Catching Up

Hello!

Life has been rather busy around here, lately! My blog "postings" and my blog "readings" have been few and far between, it seems! I guess being BUSY is a good thing. It means that I am staying active and there are a lot of things going on in my life. If that weren't the case.... then, I would be sitting around, being bored!

Here's just a bit of what's been going on around here ---

David has been working on rebuilding our "retaining wall" in our back yard. He started the project at the beginning of April and just finished it over this past weekend. It took him a LOT longer than he had expected, but it looks great!! The wall was first built about 10 years ago, when we had our in ground pool put in. David used landscape timbers back then, but knew that they were only going to be "temporary". Ha!! Ten years later....... they are just NOW getting replaced! I should have taken a "before" photo and then a "during" (maybe more than one!) photo before showing you the "after" photos. Oops! You can get the idea from these photos, tho.

The wall looks GREAT and I am happy to now have have my Lantana planted in the flower beds again! (The other ones didn't survive.)

The steps still need to be "tweaked" just a little. We didn't measure quite right!

I am SO HAPPY that my rose bush is doing so well!!

My poor garden needs som work! And our grass..... welll, we are working on that, as well!

The bricks are surrounding a small seedling that I found. I "think" it is from one of my previous plants and is trying to survive! ~ The pool looks inviting, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's still a too chilly to swim, just yet! Maybe by this time next month. -- Maybe!

Here's a look at my garden when I first got everything planted.

This picture is from July 4, 2006. David had almost completed our screened in porch. You can see how the "Great Wall" used to look. (These are friends of ours in the picture. Not us!)

David also built a pen for our dogs. Now, my flowers will should SURVIVE the jaws of Chester! LOL! My "Knock Out" Rose bush is coming back, beautifully!!!! And my Stella de Ora Daylilly is coming back, too! YAY!! My plans are to add more flowers and plants to this garden.

The dogs now have their OWN yard! YAY!

We have had two nights of tornado weather, too!! The first night (two weeks ago), was mostly just high winds and a LOT of rain! But, the second (just this past Friday) was VERY SCARY! We had two tornado WARNINGS!! The first one was about 7:30 in the evening and the second was in the middle of the night, about 3:15am!! Both storms, luckily, passed to the north of us. I didn't get much sleep that night! Tornadoes fascinate and scare me, both at the same time. I would love to see one ---- from a SAFE distance! --- but, I am terrified of them, just the same.

Thursday, I got my hair cut and my highlights redone. My stylist did a GREAT job! I only wish that I could style it the way that she did! LOL! I have had many compliments, which is always nice!

I switched gyms last week, too. I have gone back to Curves for Women. I used to belong to this gym and then I lost my job and quit because of the cost. Then, back around Thanksgiving of last year, I joined Gold's Gym because it was cheaper. But, after several months of "trying" to lose weight by going to Gold's.... I decided that I need to go back to Curves. I was actually able to LOSE weight when I was a member there, so... I think it is where I am supposed to be. I started the Curves Diet today. (Wish me luck on that one!!) I do great at exercise, but "dieting" is NOT my thing! I struggle with it, BIG TIME! Food temptations get the best of me.... always!

I have also been researching my family history again. This time it is my paternal grandmother's lineage that I am tracking. Genealogy is such fun! I had "thought" that my grandmother was from Birmingham, Alabama.... but, discovered that she was actually from the county that I live in RIGHT NOW!! Unbelievable!! I was blown away by this new found fact!! My plans are to go to the county courthouse and do some research there, soon. I want to see if I can find the cemetery where my ancestor's are buried. If I can find that... it will, hopefully, answer a LOT of unanswered questions!!

My girls are winding down their Spring Semester of college and are EXTREMELY stressed at the moment! I barely saw either of them last week. Thankfully, we had a very nice day together yesterday. We laughed and everyone's stress was forgotten for the day! But, today is Monday and they are already running around getting ready to start their week.

My poor Ashley has also had the added stress of having relationship problems with her boyfriend this past week! (NOT good timing!!) I won't go into details, but it looks like they have worked things out... for now. There's almost nothing worse than seeing your child broken-hearted!

I hope that catches you up a little bit on my life, lately!

God Bless!

