On second thought

I may be looking a little more like Mama than I am like Richard.

Seriously. Because I shot this view of the top of my head this afternoon.

Gray - check

Curly - double check

Sassy - triple check

Possibly insane - quadruple check

Heaven help us all. 

Blast from the Past

Yesterday, my friend Cili came over to make brownies and watch movies with me.

Product Placement Break:

Have you had these?

They are a-maaaaaazing! (And they're just under $2 a batch if purchased at your neighborhood WalMart.)

You're welcome.

Anyhoo... C came over to make (and eat) a batch of brownies and watch some movies. Knowing the Wood house rules, I gave the girl a handful of PG movies to choose from.

Sleepless in Seattle was her first pick. (Smart girl.) She'd never seen it, and I knew she was in for a treat. (I mean, besides the brownies. Those were an obvious treat and a half.) That movie and 11 yr old girls are MFEO.

She laughed, I laughed. I teared up a little at all the Affair to Remember references. ("It was nearest thing to heaven. You were there!" ... "Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.") She asked me if Meg Ryan's character was crying. I had to tell her that, yes, she was. (I did not admit that maybe I was a little bit, too.)

All around, it was a good time had by all.

And I'm not just saying that because I saw this familiar face.

Ahhhhh, Rosie.

Back in the day when, everywhere I went, people told me that I looked just like her. 

Case in point:

Mind you, this face I'm pulling is a little bit more "Another Stakeout" than it is "Sleepless in Seattle". But still.

I'd forgotten how much we really did look alike. ... And how, circa 1993, that was a compliment. (Post-A League of Their Own, anyway. I never did like to hear that I looked "just like" Doris Murphy, as I'm sure you can imagine.)

I had a friend in one of my BYU wards who actually called me Rosie instead of Laurie. (It's alright. I called him Bob. As in, Bob Saget, of Full House fame.) 

See the pic below: 

Care to guess which one is my boy, Bob? 

I promise you that he was bent almost in half in this pic. In no way was Bob short enough to put his head on my shoulder on the reg.

When Rosie was doing her daytime talk show, she did a show when she filled the audience with women who were look-a-likes. When Mark Packard found out that I had known she was doing that show, and hadn't sent my picture in, he was furious and insisted that the bank would have given me the time off to travel back and forth so I could be on TV. He was certain that no other woman in the country could possibly look as much like Rosie as I did, and that I would have for sure won a huge prize.

Ahhhh... the Rosie days. They were good times.

I mean, so are these. But those were good times. For me and for Rosie. (Is it just me, or did she use to smile more?) It was fun to see the old me/her on the small screen yesterday. And when I told C that people used to tell me I looked like her, she looked me over and then sagely said, "I can see it". Ha!

Because I haven't posted a pic of my left eye in quite some time...

Also, because I wanted to show you all my fabulously wrinkly forehead.

Oh, and my new GRAY STREAK!

Behold:

Remember when I was losing all that hair back in September and October? Well... It's come back in.

My once-straggly mop of hair is back to being a bushy-bushy-bon-hair-do. It's a little out of control, actually. I pull it up or back pretty much every day, and it never ceases to amaze me how freaking much hair I have, how big my bun is.

And all those brown hairs that fell out of my head? They've grown back in gray. Every blessed one of them. .I have gray at my temples, and an INSANE gray streak above my left eye. Every time I pull my hair back into a bun, I remind myself more than a little of a certain Disney villainess:

Do you see it?

Same gray streaks. Same pinched face. Same scowl. Same narrow little face and high-necked blouse...

The Wicked Stepmother and I are basically the same person. (Just cracked myself up, btw. Mostly with the high-necked blouse comment.) Ha!

Just call me Daisy...

In what may be the funniest celebrity look alike post to date, here is a current view of my swollen backside:



Look familiar? Well, it should.



Honestly. So much for the flat bum I used to have.

My body. It's killing me!

Zuzu's Petals!

Since I cut my hair off to barely past my shoulders, I am no longer able to pull it back into the Ma Kettle/Madam Curie bun. I now have to pull it into two little bunnies on the top of my head if I want it contained. This results in a particular look. Behold:

I look like Zuzu!

I don't know that I've ever been happier to look like anyone in all of my live-long life.

My word, I love It's a Wonderful Life! If you haven't seen it, watch it now. I don't care that it's Easter time and it's a Christmas movie - it's a fabulous, life-changing movie, no matter what time of the year you watch it. Plus, as you've just seen, I look like Zuzu, so it'll remind you of me. And what's not to love about that?

