Chopped

So my hair has been somewhat of a point of distress for me for quite some time now. I feel like I am more of a short-hair girl deep down. Like, ever since middle school I have been a big fan of cutting it at regular intervals. I am blessed with pretty thick and fast-growing hair so it really isn't that dramatic for me to cut since I know it will grow back within like a year.

However, in the last two years I have been growing it out and even though I didn't really love it long, I kind of felt like I should let it grow for the following reasons:

1. I kind of know that once I have kids I will always have it short (ish) so I wanted to take advantage of this last time that I can have long hair.

2. Dave has only ever known me with longer hair so I was worried that he wouldn't like it.

3. I wanted to donate it to Locks of Love and so I needed to stick it out longer.

However, having longer hair was not the best for me. I honestly just don't really care enough to put the time into taking care of it. I knew that when I am teaching next year I wouldn't want to get up any earlier than the already 6am wake-up call to fix it. I am cheap and poor so I buy terrible shampoo and conditioner and it was getting dried out. I never actually fixed it. And my bangs were way too long so they just got pinned back. AND, it was getting really heavy as it got longer so it had no body or style it just sat there looking frumpy. It caused me to feel like this:

So on Monday I realized that I was suffering for no reason. I measured and if I cut it right then, my hair would have to be pretty short but no shorter than I had ever had it before so I decided to just go for it. Plus, my family was coming in Tuesday and it would be fun to surprise them. I called the salon that I usually go to but the girl who used to cut my hair had moved and so I just got a random. I can be so impulsive sometime, I feel like growing up my mom would never ever have let me just decide to cut off a foot of hair on the spur of the moment and then just go to some person that I had never heard a recommendation for, but that is the beauty of being a grown up: I can make perhaps dumb decisions without permission (looonnngest sentence ever, sorry).

She had to put my hair in a few little ponies to cut it, and the girl accidentally cut one side higher than the other so my hair ended up pretty short...oh well...maybe recommendations are a good thing...but it turned out ok. I am still kind of getting used to it but Dave says he likes it. Well, actually he said he liked it but then he said that running his hands through my hair reminds him of running his hands through his friend Andy's hair (yes, Andy is a boy, who at one point in time had long hair) but after me getting mad about that he repented and said I still looked like a girl.

So, without further ado here are the inevitable bathroom pics (you can see that I did it not once but twice by the fact that I have two outfits! You're so welcome):

Please appreciate the piece that is sticking way out and the fact that I don't know how to look up from my phone for a picture.

And yes that random piece of bang will haunt me until the day I die.

Yama-Rama

It is that lovely time of year when families all over the country start reunioning. I swear every person I talk to is going or has just come from a family reunion of some kind. And, we being  no exception to this mass exodus to Bear Lake and Yellowstone, made the trek up to Big Cottonwood Canyon (so trying, a whole hour away for us...we got lucky!) for the biannual Kiyoshi Yamashita Family Reunion.

Now, I was very excited for this because the last family reunion I went to was before I was officially part of the family. Dave and I were like two weeks away from getting engaged, but since there was no public agreement (although I am pretty sure everyone knew we were getting married at that point), I didn't really feel qualified to be a part of things too much. Like the t-shirts. Oh, my the t-shirts. Dave had emailed me when I was in Europe like a month beforehand and said "hey, do you want a shirt for my family reunion" and I panicked and was like "what do you want me to do?", and he said "well, my mom and I were talking about it and thought that it might be awkward if you had one" which naturally I had to be like "oh yeah, I didn't want a stupid shirt anyway. FINE!" to (not really. I played it much cooler than that. I was like "oh yeah, totally awkward. I would much rather the only person in a twelve mile radius who is wearing something different"). Actually, upon clarification later, when we were, you know, actually talking and not emailing broken messages to each other in French laundromats, it came out that what his mom actually said was "Claire might feel weird if she has a shirt since she isn't officially in the family yet, so why don't you ask her what she wants?" which sounded much nicer and more realistic if you knew my MIL.

