Winter Makes Me Sleeeepy!

Anyone else feel like this guy at 6 a.m., after being awake til 1?  Yeah, me too!  I'm off to find the caffeine!!!!

(Anyone else love the charge noise that gives away that Wall-E is made by Apple? :) I'm such a geek.)

Yes, It's Still Me, Only Better!

So, I was going to make y'all wait for this; after my friends and I had done a professional set of "after" photos.  But I decided that I love you so much (and I have already plastered it on my Facebook wall anyway, so why not?) I couldn't not show you the same day I took the leap and had it done...

These are crappy iPhone b/a pics.  The good ones will be coming along in a week or two, depending on the weather.  Which at the moment is pitch black and pouring rain, so... don't hold your breath!

BEFORE...

AFTER:

Yes, there is now 6+" missing, I have bangs where there previously were none, and my light brown/dishwater blonde has been traded for a lovely chocolate brown with hints of red.  Oh, and while I was there I had my eyebrows done.  I had never done that before, either.

IT ROCKS AND I LOVE IT!!! :)

We Should All Be So Happy

Another night plagued by insomnia, but I'm finally getting sleepy.  Before I crash- since it's technically Wednesday now- I'll post this wonderful video that will probably end up being the 64 seconds of your day that gives you the most warm fuzzies.  Unless, you know, like a long lost family member and you are reunited or something like that, in which case, stop messing around and post your own dang YouTube video for cryin' out loud!  The rest of us are going to go with this one:

I Have The Most Awesome Best Friend EVER

So apparently we had mail last Saturday that included packages, because when a guest came to the front door (that we don't ever really use ourselves) yesterday, there was a little stack of post sitting on the bench.  Really need to communicate with the delivery person about that.  ANYWAY.  My best friend of 20+ years sent me THIS:

I about fell over, I was laughing so hard!
In case you haven't discovered the wonderfulness that is the Hyperbole and a Half Blog, here is the post from whence this tea bling comes.  (Read it, I'll wait.)
I hope Allie is doing well and recovering from her battle with clinical depression.   The internet misses her dreadfully (as do I).  In the meantime, we at least have the archives of past H&AH to keep us laughing.  She is hilarious!
I'm going to fix a cup of caffeinated, sugared up tea in my new mug to give me a blast of energy and then take the Cute Gremlins to the parp park to play while it's blue skies and sunshine out!  Happy random Monday in the middle of February, everyone! :D

Music Monday Double Feature

I read The Hunger Games last year.  Despite a psychologically disturbing main theme (these are kids, people.  Kids.), I enjoyed them.  Really well written.  I resisted seeing the movie when it came out, though.  (See reason above.  Reading it is one thing, but visuals?  No thanks.)  Finally last week I was in the mood to watch something with some adrenaline to it and I knew from the books that the main character's weapon of choice is a bow, so I thought "Meh, why not?"

And I was pleasantly surprised.  I'm a fan of many of the actors, and their renditions of the characters blended seamlessly with what I saw in my head when reading the books.  It kept very well within its PG-13 rating, with the scene which I was most concerned about being very well implied and not too visually graphic.  Nicely done, Gary Ross and Lionsgate!

Here are two of the songs from the soundtrack.  I'm not a Taylor Swift fan, but I like "Safe and Sound".  I also like the folksy feel of "Kingdom Come".  Enjoy.

My Dad Was Cool Like This

If we'd lived in Scotland, this would SO have been my Daddy when Mum and I were butting heads because I was being a stupid teenager.  He would have even made that face at the end.  Awesomeness. :)

Brave

Still my favorite track from the film.  (Could be because it was written by Mumford and Sons.)  Rocking out with my Wallace Clan roots today.  I love having Scot in my blood.  Enjoy!

Giveaway Winner! :)

I was kinda wrapped up in Lucy Jane stuff earlier today and almost forgot to do the drawing for this blog!  There were almost 40 entries.  I will cut straight to the chase!

The winner is Cathy Olliffe-Webster of the blog Life on the Muskoka River!

If you haven't read her blog, you are in for a treat!  She is absolutely hilarious!!! :)
And if you didn't win this time, be sure to visit again, because there will be more giveaways (yes, plural!) coming up very soon to celebrate some recent achievements!

Finally Found That Thing About Jane Austen...

So years and years ago, I was talking in a post about how I had found my ancestral link to Jane Austen herself and how tickled I was over it.  But I couldn't explain it in the post, because the format was all wonky and other reasons, so I kinda gave it up for lost and told you all that you'd just have to take my word for it.

Well, the other day I was going through some papers and I found my big ole stacks of genealogy research (did you know that before I had kids, I filled in 1,000 names on my family tree in less than 2 years?!).  So I converted the document I had been looking for into an image file so that you could finally see the lineage.

Voila!