Boobs, Beer, and Brain Cancer = One Hell Of A Successful Fundraiser!

The Fundraiser was held on Thursday and it was a pretty big success. Unfortunately we didn't meet our goal of $35,000 but we did raise over $20,000 which is still really amazing.

The whole day was insane. I am still recuperating from that very long day. I got up at 6:30 in the morning and didn't get home till about 2 in the morning. It was a loooong day. Factor in doing most of that day in high heels while standing on tile flooring and you had me, in bed, ready to lose my mind over how sore my feet were. Getting up for work the next day was like pulling teeth. I still had another 4 days of work after that 18 hour day. I've worked about 65 hours this week and I finally have today off so I'm using it to relax.

Overall the event was an unreal feeling. I was lucky enough to have Jon here for the week so we could finally catch up on a much needed visit. It had been far too long since we had seen eachother. Having him at the event made everything so much more worth it. My manager asked if he would be willing to do a speech before the auction and he agreed to do so. Thankfully he read me his speech before the event a few times so I was able to prepare myself for a very heartfelt speech. It was unreal actually. He started by introducing himself and talked a little bit about the cancer he was diagnosed with and his battle with it to date. He started to talk about his parents giving up their jobs to be with him in Vancouver during his treatment, as well as his sisters putting university on hold so they could be with him. He choked up a bit so I put my arm around him, told him it was okay, and he kept speaking. It was incredibly emotional and everyone in the room was just blown away. When you're able to put a face to the cause that you're donating to it really makes it hit home for people. Reminds them as to why they are there and what it is they are helping with. Everyone started to cry even though the speech wasn't a super sappy one or anything. It wasn't a "poor me poor me" speech it was just Jon's story and what his life has been like. The part that hit me the most was when he said, "When you hear the words 'you have cancer,' it literally takes your breath away. Your whole life just stops and you can't breathe." I think we all know someone who has cancer, or who has cancer themselves, and I'm sure you all know the feeling when you find out someone you love has cancer. It's an instant fear that takes over your whole being and it is a very consuming feeling. It doesn't ever seem to end and it's a thought that is always there in the back of your mind. I can't imagine what it's like to battle the disease itself.

So this day and night event was dedicated to helping find a cure, particularly for Childrens Brain Cancer. Yes the girls all dressed up in lingerie and served beer, wine, and shots of fireball to the clients as they got their haircut. Yes there were models and half naked firemen (photos of those to come,) and it may all seem like a cheeky and superficial way to raise money, but overall it was a fun, entertaining, and successful way of raising money for a really great cause. So here are the pictures from the evening.

Jess and I at the beginning of the day.

Bre pouring beers in the back.

Katya cutting hair looking cute as ever!

 

Anna cutting hair in her 60's getup. She's like a modern day Marilyn Monroe!

Melissa in her adorable outfit.

The lovely Ari.

My manager Nicole. The salon Owner's niece.

My instructor from school, the beautiful Elissa!

The lovely Renata, she's one of our receptionists.

Just SOME of the schedule for the day. That's a lot of haircuts.

Sweet Silvana. Love this girl.

Elissa giving some love to one of the clients.

Silvy doing the same!

The beautiful Alana, the girl who never ages. (Seriously she's 29, would you have ever guessed that?)

Clark getting some wine for her friend.

Another former instructor, Katie, very newly married too!

Our Australian receptionist Megan. Such a sweetheart this one, and sadly she'll be leaving us to go back to the motherland soon. :(

What do you mean it's not appropriate to rub your tits on the back of your clients head? haha Good thing they're friends...

My manager Renee, and her fiance Phillip, who is also a stylist at our salon, and a Wella colour rep. These two are amazing!

I wasn't cut out for modelling poses. It's very apparent that I'm too butch and SUCK at looing feminine. Megan however looks phenomenal as always.

Elissa, Lisa, and Nicole posing for some camera's.

Somehow some Kanye glasses were going around the room.