Photo of New "Do"

Ok.... here is the photo that I promised at the end of my last post. (click to view)

I took it myself with my Ipod. I kept trying and trying to get one with me actually looking at the camera... but, failed to!! LOL! So, you are stuck with this one! It's not the best picture, but you get an idea anyway of how the new "do" looks! I styled it myself this morning, but had trouble with the "sides" cooperating. It's hard to tell in this photo. It's going to take some getting used to, that's for sure! And if I not... it's just hair and it will grow back! **Smile**

A New Hairstyle

Hairsytles come and go. Mine haven't changed a whole lot over the years. I have had long hair most of my life. The only two exceptions that I can recall are... once when I was little, my mother cut my hair into a "pixie" style (short!) because she had heard that it would help my hair to thicken up. I am not sure if this worked, but I remember HATING this haircut because no one recogized me and they thought I was a new BOY in the neighborhood!! Yikes! The next time was when I was about 19 years old. I let a friend talk me into letting her cousin, who was studying to be a hairdresser, give me a "perm" ! BIG MISTAKE!!! It ruined my hair!! There was no way to save it, other than to chop it off to about shoulder length. It was about midway down my back, before the perm!

Here is a photo of me on my last day of high school in June of 1982. "Wings" were still in style and I used LOTS of hairspray to keep them in place!

My natural hair color is a dark brown, but I have dyed it many times.

When my kids were little (around 1994), I dyed it blonde. It looks pretty good in this picture, but in reality... it was way to "brassy".

I eventually went back to my natural color and wore my hair in this style for MANY years! This pic was taken around the year 2000.

I grew out the bangs above, when they began to be "out of style" and I began to get my hair "highlighted" when I started seeing a few "grey" strands! EEEK!!

This pic was taken right after I got bangs cut into my hair - again! (2007?)

This is when I began to HATE these bangs! I couldn't keep them out of my eyes! (March 2009)

By June of 2009, I had grown them out - again!

Since then, my "look" (color & style) has pretty much stayed the same as the picture above

.... until yesterday!

I got bangs, again!!

I don't have any pics of myself yet, but here are the pics that I showed my hair stylist to give her an idea of what I wanted.

I love Sally Field! And I love her bangs in this picture! I also love the length of her hair, here.

But..... since, "somebody" likes long hair..... I want to keep my length. I picked this photo of Calista Flockhart to show my stylist how I invision the rest of my hair to be, which is pretty much the same as it has been .... only Calista's is MUCH prettier!

So, now you have to imagine the two hair styles together, and you will be invisioning my new hair style! My hairstylist "straightened" my hair yesterday, which really isn't the "look" that I want. So... today, I am anxious to "play with it" myself, so that I can HOPEFULLY achieve the look that I am wanting. I think that my stylist cut a little "too much" of my hair to make the bangs, but I won't know for sure until I do it myself.

IF....and that's a BIG "IF".... I like the way it turns out... I will have a picture taken of myself in my new "hairdo" and show it to you. But.... if I don't like it.... there will be NO PHOTO!  I will be in hiding until these bangs grow out!! LOL!

A to Z Blog Challenge ~ D

Today's word is D'Allen's, for D'ALLEN'S SALON and SPA. I'm not quite sure if "D'Allen's" is an actual word, but hey.... for me and my blog... it works!

This is where I go to get my hair "done", as we say here in the south.

 I go every 8 weeks to get my hair trimmed and highlighted.

I have been going to this same salon for approximately 4 years, I think. My path to find this salon and my hair dresser was quite an interesting one!

I used to go to one of the "quickie" salons, as I call them. You know.... the kind where you can walk in without an appointment, sign the "sign-in sheet", and then wait for some random girl (or woman) to call your name to "come on back". After going several times to the same place, I did find a lady that I liked and more importantly.... TRUSTED to do my hair.

Everytime I went to this "salon", I would always get just a trim, until one day, when my precious Dtr. #2 pointed out to me that she saw a few (YES. Only a FEW!) gray hairs on the top of my head!! It didn't bother me at first, but when she kept finding more and MORE... I quickly decided that I was NOT ready for this! So.... on my next visit to the "quickie salon", I decided that it was time for me to start getting "highlights" put into my hair. My natural hair color is a dark brown, so I got blonde highlights.

The first couple of times that I had this done, my hair looked great! But then....... the day came when the quickie salon lady SCREWED UP!!!! She used the wrong dye and my blonde highlights turned BURGANDY!!! Now, for some of you... this might have been a "cool" thing, but not for me! The quickie salon lady offered to "fix" my hair after apologizing..... but, I said "No, thank you!"

I went home in tears and called the best salon in town that I new of --- which was also the MOST expensive, by the way! UGH! -- and got an appointment with them for the next day. I was afraid to trust the "quickie" salons again and vowed that day to NEVER go to one again!!! I had to pay OVER $100 to get my hair "fixed"! YIKES!!

So.... now that my hair was "fixed", I now had to hunt for a new hair dresser. A REAL ONE! (No. I did not go back to the expensive salon!) I asked a few friends and that's how I ended up at D'Allen's Salon & Spa.

I now LOVE my hairdresser!! She is young and fun, but most of all..... she KNOWS WHAT SHE IS DOING!!! **Smile**