It was a very productive Monday.
First of all, I’m so tired of dealing with the hair loss. Honestly, after I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, I got a side glance in the mirror and this time saw a huge chunk of scalp in an area that had hair not too long ago.
Slowly, I am coming to grips with the fact that no amount of Rogaine or Biotin is going to grow my hair. I am so ready to start wearing assistant hair. Wigs. Luckily I started ordering wigs some time ago which gives me a stack of pret-a-porter tresses.
That time has come today. Missing my bobbed hair of quite a few years ago, I opted for my off-black Scorpio wig by Revlon. Bonaparte thought it looked cute and gave me a 1960’s vibe. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll opt for a longer wig.
It’s cute–right? I’m kind of liking the shorter bob look!
Wednesday I’ll be going to Adam for a blowout. I’m saddened to say it will most likely be the last blow out for a long time. Because I’ve decided to just give the hair that I do have a rest. It’s breaking and brittle and dry and just needs some TLC right now. The wigs will do my natural hair well!
It doesn’t look too wiggy either. Well, I HOPE it doesn’t look too wiggy! Oh–who cares HOW it looks!
Now that the hair issue is out of the way, I’ll entertain you with the rest of my day.
After taking inventory of wrapping paper and embellishments, it was time to incorporate more tissue paper and boxes.
There was a time when receiving a nice, sturdy box—complete with tissue paper, was an automatic given. No more. Even though most people at present are Christmas and Holiday shopping, asking or kindly requesting gift box is mandatory or you will not have a box to place the gift into.
I did some shopping last month at Madewell for a couple of gifts for Oona. Although I did receive the boxes that I practically had to beg for, the boxes didn’t come with tissue paper. In addition, the boxes are one piece. The top is connected to the bottom and you need to fold parts of this one piece box into place.
Madewell’s boxes leave much to be desired but I see that they made sure their logo was quite spectacularly perfect!
I swear you have to be some sort of engineer to figure out just how to turn this one-piece of cardboard structure into what will eventually resemble a box. In trying to fold the corners, I ripped the box and had to tape it together.
It took me fifteen minutes to figure out how to fold this–and I STILL managed to rip the box. Ugh. It’s so damn cheap looking!
I’m glad that I can purchase plain, two-piece boxes at discount stores.
Oh…and let me mention that I prefer the white tissue paper because it won’t clash with the wrappings when the box is opened. But, the white tissue paper is actually more expensive than the cheesy and colored Christmas tissue paper. I’m cheap—so I went with the cheesy and colored paper.
I’m hoping that before opening gifts, way too much Martha Stewart Eggnog will be drunk-drank-drunken? so that nobody notices this cheesy tissue paper that will be inside the gift boxes. Can you believe that plain white was more expensive?
Did I also mention that each person in the house gets their own special wrapping paper? I call this “lazy mom” wrapping. I can’t stand name tags—they are too small and never look pretty. Instead, I’m able to tell which gift belongs to whom by their personal paper! Smart—right?? Sometimes it just pays to be lazy. Here’s how this practice strongly impacts my grown, adult kids. Two years ago, I went against the grain and did the mixed wrapping paper and name tag thing. The kids hated it. Yes. My adult children were shocked and disappointed because their gifts were not wrapped uniformly with their special paper. I learned a lesson that year….
Guess who got the Target deer head wrapping paper? I cannot wait to embellish these gifts!
Back to wrap.
I embellished one of the gifts with a bow. Thank God it was the first gift wrapped because I realized that the bow would be squished upon placing it back in the “hiding” bag. The ribbons, bows and embellishments will have to wait till just before the gifts are placed under the tree!
In keeping with my “rustic” themed Christmas decor, I carried it over to the wrappings. This STILL needs more—-perhaps some fake cranberries in the middle of the bow!
Scissors, tape, wrapping paper, bags and everything else created such a mess on the dining room table that I was so happy Bonaparte was with clients.
It IS rather messy. Bonaparte would definitely NOT approve of this mess!
Speaking of tape, I purchased a package of four rolls of Scotch Tape. One being “free”. Let me tell you something. The fourth roll is not free. The tape company makes the rolls of tape much smaller than usual. I used an entire roll of tape on about ten gifts. And I don’t use large pieces.
Free roll my ass. They make the rolls so sparsely filled with tape that you need one roll for under ten gifts!
And another thing–see the top tab on this box? You need to tape that tab down in order to get a decent wrap job on this pack of pencils. This kind of packaging drives me nuts!!
Gifts all wrapped, it was time to bring the remaining paper upstairs and out of Bonaparte’s sight.
Wrapped but not fancied up yet, the gifts will be hidden. And will await the rest of the gifts I still need to get!
I swear to God you will not believe what happened. One of the rolls of paper hit the wall going up the stairs and left a dent in the dry wall. When Bonaparte reads this the shit will hit the fan and he will blame me for not being careful.
Look what the wrapping paper did. I swear it was NOT me!
It wasn’t me. It was the paper!
Bonaparte, my Christmas elf, is a fine one to be criticizing though. He claims to “nut cahhr” about the decorations. For the past couple of weeks he’s been muttering about “zuh pip-uhl ou ahr crizee to ‘ev zuh decoratshunz up so uhlee”. (Translations: 1. Not care. 2. The people who are crazy to have the decorations up so early.)
This morning Bonaparte asked me “Casseee. Why do ou nut ‘av zuh leets and grins ‘ang-ing from zuh dick?” NOTE: In this instance “dick” is “DECK”—it’s the deck! He’s French! (Translation: Cathe, Why do out not have the lights and greens hanging from the deck?)
I’ll be adding ribbon to this mix as well–but for now, I need to apply some band-aids to my hands!
So after all the wrapping was finished, I was out on the “dick” with greens, wire, wire cutters and lights. And my hands have the cuts and scrapes that went along with it.
I thought I cleaned the table up nicely. Bonaparte pointed out that I left some of my mess in the bowl. Oops! Time for a cup of tea!
So now, as I relax, the only song that can possibly come to mind after this post is “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses—quite possibly one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time! Enjoy!
XOXOXOXOXO!!!