It'stoodamncold

There you have it. One word. My reason for not doing a thing.

It'stoodamncold.

It was 8 degrees this morning. Eight. Eight. Unfrickingbelievable.

Yeah, yeah, I know that it was 31 in Miami this morning. It's been in the low 40s at night in the Keys. 31 is almost four times warmer than it is here, and 40 is five times.

I'm considering retiring and moving to the Keys without a job. It's five times warmer there at night. So we won't be able to pay the mortgage. The house in WV is locked in ice anyway. No one, including its owner, can get to it anyway.






I wish I could just leave. I won't because I'm too responsible to bail. But I'll think about it a whole lot.

Quick update

Two weeks in Florida, lovely (if somewhat cooler than usual) weather, work around The Cat House, lots of FaceBook time on the Crack (and utter irritation for several days when the Crackberry network was down and no one had told me about it) (by no one I mean RIM, of course, the people who own the company), walks around our new neighborhood, observing the wildlife, playing with grandkids, floating in a warm pool on Christmas night, three days of driving seven hours a day each way (my butt cheek gets numb, okay?), living in our place in the Keys, having to leave and come home, then the little surprise of finding 6" of ice and snow on our driveway in WV, two weeks after it snowed and over a week since a minor ice storm, not being able to drive up the driveway, cracking the front bumper of our less than 2-months-old Prius, getting stuck and having to walk uphill to the house in the dark in the snow and ice and 10 degree temperature with 40 mph winds while wearing clogs because one doesn't need real shoes in Florida even in the winter with no depth perception in the dark and faulty balance on a smooth surface on a sunny day while trying to balance several large tote bags on my shoulders and falling down and losing a clog while screaming "WHY ME?" (or something like that only a lot more profane) at the cold stars as I sat on the ice without one shoe not being able to balance enough to stand up to look for the damn shoe and Zippy had run ahead up to the house and was patiently barking at the front door for someone to let him into the nice warm house while I was crying and snotting without any tissues halfway up the driveway thinking that I was going to die within sight of my own house and no one would ever find me and a bear might eat my barely-frozen carcass and it's all because I can't move to Florida until we sell our house in WV or I get a good-paying job in Florida which isn't likely this time of year (either one) then the next morning I called the guy with the tow truck who came after daylight to pull the car out of the ditch (where I almost took out the side of the new car by getting this---------->close to a huge bolt on a fence post) then dragged my crap back down to the car after deciding that I was not going back to that house until the spring thaw or June, whichever comes first then still being stuck in the damn driveway about 6' from the actual road and spending half an hour trying to get the car that six feet while getting this------->close to the For Sale sign in the ditch by the road until a nice man took pity on me and pulled me out of the driveway and I will not go back to WV until I'm sure that I can make it up that damned driveway and last night my shoulder muscle spasmed and Betty had to help me to bed because it was agonizing to move and it hurt so bad I didn't sleep well even after taking some percocet or something like that so today I went to the doctor who prescribed a muscle relaxant that shouldn't make me dopey but sort of has so I'm going to go to Betty's house and take another one and see if I can sleep.

*deep breath*

Zippy and I are living with Betty for a while.

Today's weather

Here (lifted from NOAA's website):

Winter Storm WatchHazardous Weather Outlook

Today: Snow and sleet likely after 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 39. Calm wind becoming southeast around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total daytime snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible. Tonight: Snow, freezing rain, and sleet before 11pm, then freezing rain between 11pm and 3am, then rain or freezing rain after 3am. Low around 31. South wind between 3 and 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New ice accumulation of 0.2 to 0.4 of an inch possible. New snow and sleet accumulation of around an inch possible.


Aaaaannnnndddd at our place in the Keys:

Today: Sunny, with a high near 80. East wind between 5 and 10 mph. Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 74. South wind around 10 mph. Wednesday: A slight chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a high near 83. South wind between 5 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 10%.Wednesday Night: A slight chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 74. South wind between 5 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

So, where do you want to be?

Feeling definitely odd

So what's wrong with me? For three days I've felt like I'm just getting over a really bad case of the flu. You know how it is, when you've had a few days of ***TMI alert*** diarrhea and vomiting, and you're over the sick feeling but still all washed out? Yeah, that's how I feel.

