Dye Job CATastrophe

Hair, pre-mission.

Before I went on my mission I had decided to grow my hair to my butt. When I left for the MTC, it was down my back to just above my elbows. By the time I got home it was to my waist. This is the longest my hair has ever been or will ever be again. I have super thick wavy awesomely heavy hair. It does not grow straight down like Marsha Marsha Marsha, it grows out. This was very beneficial when I was in Michigan in the cold cold super cold winter because it acted like a cape. It was much to my detriment in the super duper humid summer. Fortunately, I can french-braid my own hair, and I didn’t care what I looked like because I was a sister missionary, so I braided it all summer and tucked the braid under so that it wasn’t touching me.

An aside: I HATE it when my hair is touching me.

After I came home from my mission I had my heart broken. Because my heart was broken, I needed change in my life. What better and easier way to make change in your life than by cutting off fifteen pounds of hair. I had it cut off into a long shag and dyed it “mahogany”. With each haircut, I had it cut into a different style and dyed it a different colour. This went on for about a year. It was awesome. I love changing up my hair – especially the colour.

By the time I got to “Kohl” – read: Black - I was done and thought I would like to go back to my natural hair colour. (my mother was so relieved – she hates it when I have dark hair) I really hate the look of re-growth, especially when going from dark to my natural light brown/dark blonde colour, because the roots look grey in contrast.

I decided that I would put in highlights to balance out the re-growth while my natural colour came in.

I should note here that while I had stopped letting my mum cut my hair in high school and always went to a professional for a cut, I was still dying my hair on my own. All my hair products came from London Drugs because I’m cheap/poor like that.

Mother’s day weekend 1995 when my re-growth was about an inch and a half long and I could stand it no longer, I went over to my friend Christie’s house and we frosted my hair. She pulled it through the cap, and I applied the dye. While she was pulling it through the cap, she asked me, “What are you going to do if it turns out like white worms?” I assured her that it wouldn’t. While we were waiting for the bleach to process, we watched a movie and refinished shelves simultaneously. Christie happened to look over at me and said, “Oh girl, you better go look at your hair”.

The parts of my hair that had grown out, i.e., the natural part, indeed looked like white worms. The part that had the years’ worth of layers of dye, was ginger cat orange. I quickly rinsed out the dye and tried to add more dye to just the ends, to try to balance things out and tone down the orange, but to no avail.

I looked like a reject from “Cats”. It was awful. My hair was cut into a shag, so it flipped and flopped in every direction, and now I had FOUR different colours in my hair: uber blonde, orange, light grey/brown, and black/brown. Did I say it was awful? Well it was awful. It was the worst dye job ever.

To add to the catastrophe, I was on my way home to be with my mum for Mother’s Day and couldn’t go back to my apartment to get a change of clothes (or shave my head). I had packed a red and green plaid dress to wear to church on Sunday. We were going to go to my best friend Berit’s little brother’s mission homecoming. I was going to be seeing people I hadn’t seen in years and who knew me as a child. I had calico coloured hair and was going to be wearing a PLAID dress. It was bad enough that my hair was super loud, my dress was loud with a Scottish brogue! Fortunately, everyone in my family has a sense of humour and were very grateful for the added material.

The following Monday I called to make an appointment with my hairdresser, fully prepared to have to pay for a professional dye job, only to discover that she had quit the salon to go be a manager at the GAP. Translation: she wasn’t even doing hair any more. I was devastated for two reasons; one, I had been going to her for over a year, and she had such awesome hair! and two, my hair was all kinds of messed up and now I had to go to someone NEW.

Turns out this was the best thing that could have happened. Les had been taking all of Gina’s old clients and would I like to set up an appointment with him? I guessed it couldn’t hurt. I arrived at my appointment with new Les to see what could be done with my calico head. He ended up cutting it into an a-line bob that made the calico colours look more like intentional stripes. I didn’t even have to have it coloured to fix it! It turned out so cute. Les was my new salvation.

Until I met Tristann, I had never had a better hairdresser. If I still lived in Vancouver, I would still be with Les, I guarantee it. Dude was a genius with a pair of scissors.

My sister arrived to church late the following Sunday and saw me and mentioned to her friend, “O great, we have a new girl in the ward. And she’s cute too!” (we were in a single’s ward – you Mormons will understand). When I stood to “introduce” myself  - “Rantgirl, new haircut” she was instantly relieved. “O good, it’s just my sister!!”

Yes, my hair was SO fabulous that not even my own sister recognized me.

Weight Update - Still going nowhere

So the going without fast food thing was a big hit. I was able to do it and I was able to get under 160 a few times. That felt good.

I also started eating breakfast which is something I don't do much of. Holy Cow did I feel good after doing that!

The last two weeks I have been really bad about what I put in my face. I've had fast food just about everyday, haven't been eating breakfast or dinner, and been drinking more soda than I would like.

On Friday alone, I've had three Dr Peppers.

Needless to say, I'm hovering more around 162 and less around 159.

I had decided to record my shows downstairs where the treadmill is so that I can walk on the treadmill while I watch tv. So far, I've just gotten behind on my tv shows.

