Several weeks ago I made an appointment to get my hair cut and highlighted. I had put off The Day of Reckoning as long as I could, but the necessity of a salon visit became very clear to me when I saw a picture of myself, realized that my roots were approximately three inches long, and cried out for God to deliver me from my hair negligence.

So a cut and some highlights seemed reasonable.

But sadly, I had to cancel my appointment because the husband and I had mixed up our schedules, and NO WAY was I taking a 4 1/2 year-old with me to get my hair done because THAT WOULD NOT BE VERY RELAXING, NOW WOULD IT?

I think not.

And now is where my tale of hair woe gets a bit dicey.

I had big plans to reschedule my appointment, but since the Hair Wizard is over two hours from my house, there were some logistical issues in terms of finding a convenient time for an appointment. And sadly, as the post-cancellation days passed, I started to realize my pre-Uganda Hair Wizard window was closing. There just wasn’t enough time.

So you know where this is going, don’t you?

Because obviously the conditions were ripe for the devil to get a home hair color foothold. And while some of you have the skills to carry out successful home hair color ventures, I do not. I can only create tiger stripes of spotty yellow color. The devil knows this.

He preys upon the weak, my friends. He preys upon the weak.

So while I didn’t exactly plan to go to the CVS and stand in the home hair color aisle for twenty minutes and convince myself that I really could replicate the Hair Wizard’s sun-kissed highlights, that is exactly where I found myself a couple of weeks before the Uganda trip. I had to go to the drugstore to pick up some medicine for the little man, and before I knew what happened, I picked up a box of highlights.

Oh, and the Lord tried to intervene. He did. He first used my child, who was a little farther down the aisle than I was and suddenly screamed “GO AWAY!” to no one in particular. At first I thought that he felt threatened by a somewhat surly CVS customer who kept rolling her eyes at Alex because he was singing to himself, and HOW DARE A CHILD DO THAT IN PUBLIC, but now I truly believe that my child was rebuking the spirit of home hair color oppression that had fallen all around me.

A little child will lead them, my friends.

But I was so blinded by my own transgressions that I couldn’t see straight.

Go ahead and raise a hand if you’ve been there, sisters. Go right ahead.

The Lord didn’t stop with Alex, however. Because a few minutes after I failed to heed the warning from my child, Melanie called.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Oh, um, just standing here in CVS. Looking at a few, um, highlighting kits.”

“DON’T DO IT!” she replied. “GET AWAY FROM THERE RIGHT NOW! DON’T DO IT!”

I’m telling you: the force behind her admonition was nothing short of GET THEE BEHIND BOOMAMA, SATAN.

I paused for a second, then tried to explain myself: “You know my situation. I have to do something. My roots are atrocious. I have to do something. I just have to.” And then I collapsed in a sobbing heap in the middle of aisle four.

Okay. Maybe notsomuch with that last thing.

But even still, my hardened heart was unreceptive to the home hair color truth. And despite Big Mama’s attempt at home hair color intervention, I closed my phone, grabbed my child’s hand and marched right up to the register with a box of highlights.

And I bought those highlights, y’all. I did.

Now I know – I KNOW – that it’s frustrating for you to read about my fall from professionally-administered highlights again and again. You and I both know that I know better – because I’ve been burned several times before. I have had more reconstructive color than the law should allow. But we all have areas that can be strongholds of temptation in our lives.

Home highlighting kits just happen to be one of mine.

But rest easy, internets, for this is actually A Story Of Hair Color Hope.

Because the week before I left for Africa, I stood in front of the mirror in our half bath and started to apply those home highlights. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had the Spirit just rise up in you and tell you to GO ON AHEAD AND FLEE from something, but that’s exactly what happened to me.

I dropped that highlighting wand like it was on fire. And I ran to our bathroom, jumped in the shower, and washed that bleach right out of my hair.

Oh yes I did.

Glory!