Posing at the sinks, but I couldn't get Anna in the shot :(

Model, actress, and hairstylist Chasty! She is one of the sweetest girls I've ever met.

Another of our receptionists, Kaitlyn with Megan.

Anna and Clark comparing their "Larry's" as Clark calls them hahaha. I love this picture.

Melissa and Chasty.

Girls posing in a very hectic and messy back room!

Chasty and Lisa.

Making fun of Jess's pose haha.

Scalp Massages? haha

Silvy and Bernice. Our lovely Irish girl? I actually haven't had the chance to really meet her yet.

Alana and one of her clients.

Jon flipping me the bird and drinking a beer at the evening event.

Jon and I. :)

Jess and I hanging out, as she smokes at a friggen cancer fundraiser. Yeah you heard that right, people actually smoked at a cancer fundraiser!

Katya with an empty plate of appetizers. Mmm.

Jess serving as well.

I didn't take too many pictures of the evening event, since Megan was running around with her camera doing that and I was too busy running around all night helping out and visiting. I'll post those when Megan puts them up perhaps!

So that was most of our day and some of the evening. Definitely a LOT of fun. The guys loved the fact that they were able to do shots of fireball, drink beer and/or wine, and get their haircut all at the same time by someone half naked. One guy actually ended up being an hour late for work because he was with his friends waiting for them to finish getting their haircuts, before he realized he forgot all about having to work! hahaha. I think his boss would understand assuming his boss was a man.

A big thank you to everyone that helped make this so successful, and an even bigger thank you to Jon for being such a huge inspiration to me and everyone else that was there that night. You are amazing and I hope you never forget it.

To Do List

Jon is here for the week! It's about time I finally saw him, it's been a loooong time. We haven't seen eachother since February.

I have a lot of stuff I need to get done today so I started making a list so I wouldn't forget anything. I put the list down for a few minutes and walked away from it to grab something, and Jon had ever so kindly started adding to the to-do list.

I decided that we had to do everything on the list today. We have 24 hours to:

-Get my bustier tailored or find other lingerie for fundraiser
-Buy a dress for fundraiser
-"Build" a cake, (apparently Jon doesn't "make" cakes, he builds them)
-Be stoked on life
-Run with scissors
-Walk on the grass
-Laugh a lot
-Pay my phonebill
-Get a birthday card for the old man
-Get a birthday card for Lisa
-Jaywalk
-Rap a bit
-Find shoes, bitch!
-Do hair/get it done
-Figure out what to say (for the fundraiser, Jon will be saying a few words before the auction)
-Fuck Giftwrap!
-Get foundation
-Smell a flower (not a rose)
-Stop mid-day and take 5 minutes to breathe and reconnect
-Learn to whistle at broads
-Scratch my guitar (this is a painful one for me)
-Look at the ocean
-Think of 7 things you really love. Think of them.
-Brush teeth
-Mock Marlee Jay (Jon always calls me by my first and middle name)
-Get nose ring
-Hit emergency stop while getting CT scan
-Write a nice card to someone
-Have glasses intervention for Marlee (apparently I have an addiction to eyewear)
-Pay for contacts
-DON'T read "A million little pieces"
-Visit the old hell hole (the cancer clinic)
-Ogle the Australian nurse and Philip (Philip is a dreamy man nurse apparently)
-Walk on the patio
-Get a brain massage (if you rub the plate that's on the back of Jon's head, he can actually feel it touch his brain)
-Punch Marlee in the kidney (this one's not so cool)
-Draw a picture
-Avoid a spinal tap
-"Get shit done"
-Listen to Marlee play guitar
-Find a hardwood store for finger fucking prospects (HAHA Jon likes to feel the texture of wood, this one just makes me laugh)
-Find bearings for longboard
-See a blue heron
-Have a coffee at the cancer clinic
-Book a haircut for thursday (With any hairdresser but Marlee) ... (Thanks Jon you asshole haha)
-Overcome needle phobia
-Feel nature (on a bridge)
-Listen to a whole Satanic Surfers album
-Smile at 7 random people (non creepy)
-Act like I am surfing the skytrain (this one is Jon's, hah!)
-Drink a Pint
-Enjoy Mar's company
-Tell Dr. K he is a silly Austrian
-Shave in "Fuck Cancer" (I have a feeling Jon will pussy out on this one)
-Smoke a cougher (HAHA yes, he is going to smoke a big joint while standing across the street from the cancer clinic)
-Call Wayne and tell him I love him (Jon's old cancer clinic roommate who is dying from throat cancer)


