This week has been a time of reflection

This week has been a crazy whirlwind for us. I got over those sick hives I had. It only took 4 days total to get rid of all of them. I had some residual for the next 2 days, than they went away for good, and I was so thankful. Still no cause or reason for them, but I just have a feeling it was a one time deal, and I will never find out.........
We had our annual 2 times a year garage sale. We live in townhomes with very strict codes. They will allow us to have a garage sale 2 times a year, and all on the same day. It's like a flea market. You just walk down the row in people's garages, looking at all their crap, then moving on to the next house. It was amazing. All of the crap you would not normally be able to sell, went like hotcakes here. People I guess like junk and lots of it to store in their houses, cause they bought all of ours.
We went to Durango later that day to have my hair done. I have a story about that in itself. Well... I wanted to get my hair done because it was getting stringy at the end, and the color was just awful with half the orange in my hair growing out. I didn't like the cut either. Shawn had his hair cut from a guy named Jay here. He is a native, probably 300lbs. and very very gay. I decided to give it a shot. It is right across from Costa Vida, and I figured that they couldn't be that bad since they eat Costa everyday, and would have to face Shawn everyday. Well, to get your hair cut and colored (one color) down here is around $200 anywhere you go. I told Jay that I could not spend that much, so we agreed that I would pay $75. Well, he called me after I made an appointment to inform me he was too drunk from the night before, and could not do my hair, and we needed to reschedule. I should have taken that as a warning sign. Well, we rescheduled for later that day, so he will be sober. I went in, and he said it would be after-hours, which it was, but then I had to wait for an hour, even then. He got me in the chair, and started putting stuff on my hair right away to see what it would do. All I told him, is that I wanted the orange in my hair gone, and I wanted blonder hair (since it was darker, all sorts of colors, and sort of yellow) I basically wanted to go back to my natural hair color. I brought in pictures of the color I wanted and the cut and just said do that. He told me that I needed 2 tubes of color for my hair, but he only had one, but he would have to use it conservatively to go over my whole head. I was thinking to myself "Well, that should cut the cost down even further, since he is using hardly any hair color at all!" Well, I trusted him anyways. Going back on my story. LaDonna is the owner, and she is African American. The only African Americans in the town seem to be there all the time. There is probably only a few. Our town is mainly white and natives. They mainly do African American hair, and that should have been another warning sign. LaDonna said that her salon is very classy. Personally, when I walked in the door, it was one of the trashiest salons I have ever been in, and a complete mess. They prided themselves on being classy and professional?!? IS THAT WHY MY HAIRDRESSER CALLS ME TO INFORM ME HE IS TOO DRUNK TO DO MY HAIR!?! Ugh...... you could tell I was definitely perterbed about the situation. Well, anyways, I told Jay what I wanted, and he did about the most opposite thing you could do, and did not listen to me at all. He colored it, and it was not more blonde. In fact, IT WAS DARKER!!! He had colored my hair this silver-grey, kind of like the color you see on a woman in her 70's or 80's. He told me that my hair will not go blonder, and that it was extremely blonde, and he was so proud of himself. Not wanting to be rude, I told him that it was darker, and it still had all of the orange in it, but it had turned pink by this time. He then informed me (because his friend was sitting by us watching the entire time) that "Would it be okay if I finished your hair some other time? We will do a lot of foils with a ton of highlights and lowlights, and a cute cut. But I want to go out with my friends tonight." I told him I guess I didn't have any other choice. He said at least it was all one color (which was not true) I was totally flabbergasted! I told him I would pay him the next time when the work was done. He was really hesitant, and said I had to pay him that night. He would not let me go unless I paid him. I did not want to, but could not really fight with a 300 lb. dude with a 200 lb. friend. Well, needless to say, he would not answer his phone for almost a whole week, then called me to schedule me. He said it would be extra cost for the highlights and lowlights. I asked him how much extra. It would be $120 extra on top of the $100 I paid him the night before. $220 to do a crappy job!?! I told him no, and that he never told me that before, and he was just trying to scam me out of more money, and he never even did the cut that was included in the price, and I did not get anything I wanted, and my hair was darker. He told me tough beans basically. It sucks. I lost $100, but the worst thing I could have done was to go back there. He called Shawn with a completely different story whining to him, and Shawn, of course was on my side. I have not seen or talked to Jay since though. I learned my lesson to take warning signs beforehand.
Going back to my Durango story. I made an appt. immediately after that whole ordeal with a gorgeous salon there. My hair was done beautifully, and they took great care of me. That whole day at Durango was a fantasy. It was like, the best date day I could have ever asked for. We visited a bunch of little shops on main street, and went to my favorite Honeyville Farms. We ate at the most delicious restaurant. All around it was a great day.
Well, at this moment, Shawn and I are babysitting my bosse's children. He went out of town for a week, and we are new parents of an 11 yr old, 9 yr old, 6 yr old and 4 yr old. They are really good kids, and very smart. It is very tiring, and even though Shawn is in the same room as me, it feels like I have not seen him all day, because our attention and time are with the kids and making them happy. Is that how it always is when you have a ton of kids? We are going to be happy when it is over though. We are very excited to go to Moab at the end of this week with Gary and Nat and Kip. That is the light in the tunnel for us.