The Braid

I am in love with braids right now. They are so versatile from a yoga class to a wedding, braids keep your hair out of your face and look ridiculously cute all at once.

The best part is ANY age can find a braid to be "age appropriate" and to suit your own personality.

One of my friends linked our whole group to this DIY Youtube video on a BoHo Twist. It has become one of my standard hairstyles! Simple and lovely.  

Here are a few styles I just think are adorable.

I have been in love with the fishtail braid since Lord of the Rings. It's so much easier than it looks too! Promise!

This one has a DIY on the website which is always nice! 

Rachel McAdams is gorgeous but look how slick her hair is. Wonderful. Not overpowering but making a statement.

I love pigtails and braids so this is just perfect.

Little Red Riding Hood

I'm sure you've noticed that I have a love of Fairytales and often refer to them for various advice and reference. This post is something I would love to take further and by further, I think this would be a wonderful dissertation for when I get to Grad school. That being said, this won't be using academic sources and lots of my own thoughts.

I have been watching the TV show Once Upon a Time and besides it being fantastic and entertaining, I love watching to see how the writers write and rewrite the Fairy Tales they are using. This is the basis of my fascination with Fairytales and why I've been missing my copy of Grimms since I got to Vancouver.

This past Sunday the focus was on "Ruby" in our world or "Red" in Fairytale world. In this version of the tale Red is in love with Peter ("Peter and the Wolf") but Granny is a hardass and won't let them be together, especially during "The Wolf's Time" and is constantly yelling at Red to wear her hood, which as most teenagers do, she rebels against.

So her and Snow White track the wolf during the day so they can kill it while it sleeps and Red will be able to run away with Peter only to discover that the tracks lead to her window! The very window Peter stood under the night before their was a massacre by the wolf.

Red goes to tell Peter that he's the wolf (werewolf) and ties him up with chains and then decides to stay with him all night....not wearing her hood because Snow is wearing it to cover for her.

Granny figures it out and freaks out. Snow doesn't understand until Granny explains that Red is the wolf! The Red Cloak has been enchanted to keep her from turning on the full-moon so they rush to find Red and Peter....but alas, Red has already devoured Peter.

Quite a change from the original right? I'd recount it but most should know the basics and if not click to read a few versions.

So this is what I want to talk about how the story changes due to cultural influences. How the stories evolve and what the folk tales of cultures reflect about that culture.

My quick analysis without any research attached beyond my head knowledge (which we all know is vast and a bit intense) is focused on the sexual aspects of the tale rather than any other focus. Red is known to attract men more than any other colour, yet in the original story the young girl is learning to fear "the wolf" and the sexual advances of the wolf, only to be rescued by another male, warning girls essentially (keep in mind this is a blog so I'm not elaborating) of sex and reminding them of their role in life.

Now in today's televised version the female is told to wear the red hood to keep the wolf away but its when she takes it off that she becomes the wolf...hmm...perhaps commentary on the ever changing sexuality of females and warning men to be careful? It is when she takes the red (known to attract men because they see it as making the wearer more sexually available) cape off that she can pursue and kill those who've hurt her. OR it's a commentary on how females are now taking sex into their own hands and essentially flipping the bird to the old tale. Rewriting it so men are to be warned off of casual and elicit affairs.

They could end up devoured by the wolf.

A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.
                                              -Lana Turner

Top 25 Most Played

We have all [mostly] done those surveys where they ask you what the top 25 songs on your Itunes/Media player is. And well, I'm stuck for a post, mostly because a few of the ones I've had aren't really thoughts I feel appropriate to put out into the internet for-ever!

So to jolt me out of that here for your reading pleasure is a list of my Top 25 most played songs!

1. Just A Kiss-Lady Antebellum
2. Dog Days are Over-Florence and the Machine
3. Longest Night-Howie Day
4. Circus-Britney Spears
5. Can't Be Tamed- Miley Cyrus
6. 3- Britney Spears
7. Eet-Regina Spektor
8. Womanizer-Britney Spears
9. More Like Her-Miranda Lambert
10. If You Seek Amy-Britney Spears
11. Princess-Matt Nathanson
12. I Hate Boys-Christina Aguilera
13. Teenage Dream-Katy Perry
14. Collide-Howie Day
15. A Little Bit Stronger-Sara Evans
16. Princess- Matt Nathanson
17. Heart and Soul-Jonas Brothers (Camp Rock)
18. I Never Told You-Colbie Caillat
19. Party in the USA- Miley Cyrus
20. You're My Favourite Song- Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas (Camp Rock)
21. Radar-Britney Spears
22. Vanity-Christina Aguilera
23. Something Beautiful-Great Big Sea
24. Picture to Burn- Taylor Swift
25. Airplanes- B.O.B feat Hayley Williams and Eminem

Note: I do have two "Princess" by Matt Nathanson's there...it is probably my favourite song ever.



"Lying Here With You So Close To Me/It's Hard To Fight These Feelings When It Feels So Hard To Breathe/Caught Up In This Moment/Caught Up In Your Smile"-Lady A

I got crafty!

So I found The Pineneedle Collective blog just before Valentine's Day and wanted to make their DIY heart tights. But with time and energy running short I didn't get around to it until yesterday.

At which point I had decided I didn't want to do hearts, boo hearts and love!

Originally my idea was to write BELIEVE down the back of my right leg and I hadn't figured out what to use as a shape...hearts could have worked then. Turns out I'm not very patient or spatially inept so my trying to make stencils for BELIEVE was a failure and the ones I found at the dollar store were too small. :(

I had figured out I wanted to use stars as my shape though...so I made two stencils one big and one small and did the front first...the stencils weren't staying very well. Too many points? Anyway, it sort of ended up very free-style which meant I figured I'd freestyle the back as well. BELIEVE ended up being to big for how I thought it would fit so I did "Wish" instead.

