what a week...and it is only tuesday

as many of you know we had a little hair color misadventure in our house the other day.
Charles ASH colored blonde hair decided to take a detour and go red instead of staying in the ash family. (he was taking one for the team by helping me out with my last grade). Using the proper color formulation and correct color and developer strength, I set abpout making him oe shade lighter than his natural virgin hair was.
It turned strawberry blonde. So to correct it I got some ash color to counteract the red/gold tones. I even bought red/gold corrector to add to the color. For some unknown reason that made it worse. His hair followed no color laws. AT ALL. It did what it wanted to do. It turned an even more hideous shade of red/gold. A very ginger orangy red. It was awful. So finally i went back one more time and bought a dark ash color with a green base(to counteract the red) and and a light double ash with a blue/violet base to neutralize the gold/orange tones.
So I mixed the dark brown ash with the platinum blonde double ash to make a mid-light ash blonde. I added some red-gold corrector to it. FINALLY . His hair is back to normal. A nice medium ash blonde that has only the tiniest hint of red(which actually looks pretty good on him)
. So that was horrible. I had to give him a hot oil treatment under the hooded dryer to keep his hair healthy and shiny and soft. Now these pictures were taken on a camera phone, so they arent the greatest.I apologize.

This picture was the first color application, where he looked like Not Gay chet from real world brooklyn.

This was the second color application where he turned into his avatar from guitar hero.

Picking a hairstyle from a current issue of sophisticates hairstyles. Yes, he is under the hooded dryer.
"Did you see that? Grrrrrllllll, her har is baaaaaddd!""Ooh! I want this hair. she's hot."

At least he was good enough to joke about it...and not go to church wearing a hat.

Then sunday night Finn started complaining his neck hurt. I asked how it hurt. He said it hurt when he swallowed. His little face would scrunch up when he swallowed and he was running a fever. Now he JUST got done with a 10 day oral penicillin treatment for strep throat. But monday morning I looked at his throat and it was gunky. I know it had come back.
so we went BACK to the doctor and he had strep throat AGAIN. So we made an executive decision to NOT do an oral treatment and just get it over with and give him the shot.
Charles said he was soooo mad. The entire Doctors office heard him yelling and screaming and hollering and raising a ruckus.
but last night, a mere 7 hours later he was bouncing around saying "i feel better already!"
this morning I asked how he was feeling and he said "my froat is fine. But my butt still hurts!"

Yesterday I started out on the clinic floor. I will be there Mon and Tues for the time being and then in about 6 weeks or so I will be out there 3 days a week. But I have to miss today to stay home with finn, who is unable to go to school until tomorrow.

This morning I woke up feeling like pooh.
i had horrible dreams about my bridesmaid dress. I dreamt when it showed up it was a lace top with a big rhinestone buckle and a chiffon skirt. Very oldschool fox-trot ballroom dancing ty;pe dress. It was hideous. And it was this awful shade of greyish purple. Kind of like a mauve, but more icky.

hopefully i can get a bit of a nap today. And go pick up my mirror my friend is donating to me and the vinyl for my wall she did. I will take pictures and post them later!

the apology...mine this time

just let me be clear. This was not malicious. This was not pre-meditated.

I would like to preface this post with 4 words: I LOVE my husband.
I would also like to say, publicly, I'm sorry and I will fix it.

