F5

We all know what the “F5″ button does.  Well, if you don’t, you should.  It’s the “Refresh” button.  You know, like when the page you’re on gets stuck out there in Internet Land and doesn’t load correctly or takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R to load.  You hit “F5″ for the page to be refreshed.  And voila, there it is!  Like magic!

I’ve been needing to ”refresh” for a while now.  I once had a license plate when I was 16 that read “Niki Who?”.  That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.  I’ve slowly been losing my sense of self and have morphed into what I call Nashley.  It’s a mixture of Niki and Ashley.  Niki is gone and Nashley has emerged.  The person I have become lives, breathes, and does everything Ashley.  Which is great and all, but some days I miss Niki.  The girl that actually cared about what she looked like (well, sometimes).  Shaved her legs, put on makeup, wore jewelry.  Would get ready for work, dress up, and straighten her hair.

Being a SAHM makes it easy to forget about yourself.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t even take showers anymore until Ashley goes down for her morning nap.  Some days she naps for an hour, other days she’ll nap for two or three.  And in that amount of time, I have to take a shower, do laundry, clean the house, pick up dog poop in the yard (yes, seriously), water the flowers, clean up the kitchen, do dishes and make baby food.  Sometimes cut the grass, pull up weeds, I could go on and on.  So you can see why I don’t care to dress up anymore.  I really just don’t have the time.  I never blow dry my hair and 99.9% of the time I just put it up in a ponytail anyway.  I have slipped into Mommydom.

Last week I decided that I had finally had enough.  Just because I’m home all day doesn’t mean I can’t wear something other than a t-shirt, do my hair, or put on make-up.  It’s easy to fall into Mommydom and hard to pull yourself out of it.  Just because you’re a Mom, doesn’t mean you’re no longer a woman.  We should all take the time to do things for ourselves and not feel guilty about it.  Guilt being the operative word here. 

So phase one of my transformation was to get my hair did.  I went to Salon Moxie last night and Michelle cut about 5 inches off my hair.  It was exciting and liberating!  I’ve never before been so excited to have a hair cut.  I had been looking forward to it all week.  1.5 hours out of the house by MYSELF….ahhhhhhhhhhh.  I have many more things on my New Niki to-do list, but I think I’ll relish in my new hair cut for a while.  Who knows, maybe tomorrow I’ll put on makeup or even pluck my eyebrows!  Okay don’t overdo it, baby steps Niki…

Here are some before and after pictures of my hair.  I highly recommend going to see Michelle at Salon Moxie for your next “do”.  She is very talented.  I explained what I was looking for and she had great advice on a low maintenance style.  I put my trust in her hands and let her go with her vision.  I think it turned out awesome and it feels so good!  If you make an appointment, let me know before you go and I can give you a $10 off coupon!