My hair is red?

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . August 31, 2009 . 3:13PM

Um, it must be the sunshine, but I’m looking red headed today. Is it just me? You decide. Please forgive the no makeup and barely brushed hair. I can barely keep my eyes open today. On the plus side, I have my parking tags for school and most of my books are here. Yay.

I am so digging the new earrings Leon got me as part of my early birthday presents. What? I didn’t post about those? Oh ho ho, I shall have to do that promptly. My birthday presents this year are KICKIN. I know, I know, the big 3-0 isn’t until the 11th, but we don’t do well with waiting in this house. Immediate gratification is king.

Happy Monday my friends.

Memoirs of a unibrow child: Or the book that will never be sold

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 30, 2009 . 12:57PM

I’ve been pretty up front about the idea that I think kids are growing up too quickly and I don’t like it. It’s not going overboard to say that I’m probably “one of those moms.” You aren’t telling me anything I don’t know. I’m aware that I’m stunting his growth.

Already, I’ve had the fantasy about his wedding and it’s not a pretty picture for me. It starts with me bawling throughout the ceremony, objecting that she’s not good enough (though she’s going to be a peach, if his tastes now are to remain the same) and ends with me attached to his legs and him dragging me down the aisle with them–him trying to kick me off like an uber-friendly dog who thinks he wants to be frisky.

No. It’s not pretty.

So, when I make comments about ways I think parents might consider allowing children to grow up, just a little bit, believe me when I say “I get it.” You don’t want your baby growing up too fast. However, there are some things in life that are too cruel to allow, even when you want that small bit of control and forcing your child to have a unibrow because it’s “too grown up” to fix it, isn’t kind. I’m talking to you, Madonna. I’m talking to my own mother, MOM. And I’m talking to every mom out there that thinks their baby looks cute when their baby looks like a yeti. It’s not funny. It’s not nice. And it’s not winning them friends or helping them socialize.

At 20-something, I deal with the small animal on my forehead every 2-3 weeks. Mine needs to be taken care of right now and while my personal grooming isn’t your business, I want you to know that this plea for help is a personal one. I remember, vaguely, children making fun of my unibrow as I was growing up. My repressed memories will only let so much come back to me, bless their hearts. What’s scary about this is that I didn’t understand what the problem was. I didn’t realize that my brows were an issue or why. To say I was sheltered was an understatement.

I grew up on a farm and it’s not like anyone ever said “Your brows are nas-tay!” When we moved, puberty frowned further on me and it all went downhill. Part of being a parent is helping to properly socialize our children. If you are down with the naturalistic approach, that’s cool. At least educate your child as to what is happening and allow them the choice. If you want to be in charge and say “No, I’m not going to allow it” that’s cool, too. Explain what’s happening, explain why you aren’t allowing it and allow your kid to have their say. And listen to it and consider it. If you still feel the same, explain that, too.

It’s not often I give advice, but as an adult who lived it, take it from the yeti: if our childhood has to be more complicated because of a decision you make, at least let us understand why.

The results of the new color debacle

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . May 26, 2009 . 8:42AM

After carefully considering all of your feelings and votes on this post, I chose to go for the color on #3/#4. I’m not sure if you realized that they were the same color, just different styles? Regardless, I decided to keep my hair longer, but still take some length off and have my stylist work my layers so that I would still get that #3 mentality, with the length of #4.

Unfortunately, my hair is such a dark ash brown, that light blonde isn’t possible without, essentially, beating the soup out of otherwise fantastically healthy hair. I love my hair. I don’t want to beat it into submission. So, what we agreed upon, is that I would do some beautiful caramel colored highlights and continue building them into my pre-existing brown until it lightened up. This will happen over the course of the next several months.

Chris, my stylist, also gave me a nice level light brown base to start things off. I adore my stylist. He’s wonderful in every way and I enjoy spending time talking with him. He’s just a genuinely nice person and those are hard to come by nowadays. And he’s magic with color.

So, because I don’t want to bore those who don’t care, the results look like this picture. The picture isn’t great because my family is in town and, in my zealousness to take a picture of me and my wonderful sister, I dropped my beloved camera. Now my coloring is completely off, but I’ve color corrected as much as is possible. Yes, I really am this pale. More so, as the color actually gives me some jaundice yellow, when, in actuality, I’m white as a ghost. The picture’s bad, the color is great. Chris scores again!

Thanks again for all your help on this. I know my limitations and creativity is one of them.