Ok here's the deal.
Last 3 weeks I have been in an advance class that required us to bring in hair models for free services. Cuts, perms, relaxers and color.
Well i was one short on my color and charles agreed to come in. My plan was just to put a clear demi-permanent glaze on his hair. That way the color wouldnt change, it would just make his hair shiny.
WELL turns out other people had that in mind as well and there was a run on the clear and we were out by the time friday morning rolled around. So we decided to take him up one step.
His natural haircolor is a level 7 and he is definately an ash. So his natural color was a 7A. We decided to bump him up one level to an 8A. That way there was very little difference and he would stay his ash blond color. I used the appropriate developer strength.
I did the color formulation and double checked and mixed the color. I applied it.
15 minutes later I rinsed. As I was towel drying his hair I noticed his hair was DEFINITELY not an ash color anymore. It had pulled red. Strawberry blonde red.Almost the color of those ginger tabby cats. There is no conceivable way this should have happened. I used a drab ash color. His hair is a natural ash tone. WHY it pulled red is beyond me. So I laid him back in the sink and tried taking out some of the brassiness with Silver Shine, which helps neutralize the orangy undertones. It helped a little, but he now looks like "not Gay Chet" from the Real World Brooklyn.(not gay chet is what they call him on The Soup, on E!. I love you Joel McHale)
I sent him home with silver shine shampoo as well, hoping that by using it every few days it will help eliminate the brassy color. It is ridiculous.
So I went to cosmoProf and got some beige/ash lightener. It says it is drab and eliminates red and orange. So we will see. This had better work or I may just have to shave him bald and call him Kojak for awhile.

so thank you charles for being my guinea pig for a grade, and I apologize about the color. I will fix it.

My new business cards arrived!! http://www.gotprint.com/. I SWEAR by them.

The name of my business is called PINK.

(Kind of a tongue and cheek reference to my hairwrecking days when I accidentally colored my hair a shocking shade of fuchsia. Probably my worst hair disaster, apart from the Ogilve home perm when I was 10. Charles said "You know your hair is pink right? Not a little pink, but Im coming out so you better get this party started pink..." and the name stuck. It is my constant reminder to think before I color. Visualize before I perm and definitely call my back up support when the urge to cut my hair super short rears its ugly head.)

I made these up on Photoshop and uploaded them directly to gotprint. It took less than a week to get my cards in. So I am just about ready to get moving on my little "paying off my student loans by doing hair on the side" project.

The Apology

Yesterday we got a call home from Finn's Kindergarten teacher.
"Finn has been very playful today...was not able to focus....fooling around..."
THEN came the kicker: "He really took it over the edge when he decided to test how far he could spit."

I am picturing it now in my head. I can just see him in his classroom, elbowing his buddy J_____, and saying "Hey J____, wanna see how far I can spit??"
then hock-tooey.

I dont know how many times he spit, or if he had a little gang around him watching, or when he decided to do it.

All I know is he was toast when he got home. I made him stay in his room with nothing but his books until dinner. Then we had some family time and he went back up to bed.
There is no TV and no Wii for 3 days. I even made him write the apology letter above.
I dont know if you can see the little tear stains on the paper or not. He was so mad at me.
"It's too hard" "I am just a little kid, I cant write such a long letter"(Well if it wasnt to hard to hock a loogie halfway across the classroom, then it isnt too hard to write a three sentence apology to your teacher.)

Then when he saw I was unmoved by his plea, he launched into the classics:
Im not your friend anymore" , "You are a mean mom. Im going to live at Amy's house!" and my personal favorite "I just dont want you anymore"
He ran the whole gamut of emotions:pleading, crying, yelling, screaming, apologizing, sweetness and light, back to screaming. It was a really fun day. No really, I enjoy my normally mild mannered sweet boy acting like a total jerkface. Makes me feel really good. I really feel like a good mom when he screams "I dont like you anymore" or "I dont want you anymore"(actually I think it is kind of funny. I keep my cool and he gets more and more frustrated trying to come up with insults and things he thinks will get him his way)

So Ms V, I apologize as well for my sons behaviour and his little salivary escapade.

yowza i hurt

so today I did THREE spiral perms.
count them...ONe TWO THREE.
If i ever see a flexi-rod again I will go absolutely Christian Bale on someone.

But they turned out beautifully, and I made 20$ in tips on those three and sold $50 in retail products. I did not, however, get a lunch at all. I was rolling and perming from 10am to 430pm.
I dont think I have any hair left in my nose, as it has all burned off after inhaling fumes all day.

My first perm was a woman with WAIST LENGTH hair. And it was kind of coarse and thick.
It took me over an hour just to roll her hair. But when the rods came out she had these thick, long beautiful spiral curls in her hair. They looked fantastic.

