Kellianne Benson

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

I have a hard time with this entry. I feel as if I spend my career generally concentrating on what makes everyone who sits in my chair so beautifully different. There are so many different kinds of beauty out there- it’s one of my goals in life to try and be certain that every person I (literally) touch feels like the best possible expression of what makes him or her so beautiful and so different.

Is that cheesy? I’ve had one glass of wine with no dinner and I’m feeling a bit sentimental.

What makes me so different? Not much, really. Or Everything, maybe. I’m just a redhead who has scissor cuts on her fingers, the cutest baby in the world on her hip, and a terrific husband. I’m just a regular pile of success and failure and success that creates failure that begets success. I’m the luckiest girl in the world who sometimes has a bad day (or month, or year). I’m just thankful, mostly. I’m thankful for my present. I’m thankful that I created a tumultuous past. I’m thankful that I’ve been a million different people from one day to the next. I’m thankful that I have choices. I have hope for my future. I don’t know if all of that’s different, but it is my own celebration.

Here’s some gorgeous hair that someone let me create on their head:

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)

This particular Reverb10 prompt resonates with me, soundly.

I have to say that I am really pleasantly surprised and touched by the way our community expanded as our family expanded. It started when I was pregnant, in our birth class. I made a few friends that I am not likely to have found otherwise. Also, as my waist line developed (and developed!) and pregnancy progressed, people started to reach out. There were all sorts of wonderful people in the wings of our lives who had already started families of their own. As Buster and I walked down the path of the wild and child-bearing unknown, a few acquaintances of ours who had recently made the same journey started reaching out. Hand-me-downs began to arrive. Knowing and much needed advice streamed in. Suddenly, we found ourselves with whole new clusters of lovely friends we didn’t have before.

I never understood before what it meant to say it takes a village to raise a child. Now, when I call a girlfriend for advice, vent to fellow parent in an email, get together with other terrific parents to put our babies in a pile, or have someone offer take my sleep-refusing baby for the night so we can get some relief, I have an inkling of what this expression means.

The really magical thing about this whole newfound community is that I know that raising Niko will continue to bring new people into our lives. We have the mysterious pre-school years ahead of us, followed by all those other mysterious years. We have all sorts of classes and clubs coming at us that we can’t even imagine yet. Before getting pregnant, I never thought much about how being a parent could potentially open us to a whole new world. Now that we have a child, I can’t imagine that I ever thought that being a parent would be detrimental to our social life. To the contrary, parenthood makes our feelings of community stronger than I ever could have considered.

I feel as if we have spent 2010 building the foundation for community strengthening. 2011 will only bring greater support and more easy rapport. Between all these newfound parent friends, our many friends at Vain, and all the magical people we knew before we had our big life change, I am pretty stoked.

I’ll bet that you all think that I’ve given up on my Reverb10 prompts!

NOT SO! But I did need a break. My holidays got crazy and my lucky crane decided to spend his Christmas and New Year waking up every half hour. That was crazymaking! Luckily, I am getting a little bit more sleep now that it’s 2011 (OMG) and am going to resume this lovely project.

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)

Make. As in crafts. Hobbies. Make.

To be honest, I don’t make much that sticks around the house all craftily. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not because I’m not a crafty person. I feel as if I’ve created a whole life out of being crafty. A whole career!. I make hair happen every day that I work at the Vain Beauty World. Most recently in my “best of” memories, I did a good friend’s hair in some crazy dramatic asymmetrical ‘do for NYE. I used hair powder, hair spray, a flat iron, bobby pins, hair pins, and a teasing/smoothing brush.

I also make dinner almost every night. And I canned a whole load of tomatoes, peaches, and pears from last summer’s delicious season. That’s crafty, right? It’s all about making a marriage between creativity and regular life around these parts.