When it came time for family pictures later, I told Dave that under penalty of death he had to let me hide and not try to be like "oh, you should be in the picture? because then I would ruin it and feel dumb and stuff. So when they took this, I hid, in my normal weirdo way:

Luckily, Dave's cousin-in-law Mari took me aside and explained that she, too, once had to hide during family picture time, and it was uncomfortable. There is just no way around these things.

Dave's Dad did take this pic of us afterwards, though:

Dave was also wicked sick right then, can you tell? It was an interesting weekend.

Anywho, I was excited this time because I am officially in the family! And it is way more fun to be official because you get a SHIRT. I was so pumped. Sadly though, family photo time was not my shining moment:

My friend Melissa's first question upon seeing this picture was "wait, why are there so many white people?" (We're everywhere Melissa! You just can't keep us out of stuff!)

The reunion weekend was super fun and I really love Dave's family. It is fun having cousins that live close because mine all live far away and growing up I wish I had been able to see them more. We played a lot of games, lost a pool tourney, went on hikes, ate food (you should have seen the rice cooker display) tried to go running with my super in-shape cousin-in-law April, and played with kids.

Dave's family is hard core about playing games. I believe his parents were up past two a.m. playing in the pool tournament and then his dad would get up and golf at like 5. I seriously can't keep up with them. The last night I collapsed at like 11 and didn't stir until Dave came in happily at 1:30. I feel bad that I will never measure up to their skill or stamina. A light-hearted round of Scategories is about all I excel at.

You want some poorly composed and lit pictures? Why of course:

Check out that powdered-donut mugshot

This classic chin-singing act at the family talent show (to which we contributed nothing except a later and quite exclusive rendition of Flying Dave.)

CHECK OUT THESE JAMMIES.  He calls them "boney bones." They are kind of the funniest/coolest thing I have ever seen. With the exception of these.

These might be the cutest kids ever.

Matching t's! And a sloppy ponytail from me, surprise, surprise.

We ended the weekend with a testimony meeting on Sunday which was a really nice way to close and I think it was good for me to have the opportunity to learn a little more about some of the people in Dave's family that I haven't spent as much time with. His grandparents really have left an amazing legacy and I am grateful for the piece of it that I get to be married to :) Thanks Dave, for letting me officially be a part of your family now!

Because I am Just That Obnoxious

I always get on Dave's case about correcting me about things, because I think it is annoying when you accidentally say something wrong and people jump all over it. I typically pull the "I was raised to be polite and not critique people (you can never argue with how your wife was raised, right? That's just dangerous territory.)" card but really I just hate being wrong. Let's be honest. So when I say "it's like three miles to the freeway", and he says "No, it's actually 3.2", he now knows to expect a guttural growling sound and a brooding glare. The poor kid just wants to see the truth recognized, because as we know the truth will set us free.

So anyways, I couldn't believe myself when I went to Smith's on Thursday night and found myself pulling a shift on the Correctness Patrol. I had this coupon that was going to allow me to get M&M's for $.12. Now, some people say that you shouldn't coupon because you end up buying junk that you don't need, but you see, I was totally going to buy candy anyway. So it is really a win for me. I wanted to use my coupon on the Peanut Butter kind, but for some reason it didn't have the sale tag like the others so I went to the check stand and asked the cashier if they were, in fact, on sale like the rest of the M&M varieties. To which he helpfully responded "Oh, we actually don't carry Peanut Butter M&Ms, sorry!" And then I had this intense inner struggle because I really wanted the flippin Peanut Butter M&Ms and I didn't want to go and get them and like prove him wrong on his turf (someone got shot at Smith's last summer, haven't you heard?) but I really wanted to get the $.12 deal! So I eventually just said "...oh, weird I thought I saw them...sorry" and walked out of the store with my less-worthy pretzel variety.

