Every year I say to myself, “This is the year I learn to wrap gifts nicely.” And every year I end up frustrated, just wrapping tape around paper, or throwing things into gift bags. But this year, I did it! I wrapped all but one gift nicely, and I disguised the ugly gift with a nice bow. That’s the other thing I taught myself to make this year. Nice bows. Keep reading and I’ll show you what I did.
We wish you a merry Christmas!
I have been told that the best gift wrapping is one piece of paper, and three pieces of tape. Let’s see how I did.
I started with one of Thor’s presents. A book seemed an easy starting place.I measured my paper so that I could fold the sides over and cover the book. Oh–put your item face down so your paper seams end up on the backside of it.Close the sides of the paper like a double door, and put one piece of tape in the middle to secure it.Next, use your thumb to tuck in the center pieces of the outside edges of the wrapping paper. There is Monsieur le Snowhomme sneaking into the photo on my thumbnail.When you have poked in the edges on either side, use your fingers to make seams in the paper so that you have angled edges.Then, press one edge down over the side of the item/package, rubbing seams in so that there is a snug fit.Pull the paper up over the back side of the item/package like you are sealing an envelope and use a piece of tape to hold it in place.Do the same thing on the other side and add it to the present pile!My next trial was to wrap up a plush Bilbo Baggins with The Hobbit.I tucked Bilbo’s sword, Sting, under him, and bound him to the book with a wide strip of ribbon. I explained that it was for the good of the Shire.Then, it was face down onto the paper for our favorite Middle Earthling.Following the instructions from before, I ended up with a squashy, ugly gift. I needed a way to hide the worst of it.
I watched several YouTube video tutorials on how to make bows, and they were all great. Following is the gist of them.
You get your ribbon, and double wired is the best kind to use.Decide how wide you want to go, and make your first fold. Your next fold will be just about twice as long. I tried to capture a photo showing both my first and second folds. Keep folding.You will want your last fold to be about the same length as your first fold was, so just a little over half of the full length. See?Use your scissor to make slits on either side of the ribbon.
If you fold down the sides of one half, your ribbon should look like this.Grab another length of ribbon and tie it so that your knot is right in the middle–that’s what your scissor slits were for.Then, start peeling back the petals of your ribbon and fluffing them up.Peel and fluff until you are satisfied!
That is actually the VERY FIRST CHRISTMAS BOW I’ve ever made. If I can do that on the first try, imagine what you can do! I used that bow to cover the ugliest part of the Bilbo present.
I decided to make a Gift Guide for my present openers. Using scraps from my wrapping paper, I cut out little squares and taped them to a stocking cut-out. I wrote the names of the people whose gifts were wrapped in that paper next to each scrap. The more in your family, the merrier this will make you when it is time to open the gifts.Now, it will be easy to identify which gift belongs to whom–especially since I have a tendency to forget.
I’d also like to take a moment to remind you that there are children who might not have anything on Christmas morning, if not for your generosity. I had the fortune of being the shopper for gifts purchased for a family, by my office. With several of us sharing together, I think these little girls will have a happy Christmas morning–at least it won’t be sad! The clerk who cashed out my stocking and hat purchase said that her store had adopted a Women’s Shelter for Christmas. There are hundreds of ways to help. I encourage you to find the way that makes you happiest. (I was excited to shop for a girl!)
I like Amy Poehler a lot. I like that she is smart before anything else, and funny after that. I like her Ask Amy series of advice vlogs for girls, and I think most of her answers are charming and helpful. In a recent vlog, she answered a question from a 15 year old girl, who wanted to know how to get boys to notice her. The girl said she had tried everything–being just friends, and trying to be attractive–and it wasn’t working. Amy’s advice was “stop trying.” I would like to expound on that thought.
Teenagers are funny, special creatures with the enthusiasm, hopefulness and energy of small children in the bodies of adults. They have the capacity to think and reason like adults, but are awash with brain chemicals that make it biologically impossible to behave like them. They are caught in between worlds, where the only people who can truly understand them are their equally as biologically whacked out peers. The best adults can do is empathize and try to remember how it felt.
Do you remember 15? Ugh. You’re too young to drive, too old to want to be with your parents on a Saturday night, but you might still secretly want a snuggle with your mom. What your peers think of you means a lot. I had the fortune of having changed schools so many times that I was somewhat inoculated against the full-force concern of how I was regarded. I was used to being regarded as an outsider–interesting at best, an interloper at worst. And, I never figured I was going to be anywhere long enough for it to matter. So, aside from (or maybe because of) that devastating year in 6th grade, the other kids were never my biggest problem.
Still, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be noticed. And most of all, I wanted to be liked and noticed by boys. I remember that really well. Really, really well.
So here’s what I would tell 15 year old me:
Fifteen-year-old Lane. Braces, check. Bad hair, check. Frightening 80s fashion, check. What this child needed was some style advice.
