Review: eSalon Customized Hair Color, Part 1

My friend sent me a link to eSalon last week, and I decided that, since the initial order is "50% off," so $10, and comparable to "store" hair color, I'd try it.

The process itself was pretty fun, mostly because it involved my answering a lot of questions about myself and my hair. And, well, as someone who actually has a "hair" tag for her blog, this was pretty amusing.

Two days later, a box showed up in the mail. When I opened it, I was surprised as to how "fancy" it was. I wanted to color my hair immediately, even though I didn't strictly need to.

Here's the packaging:

It has my name on it!

It's greeting me! :)

Look at all of this stuff!

There are two coloring kits. One for my roots and one for my ends.

Then there is all of these other items...

TWO sets of gloves! And stain guard?! What is this?!

My name is on EVERYTHING! It's all for ME!

But enough fangirling about the packaging... Um, and my fascination with seeing my name on things. What about the color? Well, it's not quite time yet. Still. I'll get busy with the coloring part soon!

Disposable

James has a long-handled, old-fashioned nice razor. It's not a straight-edge; he's not that adventurous. But he has a very classy razor, and he uses specially-foaming shaving soap which he applies with a shaving brush (for which we created this beauty). When the blade dulls, he replaces it. He'll have that shaver for a long time.

I, on the other hand, have a disposable razor. I use it and keep it in the shower. I drop it, I just let it lie wherever it falls. If it breaks, I don't really care because I have 12 more just waiting in pink cellophane on the shelf behind the toilet. The razors are cheap, they're effective for a shortish window of time, and I wouldn't think of spending 45 minutes bending metal or even thinking about anything having to do with those worthless pieces of plastic.

Sometimes I think we, maybe subconsciously, define people in our minds as valuable and worthy of special treatment, or as disposable. Maybe we do this because we can't care for everyone and everything, or maybe we do it because we've been hurt and we're trying to protect ourselves. Whatever the reason, not everyone can be "permanent." I get that.

But my caution is this: You can't treat someone like they're disposable, and then pretend that your life is blown to bits when they're worn out and used up and good and ready to be discarded. The blade dulls, and maybe it even cuts you, and, yeah, that hurts. You can show people your scar and get lots of sympathy. Good for you. But if the whole thing had really been that important to you in the first place, you could have treated it like a precious treasure instead of a worthless, easily-replaceable piece of crap. And if you've done this, I sincerely hope you learn that lesson before you make your next shaving purchase.

Just some thoughts about personal hygiene for you this morning.

My Best Friend

It's taken me a while to get this all settled, but it's finally happened: I have the world's greatest best friend, and he happens to live with me... AND that will be true forever. I cannot even describe what that's like, coming off of four decades of wanting this exact thing, and finally getting it. It's incredible.

My best friend might not be perfect, but he is absolutely perfect for me. He knows just how to be with me when I am experiencing big emotions. He doesn't ask, "What's wrong?" or force me to name feelings I don't recognize yet. Also, he doesn't run away. He sits with me. He is patient. He is quiet. He waits. And eventually, I am able to pinpoint what I'm feeling, and then I want to tell him. I want to share everything with him. Even though it's sometimes silly or baseless or overwhelming or just wrong, he wants to know.

He never makes me feel like I'm broken for the things that I think or the feelings that I have. He might be flummoxed. He might disagree. He might even offer me an opposite viewpoint. But then he puts his arms around me and assures me that we are a team and that I am loved and that he is mine.

Sometimes, I am concerned that the cost is too high; that I am exhausting and eventually he will tire and I will lose him, even if not physically... that he will just spiritually drift away, and I'll be all alone again. But then, the way he looks at me... I know that this is real and this is forever and, God bless him, he feels like he's getting something out of this, too.

I hope that he is. Lord knows that I love him more than I love my own life, and I would do anything to help him, to please him, to serve him. I try every day. And I do it happily. It is an honor. I am so fortunate to have the greatest friend ever right here, that nothing feels like a chore. It all just feels like happiness.

Beer-Making, Part Four: Oh, the humanity!

A few days ago, I heard the sound of shattering glass and was startled, but had no idea from where it had come. I went into James' office, and Aish seemed to be telling me from where the sound had emanated... But it was impossible. She was looking directly at a drawer in James' computer desk. How could glass break in there?

As I stood, glancing around the office, though, I started to smell something sweet-yeasty-smelling. I looked down, and it appeared that the desk was bleeding. But, no: It was beer. Beer was pouring out from under the cabinet.

I was still pretty dense; I couldn't understand this. Still, I opened the bottom drawer and found, among the bottles James had apparently stored in there, one of his fermenting new bottles had exploded. I cleared out the intact bottles and then it occurred to me to take this picture.

Yeah. I'm very glad that wasn't sitting on a shelf somewhere, out in the open, especially near the cat.

There was no way to stop the beer from just spilling out all over the floor. I had to hose out the drawer, too. And one of James' favorite bottles is history. Le sigh.

