131- Hair Saga...

Do we all struggle with having *good hair days*? I know I do. If I feel good about my hair then I usually feel good about my appearance. That being said I don't like to spend a lot of time fooling with my hair; it makes me tired!

So here is my story. I'll show you my finished hair lest you start to panic part way through the story. (I'll tell you I sure did some panicking half way through my story!)


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After letting my hair grow for almost 3 years I realized that I just need a shorter style. So about 3 weeks ago I had Desi cut it shorter. It looked great for about 1 hour after I did my hair and then it would be flat and blah. That means a perm. I talked to Desi, who is back in school carrying 17 credits she was going to be too busy to give me a perm but she dropped by one of her perms so I could do it myself (which isn't a big deal... I've permed my own hair for years).

So last evening after mowing the lawn I came in and permed my hair. The curl took wonderfully but since my hair was basically one length it bushed out on the bottom. The original plan was that I would perm my hair and then Desi would cut it for me. But last night those long pieces just had to go... so I trimmed my hair a little. I asked Gordon what he thought when I was finished (I thought it looked ok). He told me it was an old hairstyle. Hmmm, what does he know? But when I got up this morning and looked in the mirror I saw the same hairstyle that frumpy old ladies wear. Ahhhhhhhhhh...

I figured I would just trim it a little more... for years I've cut my own hair. The more I trimmed the worse it got... (coincidentally a friend of mine recently buzzed her head and now wishes she hadn't!) I quick put down the scissors (step away from the scissors and nobody gets hurt!), called my sweet daughter-in-law and cried, "Jess, help!" She told me I could come up in about an hour. So I drove myself with my very *with it* asymmetrical hairdo up to Jess's house and she fixed me up all pretty. Bless you sweet Jess!

With all of that being said... I'm so glad to have short hair again!

113- Sassy

For several weeks I've been feeling like I had *tired hair*! I've let it grow for almost 3 years. I liked the versatility of longer hair I could pull it up into a pony or bun, but then I'd look at photos and I looked so *OLD*! Yes, I can hear what you are saying, "You're not 30 anymore!" Yeah, but...

So I went to see my favorite Desi and asked her for sassy hair. And for me... this is about as sassy as I will get. (Love that Desi-girl!)


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333- Shaggy Beast 2

Yesterday I posted about my shaggy little beast friend and my striking resemblance. I said that I'd chosen not to take a photo, but since my sister, Sue, asked... here you go...

My best version of shaggy beast taken in the bathroom mirror this morning.



Do you know how hard it is to take a photo of yourself in the mirror with a dSLR camera?



And I had to include an out take...


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332- Shaggy Beast

This funny little guy lives out in the fields of North Utah Co. Whenever I see a shaggy little face like this I always think, "How can he see?"



Since I took this photos I was doing my hair one morning and with my hair is longer I start from the bottom and work up. I use my big pick to section off and hold up the top hair until I get to the very top...

So now picture this- all of my hair is nice and curled except the top (the forelock) which is combed forward, just like the pony, while I section off and curl the top (and, no, I chose not to take a photo of myself looking like the pony!)

And you know what? I can see just fine through my shaggy-beast forelock!

092/365

This afternoon, after a busy day of house-cleaning and dog grooming, I finally got showered! (Yeah, about time... but I figure why do I want to shower and then do all that work and be growdy?)

I *did* my hair and felt like it must have grown over night. Do you ever have that happen? Just last week it was at an awkward length and I wasn't too happy with it. Ahh, but today was a good-hair-day. A couple of months ago Desi gave me some rockin' hi-lights and lo-lights and I'm feeling pretty happy with my hair!

Embrace the Cowlick

While blobbing (ok, I just saw this typo and had to leave it LOL!! ;)) about canning I posted a photo of myself at age 20. I was surprised to see that since then (hmm... 36 years ago) I've changed my hair part to the other side.

The main reason for this is that I have this cowlick (ya think??) and by parting on the left I could camouflage this "flaw".

Since I started letting my hair grow out I've been a little frustrated because my hair wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, like: have some body, curl forward, stay out of my eyes, you get the picture.

So last night when I was getting ready for bed I thought, let's just try the old right-side part. Voila! I've got hair that curls forward, some body on the top, stays out of my eyes... imagine that??

Who says you can't make an old dog revert to old tricks!

As Promised... digital goodness!

As promised, I took some time this morning before going to pick up Camille and her friend, Alissa, at the airport to take a photo of my new grown-out hair. But am I just going to slam it up here without playing around with it in PhotoShop first? (This is where I hear a resounding *NO*!!!)

I went to Jessica's website to search for some of her digital goodness (she really is the goddess of Photoshop!). I used several of her techniques.

These are the steps I used.

1. Open photo in PSE6 and adjust color and saturation levels.
2. Applied the PSF (PhotoShop Friday) on photo sha-ZAM. (overlay @42%, screen @47%)
   
3. Used the eyes-pop technique, also a PSF. [A little erasing here too since I have squinty eyes ;) ]
   
4. Used the technique learned in Digi-in-Deep Lesson 3 to fake a depth of field and blur the background. (It goes something like this as I remember... Jessica's instructions are much better, but, there you are!) Using the magnetic lasso tool draw around person.
   Ctrl +J to put it on its own layer.
   Select background layer, apply Gaussian blur set @ 23
   Go back to the background layer and soften edges using eraser tool and a soft edge brush set at 35% opacity.
5. Finally I added a vignette from KeepDesigning.com and changed the color to a brown and the opacity to 83%.
   

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!

Cut my hair long!

I finally took the plunge... I have been telling Desi to cut my hair "long" for years now and she finally did! We actually did this over two weeks ago, but I have been slow in getting a good photo that I wanted to post. I am very happy with my new hairstyle. Many people tell me that it makes me look younger. I can like that! This photo was taken by Cindy at Jake and Cody Boucher's (my nephew) open house.





The funny/sad part is that Desi & I hadn't planned to do this. I actually went in for a perm and she had extentions so we went to Rock Star Hair in American Fork and bought the supplies. We went back to the salon and she worked on me until... you guessed it... HER OTHER APPOINTMENTS came!! I had to go kill 4 hours at the mall and Costco with a "mean-spirited-mullet". Definitely not my best look!



But I think that one of the interesting things about this new hairstyle is its similarity to one from long ago... as evidenced by this photo of Tony and I in May 1973. I was just a little pip-squeak of 20 and pregnant with Rebekah.