This month hasn't been so great for me. I had my car back for a week and then ended up wrecking it on my way home from work (I was going to quit and not go into work that day but figured if I could work a few more days to recoup what I spent on car repairs...). I was on the interstate, traffic was flowing and I wasn't even up to the speed limit (before I get accused of speeding!), but the car in front of me came to a sudden stop. Completely destroyed my old Deville (Emerald Jazz). That alone tore me up. I was going to get my mom's car fixed and running but felt like I needed something in a rush for the purpose of work (...this is my constant mistake). I purchased another car which seemed to check out ok and well. After I bought it from (from a guy on Craigslist...I know. But I also know my Cadillacs and this guy did pretty good at covering up even computer issues), it's all gone even further downhill from there. I had it one day, Dec. 6th, and it's been with a mechanic ever since. This whole car situation has been a nightmare.

I'm definitely not in a Christmas mood this year. I didn't even celebrate it last year because I got sick from some customers at work (the poor kids shouldn't have even been out shopping in the condition they were in but of course...then the parents let them destroy the entire children shoe department). Which that was probably for the best since it was the first year without my mom. And this year, it still doesn't seem right. It's been rough not having a car and worrying about getting to work. Luckily I was able to get some of the main gifts for my loved ones thanks to online shopping. But I still have a lot more Christmas shopping to do with no indication I'll be able to do it anytime soon.

I briefly had my hopes up a bit because our system at work which allows us to put in our time off requests allowed me to request my birthday (Dec 26) off. We usually have a blackout period from Thanksgiving to New Year's that won't allow us to request off. However my boss wouldn't grant it (doesn't surprise me) since it is a major retail day...*sigh* but it would've been great to have had it, or even the day after it, off.

I'm really hoping and praying that things will get better soon. I made a video with a brief update of some of this but it was just too Debbie Downer/

I did start the process of getting rid of the red hair. I started out bleaching the underneath part where it was the darkest. I mixed the bleach (30 vol developer) and left it on for an hour. Then I mixed up a bleach rinse of 20 vol developer with the powder, clarifying shampoo, and a little bit of water (forgot the ratios) and put that on with the bleach still on there. I left it all on for an additional 30 minutes. It left my hair bright orange (like UT Vols orange...yay?). I used the Ion Repair Solutions after washing it. It was super shiny and silky *shrugs*. My hair usually looks and feels better after a good bleaching, haha. That was about a week ago. Last night I decided to bleach it again but I only left the bleach on for about 30 minutes since it looked like it was platinum (the bleach I use is blue in color). I rinsed a strand just to make sure...but of course the strand I chose ended up being the only platinum strand. Everything else is still orange but not extremely. Actually it's a nice golden blonde in a lot of lighting but it still has that orange ting at certain angles. Again, this was all the darkest portion of my hair that was still a deep burgundy which I bleached. So I have hope for the rest of my hair. I just need to get to get some more developer since I'm out of the one I normally use.

I was going to do a lot of Christmas nail art this year but just haven't felt like it with everything else going on. Hopefully I'll have some positive updates soon.