HAIR? check. MAKE-UP: check. Camera crew? CheckCheckCheck.

We all I remember this photo because it captures the first real make-up application I’d ever had:

The final flat-ironed product turned out like this:

Amazingly it all came together to produce this (please to note the hand. can you tell I LONG to launch into the Elaine Benis Thumb Dance?):

You may or may not have ever seen this:

The Tornado, while she possesses a streak of tomboy, LOVES her some make-up application and dress up time:

Today those two worlds shall collide for her.

FOR US.

And while I’ve told her—-I dont think she has any concept of what’s coming.

Fila & a film crew flew here last night and will descend (along with hair, make-up, & myriad outfit changes) on our house** around 8am.

We’ll be filming Fila Fitness minutes.

Im playing Spokesmom with appearances by the Tornado as spokeskid.

I *think* this consists of doing various & sundry PLAYouts, talking about staying healthy WITH your children, & am hoping any dancing will be of the PARTY variety in our kitchen.

Oh, and  the Tornado has repeatedly informed Ren Man & me she plans to teach us to break-dance.  Apparently on the kinder playground they kick it like it’s 1984.

So there is that.

 I’ll be back.

With stories Im certain…

**Yes. The surprise of the coming-to-my-unkempt-house thing could have been frazzling had I allowed it to be. I chose to simply shove my head in the dirty, stained couch pillows sand & not think about it.   

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The time I was shot (with a camera, not bullets)

I’ve gotten a ridiculous amount of compliments on the photo I’ve started using for my icon on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m not an ugly person, but I’m not a serious contender for Miss America either, so getting this much attention over my photo is kinda weird. You’d think I’d bathed in buttermilk and hired a stylist or something, but all I really did was hire my friend Kyle Hepp, who’s a professional photographer, to take my picture. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank her and pimp her services.

Kyle is a girl (with a boy’s name, yes, she knows) who I met through our blogs. She is a US expatriate who lives in Chile for most of the year with her husband, Seba, who she met there during school. When I heard she’d be in Nashville last summer, I decided to trek down I-65 to meet her. I hired her to do a photo shoot too for several reasons.

I needed new promotional images of myself because everyone thought my hair was much shorter than it really was. My old photo pictured me with my hair much shorter than I usually wear it, so every time I met an Internet-person or a friend who hadn’t seen me in person for awhile, they’d ask me when my hair had gotten so long. It was annoying.I was getting ready to leave Indiana and I wanted to give my mom some professional photos of myself as a giftI did not tell Kyle this at the time, but I wanted to get an author photo for my upcoming book, Chocolate & Vicodin. I thought this would be a lot of pressure though, so I kept quiet on that.Just because! Photo shoots can be fun :)

So, we met in downtown Nashville and roamed up and down the streets and along the waterfront scoping for good shots. I did not understand half of the technical things Kyle and Seba were doing with their portable flashes and other gadgets. Also, Kyle would speak in English and Seba would reply in Spanish, which made for a rather interesting language dynamic. I mostly just turned to the left and turned to the right and moved my shoulders a little this way and laid in the grass with a million chiggers. I got nine bug bites while taking the photo below, but it was totally worth it:

I got a great selection of photos to use and put six of them in a frame for my mom. I gave it to her the night before I drove off with the Budget truck leading the way. As I predicted, she started to cry when she unwrapped the gift. So there you go. Kyle Hepp: She’ll make your mommy cry. You can quote me on that.

I was very happy with the photos, particularly because I loved them despite not loving my weight these days. I’m not crying myself to sleep over my headache weight, but I would have preferred to be fifty pounds thinner while the photo lens was trained on me. The weight did not matter, though, because Kyle brought out my best features and made me look great. It can be unnerving being in front of a camera, but I was able to chill out and relax like we were just tourists who happened to hang out on window ledges.

So, thanks Kyle! You can visit Kyle’s site, Kyle Hepp Photography to see more of her portfolio.

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