gone tomorrow it is.

if i were a good blogger, i would have posted a picture and a haircut update on Saturday immediately after i left the salon. but i had a lunch date with a couple friends to get to, and then i didnt actually take any pictures of the new 'do until i had gone home and got all dolled up for the wedding we had that evening. what a bad blogger, living life like people on the internets arent on the edge of their seats holding their breath waiting to see the results of your haircut.

so some of you have already seen, some might have heard, and some of you might still be wishing it was just a flight of fancy born from friday afternoon boredom, but i am here to report that i did in fact get my hair cut on saturday. and not just a trim. i think the technical term to describe a haircut of this magnitude would be chopped.

that right there in my hand is the 10 inches of my hair that got chopped off and is getting donated. and that right there on my head is what's left of it.

AND YOU GUYS I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS HAIRCUT!!!

its the shortest my hair has ever been. it requires more product than i have ever voluntarily put on my own head at the same time. it takes less than half as long to wash as it used to. and i now have very little need for the zillion hair ties i currently own. (i can pull the very front of it up into a teeny ponytail that sticks straight up off my head like little CindyLouWho when i work out so they're not completely obselete)

but the best thing about this haircut is that it just feels right. it feels like me. i knew it as soon as the scissors snipped off that 10 inch ponytail. i did not have to psych myself up for such a drastic haircut. i did not mourn the loss of that hair. i was more than ready for it to be gone.

so... thoughts? love it? hate it? actually, i dont even care what you think about it because i love it enough for all of us. so there.

operation knock-down drag-out: week 7.

when given the options of working on the shower tile or the ceiling this week, Mark decided that it would make the most sense to go straight from tiling the floor last week to tiling the shower surround this week. i can think of three reasons that might have influenced his decision making process: 1. he was already really on a roll with the whole tiling thing, 2. his uncle didnt need his tile-tools back just yet, and 3. it bought him some more time before he has to crawl up into the attic and play with wiring.

so just like last week, we spent our friday evening hanging out at the Depot in the tile aisle. except unlike last week, when we got to the tile aisle we discovered that the shelf we were expecting to be filled-to-capacity with boxes of subway tiles was actually empty. boo. but no worries, we just asked someone for help. a simple solution to our dilemma, or so we thought.

well, the first person we asked was just upset that we weren't interested in signing up for some mailing list and maybe getting some free stuff, but he did offer to find us someone from the flooring department who supposedly could help us. he brought us a man whose orange smock was decorated with all manner of willy wonka decals. willy wonka checked the inventory, mumbled a lot, and then wandered out of the aisle with a promise to find someone from the flooring department to help us. wait, you thought willy WAS the flooring department guy? yeah, us too.

and then - willy never came back. when we were thisclose to giving up and just going to lowes, i decided to see how long it would take me and my helpless-girl-in-a-hardware-store impression to get someone to offer to help. when that didnt work AT ALL i switched tactics and went with my stomping-fuming-dissatisfied-customer impression to corner some poor employee from i-didnt-even-care-which department to take me to the manager who called a forklift driver to retrieve our pallet of tile from the top shelf.

follow all that? it took 5 people and a forklift to find us the 6 boxes of tile we needed. sounds like a super fun friday night date night, amirite?

 ok, fine i'll admit the forklift part was pretty awesome.

Mark got started on the tile on Saturday, and managed to get all the prep work and one whole row of tile done before he had to call it a day and get cleaned up to go to a wedding. in his defense, the first row is the most important, since all the other tiles literally build off of it, so it makes sense that he took his time and did it right.

here's your technical tidbit of the week: this week mark is using yet another type of mud called mastic. apparently it comes premixed, has a longer open time than thinset, and is less runny and easier to work with, so mastic is the way to go for your mud-related needs whenever possible.

now how about a bonus technical tidbit for this week: cutting tile. there are two saws that mark is using on this project: the wet saw on the front porch, (as seen in last week's post) and this tile cutter that currently lives in the hallway right outside the bathroom. the wet saw actually cuts the tile with a blade, while this cutter is more like a tile score-and-snapper. it is great for cutting tiles in half or close to in half. it is not so good at cutting slivers off the edge of tiles. something-something-moment-forces-tiles-cracking-in-all-the-wrong-places-blah. 

 
as of last night, mark has about half of the tiles up on the wall. he plans to be able to finish up in the available evening hours on tuesday and thursday, then grout on friday and be ready to crawl up into the attic on saturday. fingers crossed that it all goes that smoothly, because if its looking this good when its only half-done and un-grouted, then i cannot wait to see it actually all done and beautiful.

trips to Home Depot: this week - 1. total - 10.
trips to Ace: this week - 0. total - 2.
trips to Lowes: this week - 0. total - 2.

times Amanda has cried over this project: this week - 0. total - 1.
times Amanda has cried in Home Depot: this week - 0. total - 0.

days until Thanksgiving: 44.

meal plan monday: oct 15.

so apparently i only know how to make a handful of "healthy" meals, and its getting harder and harder to not just keep rotating through the same menu every week now that we're starting into week 5 of the program-that-shall-not-be-named. so for this week i kind of made a little bit of an effort to switch things up. it took me several HOURS to brainstorm enough meals for the week. and Sunday hardly even counts.

eating healthy is harder than some people make it out to be. especially when things like Monkey Bars exist in the world.

