Define: Art

Blogger informs me that my last post was March 1. Has it really been that long?
Oops.

I'm over halfway into my program at Douglas J now, which is really scary. November seems so far away, but it seems like January just happened, so I know it's going to be here before I know it.

Next week I'll be out at camp, I am so pumped! I'll be working with Explorers (my favorite age group) and I can't wait!

This week is the Ann Arbor Art Fair. Lots of tents with people trying to sell things, lots of roads closed, all that kind of fun stuff. I ride a bus into the downtown area, so it's not that bad for me.

I always cut through an alley and a parking lot to get over to school from where the bus drops me off, and I've never really had a problem. Today, I was walking through the alley, texting, when I slipped. I almost fell, and honestly, my first thought was, "I just stepped in someone's vomit." While it may not be likely, it's at least possible.

I looked down (quickly, because I knew there were people behind me), and, fortunately, it was not vomit. Unfortunately, it was a giant glob of pale green, hot orange, and tan paint. And it now coated my black shoe, and got all over the bottom of my black pants. Lovely.

A girl from my class was walking behind me (not close enough to see what had happened), but I asked if she saw the paint when she walked through, and she said, "Yeah, were those your footprints?" Yes, yes they were.

When I walked back through after school, I was both pleased and displeased to see that other people had stepped in it. Nice to know that I'm not the only one who didn't see it, but it might have been neat to be the only one. I can definitely still tell which footprints are mine, so it's not all bad.


Oh, and the text I was writing when it happened?
"I already don't like the art fair."


P.S.
If anyone knows how to get paint out of clothing...

Define: Little Things

This morning started out awesome. I woke up feeling pretty awake, the sun was out, I listened to some good music while I got ready...it was nice. Then the little things started to pile up.

On the way to babysit, I called my doctor's office to try to get an appointment. I asked for one with Lou-Ann, only to have the receptionist tell me that she hasn't been there since August (can you tell how often I go to the doctor?). I did get an appointment with Dr. Conant, but it's going to be weird. I like having a girl doctor. Ergh.

Babysitting was overall alright, though there were a few moments where I felt overwhelmed. One was when Jack came up to me and said, "I got pee pee on the carpet." Thank goodness he just meant the rug in the bathroom, because I was picturing a big wet spot in the middle of the living room or something. Another was just the amount of spit-up from Ben today. It was incredible. I think he saved some from the bottle before the one I gave him to get on me. Overall though, it really wasn't a bad day.

I drove out to Spring Arbor to see friends, but when I got there, everyone was in class. I decided to go across the street to McDonald's to get a fruit and yogurt parfait (sooooo good). As I started to pull out onto M-60, my car sputtered and died. I turned it back on, only to have the same thing happen. I put it in neutral and fortunately it rolled back a few feet out of the intersection. But I still freaked out. I called everyone, but everyone was in class. Jamin (my hero) came out of his class to help me, and as he was walking up his friend Andy was pulling up behind me, so he helped too. (strike)We(/strike) They pushed the car into the church parking lot.
Oh, did I mention that RIGHT before this happened I filled up my gas tank? Not. Happy.

I told my brother I'd probably need to borrow his car, and he was cool with that. My dad came out and took a look at my car (I missed seeing him, which was the last little thing that I could handle), and he couldn't get it started, so it got towed.

I had a small cry on the way home, but I took a shower and made some macaroni and cheese, and I'm feeling better. Tomorrow will be better. If only because I am driving a much nicer car. :)

Define: Fundraiser

My friend Clare has the opportunity to go to Madagascar this summer to shadow some missionaries, and she needs to raise a lot of money! She's selling flowers and plants from this website, so if you need any, give her some help!

Define: Men's Haircut

Before (okay, about a month before, but you get the idea):




After:

Define: Round Layers

Before:




After:

Define: Stupid Car

Last night, when I went to leave Spring Arbor, my car wouldn't start. The battery wasn't dead, lights were coming on, but it refused to turn over. I don't know anything about cars, I was tired, and it was cold. The situation quickly reduced me to tears.

Somehow, Jamin managed to get it started, and I came back to Chelsea. On the way I stopped and put air in one of my tires (I need to do it once every week or so, it's got a slow leak).

Earlier today I went out to try to start my car (to make sure that it would start again, because I don't know what Jamin did to get it to work), and I saw that the tire I had put air in less than 12 hours before was totally flat.
Lovely.

My dad is planning to bring out a new tire, thank goodness, but I still just hate this stupid car.

Define: (Real) Haircut

I did my first real haircut yesterday. :)

Before:



During:




After:

Define: Crappy

I forgot makeup this morning. Normally, I don't care, honest. I typically don't wear makeup, and when I do, it's just mascara, and every once in a while eyeshadow. But for school, we are supposed to look really nice and such. Not that you can't look nice without makeup. But...I felt unprepared.
We did updos (up-dos? updo's? who knows.) today. I ended up teasing the hair on mine (it was sort of a runway look). I heard someone say, "Jodi's looks like a rat's nest," quietly enough that I gathered only the person next to her was meant to hear, but it was a little too loud for that. I naturally turned to look, and when she made eye contact she said, "What are you doing, dear?" Um, I already heard you say rat's nest, please don't "dear" me. Later she said something about it looking runway style, but I was still kind of upset. I think she was trying to make up for saying that, though I'm not sure if she knows I heard her. I mean, we're all learning, that's why we're there, meanie.
On the way home, I remembered that I forgot to shut the garage door when I left this morning, so the pipes were all frozen. One burst (thankfully the one for the outside water, but still...). We're almost back to normal, but I still feel horrible. I'm glad that the pipes freezing is all that happened, though, someone could have just walked in and robbed the house! Needless to say, I will be paying much more attention to that when I leave.