Little Bad-Haired Lane, better than half of what you are feeling is hormonal and it is 100% normal. It is good and healthy that you want boys* to like you. You aren’t going to be able to stop that feeling or desire because you aren’t consciously making it happen. Chemicals are doing this to you. It is a biological imperative. Nature is driving your impulses so that you will want to procreate and propagate the species.
Before we go any further, I want to be sure that you understand that Biological Imperative, and Good/Healthy, and Normal are not license to bareback every boy who offers to take you behind the bike racks. Those boys are dealing with similar biological imperatives, and, like you do not have the impulse control or long-term thinking ability required to deal with the results of unprotected or risky sexual behaviors. I highly recommend that you hold off on any activity that could result in a baby until you are financially prepared to deal with those consequences, i.e., you have a full-time job with maternity leave. Do whatever else you want (taking appropriate precaution to avoid the Herp and the Derp), but avoid any sperm to egg contact until you can pay for your own zygote. Yes, my brace-faced darling, we will have this part of the conversation every time we talk about anything remotely romantic.
TV, books and movies might have given you the idea that if you could just tweak something about your appearance, you could conceivably get a boy to pay attention to your looks long enough to get to know the real you, and fall in love. This is a lie. Boys at your age do not have attention spans appropriate to this ruse. I just want to be sure you understand this, Four-Eyed Lane, so that you won’t miss out on lectures because you are afraid Jeff will see you with your glasses on, and forget that he was falling in love with the color of your eyes.
People–all people–are attracted to confidence and passion. Find something you are good at and love doing, and do it. You will attract boys and girls because everyone wants to be around someone who is active and happy about it. You will attract boys and girls who also love to do what you are doing, so you’ll have something in common other than Genus, which is particularly helpful in making any kind of relationship last longer than week. Bonus: You’ll be doing something you love, and that will make you happy, and you won’t feel that same desperation of need. Doing things you like changes your brain chemistry, and helps balance out all those chemicals that are making you want to make out with that guy you don’t even like behind the stage curtain at the school play, just because he’s given you the time of day. So, my little Drama Geek, keep acting!
Treat boys like you want to be treated. Don’t treat them like Pokemon. They are not there for you to catch. I realize that at your age, Confuzzled Lane, you want boys to want to chase you. You want to be the Daphne to their Apollo–but remember how that went for Daphne. Remember how those chases turned out for EVERY woman in Greek mythology. Yes, it is thrilling to be desired, but then what? You are fifteen. “Then what” is you go home and do your homework and snarl at your mother because she won’t let you stay out all night. Or go out period because it is a weekday.
Finally, if you want someone like to like you, do things that are likable. I don’t mean flash your panties or give out free cupcakes. I mean find ways to make a difference in the world. Get involved helping people who are helpless. Get involved visiting seniors at the local nursing home. Get involved with a soup kitchen. Get involved as a volunteer at the local hospital. Find a way to make yourself useful. Just like in #5, this will attract people to you because everyone loves a helper. Bonus: You’ll feel good about yourself because helping feels amazing. And, you’ll gain some perspective on your own issues. Fifteen-year-old Lane, you don’t know this yet because you are right now in the middle of all your volunteer activities, but I can tell you from almost 30 years down the road, you are building yourself a strong interior infrastructure, and your Elder Self appreciates the heart you have for others. It’s one of your best features. Just ask anyone who loves you.
I’m sure Amy would say this in a funnier, shorter way, but that’s what I would tell me. It’s okay to want. It’s okay to need. There is no magic bullet–it takes time and effort to achieve anything you desire. But the best ways to bring it all home to you are to get out and be who you are, and help people with what you have. The most attractive things in the world are confidence and compassion, and when you build those into your life with balance, the most wonderful people want to be around you.
*That is not to say that it is not good and/or healthy for anyone else to want their same gender to like them. I’m hetero, so that’s what is good and healthy for me. You get on with your bad self if you like something else! Just remember that whatever your something else is, it needs to be human, consenting, and age appropriate according to the law.
I have a major crush on the ladies hairstyles of Boardwalk Empire. Everyone else might be watching for the gangsters and mols, but I’m watching to see how Margaret and Gillian are wearing their hair. And their shoes. Those shoes are all kinds of adorable.
Yesterday, I realized that my hair has grown out to the point that I could make a passable attempt at some BE hair, so I scrubbed up, grabbed the rat tail comb and a handful of bobby pins, and went to work.
The first step was to make finger waves with the front sections of my hair.
To make a finger wave (and that one on the left is pretty messy) I hold my index finger down on a section of hair, then use my other hand to draw the lock into a C shape. I use a bobby pin to secure the rounded part of the C. Then, I curve the lock again, making a backwards C, this time using the bobby pin to secure the bottom part of the C. The curved part of the C comes forward against my temple.
When I have two Cs, I take the length of the lock and make a pin curl above my ear.
To make that pin curl, I wrap the lock around my index finger, then slide it off, and secure it with a bobby pin to the side of my head. If you can twirl your hair, you can make a pin curl!
