It’s amazing all the memories that came flooding back while coloring my hair this evening. I have been coloring my hair since I was about 12. It all started with way too much Sun-In. I loved the bleached out look but my mom didn’t. I was given a color close to what it should have been and told to fix it.

Fast forward to when I discovered I liked red highlights. Mountain Home AFB, Idaho I was using my regular favorite shade of brown and I got distracted talking on the CB radio (okay, stop laughing, I was actually geeking on the sideband technology, so give me a break) and the color stayed on a bit too long. Not long enough to make it brassy, but just long enough to bring out the red highlights – I was hooked. I always had the temperament of a redhead. So my new favorite color became “Tawny Auburn” – that one stayed with me for quite a while. A sidenote here, I started graying very prematurely, so coloring my hair was a way of life.

So after moving half way around the world, up to the frozen north and down to the deep south, I starting trying on the strawberry side of blonde, after the Sun-In experience I don’t think I ever tried blonde again. I still can see the picture of me with Strawberry Blonde hair, standing in front of our Yard of the Month sign at Gunter AFB, Montgomery, Alabama. A sidenote here, I’ve lived so long here in Alabama some people would try to tell me I’m from here, sorry folks, them there’s fightin words.

After I got the Strawberry Blonde phase out of my system, I went back to the more subtle side of red or so I thought. I treated myself to a Glamour Shots session a few years back. I remember hearing a remark my ex made about how I changed my hair color to red. One more reason he’s my ex, it had been “red” all those years, just different shades of it.

Other memories that rolled out was one of my mom’s last comments about my hair, she had asked me when it turned so dark. I have to sidenote this, my mom was terminally ill with cancer, at this point it was already in her brain, so I sort of brushed off the comment to the illness. I stopped in my tracks when I looked at a very old picture of me, it was a black & white picture that had been colorized (eat your heart out Ted Turner) – my hair color was blonde in the picture. It reminded me of Megan’s hair when she was little, it was so blonde but has darked with age too.

The thoughts of hair color also reminded me of my mom’s, her hair was black, jet black, but she used to frost it. I always thought it looked so cool, it was probably how she hid all the gray hair I gave her. My last memory of my mom also has to do with her hair. It was my last time with her, we were at the funeral home, I remember stroking her snow white hair…

Too bad I can’t make money blogging. Then again who would want to read the ravings of a mad woman? I’ve had times were I would love to do commentary on movies or the few TV shows I like, but so many other people already do that, I probably wouldn’t have anything to say that didn’t sound original. I have my neglected soap box blog and my All Things Vols blog (that seems to go into hibernation until football season). I’ve pretty much given up on helping with Volsfootball.com – but that wasn’t a blog.

So instead I ramble. I head to Detroit on Thursday to bowl in the Women’s Nationals Tournament – get to see how well my MacBook Pro travels. It’s definitely a lot lighter than the Toshiba laptop I’ve been toting around for years now. Yeah, I’m a geekette. My two favorite geekettes on TV are Chloe from 24 and Garcia from Criminal Minds. I like Garcia because she’s smart, cute and funny. Chloe can be classified as a bitch but she knows her stuff and doesn’t take the extraneous crap that goes on.

Some of the women I’m traveling with want to go to Canada (some have never been) – not sure if I want to go. I wasn’t planing on toting a camera too. I do need to find some new music for my Shuffle.

Then the weekend after the 4th, we will spend some time with Megan celebrating her 21st birthday. She has an interview on Wednesday (June 25) for her first dental related type job. Too bad the office she did her internship at wasn’t hiring, she really liked it there. Don’t think the geekette gene got passed on to her.

Okay, this wouldn’t be the official raving of a mad woman’s blog if I didn’t add one “ex” gripe – we all know how much I lost in the divorce, things like my mom’s silver, pictures, my diplomas (High School & College), my yearbooks (with many of the original prints of pictures taken for the edition I was a staff photographer), all my course books from college, my Gamma Beta Phi awards, but most of all my Air Force awards, particularly my Air Force Commendation Medal. It was sent to me after I got out, I still remember the surprise (shock was more like it) when I opened the package that came to me in North Dakota.

What makes it even worse trying to replace it, is that it was awarded after my DD-214 was cut, so it’s not on there. I have no idea who to contact, I tried one place but they seem to go by what is on the DD-214. Anyone know how to track down something that may not have been recorded? Maybe I should check some of the PMEL websites for names I recognize. Or maybe I should find a Veteran’s group that doesn’t take kindly to awards like this being destroyed.

One last thing, I finally got my eyes checked (it’s been 3 years) – I knew my vision has been getting worse, but I found out my vision is “not legal to drive” without glasses. When did glasses get so expensive? I didn’t even go to Lenscrafters this time.