I also felt similar to this a couple of years ago when I had that stomach bleed and needed 4 pints of blood and spent 4 days in the hospital, but there's no anemia or other evidence of internal bleeding (and believe me, I've kept an eye on things). If I bend over or stoop down and stand up too quickly, I start to black out. I feel like I can't get a breath deep enough, but I don't have any trouble breathing. Nothing hurts. I don't feel sick.

I just know that Something. Isn't. Right.

I've made a doctor's appointment for this afternoon (luckily she had a cancellation; I hate having a doctor who is so overbooked that you can't get an appointment for days even when you have a urinary tract infection) (I also hate having to wait a couple of hours because she's running behind, and she's ALWAYS running behind) and I hope to find out just what's going on.

Back to my usual whining

Cold all weekend. Cold, cold, cold. Not much sun.

Instead of finishing one of the big-ass wraps (I bought beads'n'stuff on Friday), I started another one, this one of Claudia's boucle in the Ink colorway. Let me tell you, Ink it is. My hands are black after knitting for a while, and it doesn't come off easily, either. This better be one stunning wrap, let me tell you.

Close-up of the fabric:

Very pretty, but very much a royal pain. I'd forgotten just how much I hate to knit with boucle. I should have used a bigger needle (I used size 10) and fewer stitches, but this stuff is such a bitch to rip out that I won't even attempt it.

I've got to come up with something to use to close them. I just don't like the big buttonhole and haven't had any luck finding suitable buttons, anyway. Even at etsy.com or ebay. I need 2.5" ones, and on those sites, "big" means 1.5".

I have to pack tonight; FLORIDA Wednesday night! Late Wednesday night! Just a carry-on! Horrors!

Life sucks today

Please pray that it's better tomorrow!

Autumn blues

I'm going to write about this and then try to forget it. Like that'll happen. But I don't want to go on and on all fall/winter/chilly spring about how much I hate cold weather, so I'll do it now and maybe get it out of my system.

I hate cold weather. I hate wearing coats. I hate wearing hats. I hate running to the car, shivering and swearing, before the sun comes up. I hate not seeing the sun before I go to work and only seeing it for an hour and a half after I leave work. I hate having to turn on the heat in the house and pay the ridiculous amounts the gas company will charge this winter (even though we keep the temperature around 66 degrees). I hate having to wear sweatshirt, t-shirt, sweatpants and heavy socks in the house, sometimes having to wrap up in a blanket to keep from freezing.

Poor Tom is already wearing a hat (that I knit) while we're home, and it's not that cold yet. He really feels the cold, while I'm always (almost) too warm. One would think that a post-menopausal woman would be happy with cooler temperatures. Not so in my case.

As the days get shorter, I can feel that ol' melancholia stealing over me, stealing my energy (what energy that I have), my motivation, my life. By December or January I'm ready to hibernate. I don't want to get out of bed. I hate wishing my life away, waiting for warm weather again. I feel like I'm just enduring six or more months of the year, waiting to feel alive again.

Thank goodness for trips to Florida to see my daughter and her family. Not only do I get a good dose of being MomMom (or Nanamarana, as last January), I get a dose of sunshine and warmth. Green grass, flowers blooming, trees with actual green leaves on them. Life. Sun. It keeps me from wasting away inside while waiting for warm weather at home. Even if it gets down into the low 30s at night while I'm there, I know that it won't last long, and even if I miss the nice, warm days, I know that they'll come back quickly, unlike in the mid-Atlantic states where it's winter for six months.

Thank God I have an understanding husband. It bothers him that I sleep so much, even in the warm weather, but that's my natural rhythm. Always has been, since I was born. I'm not finding that I need less sleep as I get older; for me, it's the opposite.

I've been diagnosed with Chronic Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Depression is so much worse in the cold times of the year, but increasing my antidepressant turns me into a zombie, so I just have to endure. I don't want to risk changing antidepressants; I don't have six months to live in bed while waiting for one to get out of my system and another to get in, then finding that it doesn't work well, and having to go through it again.

