hair and other fun stuff

 

want to know what i did all weekend? my hair.

i'm kind of obsessed with my hair, you might have guessed this with all the many (many, many, many) pictures i take of myself - i'm mostly documenting my hair.

i wasn't always this way, i have had freakishly short hair for most of my life. i blame my mother for the start of this because she didn't like having to remind me to brush my hair or spend hours brushing out tangles because i wasn't all that good at taking care of my hair so she chopped it all off in the 3rd grade and i stayed short-haired on into adulthood.

now that i have a girl of my own who isn't good at all about brushing her hair and winds up with these huge tangled mats of hair, i cut my mother a little slack because i can totally see why she got so frustrated.

but somewhere in the last several years, i started growing out my hair - mostly because haircuts cost too much money but also because i like the way i look with long hair and now my hair is like a living breathing extra person in my life. i'm always wondering if i should leave it loose or put it up or getting it caught on things or having it get in the way in intimate moments but no matter how annoying any of that is, i never, ever, ever think about cutting it.

i obsess over the color as well, mostly blond but sometimes branching out into red or pink.

pink was on my mind this weekend and i had this vision of going to the beach on sunday with the most delightful pink mermaid hair streaming out behind me so i bought pink hair dye on saturday and colored my hair that evening.

when i got out of the shower and toweled off i thought it looked a little darker than the cotton candy pink on the haircolor box but hoped it would lighten as it dried so imagine my shock and disappointment when i woke up sunday morning to find it had dried to a decidedly unpink, mousy brown color.

yuck.

i was born with brown hair and never really liked it so as soon as i was living on my own, i went blonde. i wasn't about to go back to brown now so (after canceling the beach trip, partly because of the hair and partly because of other reasons) i was off to the drugstore to pick up another box of hair color and get back to blonde. no, i don't go to the salon (although i would love to) because - yes, you guess it, it costs too much.

i normally don't like to color my hair twice in a 24 hour period because it's not good for it but i was left with no choice. unfortunately, as you can see from the picture above, i am still not a blonde. i'm not sure what this color is - i think it's kind of reddish - but it's not the wonderful "light golden blonde" that the box promised however i'm going to have to live with it for a little while because my hair needs a break. actually, i'm kind of digging this color for right now.

in other news, i was invited to come up to the main virginia office for an employee appreciation event to celebrate being with the agency for 5 years (which actually happened last year but they didn't have an event) and they were going to pay to fly me up there but only pay for 1 night of hotel. unfortunately none of the flights worked with that schedule and all the options they presented me with would have cost ME hundreds of dollars and they couldn't see their way to compromise and the whole episode left me feeling the exact opposite of appreciated so i chose not to go which is fine, not the end of the world except that i grew up in that area of virginia and haven't been back in several years so i was really looking forward to it. they invited 3 of us from the florida office to go there but 2 of us are among the lowest paid employees in the company and neither one of us could afford to go so the only one that actually went is the 2nd highest paid employee in our office and that kind of sucks.

so i have started putting my resume out there to see what else is there but i'm at an age where i really don't want to start all over again plus i need flexibility because of the kids' schedules and that isn't usually found, especially in  new job so it would work out best for me to stay in my current job but i feel i'm being undervalued and i'm so damned tired of never having any extra money. taz and i lived like that for so many years and it's not like i need a lot but i guess the sacrificing is getting to me right now.

there are so many things i'd like to do, the main one being able to travel, even just a little. i'm going to try to be creative and come up with some sort of way to have a little road trip just for chris and me. 

 the kids had a holiday from school last monday and i had a holiday from work so we hung out at a local playground and had lunch at a local fast food place we rarely go to because it's on the expensive side...so expensive, in fact, that when i saw that just 2 kid meals were going to be almost $20, i chose not to eat which made me a little cranky, to be honest.

and here's my confession - i get a little disappointed when i realize a work & school holiday falls on a monday when it's our turn to have the kids which means i have  them by myself for the whole day. i realize that's really selfish of me but it's not really a holiday for me when i have to plan activities and referee their fights...which are constant as they've gotten older. when we first started dating we only had the kids every other weekend so this never was a problem but that situation changed at some point and i've rarely had a holiday to myself since then. it wouldn't be as bad if chris had holidays too and then we could just plan something special as a family but you don't get a lot of holidays in medical transport, unfortunately.

ok, that's enough of my bitching because all the complaining in the world isn't going to change anything so i just need to adjust my attitude and carry on...me and my reddish hair. LOL