Brassy, Classy Hairrry Situations

Having your soldier in the field is tad amount to courting again relationship-wise and for some reason you feel like an employee who's boss is out of town and has left you in charge. You have the full weight of the life you've built together squarely on your shoulders. No pressure. Whether it's a month or a year, the same routine applies.

1) Brace for impact. Make all preparations for the impending absence of the other half of your
life.

2) Send them on their way, silently reluctant and audibly supportive. Smile. Or try.

3) Survive. Dodge small catastrophes or dig your way out when you slam into one. Rely on your Army family. A lot.

4) Miss them. Wonder if they are thinking about you.

5) Keep account and record of milestones and happenings while they are away. Pictures of the kids at T-ball practice, Hunting Easter Eggs, Lost his first tooth!, etc...

6) Plan for the wind-down and homecoming. Prepare for this to change 16 times.

7) Check yourself, "Have I held this thing together well?" "Anything I HAVE to get done before
he comes home?"

8) Overhaul your appearance and the house. Everything has to look like Pleasantville if even for
a moment. You want him to Waltz into the dream he's been having of coming home. Beautiful
wife, clean and happy children, spic and span house, the smell of dinner baking in the oven. (At
least this is what we THINK they dream about.)

9) Get giddy like a school girl and think for days about what you'll wear, how you'll do your hair,
which perfume to spray on. The whole nine.

10) Pick him up. Hugs, kisses, a sigh of relief. And then after a day realize you aren't thinking
about any of Step 7 and 8.

11) Finally, hook him back into the Family Chain and drive on. :)

All in all though, you want him to have the comfort of knowing that when the going gets tough, you can hang. Even if it's by a thread. You can execute daily life for the most part even in his absence and it won't all fall apart. You want him to be proud of the woman he chose to take life's journey with. You will succeed.

Right now I'm somewhere between 8 and 9. He'll be home tomorrow night. It has been an interesting month! One that has given me, albeit small, a foresight into what we'll be up against in less than a year.

I had a small catastrophe with my hair last week. Since we've been married, I haven't done anything drastic, different or exciting with my hair. It's pretty much been long, layered and dark. Not sure why I wanted to wow my husband with something new now, but I did. I decided to go blonde! So I went to the salon and after a great haircut, innocently weasled my all-too-nice hairdresser into doing the color the same day. She never saw what was coming and neither did I, but hey, that is what I get for manipulating someone! After doing the highlights, which came out great, we moved on to the low lights, color and toning. This is where it gets weird. More foiling and a whole bunch of goop hours later...she's rinsing my hair and I can tell something is off because the pressure in the room changes. I'm trying not to panic because I'll admit I was really excited about executing this awesome Jessica Alba look.

I sit up and Holy Mother of... ??? My hair was 4 different colors! My roots were a very brassy reddish gold with blonde highlights and the lengths and ends just...I don't even know how to describe it. The dark color of my hair before, budged a little but not by much. It was past closing time for the salon. It was her and I, alone with the puzzle that was my moppy head. I wanted to laugh because really it wasn't such a big deal but I was frustrated at my hair for not behaving. I felt really bad because she had spent so much tedious time consuming effort to do everything right...but my hair didn't wanna play ball. She was speechless and concerned. After trying to avoid her having a stroke and convincing her I was fine and we'd deal with it in the morning, I went to pick up Alayna from a friend's house and headed home. Why was she so worried? Was this irreversible? Were my pillows really going to judge me? Nobody else would be seeing me until it was fixed anyway. And I promised her I'd wear a hair scarf on my way in.
Which I did. 3 lovely hairdressers and 5 hours later, we had some decent hair goin! :) I am blonde! Classy! We still have work to do, but I have to wait 2 weeks to give my hair a break. It's been through a lot. And besides, I think if my hairdresser caught sight of me before then, she'd pass out.

So primping myself and new clothes purchased, done. Hopefully there will be no more hairy situations!!

If you're thinking of doing drastic....give yourself ample time to recover from disaster before you have to show to pick him up!