Green Hair

My hair is green, one of my favourite colours, second after purple. 

It's even brighter in real life.

In fact, it has been since just before the Easter break. It started off quite bright green and has since been toned down to a darker green for work. Right now it is bright green again, but I am part way through the dyeing process and it will be getting a coat of UV turquoise dye (Stargazer) which will mute and cool the colours somewhat. 

It takes bleaching it twice and layering the colours to get them how I like. My fringe has blue tips that I can't bleach out from when I had violet hair, which gives my hair sort of a gradient to blue in places. The colours I usually use are Pine Green by Renbow Crazy Colours, Apple Green by Directions and usually Tropical Green by Stargazer but this time I am using the UV dye because I am going clubbing on Friday and I want hair that will be a bit special under the UV lights (black-lights). 

Terrible lighting and bad flash - webcam photo.
Even with the harsh flash, it should be clear that it's a lot darker.

I have an older photo of my hair the last time it was darker green, to show what it is supposed to be like. It has since been cut again so that it is a bit more practical as it was growing out to be long enough to get in my eyes and be a bother. 

Short Hair

In early to mid December, I had my hair cut the shortest it has ever been. At the front there is enough length to frame my face, but at the back there's less than 2 inches of the stuff (and that's now, with about a month's re-growth) and dyed it my favourite colour - a bluish violet.

This is quite a drastic change, considering I had long hair down to my bust before (not the longest it has been - it was once down to my waist) and that the previous shortest hair-cut was ::this one::. There are many reasons for the drastic cut. On a practical level,  there were several good reasons. I work with small children (mostly 4-6yr olds), and some of them are inclined to tug my hair to get my attention, or end up flicking or splattering stuff into it when doing messy activities, and so it seemed more practical to have short hair. I also wear wigs quite often, and it is easier to tuck shorter hair under a wig than longer hair. Long hair takes longer to dry, uses more dye and is harder to keep tidy and look after, etc. 

Another reason was because I felt the shorter hair-style would make me look and feel a bit more mature. I've had long hair since I was a little girl, with a few attempts to stick to a shorter style, but generally, it has been long, and I felt that this was a look that would move drastically away from that and have me looking more sophisticated. I've moved on a long way in life in the last few years, both in distance and in knowing what I want to do in life. Now, I feel like I have regained direction as well as made progress. 

I've had so many conflicting ideas of what to do as a career, all I have known is that going back to studying is something I have to do, and it has been hard picking which of my varied interests and passions coincide best with my skills and would be best developed into something I could see myself working in for a long time. As a teen, I was dead set on architecture, but for varying reasons ended up thinking I would be happier as an artist/illustrator, and that's what I worked towards at college - in the end, though, I tried that and found that working in art killed my passion for what I was doing, and I wasn't enjoying it. For a while I thought about teaching, but I don't think I have the right attributes for that. Now, I feel like I was right to begin with. Sometimes you have to try something to know it isn't actually what you're meant to do. 

Cutting hair short seems to often be a rite of passage for other people, a symbol of cutting away parts of their old self with their hair. It has been the same for me. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! 

Bonne Année! 

(In French because of the HouseCat's French connections and family) 

Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhaoibh!

(Irish Gaelic, in honour of Raven's family)

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

(In Welsh, thanks to Raven who lived most of his life in Wales)

Bliadhna Mhath Ùr dhuibh uile!

(Scottish Gaelic  because I live in Scotland)

I celebrated the solar New Year 11 days ago -the Solstice - as I am Pagan. I hope the festive season has been good for all of you, with that covering everything between Thanksgiving and Imbolc! (More festivities to be had!) I hope you had a good time, whatever it is you celebrate, from Solstice to Christmas to Festivus to New Year. Also feel free to contribute what festive greetings are like in your native language if it isn't already here. Next Year might be a bit more diverse!

I'd like to hear about what my readers did - if you have blogged about it, link in the comments, or if not, feel free to tell me about it. 

Have a picture of me at my Dad's house, feeding my over-sized cat Kuro from the palm of my hand. I went to England for a week to visit my family and friends there, and went on a plane for the first time that I know of (I think I may have been on a plane as a baby, but I was too young to know what was going on) despite being terrified! I have conquered my fear of airports and aeroplanes! I had a quiet Christmas with my Dad, and a busy week visiting everyone I knew within in a 20 mile radius of my Dad's house, which is a LOT of people. I got mostly chocolate as festive gifts, so my New Year's resolution to eat more healthily is not starting well...