Strawberry Anne’s blog

Maybe i should not have chooped my hair off after all because everything seems to have gone downhill from there.  I was experiencing financial difficulties due to my work situation which left us not being able to pay the rent for two months so Lyall and i moved in with our Kind friends Melissa and Raille.  Then i decided to resign from the company but i felt so guilty about leaving them in the sh1+ that i suffererd anxiety attacks for about two weeks before i had the courage to hand in my resignaion letter.

Upon handing i my resignation letter (i work with family members by the way) i burst into tears and could not control the flood for a good half an hour.  I mean can you elieve that - i was mortified.  My boss was understandably upset and i felt like a traitor of note. 

Plus, if that wasn't bad enough, the other day my cousing Tammy and i went into a store that sells sunglasses because she wanted to buy a pair.  I was helping her try on the really cheapie ones but i swung my giant bag around by mistake and it hit the stand with the expensive pairs of glasses.  Anyway, three pairs fell to the ground. I then lost mu balance and trod on one pair breaking it into smithereens.  The store saleslady saw the whole thing and i just picked it up and walked over to her and said i would of course pay for it.  Only catch - I didn't havve enough money in the banl because of said financial situation to pay for it.  It was like the universe was laughingh at me.  Anyway, my cousin felt spo guilty for drgaging me there in the first place that she landed up paying for them - i will of course be paying her back because it was my two left feet that caused this accident in the first place - but she saved my life.

Anyway, i'm serving my months notice and starting my new job on the 1st of August so hopefully everything will return to normal after that.

I hope nothing worse happens to me because i just don't think i could handle it right now.  No Universe This Is Not A Dare!!!!!!!

Me

So this is me with hair all chopped off. Not great but not too bad. 

The hairdresser was completely disgusted with the state of my mop and promptly told me i din't have a choice but to cut the whole lot off.  She blew it straight with a hairdryer then put wax on her fingers and went wild.  When i got home Lyall couldn't stop himself from singing Roxette songs because he said i now reminded him of her.  

Anyway back to the hairdresser - she wasn't really even interested in how i wanted to cut my hair, she just did her own thing and then told me i have no choice but to get the Biolustre treatment done.  Its supposed to take your hair back in time to its virgin state, pre straightening, perming, colouring etc.  This is normally R750 but for the month of May its going for R450.  Still i cant afford it with all thats going on in my life right now.  I'm definitely gonna have it done soon though.

Oh my gosh, i just realised how silly i look in this picture with that pout.  Apparently, according to sources, i always pout when having my picture taken.  Weird!  In this pic my hair is just washed and left curly but Lyall still misses the Roxette look...  I liked it for two days but by day 3 i was just looking a bit demented with that style.

Anyway, back to work!

So i'm gonna ignore the signs that stopped me from chopping off my hair last week and a couple of weeks before.  I really just wanna look normal and not like Krusty the Clown with this stupid broken off hair.  OK, wish me luck people.  I may post a picture if i dont look too hideous!

Which band or artist which is no longer performing or alive would you have loved to have seen?
Submitted by Rev Stan.

Queen, ABBA and definitely Earth Wind and Fire back in the day when they were young and wore those insane outfits.

COHABITING COUPLES NOT LIKELY TO MARRY, STUDY FINDS

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study suggests that couples who live together before marriage may be less likely to eventually marry than previously believed.

Sharon Sassler

Only about 40 percent of cohabiting couples studied ended up marrying within four to seven years. And 42 percent of cohabiting couples disagreed about the future of their relationship, the study found.

Moreover, contrary to popular belief, men with the best economic prospects and couples who were the most similar were not more likely than others to marry after living together.

Overall, the study shows that living together is not necessarily a transitional period that leads to marriage, said Sharon Sassler, co-author of the study and assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

“For growing numbers of couples, cohabitation is now becoming an alternative to marriage or being single,” Sassler said. “Many couples seem to be living together longer without marrying or ending their relationship.”

Sassler conducted the study with James McNally of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Their results were published in the current issue of the journal Social Science Research.

This new research is different from previous studies in several ways. For one, it included data from couples and not just one person in a relationship. Also, it is more accurate than many previous studies because it “repairs” lost data that other studies don’t take into account, Sassler said.

Many studies of cohabiting couples use data from the National Survey of Families and Households, which interviewed Americans over age 19 in 1987 and 1988 (and their partners, if any) and then again four to seven years later. Responses to the second round of interviews provided information about marriages or breakups among the participants.

However, more than half of the original participants couldn’t be located or otherwise didn’t participate in the second round of the study. The problem is that those who couldn’t be re-interviewed tended to be those with lower levels of education and income – the people who were most likely to be cohabiting.

Sassler and McNally used statistical techniques to “repair” the data and help project what the findings would have been if all the original participants had been re-interviewed. The results between the repaired and unrepaired data sets were often different, sometimes strikingly so, Sassler said.

For example, the unrepaired data set showed that 45 percent of the cohabiting couples married between the first interview and the second interview.

However, the repaired data set suggests only 40 percent actually married.

Another key finding was that – contrary to what some other studies have shown – cohabiting men who earn the most money are actually less likely than others to marry.

“Some studies show that cohabiting couples with the best economic prospects are the ones who get married,” Sassler said. “But we find just the opposite. Men who earn the most are least likely to marry, but also are less likely to break up with their partners.”

Another surprise was the couples who were the most alike – those who shared religions, were near the same age, and had similar levels of education – were not more likely to marry than couples with significant differences in background.

