, so much so that I'm not even sleeping soundly. You see, my days are now consumed by stuff, because we're in the midst of step one of selling our house and moving: decluttering. (Funny how Blogger doesn't recognize "declutter" as a word, because my own brain has issues with it as well!)

Over the weekend, we rented a storage unit up the road and began the process of decluttering our house. We've lived in this house for nine years now, and let me tell you, that is plenty of time for a sentimental sort like myself to amass a lot of stuff. Heaps of it. Stuff crammed onto bookshelves (and let's not forget all the books themselves, either, as Hubby and I both are Bookworms Extraordinaire and Kiddo is quite a bookworm as well), stuff squeezed into drawers, stuff jammed into cabinets, under beds and on top of other stuff. Now, with the decluttering? It is so not pretty.

Hubby and I used to be quite good at moving. Back in the early days of Hubby-n-me, we moved a lot - between 1994 and 2000, we moved six times, winding up here in our first owned home in January of 2000. During that period, there wasn't much chance to accumulate stuff, and our belongings were regularly purged as well, the better to fit our stuff into the back of first our Festiva, then our Tercel, along with the smallest U-Haul we could get away with for maximum affordability. We'd donate books to the local Friends of the Library, drop boxes of clothes and linens off at Goodwill, etc. We were lean and mean and had room to spare in our bookcases, hutches, cabinets and drawers.

Well, now we've had nine years in one place (with a lovely, large basement) in which to collect stuff. Also, five years ago we added Kiddo to the mix, and Sweet Godmother of Wilma Flintstone (™ Anna Lefler), did the stuff just exponentially explode! Let's face it, when one has a child in one's home, the stuff starts flowing in pretty much at birth (bottles, onesies, burp cloths, diapers, diaper accoutrements, rattles, teething toys, binkies, et cetera et cetera et cetera....)


Oh sorry, got carried away on a wave of musical nostalgia there. I'm back now. Shall we dance? No, no, back to the topic at hand.... Stuff. So, there's baby stuff that takes over your entire world. Then, as the baby grows into a child, not only do the number of toys and books and clothing and shoes and mittens and hats and DVDs and stuffed animals grow as well, but so does the art work. Dear me, the art work. The precious scribblings that eventually mature into actual pictures that resemble actual things and people (well, assuming said people have gigantic heads from which their arms protrude and no bodies beyond legs that may or may not include feet)... then they start school and the art projects become multi-dimensional and take up even more space... and then there are the photographs. Oh, the photographs. Now, Kiddo is an only child. Lucky for us, in this regard, as I have, and I am only ever-so-slightly exaggerating here, ninety thousand framed photographs of her hanging on our walls and displayed on shelves and end tables and the piano and, heck, on any mostly-flat surface in my house. (I also have several nieces and nephews, so there are actually additional kiddos who occupy frame space too.) I mean, I had lots of photos in frames before I became a mom; pictures of Hubby and me, our family and friends, even beloved pets... but since Kiddo was born? Egads.

And now, all the stuff? It must go. Tucked into boxes, hauled off to the storage unit, never to see the light of day again until the summer (or late spring, if we're really lucky). Oh, the agony. The good news is that Hubby is not nearly as much of a stuff aficionado as I am, so we aren't hopelessly mired in things. He also is much more likely to get rid of something, to just throw it straight out into the garbage without a second thought, than I. (I must steel myself against looking into the bag after bag after bag he carries out to the garbage bin in the garage. I will confess, in previous moves, I've been known to Dumpster Dive in my own home to rescue some picture or memento or another from the trash.) It is true, most of the stuff Hubby tosses out is stuff I never miss, stuff I haven't thought of in years, but that doesn't mean he's right, right? And you never know when you might need one of those things........