I guess my day wasn't super bad. The worst thing was leaving the door open. The others weren't that bad, some were so not bad that I'm not even writing them because they sound so stupid to be whining about. Which I suppose means that I shouldn't let them dictate my mood. So here's to a better day tomorrow. :)

Define: Haircut

I gave my mannequin a haircut today! I don't have any before pictures, but here are a couple afters.
(Sorry about the low quality, they're from my phone.)





I will be cutting a real person's hair on Saturday! I'm kind of nervous (but not really, because the haircut we're doing isn't that hard), but really excited! It'll be either Erin or Clare. I hope they're ready... :)

Define: New School

I started beauty school on Tuesday, at the Douglas J Aveda Institute in Ann Arbor.

My first day was horrible.
I was overwhelmed with all the things they gave us (two huge boxes of stuff), the new place, the new people. I ended up eating lunch alone in the classroom when everyone else left. I had to carry one of the super heavy boxes all the way to my car, so by the time I got there I was exhausted. You know how when you do something that's just too much for your muscles, and they're just all shaky? That's how my arms were when I got to the car. It was bad.
Halfway home I started crying, and continued to do so all the way there (did I mention I'd had a headache all day?). When I got there, I carried the box inside, but while I was walking through the kitchen, I smashed my finger on the corner of the counter (since the box was so wide) and dropped the box. My finger was all bloody, and I started crying all over again.
Later in the day I started to feel nauseous, still with the headache. I did not want to go back at all.
But I did.
And I'm so glad.

Each day has been progressively better. Yesterday some of my classmates asked if I wanted to carpool with them. :)
Yesterday we also practiced shampooing and blowdrying each others hair, and I have been practicing on others as well. It makes me feel cool. :)
I'm really excited about how this is going to go. I know that I'm going to have bad days, and days where I'm going to doubt myself and have a hard time, but I feel really great about this right now, and I just have to remember how much I really do enjoy what I'm learning when I'm going through a rough time.

Define: Snow Day

When I got up to brush the snow off of my car this morning, there was a lot of it. But school wasn't cancelled in Chelsea, and I saw someone's Facebook status that said the back roads weren't that good, but the highway was fine.

It seemed that some of the roads I took to get to I-94 hadn't even been plowed, but they weren't horrible, and when I got on 94, I could see all the pavement in both lanes. It looked like everybody was doing alright, so I slowly accelerated to 50-55.

I'm not sure if I turned the wheel a little bit, or braked a little (I don't think I did either of those things), but the car started sliding, and all the things I tried to do to fix it only made it worse. I started to slide off of the road sideways, then back into the other lane, and I'm not gonna lie, I freaked out. That was the first time I have ever not felt in control of the car while I've been driving.

I hadn't even made it to the first exit before that happened, and after I got straightened out, I was having trouble accelerating, the engine was just revving (black ice, I guess? I'm not sure if the problem was the road or my car.). I pulled off on the first exit and took back roads back home (really slowly, probably much to the agitation of the people behind me).

Now it makes sense that my parents were worried when it was snowy and we were out driving. I have to say, I always thought they were overreacting a little. I've never had any problems like that, and I think I'm a pretty good driver (no accidents, no tickets, etc.). But that was a really frightening experience, and it didn't have anything to do with me being unsafe or taking risks, it just happened. I'm glad that there weren't any cars near mine when it happened, and I'm really glad I was able to make it back home safely.

Define: New Year

I start beauty school in one week. Yikes.

This also means I won't be at camp this summer. I think that's one of the hardest things about it, but I don't have any good reasons to put it off until August, except that I just really really really want to work at camp. I think this is probably the smarter way to go, though, even if it's not the way I'd prefer. It would be really great to start now, take 3 month summer break from June to August (which just happens to be camp time), and then start again. :)

I'm getting a little nervous. When I signed up, it didn't look like there were a lot of other people signed up yet. I don't know if I'd prefer a small class or a big one. A small one might be a better learning environment, but a big one would give me a bigger chance of making a friends.
One of the scariest things in my mind is going to be lunchtime. This is probably a totally irrational fear, I know, but what if it's like the movies where the girl walks into the cafeteria and no one wants her to sit with them and she has to sit all alone? I'm almost positive that's not going to happen, but still. Or what if everyone goes out to eat except for me?
I have got to make my brain shut up.

Somehow I had it in my head that when I started beauty school I'd become this awesome fashionista. I don't know why, but I'm realizing that the chances of that happening are pretty slim. But a girl can dream, right?

I really hope I'm good at beauty school.



I picked up a sewing book last time I was at Borders, so I've started on that. I think what persuaded me to choose this book were the fabrics used for the projects. I'm not good at picking colors and designs that go together well, and I forgot when I was looking at it that I would still be the one that had to choose the fabrics, they wouldn't be cute all by themselves. Oops.

However, for my first project, I think I did pretty well picking out matching fabrics. And I think I did pretty well sewing it for a beginner. It's not perfect at all, but It doesn't have any major flaws (that I can see, anyway).



I decided that I wanted to put something extra on, so I found some hand embroidery designs I like and sewed those on. There's one on each side of the bag.


And the other side:

I'm pretty proud of it. :)