Madame Curie, or... Mad Madame Mim?

I looked in the mirror the other night and laughed and said, "With my hair up in this eternal and frizzy bun, I think I look a little like a mad scientist."



I was thinking Madame Curie.

I figured we had more than just the frizzed bun look in common. "Hello, Radiation, how you doin'?" (Too bad I smile too much. I looked and I looked for a pic of Mme Curie with a smile on her face, but one was not to be found. Bless her sweet, hard-working little heart. She was too focused to smile, methinks. ... Totally not an issue I have. Clearly.)

But Mom thought I looked more like Mad Madame Mim.



You know, from The Sword in the Stone.



Bottom line: I need to comb my hair out, maybe wear it down a little more often. Oh, and work on not crossing my eyes or making other goofy faces.

Girl! Come your hair!

So, remember a few weeks back when I tweeted that I was looking more than a little like Bellatrix Lestrange?

Yeah, I wasn't kidding. Hand me a wand and a nasty look to put on my face, and I'm pretty sure I'd be all about killing people for The Dark Lord.

Good night, nurse! WHAT IN THE WORLD?!

Yeah, so... I'll be going back to blow drying my hair and straightening it for a few days/weeks. It takes a while, and we all know I'd rather be lazy and just let the curl take over... But when a look like this comes out of my head, I start to get a little bit worried that I might make children cry.

Good grief!

I'm flashing back to the 70's, something fierce

A few days ago I tweeted in something about my bizarrely Dharma Initiave-esque outfit. I had gotten dressed in my room (where there is no mirror, thankyouvermuch) and walked out and laughed out loud when I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Holy 70's Get-Up, Batman!



Check me out. Yellow/brown/white plaid top, brown corduroy pants, and see that daisy that's pinned to my belt loop? Yeah, that was in my hair. Truly, I was very much a child of the 70's that day. It was pretty hilarious. (So funny, in fact, that I took a picture of my clothes to put on the blog. I'm just that nuts, I guess.)

A few days after my Dharma wannabe outfit, I somehow ended up with Angel hair. (Not the pasta. I'm talking actual Angel hair, as in Charlie's Angels. Specifically Jaclyn Smith aka Kelly.)



As I spent hours (literally, hours) in the bathroom as a preteen, dipping my head and then throwing my head back and tossing my hair, trying to capture "the look", you can imagine how excited I was when I accidentally ended up with Kelly's hairdo on Sunday.

Glory be and hallelujah, my hair FINALLY looked like Kelly's! Who cares if the show started in 1976 and it took me until 2010 to get the look? Not me, that's who.

I soooo have Angel hair now. Watch out world, next thing you know I'll be punching people out like I'm the bionic chickadee.

I seek him here, I seek him there...

You know how sometimes I wake up and look in the mirror and think "Holy crap! I look like a celebrity!"? Yeah? Well, it happened again.

Check me out:

Before I show you my celeb look-alike for the day, let me just say that whenever I wear this robe, I have to giggle a little bit. You see, I had one of best/most sincere compliments of my life when my friend Jenni was here this summer. I came out of my room, wearing this robe, and she gasped and said that this was such a great color for me, that it made my eyes greeney-browny. (True story.) Now if only I could find more than a robe in this color - you know, a dress, or a top or something a little more suited to public wear - maybe I could find myself my very own Sir Percy Blakeney. I'm pretty sure that no man would be immune to my charms, my big hair and my greeney-browney eyes...

Behold, my celeb look-alike for the day (in my own - very wild - imagination, mind you):

Now, if I could get my crazy hair to be just a little bit bigger (it's lacking some size about the sides), maybe I could snag myself a seemingly foppish Englishman who spends his free time saving French nobles from the guillotine. (Also, he's a bit of a poet.)

Sir Percy Blakeney. Be still, my beating heart.

If you've never seen The Scarlet Pimpernel circa 1982, put it on your Netflix - STAT. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

Is it just me, or... do I look like Mugatu?

Okay, maybe not so much, because I'm smiling in my pic instead of making that nasty sideways "I am superior" look at the camera. Also, you can't see the full extent of my poky-horn-hair. But trust me, it was a hilarious look-alike morning for me. As anyone who's every had a sleepover with me can attest, I have to put my hair up when I go to bed or I can't sleep. The recent humidity combined with laziness (I just piled my hair on top of my head and put a clip in it instead of bunning it, as I usually do) resulted in a fan-freaking-tastic morning look-alike.

Too bad I never wake up looking like Derek Zoolander. I could stand to be "really, really ridiculously good looking" every once in a while...

