Madly Cutting Hair

Sunday, October 16th 2011

This morning I woke-up way too early. Steve was still on duty and I wondered if all the chores could be done on time and get myself together enough to look at the very least "pulled-together" for church. I was so busy yesterday and was in a crunch that I washed my hair and didn't even bother to comb it. That's not really a bad thing if you live in the country. I sometimes go out and feed the animals and do the chores in my flannel nightgown. Who's going to see me?

I had let my hair dry naturally and Saturday was my day to help my mother, except I needed to go to my niece's birthday party and wanted to help my mother-in-law go to the party, too. As expected, I felt I couldn't leave. My car is so high and my mom had said that she wasn't up to go to a party. I called Marnie to pick-up my mother-in-law and she promptly said, "You are going!" I knew that meant that was a "no if, and, or buts" statement.  I quickly took my mother lunch and hurried back to the house. My hair? I couldn't go like this. I brushed it and thought that it was so strange that my hair actually looked like I had spent a lot of time on it. I was extremely puzzled. It didn't look "GOOD" just the same! I wore my glasses on my head and went to the party, then back to my mother's, and then out to do all the chores. Home.

This morning I looked again in the mirror, there was no change. I thought if my hair looks like this all time even if I don't do anything, why bother. I went back to bed because I was freezing and it was only 4:00 am. I wondered if my daughter Larin had put more pictures up and there on my Android Tablet in the dark I opened Facebook, and there was Larin's dear friend Ashley. She had put pictures up of her little girl, it was a whole bunch of hours difference in time because her family lives in England. Little Chole is maybe five years old and she had a new haircut. The amazing thing is that she cut it herself and it looked so cute. I should have looked closer and at all the pictures

A light-of-an-idea popped in my head and I got up. What if I just cut my bangs? I found the scissors and all my hair grooming tools and set them out. I already had set-out my clothes for Sunday, so I crawled back into bed and promptly fell asleep.

I awoke to banging on my back kitchen door. I leaped-out of bed to find that it was not only 8:15, but Steve was at the door and I didn't have enough time to do much of anything but rush madly on getting ready for church. Oh, I let him in. I got in the shower with a shower cap, hurried on a robe, and proceeded to cut my bangs. This is what I learned this morning.

THE RULES FOR CUTTING YOUR OWN HAIR: (if you're not a trained professional)

1. Do not cut your hair when you are mad.
2. Don't let others influence your decision. Like a cute little five year old darling little girl. And never make decisions before the sun comes up.
3. Try and stay calm. Do not spin!
4. Use sharp scissors. Use dull scissors and you won't make HUGE mistakes.
5. Do not keep trying to make it even, or right... by continuing to cut.
6. Lifting eyebrows may cause unwanted eyebrow removal
7. Lifting eyebrows may cause a person to think that hair needs to come down to eyebrow level, but are your eyebrows lifted? Always make your face in the normal expression.
8. Remove all cut hair-strands from your face so you don't look like the bearded-lady.
9. Don't leave the hair straightener, hair curlers, or curling iron on.

This rule is for me: Walk with head down and wear bright orange lipstick with gloss so if anyone sees me they will think either that woman has shiny lips or she's really "with" the Fall/Autumn/Halloween season.

So, my dear children you wanna' a picture

of my cut bangs? Look in the photograph above

and there's some blond hair at the bottom left 

below the scissors and next to the blue comb.

We sat in our usual place at church with our daughter and grandchildren. I held the hymnal high and while I was contemplating all my short-comings during the Sacrament, my thought processes went from, I cut my hair really bad. (Oh, so vain) and I remembered, "Oh no!"  "I didn't shut off the hair curler."

I whispered low to my fireman husband, "I left the curling iron on at home." He said, "Oh." No expression of panic or concern on his face. I knew already that many, many fires have been started that way. The Sacrament time was over and before the youth speaker... he rose and slid-out the side-door. We live about a mile from the church building. He was gone forever!

The talks were about keeping the Sabbath holy. It was high counsel Sunday and I was sorry I had keep my husband away. So many times he misses his Sunday meetings from his firefighting duty, so he treasures being able to come to church.

I found-out he had heard all of the talk, but more than that, he was working in the hallway at church. We have two dogs and four puppies. We have a ba-zillon cats. We watch where we walk, always. Look down.

The brand new asphalt church parking lot was one place my husband didn't think to look and promptly stepped on a nice steaming present from a neighbor's dog in the church parking lot.

My dear husband had been in the custodial closet with ever bit of carpet cleaning equipment available and had been trying to quickly rush to clean the whole entire hallway of his big, foot, print tracks. He then quickly washed his boot with some fancy other Amway cleaner and shined it and used cleanser and bleach on every bit of surface that he had used to clean his boot. Firemen do that. He had heard the talk and I'm sure he was thinking how ironic it was that he was working fast and hard to make things right and smelling lovely before church was dismissed.

Steve sat down before the closing prayer and I knew he was out of breath. He leaned in and said to me, "Your hair-curler wasn't on at home." I must have looked surprised because he never sits in the foyer. He related what he had been doing and then we started to sing. "Lead Kindly Light." Have you ever thought one little mad moment could cause all of this? Maybe it was the way he told me the story, but I started giggling and couldn't quit, and even laughed a bit aloud. Weird though, the left-side of the congregation was laughing harder than me. I didn't know it, but everyone, everyone was singing off-beat and off-key. Perfect. I wasn't the only one who had the fidgets.

Today, as we left our meetings. I felt like I had been taught a lot. There were great lessons about our Sundays and The Great Plan of Salvation. And..there so much hope for me, even me .... to make it to heaven. Lastly, even if you have super beautiful hair, look down or at least have one eye scanning the ground and stop, and stand tall, and smile because you didn't fall-down or step-in something that well...causes a mess. Now, Steve needs a rest. I need a nap.