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Daily Rebecca

dishing up a little bit of everything

To Poof or Not To Poof?

That is the question that’s been on my mind lately.

I come from people who value big hair.  We affectionately call it “Texas Big Hair.”

My mom, sister and I are hair volume groupies.  We use volumizing products and teasing combs and hot rollers and hair spray and bobby pins to achieve big hair.  It’s what we do.

** I’d like to issue a disclaimer right now that my mother is beautiful.  Seriously gorgeous and has lovely hair which, while big, does not fall into the “poof” territory that I’m going to be discussing.  She should not change anything about her hair because it’s perfect.  Love you mom!

My sister and I have been big fans of the “poof” for a while now.  We notice poofs around town and will often comment when we see a particularly awesome one.

Let’s lay some groundwork, shall we?

This is a poof.

As you can see in the photo above, the girl’s hair is about 3-4 inches higher in the back than the front.  It was carefully coiffed into a nice, moderate poof.

That is a good example of the poof that many girls are going for.  We keep our eyes out for photos, videos and online tutorials that show how to achieve this kind of poof.

In fact, part of the reason this has all been on my mind is that I came across a pin on Pinterest the other day and it linked to a poof tutorial.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  There’s still more foundation to lay before moving on…

I believe there are bad poofs out there.  Poofs that anyone in their right mind would think are ridiculous.  Like these:

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BUT, on the other hand, there are moderate poofs that I (and many other ladies) think are great.  The following are examples of good poofs:

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Heck, there’s even the “Presidential Poof” that many a middle-aged man definitely ogled back in 2008.  Yes, ogled is a word.  Look it up.

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Ok, now that you are a certified poof expert, let’s move on.

Like I mentioned before, I was browsing Pinterest the other day and came across a poof tutorial.  It had tons of comments so I scrolled through a few of them and saw that a guy posted something like, “Don’t do this to your hair.  Guys don’t like it and it makes you look like you have a dinosaur head.”

After I laughed out loud, I scrolled down and saw other comments that said, “My husband/boyfriend says the same thing.  He doesn’t like this hairstyle at all.”

So the gears in my head started turning.

What if we girls are wasting our time trying to achieve the perfect poof when the men in our lives don’t even like it?

So, I decided to take a poll on Facebook.  Like any serious researcher would.  ::snort::

The feedback was interesting….

I highlighted the many “nays” that were cast into the ballot.  There were some women who chimed in and there was also a little tangent about taxes, but you get the point.

Most guys do not like the poof!

I was itching for even more feedback, so I posed the same question to a bunch of guys at work.  I showed them the sample poof from above (first pic in the lineup) and asked what they thought.

The response was overwhelmingly NAY!

Guys do not like the poof.

A few interesting things came up in the conversation at work:

1. The girl in the picture is cute.
2. If a girl is pretty enough the poof becomes irrelevant
3. Women over 40 should never wear a poof
4. Most guys wonder if there is “something” inside the poof holding it up*
5. A blond poof is worse than a brunette poof
6. A poof won’t necessarily stop a guy from hitting on a girl, but it’s not going to make her more attractive to him either

So there you have it. 

We should stop working so hard to achieve the perfect poof and start figuring out how to make flat hair work for us.

This is going to be tough for me.

I’m in the midst of a “Big Hair Intervention” because my beloved husband does not like the poof.  I’m glad he felt free to share his thoughts with me, and I’m taking them to heart because hello! he’s the one I’m trying to look good for in the first place!

Yesterday was day 1 with flat hair and I survived.  In fact, when I woke up today with leftover flat hair, Andy mentioned several times how pretty my hair looked.  Now I just need to come around!

Goodbye big, poofy hair.  It’s been a good ride.

Are there any other big hair lovers out there?  Would you ever go flat because that’s what your man liked better?

*Bumpits totally freak guys out and should be avoided at all costs!

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Random Updates

  • The results of my home patch test showed that I’m slightly “allergic” to one of my shampoos and our hand soap.  It also showed that I’m really allergic to band-aid adhesive.  We used non-latex band aids, so it’s not latex but something else. 

    • You can obviously see the band aid rashes! If you look carefully you can see the hand soap rash on the second row, second patch from the left.

    • My weight is gradually coming down after the binge that was Christmas and New Years.  I’m down 1.5 pounds from that peak…thank God!

    • Grace’s language skills are developing more and more each day!  It’s so exciting to hear her say new things and try to communicate with us using words rather than tantrums.  Yay for words!  My favorites right now are “Bible” and “shoes.”  Girl’s got her priorities straight!