So there it is. There's today's to-do list. I had to laugh. I literally had written down two things and the rest of the list Jon made. He added what I needed him too, but definitely put a spin on things. We've got 15 hours and 15 minutes left to get all of it done. I decided I'll take pictures of some of the things... like the faces of the 7 random people we smile at for instance haha. That won't be creepy at all right?

You've Got A Heart On Fire

I am starting to get a little overwhelmed by the amount of shit that's been going on lately. My days are rarely spent doing what needs to be done or doing what I want to do. They're typically spent cleaning/tidying, running errands, and then squeezing in visits with friends that I can't squeeze in on other days because of my weird work schedule. It gets tricky trying to find time for people when you're not off work until 7 or 8 at night and you're up at 8 in the morning getting ready to leave. Take today for example, I am supposed to see 3 different people all at different times. One of which I've decided not to because I just simply don't have the time or energy.

I work long days, a lot of people don't realize that unfortunately. Wednesdays are the longest by far. Yesterday I was at the salon for 11 hours and almost had to stay another 2. Thankfully the extra 2 wasn't necessary. I typically work 9 hour days mostly.

I'm almost always tired after getting off work. Some days I am exceptionally exhausted, particularly if I have a very busy day. Sometimes I just want to freak out and be like, "No, I really DON'T feel like going for a fucking walk because I've been on my feet for the last 10 hours and have not sat down once, I haven't eaten anything since I woke up this morning, I've been socializing all day and all I want is to sit down, put my feet up, and not listen to anyone talk for at least an hour." I would feel absolutely horrible if I ever said that to anyone though. But seriously I have canceled plans a couple of times because I've felt like that. I did the other night actually, and then I got home just to find out that Kara (a girl I went to school with that lives in Fort St John) was in town with Tonya (another girl from school that lives in Sechelt) for one night only and so of course I just had to see them. Lets face it, I don't even get two days off in a row, let alone get enough time off to go visit them anytime soon. Then I stupidly missed the last skytrain and ended up busing it home and getting home sometime after 3 and had to wake up four hours later. I was done for.

I'm in desperate need of a pedicure but that's the last thing I need to spend money on right now. My feet could sure use the treatment though that's for sure. Maybe next month, its simply not in this months budget.  I think it will be my birthday present to myself. Is it sad that for my birthday all I want is to be pampered? A good massage and pedicure would be amaaaaazing.

I need to see my chiropractor soon but yet again, it's about finding the time. He is going to be so mad at me when he sees what's been done to my back since my last visit. All the work he did to fix it is now completely undone and it's right back to where it was before. Whoops. Sorry Dr. Forest! Good thing he's cute cause I'll probably be spending a lot of time with him over the course of my life. He's a good doctor too but clearly my priority doctors are cute ones. ;)

The fundraiser is actually on one of my days off so that means next week is a 6 day work week. The day of the fundraiser is going to be insane. I believe my day starts at 8am because two of the girls I work with have asked if I would do their hair for them before the cut-a-thon so I agreed. I don't mind at all because I'm doing big sexy blowouts and they're the easiest thing to do and I absolutely love doing them. I love making girls feel pretty and on a day where we're all going to be half naked in lingerie I think feeling pretty is important. I'm getting my eyemakeup done by one of the other girls as well. So after all the getting ready/prepping for our day we start the cut-a-thon. I've decided to stop booking my last appointment at 2:15/2:30 because I will be helping with the set up at the other salon. The day isn't technically over till around 10 or 11 that night, and then I will be helping with cleaning up and getting the salon set back up so we can be back cutting hair the next day. AKA it's looking like an 8am-12am (or potentially later) day. 16 hours, holy balls. And then I work the next morning... It's going to be an amazing day though and will be well worth every ounce of energy being put into it.

