Welcome Eeyore and Family

So, FINALLY, the most sarcastic Vann of all has joined the blogging ranks...Master El-Cracka-Jone. He has the ability (and finesse) to be a great caustic writer...too bad he enjoys his scalpel and conversations about S-5 dermatomes too much.

Check out his new blog. He's the doctor brother with twins. Perhaps we'll hear most often from his wife, Heather, who's writing is also very witty and clever.

Viva La Vanns!

http://vann-ity.blogspot.com

Grandma Pam Comes to Georgia

You may have wondered why you haven’t seen a post within the last week or so. Well, Grandma Pam (Jeff’s mom) came to visit, and she’s packed full of more energy than a hamster on a caffeine high (no offense intended - she's just a spunky high energy gal). Therefore, we were busy. Record of all records, we were out of the house every single day (save Saturday) shopping, running errands, taking Gideon to a portrait shoot, and just living the life of a two car household. It was great, but tiring (Scarlett’s stealing all my extra energy these days).

We had a great time, and here’s the montage to prove it. We took Grandma Pam to the Margaret Mitchell House. Jeff wasn’t too thrilled until we came to the display which told that Doc Holliday was Margaret Mitchell’s first cousin. He had me take a picture and suddenly, he was all ears. Interesting fact, though. The house was where Margaret Mitchell and her 2nd husband lived, in an apartment in the basement. It was even smaller than our seminary house. She wrote Gone With the Wind when she was laid up from either some sickness or a broken bone (can’t remember now)…and she had read every single book in the public library (4 a day) - - my kind of woman. So her husband told her to write her own and she did, though she didn’t think it was very good and hardly anyone knew she’d written it. It almost wasn’t published. I’m most interested to get the book about her life, though I did leave with a coffee mug, which I have proudly sipped from every single day. Ahhh…can you tell I loved every minute of that excursion?

Jeff, his sister Steffanie, and Grandma Pam visited Centennial Park, The World of Coke, and did a little shopping on Saturday while Gideon and I rested up.

And, when Aunt Steffanie got here, she must have put the motivate in motivation for Gideon. Suddenly, he started walking of his own accord, without any promptings from mom or dad. Video is attached.

The montage is rather long, so if you get bored with it, you won’t hurt my feelings by not viewing the whole thing. It was nice to have a digital camera at my disposal again…though this one belonged to G Pam.

All that to say, we had a great visit, our pantry is stocked (THANK YOU) and she already left us some Christmas presents, which I have had to hide from you-know-who (not Gideon).

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Mushroom Headed Mullet

I give up, and this time I mean it. No more beauty products, no more make up, no more lipstick, no more high heels, and certainly NO MORE HAIRCUTS.

What is it about me that begs “Pick me! Pick me! I want to win the worst haircut award. Please!”

I can count on two fingers the number of good haircuts I’ve had, and when I say good, I mean the type of haircuts I’ve gotten where I’ve left the salon feeling womanly, pretty, and dare I even suggest, sexy? Two times in my whole 28-almost 29 years.

It doesn’t even matter how much I pay - - I’ve had a $70 bad haircut, a $50 dollar bad haircut, a $28 dollar bad haircut, and a $12 bad haircut as well as several “free” bad haircuts (thanks mom!). I believe I’ve become the queen of bad haircuts. Once this floppy mane finally grows back out, I shall leave it long so I can always hide it with my once-signature ponytail.

I seriously give up though. I found an inexpensive place, prayed myself up, and even took a picture with me (that’s supposed to help, right?) I simply wanted the mullet cut off and a blunt, cute cut. Blunt cuts are in, right, easy to maintain, and ever so easy to cut? I made it very clear (repeated myself several times) that I was in the process of growing my hair out and I wanted to keep it as long as possible, but I wanted it cute and sleek during the growing out phase.

My first clue should have been that the sweet lady cutting my hair was older than my mom (and my mom is over senior citizen age, but barely). The second clue should have been that all the customers were older than my mom. But, I convinced myself that was okay by acknowledging that for old gals (no offense if you’re older than my mom) they all had super chic hair. The third clue should have been that the sweet lady cutting my hair kept talking about texturizing…I assumed she meant the very ends to give it a little razored look, but still blunt, sleek, and sophisticated.