According to this blog, we did everything right... except for maybe one thing: Cool/dark place. We live in Austin, TX. Dark, we can give the beer. Cool? Not this time of year. We only cool our house to 78, and the thermostat is in the living room, which is probably the mildest room of the house. In the mornings, James' office gets pretty warm (that's where this happened) and in the afternoon, our bedroom heats up.

This morning, the same kind of thing happened, though it wasn't as dramatic-sounding. Still looked pretty horrifying.

(Direct all comments about the boxes and whatnot to James; it's his "Hobbit Hole" and he keeps it as he pleases.)

The reason it hadn't sounded quite as clinky/explosive was that this box happened to have the cardboard divider panels in it.

So there wasn't as much collateral damage. Still, especially after having read that blog, I'm glad it was in a box. I'm thinking we need to box ALL of it up; there are a few bottles sitting in the floor, I believe, and the cat (and the computer) spends a lot of time in the office.

James said he'd never had a beer explode before, and that the friends he's had who did mostly seemed to have the bases kind of blow off. I also wonder if the fact that these are self-sealing lids has any relevance. My only other idea was that the first bottle was larger than the average beer bottle, so that perhaps the head space we gave at the top wasn't adequate for a larger volume of carbonating liquid. Anyone else have any clues?

Writing again! Part II: This time it's different.

For more than ten years, I had a pretty steady writing gig. It didn't pay anything, but I loved it. I wrote short sketches for the various churches I attended across that decade. I'd come to it in a church that produced in-house-written dramas at least a couple of weekends a month. These weren't the "youth group Christian skits" I knew from growing up... You know the treacly, sappy ones where there's a very overt message with which you are beaten repeatedly over the head? Things like the lady who wants to take up her cross like Jesus and goes into a shop but thinks the actual cross is too cumbersome and keeps talking the salesperson down until she walks out with a cross necklace. Or the one with the girl Jesus is trying to follow around and hold in his arms, and she keeps yelling at him to leave her alone, which he won't, so she finally holds him in place by tacking his hands up in a crucified position? Yeah... ugh. No.

The philosophy at the first church that I attended was that the dramas were to open up a can of worms, and then it was the preacher's job to fix everything. Basically, we used drama or comedy or whatever storytelling mode was appropriate to ask a question in a very real, very raw way. Some people even hated that, but it's okay. Music doesn't touch everyone, but it touches a lot of people. I think that drama is the same way. It breaks down walls.

I had an incredible writing mentor in Las Vegas, and he helped me hone my craft so much. I would send him a script (he's a performer and would often be off on cruises or performing in Los Angeles) and wait in nervous excitement for him to write me back... Always encouraging, always gracious (but not to the point of exaggerating the merits of what I'd done), but also always quick to get to the business of, "You missed a huge opportunity for a joke here," etc. He helped me learn how to rabidly attack my writing, getting rid of excess without mourning my precious "babies." His guidance taught me how to relish constructive feedback without having any negative feelings or insecurities about it.

So I wrote. I wrote a lot. I tried to worm my way into whatever arts programs that churches had when I'd go, and if there wasn't one in place, I was always game to give it a go.

That all ended a the beginning of 2011. When the cracks in my marriage were revealed and the whole thing crumbled, I was relieved of my responsibilities so that I could focus on reconciliation of my relationship. What actually happened came as quite a shock to me...

I know, or I acquiesce to this in theory, that my identity is found in Christ alone. It is God's creation and love that gives me worth, and no one can take that away from me. Not the opinion of others, not my own poor choices, and certainly not what I do or don't do. But what I realized had happened, once this was removed as an outlet for me, is that at some point, I'd mentally shifted from being a child of the King to being that child of the King who writes stuff. When the "writing stuff" outlet was taken away, I found myself not understanding where I fit into things, and I did not "feel" as close of a relationship to God. I think that I was mistaking the momentum of output in an area I adored for an intimacy with God.

To be certain, I know that any ability I might possess to write comes from God. Like I mentioned in the last post, the story came to me, not from me, and I was overjoyed by the process. I was mostly grateful for the opportunity to write *for* something again. I'll write, anyway. I'll blog. I'll observe. I'll make you all sick of my words. It's already happening, right? But to have a goal, a reason, and to be able to share with other people... It's what I love.

And maybe I'm doing it for the love of writing from now on. Maybe God doesn't want me to confuse so personal a passion and service with a closeness to Him. All I know is that I was shaken to my foundations when I was pulled off of the short film we'd begun to work on, and it took me a long time to figure out where I fit in with God again. I had been so certain that using whatever talents I had in church was how God had planned to "redeem" my otherwise fairly useless liberal arts education, and maybe it was... for a time. I think maybe now, there is fulfillment to be found in writing wherever the opportunity arises, and in believing in earnest that all is sacred.

I'm okay with that.

Writing again! What I learned (again) about discipline...