The second perm was on an asian woman with stick straight coarse hair. She loved it. Her hair was shoulder length, so her curls were a little more bouncy since she didnt have all that long hair weighing her down.

My third perm was a girl with long, virgin hair. Never been colored or chemically altered...EVER. She was in her late 20's. How someone can go that long without messing with their hair is beyond me. I was wrecking my hair right from the crib. hers turned out perfectly. We showed her how it would look kind of piled up on her head if she wanted to wear it out for an evening, and she squealed with delight. It was nice. I love that feeling.

so as much as I hate perms, I am no longer afraid of them. I guess I always had the Ogilve Home Perm disaster (story tomorrow) in my head and have always been leery of perms. But actually they have come a long way and are really nice if done right.

yay perms!
BUT my FEET are KILLING me. My heels hurt so bad they almost sting when I sit down. I feel like a little old lady hobbling along. I need a good Epsom Salt soak. I think I may break out the foot spa tonight and have a little rest after the kids go to bed(30 minutes and counting!)

deal of a lifetime

I am converting my bonus room downstairs into a salon. so when i graduate I can work evenings from my home.
My biggest concern was furniture. Even used it is outrageously expensive.
Enter fervent prayer and pleading and a dose of "Please help me know what to do".

last week a girl in my class came up to me and asked if I would like to purchase salon equipment.
total price $150.
Included: a brand new hydraulic pump chair, a hooded dryer with chair and a sink with sprayer.

WHAT???Apparently her father is quite the storage unit auction participater.
Every month he goes to the storage unit auctions and purchases various units that people have failed to pay their rent on, or cleaned out their unit. It is always sight unseen. You never know what you are going to get. Well a few weeks ago he purchased a large unit for about 65$. When he opened it he was AMAZED to discover a bunch of salon furniture and equipment.
So he is selling the sets for 150 each, and will deliver it to my house etc!!

Just a new chair alone is about $350. a sink is at least 500 and a hooded dryer with a chair is 450.

So for the grand total of 150 bucks i am able to get 1300 dollars minimum of equipment!!

So go to my shop and purchase lip balms so I can afford this equipment!!

beading project

This is what I am making when our next stringing group meets.

I have to send the link because for some reason it wont let me download the picture.

So it is HERE. It is called Mambo. I love it.

hmmmmm.

I am addicted to guitar hero.

Dont judge me.

I guess I didnt realize...

...just how sunny it was outside today.
It was only 70 degrees, and the wind was blowing.
I was outside at the kids school for the fun run for an hour this morning and then an hour this afternoon. This morning was breezy and cool, and there were no problems after my first round of fun run. But this afternoon, man oh man. I should have thought to use sunscreen.

I am sunburned, a la the main course at Red Lobster. BURNED. Not slightly pink, not a little toasty...I am burned.

And it is starting to itch.

is this going to get worse?

the boys take their lunches to school. every few weeks I have to make a sams run for juice boxes and snacks etc. This moring I went to Walmart(yes I shop at walmart, deal with it)
and bought a bunch of snacks(crackers, fruit snacks, granola bars, fruit cups etc)
$66 dollars.
SIXTY SIX FRIGGIN DOLLARS for 2 boys lunch snacks.

They are only 8 1/2 and 5 1/2. What is going to happen when they hit puberty and are REALLY eating me out of house and home?? I cant even think about it.

I have already told charles to crack the whip at work and start bringing home more bacon...we have hungry boys to feed.

hear ye hear ye...

Guess who snagged an in person interview with Jeopardy?

Yup, yours truly.
I did well enough on the online test that they gave me an in person interview next month.
I will have to take a written test, and play a few rounds of mock jeopardy.

So now I just need to come up with really stupid stories for alex to tell about me on the air.

Alex: The answer is Sarah Mcbride
(me ringing in): who is so fricking excited she cant stand it.
alex: correct!