However, the fact that I was sure that they had peanut butter bothered me all night. I suffered in silence because I didn't want Dave to know that I had almost pulled a him, and be justified in all the times I got mad at him for proving me wrong (I seriously said the words "I'm your wife, you're just supposed to agree with me all the time!", once before I realized how terrible it sounded) but the next day when I had to run to Smith's again, I took my opportunity for vindication:

How annoying am I? Just let the cheap M&Ms go....

Big News

Ok, this is kind of a crying wolf title because it isn't really that great of news and someday when I do have news you won't believe me. Oops. But that aside, these three things mean a lot to me:

1. I made a new page (at the top) where I can track my miles. Eventually it will be high-tech but for now it is a link. I am really excited to have a quick way to track my workouts (ok, I am sure my iphone has an app for that but all I use is Scramble on that thing) because before that it was just a poorly-designed chart on my fridge.

2. I looked under the "stats" tab on here at some searches that pulled up my blog and my favorites were "sweaty gym" and "how to get ready for work in 30 minutes". Both make perfect sense if you know me and I am a little bit proud that I have talked about sweat enough to come up in a Google search. Also, I feel bad that people looking for advice for getting ready quickly are just coming here to hear my pointless confessions and see pictures of limp, wet hair and the occasional deodorant or toothpaste stain. Because that is how I get ready in 30 minutes.

3. I recently clicked the "monetize" button on here and adds popped up in between my posts. I think I will take them off because I have thus far seen no money magically appear in my bank account, and this happened today:

What? I mean, "sweaty gym" was one thing but what the heck about my blog would make Blogger think that Braveheart up there would fit in with my (tiny) readership? I would have clicked the video link but I got scared. I am now going to reflect deeply on why depressed Rambo up there showed up and not a picture of some craft or lovely baked good. Mormon Mommy Blogger fail.

About Honey and Vinegar

I should like to speak of something that I thought was common knowledge, but apparently is not. At work I sometimes have the pleasure of speaking with somewhat angry people on the phone. Granted, compared to many other jobs or even departments within BYU, the amount of contact I get with angry people is very small (I can't imagine the poor secretaries in Financial Services. Ouch), but nevertheless it is significant enough that I have started to form some opinions and I usually feel like I can predict who is going to get a good outcome right off the bat.

Last week, a lady called and wanted to talk to the Dean about her son. I usually roll my eyes a little when people have issues about their kids, because I sort of feel like their COLLEGE-aged child should be able to figure these things out on their own. My favorite is when parents call wondering where their son (it is always a son, no offense boys) can buy a cap and gown. Your kid made it to a degree but they can't look this up online and walk over to the bookstore and order a cap and gown? How am I still here working on my degree? Then I commence with the feeling really bad about myself part.

Anyways, I was prepared for this lady to be rude but she was actually really nice, just a little misguided about where to go for help, and I was more than happy to talk to her. I gave her several phone numbers of places around campus that she could call and I even chatted with her for a minute just for kicks. I genuinely wanted to help her find an answer to her problem. A nice time was had all around.

Yesterday, however, I was greeted by a screeching banshee on the other end of the line who demanded she speak with "The Dean of [department in college]" (I pompously love it when people don't understand how the whole college organization thing works and they act like I am the one who is wrong. There are no deans of departments, only colleges.) about an issue that her daughter was having. She kept saying things like "YOUR college" (yep, it's mine) and "I DON"T CARE!" (*screeching banshee sounds*) when I told her that she actually had to talk to someone else first. She was just so darn unpleasant. I found myself giving her the least amount of help that I could as a quiet and probably fruitless act of retaliation. My favorite part was when she tried to threaten me by stating that she works for BYU and trying to scare me with her position, but, like everyone else in the 21st century, it turns out that we have caller ID so I could see exactly who she actually was and it wasn't really scaring me. So in the end I told her the name of a person to talk to and hung up as quickly as possible. And then I judged her for fighting her daughters' battles for her. Maybe this whole "being married and standing on your own two feet" thing is getting to me a little.

So, the moral of the story is: be nice to student employees. Cuz we can help you and be nice if you're nice to us. And also bring us Blimpie subs (another story altogether).