I will not miss the seasons. There are only two seasons I want to have: summer and almost-summer. If it never got colder than 60 degrees, I'd be a happy camper. I have to force myself to see the color changes in the leaves; I can acknowledge their beauty only after I've forced myself to notice that they're no longer green. Snow is beautiful when it's falling, but it soon gets grubby, and living on the side of a mountain isn't the best place to be in an ice or snow storm. Working on the other side of a mountain, where the roads are maintained by two states, one of which (and it changes) is always more on-the-ball than the other, is a royal pain when the roads are slippery. Tom's site never closes, no matter how bad the weather, and being the maintenance manager, he has to go in even if there's a foot of ice on the road (a slight exhaggeration). I work for the city schools, in a city where school is rarely closed due to inclement weather and only once in a while opens late. Doesn't matter. We leave home at 6 each morning, and if we hear that school has been cancelled or will open late, no matter. I'm on the way at the regular time anyway. The weather at home or on the mountain may be treacherous, but we chose to live where we do, so we have to deal with it.

I'll just have to endure. I'll have happy times; I won't mope around for the next six months. But I will complain about the cold weather, the short days, no warm sun. It's my nature. Again, thank God that Tom feels the same way about cold weather and wants to move south when we retire.

South, as in South Florida, where there's no (or maybe a tiny bit, once in 25 years) frost, where there's almost always sun (HOT sun), where most places are air conditioned so there's somewhere cool to go when it's too hot in the sun. Where we can grow tropical plants outside, not in pots that have to be dragged out in the spring and back inside in the winter where the poor things just endure until spring. Where we can see my grandkids and Tom's daughter (who was smart and moved to Ft. Lauderdale when she was 18). Where there's a beach within an hour's drive east or west.

Where maybe I can defeat this cold-weather melancholy and feel alive year-round.

Dentist

Let's get it out in the open right up front.

I fucking hate dentists. And I have an appointment in less than an hour.

When we were kids, we had an old dentist whose equipment was made in the mid to late 1800s. He was a sadist. He was 95 years old, couldn't see, and shook. Good qualities for a dentist.

He traumatized Betty and me so much that, as adults, we kind of... neglected to go to checkups.

Both of us were motivated to go back in the last few years by molars starting to break (some were nothing but filling; that old dentist was very liberal with the drill) and our dislike of pain. Broken molars hurt like a mofo. I ended up having two pulled because they came at a time that I simply couldn't afford to have root canals and crowns. By the time of the last incident two years ago, I had dental insurance (mostly worthless) and opted for a crown. No root canal. Yet.

So now my dental insurance (mostly worthless) will go up over 100% Oct. 1. The system has chosen the least expensive policy (mostly worthless) so we've decided to put away that money each month to use on dental bills. But till September 30, I still have insurance (mostly worthless) so Tom made an appointment for me to go in this morning. I won't make phone calls if I can avoid them and refused to go into the office to make the appointment myself.

Besides the sadist dentist we had as children, I dated a dentist who I'll call "Chip" (thinly-disguised) to protect him from angry patients who might read this. I've never met a man with more contempt for his patients. He bitched if they cancelled appointments because of illness, and he bitched if they didn't and came in and shared their germs.

It honestly makes me wary of all dentists.

So, I'm off to see the sadist wizard to see if he's any better than the others.

At least I still have dental insurance (mostly worthless).

The packing

Oh, the packing. I hate packing. I really hate trying to squish three weeks' worth of stuff into one little carryon with one personal item.

In order to get the laptop in, I'm going to have to take out some clothes. Not taking the laptop is not an option. Not. An. Option. I need it, like I need my knitting (and enough to keep me busy for 3 weeks) (and extra). I'm taking a giant leap of faith by leaving my Denise needles at home. Except the two that are in my current project, Tropical Tee. What if I finish that and don't have anything else to work on? Oh, yeah. I left some sock yarn at my daughter's house, so I can pick that up. I'll take out a bunch of books I'm taking to the kids, so that'll even out.

It's rained for four days, so the three tops that I'm trying to air-dry aren't air-drying. I guess they'll have to go in separate plastic bags so they don't mess up the other clothes in the suitcase. (Suitcase? It wouldn't hold a suit.)

Should I take out a bathing suit? I have two in there. But that would mean I'd have to try one on, and it's too humid to try to wrestle that thing over my hips.

I'm only *cringe* taking the sandals I'll wear and a pair of rougher shoes for the gold panning. Gotta have rougher shoes for that.

I haven't even put in a jacket yet. San Francisco was very cold when we were there 4 years ago (in June; that wind is wicked there) and we were wishing we'd taken jackets. It can get chilly at night in some parts of California (quit laughing, Californians. I hear it's been hot there this summer, what with all the fires and things, but I have to pack for every eventuality).

