Pre Birthday Updates

So I am now on countdown to my 39th birthday.  I'm not sure what I thought I'd be doing at 39 but I can almost assure you my current life isn't it.  That's a good thing though as I am genuinely enjoying my life right now.  Are there things that need to be improved on?  Well most assuredly but I also have the passion and drive to continue to improve.  The best part about being nearly 39 though is that next year, God willing, I'll be 40.  If things keep going the way they are going it will be the best birthday ever but then again I'm making plans to make sure every birthday gets that distinction.  Just because this is more of an introspective post about lots of things not just my hair I'm going to insert a page break here.  If you don't want to go any further not a huge deal as I tend to be wordy sometimes.  Just know that I'm in a good place and enjoying life.  If you are nosy and got time to kill continue after the break.

300th Post: Three Wash Days in one week oh my

This week, as I mentioned in my Fitness Friday post, has been ridiculous.  You would think with having two days off I would have had some down time to unwind and let my brain go to happy places but yeah not so much.  The end of the week was filled with meetings and exams and awkward conversations, I mean DAMN they were awkward.  However, that was done and I was looking out for the weekend workout so that I could get to the last wash day of the week.  I'm sure you're wondering what it was the last well let me get to that in a second.  I would be remiss to say that the weekend ended up much better with a massage, mani/pedi and that wash day but let's just say I earned it lol.

First wash day was Monday/Tuesday when I had to wash out the results of the previous Saturday's trip to make my body more active.  It wasn't bad but because I had been a lazy bum the days following the pool there were way too many tangles and I lost the most hair I have in this stretch.  I was sad but knew it was temporary because I was going in for the second wash day to make my hair straight with some heat.

Second wash day came on Wednesday night with someone who seems comfortable with black hair but did mine not so great. Mind you I'm ten weeks post so I'm not expecting miracles but she was giving me volume when I needed straight.  The first day afterwards was a mess cause it felt like it was growing by the hour.  I set it on flexi rods that night and my hair looked great on day two.  Made me mad I hadn't done something to it when I got home and knew it wasn't quite right.  That left me primed and ready for Saturday's outing to the Y.

Workout went fine, great even but then I was rushing for the 10 minutes I had to get from the Y to the day spa.  Day spa was fantastic and even though I had a new girl doing my hair it felt and looked great when I was done PLUS she gave me a few samples in order to help maintain that during spells between stretches that may hair started looking a mess.  I would have taken a photo but I was flipping exhausted at that point and it was time to sleep as much as possible so I did.  It would be unfair to take a photo now with sleep all over it but trust me it was good.

Fitness Friday: the Fallback

So I meant to write this post last week but life got away from me again.  I haven't been working out much during the week because it's been ridiculously busy more days than I care to remember right now.  But most weekends I've made up for it by hitting the Y for longer than normal workouts.  I do yoga for an hour and then go to swim class for 45 minutes at least but I try to stay for an hour.  So I have been doing that when I'm not working on the weekend.  It's fantastic and I feel great when I get back home.  I need to get back to work on the mid week workouts, either by hitting some classes or just doing my solo workout at the gym.  I need some more motivation because my levels all came back a tick above the acceptable range when I just had some blood work done.  And I need to get back on my better eating habits.  Anyone have any suggestions.

The Weekend Just Won't End & Other Jokes

So this has been one of those standard there is no down time to be had.  Friday night I just needed to let my brain decompress but since then I've been on the go.  Let me just start this by saying I didn't even get closed to the gym before yesterday.  But as I had planned I got up a little earlier and climbed four flights of stairs to go to yoga before swimming.  The twisting wasn't as bad as thinking about my breathing.  I tend to always breath the exact opposite way people tell me to do when I am learning something the first time.  Turns out I started out that way again.  But I caught on soon enough and started to enjoy the stretching and the new challenges my body was trying to respond to.  I was glad there were fans in the room (and that the woman next to me turned the on) cause it felt like I was out in the Texas sun for a bit based on the amount of sweat that came off of my forehead.  Got a makeshift massage towards the end of class which was nice and was told I had done a great job for my first class.  I took her at her word because really I had to scoot on down to the pool.  It was a good lesson.  We spent most of the time in the deep end and trying to swim around without feeling like I was going to drown.  I enjoyed myself and did a few laps in the shallow end before coming home to start on my hair and promptly falling asleep.