Monday: fish with corn and rice.
Tuesday: chicken enchilada soup. (recipe)
Wednesday: english muffin pizzas.
Thursday: breakfast for dinner. eggs and potatoes.
Friday: taco salad.
Saturday: spaghetti squash, chicken, and broccoli. (recipe)
Sunday: leftovers.

hair today, gone tomorrow?

this is what my hair looks like today, right now, sitting at my desk at work:

i am tired of it. i have been growing out my hair for the better part of this whole year, and i am just done with having long hair. so i'm going to cut it off.  and i'm feeling a little bit drastic today, so this is kind of what i'm thinking:

i'm just a little nervous, because 1) this would be the shortest my hair has ever been, and 2) i really dont want it to turn out like this:

no. just no.

or there's always the safer, tried and true option of an angled bob - longer in the front, stacked in the back.

either way, i still plan to donate my hair, and i think it should be long enough to do so. Locks of Love requires 10 inches, and Pantene Beautiful Lengths requires 8 inches to donate, so i've got options. of course, how much i donate depends on how much hair i have left to chop after all the split ends are trimmed off. after the trim, if i dont have enough length to donate, then i'll walk away with just a trim. but when i measured my hair this morning, (top ten random uses for an engineering scale!) the longest pieces were over 10 inches, so i think i have plenty to work with.

i have an appointment booked for tomorrow morning. this is going to happen. if anyone sees any reason that this hair should not be chopped, let them speak now or forever* hold their peace.

*or at least until it grows back out.

dining room art.

anyone remember back in August when we got our new dining room table and chairs and i drooled all over them all over the internet and in the background of some of the pictures there were three blank canvasses that i had hung on the wall but didnt really have a plan for?

ok, how about in September when i previewed a little painting project i was working on? remember that? you might have already figured out that they were those dining room canvases, but if you didnt, now you know!

and today i get to show you what they look like all done and up on the wall!

arent they fun? they werent even all that hard to do. after i painted the backgrounds, i found a silverware image online that i printed to size and used as a general guide for tracing the shapes. once i had the shape i liked, i cut a template of each piece out of a cereal box. i traced them onto the canvases, and then filled in the shapes with white paint. so why did it take me so long to finish them? well that probably had a lot to do with the fact that it took FOUR COATS of white paint until i could no longer see the background through the white. i guess thats what i get for using such bold colors.

i am really happy with how these turned out, but there are some days when i stare at them too long and the what-ifs start... what if the colors were more muted? what if the silverware was more stylized? what if i had actually managed to hang them all level? what if i dont like them after a while?

well, the great thing about this project is that i can change it whenever i want to whatever i want. they're just hung on command hooks, so i can take them down whenever i want. and i can always paint over them if i feel so inclined in the future, because its just paint.

but for now, they're perfect. they are bold and fun and i made them myself and they make me smile, and most importantly they are FINISHED which is such a simple thing but such a great joy. cuz let me just tell you, fork tines are zero fun to paint. zero.

an idiot's guide to theater etiquette.

1. dress the part. if there's ever a good excuse to dress up fancy, its for a trip to the theater. your brand new super flattering dress? wear it. that fancy bridesmaid's dress you never thought you'd ever wear again? wear it. those ties your grandma keeps buying for you? now's your chance to actually wear one. but your soccer warm ups? um, no. your favorite flourescent yellow hoodie? leave it at home.

i'm the one in the flattering new dress taking this unflattering picture. mark is the one not wearing a tie because i'm slowly learning to pick my battles.

2. arrive early. keep in mind, once you get to the theater you'll want time to grab a drink, peruse the merchandise, and use the restroom before finding your seat, so plan to have enough time for that. always a good rule of thumb: if you're on time, you're late.

3. put your camera away. and your stinkin' smart phone too. photography is usually not permitted inside the theater. i know its super tempting because its super exciting and the opening curtain just looks! so! cool! but. the ushers will yell at you. and that is embarrasing. save yourself the embarrasment and take pictures everywhere except in the theater.

like in the lobby, when you're extra early and need to kill some time. ps he's smoking a giant imaginary pipe like a snobby theater-goer. obvsly.

4. find your seats in a timely fashion. if you are tracking with the rules so far, this should be no problem. the problems arise when you arrive late, because once the lights go down it is not only much more difficult to read the letters and numbers on the seats, but also much more likely that your stumbling around in the dark will annoy your fellow theater-goers.

a very abbreviated guide to theater seating:

- rows are labeled alphabetically in ascending order.   