Beyond the hassle of actually boxing stuff up (and the aches of actually loading and unloading it thereafter) is the time-suck involved. Again, this is an area where Hubby does a better, speedier and more efficient job than I. I spent a good hour yesterday thumbing through a pile of random, old things that I'd managed to save for decades now (and which had been living on the topmost shelf of the bookcase that stood in our bedroom for the past nine years, but now is off in the storage unit, leaving a weirdly blank wall in its place). Case in point, this photo, which is a Polaroid (I don't think they're even making Polaroid film any more...) of me surrounded by my sisters, brothers and one of my best friends, taken sometime during the winter of my senior year of high school (oh, and while I'm on the subject of stuff, the dresser you can partially see on the right hand side of the picture? Hubby and I just moved that out of our basement and off to the storage unit yesterday...):
or this newspaper clipping also from my senior year of high school (note: it was January. I was wearing white pants. WHITE PANTS. Granted, they had a black pinstripe, but seriously? White? In January? I don't know that I can even use "it was the 80s!" as an excuse there... I mean, yes, we hadn't been told our picture was going to be taken for the paper that day, but still, I chose to wear white pants in January of my own free will and thought I looked good that way. WTH was I thinking?) (I wish that I could say those white pants were the worst of my youthful fashion transgressions - other than the hair, of course - but alas, I am having horrific flashbacks right now to a different pair of pants. A pair of cream colored, corduroy, jodhpur-style pants. That I wore with knee-high, high heeled, black leather "riding" boots. Thinking I looked good, hip and fashionable. Oh Sweet Godmother of Wilma Flintstone. Why am I even considering going to my upcoming 20th reunion?!) (also note: I blacked out the names of the other kids in the photo here because they may not be so keen on having ancient pictures of themselves bandied about the interwebz):

or this picture, which my youngest brother (then 6 years old) drew for me to hang up in my dorm room my freshman year of college (he and I share a common love of Garfield, which Kiddo now has developed herself):

Yep, I've saved them all for decades. How could I throw them out now? I couldn't, so into a box and off to storage they went yesterday, along with two mismatched socks that Kiddo wore when she was first born, that are so insanely tiny that I can't believe a human being could ever really be small enough to wear them. Kiddo didn't believe it either, when I showed them to her before tucking them into the box. And to think that even though they were "preemie" sized, they still were so large on her that the heel part went halfway up her leg... *sigh* Whoops, sorry, carried away by nostalgia again, my bad.

Other stuff, I am trying really hard to get rid of, though. (Beyond the cellulite - though I must tell you about the Zumba class I did for the first time last Friday morning. That's another post though.) Stuff like old Christmas cards. I never throw away Christmas cards, or at least, not easily. The record for oldest card I came across during this weekend's decluttering? 1991. In my defense, it was a photo card... I also have wedding cards (hello, 1995), congratulatory cards from Kiddo's birth and subsequent baby showers (by being born 5.5 weeks early as she was, she managed to be a guest at all of her baby showers), her baptism, Mother's Day cards (okay, at least those only go back to 2003), anniversary cards, etc. I found in one stash a few cards and notes that Hubby gave me back when we were first dating. Awwwwwwww. I showed a few of them to Hubby when he came upstairs to check on my progress - or more accurately, as he suspected, lack thereof, and he just rolled his eyes. Romance and nostalgia really are the stuff-keeping enemies of Operation Declutter.

So, in closing, 2009 is turning out to be the Year of the Great Decluttering here in Heather's world. Just promise you won't laugh if you spot me rooting through the trash bags to reclaim some of my stuff, or sneaking off to the storage unit to visit my stuff in the months to come, mmmkay? As you can see from what I've already shared above, if I've known you (IRL) for any length of time, the odds are quite good that I still have photos you might not want me to make public...!

What about you guys? Is anyone else a victim of nostalgia and sentimentality like I am? Any other pack rats (no pejorative connotation intended) besides me? What do you do with old cards and letters? Should I try to sell some of the more valuable stuff on Craiglist or Ebay, or just go ahead and freecycle it all like Hubby wants to get rid of it faster? Anyone want to buy a ladies' Movado Museum watch, never worn, new in box? (I would've worn it but the dang strap is too delicate and short for my ginormous man-hand wrist.) What was your worst teenage fashion mistake, and would you care to share a photo of it with the blogosphere? *grin*