    • We still have our LIVE Christmas tree up.  It’s not completely dried out and we love having it around, so it’s here until at least Tuesday night which is when we take the trash out.

    • I’ve been doing the January Photo A Day challenge on Instagram and having fun with it!  If you’re on Instagram you can follow me to check it out.  I’m rgould726 and here are some of my favorite’s so far:
    Day 12 – Closeup

    Day 11 – Where You Sleep

    Day 10 – Childhood
    Day 5 – Something You Wore
    • I normally get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) this time of year, but so far I’m feeling pretty good.  It’s still fairly early in the winter to really make a determination, but I’m hopeful that I can stay positive till Spring!  A trip to Vegas this month for work probably won’t hurt either :)

    • We re-arranged the furniture in our bedroom and Grace’s bedroom and I’m loving the change!  Both rooms feel more spacious which is amazing since we live in a Cracker Jack box.  

    • The bedroom switcheroo inspired me to update an old family mirror that I inherited.  (Being a hoarder I pretty much take every family relic that’s offereed to me.)  It’s a huge, gold framed mirror that hung in my mother’s childhood home and was passed down to her brother (my late Uncle Jim).  Check out the before and afters:

    BEFORE

    AFTER


    When I posted these pictures I was thinking how they are similar to the weight loss before and after pictures we all see in advertisements.  The before picture has a slouchy, no makeup, sad face woman and the after picture is the same woman with her hair done, makeup on, giant smile standing on the beach in her hot pink bikini.  Except in this case the mirror was dirty against a garage backdrop versus clean and sparkly on the bedroom wall.  LOL

    So enough about me.  What have you been up to so far this year??

    Is Perception Reality?

    Last week at work we had meetings that included our entire staff who are usually spread out across the country.  I love these twice a year meetings because it gives me face time with the people I interact with everyday but hardly ever see.

    Just like getting a behind the screens look at our customers changed my mind about them, spending time with my out-of-town colleagues changed my perspective too.  I even found that being face to face with my local coworkers changed my perspective.

    Last week everyone flew into Michigan from around the country and met up at a nearby Marriott.  It was a really great week of hanging out, learning, Q&A, team building, eating, chatting, having fun together and catching up.

    The theme for the week was Perception.  

    “Perception is Reality” -Lee Atwater

    No matter what you think about the validity of that idea, it’s safe to say that we all have different perceptions of the things around us.  Most of the time we’re pretty convinced that our perception is right.

    Today, more than maybe ever before, I realize how far from the truth my perceptions can be.

    It’s so easy to make a snap judgment about a person based on our limited interactions with them.   But do we really know who they are? What makes them tick?  What’s important to them?  What’s happening in their personal life?  Do they act the same way at home as they do at work?  Is their online persona an accurate reflection of their true self?

    How often do we read someones Facebook status and think that they are dramatic or whiny?  Does a tweet ever come across as insensitive or braggy?  Have you ever read a person’s blog and thought they lived a totally charmed life?

    I’ve decided to start taking a step back to realize that my perception could be totally off.

    Maybe someone is going through a really rough phase of life and they don’t mean to be whiny, they just need to put their feelings out there.  Maybe someone has experienced a victory and they’re so excited to share it that they don’t realized they’re coming across as braggy.  Perhaps a person’s family has weathered a few big blows but it’s just too personal to blog about in real time so they come across as having all together when in fact things are barely holding together.

    This is particularly true in the online community.  It’s equal parts awesome and dangerous.

    When Grace was just a baby and I was seriously struggling as a working mom, I found so much solace in the working mom blogs I read everyday.  In my real life I felt like the only one out there who had to juggle the demands of a job with the responsibilities of being a new mother.  Turns out there’s a whole support network of working moms online.  Reading about their daily routines, struggles and victories was immeasurably encouraging to me in those early months.

    I’ve got to admit that the same awesome online community has also lured out the ugly green monster in me from time to time.

    You know him…envy.

    Most people want to capture and remember the best parts of their days and weeks by immortalizing them on their blogs.  They aren’t usually going to take lots of pics of their crying toddler or messy house.  It does happen from time to time, but for the most part we want to document the good stuff.

    This makes it easy for others to get jealous of seemingly perfect lives.

    I know I’ve checked out the charming house, perfect outfit and adorable child of one of my favorite working mom bloggers and thought, “wow, must be nice to have it all together.”

    But guess what?

    She doesn’t have it all together because none of us do.  Not me, not the bloggers that I read or the people that I work with.

    I don’t have some profound ending for this post.  Just a challenge to myself to remember that my perceptions are not always right. 

    Food for thought.

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