Well... I didn't get my hair dyed today after all. However, there was good reason for it. Upon arriving at the salon, I asked how much the dye job would cost before we got started, just in case it was more expensive than I initially thought. I had been previously told that it would be about $40-$50, but I'm so glad that I checked the price. "At most, it's gonna cost $110." WOAH. NO. No way was I about to pay that much for something small... it wasn't even going to be permanent, so it would probably only have lasted 6 weeks. For that price, that's ridiculous.
My next plan is to look up tutorials on YouTube and figure out how to do the ombre dye I initially wanted myself. It'll cost a lot less, and while it'll take about 3 hours to do myself, that's the time it would have taken at the salon anyway. Ah well, just something new for me to attempt! The only way I'll learn to do all this is by actually trying it out and practicing it... hopefully it goes okay. I'm NOT about to go spend over $100 on my looks, however. I can think of about a million things better to do with my money. Okay, I'm back! I went out for a bit with Grandma and I am now back to finish my post. We went out to her doctor's appointment and then went for pizza. Excitement at its fullest, right?! We also went to another salon to compare prices- essentially, the same price and the same spiel about how it would take 3 hours to do. The time doesn't bother me, but the price does. TO YOUTUBE WE GO! If I do try the dye job myself, I'll definitely post pictures here. But for now, I have homework to finish up so that I can hang with my friends this weekend! Maddie
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The above headline is a quote from the Dalai Lama. For those of you who have no clue who he is, he is the head monk in Tibetan Buddhism. While I would like to think that the man knows what he is talking about, I doubt the voracity of that statement.
To start, there is no real definition for happiness. What makes me happy, won't necessarily make you, or anyone else happy. If I go out of my way to make myself happy, I may, inevitably, make someone else unhappy. While my happiness could lead to making someone else happy (a win/win situation), it could also lead to my happiness and someone else's unhappiness (a win/lose situation). I think a better purpose for life is to love as many people as you can (you likely won't love everyone), and constantly look to increase the circle of those you love. Note that I do not mean "love" in a sexual way. I mean love as in a warm, personal attachment. In the end, isn't that what we all strive for anyway...to be liked, and to like. To enjoy the presence of others and to communicate with them? What makes happiness? Is it internal? Or external? I seriously doubt that happiness is the same for everybody. In fact, I would think that happiness is in the eye of the beholder. Now that I have reached the end of my post, I think that might have made a better headline... "Happiness is in the eye of the beholder!" Feel free to quote me! Today I Found a box of animals toys. Lambs, cows, rats, dogs, and cats- all made of plastic. Maddie played with them when she was a little girl. Now she gave them to me! Oh what fun!
Ashleigh This year, I want to change how I look a bit. Just to clear things up for my Dad, who I know worries about this- no, I'm not unhappy with how I currently look- I just want to try something different for this year. I want to lose a little weight, dye my hair black at the ends, pierce my ears more, and change my style of clothing. I like ripped jeans, despite my Dad NOT liking them. I think different ear piercings are cool, even though Dad is hesitant to let me get them.. though I have wore him down to the point where I may be able to get my cartilage pierced. Hopefully.
Tomorrow, I'm getting my hair dyed. I'm doing and ombre- fading from my natural color (a light red/ strawberry blonde) into jet black. I'm only getting a demi, which isn't permanent and won't damage my hair. Since there is no bleaching required to go darker with hair, my hair shouldn't get much drier and won't have permanent damage. I'm looking forward to doing it- I can't wait to see how it turns out. I've also been trying out different hairstyles and I may change up the way I wear my hair- I'm not sure. I am currently trying to learn to braid my hair so it goes up and over the side of my head. So far, I've only managed to tangle my hair in knots. Ah well, I'll keep practicing. That's about all for today- I'll post pictures tomorrow of how my hair turns out! Maddie Hello, my name is Ashleigh and I am five years old. I like to play with my stuffed animals
and legos. Maddie is my sister. I like to watch her play Xbox! Maddie likes to kiss me on the forehead with her lipstick on. Yuck! Ashleigh Birds can fly.I find them very pretty. Cardinals and Blue Jays are my favorites. Birds use
their wings to fly. Ashleigh While I work, I typically listen to the radio. For the most part, I hate to just work in silence. What good is working from home if you can't rock out to music? Ok, there is a lot of good in working from home, but this, too, is one of the side benefits! Anyway, I was listening to the radio and a song named "Never Too Late" came on by Three Days Grace. The song rambled on for a while with the singer constantly coming back to the phrase"Never too late". Not surprising since it is also the name of the song. Still, it got me thinking that, yes, sometimes it can be too late.
