Blondes like me

Have you ever had one of those moments where you realize your brain has played a trick on you? Over Thanksgiving I was around my sister in law (SIL for my BZ friends) and we were talking about hair color. My boys are relatively blonde. For many years of my adult life, I was relatively blonde, too. As you can see from my childhood pics in previous posts, I was relatively blonde as a child.

For whatever reason, the Gods of Hair Color have played a cruel trick on me and while I was blissfully highlighting 90% of my hair from the age of twenty to thirty, the underlying color was getting darker and darker and darker.

A few years ago I said "Hey, how cool would it be to go back to my natural color? Wouldn't that be cool?" Yes, well, I was shocked to find that my natural color is about sixteen shades darker than I imagined it was. Which means my roots were eighteen shades darker than I thought they were while they were growing out (because of a neat little trick of the eye where your roots look darker than they actually are next to the brightness of highlights). But I digress.

I stuck to my plan, and retained my natural color with a little chemical help here and there. Hey, highlights do more than lighten your hair, you know. They add texture and help it have a style, too. So I would highlight a little, and then have my Girl put a little gloss over that to make it Reddish. The whole process would take twenty nine hours over two days and I'd end up looking remarkably like I did when I came into the salon. And my wallet was $200 lighter.

Well, apparently my brain never got the message that my hair is now Dark. Because whenever I see women with blonde highlighted hair, I think "oh, she looks like me." And when I see brunettes, I think "oh, look, a brunette." So do you remember my SIL that I mentioned at the beginning of this long-winded story? Well, at Thanksgiving I believe she said something to the effect of "Austin's hair is so dark. It's almost as dark as Heather's!" I was so confused for a minute. Maybe there's another Heather in our family?

Ahh, gotta love families, right!? Nothing like your family to remind you that you're old, or fat, or dark-haired, or poor.

One hunert

Happy one hunert posts to me, la la la la! I thought and thought and thought about what to write for my centennial post. And I can't think of anything. So maybe I'll just do some random lists and pictures or something, like the way my brain works on a regular day.

Here is something I really like right now, at Target. Yes, I would marry Target if I could.

They have new wedding invitations - you can make your own super modern and cool wedding invitations and not go into debt for it! And none of your guests would know the difference. They even come with the reply cards that match, and the paper quality is really great.

I also just found Etsy. My friend Christia is a new avid knitter (she's also new to the midwest, can you believe it?) and she's selling her work at her Etsy shop. So I wandered over there last night and WHOA! What a plethora of cool things on Etsy! I thought my mai teis were cool, but there are people on Etsy selling way cooler baby carriers than mine. Oh, well, I'm not selling them, I guess that helps a little.

I'm trying to find a blog/html designer who can put my blog design idea into action. So if any of you know of a graphic designer who can do this sort of thing, please have them email me at heathertyfeatherty@gmail.com. The job pays tens of dollars. Just kidding! I know what I want, I just don't have the time or talent to use Illustrator and learn how to write html code.

I found this picture of me as a four year old skiing prodigy in Tignes, Switzerland. Circa 1976. So that got me thinking about how I want to raise my sons, and now I'm adding SKI TRIPS to our list of things to do each winter.

And last but not least (yes, this post will surprisingly be shorter than my usual ramblings), here is a list of ways you can help someone else this holiday season.

• Toys for Tots
• Compassion International
• Heifer International
• And you can always call a local church and ask how you can help a needy family this Christmas. That's what the season is all about.
  

And I leave you with this. A photo of myself at Christmas in 1976, the same year of the skiing championship. This photo is a plea to parents. Don't do this to your child's hair. Merry Christmas and Happy Blogging, everybody!

TAG! You're it!

Oh, man, is Angela ever lucky that she tagged me for my ninety-ninth post, and not my 100th! Plus, this gives me time to work on the Big One Hundred.

So apparently, how this works, is I will list six things that really make me happy. Then I'll "tag" six people that I know who blog (uh, I don't know six bloggers, but whatever) and they'll do the same on their blogs, and so on and so forth and so on.

SO, here goes...

Things that make me happy, in no important order:

• Sleeping through the night!
• My kids - Griffie's great hugs and Cooper's heart-warming compliments are to die for
• Boots - I am in love with boots right now. I am trying to figure out how to wear them with sweatpants.
• Hats! There's nothing better, in my mind, than a great stocking cap. Or newsboy. Or one of those Elmer Fudd earflap beaver hunter hats.
• Sewing - I love to make things, anything really. Right now I'm obsessed with baby carriers but some day that will change and I'll be on to something else.
• Gardening - even in the dead of winter I am envisioning what I'll be planting next spring, and what my containers will look like. I eyeball other people's gardens and steal ideas from them, too.

So here are my six lucky bloggers who get to tell us all what makes them happy.....drumroll.....

