A Blast From The Past...

Some of you remember when I had dark hair... I mean, it was only last year. But many of you are new and probably have only seen a photo or two of me with my natural hair color. I went 5 years without dying my hair before I decided to go red. I've had red hair for about 14 or 15 months now. It's a lot of work. 

I made the mistake of signing into myspace so I could look at old pictures today. Some were so incredibly embarrassing. Some made me really miss my natural color. I thought about dying my hair back dark, but then I got nervous and afraid. I'm afraid that it won't look natural. (obviously my red doesn't look natural but that was never the intention.) My brown hair I loved simply because it looked totally authentic. Because it was. So when I look at pictures with my brown hair, I long for it. and then I look at a photo with me with red hair, and I still love it all the same.

Maybe it's just the "grass is greener" complex but I'm so afraid to dye it back dark! I guess I'm afraid because it's not easily reversible. I can't dye the red back over it if I hate it. And I won't bleach my hair. Plus I'll have to get a green-based brown in order to cancel out the red. It really just seems like a lot of work. And I'll have to hope my new extensions match. Man oh man! Leave it to me to make something as simple as dying my hair into a big chaotic mess. 

I'll just show you some pictures, and you can vote. :) (I look like a totally different person with brown hair... and it probably just adds to that that I lack the cheek piercings and overly visible tattoos).

(if my hair could look like ^this^ every day of the year, i'd be a happy camper! sadly it was never that polished!)

this one is from november 2005. yes, go ahead, laugh it up! man I feel so embarrassed by this photo! I was only 17 though so whatever.

and a few red just for good measure:

I remember when I first went red this time around... I swore I'd be a redhead forever because I loved it so much. I still do love it, don't get me wrong. Like I said, I think the always wanting what you don't have thing is getting to me. Plus I don't know how it'd look now. 

So cast your vote below! Should I go back dark? I'll throw out the disclaimer that I'm not basing my decision on the votes, because honestly, even if it's 100% yeses I'll probably still be too big of a sissy to do it... but I'm weighing my options! 

edit: looking back on this I can say that I probably won't dye my hair back dark for a while. I spent all this time typing this out but whatever! haha You can still vote though. Or just leave comments about how ridiculous that 2005 picture is of me. Oh lord...


edit edit: i'm NOT dying my hair. case closed.

Way Back When Picture Post

Before I had my mom's portrait tattooed on my inner upper arm, I went through some old photo albums at my Nana's house. While I didn't take them out and take them to be scanned, I nabbed a few low-quality photos with my iPhone. They're not great, but they get the job done. And I thought I'd share them today!

This is my Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother, my Nana's parents. They were immigrants from Poland. They came over via Ellis Island in the earlier quarter of the century. (My Nana [grandmother.. not great grandmother!] was born in 1932 in Michigan.) I would really really love to travel to Poland one day soon.

This is my Nana and Papa back when they were first married in 1949. Weren't they gorgeous?! Brownie Franklin and Patricia Genevieve. My Papa passed away when I was 8, in 1996, but my Nana is alive and kicking! I already have a tattoo for her on my calf, and my Papa's will be in August once I return to Nashville.

This is my late Aunt Kay, who everyone says I favor.

My late Aunt Kay again with her daughter Stephanie. Both passed away after a horrific car crash in 1974 when my aunt was only 22 and my cousin only 2. I was named after both of them. Valerie Kay (Kaelah) and Stephanie Dawn (Kaelah Dawn). I've always said if I could have dinner with anyone in the world, alive or otherwise, I'd probably choose my aunt. I'd really like to know what she was like.

My sweet Mama! I used to love looking through her old yearbooks and stuff. The last photo is her senior portrait from 1978 which I had tattooed on the inside of my full sleeve.

As a baby, in 1988.

I always felt like I was channeling Pretty Woman in this photo, just you know, sans the prostitute thing.

Sophomore Year of High School, I believe. Well 10th/11th grade? I will never have short hair again!

Sophomore Year Softball. I'm not even sure I wore makeup haha

Sophomore Year Volleyball, I think. All I know is that hair thing I've got going on was NOT working for me!

Senior Year. Bad haircut, no eyelashes, no eyebrows, lined my eyes with dark black eyeliner. Man oh man!

I'm going to try to find more pictures this week! I'll definitely post them if I happen across them.

