Okay, after two weeks of debate with myself I finally took the plunge, said "What the hell?", held my breath and dyed my hair brown! It's not like radically dark brown, but it's different enough. Don't know if I like it yet. We'll give it 'til Sunday. If I don't like it- or don't love it- I'm going back to blonde! That's all. If I don't post again before then, everyone, have a great THANKSGIVING! Damn those bastards for playing Christmas music early! Sorry. I'm still peeved with that. Outie!

I woke up to a distressing sound- Christmas songs being played on the radio. Normally, this time honoured tradition does not begin until the day AFTER Thanksgving- not the freaking week before! I know it snowed but WHAT THE HELL! It is wrong on so many levels! Why is poor old Thanksgiving passed over? It's a valid holiday! But every year, Christmas- and I love Christmas, it's my favourite holiday- but thanks to those evil, greedy, commercial bastards Christmas starts in the middle of September, gains momentum after Halloween, and hits it's full stride Before Thanksgiving. I am so annoyed! ARGH! I'm not ready for Christmas Cheer! I won't be ready until next Friday! ARGH!!

I woke up to a winter wonderland this morning. It was that perfect, blanketing heavy snow that covers all of the sins of landscaping. The branches on all of the trees look like they're draped in icing, the snow laying just so magnificently on them. And my dog found her reason for being this morning. To see the expression on her face when I took her outside this morning. She was just so happy and frolicked in the snow with so much enthusiasm she made me want to call in this morning and just play with her. But that was not to be. In Colden, surprisingly, the roads weren't that bad. And as I drove throught Westfield, the scene looked something Rockwellian- the trees, the hills, the houses, the creek, the bridges- it was all so serene and beautiful- and then I got to Orchard Park where it is apparently against their collective religion or something to plow the damn roads! It normally takes me 25 minutes to get to work. It took me a FREAKING HOUR! I eschewed the 219 in deference to my safety and wound up taking route 240 the whole way to work, driving 25 MPH. I managed to listen to an entire CD plus two songs. Oh well, I was half an hour late for work and I don't own a cellphone yet, so people were worried. But I made it, patience somehow intact. Craziness. Hello, Winter!

There are times when I distinctly feel like I'm going crazy. And it's not just school and work and boys and feelings that don't make sense and friends and babies and money and debt and lack of sleep and kittens and mammoth puppies and church and family- it's not one of those things- it's not even a few of those things- it's ALL of those things coupled with the thoughts that dominate my day. It's not even that unusual as I've always been this way, at least since puperty hit. Prior to that I was just a cute, quirky little girl with a pretty dominant personality who wasn't remotely shy- which I actually am now, believe it or not. Perhaps shy is not the correct word- insecure, most definitely- reserved, well, maybe not reserved although that is a perception people have until they get to know me and then I start doing cartwheels and skipping for no other reason than I feel like it. That doesn't seem particularly reserved to me. I guess really it's just insecurity, which I know I've stated before but it's true. I've been working on that. It's really hard to get past it. I'll be doing so well for so long and then BAM! I'm crying in the shower in the throws of an insecure pity-party the likes of which NO ONE will ever see me undergo. (Hence, the crying in the shower when I'm the only one at home.)

Am I better person for admitting these things? I don't know. But it's true. Here's something else, when I'm upset and caught off guard, my defence mechanism is to just go ice cold. I won't look at you, I won't talk to you, my eyes ice over (which I must admit they do beautifully), and just a very frosty reserve becomes a wall that I throw up between myself and the other person. It's my defence so that how hurt and upset I am can't really be seen. It's funny, Ice Queen was my persona in high school. Now, I see people that I went to school with and they can't believe that I'm the same person! It wasn't easy to let that go, to be me and be okay with being me. And I am. And that's important.

I learned a very important lesson this weekend, one that at the age of 27, you would have thought I would have learned a long time ago- never, EVER leave your house without at least looking pretty damn cute (aka- make-up on and hair done!) because that is inevitably when you see precisely whom you do not wish to! Young ones, learn from my mistakes!