Wash Day and Workout

This may be short.  Work is killing me thus the lack of posting or anything else around here lately.  However this morning I got up and went to the first round of swim lessons for the fall.  I was worried that I wouldn't remember anything and be starting over from scratch but turns out I hadn't taken off that much time and everything save breathing to the side when I'm swimming came back relatively easily.  I love the class and my teacher rocks and my spring class buddy was back so it was a great morning.  It was not without faults.  Because I hadn't done much in the way or working out in about two months I got cramps in both of my hamstrings a few minutes into the lesson.  My instructor showed me a trick to work that out and then it was back to swimming.




I was prepared to go home and do the whole chlorine strip and then start on my hair but I agreed to go get my nails done and a much needed massage so I decided to roll my hair into that process as well. So let's start at the beginning.  I came home and took a shower.  I did do a chlorine strip but opted not to do much more to it.  I got started with a manicure and pedicure.  My hands and feet feel like butter.  It's ridiculous how good they feel right now.  I may have to go back there for that routine maintenance in the future.  I love the small rooms and all in all it was a good spot for that to take place.  I moved on to a Swedish massage.  I was a little doubtful about how that would work given I had already had a fabulous deep tissue massage in June.  Oh my goodness it was the best ever too.  I fell in and out of a light sleep repeatedly.  I am always sad when they end but it was then on to my hair.

Can we say yeah for wide tooth combs and patient stylists?  After she washed my hair and shampooed it she grabbed a large double toothed comb and detangled my hair.  I'm not sure what products she used during the wash but they are an Aveda salon so I'm sure that's who made it, had a nice tingle is all I can tell you.  She added a smoothing cream for naturals to my hair and then blew it dry on medium heat.  Didn't take very long and honestly I could have left after the blow dry but I had asked for a flat ironed do and she obliged.  I was concerned that she didn't put on a heat protectant but the iron wasn't super hot and she only passed over each section of hair twice.  My hair feels amazing right now.  I'm going to wrap it today and then if I'm so motivated I'm going to hit the gym or the Y to get in a workout again.  My body was screaming for one with all that cramping clearly.  More swimming next week for sure and I need to FINALLY update my workout count.

Oh and here's a photo of today's hair

This May Be The Post that Never Ends

Well ladies and gents,

I guess there could be some gents reading this too.  Anyhoo, there are some updates that I need to make because I've been slacking.  So bear with me if this post is wordier than most but I'll add a page break if it looks like I'm gonna ramble for a moment.  You've been warned lol so buckle up.

I hit my first anniversary on my hair journey.  Technically it was Friday so yes I'm late but I was working and thinking about things so forgive me.  The year went pretty quick and I was a little upset that there hadn't been more length retained but my hair is thick and happy and healthy.  I gave my ends a peak yesterday before I started to prepoo and they were looking pretty good as well.  So I was chalking things up to yeah health.  Today I was going to do a twist or braid out on my hair.  I have no patience so I asked mom to do it and she did but as she finished the braids I noticed something.  My hair is eons longer than it was the first time we tried a braid out.  That was many months ago but I was pretty set on not doing it again until I was sure my hair was long enough to not make me look 17 when I took it down for the wavy look that braid/twist outs give.  I had totally forgotten about that today.  I just wanted to try something else that didn't tangle as much as the flexirod sets so I was a bit shocked to see the length of the braids.  I rolled them up and now they are under my bonnet.  We'll see how it looks in the morning.  My next relaxer will depend on how this week of hair behavior goes.  If it looks okay and is holding the style well I'll do what I mentioned before and just let it ride another week or two at least.  If not I'll beg to get in this week or early next week at the latest.  Can't be looking a mess with my cute new clients.

