Favorite Things Friday

 I have been loving magazines lately.  My favorite thing is getting them in the mail, because if I haven't already set it, getting mail is like Christmas morning.  I absolutely love getting letters, magazines, packages, etc.  It's probably 80% of the reasoning on why I have an Amazon Prime account...free two day shipping.  Living in Podunckville, CA (not really the name), I have become more obsessed with online shopping than ever before.

Speaking of Podunkville, did I tell you all about my salon experience?  I got my haircut this week.  I didn't actually ask how much hair was cut off but my ends are right about at the end of my ears and my hair was more than halfway down my back.  I'm guessing a good 12+ inches.  I had my hair cut about this length a couple of years ago and I hated it.  I was home for a break or a weekend and I had already joined ROTC.  I was also an avid moped rider on campus and we most definitely had to wear helmets.  Well combine helmet hair and a military bun and you've got yourself one messy hairdo.  Walking around in a blues uniform with messy hair is never fun so I decided to cut it off.  Well back in 2010, the hairdresser epically messed up the inverted bob and it didn't look right to me.  When I got back on campus, I had one of the Aveda salon school students (yep, the students) fix it and it was significantly better.  I literally lived across the street from the Aveda school my senior year.  My hair always looked nice due to the trip to the salon being a 5 minute walk away.

But back to the story, it was a bad time to get my hair cut short because of course, I wanted to do all of these hairstyles which required long hair.  I started using extensions again, etc. and couldn't wait until my hair could fit properly back into a bun.

Flash forward to a couple of days ago and I'm back with short hair!  The difference this time is that I had an awesome stylist.  I looked up reviews for salons in Podunckville and one salon came up with five Google reviews.  I thought, "well that's better than nothing." I thought it was well worth the effort to at least check it out.  I walked in and the seating area had plastic chairs, the kind you use at your neighborhood block party.  I definitely was judging the salon, but I think I was within good reason.  If your trusting someone to cut your hair, especially the length that I was going to, then they need to know what they're doing.  The salon had a bad paint job, cracked tiles, and some of the hairdressers were questionably on something other than the fumes of hair products.  Maybe that's a little rash, but this salon seriously needed a heavy dose of Tabitha's Salon Takeover.  This is when you ask me, "Kim, why did you trust them with your hair?"

I can't give you an honest answer to that.  I have no idea why I trusted them.  Probably because I was there, already sitting in a plastic chair and wanting to get my hair cut.  They failed to inform my hairdresser (whom I had never met) that they booked her for a 2:30 appointment, while she was gone on lunch.  This probably added to my dislike of the salon more.  Don't set up your co-workers for failure, ya know?  Well in walks the sweetest Asian lady I have ever met.  I think she kind of reminded me of my mom and then all of a sudden, everything got better.  I know it sounds strange. But she was amazing.  She explained every aspect of what she was going to do to my hair and did it exactly how I wanted it.  A couple of days later, I went back in  to make sure the back was trimmed up to military regulations (above the collar) and she did it for free! She was awesome and I'm not joking about that.  I really appreciated that she listened to exactly what I wanted and just had excellent customer service. 

We have some exciting news....

We're expecting....

A German Shepherd Puppy!

Haha did we fool you?  I thought it would be a clever play on an adorable Pinterest idea.  But we are actually getting another German Shepherd.  Right now, he is known as "Puppy C."

 

Have you seen anything more perfect?  After attempts of working with over five rescue agencies in the past year, it became obvious that for whatever reason- our age, being a young married couple, or being in the military, were actually deterring factors in rescue agencies working with us.  Which is actually incredibly frustrating since we have the financial means to add another dog to our home and a ton of love -- Holly is one spoiled pooch and we would love to have another dog.  After a recent attempt to get a dog named Max, it just didn't work out.  We went to the dog park to have Holly and him visit and he was a couple years older than her.  They didn't have the same energy level or drive to play, which is understandable due to their age, and one of the foster parents just didn't want to seem to want to give him up.  Fostering animals is hard, as I've heard, because you get attached.  It was such an awkward meeting as it seemed like the male foster parent was attempting to play devil's advocate, when in reality he was on the brink of just being rude and the female foster parent was doing the complete opposite.  It was a basically a hot and cold meeting that resulted in them not responding to an e-mail explaining that we have lousy reception and we would like to schedule a phone call and then we heard nothing back.   

I think it was irritating for us in working with these rescue agencies for several reasons but mainly for that feeling that we just wasted a lot of time.  Numerous applications, visits, phone calls, e-mails, and physical meetings have taken their toll on us and we finally just said, maybe another time.  I was constantly disappointed and willing to try another rescue agency to see if something else might work.  I love rescue agencies and all that they do for animals, because I love dogs, but each organization is different.  

Finally we just decided to get a dog through other means and we found a reputable breeder in Montana and we're getting that adorable little guy.  Ryan is going through a few name ideas, including "Blue," "Oden" and "Wilhelm." I'm excited to have this little guy around and for Holly to have a little GSD brother.    

Those were probably my two most favorite things of the week, but what about the interwebs?

 

This article from Feministing actually doing a review on how another article was trying to slut shame Beyonce.  Now if you didn't know, Beyonce's my girl and I won't stand for folks trying to slut shame her or anyone for that matter.  Not only that, but Beyonce is one helluva confident woman and business savvy.  She is iconic and going to rock the stage at the Superbowl halftime show.  She knows exactly what she's doing and in case you missed her performance of "I Was Here" for the United Nations World Humanitarian Day, you need to watch it. #loveher  

Speaking of iconic, amazing people, how about the couple from Young House Love?  I mean they're not as iconic as Beyonce, unless you love DIY.  John's recent post covered a leg of their book tour and I just love that they blog as a couple.  I really want to get their book and I wish I was somewhere close to one of their book signings. Grrr.  Neverthless, they're adorable and with a free download from them.  I was able to make our new calendar for this year.  I made it after I had a tequila shot and glass of White Zin...so it's a little bit sassy.

 

  

And December just wants to hang out over there --->

So that was my pretty awesome week thus far.  I have friends visiting from Camp Pendleton this weekend and a big upcoming test.  Wish me luck and thanks for reading!