Here is the result of trying to get my crafty back with all my supplies still at home.

But out of limitations comes creativity.
                                                   -Debbie Allen 

Country Girl Soul

I've been trying to figure out what concise topic to cover in my blog post. Hence the long wait [I know you were all gagging for me to write again], and I'm not actually sure this is as concise and topic driven as I want. Alas, I need to update. For my sanity [and obviously yours].

I grew up on country music. My oldest sister was very into Garth Brooks, Bryan White, Shania, Leanna Rimes, etc.

My family has a summer trailer where the music at our dances was almost 100% country jams. Old and new. Even the coolest kids would line dance for appropriate songs.

Country music is in my blood, but I sort of drifted from it for a few years, always listening to certain people aka Great Big Sea [who aren't whole-y country genre] but lately I've been going nuts needing my country back!

Now, this isn't to say it leans more to the Pop-Country side of things but I have been loving my Garth Brooks and Bryan Adams to boot.

There's something about a country song that just fills you up in a way dance music can't. In a way pop music misses with it's resonating bass. 

I've missed how it makes me feel. Happy and gloomy all at once. I miss rockin' out with my sister and her making me mixed tapes and then CD's to keep from stealing hers to listen to.

This is not to say I am not loving my indie music, pop music, rock music, just that I forgot how much I love to groove to some good hearty country tunes.

So, there's another facet of my personalities for you, country girl this one.

She needs wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes.
                                                                                       -Dixie Chicks

(Vancouver) Rain

It's raining today.

Not an uncommon occurrence in Vancouver, especially during the "winter" months, but today's rain reminded me of something spectacular.

Yes, it rained A LOT in December and a decent amount in January. But really I've not gotten "too bummed" or "annoyed' by the rain.

Why?

I can say without hesitation or doubt that I love rain. I love how it feels when you are walking in it and happy and I love how it feels when you are walking in it and are crying.

No matter what it cleanses and refreshes the earth. It takes the heaviness of life and shows us how we are all connected through water and this cleansing.

I'm not sure what most people have against rain. I searched high and low for a yellow raincoat and matching yellow wellies so I could go out and enjoy the rain without getting TOO wet. But the joy of getting caught in a rainstorm is still a love I can't let go of.

This past August I got caught in a summer storm right before leaving Hamilton and I danced in it. I was out with my best friends and we all danced it in and then I got home, threw on my bathing suit and danced in the rain at 3am. It was one of the best moments of the summer.

I think it's one of those things we lose our love for as we grow up and we only want it when it's convenient or will serve a purpose for us, example, during hot hot humid summers we dream of the heat breaking with a storm.

That's not to say when it rains for 7 days straight I don't go "okay, I love you but enough I want to wear cute shoes again" but living in East Sussex, England and now Vancouver, I have truly learned I am not one of those people bothered by the rain. I don't typically take an umbrella with me. I don't curse when my hair frizzes. I just accept it and enjoy it.

Maybe we need to watch as children jump into puddles with such joy a bit more. Watch them squeal with delight as they get splashed and giggle instead of moan when things get a bit wet and perhaps muddy. 

 

A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won't come true.
                                                                                                                      -Ray Evans

Fairy Tales Don't Exist

I've lived my life as a pessimistic optimist.

It's a term I've just designed for myself. It means as much as I have this faith in humans, in their hearts truly being good, somehow I start to doubt it, but even in my doubt, I end up hurt because I truly believe they're good.

I end up burned. I end up used. I end up wandering where my Prince Charming or Fairy Godmother is.

And then I realize, life isn't a fairy tale. Or rather, friends tell me that "Life's not a fairy tale Kathleen, get over it."

Yet, every time, something in me trusts that some day I'll get my happy ending. I don't know what it is. I don't know what in me continually sees a happy ending in the cards.

My whole life I grew up reading fairy tales, watching fairy tales, pretending I was in a fairy tale. More people than I can count have called me Princess, people I would never expect to call me anything, as a joke I put "Princess" on my Facebook page. Someone who has known me my entire life-watched me grow up once told my parents to let me know not to take it off.

Now, I should clarify, I wasn't spoiled growing up. I didn't want for the things I needed but if I wanted money I had to do chores, we weren't just given an allowance, we had to rake the leaves, clean the basement, vacuum and then we'd be paid.

It's not a nickname I've given myself, it's one that I have always remembered having, and maybe it's twisted how I want my life to look, maybe it's twisted how I believe people should act and be.

I have a fascination with fairy tales. Their origins, the true reason they were created, and how our world has changed them is amazing. They are a cultural phenomenon. Shaped by the people who created and adapted them for lessons and then just for entertainment.

But life isn't a fairy tale. They don't exist.

I'm continuously told this.

Growing up, every girl makes her checklist of what she wants in a boy. I made mine. And I thought perhaps, I had found my Prince Charming, I proceeded with caution. I proceeded because he was everything I had every dreamed of. Minus being honest, which I learned too late. This English Bloke I can't say has broken my heart but he's burned me like I never thought I could be burned because deep down my perfect mate was shattered. Ironically, I asked him once if he had attended Charm School and he once called me Sleeping Beauty and Princess.

Before Hogwarts, there were fairy tales, and the magic they held was more than anyone can comprehend, they've shaped my life. I'm not sure I can stop believing. I want to. I want to grow up for the first time in my existence I want to grow up. Maybe it's only after you grow up you have your fairy tale happily ever after.

“Classic fairy tales do not deny the existence of heartache and sorrow, but they do deny universal defeat.” Greenhaven Press

                   Princess on the floor at Grade 12 Graduation. I'm wearing an Arwen Tiara.


“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― G.K. Chesterton