1. BRETT
2. GINGER
3. JERICIA (she needs to start a blog anyway, here's a good reason to)
4. MARCI
5. MELISSA
6. MARY JO (ah-hah! you have to start one now)

And now, I'm going to partake of the first thing on my list that makes me happy. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's Just. Getting. Interesting!

Alas, I cannot roll over and let Countrywide walk away (or in this case, just sit there like a bunch of dumbasses) with the Saint Albans home. I am going to fight.

I spent the better part of the last few days contacting some people (ok, a couple of attorneys) that might know a little something about buying REO properties, and I've learned a few things. I'll save the details for later...don't want to show my hand just yet...but let's just say it's pretty good! Thank you, Katie G, for emailing me and telling me how you and Andy did it! You were invaluable and now I can't sleep I'm so excited.

On a more bummer note, Neil's grandma passed away last night. For her, it's a blessing. She gets to go Home, and be with Eddie. In going through old photos for her memorial service, Neil found an awesome picture of the two of them kissing, sometime in the forties. She wrote on the back of all of the pictures she sent to him..."I love you best." Isn't that cute? And also, what the heck does that mean?

So her passing has also thrown Neil into a major downward spiral, mostly because he's been forced to be around his mom. I hope he's able to get some closure and peace with the whole situation and move forward. He'll never be close with his mom again, I can see that, but maybe he can let the rawness of his anger subside a little now that Ruth isn't here to worry over? That's my hope.

Tomorrow we have the memorial service and Friday is the burial. This ought to be interesting. It would probably be more fun if it turned into a Jerry Springer smackdown, but you know that isn't going to happen. I should bring my new videocam just in case.

I'm having a lot of fun Christmas shopping this year! Last year I had a three-week-old baby, so everyone got cash or gift cards. This year I'm doing presents again and I'm having a blast. One of my nephews will be getting the Creepy Crawlers Workshop, where you make your own bugs. A friend of mine's sons absolutely love it and have played with theirs for four years now. My niece will be getting faux Uggs with hearts all over them. One nephew is getting a green iPod Shuffle, and two others may be getting them, too, although in different colors. I also bought two of the large dragonfly Air Hogs helicopters. Neil loves his, I'm sure a twelve-year-old will like it, too, right? If not, Brett, it's yours.

I even have a ton of great ideas for my parents, which is totally unheard of! Mom's getting something neat-o (maybe she occasionally reads this blog and I don't want to give it away yet) and so is my dad. Wow, that was a lame paragraph where I didn't say anything!

Oh, and last but definitely not least...I want to give a shoutout to Marci G (formerly Marci D)! She sent me a note on Facebook and let me know that she is a loyal reader. I haven't seen her since college sometime (? summer ?) since I missed our ten year reunion, so it's great to reconnect with all of the girls from high school again. Hi Marci!

Well, kids, that's all for me today. Only two more posts until my centennial! I have to start getting that one ready. Apparently it's a big deal in Blog World.

Is there a lawsuit in here somewhere?

OK, we were denied again on our offer to buy the Countrywide foreclosure. I was not surprised, I'm sure Neil will be. His expectations are different than mine.

Here's where my irritation comes in. I know at least one attorney reads my blog, so maybe someone can tell me whether or not there is a class action lawsuit in this whole mess?

As a taxpayer, I am collectively on the hook for at least $700 B in financial bailout for the lending system. Banks sitting on foreclosed and foreclosing properties are the very reason why we had to rush to pass the bailout package this fall.

Yet, apparently these same banks have absolutely NO INCENTIVE to deal when it comes to selling these properties to qualified buyers. Not only are the representatives who handle the REO office stupid (read my post below about needing the paperwork to match exactly), they are also unmotivated. In our case, we got no counter offer. We got no correspondence whatsoever. We are one of the very few buyers out there right now who can close quickly with a 20% down payment without needing to sell our other residence first. One would think that a mortgage company would want to deal with us? Apparently not!

So let me get this straight...I had to bail out these companies, but they don't have to do anything on their end to rectify the situation with regards to all of the impaired assets on their books? I would think the bailout makes me part owner in their business. If it weren't for my tax dollars (and everyone else's), they would be out of business, bankrupt, kaput!

I know it will sound like sour grapes, that I'm just bitter about our deal not working out. Honestly, I've heard this exact same scenario play out so many times in the past year or two, I can't even count it all on two hands. It doesn't seem to matter what bank owns the loan, they are just not dealing on their short sales and foreclosed properties.

These banks don't seem to understand that the value of these homes has dropped. They are no longer worth what the bank foreclosed them for! They need to write off the loss and move forward with good loans. Loans to people like me and Neil. People with good solid jobs, cash savings, assets in investments, and no contingencies!

OK, now I need to find an attorney, I'm all riled up.