After all that's over I need to start on some other projects. I still need to write a script, find people, and shoot a commercial due on September 8th.

Somewhere in there a friend is thinking of visiting for a week or so in late August or early September. Jon will also be down for a few days during the fundraiser. I'm also starting to plan a photoshoot for the fall with Alicia, and am hoping to have a few small photoshoots in between there as well. Likely I'll bring in a few girls to the salon on my days off, style them up and get them ready and do a shoot with Alicia after she gets off work or something. Gongshow right? Which reminds me, I'm looking for long and short haired models (guys included) so if you're interested, leave a comment.

I totally do this to myself. I know I'm crazy, I fully admit it. I definitely don't want people to be all sympathetic, I just want people to understand that I might not necessarily have a lot of free time and if they want to hang out then yes plans do have to be made quite far in advance right now. That being said I think I might just stick to things that are already in my calendar from now until mid September, and avoid committing to anything else that might come up. That would probably save me some of my sanity. *Eye twitch.*

Jose Gonzalez - Killing For Love

8 Questions, 8 answers

Somthing weird is up with my blog/gmail account. It got hacked into and everything got shut down last night so I had to reset my password. Apparently I am now following myself as well... Interesting. I don't even know how to remove myself from my own followers list but man do I feel gay having my picture up there. I swear I didn't do it!

Anyways, I was tagged by the lovely Alicia in some sort of blog questionnaire. I have nothing better to do with my time today because its my day off so its consisting of surfing the internet for way too long, playing too much guitar, canceling the insurance on my car, doing more laundry, and going out for dinner with a friend. 

So here it goes... Alicia's questions:

1) Favourite type of food? (Italian, Mexican, Japanese, etc...)

I would have to say since I am completely carb and meat obsessed that Italian food is always my go-to comfort. That being said though I love me some mashed potatoes and gravy. It's probably my favourite food not even kidding.
 

2) If you were trapped on a desert island, which 3 cds would you choose to have with you?

Well... I think I would have to go with anything City and Colour, John Mayer - Continuum, and Florence and The Machine - Lungs. There's so many bands to choose from but I would say those are three that I never tire of and are the first things I choose to listen to when I want to feel something. 

3) Vintage or Brand New?

I love anything old. I love old jewellry, old furniture, old houses. I just feel like it has so much more character than anything we have these days. 

4) Favourite piece in your wardrobe right now and why?

I wouldn't even say it's a piece of my "wardrobe," it's an accessory but it's being incorporated into every outfit... ze headband. I'm all about the headbands right now. I don't even think I have a favourite article of clothing. I'm definitely drawn to my tank tops and v-necks but that's also because it's summer and I'm pretty plain jane. 

5) If you had a choice to live for free anywhere in the world for a year, where would you go?

I'm going to go with Australia. I would say the UK or Europe but I can't really narrow it down any further than that so Australia it is. They've got a pretty good hair scene there... Plus hot weather and beaches? Enough said. 

6) Coffee or Tea?

That's a tough one. I don't drink coffee often, but I'll drink coffee before I drink tea. That being said, I drink tea at night when I want to relax where as I would never make coffee at home. I think I prefer the taste of coffee though, after I dump about 10lbs of sugar in there. 

7) How do you express your creativity?

Most definitely through hair, whether it be my own or someone elses. Next would be through guitar/music, and I even occasionally draw but that's definitely more rare. I also express it through the way I dress. 