In what Dr. Horrible would categorize as a "crazy random happenstance," (which it actually wasn't at all; my husband was a very important conduit) I had the opportunity to write a script potentially for use in a live show in the style of an old-fashioned radio drama. After working on it for a week, I finally submitted it and found out a couple of days ago that it's going to be used. I was also asked whether I could do at least one more: There are to be four shows in all, and my first submission was a Thanksgiving-themed sketch.

During the writing process, I learned (or relearned) a couple of important things.

The thing that I relearned was something about perseverance. I haven't written a script in about two and a half years. This was to be a 10-20 minute-long episode, so it felt luxuriously long compared to the 7-minute shorts to which I had been accustomed. Thing is, I was used to having a brainstorm session with at least two other people first. When I walked into writing with a framework, it was usually easy for me to fill in the gaps with dialogue or jokes or whatever was appropriate.

Building an idea from the ground up was more difficult. I mean, I can get an idea and write. That's largely what hobby writing *is*. It's another thing entirely to say, "You have a deadline. Now think of something clever. Go!"

Uh.

Crickets.

I came up with two basic scenarios: One for Christmas (at a bus stop) and one for Thanksgiving (in the hall of an old house, family members waiting for the bathroom). I ended up going for the Thanksgiving script first, even though I set up files for both, because I figured that I could introduce several characters and maybe by the time I'd done that, I'd have some momentum and could complete an actual story arc.

I was wrong.

Although I had nothing about which to write, I made myself sit down and do something whenever I had the chance. I managed about four pages this way, then ran out of steam. I had in the back of my mind that somehow the door was going to end up locked with no one inside, and they'd have to problem-solve how to get it open. There is some room for comedy there, but the whole thing was so domestic and familiar, I felt like I needed something a little out of the ordinary to happen to shake it up.

One of the elements I'd included, thanks to a suggestion from my mother-in-law, was two cousins sitting on the roof throwing Halloween candy at trick-or-treaters. I ended up having to switch that out with another tradition in order to make my eventual story work, but I think that idea of a past connection in childhood finally sparked the idea that came to me in the shower last Sunday morning.

I'd gone to bed, planning to mull it over while I dozed off, but had crashed instead. The idea came after a good night's sleep, and I laughed at it. It was so not at all where I'd planned the story to go. It had become a fantasy, which wasn't my intent in the least. But it was going to work, and almost on the heels of the idea came the ending that made the whole thing even better.

I smiled all through church and itched to get home and write.

Even then, though, when I got home, it took James setting a timer to force me to sit down and just go. Once I started, the thing wrote itself. It bulged at 16 pages, when I'd only wanted it to be 15, but I kept it as short as I could and still have it tell the story that had come to me out of somewhere to which I don't have conscious access.

So the lesson here, which I've known and of which I need to be reminded constantly, is that, in order to be a writer, you have to write. If I'd waited for my story to come to me before I'd been willing to sit down at all, I don't know that I would have had this idea. But because I forced myself to just pound out some words, I had a beginning into which the middle and end happened to fit perfectly. I had a cast in place, and they already knew their parts.

What I ended up with was still a domestic comedy, with a little impossible thing thrown in that makes it pop. I was happy with it, and would have been even if they'd elected not to use it. The act of writing again... It's what I'm supposed to do. It's just confirmation.

The other thing that I learned will be in a second post, after I've read a little and napped a little. So stay tuned!

Spicy Peanut Butter Mousse-filled Chocolate Coffee Cake

Years ago, I bought a Betty Crocker Bake'n Fill pan set, and I've used it with varying levels of success over the years. I think this one will be remembered as a hit.

First, I made this eggless chocolate cake, (because I was out of eggs) except that I used baby food carrots instead of oil. It added moisture without any fat. But don't worry! The "no fat" wasn't the goal; it was really just an experiment to see how the cake would turn out. Turns out, it's spongy and moist, and tastes very nicely of coffee-flavored chocolate.

I used the more "squared off" of the two outer cake pans (one is round for balls and more uniformly dome-shaped cakes) and put the filling insert in. Then I baked the cake base.

Next, I made the peanut butter mousse from this recipe, but we didn't have any heavy cream and I wasn't willing to walk further than the 7-11 at 8:30 last night, so we substituted almost an entire can of spray whipped cream. Oh! Also, I used half regular peanut butter and half of the Rebo spicy peanut butter from Haiti. (Please take the time to read that article; it's a good one.)

After I put the mousse into the cake well, I topped it with the base and put it in the refrigerator to set overnight.

This afternoon, I melted a stick of butter. I melted a bag of chocolate chips. Then I mixed that with about 2 tablespoons of corn syrup and enough powdered sugar that it looked like frosting. You know what I mean.

I frosted the cake and put it all in the fridge to let the frosting harden so that I could wrap the cake without making it look too hideous, and here is the outcome. Daphne said it's delicious! (I'm still too full from sampling frosting to try it.)

This cake is an honorary birthday cake for my brother-in-law, who lives many miles away and can't enjoy it, but don't worry, Khrys: Tomorrow, we will eat this thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if we have to, just to prove how much we honor your special day.