Once the front sections were finished, I went to work making little pin curls all over the rest of my head. The more curls you make, the more body your hair will have. I used TIGI’s Catwalk strong mousse for holding power. My hair is very fine and doesn’t hold curl well, and I was pretty impressed that my finger waves are still holding. That’s some good mousse.
Blurry AND dark–but I was trying to take a picture of the back of my head with a cell phone.
Pin curls aren’t hard, per se, but they do take a few goes to master. The technique that works best for me is to use one hand to take a pinch of hair about two inches from the end, then use the other hand to curl the end up into the pinch. That gives you a circle. Then, you roll the lock of hair around that pinch, rolling it up to your scalp, keeping the circumference of your original circle as you go. When you run out of hair, lay that circle down against your scalp and use a bobby pin (or whatever floats your boat) to secure it to your head.
You’ll want to work with damp hair–that makes things easier. Too wet and your hair is just floppy and hard to work with. Too dry and the curls won’t set. It’s a balance that depends on your particular hair, though.
I wrapped my curled up head in a scarf and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning and undid the curls, my hair looked like this:
That’s not a great look, but listen, those waves? Perfect! I got started on my Boardwalk Empire hairstyle by separating out the front section of my hair and pinning it out of the way.
I wanted to do a style Gillian wears frequently, which is several pincurls layered across the nape, with a fingerwave ending in a curl on the sides. My first try was more elaborate mess than Mob Mol, but I will show you the steps I took to get there:
I started making pincurls at the middle back of my head, working my way out.I built in more curls, securing them into each other for stability.
I kept making curls until I had all the back section of my hair in a nice arrangement.Then, I took down the top section that was pinned up, and separated that into three sections. I teased the middle back/crown section for some height.This is what it looked like teased. You can kind of see what would come next naturally.I made three more pincurls from that crown section, securing them into the first line of curls from the back section of hair.Then, I looked like this. Hot stuff!Careful not to pull so tightly that I pulled out my finger waves, I swept those side sections to the back middle of my head and secured them as pincurls.Then, I used my comb to smooth out the rough spots and tuck strays into the curls. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at taking pictures of the back of my head!I put on my makeup, paying attention to the eyebrows because 20s eyebrows were darker and rounder than what we’re used to wearing today.And I added some flair.But, I decided that was too many pincurls for the office. It looked too costume-y. So I took the back down and modified it into only 5 big curls.I took a silver necklace, put bobby pins on either side, and hooked it into my hair like a little headband. I used two more pins on each side to secure it, hiding the pins under the side waves.
The modified style wasn’t as Boardwalk Empire as it had been, but it was a good compromise between an office friendly French twist and my desire for a little hair drama.It worked out, and got several compliments, including three from men, who don’t usually notice my hairstyles.
I’m not interested in the Boardwalk Empire life, but I sure wouldn’t mind having someone show me how to do a few more of their hairstyles. And I want all of Margaret’s clothes from Season 2. All of them.
Random bit of interest: It took 17 bobby pins to hold my final style. I don’t have a lot of hair, so you might want to double up if you’re going to try this at home.
Click the link to my Personal Shopping Network and let’s get shopping! I’ll provide you with options based on your details, then you pick and I click–I’ll have it shipped to your door. You can be the belle of every ball, the best in every boardroom, and everyone’s favorite gift giver–they never have to know you were actually me.
It is no secret that I loved college. I loveloveloved college. I was like a kid in a candy store with a course catalog. All this learning? Available? For me?! No kidding?! I can take Russian? And Ancient Greek? You mean I can just sit around and read books, then write what I think about those books and you’ll give me a degree?! For real?! You will give me course credit for scuba diving? And tap dancing? And for taking a class called Psychopathology in Literature which amounted to going into one of my favorite professor’s office for 3 hours a week to talk about how effed up Nathaniel Hawthorne was? How is this not glorious?
There was nothing not glorious about college to me. Even when I was failing Honors Biology for the second time (it helps to go to your labs, kids. turns out they aren’t kidding about that.) and eeking my way through College Algebra, I was loving every second of it. Part of that love came by way of the Blimpie sandwich shop on campus. When Pizza Hut moved in…woohoo! Subs AND pizza? And I never even had to leave campus?!
I was a happy college camper, as evidenced by the fact that it took me 5 years to complete my degree plan. I’d have stayed another couple of years, just for fun.
I’m not saying it wasn’t hard work. College Algebra nearly killed me. My upper level Classics classes were incredibly difficult (and I had the best professor of my life for those.), and I cried my way through the last of my Lit classes. Still, the idea that I could go somewhere and LEARN as much as I wanted to? And be with other people who were also trying to learn something? And have conversations with those people about the things we were learning? You’ve seen a Boxer dog get excited (if you haven’t, click here)? Well, that was pretty much me on the inside–every day. I did try to play it cool, but…well…WHEEBOUNCE!
I’m pretty excited to be taking a class that starts in February. It’s a Spanish class geared for the workforce, so nothing exciting (and of all the languages I’ve studied, Spanish is my least favorite so I feel a little sad that it isn’t one I like more) but…wheebounce! College! Whee!
The Outside Lane 