The road since then has not been completely free of home hair color temptation, however. Vanity scored a significant victory when I applied some temporary root touch-up color right before I left the country. And while I recognize that those sweet Ugandan children didn’t care one bit about the condition of my roots, I JUST WANTED TO LOOK CUTE FOR THEM.

AND I AM CUTER WHEN I’VE GOT MY BLONDE ON.

But three weeks have passed, and the temporary root touch-up, it has faded. It is as far as removed from my hair as the east is from the west. Which means I’m right back to where I was when I started this tumultuous hair color journey almost four weeks ago.

We have a Very Important Wedding to attend next weekend, and quite honestly I have been fearful of what my hair will look like by then. In fact, I have worried that the wedding festivities will be marred by my tri-color trainwreck of a hairdo. And I have prayed for the strength to stay away from aisle four of the CVS. Because I know that another trip down aisle four could take me farther than I ever wanted to go.

It could take me straight to brassy platinum blonde, y’all. Oh yes it could.

So you can imagine my delight in announcing that I am off to see The Wizard one week from today. I didn’t think it would be possible to get an appointment on such short notice, but she’s working me into her schedule.

The Lord has once again provided a way out, my friends. His grace knows no bounds. It covers a multitude.

And in about seven days, that grace will flow down and cover my roots with beautiful, evenly distributed highlights that will be applied by a licensed hair care professional.

Hallelujah.

And amen.

Congratulations, Tessa – you’ll be getting an email from the Ann Taylor LOFT Maternity people in the next day or two.

And thanks, everybody, for participating!

The four year-old and I had sort of a rough go of it last week. I’d been away for eight days. I came home, and he proceeded to test almost every single one of his boundaries with me. I was prepared for that to happen. But being prepared didn’t make it any easier.

So Friday afternoon, we hit the road, the boy and me, for a little Mother-Son Road Trip. We drove up to Nashville to see my sister and her hubby, who were gracious enough to accommodate a couple of last-minute guests.

It’s probably pretty telling that Alex and I both slept for ten hours Friday night. Not that our level of exhaustion had anything to do with all the head-butting.

Alex wanted to “play trains” Saturday morning, so we drove to the closest Barnes & Noble. As an added bonus, we also got to see the FryDaddy family (no, Angela didn’t wear The Jeans, but she did wear one of the cutest coats I’ve ever seen). The FryDaddies were smack-dab in the middle of their Saturday Basketball Extravaganza, OH BLESS THEIR HEARTS, but they made time to swing by the Barnes & Noble(s) and hang out with us in the children’s section.

I love it when new friends feel like old ones.

After we left the bookstore, Sister, Alex and I had Sonic for lunch BECAUSE WE ARE FANCY. Alex experienced his very first hockey game Saturday night, and when it was over we watched the end of the UT / Memphis game on the jumbotron and screamed our heads off because we’re a little cuckoo for the SEC.

And also: the Bulldogs won in overtime.

It was a really good day.

And I’m leaving out the part about what happened with my digestive tract yesterday because, well, I heart you, internets, and I would like for you to continue to feel comfortable when you visit here and BELIEVE YOU ME if I tell you what happened with my digestive tract yesterday you will never feel comfortable here again.

Not to mention that you would never be able to make eye contact with me if we were to meet in person.

Suffice it to say that yesterday’s trip home wasn’t exactly the most pleasant car ride of my life.

*shudder*

And I’m all better now.

By the way, I’m also leaving out the part about how I’m struggling a little bit right now with lots of post-trip emotions that render me very quiet and leave me feeling sort of disconnected, but I’m hoping that if I use enough capital letters and exclamation points IT WON’T BE TOO NOTICEABLE.

!!!

Oh, me and my ingenious diversions.

In no particular order:

1) Dave Barnes

Now I know he’s a person, not an “item,” but his music is phenomenal and he has the words “interweb netsite” on his website and he is very, very funny, as you can clearly tell from this video (thanks, L, for the link).

In short, I believe I have a new musical obsession. Even though I will always have a special place in my heart for Monk & Neagle, and that will never change.

