gone tomorrow it is.

if i were a good blogger, i would have posted a picture and a haircut update on Saturday immediately after i left the salon. but i had a lunch date with a couple friends to get to, and then i didnt actually take any pictures of the new 'do until i had gone home and got all dolled up for the wedding we had that evening. what a bad blogger, living life like people on the internets arent on the edge of their seats holding their breath waiting to see the results of your haircut.

so some of you have already seen, some might have heard, and some of you might still be wishing it was just a flight of fancy born from friday afternoon boredom, but i am here to report that i did in fact get my hair cut on saturday. and not just a trim. i think the technical term to describe a haircut of this magnitude would be chopped.

that right there in my hand is the 10 inches of my hair that got chopped off and is getting donated. and that right there on my head is what's left of it.

AND YOU GUYS I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS HAIRCUT!!!

its the shortest my hair has ever been. it requires more product than i have ever voluntarily put on my own head at the same time. it takes less than half as long to wash as it used to. and i now have very little need for the zillion hair ties i currently own. (i can pull the very front of it up into a teeny ponytail that sticks straight up off my head like little CindyLouWho when i work out so they're not completely obselete)

but the best thing about this haircut is that it just feels right. it feels like me. i knew it as soon as the scissors snipped off that 10 inch ponytail. i did not have to psych myself up for such a drastic haircut. i did not mourn the loss of that hair. i was more than ready for it to be gone.

so... thoughts? love it? hate it? actually, i dont even care what you think about it because i love it enough for all of us. so there.

hair today, gone tomorrow?

this is what my hair looks like today, right now, sitting at my desk at work:

i am tired of it. i have been growing out my hair for the better part of this whole year, and i am just done with having long hair. so i'm going to cut it off.  and i'm feeling a little bit drastic today, so this is kind of what i'm thinking:

i'm just a little nervous, because 1) this would be the shortest my hair has ever been, and 2) i really dont want it to turn out like this:

no. just no.

or there's always the safer, tried and true option of an angled bob - longer in the front, stacked in the back.

either way, i still plan to donate my hair, and i think it should be long enough to do so. Locks of Love requires 10 inches, and Pantene Beautiful Lengths requires 8 inches to donate, so i've got options. of course, how much i donate depends on how much hair i have left to chop after all the split ends are trimmed off. after the trim, if i dont have enough length to donate, then i'll walk away with just a trim. but when i measured my hair this morning, (top ten random uses for an engineering scale!) the longest pieces were over 10 inches, so i think i have plenty to work with.

i have an appointment booked for tomorrow morning. this is going to happen. if anyone sees any reason that this hair should not be chopped, let them speak now or forever* hold their peace.

*or at least until it grows back out.

hair raising?

i have a favor to ask of you all. but first, for your pleasure and enjoyment, allow me to take you on a historical journey documenting some of the different styles my hair has seen over the past 25 years:

Third Grade - 1995

my hair looked pretty much like this for the first 8 or so years of my life, (yes, it was a bowl cut, and shut up it was ADORABLE) until 5th grade, when i decided to grow it out. but since i did not like to have hair covering my ears, i requested that they be cut around. and since the customer is always right, my lovely hairdresser gave me my very own mullet. (thanks, Dar! love you!)  by the time i realized my folly, it was too late and i was stuck in middle school, in a new town, trying desperately to fit in, all while growing out a spectacularly hideous haircut. let's just say i'm kind of glad i couldnt find any pictures of those years to share.

by 8th grade my hair had (finally!) grown out, and it was probably as long as its ever been - about to the middle of my back. (i have a picture somewhere, but this was pre-digital cameras and my scanner isnt working right now... maybe later.) 

**UPDATED** Found It! - circa 2000

as i started high school, i decided to chop it off, just for something different. then over the next 4 years it fluctuated between being short, then shoulder length, then short again.

Fall '04 - Senior band banquet. 

it was sometime after graduation that i stopped parting my hair straight down the middle of my head and started rocking the side part. i know this because my graduation hair was hideous, and then after that i seem to have figured it out a little. if i remember correctly, there were threats from a hairdresser involved in this particular transformation.  

college passed in much the same way as high school, at least as far as my hair was concerned. it started short, then would grow long-ish for a while, become more hair than hairstyle, and then i would cut it short again.

