My four year-old daughter loves to look at pictures on my phone. One day, while I was going through my phone photo gallery, I realized that she was not only viewing pictures. She was taking them as well. She had taken pictures (pretty good ones I might add) of her sneakers, some oranges, the refrigerator, plus the first picture below that literally shook me.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I could think of three pretty quickly after seeing this one:

 Old

Mother

Hubbard

 I could hardly believe my eyes! Was that really how I looked? I mean, I knew I felt tired, but I didn’t know I looked that tired. Without much effort, my look had transformed to that of a tired and stressed working mother of preschoolers.

 It’s a vicious, unending cycle. You dress how you feel, and then you feel how you dress. And you dress how you feel, and again feel how you dress. This picture forced me to come to myself and acknowledge that just because I may be tired sometimes (okay, a lot of the time); it doesn’t mean that I have to allow that to dictate my appearance and rob me of me.  But that is exactly what I was doing.

There have been a few times that people have pointed out that my shoulder was adorned with a burp cloth (get this) without my nine month old even being around. I was unknowingly walking around with a burp cloth as a clothing accessory. All I needed was a rhinestone brooch pin to accent the blue, green and orange dinosaurs.

Before seeing this picture though, I thought I was at least moderately sexy. I mean what’s more sexy than the sweet and sour scents of breast milk and Cocoa Chanel? But the picture revealed that I had lost my sexy, and like Justin Timberlake, I needed to bring it back, and with the quickness. I called my hair stylist.

“I need to cut my hair RIGHT NOW!”

My urgency made her a little hesitant, plus she was on leave from work and couldn’t do it that week. I threatened to go elsewhere and she quickly realized that I meant business. But I snapped back to rationally thinking that switching stylists for a major hair cut probably wasn’t the best idea. So I waited patiently (well, maybe not patiently, but I did wait), and after a very nerve-racking 20 minutes of shears and inches of locks dropping to the salon floor….

Picture of "New Do"

I feel like a new woman. There must have been some aging, wear and tear locked in those strands of hair of mine.

If you are feeling like you are getting in a style rut like I did, take action. If a haircut is not the solution for you, maybe it’s some hair color, new makeup or a wardrobe makeover. But do something. The world has no need for another Old Mother Hubbard. She’s been doing her job well since 1805.