Hairy Situation...

I know this is going to come as a shock to all of you but...I'm very vain about my hair.

Okay, so from the laughter I'm guessing it's not a shock at all.

Yes, if you've known me for any time at all you know this. I'm not embarassed about it, I own it completely. I have great hair. Part of it is genetics. But most of it is Sara. Some of you know her from when I was on Facebook. She's a friend as well as our stylist.

I think I've talked before about how we got to have Sara in our lives but I'll do it again just in case. We had a stylist up here the first time we lived here who was pretty darn good. But when we came back from our stint in Colorado she had started to consume some sort of intoxicating substance on the frequent. I was getting ready to start the search for someone else because as her marriage was faltering she was fawning over Brent in a way that did not sit right with me. At. All. As I've mentioned, I don't share my toys. (he didn't ever really notice, god bless his cotton socks) So I was already on the edge with her and I should have followed through earlier. Because once you start that slide it's hard to stop.

The last time we went to see her was a few weeks before the start of 6th grade for Katie. In Oregon that's the first grade in middle school. It's a big deal step up. Imagine the difference between 6th and 8th graders. Middle school can be rough. So anyway we are getting our hair cut and she keeps popping back into the back room, getting progressively more unstable. And then she cuts Katie's bangs. Or I should say cuts a chunk out of Katie's bangs. Okay, we're done. Thank you. To this day I still can't believe I didn't hit her. If I had noticed the nick on Katie's ear before we got home I would have.

So anyway I asked my boss if the gal who cut his hair also cut his wife's hair. I knew he was super particular about his, but I knew she was even worse. And yes, she did. He gave me Sara's number and she fit Katie in right away and said, yeah, I can fix this. And she did. And then she looked at me and said, "I have time to fix yours if you want as well." And that was it. She had new customers for however long she wants to cut hair. Seriously, we've moved with her from salon to salon. We cried when she moved out of the country for a few months. And we ran back when she moved back.

She's been wonderful. Cuts, colors, styles, friendship. She's got it all covered. She's one of those stylists that really understands hair and people. Like I've brought her in ideas over the years where she looked at it, looked and me, and said things like,"you're kidding right?" And then worked with me to get to the idea of what I wanted but a style that would actually work with my hair and head. She's also got a lot of leeway. Like my hair is the color it is because she was mad nobody noticed the red when she first did it. It was a really subtle russet red blended into my brown. I loved it. But nobody commented on it in pictures.

She was like, "Your friends notice EVERYTHING. They haven't said a word about this, darker we go!" And she went darker and darker until people noticed. And then she went a little darker after that just for good measure. And I get a ton of compliments on it. She's mastered the color. And she does Katie's in the blue that Katie loves. The last time she had it done we saw her fresh from Sara's chair and oh my gosh, it was so soft, and so pretty. And a beautiful blue. Which Katie loves. She does Brent's as well. Blond highlights to bring it back to closer to what it was when he was younger. Blondes do that darkening thing, and now he doesn't. It's gorgeous.

So I've got long red hair. Brent has long blond hair. Katie has long blue hair.

But no more! Today I sent her a message saying I'M DONE! CUT IT ALL OFF!

Okay, I didn't. I told her I want to start gradually going back to my natural color and how do we do that? I love my red hair, I really do, but I want to go gray eventually. It's been in my head (and on it) for ages. I'm just not totally gray so I kept pushing it off. But I need to start the process of blending in the natural color or I never will get to that gray look I want. I think it's going to take a really long time to do it in a way that doesn't make me hate it so I might as well get started now.

I have no idea how she's going to do it. Or even if she'll be able to do it the way I'm thinking, but I trust her to come up with a plan, or talk me out of it completely. But I'm pretty sure it will be the plan part. She knows I've been leaning more and more towards growing it back out to natural for awhile. It took her and Brent probably two years to convince me to dye it red so she knew the first time I had her check my gray levels a year ago that the clock had started to going back.

I just need you all to promise to tell me how pretty it looks all through the transition. Not that it matters...but yeah, I'm vain about my hair.

Good thing I have Sara.