I LOVE my ponytail right now

OK.

My hairdresser maintains that women in their mid-thirties always tend to grow out their hair as a desperate effort to hang onto their youth.

I maintain that women in their mid-thirties are reclaiming their hair freedom now that their babies are no longer yanking it while nursing or drinking from bottles. Just a guess, though.

Anyway. I have been growing my hair out for a couple years now, getting trims every 6 weeks or so (much to Jerry’s chagrin) so that it would stay healthy and shiny. My hair has always been freakishly shiny (such that strangers stop me and ask what I use on it to make it shiny), and I attribute that to three things: first, it grows that way, second, I get regular trims to ward off the split ends, and third, I almost never use a hairdryer on anything more than the bangs (fringe for all you Aussies and Brits reading — lol).

In the past MONTH it has reached the length that brings me Great Ponytail Happiness. All of a sudden.

This is after a day of wearing it up on a ponytail:
Ponytail Happiness

Squeeeeeeeeee!

I don’t care if I’m grasping at my youth. I just like it. 🙂 My hair hasn’t been this long since my wedding day — and I don’t think it was this long then, actually. So last time was probably 1992, when I grew it out for the Debutante Ball and then had it cut to chin-length the next day (everyone at the next Deb party asked me if I had been wearing a wig the night before — LOL!)…

I didn’t enjoy it as much last time — probably because I tried to style it more and fought the fact that it is so very straight. Now I’m happy to have super-straight hair. Helen has funky curls at the nape of her neck, and fighting with that (and the resulting tangles) for the past 4 years has made me realize just what a blessing straight hair is.

Yay.

Baby Steps

Helen is painfully shy and anxious about talking to people she doesn’t know. This includes people in stores trying to help her.

Today we went to the mall to get jeans for her (since she has sprouted and last year’s jeans are ridiculously short on her), and we had to shop in the GIRLS’ section — sizes 7-16. Very bizarre. Found some really cute jeans for her — Mudd, I think. They fit her beautifully, with a little bit of growing room and an adjustable waist. Yeehaw. And they were on major sale, which was fabulous.

Because she was so cooperative and a great shopper, we went to the cookie company at the other end of the mall. I handed her two dollars and told her that SHE needed to ask the woman behind the counter for her cookie and pay for it. She looked a little worried, but she did GREAT. And she even said “please” and “thank you” without prompting, and was very proud of herself as she walked away with her yummy prize.

🙂

Hopefully stuff like this will continue; I don’t want her to be terrified of life, you know?