A "fwump" in the night....

I don't know if "fwump" accurately describes the sound I heard last night. I was talking to Molly on the phone late last night as I was sitting in bed and I heard a "fwump"ing sound, like wings beating. The sound came from behind me so I figured some creature was in the little storage alcove behind the wall. I only heard it a few times so the nerves calmed down.

Fast forward to 2:15 a.m. I wake up because of a noise - something fell. What would make something fall? I didn't want to investigate but turned on the light next to my bed to see what happened. I didn't see anything at first, but then saw a bat flying erratically in our bedroom - erratically because the ceiling fan was on. I hurriedly pulled the covers over my head so did not see where the bat went. I woke up Chris so we could both be awake and nervous.

3:38 a.m. Still awake - I'm guessing I'm awake because of the fear of bats. The light is off and we shut our bedroom door and put a thick robe in front of it so no bat can come in under the door. That is, if the bat flew out of the bedroom. If it didn't fly out of the bedroom, now it can't leave. The clock keeps ticking....I know this because I'm not sleeping.

It's the afternoon now and it's been raining most of the day. That means the house is a little dark which means the bat may come out of its hiding place. Everywhere I went in the house today, I went there in trepidation. Is the bat on the shower curtain? Is it hiding on some clothes left on the floor? Did it fly in my closet because the door was open and it's dark in there? Did it go downstairs and decided to spend the day in the curtains? What is its next move?

I love where I live but I can do without these "friendly beasts". I hope I will have no more tales to tell about our resident bat.

Fwump, fwump, fwump.....

Staging my comeback, Part II

Okay, maybe the hairstyle will work. I did my volunteer work and one of the employees (who is young and has good eyesight) noticed I had my hair cut. She liked it and said it was "youthful".

I will now be accepting visitors.

Staging my comeback??

It all started in April. I was walking through Wal-Mart and stopped to look at the books. One title caught my eye -- "Staging Your Comeback - A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45". After leafing through the book, I decided I needed to have it and make a "comeback". So I went home and ordered it and had it shipped to Utah because I was flying out there to attend a women's conference and visit kids and grandkids. The book finally came (the day before I was to leave), but that still left Emma, Molly, and me time to look at all the before and after pictures and get inspired. It really is a great book and I saw myself in some of the before pictures (so did Molly and Emma!!). I decided to look on the book's website and discovered that the author, Christopher Hopkins, has a salon in Minneapolis, MN. Guess where I was going in mid-May - I was flying to Minneapolis to attend a family reunion in Wisconsin! So I gathered up my courage and called the salon to get a haircut to help me "stage my comeback".

Two of my sisters went with me for moral support as I got my hair cut - not drastically, but shorter and kind of fun. It was easy to take care of and I liked it. I even took "before and after" pictures but didn't publish them. The stylist told me to go to my beautician soon after I got home so she could see the cut and copy it. I sort of did that....it may have been longer than she recommended, but I did go and I got it trimmed and it still looked okay.

Well, since then I've been to Georgia and while there I decided I didn't like how long it was in the back - it made me think of mullets and we all know what people think of mullets. So I decided it was time to cut off the length in the back and make it more even. I called my beautician and went for a haircut yesterday. We looked through books and I showed her the style I liked and she asked questions and I answered them in, I thought, a clear manner.

The back gets cut and it looks good...then she started on one side and cut it short, like right below my ear. Now the back is longer than the side again, which is NOT what I wanted. "I guess we got our lines crossed...I thought you wanted it short" were her words. "We must not have been on the same page" she said. "I'm sorry" she said. I bravely smiled, all the while wondering if a person can pull on their hair to make it longer. (You can't.) She finished cutting the other side and trimmed the back a little bit more so it wouldn't resemble a mullet. It sort of looks like a bowl has been placed on my head and then cut around the edges.

There are no "before and after" pictures. I will be accepting phone calls, but no visits for the next month. I am going to stay secluded on my little farm and sit and watch my hair grow.