The Great Hair Adventure

My hair history is not all that outstanding, in the sense that I have played it safe for a lot of my life. When I was around 4 I had almost waist length hair which my mother chopped of just before I started kindergarten at the age of 4½. When I say "chopped" I literally mean...a boy short pixie cut. Through most of my early elementary school days I kept shortish hair and in 3rd grade had the ever popular shag reminiscent of Mrs. Brady on the Brady Bunch. While growing it out and by 4th grade I had shoulder length hair. My hair stayed that way until 9th grade when "stacked perms" became all the rage and I decided to jump on the bandwagon (along with the maxi jean jacket, elephant bells, Dittos, etc.). Sometime before 10th grade I had the perm cut off resulting in a shortish loose curled look. Then during the year a got a tight, big curl perm that looked like a bad 'fro. By the time 11th grade came around I had chopped of that 'fro into a really bad pixie. As the hair grew out again, it eventually came to resemble a chin-shoulder length loosely curled bob.

In my adult hair life, I chopped it fairly short again while I was in the US Air Force Basic Training and even had a light body wave in it. My hair traveled through another period of a semi-'fro (which I liked well enough, especially after it loosened up and started growing out just a bit), to near shoulder length and back to short. In 2007 I decided to challenge my nursing students to help me raise $1,000 at which point I promised to shave my head at the local American Cancer Society Relay for Life. They helped me raise $1,600!! I was on stage for the graduating classes pinning ceremony with a wig on (didn't want to draw attention from them) but as soon as it was over, I attended the reception totally bald! I had a bald head for about a week before the stubble started to really grow!

So, my latest venture is to dye my hair purple for the running of the inaugural Tinkerbell Half Marathon (my first!) which I am doing with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. The fact that I'll be decked out in my fave color (purple) which is the team's color I decided that it would be fitting to also have my hair dyed purple. So, that's what I'm in the process of doing right now. Yesterday I bleached my hair for the very first time...ever. That was an interesting experience and this was the result:

Older pic with an idea of original hair color
(more greys in front).

First application of bleach.

 

Oops! Forgot the shower cap!

After 1st bleaching, kind of a
medium, brassy yellow.

 

After 2nd bleaching,
more blonde but still
some yellow areas.

 

       Sitting with the purple dye in.
    Added a warm towel on top to
   use heat to improve uptake.

The finished color!
Color: Splat! Lusty Lavender

Another view.

100 Days Challenge:

• Day 16: 4.196 mile run with grand pup in 58:21.

What I Ate Today:

• 1 slice whole wheat toast with 1 Tbsp Skippy Super Chunk peanut butter
• 8 oz hot water with lemon
• 40 oz G2
• 1 Bacon cheeseburger on homemade roll w/ grilled mushrooms and onions (Baby J's Grille)
• 1 order of french fries (maybe 8oz)
• 2 cups white rice
• 1½ cups shrimp etouffee