Do you have any cannonball ointment?

Oh man, I am listening to Pachelbel's Canon in D on another blog right now (so cute, read hers) and it is such a stunningly beautiful song but it makes me want to cry because it makes me think of weddings and gosh I just hate weddings. Is that the weirdest thing ever? I loooove love stories and wedding photos and wedding plans and marriage, but weddings just make me hurt so much. When Sam's family visited from Romania for Christmas, we watched Mamma Mia and his mom (ironically, named Mia) sang along to all of the songs and I watched her instead of the movie because despite all its magic and Abba-tributing-wonder, it is a movie about a wedding and I just can't handle it.

Yep, that is the weirdest thing ever. Well, to quote Left Ear from The Italian Job, "I had a bad experience. And I'm the deaf one?!"

So, like the reenactment troupe always says, "Ya better stay away from the Canon".

Shorn like a prize sheep at a fair

Last weekend I was a demo model for a Toni & Guy hair show in Scottsdale, at the request of a friend. Talk about a wild experience. I spent 9 hours with 20 complete strangers, bonding over the fact that we had to wear the weirdest clothes on the planet (and one girl was dressed like an alien hooker, so maybe off-planet, too...), lay on the bathroom counter to have our haircolor rinsed out, watch people eat pizza while we had celery and unsalted popcorn and wear makeup so thick I couldn't even wash mine off afterwards. If that's the life of a model, then I have to give them props for even putting up with it. But all in all, it was pretty fun and I'm glad I agreed to it. I went in with shoulder length blonde hair and came out with neon orange and blonde hair, shorter than Sam's for the most part. I freaked out for about a day, but Sam loves it so much that it's hard to hate it. I did kinda miss having short hair, anyway. (And I can towel dry most of it. What?!)
The guy who did my hair is (if I'm not mistaken) the son of the "Guy" in Toni & Guy, Zak Moscolo. Apparently quite a celebrity among hair stylists. I didn't even know his name until someone was pushing me out onstage and saying "Go to Zak, he's in the middle!" So now, completely after the fact, I'm a little starstruck at having him do my hair. Although I was too dumb to know, when it was actually happening. Ah well...

Here are some of my compatriots, lookin fine. The styling crew kept fussing over the guy on the end, re-fluffing his curls and dousing him with hairspray, adjusting his suspenders, changing his collar, etc. I jokingly asked if this was how he normally got ready for work and he said he works in road construction, so um...no. Hahahaha how did they even find him to model? But he was perfect, he really rocked it. They all did. Even the poor alien hooker girl. Hahahaha good times. Glad I'll have that experience to tell the grandkids about!

By the way, there is an Urban Outfitters going in downtown, sooooo close to our house. Oh. No. But it's okay to buy out the whole store, as long as you walked to get there. Riiiight? Right. I thought so. Good. Even Sam likes Urban Outfitters, and that boy does not like any other store we've ever been in. It is a sign from heaven! ;)

New thinking

After writing an extremely negative post a few days ago and trying to end it with "I'm not usually this negative..." I realized aw crap, maybe I am that negative. I'm not really sure. Then I read this blog post from the Chief Imagination Officer (how cool is that) of Sparkspace, a super awesome business retreat center in Columbus, OH. His whole blog and business are remarkable and will inspire you. Check them out. [Sparkspace] [Spark New Thinking]

In case you're not planning to read the link, the post talks about eliminating the negative nouns in your life and replacing them with positive ones. May sound cliche'd but this guy covers it with panache, like you've never heard it before. So I'm thinking about what inspires and energizes me and how to surround myself with these positive things, and also how to be an energizing inspiration to others instead of a drag. (As appealing as the very word "drag" is, I think I'll pass.)

Ghost Town is one of my favorite movies, and this line is pretty much my life's thesis: "Your story isn't boring or ordinary... We just get one life, you know? Just one, and you can't live someone else's or think it's more important just because it's more dramatic. What happens matters. Maybe only to us, but it still matters."

So I'm starting a new project. How your story wrote my story, blogging about how women have been influential in my life. And I'm going to use my complete list of Facebook friends, from brief acquaintances to bestest buds to family. It is definitely new thinking for me, because I typically believe that because of having three brothers and mostly male friends all my life, that guys have been my biggest influences. But when I really think about it, it's the complete opposite.

It's a little scary, as all good projects should be, but I think it will inspire a whole lot of people. And it will unfold right here for anyone and everyone to watch. That's mostly what makes it scary, by the way. The accessibility.

What inspires and energizes you? What wild (or tame) lengths can you go to to replace the negative thinking with positive and make it a habit? If you figure it out don't just tell me, let Mark know, too. He should hear that his life and words inspire people.

I remembered to bring the camera home for the weekend. Hoping for lots of waaaay more interesting photos than this one! But this is pretty cool, as far as mirror photos go. Our landlords have the best taste in paint.

1 Golea, a lot of "goles"

Any time I try to type my last name on my iPhone it auto-fixes it to say "Goles", as if that is somehow more correct than Golea. Which is, in fact, a real word/name. So, in honor of my silly phone (Which also auto-fixes the word "him" to say "Jim" every single time. Talk about obnoxious. I am so rarely meaning to type "Jim" and it makes me look super crazy in all those gossippy emails I send.) and a couple very lovely ladies, I would like to share a few goles.

