Turning Over a New Leaf

Last month, I went to the State Fair with an old friend and saw that she had chopped all her hair off. I really liked her new hairstyle and the freedom it gave her. I began to think about how I've had my hair long for 4 years now, and I've been going through a lot of changes lately...so I felt like it was time to turn over a new leaf! Another reason I decided to cut my hair is that the bottom half of my long hair had become quite damaged from Triathlon training at the pool. My hair was WAY too long to fit under a swim cap, and so I had been swimming in my braids. The hair at the end was just too brittle and old to hold up under the chemicals, and I began to get split ends. Since I knew I had to cut off at least half of it, I figured...why not do the whole thing? I've only had my hair above my shoulders twice in my entire life.

BEFORE PICTURES!!! I've been growing my hair out since Angel was born (4 yrs ago) and my Hair got below my tailbone! That is the longest I've had my hair in my life. I really enjoyed the cool hairdo's I could do. I felt like a real princess with my hair all braided up and pinned to my head...BUT it was heavy and it was a pain. It sometimes took 2 days to dry. Sometimes my kids would pull on my braids, and that really annoyed me. The week before my Julianna grabbed my hair and hauled me to where she wanted me to go, and that decide me...The braids were going away! As soon as possible!

Angel got to come with me to the salon as well. She hates it when I comb her hair. I'd love to do her hair all pretty everyday, but she doesn't tolerate it, and it's not worth the contention. So Angel got her first big haircut as well. She is LOVING it! Isn't it cute?

Okay, I know I got carried away and took WAY too many pictures. But Angel was so cute and animated. She was telling me a story. She loves attention! Angel's most favorite thing in the world is to go with Mommy somewhere, just us two.

Here is the after picture! Sorry about the oil stain on my shirt: casualty of not using aprons in my kitchen!

My hairstylist down the street cut my braid off! I kept it for Scott. ;)

Here's the back view. I'm free, I'm free! I think I lost about 2 pounds of hair!!! It's fun because not only is it short, but it's layered, and it has added all kinds of bounce and waves to my hair. I'm really enjoying it! At this point, I have no intention of growing my hair back out. Who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years, but for now, I'm going to keep it this way.

Changes I'm learning with right now in my life:

Being called to be my ward's Primary President:

This job is SO huge, I'm still in shock and recovering my balance.

I will be conducting a ward primary program in 2 weeks,

presiding over cub scouting, activity day girls, and sharing time during church. I will be over about 40 teachers. Wow! Let the learning begin!

Radically changing my eating habits:

I'm closer to a raw food vegan than I'd ever thought I'd be.

Learning about Herbal Healing:

Did you know that fevers should usually be enhanced, not diminished? Did you know Cayenne Pepper could save your life? Did you know that almost any ailment can be treated without relying on doctors? (Doctors are still good, I will still go to one, but we really should treat ourselves when we can!) I've only skimmed the surface of the knowledge that it out there, but I look forward to learning more. I fully intend to become self sufficient enough to care for my own family's needs. My family recently got very sick, and knowing some of these principles vastly helped us out .

Changes in running my household:

I packed all my kids movies away into the garage, hid the computer games, and packed away 85% of my kids toys. I'm still trying to figure out how to simplify our life and home governing style so I can spend more time on the things that really matter.

Getting in Shape and loosing weight:

I've lost about 10 lbs since beginning the triathlon. I still have 10 more lbs to go to get down to my goal of a size 6.

Who knew that I would ever consider a 12 mile bike ride a joyful exhilerating experience?

Being a homeschool "Teacher"

Choosing to teach a big class by semester for young boys. It's new territory, and will be taking up a considerable portion of my time.

There's more, but that's all that I want to list on my blog. So getting a new haircut kind of helped me feel like a new person! Cutting off the old, and beginning anew is always a good feeling, even when change is hard. It's hard to make so many changes at once, and I'm struggling a bit, but am trying to have patience with myself as I'm on the learning curve.

An Involuntary Haircut

After church today, Christopher got his hair cut short...very very very short. He has a nice summer hair-do now thanks to his sister Dorathy who decided to stick all her gum in his hair!

To give her some credit, she had no idea that this would be the result. She thought it would come off easily. Now all the children have been severely disabused of this notion, and we are hoping that is the last time we have to cut gum out of someones hair. (fingers crossed)

In the meantime, Dorathy is not allowed to have any gum for the rest of the month.

I posted some pictures of the Mohawk Scott gave Christopher. (Don't worry, we cut it off after some fun pictures!)

If you have long hair, why not have fun with it?

I tried to be creative and use my long hair to do a new hair- do. Thought I'd post it just for fun! I twisted it down both sides and then did a bun at the bottom.