My wife died in August 2013, from alcoholism. She had been an alcoholic when I first met her in 1999. Over that time, I think the longest she ever went without drinking was about 24 months...the time she was pregnant with Maddie and then the time it took to breast feed her. I wonder if her philosophy was that it would never be too late to stop. I recently read through her diary from when we were dating and our first year of marriage. She drank throughout that time period, even though she had told me she had stopped. She talks about not wanting to stop, even though she told me she had stopped. At one point, I had put off our wedding for six months because of her drinking. I took the hit on the down payment money because I wanted her sober on our wedding day. When Sharon and I first started dating, she told me she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her give up the booze. I took her plea seriously and for twelve years I did everything I could to help her stop drinking. In fact, I have not had a drink in sixteen years. Instead of "Never Too Late" I wish someone would write a song called "Never Too Early"! It's never too early to make positive changes. It's never too early to improve a bad situation in your life. When you are lying in a coma for two weeks and you slowly hemorrhage to death because you wouldn't stop drinking booze...well, then it is too late to make a change. Nearly every day, I see someone making a joke about booze, or how drunk they are. For those people, it's not too late, they can change if they put their mind to it. I doubt any of them will. It hasn't gotten serious enough for them. They believe they can handle it. My wife thought so too... and now it's too late. Last night, Dad and I went to see a movie. We were supposed to be seeing The Age of Adaline... but we ended up watching the Avengers instead. Now before you stop reading and scroll to the next post, let me explain. This is NOT just your boring, average, "No Maddie I'm not going to some shitty romance movie with you" story- not at all- even though by the time we arrived at the theater, it could have just as easily been that too.
First and foremost, it should be said that my Dad HATES romance movies in general. So, when I asked him if we could go see this movie, he grumbled a bit about it but said "He didn't care" and that he'd go see it with me (being the good dad that he is). We found a 9:15 showing in Keene, since Gardner (a town with a theater closer to us) only had a 7:00 showing and Dad had some work to finish up. We left at 8:00 so that we'd have plenty of time to get there, get food, and sit down. Everything was going smoothly until we got about 5 minutes away from the theater. We were driving along normally when suddenly, the car made a weird thunking noise and started to slow down. Dad got us into a brake lane and put on our hazard lights, trying to start the car up again. No luck. Thankfully, Dad figured out what was wrong with the car in about 2 seconds. Our car's fuel gauge is broken, so we have to calculate when we are going to run out of gas by counting miles. When Dad checked the meter, we had 308 miles on the meter... we usually try to fill the tank when it hits about 250 miles to be on the safe side. Luckily we had broken down maybe 1/4 mile from a gas station, so Dad walked back and got us enough gas to make it back to the gas station. We filled up, and continued to the theater. However, by this time it was 9:20 and since we had missed the beginning of the Age of Adaline, I sucked it up and told Dad we'd just watch the Avengers instead. It ended up being a good movie anyway, so I was happy. Moral of the story? Always check your gas before leaving to go somewhere. Maddie I just read my daughter's post (likely right under this post)and I must say that I am happy that she enjoys spending time with me. I do think that parents should make an effort to spend time with their kids. There is so much to the world now that finding points of mutual interest should not be too difficult.
I try to spend some quality time with both of my daughters each and every day. There is more to being a parent than just sending your kids off to school each day and then feeding them when they get back and sending them to bed at the proper hour. I like to take my girls fishing and hiking...watch movies with them and play video games. I have also worked out in two karate classes with each of my daughters. I home school both of my girls, thus I make sure to teach them something new every day. Once they pass through learning the basics, reading, writing, math etc., I try to teach them how to think. Not what to think, mind you, but how to think for themselves. Too many people go through their lives without ever thinking deeply. It's sad, really. If the depth of your thinking only goes to either agreeing with or disagreeing with what you see on TV, or even worse by how your favorite sports team is doing, then you are really not living life. I try to teach my daughters how to think for themselves so that they can live a better life. I honestly believe that if you have children, you should spend as much time with them as you can. Too busy is not a good excuse either! I worked 65 hours last week. I still found time to hang out with each of my daughters. Playing video games, watching movies, taking the girls to parks and for ice cream or cookies all played a part in my time with my daughters. We eat dinner together as a family each and every night, and I have had three "tea" parties with Ashleigh, in as many days. In the end, all relationships, whether it be father/daughter, mother/daughter, sister/sister or any combination that fits your family are a two-way street. Everybody needs to make an effort to spend time with one another. While I believe parents should take every opportunity to spend time with their children, I also think that the children need to make the same effort. It is very easy to say that someone doesn't have the time to spend with you, if you constantly bury your head in your phone, computer or video game. We don't really have this problem in my family, since time when that stuff is allowed is limited, but some people never set limits and thus never have time that is just family time. So, what is the answer? Make time to spend time. You'll be glad you did! Tired.. that's definitely a word to describe me right now. I got to bed a bit late last night due to taking my shower AFTER playing Call of Duty with my dad. It's all worth it, though... I love spending time with my dad. I feel so privileged that I CAN... A lot of my friends' parents work a lot and seldom have time to spend with their kids. I feel bad for my friends because of this... you can bond so close to your parents if you both put in effort!
