Let’s take a trip in the Way-Back Machine, shall we?  I’m very bored, so I’ve been poking around in some old (OLLLLLLD) photos that N scanned into our Flickr account and I am shocked by a few things:      

There are a few items of note in this photo, circa late 2000.  First off, is that hair?  On top of N’s head?  Why yes, I do believe it is.  And notice the height difference between him and Bill, eight years his junior.  They’re the same height now (give or take), but I still think of Bill as that hyper 12-year-old that he was when N and I first started dating.  (Even though he’s 23 now and getting married in June.  GAH.)

Oh look, another sibling photo from the same year.  Obviously this is me and my sister.  Aww, aren’t we cute?  And so young-looking!  That shirt I have on is major fug, but I do wish I still had those Doc Martens.

This photo is just for comparison purposes.  It was taken on Christmas Eve, 2009.  I think we’re getting better looking with age, if I do say so myself.  (She’s actually only about 2 inches shorter than me.  I was wearing 4-inch heels.)

My, my, my.  This was our engagement dinner, so sometime in spring 2000 I would guess.  (Surely I am not expected to remember that specific date, am I?  I hope not.  I do remember the date of our actual engagement, of course.  Because it was my 21st birthday.)  I do have to wonder who we’re all listening to in this picture.  My mom clearly finds the conversation most amusing.  And we all seem to have an eerie white glow to our faces.  (Also pictured:  my grandma’s skeletal old lady hands.)  But the main thing with this picture?  MAH HAIR.  LOOK HOW BLONDE IT WAS, before it turned all dark thanks to PREGNANCY and AGE.  WAH.

Relatedly, I have to admit that I’m getting a leeeeeeetle tired of maintaining my hair color.  I still love the shade (Blowout Burgundy, which is redder than the Chocolate Cherry I used when I first dyed it back in August) but it’s very extreme from my natural color.  And as my stylist, Celeste, pointed out, blonde roots are almost as obvious as gray ones.  Which means that in order for it to look right, I really should touch it up about every 3.5 weeks AND do a full re-dye about every 2 months (and that requires 2 boxes of dye because my hair is so thick).  Bah.  It’s getting expensive, but I know it will be a good chunk of change to get it back to where I started.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess.  I’m not planning on leaving it this color forever, so I suppose it may be time to bite the bullet and pay Celeste the big bucks to return it to the dark blondish-brown it was before, so that I don’t have to worry with all of this root touch-up baloney.

This is where I started…

Then I went with the Chocolate Cherry…

Then got a little more adventurous with Blowout Burgundy.  And like I said, I still LOVE the shade, but oy.  The maintenance, it buuuuuuuuuuuuuurns.  I really would prefer to not have to deal with the roots all the time, because when push comes to shove, I am incredibly lazy.  And cheap.

But it’s awfully damn tempting to take in a picture like this one and tell Celeste that I want my college hair color back.