Wednesday, March 19, 2014

DISASTER AVERTED

Oh man... I was so on the path of a major fiasco. I can't believe I even had the restraint to nip it in the bud before God only knows what might have happened but thank God I did.

Turns out I'm cheap. Well, sorta. Most of the time I'm willing to pay higher than list but who's counting. Yet when it comes to coloring my hair, I totally cheap out. Everyone else I know pays zillions of dollars to have their roots colored each month and frankly, they're happy to do so. I never was.

Thus for the past 25 years I've always colored my hair MYSELF. First of all, it's easy to do. Second of all, I can do it any damn time I want, day or night. Third of all, as I said... I'm cheap. Which basically means: who the hell needs to pay a hair salon when I've got my own right smack in my own beautiful bathroom. Besides...

Only once in all these years did I ever have a significant color problem in the outcome. Naturally, btw, it was the night before I was heading out on a trip to Myrtle Beach so obviously I just decided to go with the flow and learn to love my charcoal colored hair. A far cry from blonde, I might add.

In the meantime... tonight could have been so much worse. I have no clue what was wrong... the packaging, the expiration date of the color, or what. BUT... what I do know is that when I mixed the color with the developer there was NO way I saw a light colored cream solution. Instead... I saw a color that definitely resembled Lucy Arnez Red! Whoa. Are you kidding me? That's going to make my hair blonde when applied?? I so can't see that happening. Although trust me... I was but this far from taking the chance. 

Forget Lucy... I could have wound up with Kelly Osborne magenta for all I knew. Not at ALL the Champagne Blonde I was going for. I swear... I thought I was looking at a brown brick color that was nothing like any mixture I had ever seen before. You can see for yourself in the picture up above.

So whew. Reality kicked in just in time and I finally decided: STOP. STOP NOW. DON'T EVEN THINK IT. APPLYING THIS COLOR SO CAN'T TURN OUT GOOD. Which of course is too bad, since basically, that was $10 thrown out the window but fast. But I definitely did the right thing. For in no time at all...

I got out yet another box of the same coloring mix and voila`. THIS time the coloring solutions came together in the regular looking light beige sort of color IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE and I knew... bingo. I'd have my normal blonde hair once again. And sure enough... blonde I got. Talk about walking right up the edge of a cliff without going over. Yippee. No disaster, afterall.


So basically I wasted $10 on the first box that was going to for sure, destroy my hair. On the other hand, I saved at least $50 by doing it all at home rather than in a salon. So as I see it... in the end, I saved $40. Nice rationalizing, right? Yay. Now I can go buy something with the money I made.

I'M SO IN LOVE



Geez... I can't even believe I am actually able to tear myself away from the newest love of my life to write this entry in the first place. I can barely stand the separation. It's totally crazy. So what IS this new love of mine??

MY NEW iPAD AIR!!

Seriously. It's so great. I've had an iPad for maybe six years already?? It was the first generation. But this NEW one I have? The iPad Air?? MAjor improvement.

I basically only used my old one for when I traveled and it was perfect for such a need. But this one I'm using everytime I freakin' sit down in front of the TV. I'm addicted! The first day I was downloading new apps up the kazoo. The second day I was learning all the apps. The third day I was practicing everything I learned. Ever since then, I have just been bonding with it, playing and relaxing. For HOURS I might add.

Case in point: I was busy playing QuizUP given... get this... there's a game for DOWNTOWN ABBEY, FRIENDS, AND SEINFELD. Way up my alley. I've watched every episode of each of these shows, over and over and over again on re-runs so boom. I sorta knew what I was doing. Then there is a game for definition of words. And for spelling. Again, up my alley. After a couple of those games, I was then playing with the National Geographic's World Atlas, which could well be my alltime favorite app, and was STUNNED at how fascinating it is. I've always loved maps but this app is like a huge globe that zooms in wherever you want and its truly incredible. I am able to study countries all OVER the place. Countries about which I had no clue who was where.  

I was particularly intrigued with all the countries in the Mid East and or Africa. What really got me was how TINY so many countries that the U.S. has been involved in concerning their wars actually ARE. I was thinking: what?? Are these countries nuts? Croatia, Viet Nam, North Korea, Crimea, etc. are but mere SPECS on the globe. Why the hell are their HUGE neighboring countries even fighting them in the first place??? Leave these baby countries alone, for Christ sake. Have any clue how teeny tiny Israel is?? Plus... I had no idea that New Zealand was divided into two islands... north and south. Duh.  

Then, after God knows how long, I began playing with Photoshop and was having the time of my life. The camera on this iPad has been GREAT so far . But even greater are all the fantastic features I can use with Photoshop to switch up my pictures any way I want them to look. It's ingenious. There are ZILLIONS of choices in this app, too. Basically the only thing that's missing is a feature that will make me look 110 lbs. and about 30 years younger. Anyway... up above you can see one of my older pictures that I sorta played around with to create this super intense color. I totally have to frame it.

I even got brave the other day and actually video taped a monster wind storm that was occurring outdoors. Uh... come to find out, when I recorded and sent it out, I had the whole damn thing upside down, but now I know better. HOME BUTTON - ON MY RIGHT. Whew. Okay. I got that down pat now.

In the meantime, I don't necessarily do email on the iPad but obviously I could. I do check out QVC though, to make sure I'm not missing out on something that I totally don't need. I take this iPad everywhere, too. Today at the doctor's office Claudia and I were busy looking at all kinds of jewelry on Zappos.com. Then we were checking out eyeglass frames. I even logged into Huffpost to be sure the airplane didn't show up somewhere, afterall. Don't even get me started on THAT story, btw.


Anyway, suffice it to say that if you don't have a tablet of SOME sort, definitely go out and buy one immediately. It's absolutely a fantastic toy. Maybe even a necessity at this point for all we know. I guarantee... you will adore it.