The Trees are Confused

Fornleap day all of the Bradford pear trees in town decided to bloom. This is at least two to four weeks early. I saw a couple of redbud trees thinking about it too.

Yes it was 70 degrees today and warmer even tomorrow. Oh my.

My New Haircut

Friday I used my groupon for a haircut/color. It was probably in the top five of worst salon experiences I've ever had. The color and cut are fine; it was the overall experience that was the problem.

First my appointment was at 4 and was going to take about 3 hours (which seemed way too long). Right before I left work I got a call saying she was going to be late because the person ahead was taking longer and it would be 4:30-5 for my appointment. I thought she said 4:35 so I left work at 4:15 to get there. I waited until about 5:15 to even get to her station. (STRIKE ONE) 

I had told her on the phone I wanted a reddish brown color. When I got there she thought I wanted highlights and then she was just going to try and match the color on my head. Not what I wanted. I finally convinced her I wanted RED BROWN. Then she had to do something to "deactivate" all of the box color from my head. She had told me on the phone she needed to do that but didn't tell me she was going to charge me $10 because that was a "separate" application than the offer. (STRIKE TWO).

So I got "deactivated" then had to get that all dry before she could color. Then she mixed up the color. By this time everyone else in the salon was leaving. My hair took more than one bowl of color so she had to mix up 1/2 a bowl (another $5). She wasn't even coloring it to the end because I had decided to get three inches cut off. Finally got that all in and then sat there for 30 minutes under the dryer. It is now 7:30 and I'm starving. Dan is texting me wondering where I am since I had told him I would be home around 7. I had to tell him that she hadn't even starting cutting yet.

Finally got to the haircut. I don't know what kind of haircut doesn't need to have the part right to start the cut but she wouldn't part it where I wanted it until after she did the cut. By this time I was fed up. This was not the relaxing fun experience I wanted. She dried my hair and was going to do my bangs after that. She cut them once and I said they were fine but they weren't. I just wanted out of there. I cut them at home myself to the length I wanted. I also had to trim the length in places because it was so off. I got home at 9pm. That means I was there for over 4 hours. There is no way that a haircut and color should take that long. (STRIKE THREE)

I have written groupon about the problems I had. If the extra charges had been stated in the ad I would never have bought it. I think I won't complain about coloring my hair at home anymore.

My self portrait

Friday Fragments - Two Months Down?

Yes! It's time for Friday Fragments. I had to collect my thoughts to put this one together so it is actually lunchtime as I write this. Normally I'm more organized.

**Yesterday I went to a conference for research administrators across our state. You know the keynote speaker is good when he pops this video into his presentation and we all know the feeling.

**The speaker also used a new presentation software that I had never seen and it looked so cool. It's called Prezi and it makes Powerpoint look like it was from the 1950's.

**Torture Physical Therapy is going well. I have figured out I am not supposed to wear my elbow brace all the time because it is actually making other muscles get worse. So I have to find a balance.

**Today is the day for the big haircut/color. I am definitely getting a change but still be age appropriate. Pictures will be posted.

**I've been playing Words with Friends on my ipad and I really suck at it. I was never good at scrabble and it shows. I finally had to give up one game when I was down 300 points. If anyone wants to play, I'm treinke65.

**I'm excited about a post that I've already written but can't post for another 2 weeks. Let's just say it involved bacon.

**Can you believe that it is almost March? That means 1/6 of 2012 is gone.

**How many people do you think will remember that we have an extra day this February? I know I'll notice because it means one more day to wait to get paid.

Cow Creek

Yes, that's the name of a creek I drove over today while going to a meeting in another town. I just had to laugh. When I drove over it on the way out of town I saw cows. Not just any cows, but Belted Galloways. I had never seen these before. They are black with a huge white stripe in the middle.

I thought I had seen every cow before.

National Parks

This week's hodgepodge had a few questions that I didn't have any answers to so I just picked one to write about.

Do you make it a point to visit State/National Parks when you travel or even in your own hometown? What's your favorite?


National parks...that's what we do. I think I've been to almost all of the major ones (Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Tetons, Glacier, Great Smokey Mountian, Acadia, Olympic, Redwoods. Grand Canyon). The two biggies left are Yosemite and Denali. We'll get Denali done this summer and Yosemite will probably be in the next five years.

So what's my favorite? They are all so different. The first one is probably my favorite for various reasons: Rocky Mountain. I was pregnant and it was the first real vacation Dan and I took where we weren't seeing family. We've been back a couple of times and it still is beautiful.

Olympic was cool because it looked like a scary movie set with all the moss hanging everywhere and it rained which always we laugh at because of course it rained...its a rain forest.


Grand Canyon we were at in the winter and there was snow all around. Glacier was foggy so we didn't see much...may have to go back there.

Yellowstone/Tetons were very nice. We've been there a couple of times and Dan has fallen in love with Tetons. The wildlife is great in late May/early June. The buffalo were so funny; they were jumping (I had never seen anything like that before and we have buffalo everywhere here).


My least favorite was Great Smokey Mountain. We found it covered in graffiti, trash and just a general sense of lack of respect from the people visiting. Perhaps it was because we had been in the big mountains and these seemed small. Perhaps it was just an East Coast bias that we have and the touristic nature of surrounding cities. I know many people who love it but it isn't for us.

What I'm looking forward to: DENALI!!!!! I so hope that we have clear weather so we can see Mount McKinley and we see lots of wildlife. I can say that I've seen most of what they have there in national parks already except for the grizzly. The bears at Yellowstone were much smaller. We plan on doing a flight over Denali and hopefully the mountain too. I will have so many pictures it will be hard to narrow them down. But oh what fun that will be.


None of these pictures are mine but aren't they beautiful! 

What would you pay?

My drawer handle fell off at work Friday. I wrote the furniture place and they told me they could put a work order in for it. $20/hour minimum 2 hours. Or I could wait until they have someone in the area and they will stop by. I said I would wait. I can still get into it.

Would you pay $40 to fix this? I would do it myself but its got some funky screw system on the inside that you can't reach unless you have a special tool.

Rainbows

I love that seeing a rainbow brings a smile to my face. This was the view out my window at work this afternoon. That's a great way to end the work day!