 Fall '05 - Freshman

somewhere around sophomore year, i re-introduced bangs into my life in the form of long side-swept bangs, after not having had any sort of bangs since the mullet-years. they mostly fell into my face, made me feel cool, and drove my grandmother crazy. i also got into the habit of straightening my hair on a fairly regular basis.

Fall '06 - Sophomore

i included this picture, not to show any major difference in my hair from sophomore to junior year, but just because it looked really, really good.

Summer '08 - Junior

somewhere between junior and senior year, i transitioned from the side bangs to more blunt, straight-across bangs... probably as a result of trimming my own bangs. i also let my hair grow out extra long during my senior year, so it would be nice and long and easy to style while wearing a mortarboard...

Spring '09 - Graduation

...and then after graduation, i chopped it all off again. that particular haircut was kind of traumatizing, since it wound up being a WAY shorter bob than i had intended. but my hair grows kind of quickly, and i didnt have a real job at the time, so it was able to grow out to a reasonable length pretty much in obscurity.

Fall '09 - first day of work.

then i went and got myself engaged in the spring, so i let my hair really grow out again, and my bangs turned back into side-bangs, so that i could have a lovely updo for our wedding.

 Summer '10 - engagement session

...and then (anyone have a guess?) i chopped if off again less than a week after our wedding. i let a random woman in a random hair salon that we found on our honeymoon do whatever she wanted to my hair, and i walked away with blunt-ish bangs and an angled bob that was chin-length in the front and stacked in the back.

 Fall '10 - one of my only Honeymoon pictures... stupid harddrive...

i loved that style, but it required more upkeep than i was interested in, so i let it grow out to about shoulder length, and then actually managed to maintain that style for about a year. 

 Spring '11 - my 24th birthday

until my sister-in-law went and got engaged, and i felt compelled to both grow my bangs out and let my hair get extra long again so i could have a fun style for her wedding.

Spring '12 - Easter

so all that to say, i have a tendency to grow my hair in cycles: i grow it out for a while. i get sick of it. i chop it off short again. wash, rinse, and repeat.

so here's where you come in: i need opinions. i am at the point in the cycle where i have been growing it out for a while, and i am about to get sick of it, but i am kind of torn as to what i should do with my hair now.

- should i continue to let it grow and possibly donate it? if i chopped it to my earlobes right now, i would be getting rid of 4-5" of hair, so would it really be that much of a stretch to let it grow a few more?
- or should i just go ahead and chop it off again for the summer?
- should i wait to chop it until my bangs get a little more grown out?
- should i bring back the bangs that i've been growing out? they're almost long enough now to all tuck behind my ears and/or pull back into a ponytail!
- has anyone seen any fun hairstyles lately that they would like to submit for consideration?
help a girl out here!

effortlessly wavy hair.

most of the time, my hair is straight. well, mostly straight anyway. if left to its own devices, it morphs itself into a wacky half-straight, half-wavy, all-ugly kind of a 'do no matter what i do. so i just straighten it. pretty much every day. because i like having straight hair, and i have no idea what else to do with my hair.

hair products baffle me and no matter what i do i end up with a greasy-looking tangled mop of hair that i have to painfully brush out and hastily pull into a pony tail to disguise the fact that i tried and failed miserably to use some sort of product on my hair.

but today, i managed to figure it out. somewhat. kind of. ish. whatever. my hair looks different and it took me almost negative time to style it and so i am going to share my newfound knowledge with you.

Effortlessly Wavy Hair

1. take a shower the night before you want your hair to be wavy.

2. do not dry your hair.

3. pull it up into a soaking wet messy bun, pin your bangs back, go to bed.

4. the next morning, feel free to sleep in through all the time you normally spend on your hair.

5. when you finally drag your sorry self out of bed, let your still-damp hair down and unpin bangs.

6. do not brush your hair. maybe fluff it a little with your fingers.

7. apply plenty of hairspray, because it is one of the only hair products you own, and because you knew that one girl in college who had curly hair and she styled hers with hairspray and her hair always looked really good.

8. pin your bangs back again with a cute clip.

9. pray that you hair will not fall flat on the drive to work.

10. keep a hair-tie on your wrist for any midday hair emergencies.

and there you have it! 10 steps to literally effortless wavy hair that looks like you might actually have hair that behaves on a regular basis, or that you actually spent time styling it when really you just wanted to sleep in an extra 40 minutes.

have a good weekend!