A couple weeks ago I was at my hair stylist getting a trim, and I mentioned that I felt “blah” and in a hair rut. She suggested, “Hey! How about bangs?”

To which I basically replied no way.

You see, I was picturing the bangs I had when I was little: delicate, fringy, and above the eyebrows. Which look cute on little kids, but there was NO WAY I was going to let her give me those now. No. Freaking. Way.

So I went home, laughed a little about the bang thing, and went to bed.

The next couple of days, I kind of fought with my long-sideswept-bangs. The weren’t really behaving well since I got them trimmed. A spritz of hairspray didn’t even seem to help after the first few hours.

So I started thinking about bangs. What if I got thick, long, chunky bangs? Sassy indie bangs like Zooey Deschanel and Jennifer Lawrence are wearing?

An hour of Googling later, and I’d made my decision: BANG TIME! So without further ado, I called my stylist and booked in for an early morning appointment, inspiration photos in hand (well, more like in-phone, but still.). And…. voila!:

I love my new ‘do!! Fun and sassy – I can’t wait to try adding some texturizing product to my bangs to make them a little more chunky. And I’m excited to try different styles like wavy hair + bangs, updos + bangs, ponytail + bangs, hey even braids + bangs! In fact, I’ll be trying the whole wavy hair + bangs thing this weekend at the wedding of my friends Kate and Paul. (Kate was the one who introduced me and my hubby years ago! And she caught my bouquet at our wedding in 2011!) And ya know I’ll update you on how the wavy hair + bangs hairstyle goes.

I got some funny (all positive, but still funny!) reactions as my co-workers trickled in to work this morning and saw my new cut. “Wow, you DID something to yourself… If you were a guy I’d say you got a haircut. But this is more like a whole different style!”, “Bangs, bangs, bangs, you and Michelle!” (referring to Michelle Obama’s recent bang cut, which I actually hadn’t seen until I Googled it following his comment.)The best reaction I’ve gotten to the new ‘do so far? “Oh! Wow! You look like a runway model!”

I’ll take it.

As my friends know, I have been a little addicted to caffeine for several years. And by “a little addicted,” I mean I get the.worst.headache.ever. if I don’t get my morning cup o’ joe. I’m not one of those drink-a-whole-pot-by-myself kind of people, just one mug worth is all I require, and I’m good for the day. But, that one mug worth must be delivered to my system within a few hours of waking up, otherwise the headache starts kicking in.

Caffeine isn’t the worst of addictions, for sure, but I figured I now would be a good time to kick it. So a few weeks ago, I started gradually reducing the size of my morning cuppa, little by little, until last week I was down to one inch of coffee. And no headaches.

Yesterday, I had one sip of coffee before heading out the door to work.

Today is my first day sans cafe’. We’ll see how I do. So far I’m feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I’m crossing all digits that my head doesn’t decide to punish me for taking away the very last sip of sweet caffeinated bliss.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Update: Success with day 1 sans cafffeine! No headache, no tired feeling! Hurrah!

It’s Super Bowl time!

In less than 24 hours, Super Bowl XLVII kicks off with the San Francisco 49ers vs the Baltimore Ravens playing in New Orleans’ Superdome. Now usually I’m not a football fanatic, but I do get into the game when the 49ers are playing or when the Superbowl rolls around. You see, I grew up in Santa Cruz county, so I guess you’d say the Niners are my team.

Anyway, back to the Big Game. We usually go over to our friend’s house across town and watch the game along with a big group of friends, gathered around a big TV and hovering over a big spread of game-day goodies.

I bring the eight-layer dip. Ohhhh yes. Eight-layer dip. Eight layers of tasty Tex-Mex served with a big bowl of tortilla chips for dipping. I can’t wait.

This year, we’ll also be bringing some buffalo wings. I’ve never made them before, so in the best interest of the taste buds of my buds, I tested out my recipe today for any necessary tweaks. And boy were they delicious!

Fingers crossed they turn out as finger-licking good tomorrow! And fingers crossed for the Niners in their Quest for Six!

This January I decided to do a little experiment.

I had recently reorganized our three freezers (yes, three – one in our kitchen side-by-side fridge/freezer, one small top freezer in our garage fridge/freezer, and a chest freezer in the garage). I put all the frozen veggies, fruit, and sauces in our kitchen freezer, the meats in the small garage freezer, and all the other stuff (frozen potatoes, breads, and desserts) into the chest freezer. And guess what? Every. Freezer. Was. Full.

I decided to impose a challenge upon myself. For the entire month of January, I would cook meals using only what we had on hand. No grocery shopping. I would not only save us some money, but would clean out our overstuffed freezers in the process. But could it be done?

Turns out, it can be done. I got the freezers much emptier and saved a bunch of hard-earned cash. And I discovered one more perk of this experiment: it forced me to get creative in my meal planning. Nothing like using what ya got and boosting your creativity quotient in the process!

Yesterday, it being February 1st, I was delighted to go grocery shopping again! I spent a good hour in the grocery store, and found that during my leave of absence (haha) they’d moved a few things around. I used to know that store like the back of my hand! I guess a lot can change in a month!

Long story short (or short story long?) I ended up with a full cart of grocery goodness. Observe the deliciousness:

The January Challenge was a success! Now time to cook up something yummy.