Maybe she took in my pregnant body and decided I needed a bouffant to match my belly. Maybe she just didn’t get it, but she kept checking the picture and assured me I would look like that photo and be very cute. I let down my guard and enjoyed my conversation.

Big mistake. When you let down your guard and make friends with the hair butcher, you’re in no place to tell them that you actually hate what they’ve done. Or maybe it’s just my southern roots again, and I’m too nice (or too chicken) to tell them the truth about how I feel.

When I saw the finished product, I almost burst into tears right then and there. I reigned them in, and mumbled something far too generous about how I was sure it looked better than before. But it didn’t. Sure, my hair had previously vacillated between a curly chia pet head and a mangy Bon Jovi mullet, but now I look like a Super Mario Brothers mushroom head with a baby mullet and that hairdo on a walrus, though LUDICROUS, will garner double-takes for all the wrong reasons. To make matters worse, she tacked on $10 extra for washing, drying, and fixing my hair…and thoughtfully gave me three lollipops as I was checking out.

I climb in the car and immediately begin making adjustments, for I have somewhat of a flair for fixing hair - - at least, I used to. Nothing was working. I get home, and immediately walk into the downstairs bathroom to see what I can do. Jeff comes in and I burst into tears.

“Honey, it looks fine.”

“No, it doesn’t. Does it look the picture?”

“Yeah, the brown-headed one.”

“No, it doesn’t. If it did, would I be standing in here crying? It’s so ugly. It’s not what I wanted. I wanted to come out looking fantastic, and pretty, and sexy. Instead I still have a mullet and it cost more than I thought it would.”

“You do look pretty and sexy.”

“No, I don’t.” And then I was lost in his shoulder crying my heart out, inconsolable.

I follow him upstairs as he lays down for a nap. Thinking if I re-washed my hair I could probably fix it…for the first time ever, it looks worse when I attempted to “fix” it than when the hairdresser did it. She did her work all too well.

And that, my friends, is why I give up on trying to adorn myself with any outward beauty. I will continue to be a frumpy, mop headed, muppet baby for the next 50 years.

How I view my new haircut:

Peeing in a Cup

Who, I’d like to know, has perfected the “art” of peeing in a cup? (If my mother read this, she would be horrified that I’ve broached such a subject) But seriously, for women, it’s a beast of a chore, one I loathe, especially being 7.5 months pregnant.

For men, it’s really quite a simple task: prepare, point, and pee. For women, it’s SO much harder. I mean, every time I go for my now-2-week check up, they hand me the little paper cup and alcohol swipe (I still don’t know what that’s really for) and herd me into the sterile bathroom where I force myself to “go” even if I don’t really need to - - a blessing from pregnancy, I suppose. With Scarlett using my bladder as a pillow, there’s always something flow-worthy.

But, trying to somewhat lean over Mount Kilimanjaro and hold the cup down there, in the right spot, without urinating all over my hand, while still trying to somewhat peek over said mountain range is more than ridiculous-looking; it’s simply ludicrous.

• (Sidenote: I’ve been using the word “ludicrous” with Gideon today. Smart boy. He laughs every time I say it)

Confession. I never manage to fully “pee” in the cup. I always manage to somehow, SIGH, sprinkle on my hand. It’s so gross. I almost wish they’d just insert a catheter upon my arrival, leave it in for the necessary sample to drip forth, and detach it on my way out. That way, I wouldn’t feel like the dirty girl who has no bladder aim or control.

And like I mentioned earlier, since I don’t know what that alcohol swipe is for, I use it for the urine that becomes disastrously misplaced upon my hand. I always grumble, grimace, and groan during this exercise in futility, wipe my hands off as best I can, ensure there’s just enough urine in the cup to get me safely away, scrub my hands like a surgeon preparing for an operation, and gingerly place my named cup, also all wiped off, in the secret doorway.

I emerge from behind that unproductive door all grouchy that once again, I have finished this distasteful task much in the same vein as I always do, never quite unscathed.

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: Jeff gets home early on Thursdays, and so were eating lunch and talking about this story. He reminded me of the first time he ever had to give a sample to pass a drug test. Hilarious! The instructions given to him were, "take this cup, pee, and get a sample." Poor Jeff. He didn't understand why he got in trouble for turning in a too-diluted sample until his mother explained it to him later. Apparently, he had done just what the instructions said...he took the cup with him, used the bathroom, AND scooped out a sample from the toilet which he turned in! I'm still laughing just thinking about it.