I did take Orso out for a walk last Monday night. It was a beautiful night, I remembered to wear Deep Woods Off, so I didn't get eaten alive, and there were a ton of people out. It was like community night at 9:30 in my neighbourhood. I came home, showered, and got in my newly made with clean sheets bed. It was so excellent that I didn't do it again.

My main reason for not doing it again was that my eleven year old son needs constant supervision or he doesn't do what he's told. He's going through a "thing" I think. We only have two more weeks of school and then he will be done with the sixth grade. I'm hoping that things will improve when I don't have to constantly ride him about getting his homework done.

I'm hoping that I will be able to cut back on the fast food and soda again, and start walking more and even work up to going back to the gym more regularly. I would really like to see some more improvement in the way my clothes fit and in how I feel. I would really really like to feel as great as I did when I was eating breakfast every morning. That was pretty awesome.

Haircut 100

Here's a song to listen to while reading this post:

As you are all aware, I have a super excellent awesome fantastic hairdresser. We've been together for so long (ten years) and she's a good friend.

I had been growing my hair long so I could have beachy hair for our Kauai trip. I know my hair and I know its limitations. I also know how well it behaves in humidity. I am also a surfer girl at heart. My hair has natural wave and when long and layered it makes the perfect beach hair. I didn't even take my blow dryer with me on the trip because I knew it would be futile to try and tame my hair in the ocean air. I love my hair like that, but, alas, I don't live anywhere near the ocean, so it takes lots of time and arm strength to maintain my hair.

After we came home, I was desperate to cut my hair off. It was so heavy, such a chore to style, and was sapping my energy.

Even though she totally gets me, when I make a drastic change, I always bring in a picture.

The top right photo is me hugging a coconut tree in Kauai

In January, I had it cut into a shag and kept the copper colour. In April, I had it cut even shorter and coloured darker and put in cherry highlights.

I have been wanting to cut it all off for a long long time. I was waiting to lose weight because I was hating my jowls and feeling my face was too big to have super duper short hair. I didn't want my big face all exposed like that.

I realized that my face was puffy because of a combination of my fast food (molto sodium), and Dr. Pepper addictions causing me to retain water and my hypo thyroid.

I gave up fast food for Lent, so went six weeks without fast food, cut down on Dr. Pepper, and got my thyroid under control. Since Easter, I have picked up fast food, but have cut back to once or twice a week instead of every day. You can see the change in my face from the top left photo taken in January, to the bottom left photo taken on May 1st.

Huey asked me if I could stop dying my hair because he wanted to see what my natural colour looked like. I vowed to go without colouring for the summer.

With hoops, without glasses

Without hoops, with glasses

Since I already wanted to chop my hair amundo, and I really really hate long regrowth, I thought I would cut it all off.

The last time I had my hair this short was sixteen years ago when I was dating my husband.

The time before that, I was in Grade Nine and had steps shaved in the back and a tail.

I love it. It takes me less than five minutes to do, it's not hot, and it's super cute. I'm not afraid of having my face all exposed, although I am in desperate need of a wax because you really can see my face more.

Day to Night

I'm still playing with how to display my pictures, can you tell?

Disclaimer:

1)      I live in Salt Lake City UT, so no fabulous night clubs after work.

2)      I’m a mother, so no fabulous night clubs after work.

3)      Sometimes we go out for pizza in the middle of the week so I have a more casual approach to the night after day look.

4)      Also, I don’t go straight from work, I am able to go home and change.

A grey pencil skirt and t-shirt turn into black jeans, boots and short sleeved zip up hoodie sweater.

The plumeria (my favourite Hawaiian flower) necklace was purchased in Maui in 2007 for my 10^th wedding anniversary. It is one of my favourite necklaces. I think it cost $10.00.

The grey nailpolish is Essie "Chinchilla" and is one of my new favourite colours. It's a great spring neutral. 

I decided to add a pop of colour and wear my Yellow patent and steel stilettos and match it with a scarf from the Gap.

Favourite things

Our church has a women’s organization called Relief Society. Once a month we get together in the evening and do fun stuff.

This month, we were to bring one of our favourite things to share with someone. It had to be under $5.00. At first I was stumped as to what to bring to the point that I was just going to skip it and stay home.

My brain being the energizer bunny that it is would not let it rest. At first I couldn’t think of any of my favourite things that I would be willing to share with someone else. I am a first born child, I’m not so good with sharing.

Then I thought I would just bring some brownies or chocolate chip cookies, two of my favourite treats, but I thought that was kind of lame and unimaginative. One of my favourite things about myself is that I am imaginative and unique thinking.

I couldn’t think of anything that was my favourite that I would be willing to share that was $5.00 or less until –bing- I thought of nail polish. People-pleaser that I am, I worried about what colour to choose. Then I realized that one of my favourite things about having painted nails is the top coat. The top coat MAKES the manicure. It can make a .99 cent bottle of nail polish look like a twenty dollar manicure.

So I took a bottle of top coat.

I decided to follow the favourite things theme and wore some of my favourite things. These are my favourite jeans of the moment as I can’t fit into my favourite jeans. The shirt is my favourite spring/summer shirt. It’s cute, it goes with many things; I can wear it to work or with shorts or to church and it has red flowers. Red is my favourite colour. The hoops are my favourites from the past. The necklace is Turquoise, which is my birthstone. The ring is my Nana's that she gave to me.

Favourite Things outfit