My Week in Review: Week 36

This week felt quiet. I think I was just mentally exhausted from the past month…various personal things, work things, physical things…ugh, I hate to whine but sometimes that’s all you have left. Ha. The good news is I allowed myself some mental downtime (ha ha, I can just hear certain people thinking, “aren’t you ALWAYS on mental downtime?”) and I think I feel ready to ease into the week ahead…especially knowing that it’s a short work week and even the holiday day is not fraught with work work work.

So….if I remember correctly, last weekend was a 3-day weekend? I think Veteran’s Day was that Friday. Or am I week off? It’s very hard to keep track of time these days. Anyway, ONE DAY when I had no reason to leave the apartment, I just relaxed on the sofa and read The Magnolia Story, the back-story of Joanna and Chip Gaines of HGTV’s Fixer Upper fame. Sigh. I just adore them. And after reading their story, I love them even more.

A friend and I did a little street art hunt in the Bronx…and we made a friend.

Back at work I got the sweetest little surprise gifty from my office mate Shannon (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).

I also pulled a Dumb Bunny move and got my hand stuck in the lid of a wipes container. A co-worker had to hack-saw it off me. It was…sigh. Entertaining? Painful? Ridiculous. It was definitely ridiculous.

And then Tuesday was the big day, it was Use A Groupon to FINALLY get a Haircut Day…fraught with the usual anxieties…why is it SO hard to find someone who is capable of doing a GOOD cut AND that listens to what you asked for?? And usually I spend a lot of money on cut&color so this isn’t a case of “you get what you pay for.” I just figured I’m not usually happy ANYWAY, at least this way I won’t have spent a lot of money. The stylist was darling, very quiet and polite. I don’t like having to have a conversation the whole time. I like to just stew in my own nervousness as I watch more and more hair falling to the floor. And he SEEMED to really take my instructions and desires and pictures to heart…but I ended up with the same cut I always seem to get no matter what I say! I don’t understand that. If my hair is a One Trick Pony why can’t someone just TELL me that. Or if THEY are incapable of doing what I’m asking for, please just SAY that. So, in the end, I don’t think it’s a bad CUT, it’s just not what I wanted…and it’s a little hard for me work with. I will probably go back to the same stylist at least one more time, I can understand it taking some time to really understand a client’s wants…but this time I can at least say, “it got quite a bit shorter than I’d wanted last time,” and “please don’t do so much end thinning” and maybe we can come to a meeting of the…something…shears?

He was able to shape it pretty nicely. I haven’t quite mastered it yet and it looks Not Quite Right in a slightly different way every day.

I got new booties and we had a lot of rain. Which means a lot of the colorful leaves came off the trees and we’re nearing the end of The Beautiful Time of Year. Fortunately Christmas lights will go up soon and then there’ll be that to enjoy.

Friday was a little respite from the normal workday and Shannon and I attended Philanthropy Day, a day-long fundraising conference. The best part was the organization I work for nominated a 13-year-old boy to be honored as Future Philanthroper (or something like that) and he was chosen! At 10 years old he started an organization called Birthday Back to help people in need. Instead of asking for gifts for your birthday, you ask for donations to be made to certain charities. He’s raised nearly $50,000 in the past three years and donated all of the money onto charities. One year we were the recipient and that’s how we knew of him. He’s such a great (and adorable!) young man, we couldn’t be more proud of him or honored that he calls us his friends. If you’re interested in getting involved or reading more about his story, here is the website Birthday Back.

And that was my week! How was *your* week?