“There is a belief that couples who are more alike will have more stable relationships and will transition into marriage, but that doesn’t seem to be the case,” she said.

The factor that best predicted whether cohabiting couples married was consensus regarding definite marriage plans, but Sassler said such consensus was relatively rare.

Fewer than one-third of the couples (32 percent) concurred that they had definite plans to marry. Another 42 percent disagreed about the future of their relationship. Others either agreed they wouldn’t marry or thought they would eventually marry.

“Our results indicate that couples who use cohabitation as a trial period to test compatibility are far less likely to marry than couples who agree that there are definite marriage plans and a specific wedding date,” Sassler said.

Also contrary to popular belief, when there was disagreement about future plans among couples, it was men as often as women who were pushing to get married. Neither men nor women had more success than the other in persuading reluctant partners to marry.

Sassler said this study suggests that many of our views about cohabitation may need to be revised.

“The transition from cohabitation to marriage is very different from transitions from singlehood,” she said.

“There seem to be fewer couples than we believed who decide to get married and many who are satisfied just staying in the current relationship,” she said.

The study was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.

Contact: Sharon Sassler, (614) 292-6687; Sassler.1@osu.edu
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

Anyway so on Friday my cousin Tammy and i had to go to Cape Town to drop off some work documents. Now Tammy's car (an ages old Opel Monza in need of TLC) was on the fritz for a while already, and while we were on the freeway we saw smoke emitating from the bonnet and heard a noise you never want to hear from a car.  So luckily we were at the end of said freeway when this happened so we pulled over in front of the Convention Centre (a very ra ra establishment) and parked there for 2 hours while waiting for a towtruck to pick us and the car up - thereby making me miss my hairdressers appointment where i was gonna get the snip.

Long story short - i took it as a sign that i am not to cut my hair super short.  This is the second time i've missed a hair appointment since last month so i'm pretty sure the universe is looking out for me.  Maybe i would've died of pneumonia from having a wet head in the morning cause its Winter here now.  Who knows. 

Universe

Universe - i'm listening!!!

My hair is so dry, damaged, dull and broken that i have decided to take drastic measures.  I'm gonna cut the whole lot of it off. And i'm shit scared but still looking forward to it anyway.

It all started when i went back to dying my hair blonde.  Plus i chemically straighten my hair because i have a bit of a naughty strand.  Plus i blowdry my hair everyday because when i wake up a brush alone will not tame my the shrew.  So all in all i have pretty much fu...d it up.

I always had super short hair in my teen years.  But now my face is a little less chiselled if you know what i mean.  But i feel like i dont have a choice in this matter because my hair is all broken off on top so it looks like i'm sporting a mini mohawk, while the rest of my hair looks just as atrocious in a weird looking bob type of do.... Lord help me!

And all this in the quest to have hair like the chicks on the Pantene ads... which might i add are probably not even their real hair.  Its CGI and photoshop'd hair if you ask me!  What a joke and they make us fools believe that we can have it too.  Shame.

I've never looked this retarded in my life and you know a girl never really feels herself unless her hair is fabulous!  So i'm gonna chop it off and hopefully start anew.  And this time not be so harsh with it. 

The thing i hate most about cohabiting with my boyfriend at this point is the absolute tedium of it sometimes.  What i mean is there's nothing exciting about it.  No big plans. 

We can't afford to buy a house yet so we can't plan what we want our home to look like together.  We can dream - yes but actually plan it - no, so thats boring. 

We both know and have spoken about getting hitched in the future, but for rightnow there's no wedding to plan, no engagement ring to gawk over, no future to prepare for.  Just the boring old here and now.

I know i'm having a good old sulk but i am seriously bored and i wish something exciting will come up in my relationship.  I want some action!!!!!!!!

I blame the movies for this - the romantic dramas and comedies that are so unrealistic and yet we (or rather I) get suckered into believing that men actually behave that way when in love with a woman.  Jack was ready to die for Rose within a couple of days on the Titanc, and in other movies guys are ever so ready to give up everything they have to marry their one true love.  

Romantic

So what do i have to do to get passion like that to ooze from my man?  It was there in the beginning of this relationship 7 years ago.  But where is it now?  

Am i crazy?  Dont answer that!

The other day Lyall and i got the sad news that we have to be out of our rented house within two months because the owner is getting divorced and would like her house back.  Can you believe the cheek???  It has been our humble home for over a year and we were just getting used to living there. 

I'll miss the kitchen most of all cause its so big.  And the house is in such a central area - in the middle of everything.  Plus the rent was cheap as hell - about the price of a batchelor flat in a OK area.  Damn!  Where the hell are we gonna live now.  Probably nowhere compared to where we are now.

I wish we could afford to buy a house but in Cape Town the property prices are through the roof. Basically if you're a 1st time home buyer - youre screwed!

Going to surf the net now for a new home.  Wish me luck! 

Everyday i thank the Almighty for the fact that Lyall is so domesticated. His mommy taught him well. He makes up the bed, cleans the kitchen after i cook supper everynight, does the washing (and not only does he stick the clothes in the machine, he also hangs it on the line - priceless!), takes out the trash etc... 

Best of all he doesn't need to be asked to do any of the above.  He just does it... and guess what?  He is happy to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Its great.  We never have to have silly arguments over chores like most fledgeling cohabitants.

My mommy taught me well

My question to the world is why can't more moms bring up their boys to be both independant and comfortable in the kitchen. Life for girlfriends and wives would be made that much easier.  More teamwork, less ego! More togetherness, less senseless arguing.  More love, less divorce!

Lord please bless those moms!