2) Wendy’s Stack Attack

99 cents. NINETY NINE CENTS.

However, I just made the mistake of looking at the nutritional information, and 99 cents is seeming like a pretty high price to pay for those 380 calories and 26 carbs.

Especially since I ate two of them.

But OH, they are tasty.

3) “Down Home with The Neelys”

First time I can ever remember laughing out loud while watching a cooking show. Triple love them.

4) “Trading Spaces”

Paige Davis is back. So are Frank and Laurie.

And not-so-coincidentally, I’m watching again.

5) iLife ’08

So cool.

6) Hearing Newsong sing this song at a concert Saturday night (more on the concert soon, by the way).

It took me right back to my circa-1987 youth retreat days.

And made me want to run to the nearest mirror and fluff my bangs a good two inches.

Then plaster them with Paul Mitchell Freeze-N-Shine.

Hallelujah and amen.

This is our first podcast with A Very Special Guest Star.

Ladies and gentlemen, Travis Cottrell.

{wild applause}

{and also, quite a bit of woo-hoo’ing}

And while you might think that Big Mama and I tried to be all subdued and professional and calm during this podcast, you would be wrong. Because Travis, God love him, had to listen to a great deal of Talk About Dresses that I edited out, though we were kind enough to not drag him into some sort of discussion about our hair. That would have been cruel and unusual punishment indeed.

However, we do talk about The Office, Angela’s Legendary Jeans, and the fact that my town is about to get a swanky new department store.

I know. Travis was probably screaming on the inside, desperately pleading with God for one of us to PLEASE TALK ABOUT FOOTBALL.

And if the beginning of the podcast sounds disjointed, that’s because it is. You will think, “I don’t believe they mentioned that before,” and you will be right. I had to do some serious editing to the very beginning because of all our talking and rambling and rambling some more, but after about five minutes, the narrative structure will be CRYSTAL CLEAR, my friends.

Or not. But still. We can pretend.

And once we get going, the three of us spend a lot of time on the internets’ (great and oh-so-fun) questions; there’s all sorts of cool info about how Travis and Angela met, what happened when they went to American Idol, and how Travis started doing ministry with that girl named Beth who has written some Bible studies and EVEN SOME BOOKS, Y’ALL.

They say she does some speaking, too, but I’m not sure that I believe them.

Another podcast tidbit: Alex sings for Travis. I could pretend that it’s not adorable, but that would be a lie.

We didn’t get through all the questions – not by a long shot – and that is why we’ve already planned a part 2. And a part 3. Because for Big Mama and me, this whole process has been like finding a brother we never knew we had.

And for Travis, this whole process has been like finding two sisters that, well, he’s still not sure he wants. Because he has plenty of real sisters already. And besides, Big Mama and I can be a little loud.

Oh, it is a precious time.

Click here to listen on the web. Or, you can go here and then click on the speaker next to Episode 10.

Subscribe via iTunes here.

Subscribe via RSS feed here.

If you have any questions (Travis-related or no) you’d like for us to answer in the next podcast, fire away, my friends.

And as always, we thank you for your patronage.

Okay – everything is up and running again!

So here are our three Bonbon Charms giveaway winners:

Commenter #138 – The Park Wife

Commenter #147 – Trina (hotmail email address)

Commenter #257 – Jenn

Congratulations, everyone! You’ll have an email from me shortly with details about how to claim your prize.

And even if you didn’t win, you can still get a 20% discount off of your Bonbon Charms order – just enter the coupon code BOOMAMA at checkout. Valentine’s orders need to be placed by Monday in order to guarantee delivery by the 14th.

Thanks, everybody!

Just wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about posting the winners of the Bonbon Charms Valentine’s jewelry giveaway – I promise. But Erica emailed me a little bit ago to let me know that they’re having some major server issues, so I’m going to hold off on announcing the winners until people can actually visit the site and select their charm.

As soon as everything is up and running again, I’ll post the names of the winners and a reminder about the discount code that everyone can use.

Thanks a bunch, internets!