It's Mid January so it's Aussie Time

And nope I don't mean Aussie Moist.  I do love Aussie Moist but right now it's Australian Open tennis time and I've lost some of my favorites but more of my can't stand yas have bounced.  See ya Maria lol.  Beyond that it's been three weeks and I'm down almost 9 pounds total.  I need to get back to the gym regularly again but can I say the weather has been a special kind of hell here lately.  This week it should be good so I'm going to try to push it.  I'm eating well still and I'm loving myfitnesspal because it's giving me a good idea of what I'm eating even if it's low cal it's not always as healthy as it could be.  I'm not doing totally without aid clearly since I'm using my apps but it's good to see what is present there.  I thought about adding Noom but I know how finicky I am and there's literally no point in making another person insane.  Elizabeth was a saint to deal with that as long as she did lol. 

So quick hair update and then I'm going to go back to binging tennis until I go to sleep.  I kept my hair down about a month this time.  I was able to keep it moisturized relatively well and the products I used made it soft as hell (as was noted when I went to get my hair tucked away).  Aunt Jackie's is the business is all I can say.  That plus my DevaCurl has my hair happy and growing.  So I was thinking about leaving it out longer really.  But after three weeks of total hair fails I have recognized a few things.  My hair's default move is to poof.  I tried a few different roller sets and another braid/twist out and like a four of my hair, never in the same location, would be amazingly defined and cute.  The rest was really giving me this expression through follicular anger. 

Part of it was just the style itself but the other issue I'm seeing is because my hair is so gray that unless the style is on point and perfect then it just looks a mess.  My options there are to dye it, not happening, or keep letting it grow out so that the bigger poof is too cute.  I am opting for the latter and then going to try to figure out what to do with my hair when it's out.  My hair is healthy and strong so I enjoy that part.  It's just so tightly coiled that without some direct hot heat the texture never relaxes enough to hold a style outside of poof.  Gotta be a plan out there.  I'll figure it out.

Random Quickie

Back to the gym for the first time.  I'll be going back in the morning since we are finally out of the ridiculous wind chill advisory streak we've been under.  New equipment, building still needs some updates but the biggest thing is my behind has been sticking to a reasonable meal plan.  Three meals and two snacks a day thus far, typically around 1300 calories each day and I've been able to dump all of my favorite recipes into an app to use as part of my meal logging.  It's working with my Fitbit app so when I do workout it gives me this calorie cushion to play with.  I haven't abused that yet, I just ended up with more calories left in my ideal calorie count for the day.  Plus work has started again and that's making me move around more too than the slug I had been over the break.  Biggest news flash.  I weighed in today not expecting much.  I didn't believe the scale so I weighed myself in multiple parts of the house just to make sure the back wasn't somehow being super generous to me.  It wasn't.  HA I've lost 5 pounds.

My hair and I well yeah I tried a new thing cause my twist outs are always fails.  Tried a flexi rod set and all that came from that was really stretched hair.  Maybe I need to use super small flexi rods right now but I didn't have any and remember how I mentioned it's four degrees below hell freezing over here so I wasn't leaving the house with wet hair to go find some.  No curls, no definition, just straight super moisturized hair.  I put a little bit of Aunt Jackie's in my hair and at least the curls came back and looked on point.  Aunt Jackie's and DevaCurl are saving my life right now.  Okay so yeah that's all I got right now.

I'm not in Witness Protection I promise

So apparently I was more neglectful than I thought I was with this page.  Y'all the last three months of the year have been high octane hot mess.  I'm going to try to keep these in categories that make sense so I'm not randomly but I can't promise that at the moment.  Let's get into it before I take a nap and say forget it again and boom it will be January.

Work: So in all the ways work can be frustrating and exhilarating it was this year.  I was heavily recruited to do something and after saying no to the first two proposals I negotiated a temporary gain to the salary scale and jumped right on in.  I've in in meetings I wouldn't have been privy to otherwise and have been able to share feedback that wouldn't have come up before either.  Lots of professional development opportunities for me and campus and that is flipping amazing let's just be honest.  It's also meant a crap ton more work and while my classes weren't impacted my normal response time to some things slowed up.  However, I was bright and shiny as much as I needed to be and have a few more major projects to wrap up before I can say I did some great work for you in ten months let's see what to do with it now.  I also got one major project to a point of completion and that ate up literally ten of the twelve months of the year.  It also led to a bit of frustration but hell it's over with in one regard for the moment.  New team is composed to move forward and we'll see how that goes.

Weight: Can technically keep this one short.  I am not back over the start weight but I'm only a few pounds still in the loss category.  The stress of the year meant I dropped the one thing that had been my saving grace over the last two years which had been self-care.  I spoke with my trainer about that  a few months ago and asked for a time out.  We're rebooting next week and I am going to try to spend more time taking care of myself as well.  Everyone is happier when I'm happier.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  A girl needs some support.

Hair: So this one is weird.  I lost a ton of hair during my last take down but remember how I said I was slipping on the self-care? Well this fell into that realm too.  I'm totally responsible for the dry hair just saying girl please and taking a break.  It's still thick and while no gain was had from the last updo I wasn't bald lol.  The shape is slightly better now.  I may or may not put it back into a protective style before classes start but for now I am leaving it down, going to try to wash and style it for tomorrow so I can be cute on Christmas.  Regardless, this is part of the must do better option for 2018.  To that end I'm going to probably revisit some of the things I was willing to do a while back that I forgot about when I said this makes more sense.  Products are great but there has to be some routine that I'm willing to stick to at this stage.  And I may have to give away some more products and go with a plan B.  My hair dryer is great but my hair is too thick to be functional with that thing.  I need one made for thick hair with wider brush or comb options.  The diffuser is nice by my arm is literally mad as hell by the time I'm even half way dry.  Gotta use the next few days to plan some stuff out.

Random: birthday was good, dating is weird, friends are funny and my nieces are flipping amazing--big up to my brother for raising delightful children.  Butter London released polish inspired by the color of the year.  One was the direct color and one was Purple Reign.  Yep I copped that well both of them and a third light purple shade to add to my purple mix.  If it was gel I would have flipped my shit but it's not so my toe nails may enjoy it and I'll consider my finger nails.  Donuts are magical, meal prepping is easier when I'm tired for some reason, love my family and life can be good even when it doesn't seem like it.

Here's looking forward to a productive 2018.

Life Lessons Learned

So this post is going to be super random.  I have gone through another round of install, take down, let my hair rest and reinstall of my twists.  I didn't take any photos cause I was like seriously done when I took my hair down.  Let me pause for a second.  I'm so damn tired I cannot see straight some days.  Work is as always hectic.  Mom is woosah it's time for mom to visit my brother and she's going through fifty million machinations to not go visit right now.  I still have grading to do, entitled students to entertain, evaluations to conduct and somewhere in the middle of that I still have to escort students to a field trip, present at a conference, present an award to one of my favorite students (ok that will be fun) and attend graduation.  There are good things in the middle of there for sure but a sister is exhausted.  It's that time of the year and if there was a teleport a la Star Trek I'd be on Riza on a quick trip getting massages and booze and sleeping in.  Oh sweet precious sleep.