My very favorite blogger, Kendi Skeen of Kendi Everyday and Better Off Wed, has an interview on this other site with lots of advice about life. One of her points is to set unrealistic goals. I like that idea. These are totally achievable, but they are things I don't really name as actual goals because I already feel like they're impossible. Ridiculous, huh?
1. I want to see what my real hair looks like again. That long, curly, dishwater blonde stuff I grew up with but haven't seen since I was like 10. I don't even remember it pre-chopping/dying/ironing/spiking days.
2. I want to be a good cook.
3. I want to learn to speak Romanian before we have children and they use their bilinguality against me.
4. I want to see my little heartthrob nephew and niece every single day until they're 100. (Okay, that's the most unrealistic, but it is also the one I want the most.)
5. Conquer acne. (Mine, anyway.)

And possibly the very same day Mel, the beauty behind Lullilloo Photography, was writing about her very realistic goals and inspiring me to name goles I can achieve on a tight schedule. Fascinating concept to me. I'd like to accomplish these before Christmas:
1. Crochet a cute monster doll.
2. Bake pumpkin whoopie pies from the recipe my cousin sent me.
3. Bring home the big mama jama camera from work every weekend and practice with it.
4. Complain less.
5. Ask people more questions.
6. Learn a lot more about downtown.
7. Join a small group and/or Sunday School class.
8. Respond to the ancient Facebook messages that are collecting dust in my inbox.
9. Write stories. (You're welcome to read them, if you like.)

I think that'll do! Let's see how this goes... What am I talking about? I expect nothing less than success from myself (which is why I avoid cooking and choreographed dancing at all costs), so they will happen. You'll see.

What up, Wednesday?!

Coming home for lunch today, I thought of the best question. The remote key for my car is the most convenient thing ever; when my hands are full of stuff all I have to do is feel for the lock or unlock button or the trunk button et voila! My car does exactly what I want it to. Now why on earth don't house doors do that? Good grief it is hard to unlock my front doors. I have to unlock two locks each on two different doors and you know the deadbolts are so stiff you have to worry about breaking off the key in the lock. What a serious oversight! Why don't we have remote locks for our home doors?! Surely it couldn't be that difficult or expensive, but HELLO 2010, what's the deal? After loooong minutes of scrambling for the correct key (with my hands still full, of course), I get three locks undone just in time for Sam to hear me and come unlock the last one from the inside. Maybe that's the real question, there...why don't I just knock?

Speaking of the man, the myth, the legend: as you may possibly imagine, Sam is kryptonite to women of all ages. Little girls adore him because they know deep down that he is a real live prince, girls in the middle love him because he's a stud and moms can't stay away from him because he's a whole continent away from his own mother and only sees her every few years and darn it he needs a mother on this continent!

I perfectly understand all of these reasonings, but for some reason some of the moms get that "you stole my little boy from me" attitude toward me, or even "you're not good enough for my little boy". What the heck?! My own precious, beautiful, loving mother-in-law doesn't think those things, so what in tarnation (oh yeah, I said it.) gives some other woman the right to act like I have wronged them by marrying my husband? Who, by the way, is of no relation to them whatsoever. Baffling, no? Shall we blame this on menopause? Is that allowable?

All that to say, one of them felt the need to yell at me on Facebook this week. Ridiculous. Unbelievable. Completely unwarranted. I have met her a grand total of once, so why on earth does she get to come at me with her weird, irrelevant assumptions about my life? Blech, anyway...

Alright, Surrogate Mothers of My Husband (for the most part, thank you for being the wonderful women you are, and for loving us both), here's some fuel for your fires. You know when you eat something incredible and you ask what's in it/how to make it, the cook almost always says "it was made with love". Well, if love is the main ingredient in all tasty meals, then that explains why my food makes people cry. I hate cooking, so naturally I infuse every dish with hate and it turns out tasting like the devil. (Devil flavor is basically scaly, slimy, dense, mushy, bland, dry, etc.) I'm sure I would just love cooking if I could freaking learn how to do it, but cook books are a total waste if you don't know what you're doing to begin with. I mean, there are instructions on shampoo bottles but cook books don't tell you that if you mix the ingredients in the wrong order you'll end up with a brick or that your house will fill with noxious smoke if you heat teriyaki sauce or that certain veggies come in different sizes and you only need one elephant leek vs. 14 regular leeks so 14 elephant leeks will not fit in your house, much less in your pan.

I usually feel like a semi-intelligent, mature person...until it's dinner time and I turn into a complete wreck, stomping around, trying not to cry, wishing that we could eat the table instead (it looks very hearty and nutritious). Of course Sam is infinitely patient and has no problem eating raw veggies and salami every night of his life, if it makes me feel better. It does a little bit, but what would really make me feel better is being able to pull off a doggone recipe that doesn't look like I scraped it off my tires.

Ay caramba this is all so negative. Sorry, we've been trying not to eat sugar for a couple weeks and I think it's catching up with me. Maybe I need to hit the candy bowl in my office and get back to you...