"No reading at the breakfast table"

Then: April 2012 I'm very excited.  It's taken 1 year and 9 months of waiting and waiting and I've now got just grey/white hair.  It might seem strange that this is exciting to someone with so few years under the belt (ha, ha), but after the skunk, two-tone deal I'm glad to get to the end of the process.  Now I'm hoping that my ageing will plateau (for like, about 20 years!).  The rest of you can catch up later! Now: January 2014 I am really happy with the outcome.  I like the colour - it's quite white at the back and underneath so it looks almost blond sometimes (I tell myself …).  And I love that I don't have to do anything to it that involves hours of my spare time.  So many more books can be read instead! You can read more about my hair journey:  starting , the  skunk stage  and the  half-way  mark!

Starting to decorate the grey I've been a bit quiet here because I haven't got anything much to share that can be tied together into something coherent. We've got over the initial hump of the start of the year - starting a new school, getting into the routine of a new timetable for myself, Rowan going away a lot during January and February, kids mostly sorted with their extra curricular mayhem. This week I've felt quite tired.  I woke up this morning and couldn't believe it was only Wednesday - yawn.  So weary.  And a very long term still ahead... Term time is just powering through from week to the next.  At the moment my head is feeling a bit sore as we try to work out how to incorporate the use of iPads into our teaching.  It is interesting and challenging but like all things new, can start to make your head hurt after a while.  I do enjoy pushing myself with using new technology in teaching (certainly doesn't come naturally) and I think it is ...

This is what my hair looks like today.  Weird hey?  This going grey thing is quite fascinating - if you're OK with looking slightly strange for months on end.  I think the worst bit was actually the first few months when people are wondering if you're going to do anything about those terrible roots.  But now it's kind of clear that I'm not. I'm aiming to keep growing it until it is long enough to tie back.  So probably a few months to go.

A few weeks ago my friend Katie came over and took some gorgeous photos of our family.  We like send our supporters a prayer card for their fridges every few years. One of the more sensible photos. Then it descended into 'silly' photo time. Yes, I have large mouth ...! And here's the photo that I am providing for you specially my blog friends, to see what my hair looks like from the side with my grey/brown stripy thing going.

Grey hair transition (aka my mid life crisis) update. 2 months 3 months 4 months 7 months I'm getting quite fond of my new hair even though I still have a long way to go (my hair obviously grows very slowly). It is mostly salt and pepper on top and white on the sides.  I guess it will just keep on changing.

O dear.  5 months in - NOT looking good at all :( None of the people I work with have asked me about my hair yet.  I am very impressed with their diplomacy!  The kids however - hmm, not so much ...

   If you've been following my blog you'll know that I've started the journey of letting my hair grow out to it's natural colour (ie. grey).  I needed this book and I wasn't disappointed. It's not a heavy book but I found it so refreshing and frankly, encouraging. I'm at the 4 month point which is not looking all that great.  I often used to straighten my hair to make my hair neater for work but I just can't do it with my giant streak of grey.  And I'm resisting going the pixie look because I do think that will age me very quickly (and plus it is winter and I don't want a cold head!). Anne Kreamer has a very similar story to mine.  She started to colour her hair in her early 20's and at 49 decided that she no longer wanted to keep up her three weekly hair appointments.  She saw a picture of herself standing with her teenage daughter and a peer with natural coloured hair and thought she looked like a fraud. Anne uses her experience of...

First week back into the normal routine.  Boy, is that a shock to the system or what?  But I still feel that deep down I have some reserves of energy from my holiday that should get me through a few more weeks. What have I been thinking about?  That when we got home from holidays our house was reasonably tidy, but half an hour later it wasn't.  Seven people started pulling out stuff, using stuff, crafting, dressing uping, legoing, eating, undressing and then there was mess.  At least I know who to blame now! My grey hair is flourishing away and I keep seeking inspiration wherever I may be (as an aside - I've also discovered that silver jewellery is the way to go - it looks great with gray hair).   This may seem like an unlikely source of inspiration but last night at a NSW state music camp concert (250 kids from Years 5-8 from state schools around NSW) I looked around at all the parents - who were exactly like me - and lots of the mums had grey hai...

Well, who knew that the discussion on hair colour would generate such interest?  Not me, but it must be something that we're thinking about or at least got an opinion on.   I think I'm going to do it.  I want to let it grow out and see how I look.  I have to be brave and push through.  Everything I've read says that you start to get the wobbles at about the 4 month mark when the stripe becomes really obvious (I'm almost at 3 months since I last coloured it). You can see that mine is looking pretty obvious now but I usually tie my hair back so that hides it pretty well a lot of the time.  I might cut it short depending on how it looks by the end of the year.  But I do like having long hair (predominately because I'm lazy). Jamie Lee Curtis looking funky I'm inspired by looking at women with grey hair and realise that it's not their hair colour that I look at.  I look at their faces, their smile and if I know them then it's all about the...

I felt a little like this today! As the day ends I reflect on how many times I have loaded the dishwasher today - 3 times.  What is that about?  I think it's a combination of a wet weekend and the 11yo deciding to bake.  I didn't even cook anything interesting.  Plus washed up a few times. What else did I do today?  Worked out what we really needed to have washed out of the mountain of unwashed clothing.  And then tried out our new dryer (our old one stopped working just before 10 days of almost solid rain kicked in).  I normally only use it to dry emergency undie/sock/uniform washes. Took three of the kids shopping for a birthday present (which was thankfully chosen very quickly) and some cardboard for school projects.  One child had netball (she played in the rain and has been very sick for most the week with the flu - not thrilled about her playing) and another had a birthday party.  But my husband generously did all the driving a...

I have written about this before , but after broaching the subject on facebook a few weeks ago I've been thinking a lot about the whole colouring your hair deal.  On facebook I asked when having natural coloured hair was going to become trendy like other old fashioned things like quilting and growing your veges?  I am quite tired of how time consuming colouring my hair is and how expensive it is. A very interesting conversation resulted with a huge variety of opinions.  Many of the women said they would be going natural, but of course they aren't gray now (and are my age) so I don't think that really counts.  Until you ACTUALLY start going seriously gray/white you can't see how it impacts on the way you look.  I think it is different to be almost white (like myself) at age 40 and agreeing in principle to going natural when it happens to you in the future (when you will be a lot older than I am now!). Just quietly, I'll believe it when I see it (let me thr...