can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

soo... I was impulsive yesterday. Just like I was two years ago, when I called my friend Jamie and said, "hey! I want to dye my hair brown! I'm going to the salon right now. wanna come?" Instead this time, I went back to my roots. It's not natural [obviously], but it's dangerously close to my natural hair color of platinum blonde. It makes me happy to see myself in the mirror and feel more like myself (that sounds weird), because I grew up 16 years of my life having white blonde hair. I don't regret dyeing it dark brown at all. I loved dyeing it summer of '05! I loved changing colors so drastically and impulsively, and not telling anyone about it before doing it. I get such a rush doing things like that. I can't help myself. But, for the past couple months, I had been thinking about how much I missed my original locks of gold. I missed bein' the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl. So, Sunday (Mother's Day), I decided at noon I wanted to change it back, and I was in the salon at 1 pm picking out the colors with my stylist Brittany- who basically became my best friend throughout the whole process.... I didn't leave the salon until 4:30, it took super long because I have so much freaking hair. Seriously you don't know how much hair you really have until someone puts every little strand in pieces of foil and brushes on the highlighting color... on EVERY little strand. ahhh! I was so restless sitting in that chair. But it was fun. I was so freaking excited the whole time. Like I said, I just get a rush doing stuff like that.

I don't really care what people think, even my friends and parents and stuff. I never care what people say about how I look, and I never really have. I just have always said to myself, it's my body, it's my face, it's my hair, it's my look, it's me- so I'm the only opinion that matters when it comes to how *I* look. When my dad saw my blonde hair yesterday, he said it looked great and then said, "you know to be truthful, I never liked it brown!" and I just thought it was funny. Self-image means your image of yourSELF, how YOU feel about yourself, not what other people say and what other people make you feel about yourself. My self-image is all about how I feel about myself, and that includes how I look everyday when I walk out the door. I love myself because God created me in His image, and to NOT love myself is really to slap God in the face if you think about it. I love how I look. I love how I look with brown hair, I love how I look with blonde hair, I love how I look with a bunch of eyeliner on, and when I have nothing on my face when I go to bed at night and wake up in the morning. It's about loving yourself even though you have imperfections. I also think that you cannot learn how to truly love others unless you love yourself, because everything you do is affected by what you think of yourself. If you understand your value and your worth because of who made you- an amazing God who calls you to be like Him- then you can appreciate and understand others' value and worth, therefore inviting love to grow. So yeah. That's why I love how I look no matter what! As a girl, it's common to feel "unpretty" at times and stuff, but those are just fleeting feelings, they don't really matter. I feel "unpretty" when I'm lying in bed in pain from my kidney disease, and when I've been in the hospital for 3 days looking like death and stuff, and after I sweat a lot playing soccer or something... but I know I'm beautiful underneath the sweat and the tiredness and the weariness. Hope this isn't coming off conceited, that's not my intended tone at all- more just trying to help others see that you shouldn't base your opinion of yourself on the opinions of others.

Hair is fun to change. I think I'll be sticking with my blonde roots for now though! :)

On another note,
Today rocked. First of all, I went on a bike ride. A 45-minute bike ride, where I biked from my house in Glen Oaks to the beginning of the Bike Trail by E.P. True Pkwy and Prairie View Dr., then biked for a good 3 or 4 miles towards Grand Av. and Hyvee, then turned around and road back the entire thing and back to my house. So all in all, I think I biked about 8 miles or so. It felt fantastic, but I was freaking exhausted at the end... especially because the entire way back on the Bike Trail I was going against the 30 mph wind gusts the whoooole time and it was mostly uphill once I got off the Bike Trail. I also had the gears on the highest resistance so I was working my legs harder, which I loved, but... my legs hurt like a mother right now. hah.

Then I got home, showered, and Aubrey called me and it turned out she didn't have to babysit! So she came over and we watched Gilmore Girls, had dinner with my mom, and then we went to Natalie's AP Art Show at Valley H.S.... ugh, her stuff was so stinkin' good, she's so talented. It was kinda weird being back at my old high school and seeing a bunch of people I knew, but, at least I didn't get recognized by my old AP Art teacher hahahah, crazy Mrs. Harris. Aubs and I left after about an hour, and we went to the Starbucks on University Av., got coffee, and sat outside at the little tables they had out there. We ended up sitting out there for a good 2 hours! and it was so great, Jared met up with us there and the three of us just sat there and talked the whole time. Aww, I always have good conversations with Jared. He's a good guy. Hah. So he left at like 9, so Aubs and I started driving back to my house.... but at the Mills Civic intersection right by Glen Oaks, we decided to just drive around for a while. We had put in her CD of Disney songs she got from Zach, and we seriously drove around for like a half an hour just bursting out all of the Disney songs... alllll the good ones! the classics... from Mulan, Lion King, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, yesssss... haha we felt SO lame. I still feel lame for doing it. But it was totally awesome at the same time.. hahaha. I freakin' love her. Oh, and we found this sweet park out by jordan creek town center that we never knew was there, and decided it is gonna be our new hang-out spot! wooo, yeah.

Well I'm waking up earlyyyy tomorrow to meet Lindsey at Java Joe's to see her perform her poem for her creative writing class! I'm pumped, because just a year ago I was doing that same thing! yay. Oh and guess what?.....

I am officially employed at EXPRESS at jordan creek mall. They gave me the call tonight. I'm ecstatic. I get paid well to talk to people and look hot and fashionable, I get to try on all the clothes in the store whenever and help crazy mall folk get their style on. I know it's retail, and I've always thought that it would suck to do retail (i've done a little previously), but when this opportunity came up I had to take it and it just seemed like I would fit in. The people make the job in my opinion, and the people there were incredibly warm and fun to me and I could immediately see myself having a really fun time working with them all. I have orientation this Thursday, then I start Sunday. BAM! I'm not a freakin' bum anymore! and I like it.

so praise God for that one. Amen? Amen.
that's all. <3