I need hair help!

I did it! I finally screwed up the courage and I did it!

I have officially fired my hair stylist.

Well, if you consider calling the shop when you know she's not going to be there and leaving a message that she may or may not get telling her that you are cancelling your next appointment, firing. Well, then, she has been fired!

So technically that's probably not a firing so much as a wimpy way to cancel an appointment. But I knew if I tried to cancel when she was working she was just going to convince me to reschedule and then I was just going to have to call and cancel when she wasn't there anyway so I figure I saved us all a step.

And I'm not too worried. I'm pretty sure she will get the message. And if she doesn't and ends up sitting there waiting on me, well then, I figure that's what she gets for all those times she made me sit there and wait for her to finally arrive without so much as an apology. Hmmph.

So "firing" or whatever it is you want to call what I did to my hair stylist was step one.

Step two was the next big hurdle. Finding a new hair stylist is always complicated.

I don't want to use someone that a good friend or family member uses because what if I don't like the work they do and then this person questions why I'm not going back to their stylist.

I don't want them wondering why their stylist is good enough for them but not good enough for me. What makes her so special that she can't use my stylist? You know, things I'm sure they would be thinking . Things that even if they weren't thinking, I would be thinking they were thinking. And then every time we were together I would be wondering if they were wondering why I wasn't using their stylist.

I don't need a strained relationship over a hair stylist.

But I am thinking that maybe I need a hobby because it seems like I've got lots of spare time on my hands to sit around thinking about what other people may or may not be thinking about.

Where was I?

So I had been contemplating my next move for several weeks when the mothers of one of the kids on the t-ball team came to practice one evening with a really cute short hair cut. This was perfect! I had known this woman briefly prior to the t-ball season and am friendly with her, so I didn't feel like a weirdo asking her where she got her hair done.

There is this one mom with the absolute cutest hair do I have seen in a long time and I had tried and failed on several occasions to start a conversation with her so I could casually ask her about her stylist. I had to stop myself a couple of times from running up to her and gushing about her cute hair and asking who did it and were those highlights natural?

Because y'all, everyone knows it's not polite to ask a complete stranger where she gets her hair done and certainly not to ask if her highlights are natural.

And I really don't want to become known as the annoying t-ball hair stalker mom. I annoy enough people on a regular basis without adding annoying t-ball hair stalker mom to the list.

So I got the information from the other mom and made the call. The new stylist was friendly on the phone, she works very flexible hours and she is priced the same as my evil other stylist.

I am scheduled for highlights and a new cut on Friday morning at 8:30.

So now step three is trying to decide what kind of cut I want. Normally "cut" for me means a trim off the ends of my Marcia Brady hair. But I think after keeping my hair long for over 3 years I am ready for a cut - a style even!

My hair lends itself to a bob and not much else. I have been told by many stylists that I have a lot of hair but that it's fine. And I don't mean fine the way a guy may come up to you in a bar and say, "Oh mama, you are looking fine tonight!". I mean fine as in thin, limp, stringy. So it normally doesn't do much on my head except hang there.

In the past when I have been ready for a new style, I go to the grocery store and buy a few of those over priced hairstyle magazines, flip through them and wish that I looked like Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson or one of the other stars wearing the latest hair trends. And then I take the magazine to the stylist and get a hair cut and oddly I don't ever even remotely resemble Jennifer or Kate or Gweneth or Reese....

So I was wondering, where do you guys look for new hairstyles? Should I hurry in to the grocery store before my cut on Friday or is there some better place to look?

I need hair help! Where do I turn? What should I do?