Insomnia sucks big monkey balls & related things

I really hate when I can't sleep.  Granted my sleep cycle has been off because I've been feeling so so the last few days with no clear explanation.  I finally finished the oft delayed assignment for my old job.  I couldn't decide if it was deliberate that I was ignoring it or a mix of my life is really moving on and I don't want to deal with the past much anymore.  It was probably a little of both cause believe me I was annoyed when I got the assignment weeks after I left.  But it's in and if they like it or don't my time with them is done.  Just paychecks to collect and the rest of my life here to enjoy.  I finished around 11PM and debated sending it but since I want to go in tomorrow morning I didn't want to forget about sending it.  That gave me time to talk to the boyfriend and to check the assignments for the University of Phoenix training.  Got those all done and just need to create a power point for class next week.  On the plus side the dumb assignment let me know that I still had really good access to journal articles through my public library.  LOVE THEM.  We don't give the public library enough credit really, free movies and cds and books.  You get them for at least a week and late fees are still better than anything Blockbuster came up with.  Yes I know this is all very random but it's 3 in the morning what do you expect from me lol. 

Reset Day 6 & 7 & 8

So the assignment for day six was to create your own mission statement.  That sounded somewhat intimidating and I'll admit to not reading all of the assignment because it seemed daunting at the time.  Looking back at it and instead of thinking about mission statements from work settings, the assignment doesn't seem as scary.  So here goes and if it starts to get wordy then you'll be gifted to the page break I should have put in the last one initially but that is finally there now.

Reset Day 4 & 5

Some of these things I really like since they kind of remind me of doing therapy on some level.  These are things that I would do with my own clients but yeah haven't indulged in my own therapy in YEARS.  So moving on to the reset exercises.

Day Four: Identify What's Important to You and The Top 10 to focus on.  This will be more detailed than just categories because otherwise I know myself and I'll say that's so vague and won't do a thing about any of it.  The category I think it falls under will be in all caps at the end of each line.

there may be a series of posts

Okay I'm late on my 31 Day Reset assignments.  Monday night after feeling like crap for the entire weekend I drug my happy behind out of bed and went to the University of Phoenix assessment night.  It was good.  I think I did fine and I enjoyed myself listening to the other presentations.  Better yet it was a step to getting my identity bad in a way that felt good for me instead of the one that I'm coming out of.  I also committed to some sorority stuff too and need to send an email back about something else.  Yesterday a stupid virus hit my computer so I spent several hours last night and more hours today running virus scan after virus scan.  Okay I may ramble about this more in a different post but let's see how many of the Reset assignments I can catch up on.  Up first Day Two, an assessment of several areas of your life.

Reset, reboot, report

Was about to update the last post again and that seemed silly.  It's just easier to start a new post and share what I meant to share with you right?

Okay so someone opted not to cook because for some reason she thought I'd wait till 9PM to cook.  I ran out and got us a bite to eat and then came back to check all the blogs I'm following.  I had planned on waiting till August 1st to join the 31 Day Reset on Happy Black Woman's Blog but said screw it and jumped on in.  I may not blog all assignments but I'll be sure to tag the ones I do.  Day 1: Choose a notebook, mantra and theme song. The computer will likely be my notebook in some form or fashion.  Here are the other two pieces of the assignment.

Mantra: In order to be fully reborn, I have to let pieces of the old me die. I choose to embrace the journey ahead.

Theme Song: I Am by Christina Aguilera.

I chose the mantra I did because I can get stuck sometimes.  I'm so busy planning how to take care of this or that for him or her or them that I don't work on the things for myself that I need to attend to.  And I'm fearful a lot more than I'd like.  That too prevents me from taking the risks that I would like.  I have to be able to look ahead without the fear, or move beyond the fear, or else I'll be forever unhappy with where I could be.  I love the song I chose.  It's about acknowledging where you have faults, embracing them and how they contribute to who you are, and letting others embrace that person not the one you want them to see (free of faults and all that stuff).  Or that's what I take from it.  It makes me cry a little sometimes but it always makes me say yep that's what I want.  We'll see how the reboot goes.  I need a little structure sometimes to make myself stick to task.

OAN: I did take my hair down and it's straight surprisingly considering how puffy it was feeling BUT I would have had to roller set it to keep it out like it is now since I'm working on the no heat part of my life.  However, I'm eight weeks post right now and my hair is feeling like it's eight weeks post.  Tomorrow I'll wash it and roller set it before bed.  My hair likes that better than a simple wrap without any sort of heat.