An Ode to Kat's Hair

So...this week I got my hair colored. I've never colored my hair before, and after this experience I never will again. I'm not going to go into it--suffice it to say, chemicals don't like me. No, I didn't have an allergic reaction, but I have a constant metallic taste that is driving me nuts! The color is not horrible or anything, just too dark, and it's making me nostalgic.

Therefore, I'm taking you on a trip back in time, through the many styles of Kat Heckenbach's hair.

Let's start in high school. Here's me with a couple of buds. I'm the one on the left, with the t-shirt I painted myself :). Ripped jeans were a must. Below the jeans, unseen in the pic, were my ever-present faded and written/drawn on black Converse hi-tops.

My head is tilted back in the above pic. Normally my bangs hung in my face the way they do in this next pic, taken at my high school graduation. Notice the red. That was my natural color! Oh, and that's my dad with me:

Next, we have me at about eighteen. The bangs are gone in this one, but then so is pretty much all of my hair. From the back I looked like a guy in the military--full-blown clipper cut. Sportin' a Ramones t-shirt. They so rock.

My hair still looked pretty much like that when I took a job at Sports Authority. I met my husband, Jeff, there, although I'd started growing it out before we started dating. By the time we got married--three years later--it looked like this:

A few years go by, and I graduate college. Here are a couple more--the first is my official graduation pic, and the second is from my grad party. Notice--still red. Still natural, too.

Sigh...if my hair still looked like that, it'd be long right now. But alas, time and age have changed it. I had kids. The new look became "Kat in a pony tail" every day, all day. Notice that even in the sun here the red has darkened to brown:

Look at that little peanut in my lap. He's five feet tall and 100 pounds now. Anyway, next is a Mother's Day picture I love. It was taken a few months after I finished chemotherapy. Obviously, chemo didn't make my hair fall out. But it did change the texture. Before long, the smooth waves started tightening. You can't tell here, unless you look closely at the curly wisps around my face.

Not long after that, I tried cutting it a bit. Better, but still too thick!

Since then, I've grown it out, cut it, grown it out, cut it...and it's just gotten darker and curlier. A couple years ago, I hit the breaking point. This is what it had started looking like (bad resolution, sorry, but you get the idea). Me and my bro:

You may be thinking, "That's not so bad." Well, it's not just poofy, it's thick--which means what it feels like is this:

Which brings us to now. About two years ago, I chopped my hair to above my shoulders, but it would never do what I wanted--still too thick and the curls aren't true curls. So about a year ago I cut my hair the way it is today:

And then the coloring from the other day...Imagine that same cut, but dark-dark-dark-dark-dark-purplish-brown-which-was-supposed-to-be-red. Sigh...

There you have it, folks. More than you ever wanted to know about Kat's hair. Hope you enjoyed the trip. I guess I'll update later when my new color has grown out and/or faded and I've decided what to do with it!

Until then....

(PS--I noticed going through here there are no pics of my mom with me...not leaving you out, Mom, I promise! I guess I just didn't have any "hair" pics with you in them.)