Finn explains The Oobleck

ok so in school(kindergarten) Finns class read about Oobleck. (dr Seuss gooey sticky rain or some such stuff)
His teacher brought in homemade Oobleck(cornstarch and water to make the gooey solid/liquid.)
The kids could use their 5 senses with it and then write down their observations on a piece of paper. It was all very sciency.

so I am re-creating what finn wrote in his boxes:

Sight: Mese
Touch: Stece
sound: Nuffing
Smell: bad ewwwwwww
taste(teacher typed WE DO NOT TASTE IT.)

so as a quick translation, for those of you who dont know how to read Kindergartener:
It looked MESSY
It felt STICKY
It sounded like NOTHING
It Smelled BAD(ewwwwwwww)

that kid. Nuffing. Thats what I am going to say from now on.
Hey, whats going on? eh, nuffing.

WOO HOO!!! Shout out to my Alma Mater!!

Shout out to my Alma Mater- Utah State University!
30-4 record, won their conference, and are on their way to the NCAA tourney.


Hail the Utah Aggies,We'll play the game with all our might.See the colors flying,The Aggie Blue and Fighting White.How they stir us onward!We'll gain the victory, All Right!Hail the Utah Aggies,We're out to win so Fight! Fight! Fight!
Utah State Hey! Aggies all the way!Go Aggies! Go Aggies! Hey! Hey! Hey!

I am mighty proud.

Local Hair Competition

Last night was the local hair competition to represent our school at the Empire National Competition.
They had several categories. Nails, Long hair/evening design, mens trne cut and color, womens trend cut and color, and make up.
There were about 20 of us competing in Womens Trend cut and color.
We had an hour to cut and style the hair. We did the color ahead of time. I didnt want to be too bright and showy, which was my ultimate downfall.
There was music playing the judges coming around and getting right into the thick of things looking and watching and trying to intimidate us.

In the end I did not win. I came in third. My cut was better than the second place finalist, but her color was much more dramatic.

I am super happy though. I really wanted to win, but after I saw my friend Cammy's cut, I know she would win for sure(and she did). Our cuts were pretty similar, but her colors were blue and violet and turquoise, almost like a peacock. It was really beautiful.

I had my picture taken for the website and newsletter etc.

yay me.

I am really happy with my showing and feel really great about it. I did my best and turned in a beautiful cut.

I was told by several judges that had my color been a little more "out there" I would have taken second. They vascillated between me and 2nd place going over and over and over.

So I know that had I done something a lot more daring in the color department my standing would have been a little better.

but 3 out of 20 is not bad at all. I am really proud for trying and happy I placed! I beat out 17 advanced students, who had been there forever, many of which are close to graduating.

BUT my class had lots of winners! We took 2nd in nails, 1st and 3rd in womens trend cut and color and 1st in long hair design!

So here is my completed model. I didnt have my camera there, but some of my classmates did and they promised to send pictures of the whole competition. Ignore the raisin bran on the table.

Those darn kids dont know how to clean up.

so there you have it.I am a little miffed for not listening to my inner voice and going more bold on the color, but live and learn. Yes I was upset last night, but I am over it. I am really happy for Cammy. She was going to drop out because her self confidence isnt very high. But I yelled at her and forced her to do it. So had she not competed I would have taken second.

THEN the girl who took 2nd place I helped her with her color at the last minute yesterday as she was scrambling to get it done. Had I not helped, her model would have been incomplete. So had her model been incomplete I would have taken 1st.

See, I get 3rd place for being a nice person.

thats the last time I do something selfless.!!!

NOW AVAILABLE(in Charlotte)

Convenience PLUS inexpensive. Obviously I am an advanced student now, and still in school, so I wont charge what the salons charge. I am only charging modest amount for materials and my time.

Plus the added convenience of me coming to your house in the evening after the kids go to bed etc. Or you could come to my house. I am all set up and ready to go.

Is that something people would go for? Am I just hoping?
It was kind of something I was brainstorming the other day and think would go over well.
With the economy the way it is, people can still have a luxury at 1/2 the price.

I know I said I dont like doing nails. I actually dont mind. It is the stooped over all day every day I didnt like. It isnt something I would want to do full time, but in the evenings to make a little extra cash, I can totally do that!

I graduated to advanced today!