Do you have any old photos of your family or yourself? Post them! I want to see! Leave links to your posts if you do!

xoxo

Sunday Funday! (Image Heavy!)

Bear with me, I'm pretty much having an iPhone photo dump here! haha The first few pictures are some penpal things I've received! The cute little bulldog card is just the sweetest little thing! The next batch is an awesome little hand-made scrapbook type deal from Aoife! It's so darn cute!

These next two photos are from Saturday night when we dropped by the house to check the mail. We went inside and it was unbelievable. The entire house was gutted. The floors were torn up, the walls were knocked down and stripped. It was just scary looking! I'm glad to see they're making progress, though I am a little unsure at just how salvageable it really is.

It's been a hot minute since I've posted any outfit photos, and I took notice of that after several questions in my FormStack. I wish I were able to post them every day but Mike's work schedule leaves me little time with him and I've gone and lost my Nikon remote so even self-shot photos on my tripod are difficult at the moment. And to be perfectly honest, I've been a bit lazy and I've stayed in my jammies until about 1pm.. ha!

Anyway, the first several are from the iPhone (freaking awesome quality for what they are! The color is SO spot on!) and the last 2 are from my stepdad's digital camera. My Nikon is dead so... we had to do what we had to do!

(I wouldn't normally post a silly photo like this but I just had to when I saw my foot! It looks like some ridiculous deformity! haha Mike caught me mid-move and this was the result)

{5.15.10 Outfit Details}

{Dress: Forever 21, $? (it's 4+ years old)}

{Tights: WalMart, 2 pairs $12}

{Flats: KMart, $13}

{Belt: Forever 21, $8}

{Cardigan: Charlotte Russe, $25}

After our little photoshoot at this abandoned house down the street, we went to WalMart to get a movie out of the Redbox and while we were there, we popped in to get Mike some beer and I caught eye of some little dresses. I don't care that they're WalMart. In fact, it's rather endearing! These dresses were SUCH a deal so we couldn't pass them up! This first one is a Miley Cyrus + Max Azria dress (some of the stuff isn't bad!). I loved it because it's red/white striped top and the bottom is a denim-looking blue. It was SO cute, so I snatched it up. It was a PERFECT fit so Mike grabbed every variation of it (a black top, a white top, and a navy/white striped top). I got all four! haha I also picked up this totalllly loud, ruffly number. I'd wear it with a big chunky brown belt, no tights, and brown sandals, but I didn't feel like peeling my two pairs of tights off :P

We came home and Mike got some face time with Baby G while I sliced up some vegetables. Mike decided he wanted to make veggie stirfry tonight (yum!) We made a heaping plate of veggies, brown rice and added in the sauce. It was delicious. Now we're watching Anchorman... one of my all time favorite movies! LOVE!

Such a wonderful way to end the day! I hope you all had a wonderful Sunday Funday as well! I'm taking my sewing machine to try and get repaired tomorrow (I'm having problems with my top thread knotting up in the bobbin chamber) and I'm hoping it'll be a quick/easy fix. If so, I'll be back with a DIY Craft Post tomorrow! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Until next time!

xoxo

Mike and KB: Round One!

So as most of you know, Mike and I dated about 4 years ago for the first time. He was 17 and I was 18 (cougar! haha). He was a senior in high school and I was about to start my freshman year of college. We only dated for a few months but we were absolutely inseparable the entire time... a far cry from now? Not really. We went our separate ways in November of 2006 and we both dated someone else for 3 years. I'm so glad our paths converged once more and we're currently walking in the same direction.

A big thank you goes to the anonymous person on my FormSpring who brought these photos to my attention. Upon cleaning out my computer yesterday, I stumbled across a couple more. Huzzah!

Don't judge me... That was the tail end of the "scene" phase for me and I may or may not have had crappy blonde extensions. Oof!

(HOLY lack-of-eyebrows here! Man alive! And I've def got the Tammy Faye eyelashes going on! Oh well, at least I can look back on it and laugh!)

So there you have it. Circa 2006 in all of it's glory. I found several photos of me from high school and I have some from when I was a witttttle kid. I'll post them as soon as I can get them scanned in. :) They're not pretty. So don't hate.

Now my question to all of you...

How long have you been with your significant other? Do you have any photos from way-back-when? If so, post links to them in the comments or make your own post and link me over! I wanna see!

Off to sleep!

xoxo