Your new place looks great, smonster. I adore the wood floors. Totally worth mopping.

I now have short hair! Yay!

Unfortunately, whenever I say "I want it off my neck, but leave just a little length while shortening it up all over," I end up with Molly Ringwald hair. And then I have to come home and take the scissors to the corners of the damned wedge they left me with. I have thick hair. Unless you beat it back with determination, it will go poof. And when I go back to the salon and say "OK, nice try, but see the wedge? We don't want a wedge" I end up a slightly longer version of a buzz cut.

So now I have slightly chunky sides from my annoyed impatience to fix the thing, but it's curly hair, so it just looks texturey. I could never get away with this with my sister's stick-straight hair. And I now sympathize with my mother, who always cut her own hair.

Short hair can be a good thing. My hair's thick and more wavy than curly - I live in a swamp, basically - so I used to spend a lot of time trying to make it do things it didn't want to. So I ended up with lots and lots of frizz. Now, when it gets humid(er), it just gets poufier and a little more curly.

oh my ... I just popped over to Shakespeares Sister/Shakesville and they're having fun with Photoshop.

Connie, sounds like you need a stylist familiar with texturizing scissors.

Thanks, y'all. Just noticed - there is a definite dip in my kitchen floor. The fridge and stove lean towards each other noticeably. Hee.

Considering I do a major hair cut only once a year, I really ought to do more than just duck into Great Clips. But I have no clue how to find a good stylist. I don't know anyone locally who worries much about their hair.

Connie, keep your eyes peeled until you see a person with hair of your texture who has a haircut you like. This may take months, but just keep it in the very back of your mind. When you see this person, immediately accost them and ask them where they get their hair cut. They will be happy to tell you (you are, after all, showing respect for their ability to choose a stylist). Then, bob's your uncle.

Then, bob's your uncle.

If it's a bob you want, of course.

t giggles at self

So I' thinking of going mostly gluten free in the house. Who has recs for good gluten free pasta and bread?

Aims, the best gluten-free pasta I've had (and I've had quite a few) is DeBoles' *corn* pasta. (This is important, because DeBoles also makes a quinoa pasta and a rice pasta.) Their corn pasta has a great texture, and the taste is pretty dang good. Most rice pasta is insanely mooshy and gluey.

EXCEPT...Tinkyada's rice lasagna noodles (specifically the lasagna) are awesome and you can make crockpot lasagna with them. The kind where you don't need to pre-cook the noodles.

As for bread, the only one that's worth eating is Udi's. All other gluten-free bread is dense and there's no point to even trying to make a sandwich out of it. Udi's makes bagels too, halle-fricking-lujah.

The lady over at A Year of Slow Cooking does gluten free, and lists a bunch of her favorite foods in various recipes.