Goodbye, locks

While I usually sport the "long haired" look, about every five to seven years, I get the urge to hack all of my hair off.  What I should have done was cut the hair before our Africa trip, as my long ponytail was difficult to maintain on our hike (it was really dry, dusty, windy, and my hair got really knotted and brittle. I couldn't even comb it out, was getting short of breath in doing so, so basically the hair was in a bun for most of the Kili climb). I also didn't pack enough conditioner on the trip, so my hair was severely under-conditioned during our safari part, too (when I actually showered!). I actually like the ease of short hair, and was finding I wasn't doing much of anything with my long hair anyway except tying it up most days.

So when we got back to the states, and I actually had a day to myself (we didn't go back to work until Tuesday, yesterday, which was much needed due to the extreme bodily exhaustion we both were experiencing), I decided to get rid of a ton of hair.  Kelvin was not in support of the plan (for as long as you could call it a "plan"). My grandmother also is usually quite aghast when I cut a lot of hair off-- she has always really liked long hair.

I headed into a local salon that took my same-day phone call (I'm quite an impulsive haircut-goer and also don't have a "regular" haircut place or person as I cut it very infrequently) and requested to chop off a long portion of the hair. (Interestingly, it was actually a patient of mine who cut my hair. "Do a good job," I said.... "as I'll be seeing you again" :) Gotta love small towns!).

She did.

While I don't have a formal "before" picture of me, you saw enough of my face on the Africa trip photos to remember my long hair/ponytail.

Here is my braid that I donated to Locks of Love, which makes wigs for kids.

And here are the "after" photos.

While I'm already finding myself trying to pull the hair back (it doesn't quite reach, but sometime soon I'll be able to have the world's shortest ponytail), I am tending to just clip it at the sides to keep it off my face.

I like my new 'do. Do you? :)