8) How would you describe your personal style?

 

It sorta changes with what my hair is like but for the most part I have a pretty hard/edgier style. I've got short hair so I like to girl up my outfits so that they don't come off too boyish. I am usually drawn to pretty normal outifts, v-neck t-shirts and skinny jeans or skirts, cute dresses etc... I just like to add at least one girly element and at least one edgy element. I definitely wear a lot of tank tops and v-necks. I'm not too exciting haha.

So there you have it. I would think of 8 questions for anyone else to answer but I'm lazy and my back is now sore. I also realized I have more laundry to do than I realized so I best get on it. I was going to answer these questions with ms paint pictures, but again, I am far too lazy.

Holy Balls

No one cares about this shit but I'm writing about it anyways because I want it here for my own documentation. I had a major colour correction come in this afternoon and there weren't any senior stylists at the salon today which meant I had to entirely whip something up on my own and pray to the hair Gods that I knew enough about what I was doing that it would turn out and that they would walk out a very happy person.

The person came in with an inch and a half of nearly dark brown (almost black) roots, with a medium brown base colour for about a 3 inch length of the midshaft, with a light brown colour on the rest of the mid shaft of the hair, and the ends were blonde with a green tinge from being damaged and absorbing too much ash concentrate from their last toner/colour. The colour was uneven, blotchy, some natural, most previously coloured (with box dye black underneath it all) and the hair was very porous and damaged... and I managed to have them walk out of there with beautiful caramel brown (neutral, even a little on the cooler side, not brassy at all) highlights with a perfectly even rich chocolate brown base colour (that is still ligher than the natural colour of hair on this persons head.) Not only that but the hair actually looked and felt healthier than what it looked/felt like when what I was first dealing with.

I would just like to say that this was my first "holy shit" moment I've had in a long time. I am beyond amazed at the fact that it turned out, because I'm not going to lie, I was absolutely terrified. The formulation for the colour was incredibly complex. I was using a combination of bleach for the highlights (which I couldn't put on the ends of the hair otherwise it would have caused extensive damage,) a permanent colour for the natural root, and a combination of a couple demi permanent colours to even out the midshaft/end colour. When I was colouring the hair between the foils, I had to do the medium brown at the root, then dampen the ends of the hair before I put on my demi-permanent so that the porous/dry ends wouldn't absorb too much colour and go too dark. I also had to take into account that putting colour over top of colour (even if you're using the exact same colour as what's already on the hair) will go darker because of the amount of pigment in the shaft. So I had to formulate something that was lighter than the goal colour so that it would combine with the pigment that was already in the hair to get to the goal colour, but would still not be too warm (because said client wanted a more neutral/ashy colour.)

After washing out all of that I had to tone the highlights... This was probably the scariest part for me being that the root/midshaft was a nice brassy yellow and the ends were a mucky green colour. I lifted the roots/midshaft lighter than I needed to so that there was less red/yellow pigment in the hair so that I could use less ash control in my formula and still get a neutral/more ashy highlight. I mixed a natural based colour with a brown/ash based colour so that there was a small amount of ash control to neutralize the warmth that was in there from my highlights, but there was also enough brown, gold, and red in the colour to cut out the green that was on the ends.

I managed to do all of that with a haircut in 3 hours. I'm really happy with that because 65 minutes of that was colour processing time alone. I did the haircut, blowdry/flat iron in 45 minutes, 20 minutes for the consultation... which means I spent 50 minutes in colour formulating/mixing, application time, and two shampoos (one for the highlights and colour, one for the toner.) I'd say that's right on fucking par.

Yes I am totally highfiving myself and yes I know that nobody gives a shit about this, but this was definitely an exciting moment for me since it was something that would make even an experienced senior/master stylist nervous.

I frigging love my job. It's everything I ever wanted in a career. It's challenging, fun, social, creative, and the best part - never monotonous. I can't imagine ever doing a job that I wasn't this passionate about ever again.