Cause You Had A Bad Day...Ok, A Bad Week

Yes, the family is healthy and we're all relatively really happy. However, this past week or so was a real doozie. When one little thing happens, it's easy to deal with. When three or four little things happen, you think your world is falling apart. Let me sum up.

Incident 1: The Blog Shutdown
As you know, I had to shut down our family website. Being in marketing over the past 6 or so years, I had learned to touch up every photo and give it some type of descriptive name before posting it online. Not so smart with a family website with your last name in the title. And even dumber when your site, which was once set up to be non-searchable by Google and the like, magically turns search engine happy. I'm not sure if my settings changed when Google partnered with Blogger, but all of a sudden all of my posts, and more importantly photos, were showing up online.

I could care less about photos of me or the hubbie, but when photos of your son show up online, things get a little stressful. Especially when photos are titled "Super Underpants Boy" and show up on the first page of Google when a search for "boy in underpants" is conducted. After several nights of crying, deleting, calling my IT pals and emailing every Google Webmaster I could find, we're finally nearing the end of the saga.

Lesson Learned: Never use your family name in your blog title if you're going to use your children's names throughout the site and label every single photo with their name or underpant status. And, periodically check to make sure your Blogger settings have not changed.

Incident 2: The Tryout (or, "You were a bit pitchy, dawg")
I tried out for our church's vocal team this past week. The first half of the tryout involved singing a prepared song (from a list of two) on the ginormous stage with the full band. Waddling onto stage, my nerves took hold as I envisioned Simon & Randy waiting in the dark seats below, ready to rip my vocal abilities to shreds. I was told before I started that I would probably be stopped after the first verse & chorus for time's sake, as the audition tryouts were in 10 minute time slots. As I struggled through the first verse, missing a few notes here and there, I felt as though I was starting to reach my stride at the end of the chorus. Surely, they would let me proceed. As I headed into the second verse with some type of Whitney Houston-esque "Oh...", I was abruptly stopped.

"Thank you," I heard from the dark seats below.

"Thank you?" I thought. "I was just getting warmed up!"

All of sudden, I knew how every American Idol reject felt as they begged for a second chance to prove they really could sing. I wanted to cry out, "No, you don't understand. I really can carry a tune. I was just nervous. And I have a huge uterus!!!" (for sympathy's sake) Instead, I hung my head low, walked off the stage without my golden ticket and proceeded to the next room for the sight reading & harmony portion.

Lesson Learned: There's always next year's audition

Incident 3: Do Pregnant Blondes Have More Fun?
The answer? No. In fact, Heck No. At least not bottle blondes. I had decided early on to keep my hair highlighted and root free during this pregnancy...post 1st trimester. Everything had been going great. I found a fabulous hair stylist at a local salon for a great price. Having a wedding this past weekend, I thought it was time to get my roots touched up with a bit of foil magic.

I had always read in my what-to-expect books that hair color can do funny things when mixed with pregnancy hormones. This past week, it was proven to me that this is true. As we walked back to my stylist's station after shampooing, we both could see lovely strands of orange highlights peaking through my wet hair.

"Uhm, your hair looks a bit more golden than normal," she said.

"Yeah, I noticed."

"Must be those pregnancy hormones," she answered. And I completely believe her because she did everything exactly as she had the past several visits. Our options were to either put on a rinse (which I nixed considering it goes directly on the scalp and would give me yet another reason to call my doctor with a stupid question) or to put highlights on even longer. We opted for the highlights. The result? Really, really blonde hair with lovely orange lowlights.

Lesson Learned: Ball caps go great with maternity shirts, but not wedding attire.

I know. None of this is important in the grand scheme of things. And what is a blog if not a venting ground for life's little frustrations? I keep reminding myself that God wouldn't bring us here and abandon us to a series of pointless mishaps. Maybe not singing on the worship team is His way of telling me to focus more on my family and the little bundle of joy we have coming in a couple months. Maybe the website incident occurred just in time, before I posted millions of photos of baby brother along with, no doubt, way too detailed information about the birth. And just maybe the orangey hair is God's way of getting me excited about fall. After all, I now match those lovely shades found in the changing leaves, pumpkins and candy corn.

Or, maybe it's just a lesson in learning to laugh through it all.