I think that too many parents fail to see that their kids can just as easily become their best friends... if they give them a chance. If you never want to talk to or spend time with your kids, then you can't expect them to open up to you and really be close to you, ya know? You have to put in the time like you would when trying to make a real friend. It's a shame that most people can't have this connection. I've said it before and I'll say it again... my dad is like my best friend. I don't have to worry about him abandoning me for anyone else, backstabbing me, or spreading rumors... and I know he'll always be there for me, no matter what. What more could you want in a friend? I love you, Dad. Thank you for everything. Maddie we have a dog named Lucky. He is our pet. He likes to play with all of us. Lucky likes to run! He
is a good dog! Ashleigh Within every family, there are things not seen as easily by the outside. I can tell you right now what my family's "unseen" value is- we argue a LOT more in my house than what we project to the outside. We don't want to- at least, I know I don't; but somehow, we always do. All it takes is one of us to provoke the other and then the rest of the day is spent throwing little digs and snide remarks at one another. I've personally decided that this is NOT how I want to live... at all.
I can not and will not tolerate being talked to like an animal. Want me to do something? Ask me politely, when I'm NOT DOING ANYTHING OF HIGH IMPORTANCE. Don't bark at me with no manners at all, and don't expect me to just drop all my friends that I've been talking to for 20 minutes just to go fold a load of laundry. The laundry can wait a few minutes while I finish up. Then, I get told that I "never remember to do things" and "I'm not competent". Of course not! If you'd give me the time to go do these things, I would do them. Instead, you howl at me every other minute and piss me off until it gets to the point that I don't want to do Jack-shit to help you. I hate stabbing digs. I hate fighting. I hate everything about negativity, at this point and I want to let it go. I really do. I can't stand the way my environment is right now... I need more peace. At this point, I think EVERYONE in my family needs a more peaceful environment. Over the next few weeks, I'd like to try something. Let me explain how it works: Over the next few weeks, let's all try to get along. This means no arguing, no persistent nagging, no bickering, NOTHING. If you're going to ask for a favor, do it politely. If you are asked to do something, you are allowed 5 minutes before you actually have to go do it unless it is of very high importance. Let's just be peaceful. Take 10 minutes out where we all just go to our separate places and relax. Even now... as I am typing this, I am being commanded to clean the kitchen even more. While the tone is soft, it is a forced type of soft and there is STILL no "please" or "thank you" imminent. I was a bit harsh earlier, so I don't mind... but from here on out, I will not argue, or fight, or name-call. I've hit my breaking point. NO MORE. Maddie Here is something that bothers me. So many people just seem to live for the future. So much so, that they miss out on the happiness they can have today. I am guilty of it too. Although I recognize the symptoms now and I am trying my best to change it.
