The Stranger in my Mirror

My sister, Sue, asked me about my hair nowadays and it got me to thinking that I needed to do a blog entry about this whole change. Back in August I got extensions and wrote about it then. It has been an interesting and not always easy journey. The hardest part for me is getting used to seeing myself in the mirror and thinking for a minute, "Who is that?" Or seeing my shadow and thinking..."That's not my hair!"

I actually started in November 2006, just before Stuart got home from his mission. I went to Desi and said, "Something new!" That style was short lived and I went back to my "old" hair until this last summer.

I knew I wanted something different than that same old hairstyle but growing it out was so painful. But I started...

That was when the extension thing came into being. Do you remember when you were a little girl and your Mom would get your ponytail too tight? (Guess I think that only happens when you are little because 1) your Mom probably doesn't still do your hair LOL and 2) I've had short hair most of my adult life!)



That is what it was like to have the extensions! I took 600mg of Advil around the clock for the first week! (see my poor red scalp?) By then the hair was grown out enough that it didn't hurt all the time but because of my fine hair the extensions started to slip off my hair (yup, and cause breakage in the bargain.) After 3 weeks I needed a "touch-up" and we put back in the extensions that had come out. Talk about high maintenance. I persevered with the extensions until about the 2nd week in Oct when I'd had enough, got out the acetone (to dissolve the glue), my little pair of jewelry pliers (to pinch the glue bead and break it up), and took out all of the extensions.

The one thing that I will say that is a positive about having the extensions is that it got me over that hump of going from having short puffy hair to a little flatter-not-so-poofy-hairstyle.

I have continued to grow my hair since then. I went through the "librarian" phase, as Gordon called it, with very dull hair.

About 2 weeks ago I got the courage to try something a little more exciting. I was just like a teen-aged girl... I got the bee in my bonnet one night about midnight to try this flat-iron-flip-out-thing. I showed Gordon and he said it was very cute. So I have another new hairstyle (The ladies at the Temple have just about given up on me. One of them asked if I was a hair dresser!)




My ultimate goal is to get my hair a little longer and then keep it on the long-end-of-short...But who knows... in another month or two I may have found a whole new look and I will have to get used to another stranger in the mirror!