Channeling Diana Barry

Alright, so maybe my spirit is a little more Anne than it is Diana (I've been called precocious more than once, and... uh... proper, basically never), but yesterday my hair was feeling very Diana Barry. It was very exciting for me, as my previous celeb-hair-alike was Ma Kettle, which was more than a little less flattering than being a Diana-alike.

You all remember Diana Barry, yes? Anne Shirley's bestie from the Anne of Green Gables series? She was sweet. I am not sweet, but I do have dark and frizzy hair. So, in that regard, we are alike - a little bit.

Here's a visual refresher of my two favorite bosom friends. (Just in case - perish the thought! - you don't know who I'm talking about.)



And here's another shot of Diana, all grown up with her fancy up-do. Gosh, I wish I knew how to achieve this polished look. But alas, I think there's something in the personality of my hair that would refuse to be tamed. Bother.

But honestly, isn't she (and her hair) beautiful? I covet it.



And here's the kicker - when I looked in the mirror last night and thought I looked like Diana Barry with her big and fancy hair, that's what I thought I looked like. (I know, I'm about 17 different kinds of delusional.)

Uh, no. No, I did not look exactly like Diana Barry. As you can see below, I was still a little more on the Ma Kettle side. (In my defense, the dark wall behind my head in this pic totally lessens the bouffant effect of my fluffy/big bun. I really do think it was fancier - or at least looked a whale of a lot bigger - when I was backed by a lighter wall and you could see the mass of dark hair.)



On second thought, maybe I still look a little like a geisha. Darn that stupid flash on my camera lighting up my face like it's the 4th of July. (But don't my eyelashes look freakishly long?)

The End.

Not the most flattering celeb look-alike of all time

Remember when I twittered last week that I was looking a little "Ma Kettle" at work? That look seems to have followed me home from the office. (EEK!)

All I can say is - I have a cold (or something). I don't feel well, and when I don't feel well, I sleep a lot. When I sleep, I pile my hair up on top of my head, because I can't stand the feeling of it on my neck and/or my face while I'm sleeping. The end result is that I go to sleep with a little bun or a pony, and then I wake up a little worse for wear. ... A little "Ma Kettle", if you will.



Hilarious, no? ... I'm telling you, when my hair gets a little out of control it makes me LOL. Esp now that every time I look in a mirror, I'm seeing Ma Kettle. (I figure, as long as I don't start talking like her, I'm gonna be alright.)

Book Signings: a place for making new friends & semi-stalkerish behavior...

So... I know my last post was about the PW book signing, which was last Thursday, and it's a little boring to do two posts in a row about the exact same thing, but hey... I'm her #1 fan, (and my two new friends from the signing posted pics on FB over the weekend, which I'm now feeling the need to share with the world - or, at the very least, my own little corner of the www). That being said, sit back and I'll show you some pics - and give you some commentary - that I hope won't bore you to tears and make you never want to come back and see me again.


I'll start here with a pic of Ree and me. (Ree and me. Doesn't that have such a great sound, kind of like we're best friends? Yeah... I'm pretty sure we'd be super tight if she knew me in real life.)

Speaking of how sure I am that we'd be best friends if she knew me in real life... here's a still-life of the part of the night where I was trying to convince her that she'd love me if she really knew me. (Yeah, I'm not even kidding. I told her that I knew we'd be best friends if we knew each other in real life. I told her that I know I can come off a bit like a stalker, but it's just my natural enthusiasm - that I'm not dangerous, just excited.)

And here's where I told her about how she really (REALLY) should invite my cousin Julie and me to the ranch. I told her that we love butter, that we're super funny, and that we both really want to come and see the lodge.

You can tell, by the look on her face, that she was intrigued with my story of how much I wanted to come to Oklahoma. I'll bet she really wanted to just pack me in her suitcase and take me home with her, but she didn't want to hurt the feelings of the other 627 women who'd come to her signing and take only me home with her. (Even if I was one of the few single women at the signing. I'm talking the kind of single woman who could set up house with Cowboy Josh and be the kind of neighbor she could call whenever she wanted to borrow some butter, garlic, cream cheese and/or taragon from.) It's so sad that she didn't want to crush the other women... by now, I could be home on the ranch. (Totally just had a little song-fest here in my apartment. I know the words are "home, home on the range" - but just now I busted into "home, home on the ranch" and had to giggle. Oh, dear. I'm an embarrassment to my own self.)

Here's a shot of me and my giddy grin while she signs my book.

