Miles of Styles 2

I love low side ponytails. They are perfect for a leftover hair style. A leftover hair style happens when you straightened, curled, or scrunched your hair the previous day.
Side ponytails can easily be dressed up with a twist, braid, or poof. Today, I'm sporting the twist into a side ponytail with my bangs pinned towards my side part instead of straight back.

Add large, pretty earrings!!!

Miles of Styles 1

Over the next few weeks, I wanted to post a few of my fav styles for long hair.

Today, I present the sock bun. It is versatile and easy. It can be used as a style all its own or a means to create a style.

My sister introduced me to the sock bun. There is a video on YouTube if you are interested in trying it. There is also a tutorial on how to use it to curl your hair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I13J7ArHTkM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

WORD UP!!

The word on the street is that New Year's Resolutions are out and picking a Word of the Year is in. In these fickle times with ever changing trends it becomes increasingly difficult to be on top of things. When it comes to hip fads I tend to go with the flow, you know...roll with it, so I jumped on this creative twist to making the most of the New Year.  The point is to pick a word or ask God to make a word glaringly obvious to you, so that throughout the year this word can inspire you and encourage you to grow and stretch yourself.  

The word compassion kept coming to my mind but I wasn't convinced.  I have a bad habit of treating people nice and looking good on the outside but not really loving from a sacrificial place or even an honest place.  I wanted my Word for 2012 to reflect my dependence on God and not my actions toward people.

Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 
              John 15: 9 and 10

ABIDE

Throughout the year, I want God to abide in me, 

directing my movements, writing my lines, creating the scenes instead of me trying to control it all.  

In turn, I want to abide in Him, 

listening to His director's notes, reading the script, and of course, enjoying the cast party.  

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

• Fave Scene: Harry risks his greatest fear to save his godfather. When things look their worst, Harry uses his lessons from the year to save their lives with unexpected help from someone very special. This scene has an interesting twist, that I'll resist to divulge.

• Fave Character: Hagrid has such a pure heart. He is truly a gentle giant. After a long time serving as gamekeeper for Hogwarts, Hagrid receives a chance of redemption and to prove himself. Things don't go perfectly but he fights for the creatures he believes in and loves.

• Fave Magical Item: The Marauder's Map. This item has historical and personal significance to Harry. It is a very generous gift from the Weasley twins. Of course, it cleverly helps him solve the great mystery of the book.

worshipOne

This past Fall, Chase had the opportunity to start planning a worship seminar for the district our church is part of. All of his planning and hard work culminated into worshipOne, which took place this weekend at our district campground.

The campground has neat little two person cabins equipped with air/heat, microwave, mini-fridge, bathroom with a shower (woohoo), and fresh wood smell. We were both pleasantly surprised by how nice and cozy our sleeping arrangements were. Willow even joined us for the weekend.

During the sessions, I relaxed in the cabin reading Harry Potter with Willow sniffing every square inch of the new setting. The weather stayed gray, misty, and wet all weekend (great reading weather). However, the dog became overly restless several times so we journeyed out for a few damp forest walks. I realized I really like walking through the forest in light rain...it's very peaceful and calm.

Overall it was a fun weekend. worshipOne went great!! The worship leaders and teams went away with a lot of great ideas and information to make their worship experience more meaningful. Plus, Willow and I loved our time relaxing and enjoying nature.

My Dog Ate My...

I left Willow alone for 10 seconds and what happened? She ate my flyers for Cutting Out Cancer!!! Crazy puppy!!

Harry Potter: Year One and Two

I am currently in the middle of the third Harry Potter Book: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Here are some of my fav's from the first two books. (I don't really give anything important away, so if you haven't read the books, they won't be ruined.) 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

• Fave Scene: Dumbledore talking to Harry in the room that holds the Mirror of Erised.  Harry starts to become obsessed with what he sees in the enchanted mirror.  Dumbledore, gently and caring, reminds Harry that he should live for today.   
• Fave Character: Ron, for giving sacrificially to his friend.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

• Fave Scene:  Harry stumbles upon the diary of Tom Riddle, it writes back when he writes in it.  He is trying to find information about the Chamber of Secrets, and the writer invites him into the diary to show him what happened the night the person who opened the Chamber was caught.  What Harry sees hits very close to home.  
• Fave Character: Harry, for staying loyal to his friend no matter how grim it looked for him.  He also learns a lot about himself in this book.  It shows his internal battle with good and evil.

Overall Thoughts:
Ron cracks me up, he is so dramatic about everything.
Hermoine needs to chill a little with the smartypants business.
Hagrid is so genuine and gentle.
The author uses so much creativity in the magical items and activities within the book. 

P.S. Thanks to Hannah Kittle for suggesting I read these books.

Wow!

