A Challenge to Shine & A touch of Fickleness

See link to right.

   This past week, my friend Ashley over on The Shine Project has started a challenge a week and then post about it on Fridays and link up on her blog . I think this is a wonderful way to fill my week with a bit more positivity and have something to blog about, been struggling with that as you know since most days my life consists of my walk , and then sitting in front of Twitter all day...not much to blog about with that. I find it easier to blog when I have theme days...for example when I post my baking/cooking experiments on Sundays.

So the challenge this week was give a compliment a day. This is easy for me. I have no problem handing them out, taking them is a lot harder. On Twitter with all my lovely friends I have there compliments fly, as they earn them readily. Between the wonderful quotes, photos, and blogs I compliment all day, every day. Feels good to make others feel good about things they share. I do the same when I am on Facebook, as well as to people I often meet when I am out on my walk, though that does not happen quite as often...maybe a compliment to the grocery clerk, a person walking their dog on how the little guy or gal looks or behaves. I am always complimenting my daughters on different things, from photos, my middle daughters art, or just how cute they look. I compliment my husband, just wish he would give more of them to me....he forgets cause we see each other so much, but that is ok, as I said I do not take them well. Anyway, I think I met the challenge quite well and am excited to see what the next one is. I sure hope you will join in and check out the Shine Project and the weekly challenges, and shine a little brighter in your daily life.
On to the fickle part.....

  If you are a new reader you will not remember this, but if you are a long time one, well in a few moments you will be rolling your eyes. I am feeling very fickle with my hair color again. Considering changing it back to a dark black brown. But let me back up...I have been a fickle person most of my life, so this is nothing new. I was fickle with my dolls as a child, switching between Barbies and baby dolls. I was fickle with my friends to some extent...but then are we not all that way with our friends from time to time as children. Of course I was fickle with foods, what I would eat and would not touch.  As a teen I was fickle with boyfriends, fashion, subjects that I would embrace and then have little interest in....well except anything dealing with art, that I was always rather obsessed with doing when I was younger. I was fickle with the music I listened to and would go to extremes with  what I was playing on the radio at the time.
When I became an adult I was fickle with my decor, every time I saw the latest style in a magazine, or saw a friends home I would want to change the decor, the paint color...my husband always joked that when he would come home he would never know what color the walls would be or where the furniture would be places...neighbors loved my garage sales because I would sell my entire decor that I had to fund my newest likes. I often regretted this action as I miss many of the items I have parted with. I continued to be fickle with music tastes, fashion, even magazines, I always am canceling and re-subscribing depending on what I am concentrating on, be it fashion or decor. My fashion fickleness has ranged from dowdy to vamp and everything in between! Heck I am even fickle with my fingernail length! The only thing I am no longer fickle with, truly am loyal to the end is my friendships. Once I am your friend, no matter what the friendship brings, even if time passes with no word, if you write, call or need me I am there. Sometimes that has me feeling like a door mat, but that is another blog all together. 
So back to the fickleness of the moment. My hair. When life takes twists and turns and hits all the ups and downs that I have no control over, I tend to suddenly concentrate on what I can do something about; my hair. I change the length, letting it grow up and down in length, wearing it wavy or blow drying it strait. Bangs strait across, or swept to the side. The biggest that I have always been fickle about is the hair color. I have been everything from blond (did not suit me), to the current red, and everything in between...every shade as well. When I have my black hair I will love it, thinking it truly suits me, but then I miss the reds as I spent most of my teen and adult years as a red head.  What makes me fickle in this case is worry that the black is harsh, or washes me out, or makes me look older, not knowing if it is the hair color of how my health is at the time, if life's stresses are making me look old and not the hair color. Currently being a red head, feeling perhaps it would brighten up my mood and my looks , I find that neither has happened. In fact after going through all the trouble of having my daughter create new avatars for the blog, and my button for Sacramento Connect , all I have discovered is that the red is a lot of work! It bleeds all over my towels, fades in less than two weeks, looking dull. Even when I use the same brand and color it never turns out the same shade twice. OH and to top it off those darn pesky salt and pepper roots show up more so next to the red.When I get a hair cut, as I keep the bottom portion short, I have to time it with coloring my hair or it looks bad.   I love red, but it has to be the right shade and it also has to be the right length, either very short or longer. So been considering going back to the dark brown black. Of course this gets a huge amount of rolling of the eyes from my daughter who sees art work in her future that she really does not want to do or if that is not it, it is that she is a bit busy with paying art work LOL .She would be altering my blog avatars, making that new button. of course she and I discussed it a bit and she and I did say we could just leave the red head avatars as "Ruby" is both my nick name and my alter ego of sorts. She teased that I would most likely go back to red either way once or twice more in my lifetime.Maybe, I am fickle.  Coloring it is easy, but switching over all that not so much LOL ...of course I could always bribe her LOL If I do go back I am worried about deciding it was a mistake...easy to go dark, not so easy to go light. So as you can see my fickleness is on a real teeter totter at the moment. So I thought since I have so many new readers and friends , and they are into beauty and such , not looking at it as a shallow endeavor as some people I know do, understanding how something so simple can have a bigger impact on how one feels and sees themselves, I thought I would share a couple avatars and pictures and ya'll can leave a comment as a vote...last time when I went from dark to light there was some interesting comments, and definite opinions.
So here we go..... 

Dark hair

Red hair

Red haired Ruby Avatar

Brunette "Ruby" Avatar

Eager to hear your opinions......"From Change, blessings follow..."