Making the paper

Well this is a first. I made the newspaper, only this time its not on the police blotter (just kidding...that only happened once). But it is kinda cool to have my achievement chronicled in the local paper.

Pretty as a picture

The kids spent the afternoon with Grandma. They had fun until Emery got his finger shut in the car door. Emma escaped unscathed, as you can see here.

Graduation Luncheon

I had my graduation luncheon today. This is not my actual graduation, merely a luncheon in honor of the upcoming event. Think of it as Senior Day. Anyhoo, this is me (in the middle, as if you needed the help) with my instructors and Lois, the owner. From left to right: Lois, Susie (she's the Jimminy Cricket of my ego; whenever I think I've finally got this whole cosmetology thing under my belt, she comes along and quickly deflates my ego), Kathy (she's the salon manager), me (duh!), Brandi (she is in charge of new students) and Connie (she alternates with Brandi with new students). Collectively they comprise the instruction staff at the school. I have to say that they are a great group of women and darn good instructors to boot.


Roll Call. From left to right: Tracy, Me, Nikki and Chrystal. All of these folk have been featured in my blog before. Tracy will graduate first amongst us, about the 1st of July. I'm next on the 8th and then Nikki and Chrystal fight it out for who goes last. Why don't we all graduate together? Unlike a regular university, where you get hours for classes even if you miss some days, we only get hours for actual time attended. So, since we've all missed days at different intervals, we all graduate on different days. And yes, I'm wearing my cheesy grin. Seriously folks, I simply don't smile. And no, I'm not that tall, these girls are simply that short.

Birthday party overload

Man, am I birthday partied out. We celebrated Courtney's birthday today at Incredible Pizza. It's one of those fancy pizza parlor/arcade venues. And it's also in Oklahoma City. So after an hour and a half drive, we got to dine on some interesting pizza and watch the festivities. I do have to say that they put on a good show. One of the interesting things that they do is gather everyone in the hallway and then toss tickets (redeemable for prizes) and candy in the air then watch as the kids scramble like mad to gather them up. Then it was off to the arcade. Emery and Emma had a blast though.







Then it was back in the car for the drive back to Enid for my nephew J'son's party. We dropped off Heather so she could go to work then it was over to my sister's for hot dogs, hamburgers and pinatas. They got J'son a jungle gym/play house for his birthday and the kids climbed over that thing for at least an hour. Emma in particular spent most of her time going down the slide. Emery tried his hand at the pinata (with very limited success) and we finally said goodnight. Man, am I beat.

The results are in

Emma had another evaluation yesterday for her hearing. This one was to determine her eligibility for a speech development program. While she is fine in most areas, there is enough of a development lag in others that the therapists felt she would benefit from the program.

So, in the near future, a therapist will be coming to the house to work with Emma on things like speech, coordination and such. She is starting to vocalize more (She can pronounce Spongebob and calls out her Aunt "Coco" by name) so this therapy should help catch her up with kids her age.

Of course, this just means that now, instead of screaming in a shrill voice, she'll be able to say, "Emery, NO!" when her brother smacks her on the head with something.

Well, I'm glad that's done

I got a job and I haven't even graduated yet.

We had our senior field trip yesterday, whereby those of us that are about to graduate take a tour of several salons in town to both get an idea of where we want to work and make possible employment inroads. After cruising through several salons (and cruising is the operative word as most of those places barely offered the time to glance in our direction), I decided to take up the salon manager at SmartStyles on her offer.

A few weeks back I ran into Rhonda, the aforementioned manager, at Walmart (curiously enough, this is also where SmartStyles is located). She basically offered me a job on the spot but I deferred until I was closer to graduation (Not to sound narcissistic, but men in the cosmetology industry are in high demand. I could completely suck at cutting hair, which I am proud to say I don't, and still make money). Hers was not the only job offer that I entertained either as at least one other salon made an offer of employment directly to me. But after looking over my prospects, I decided to take the SmartStyles job for a variety of reasons.

First of all, they came to me. That speaks volumes in terms of sincerity. Rhonda laid it out pure and simple: she wanted me to work there, no questions asked. Most other places practically told me to put up a security deposit before they would even consider interviewing me.

Second, the foot traffic is very, very high. I stopped by there the other day and, at 9 in the morning, there was a line of people waiting. This is a very good thing. High traffic is one of the key ingredients to success in this profession.

Third, and this ties into the previous reason, I stand to make a ton of money. Like most places, SmartStyles works on commission sales. Which, if you are fresh out of school, can be a huge detriment. But since they have enormous traffic (and its on a first come, first served basis), I'm am assured of staying busy. Combine that with my ability to bust out a really nice haircut in about 30 minutes and I will pull in the equivalent of about $30 an hour.

Finally, I can build my clientele. I will own my own barber shop one day and to have any kind of success with my own business I need clients. And it takes about 6 months to a year to build a steady reliable client base. There are some opportunities right now where I could purchase an existing barber shop and make it my own. But I would run the risk of going under before I even got a chance to start because I won't have a large enough client base to support even my most basic expenses. This way, I can build up a hundred or so clients and then have them follow me to my own place.

So, the job search is over and I really didn't even put in that much effort. I signed the paperwork today and will start two days after I graduate. Now, how often do you hear that in the post graduate world?

Bedtime Monster

I have a little monster in my bed. Every morning, around 4:30 AM or so, he creeps into my room and burrows himself into my back. I no longer have a need for an alarm clock as this little monster wakes me, without fail, at least an hour before my alarm clock goes off.

Here is a picture of the little monster, relaxing in his natural habitat.

Watching Spongebob

My kids love Spongebob Squarepants. Love him. Almost an entire shelf of our DVD rack is devoted to Spongebob videos. Without fail, the best way to calm them down and pass a quiet hour is to put on a Spongebob video.