All in a day's weather...

This morning's temperature was in the high 80s. Before the morning was half over, we had pouring rain and a cool front moved in, bringing the temperature into the 60s. Gatsby, our outside cat, has been in the garage all day, curled up on his fleece pillow which is inside a blanket-covered cat crate. He will come out on the porch to eat, run into the field to take care of his necessities, and then run back into the garage.

The chickens are not thrilled with the weather. When it was raining, they were underneath the cottage or inside the coop-- and not happy with either location because I could hear them clucking in there. I guess once they got used to having run of the property during the day, they don't much like not being able to go wherever they want to go... and they don't like to get their feathers wet in the rain. (Sounds like me. I stayed home all day because of the pouring rain.)

I went into town yesterday and tried a new hair-stylist, recommended to me by one of the neighbors. I got to the salon half an hour earlier, intent on looking through the hair-do magazines they always have in those shops...... after 15 minutes of looking at every style on every page, I found exactly the style I wanted. I showed the stylist the picture and told her to cut my hair one and a half-inch longer than what she thought I would need for that particular hair style. "Are you sure?" Please trust me on this, I told her.

And she did.... and cut my hair longer than she wanted to... and when she blew it dry, it was perfect. Just like the picture, just what I wanted... and she was surprised that the slightly longer cut worked with my hair. (Well, it's my hair-- I know what works and what doesn't.) It's been years and years since I went into a salon and let them wash my hair and cut it wet, but I knew that's what I needed this first time with the new stylist.

This is only the second time I've gotten my hair cut since we've moved. The first time, I tried one of the other places (a "chain" salon) and even though it looked okay when I went out the door (she cut it dry, as I asked her to), by the end of that week, I knew it hadn't been trimmed the right way and every week thereafter it got more and more out of control. But the weather was hot, my hair was getting longer, and I just put it up with one of those big clippy-things when I was at home. Not exactly what I wanted to do with my hair, but it worked. When I went out, I blew it dry and hoped for the best, but the style just wasn't right.

One of our neighbors (also just moved in here) tried this new place, and the same girl, and her hair cut was great-- shorter than what I wanted for me, but I could see that she got a very precise cut. So I went to the same girl...... and was so pleased that I've already made another appointment for next month. I asked her if she would trim it dry from now on, because all that she'll have to do is "kiss the ends with the scissors," as they call it here, and that will keep on working as long as I want to keep the same style.

And this style just works for me, works well with my hair, and I don't care how many years I keep it because I've had it for years now and it's just me. I've tried to go shorter, tried to grow it longer... nothing else works as easily and looks quite as good as this style does. Why fight it? Even with today's wet and drippy weather, my new hair cut is just fine-- a little wavy because of the weather, but because of the perfect cut, it looks like it was meant to be this way.

Next on the agenda here will be to try a new dentist. I've already found a dental office in town that looks professional on the outside, and isn't in a strip-center. If the inside looks as good as the outside, and if the people working there are as professional and as up-to-date as I'd like them to be, then I'll be happy to go there every three months for a cleaning. I do not want to be driving into Clear Lake and back just to get my teeth cleaned. I had such a good dentist there..... she's going to be hard to top, but I'll give it a try.