And here's a list of some of the things I said while I was talking to her, that I am now more than a little bit mortified about:

Ree said - "I love your hair!"

I said - "I love YOU!"

Ree asked - "How do you want me to sign your book?"

I answered - "You can say that you love my hair. Or not. You can write whatever the heck you want, I won't care. I love you that much. ... Tell you what, you write in my book that you love my hair, and when I write a book and you come to my book signing, I'll write that I love yours."

I also said:

I'm your #1 fan. No, really. I am. ... But not in a stalkery way, don't worry.

I love YOUR hair!

I want you to invite me to the ranch.

No, really, I know it's not appropriate to invite myself... but I really (REALLY) want to come.

And a bunch of other embarrassing things that I've luckily blocked. ... I'm telling you, I was giddy and I was sleep deprived. Not a winning combination, as far as me behaving like a cultured, refined, well-bred lady, if you know what I mean.

Since PW didn't invite me to the ranch, I took my sales pitch (oh, and my needing-their-autographs cookbook) to Nan and Missy. You can see that they enjoyed me. I told them, "Imagine how much you'd like having me around the ranch - get Ree to invite me, okay?". (Yeah, I only wish I were kidding. I really said that to them.)

While we were talking - and laughing (I'm telling you, we had a good time) - height came up. It turns out Missy is 5'9" and Nan is 5'10" - but Missy was wearing heels, so she appeared to be over 6'. Nan came out to measure up against my 5'10", but I got giddy and made this STUPID face and bent over like a freak of nature who had so much excitement in her body that she couldn't hold still. (I'm, even now, before I post this, regretting putting this picture online, because I look like such a freak... but hey, you all love me, right? ... Erm, maybe don't answer that right away.)

And because this post wouldn't be complete without a nod to the women I met and friended at the party - I mean signing - that night, here's an introduction to my new friends...

This is Susan and Sharon (yeah, I know, Susan and Sharon, like in The Parent Trap ... I knew we were destined to be friends forever when I knew their names). They are a mother/daughter combination, and just so much fun. Susan (the mom) learned how to cook from her grandmother and is making a blog with step-by-step pictures (ala PW) for her daughter, so the family recipes will live on. Isn't that fabulous?

Here's Carolina with Nan. Carolina's a mom to two little kids and she wishes she didn't have so much tile in her house, because she hates sweeping and mopping. She prefers laundry to sweeping. I can't imagine preferring laundry to any household chore - but I instantly liked Carolina. (It's because we're fellow PW fans, I'm sure.)

And here are my friends Monique and Missy. (Okay, so what if Missy wouldn't remember my name? ... But I'll bet she'd remember I was the tall girl who laughed loud enough to bring the house down, right? I can only hope she tells Cowboy Josh all about me.) Monique had the most fabulous sparkly eye-liner (you know how I feel about sparkles - I knew we were kindred spirits before she even talked). We're both intent on making the mushrooms on page 202. I'm gonna go out and buy some red wine tomorrow for that very purpose. I'm not even kidding.

Seriously. The. Most. Fun. Night. Ever.

I love PW.

I love making new friends.

I love my life.

The End.

My Thursday night activity...

As if there are any of you who don't know how much I love Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman), please allow me to take a moment of your time and tell you what I did last night.

I went to a book signing here in Tempe. I made a bunch of new friends (the kind of friends who pitched right in and took a photo shoot of me with PW, as well as Missy and the MIL, because I'd forgotten my camera - all I had with me was my phone, so please forgive the less than stellar qualities in the pics I post this morning). They estimated there had been 600 people there (many with multiple books). PW signed/personalized for every one. I waited for about 3 hours for her signature in my book.

It was the most fun I've had in... I don't even know how long.

Here is the signing room. This was taken at about 8:30, when I got there. You can see her if you squint, signing away. (The signing started at 7:00. It had been standing room only when she spoke. Curses that I had to work until 8:00, so I missed that part.)




Three hours later - around about 11:30 PM - I took this pic when I was standing right in front of her myself. Please pardon the complete and utter stranger's arm in the picture. I was wanting to cut him out of the picture, but I didn't quite make it.

The first thing she said when I walked up to the table? "I love your hair." ... I don't know what she was thinking, my hair wasn't having its best night last night, but I've never loved that compliment more - and I told her so. And then she wrote in my book that she loved my hair and I was even more giddy.

I'm such a nerd. And I don't even care who knows it.

More to follow... I should have pics from my new PW friends to share in the next few days, so be looking for a complete blow-by-blow in the next few days.