Welcome to Chaos !!

The result from yesterday's shoot arrived in my inbox today. One (retouched) image. 

Photographer DJ.

Today I did another photo shoot. No theme, I was told to bring myself and some tops to wear. A "trade for" shoot, I get one image out of the shoot. We took around 400 pictures and I narrowed them down to nine that I liked the best. In the end I had a difficult time picking out one image for the photographer to retouch for the final result.
He said the retouch won't be much, flyaway hair strands, whiten up eyes and teeth if needed, take out blemishes if needed.
I do not use much make up, no foundation, no contouring, no blush. I was not happy with the lip gloss color that I had on but I did not have much else to choose from in my make up bag. Also not happy with my hair.
Here are the nine I narrowed down to.

In the end after some undecisiveness I picked the one in the right hand corner at the bottom. 
I can say this......in some of the pictures that I discarded I looked terrible. Everybody ages....I know. I am trying to "embrace" getting older as in getting older visibly on my face, skin and body. There are worse problems to have, I am very well aware of that.
Last December I did a similar shoot. Like a head shot type shoot. Trade for. I was asked to bring myself and some sweaters.
I got a few images out of that shoot. Here is one of them.
Last December......one year went by so fast.

Photographer Davies Photo Arts.

I chopped off my hair! Well not really. A trim of about 3 inches. I get a trim once or max twice a year. I went almost two years without one a few years ago. It started to look pretty bad so it was time. I made an appointment at Aveda Institute where you get a student that needs practice to cut (or color) your hair, supervised by an instructor. They also offer face treatments and massages. 
So here is before.

And after.

My hair is very thin now compare to how it used to be. You can see through it now. Not a good look. Before I had a luxurious (somebody referred to my hair as luxurious once and that is stuck in my memory) mane, now it is starting to approach aging rocker territory.
But Mick Jagger is #goals so I will embrace the thinner looking hair for now. (Although Mick doesn't have long hair.....).
I really liked my hair cut at the Aveda Institute. $15 instead of some crazy amount. The student first washed my hair with Nutriplenish by Aveda shampoo and conditioner and then took her time cutting my hair. So worth it. I will not go to regular salons for two minute hair cuts anymore.
I also got a facial. The Tulasara facial. It was ok. $30, so for that price it was ok but far from a great facial. I am going to go in for their dual exfoliating facial as well and add on a facial massage, just to try it.
Nothing fancy, very basic but it works.

I had kind of a stressful day today. Lots of negative stuff going on right now, destructive people around me that I am trying to deal with one day at a time. And my Mom is not doing good and she lives in Sweden, it is not like I can visit her on weekends.
Anyhow.....I drove to IKEA which is way on the other side of town from me. I live in SW Portland and IKEA is located in the NE.
They were out of pancakes (no more until next year) and IKEA no longer sell Marabou chocolate and Daim. That is what I came to get, I wanted to give some of my girlfriends that Marabou chocolate and get some Daim too.....so I left with some cinnamon buns instead which I ate later in the evening.

By the entrance you walk by this. I love it. Together. I believe in working together and helping others. Sometimes I think that it seems like looking out only for yourself is what most people care about. Not everybody is that way but many.

I can't decide what to do now. It is close to midnight. Tea? Ice cream? Brush my teeth instead? Sleep or continue reading and maybe watch something? Not sure.

Christmas time means Christmasy ice creams flavors like the Peppermint Bark by Tillamook. Yummy! But I actually prefer no bark (in this case the chocolate) and only the crunchy gooey peppermint. Tillamook is a town here in Oregon and is flooding right now......scary! Parts of Highway 101 are closed due to flooding.

This Christmas I am planning on reading, watching shows, eating and drinking lots of tea. So continue as normal that is.

A picture in a red dress from a shoot I did a while back for TropiCouture. Suzanne the designer for TropiCouture makes dresses. I don't wear dresses often but I like some of her creations. We did the shoot along the Vancouver WA waterfront, it is really nice there.