- seats are numbered from left to right facing the stage.

- when in doubt, ask an usher for help.

and for the love of Oz, please enter your row from the correct end so as to minimize the number of people you have to make stand up as you shuffle past. this is not only a pain to those in your row, but also those in the rows behind you who paid to see a show, not the butts of the people in front of them.

THIS is what i came to see

source

5. remain seated. yes, the whole time. see above re: shuffling in and out of rows. this is not only disrespectful to those seated around you, but also to the actors on stage. your drink refill is not that important, and it can wait. but if you think otherwise, and you have already arrived late and then left again in the middle of the act, dont be surprised if the ushers refuse to let you back into your row and make you stand. enough is enough.

6. come back after intermission. you guys! intermission wasn't the end! you missed the whole second half of the show! how sad for you...

source

7. ENJOY!!! going to the theater is fun! seeing Wicked at the theater for your anniversary is extra-fun! dont be embarrased to lip-sync to all the songs, because chances are at least half of the audience is doing the same thing. i mean, they totally were, right? i wasnt the only one, right?!? eh, i dont even care if i was. it was AH-MAZING!

operation knock-down drag-out: week 6.

so in case you havent noticed already, the general game plan around here is that pretty much nothing bathroom-related gets done in the middle of the week (Tues - Thurs) and most of the significant, amazing, and impressive feats of home improvement are performed over the extended weekend days (Fri - Mon). this week was no exception.

on Friday night, we took a trip to the Depot to pick up the floor tile and a few other related necessities. since the store was mostly empty, i took the opportunity to get a picture of the tile we're using for the floor and in the shower area, since i couldnt find any good pictures online. and also because its way less awkward to be kneeling on the floor of the Depot taking pictures if no one but your husband is around to witness your insanity.

since the rest of Friday evening was spent cheering the O's to victory in the wild card game, the real work started on Saturday. before Mark could start cutting any tiles, we had to mark out some guidelines on the floor, since i wanted the tile to be laid on the diagonal. so here's a real world application for all you math-haters out there: how many engineers with math minors does it take to calculate a whole-number length of the legs on an isosceles triangle that will provide a whole-number length hypotenuse?

we got the answer within 1/32 and called it good enough

mark made all the cuts on the wet saw that he borrowed from his uncle the tile-expert. he had access to another kind of tile cutter that would have made the process faster, but he wasnt happy with the quality of the cuts it was giving him, so he just stopped using it in favor of the wet saw.

Mark didnt end up making as much progress on Saturday as he had hoped to. instead of workworkworking all day, he stopped when he was about halfway done with the cuts to take me out to dinner and the theater for our anniversary! he is seriously the best ever.

on Sunday, Mark finished cutting and dry-fitting all of the tiles, and then started setting them in place.

since he is a genius, he numbered all of the pieces with painters tape before he took them back out of the room. this made putting it all back together super simple, and ensured that all of the time he spent laying them out wasnt a waste of time.

i was busy painting things and doing laundry for most of this time, but i caught up with the process right at the end to take some tile-tutorial pictures for you all.

Step One: spread some mud on the floor.

Step Two: use the trowel to make some lines in the mud.

Step Three: drop a tile into place, pound on it until it is level with the pieces around it. its just that easy!*
*but it might not be. dont take my word for it.

once all the pieces were mudded into place, i made my one and only contribution to the tile-ing process by assisting Mark with cutting the threshold to size. and by "assisting" i probably mean "flashlight holding." but you should never underestimate the effect that good lighting can have when cutting tile, especially at 9:30 on a chilly, rainy Sunday night.

after the threshold was cut, it apparently needed to be polished. so Mark did that last night after work.

and then, after drilling some holes into the tile underneath to give the mud and the threshold something grippier than smooth ceramic tile to hold onto, the threshold got mudded into place! pro tip: do not step on the freshly mudded threshold. it will shift and the hubs will not be happy. (ps i did not step on it, but i was warned ahead of time of the potential for disaster.)

because my hubs is awesome, he worked late into the night (on a work night even!) to get the floor grouted so that this step would be complete, and so he could return all of his uncles tile tools that he had borrowed for the weekend, which stretched into a weekend and a day.

so as of this morning, we now have a beautiful new tile floor in our bathroom! i am so impressed and excited and i cant help but stare lovingly at it every time i walk down the hall.

next up: shower tile? ceiling? i'm actually not sure. but i'll be sure to let you know all about it once i find out.

trips to Home Depot: this week - 1. total - 9.
trips to Ace: this week - 0. total - 2.
trips to Lowes: this week - 0. total - 2.

times Amanda has cried over this project: this week - 0. total - 1.
times Amanda has cried in Home Depot: this week - 0. total - 0.

days until Thanksgiving: 51.