Where has the time gone? I've been a terrible blogger so far this year. Hopefully, January is just a fluke month and I'll have more time and interesting things to write throughout the year!!

Here's what I've been up to so far:

•Deciding on a Word of the Year to inspire me for 2012
•Planning details for Cutting Out Cancer (I'm really bad about the recruiting part...which is the most important. Ahhhh!)
•Trying to be a better assistant at school, before the break I got kinda lazy.
•Cheering for the WRMS Bulldogs boys' basketball team while Chase helps coach.
•Reading Harry Potter (Les Lit to come)
•Playing Tiny Tower...so pointless yet so addictive.
•Trying Advocare, a health and wellness program, that really impacted my parents overall health. I'm on day 5 of 24 and going strong!

Hope you're enjoying 2012 as well!!

Meteor Shower

Have you ever made special arrangements for something totally worthwhile-amazing? And then by random chance something just as worthwhile happens out of the blue? You know, when your life has been too planned and regimented so spontaneity decides to show its pretty little head.  I'd like to share a "tail" of ironic spontaneity.

(Back Story)
One of the first times Chase and I hung out we watched a meteor shower with some friends.  Several months later when we started dating we enjoyed reminiscing about our night sky rendezvous. Since then, when we hear that a meteor shower will be visible we try to watch it.

(Present Time)
Wednesday morning at 3:00 am our alarm went off and we dressed warmly to see the Quadrantid Meteor Shower.  We drove a few miles down the road to a church parking lot in the country.  Neither of us remembered to grab a blanket, luckily there were picnic tables to lay on.  After we saw about five or six we were happy with the celestial show and headed home.  The Quadrantids proved to be a nice little light show. 

Wednesday night we dropped a few students off in the city area.  Turning a corner, we saw a flash of bright orange light about half way up in the sky and it continued to fall to about a quarter high in the sky burning yellow and orange the whole way down.  Before it burned up it lingered in that last spot for a moment. This was a METEOR! It was longer, wider, and brighter than any we had seen earlier that morning.

I'm not saying we should have stayed in bed that morning, it's just really ironic that we made these inconvenient and unconventional plans so that we could see a great work of God's art and then He blew us away with a completely unexpected display.

Equivalent to what we saw early Wednesday morning, delicate streaks of purplish blue light.

What's in a name?

The VOTES are in and the winner of the naming contest for the Hair Donating Event is "BBBRRRRRRRRR" drum roll please...

CUTTING OUT CANCER!!

A friend of mine from high school, Lauren Weaver, suggested this name.  Lauren, thank you for joining in and helping our donating event sound more exciting!! Also, thank you for reading Les of Me! For your creativity and participation I'll be sending you a gift card to Starbucks.

I love that we were all able to work together to suggest names and votes came in from several states.  Thanks for indulging my little experiment and getting involved. Who knows maybe we'll do it again?

I'm excited for Cutting Out Cancer with Cut Up and Dye on February 18th. Six ponytails make one wig, I'd love to make three wigs, that's 18 people!!

Before we use the promo video for advertising I'm going to post it here...so stay tuned and give me your feedback!!

Thank you all for your support!

Happy New Year!!

Yesterday, Chase indulged my cheesiness and watched New Year's Eve with me on the movies name sake. Of course, he hated it but tried not to crush my spirits about it. I liked it, yeah it had some cheesy lines and predictable plots but sometimes you need to embrace the mushy aspects of life. I love happy endings and chick flicks are notorious for making sure, no matter how improbable, a happy ending is delivered. And who wouldn't love a movie where Zac Efron is basically the hero of several plot lines? Lol! I'm totally kidding btw.

During the Dick Clark's Rocking New Year's Eve with Ryan Seacrest, I stayed up past the ball drop enduring Blake Shelton and Nikki Minaj just to see a pregnant Beyonce preform. Seacrest announced, "And then a performance by Beyonce!" What else should I have expected other than pregnant Beyonce? I mean she's a Survivor, if anyone can do the NYC ball drop when their baby is about to, it's her.
However, they showed a special tribute video never before seen from a concert in England. Beyonce had no Baby Bump, no pregnancy pants, no fluffy face. I wasn't disappointed with Beyonce because who would want to be out in the cold, on a stage, in the crowds of NYC while they were about to pop out a baby.
No! My fury was for Seacrest. You don't promise a superstar who's going through something so natural and down to earth and then present a mirage of her pre-pouch self.
So Ryan Seacrest... I suggest that you portray your performances more accurately. I'll forgive you this time, even though the world missed out on a once in a life time opportunity to see The Beyonce performing with child on the most exciting night of the year!

Chase and I enjoyed our last day of 2011. We're excited for what 2012 has in store. Hope you are too!!!