Books? I have the one I'm reading and one other. Never work. Two more should come in the mail next week; if they do, Tom can bring them with him.

I gave myself a hit-and-miss pedicure today; that should hold till I get back. I found this cool pen called Little White Lies that has white polish in it; it won't hold up to close scrutiny, but no one's going that close to my toes.

Taking medicines with me is a nightmare. I have to make sure I have enough for more than three weeks; I don't want to run out of xanax. I'm sure I'll need that. (How many times did Tom tell me to take one this weekend?)

I took everything out of my purse and scattered around my tote bag, my camera bag, and my knitting bag. I'll never find anything again. Now I have to gather the gels and liquids and put them in a quart-sized ziplock bag, if I can find one. Fortunately I bought philosophy bath and body products last time I was in Orlando and left them at J's house. When we get to California, one of the first things we'll have to do is stop somewhere and buy bath and body stuff to last while we're out there; I can't carry enough 3-ounce bottles to last two weeks! I need my Amazing Grace body-firming lotion! Crap, I can't buy that and then throw it away in an airport.

I've got to quit this rambling and get back to packing. I hate packing. Did I mention that?

The Stupids continue

What is it with my brain? Why can't I take a simple knit and purl pattern and just knit it, dammit?

There's nothing difficult about this thing. Nothing. N o t h i n g. So why can't I just get on with it?

True to form, I'm unknitting more than I actually knit. Claudia's gonna rip this baby out of my hands and forbid me to ever touch her yarn again. Yes, it's that bad. I should have finished it a week ago, but I'm still struggling with it.

If I tell you a secret, will you keep it? Promise? I discovered what I consider to be a pretty major flaw in my knitting last night, but I did not rip it out. Nope, I just struggled with my ocd-ness and let it go. Just breathe through it. Don't go back. Okay, it's probably not that big a deal, but I'm hoping that Claudia won't notice it. I think that I knit a few too many rows of double short rows, but it's symmetrical, so it should be okay. At least, that's what I tell myself.

You can't tell that I'm postponing picking that knitting back up, can you?

P. S.

We're home. There's also a big difference between 85 degrees and 40 raw, damp degrees.

Do I really HAVE to go home?

We spent the day in the truck, 14 hours' worth, which should have put us within a few hours of home. But it seems that the entire East Coast had spring break this past week and was heading home, too.

In front of us.


In back of us.


For hours the traffic was more parking lot than actual driving. If I hadn't had my knitting, I'd have gone insane, and I wasn't even the one driving. I was just along for the music and company.

Not only was the entire East Coast on I95 in Georgia and South Carolina, there were miles and miles of road work, which meant that at least one lane was closed for 30 miles or so, and which also meant that many of the idiots going home had to rush to the front of the closing lane and then push into one of the two available lanes. I did a lot of screaming and gesturing.

For some reason, this sign amused me; check the photo that follows it and you'll see why.




Heh. I have a sick sense of humor, and I needed that today. Poor Tom. He didn't complain. I did it all for him. See what a good wife I am?

To add insult to injury, it started pouring right around dark. We were really lucky; it was the first rain since we left home on Good Friday. But back to bad luck; everyone on the East Coast decided to call it a night and stopped at hotels. Every hotel at every exit for two hours was full. Every. Flucking. One.

But by that time, we were listening to XM radio's uncensored comedy channel and laughing ourselves silly. At least, I laughed myself silly. It was dark. I couldn't see to knit. So I laughed.

Finally found a hotel with one unrented room, and here we are.

I'm going to bed. Knitting content will follow when I'm able to get online again.

It's official

I have the flu. All day I've felt like crap and ached here and there. A headache comes and goes. I have chills. I want to throw up. I know you're fascinated.

The flu has been smiting people right and left for about a month, and up till now I've avoided it. I've had colds and bronchitis, but not this.

I just took my temp. Almost 101.

There goes my weekend.

(I guess it could be worse; my poor sister has pnuemonia!)

I've got the stupids again

Sometimes the simplest knitting pattern just won't make it through my gooey brain cells to the knitting neuron. Sometimes I just get stupid and knit purl knit purl--and nothing else--suddenly is Russian.