So what was the promise I fell for? I believed that if I worked hard and put money away for retirement, that I would be able to eventually stop working and enjoy my golden years with my wife. Well, it ain't gonna happen. My wife died in August, 2013. My wife had a mental illness that unfortunately put my children at risk. I divorced her to protect the children. We split our assets 50%/50% including the retirement money. Sharon's disability kept her from holding a job and she lived off of her end of the retirement money. I too, used a lot of the remaining retirement money to keep me and my daughters going during our period of great transition. While I don't mind that the money is gone, the happiness that Sharon and I put off so that we could enjoy ourselves in our later years is something I regret. If we knew the extent of Sharon's illness earlier and that she wouldn't be conscious to see her 38th birthday, we might have lived each day a tiny bit differently. Sometimes, understanding comes too late. Happiness is not something you should put on hold! If you are not happy right now, then do something to change your situation! You don't need to do something big. Take a walk, feel the sun on your face. Hold the hand of a loved one.It is the little things that make happiness! I realize everybody needs to work, but just because you need to work doesn't mean you need to be unhappy or put off happiness. Look for the little things that make you happy...and then make sure that you do some of these little things each day. Happiness does not come from promises. While it would be nice to retire to life of leisure with the one you love, don't put off today's happiness to achieve that goal. People get sick...car accidents happen...plans change! So how can you make change to add happiness to your life? The first step is to find what really makes you happy. For me, it is setting and achieving goals. I am just not happy unless I am striving for something. It doesn't matter what I am striving for. I just need to be able to focus on a goal and be able to see steady progress towards that goal. The second step is to surround yourself with people who make you happy, and avoiding (as much as you can) people who make you unhappy. Finally, you need to put yourself in places where you can be happy. Put this all together and look for the little things that can make you happy. Today, my first cup of coffee made me happy. Finishing my earnings estimates for Fiesta Restaurants also brought me some satisfaction that bordered on happiness (I know I'm weird). Hugging my daughters good morning made me happy as did scarfing down breakfast! Petting my dog brought a couple moments of happiness as well. In the end, I think you really need to know what makes you happy, and then put yourself in the way of that happiness each and every day. And as what makes you happy changes, then make sure to change your life to continue to be happy. In the end, a promise of happiness in the future rings hollow compared to happiness now. While it is extremely important to save for the future, don't tie your happiness to what you might do when the future arrives. Regrets suck! Don't regret that you put off for tomorrow, something that you could have easily had today! I like to go for walks. I like the fresh air, and the exercise. Flowers bloom along the side of
the walkway and brighten my day. Walks are fun to do! Ashleigh By now I imagine everyone who is reading this blog has at some point read 1984. I know we were assigned to read it in high school. If you haven't read it, then shame on you! For those of you who haven't read it, the story was essentially about a police state where the government brazenly lied to everyone through the complicit media and everyone was either under surveillance or suspected they were under surveillance.
Welcome to 2015! Here, the government lies to us through a complicit media and the surveillance net is growing tighter every year. Similar to 1984, most of the people are either too stupid to notice, or just don't care! Our cell phones allow us to be tracked no matter where we go. While some wilderness areas likely allow some spots to be tracking free, most major cities have 100% coverage. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that ability to be tracked won't hurt you...but it only takes once for it to matter. It is not just tracking that bothers me. Our phones and tablets can also be used to listen to our conversations and to even take pictures of us, while we are unaware. Orwell never thought of that one! Personally, I do not carry a "smart" phone. I use a phone for talking and a tablet or lap top for computer usage. I do not get a data plan. At home I use my wifi and when I travel I use free wifi areas or I just do without. Luckily, the only time I want the wifi is when I am working and I am usually travelling somewhere that would naturally have free wifi, like a hotel, medical facility or restaurant. The trains to New York also have free wifi. Even so, it irks me to know that I can be tracked that way too. Governments aren't the only ones tracking us. Corporations do it too! Stores, restaurants, consumer products...Onstar! all of them are tracking your movements. Even on the web, most sites that you visit are tracking you in one way or another. Ever hear of cookies? I don't know about you, but every once in a while I like to go out without my phone and just take a walk with no one knowing where I am. A hike in the woods, or a paddle in the canoe allows me to be alone with my thoughts...or usually, with one of my daughters. I wish that for just one week everyone would just unplug. No phones, no TV, no computers. I'd love to see how that would be. Kind of like going back to the lives of our grandfathers. It will never happen though. Sometimes the past is best left in the past. I graduated high school in 1984. I must say that I enjoyed the book better! This weekend, I am going to a karate tournament. I usually go to compete, but this time... I'm just going to watch. I haven't really had the chance to practice my skills, since our class schedule was cut back due to crowding in classes. Lately, I've spun my nunchucks... but when asked to do my form in class, I had to struggle to remember all the pieces of it. Not good in general, and CERTAINLY not good to compete in a tournament with.
However, I am going to support my team AND to hang out with my friends- I have a few friends coming who aren't in karate that I don't get to see very often. So most of my day will be spent with them- walking around, watching different events and more than likely, eating. Regardless, it'll be a fun day for everyone. However, I need to go shower and make lunch for my sister and I as Dad and Grandma are at the hospital right now (eye complications from my grandma's recent surgery), so I will keep this post short and sweet. Maddie |
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