chop chop

I need a haircut.  There was a time in my life when I would get my hair trimmed every 6 weeks.  I'd want to do it after 4, but I'd force myself to wait it out 2 more weeks.  Now?  It's been a while.  Like....12 weeks or more.  Back during the "every 6 weeks" time of my life, I had short hair.  I had to keep it in check, lest I begin to look like Justin Beiber.  Back then, people didn't purposely want to look like that.  It was also before the recession.  And by "the recession," I mean Bubba. 

Having a child is expensive.  Having two in daycare is like paying for a new car every six months.  Coincidentally (or not), I started growing my hair out.  That pushed the trims out to once every 8 weeks.  Even then, it was hard to justify the expense - both time and money.  Before, I was working around my schedule and Scooter's schedule to make hair appointments.  It suddenly became my schedule, Scooter's schedule and Ben's schedule (if Ben wasn't available, who would watch Bubba?!). 

Plus, no matter the genius of my hair dresser (and she was awesome!), I've found that no amount of "wash and go!" styles can make a new mother look good.  At least not for a year or so.  There's just no "me" time involved in new-motherhood, and I was one of the lucky new moms who lost all her hair - in clumps.  So there you are, spending hard-earned money on a hair style that won't really make you feel human.  But it's really as close as I could get, so I kept at it.  After we went down to one child in daycare again, the $ expense was a little easier to justify (for me, at least).

And then something else happened to derail my regular hair appointmets.  I moved.  It's hard finding a hair person you can trust.  It's even harder when your hair is like mine:  Asian-ish (so...thick strands) but frizzy with some curls (nape of my neck and around my hairline plus random waves in spots throughout) and all around unruly - not really "asian" enough to go to someone who knows what they're doing with Asian hair, but not "white" enough to stick to the strictly caucasian specialists. It usually takes a professional a few haircuts to really get a hang of what's going on up there.  Erin (my Omaha hair dresser) was fantastic.  She "got" it after the first cut.  How do you go from that to the unknown world of Oregon hair dressers? 

I thought when I first moved here that I'd find lots of great places.  Bigger city, west coast chic, etc.  But really, it's overwhelming.  I don't want to go to the most expensive place (see my tirad above about expenses), but in my adult life, I've never had a good experience at one of those cost cutter type places.  So I'm shopping around.  Slowly.  As in...I'm not really getting my hair trimmed, anymore.  Ben and I joke that I have quickly become a granola crunching, plaid wearing "Portlander," so I guess it would follow that I'd quit cutting my hair (along with shaving my legs or underarms) and really embrace this mess I'm in.