Okay, this pattern is not a difficult one, if my assessment of it is correct. There are no stitches other than knits and purls, no yos, no ssks, no cables. But my knitting neuron was evidentally turned off yesterday.



Hmmmm, that doesn't look quite right, does it? So let's rip it out to the ribbing and try again.



If I remember correctly, there are only 12 rows to the pattern. Most are simply "knit" or simply "purl". There are two that say "*k 12, turn, p6, turn, k6, turn, p6, turn, k6 p6, turn, k6* and repeat from *", and the other row is reversed with k6 at the start and k12 at the end.

From what I can sort of understand, this one row takes a while to knit, what with all those turns and going back over what was already knitted on that needle, but should almost all of the actual knitting end up on one needle? No. It means I made a mistake. Twice.

Patience at an end, several hours of prime knitting time wasted, sock frogged. Twice. And I'm looking for another "simple" pattern. It's starting to look like a ribbed sock is all I can manage. I'm afraid to even think of Pomatomus. The words might leap off the page and clog up that knitting neuron and kill me.

And that nice dark Santa Fe colorway isn't looking too good to me right now, either.

Get me out of here!

For the love of God, don't parents teach their little monsters to cover their mouths when they cough? I mean, this kid is in high school, he has a nasty something or other, probably the freaking flu since that's what several hundred others have had lately, and he's sitting here waiting for Mama, coughing away, spewing out germs by the million.

I've had enough. How much longer till I can retire and receive my full benefits? Less than 5.5 years, actually; 4.5 if I buy back that first year when I thought I'd never work for a school again so I took out the whole $160 that I'd contributed to the Virginia Retirement System. Now it'll cost $1250 to buy it back, but I'm thinking it would be worth every penny.

Ten degrees

That is all.

New Santa Fe hat

Please excuse the fuzzy photo. I'm too lazy to try to take another one.

See the difference in the gorgeousness when the number of stitches is changed? I used 88 stitches in the first one, I think, and decided that as long as it's going to be a bigger kid's hat, why not make it bigger on purpose? So I went with, I think, 106 stitches. Something like that. Still size 6, 16" addi turbos.

*whines* It's not pretty. The colors are still wonderful, but the placement isn't what I had in the smaller (ha!) hat.

I wonder what'll happen if/when I try to knit a me-sized sweater from this yarn. Am I doomed to stripes, or will it eventually, as the number of stitches/needle size is increased, sort of smooth out again?

I'm almost afraid to try.

Did I say stupid?

Have you ever heard your eyes move? It's really freaky.

It happened to me yesterday. It's happened before, when I started taking a new antidepressant or antianxiety drug, but I'd forgotten how bad it is.

I started out taking neurontin last Wednesday at noon. I took it Thursday at noon, too, then realized that it wasn't working out too well. I tried Friday at bedtime, but I was stupid by Saturday. I took it Saturday and Sunday evenings earlier, but by yesterday I was pretty much reduced to being a mouth breather. I could feel my IQ dropping.

I had an appointment with my allergist yesterday morning. For the first time he didn't insist that I have asthma. I kind of knew that because none of the many, many asthma medications he insisted that I try over the last few years worked, including albuterol. The tests that the pulmonologist sent me for a few weeks ago proved that I don't have asthma. Dr. Allergy finally said, "well, I guess you don't have asthma." But. There's one more test that I could take to see if I do, and Dr. God could do it. I nixed that idea fast.

So, Dr. Allergy went along with it and prescribed prednisone. I know it's bad bad bad for the body, but it clears up my stuffy nose and, best of all, my cough. Unfortunately, I can only take it for such a short time that the symptoms come right back. This time he prescribed it for a few days longer with a few days' worth of tapering off. Already, after one dose yesterday at lunch, I can breathe through my nose and I'm coughing less. It's a miracle drug.

But oh I was sick yesterday. I took the prednisone with lunch, and within half an hour I was so sick I could hardly sit, much less stand. Of course, that was my time to answer the phones in the main office, and there was no one who could "sit" in for me yesterday. I just hope that I gave the right meds to kids who came in for them. (I haven't heard of any deaths yet.)