Today was my LAST DAY in beginners class. I am REALLY going to miss my teacher.

I made her a little gift basket of lip balms, foot scrub, brown sugar body scrub etc. She was awesome and I really wish she were moving up with our class to keep on as our teacher.

But, Starting Monday I am an advanced student on the clinic floor. New Teacher, New Rules and clients!

I got a 100% on my final nail test (I rememberd all the "onychi" diseases correctly!)

and nailed my State Board Manicure(nailed, get it)

Then this afternoon we got to play around with our Nail kits and do some nail art.

So I glued down some thumb sized nail tips, painted them and had fun playing with the different art polishes. Yeah they arent great, but not bad for the first try. I had a lot of fun painting them.

SO now I am DONE with the hardest curriculum, and I passed with flying colors. I am really proud of myself. All those disorders and diseases just about killed my brain. But I managed to keep them all straight. So dont try and come to my chair with your ugly crusty Pig Toes (onychigryphosis) because I will KNOW what it is.

Dont think you can fool ME.  I studied all these nasty things.

Nails Suck

I dont enjoy doing nails as much as I thought I would.

I almost went to nail school instead. i thought, hey it is only 300 hours, I will be done in a few months, how hard can it be. I can do nails and make some money quickly and be done with it. Looking back I am SOOOOOO glad that I listened to my inner voice saying:"you really want to do hair. You dont really want to do nails".

Here in NC the cosmetology licensing includes nails. However this curriculum has NOT been very fun. I honestly dont know how those peole do it 8 hours a day.

Hunched over clients all day, sanding and scraping and filing and clipping and touching hands and feet. An dont get me started on the nasty pictures of fungus'd toes and feet I have had to look at and memorize. Just after a week and a half I think I am permanently stooped like an old lady with a dowagers hump. And forget about trying to keep your own nails nice. It aint happenin'.

UGH and WHY ON EARTH do all the diseases of the feet and hands start with Onych?? How am I supposed to remember them all if they all LOOK alike??

Why cant they just call it gross toe? No they have to call it Onychiatrophia or Onychikolitosis, or onychidontgiveacrapwhatitiscallediamnottouchingthatthing.

I go to lunch everyday thinking about crusty feet and tinea pedis etc,. blech, it literally makes me sick. and there are some women out there who come in, plop their feet in right away so you cant look at their nasty toes with a gigantic thick nail. "can you just file it, it is only a little fungus".

Uh no, you need to get yourself to a little podiatrist is what you need to do. Come in here with a nasty toe, trying to give everyone else the crusty's.

Back in the early part of the decade in California there was a huge outbreak of this thing called Mycobacterium Fortuitum Furunculosis. Shops werent sanitizing and disinfecting the foot baths properly. It is a state board test question that we have to know and the shorthand for it is MFF.

Want to know how I remember it?? AHHHHH! My friggin' Foot!!!

Yes thats how I remember diseases. i give them letters and then make up things to remember them by.

Onychiatrophy is OAT- Oh, 'at toenail is fallin' off.

stuff like that. silly but it works.

yes I love getting pedicures and manicures, but i am so glad I will not be the one doing it full time. It really kind of sucks. 2 more days of nails and I a DONE with the curriculum and will be on the floor full time!

SNOW!!!(again)

This is the THIRD snow day this year for school. We got a pretty big dumping here in the Charlotte area. They havent seen this much snow since February of 2004, when a giant storm system stalled right over the Queen City and dropped about a foot.

We personally(here at my house), got about 3 inches, but in other areas of the city we are looking at more.

Down the road in South carolina there was an accident on I-85. At last look the backup from this accident was 20 miles long.

 People are just pinned in there, they cant go anywhere, so they have been stuck on I-85 in their cars for hours.  That would totally suck.

Day classes at my school have been cancelled. The night classes are to be announced, and if they do decide to have night classes I wonder if they will have the competition as planned.

Today was the local competition that I am entered in. If I win I go to Nationals for my school and have a chance to win some money and a trip. I am so ready to get it done and over with. 

snow, I bite my thumb at you.