That's when I could hear my eyes move. They swished. Loudly. I couldn't think. I had a big project to finish by 3, my laptop cord has decided it doesn't want to work for the school system any longer and I had maybe 3 minutes of power left before the laptop battery died, and people kept talking to me and expecting me to talk back. And make sense. I managed to make the changes I needed to make to the database I was working on, saved it to a cd and also emailed it to myself in case I needed to use another computer until I can get another power cord, and then the cord started working. (It's worked on and off today, and another one has been ordered. I love that the school system buys three-year warranties on its laptops, and even if it isn't covered by the warranty, they order parts without question.)

I called my after-school yarn job and begged off for my afternoon shift, all $10 worth of it. I hated to do it, but my eyes were swishing. I was afraid to attempt to pick up and walk with a 14-gallon stainless steel pot, and I'd probably mix up the dyes and really screw things up, so I very very very carefully drove the 4 miles to pick up Tom and we went home early. Luxury! Except that my eyes were swishing. And the sun flashing through the trees was absolutely painful.

Poor Tom wasn't feeling well either (but his eyes weren't swishing, thank goodness) so he went to bed at 6 p.m. I made it to 7:15. (I watched "Everybody Loves Raymond", which I rarely have a chance to see. Guilty pleasure.) I slept soundly till 1:30, and that was it. Ambien can't overpower prednisone's insomnia after 6 hours.

But this morning my eyes weren't making noises and I don't feel so bad. I haven't taken any meds yet either. I'll do that after I leave my yarn job.

And I'll pray that my eyes don't make any more noises.

Things I hate

1) Having to act like a semi-responsible adult. Making and having the money to do things I want to do is great, but it really sucks when I have to say goodbye to my grandbabies and see A crying as they drive away from the curb at the airport.

2) Crying. I always cry when I say goodbye to them. Good-type crying is okay, but even then I'd rather not, because my eyes puff up, my nose turns red and I'm stuffy for hours.

3) Getting up early. That means any time before noon. Unfortunately, school systems don't seem to want to accommodate my needs.

4) Going to bed early. Of course, since we get up before 6 to go to work, and since I need 10 hours of sleep to feel semi-human, I have to go to bed by 8:30 or 9, at the latest, on work nights. I still don't get enough sleep even when I go to bed by then, but it's better than coming straight home from work (we get home around 6-7 p.m.) and going to bed.

5) Having to work. I love my jobs, I love the money, I love the health insurance (when I'm not cursing the copays), I love what little retirement money it'll give me, but it would be so nice to be able to retire now. I think I have only 5 more years before I'll have enough time in with the schools, but since Tom still has 8 or 9 years, I'll probably keep working till then.

6) Cold weather. I really, really, really hate cold weather. I much prefer hot weather, and by hot, I mean not any colder than oh, 60 F for a few days in the dead of "winter" and at night. Even though menopause hit me with the hot stick and I can't stand to wear sweaters or even long sleeves most of the time, I'd much rather live where it's hot year-round. There's always air-conditioning. It's just as hot and humid in WV in the summer as it is in Florida, but there's no beach within a couple hours' drive, and the hot weather doesn't last long.

Okay, enough whining. Care for any cheese?

Oh yeah

Now I remember.

It's been 5 months since I dyed my hair last. Actually, I had it done in Ft. Lauderdale and paid much more than I usually would for something like that. So many hairstylists have ruined my hair color that for a long time I've done it myself, figuring that if it's going to be a mess, I might as well pay $8 instead of $40 (or, last time, $65).

The last one was worth it, though. My hair didn't end up brassy, and the color did pretty well for 5 months. It bleached out in the sun, but it still didn't get all red and nasty.

But, back to the real world. After 5 months it really needed some help. Two inches of roots that aren't the same color as the rest; just not that pretty. So, since school pictures will be taken tomorrow, I decided to bite the bullet and color it myself yesterday.

I waited till yesterday because I didn't want it to lighten in the sun over the long weekend. But oh, how I wish I had a week in the sun before those photos tomorrow.

I followed the directions--put on the roots first, then all over for the last 5 minutes. I timed it. I did not do a strand test; I know what my hair will do. All too well.

It still shocks me when I look in the mirror. The roots are a dark reddish-brown; the rest is black cherry. I was aiming for a medium-to-dark brown. I missed.

I love black cherry. Just not at school-picture time. I've dyed my hair red before, but most of the time it was on purpose.



For a fuzzy, more realistic look at the color:


*Sigh*

And my hair used to be much thicker on top.