As I alluded to before my brain was tired as hell.  My body joined the tired ranks after my workout.  I did manage to coat the length of my hair with conditioner and my scalp with Strong Roots before covering up my hair in a plastic bag and bonnet.  My intention was to wash it out quickly and then get to the other stuff I had to do.  No such luck.  I woke up a few hours later and just got to work on my grading after I grabbed a bit to eat.  Seven hours later I was done reading two classes worth of painful reading and giving feedback.  I nodded off a few hours later after debating washing my hair at 2 in the morning.  I woke up around ten, washed my hair including my chlorine stripping combo before letting my hair deep condition for about 90 minutes with the Dr. Miracle's.  I rinsed my hair out and t-shirt dried from about noon to 5 when I finally finished grading all tests, another class's writings and given them feedback along with doing early alerts for school.  5 is way too late to do anything with my hair except let it air dry so I got up, LOC'd, detangled with my 4 combs lol, took a few photos and am now relaxing.  My dinner is marinating now and sooner or later I'll get up to cook it lol.  Depending on how my hair dries I may blow it out slightly and then flat iron it before work.

 The hair loss for this week.  Seeing a lot of gray in there lol.

This is me with freshly dentagled hair

Modified Wash Day

Hey folks I have to say that I noticed when I'm swimming I do different things with my hair when I'm done in the pool.  This go round of classes is going well and my hair has grown quite a bit since the last set of classes so I have been more motivated to take care of my hair when I get out of the pool.  The last two weeks I have been putting JOICO reconstructer on my hair as soon as I get to the locker room and take off my swim caps (yep I wear two).  I comb it through a little and then pin my hair up with a clip.  I leave the Y with a wet ponytail and usually grab a bite to eat and head home.

The last swim sessions I tried to keep my wash routine as normal as possible with the addition of the chlorine stripping shampoo.  Neither last week or this week did I come home and do wash one and then set up for the next twenty four hours of prepoo and washing.  Instead I went through the rest of my wash routine and deep conditioned for a while yesterday.  After I rinsed it out I t-shirt dried for a few hours because I couldn't decide what to do with my hair.  When I did I got up and ended up doing an LCO instead of LOC basically because my brain was tired.  Wash day note here, the last two weeks I skipped the It's a 10 Keratin leave in and noticed that my hair was much softer at the end of the week.  With that knowledge in hand I returned my giant unused bottle of Keratin leave in for the regular version.  I used it for the first time yesterday and I'm interested in seeing how it works for the upcoming week.

After I LCO'd my hair lol and detangled it, I tied a scarf around my edges and let the length air dry for a few hours.  Eventually I roller set the length at the back of my head so I may have a funky bun tomorrow when I finally take it down.  Saturday wash days ensure my hair is dry before work on Monday but it somewhat throws off my mental plans.  Oh well.  The swimming is worth it and next week I may add in a yoga class.

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

And it is wash day again...

So it's wash day after my last swim lesson for this cycle.  It helped me note a few things that I'm going to share as I keep updating you.  I enjoyed my class even though I have a very nervous sub instructor.  She was sweet and very encouraging which is what you need when you are learning to do anything.  My stroke apparently looked great and by the end of the class I was feeling better about breathing while I'm swimming instead of stopping to breathe.  I did have to wear the belt to keep balanced while I was doing that but it felt good.  Only glitch is that there was a slightly overweight man in the lane next to mine who wasn't swimming as much as gliding through the water on his side much as I would imagine a drunk octopus might.  Whenever I caught a glimpse of him next to me in the lane it threw me completely off.  I washed my hair like normal with the RUSK Bright shampoo and conditioner.  My hair felt better than normal but it really didn't matter because I couldn't really work on it because it was mom's birthday and I was on dinner detail.  After grabbing what she wanted and bringing it home along with a cake and lottery tickets, I ate my dinner and eventually got around to starting my prepoo around one this morning.

After getting woken up by a wrong number I was tempted to just get up and wash my hair but it was 6 in the morning and that turned into a quick no as my body went right back on to sleep.  I got up and washed my hair around 9.  Wash went smooth, no major or minor for that matter tangles, and my hair felt extra clean.  I know I've probably mentioned this before but my hair lathers no matter what shampoo I'm using especially if it's pretty clean.  Today I noticed it more because of the chlorine pull shampoo yesterday so that even with the first wash to get rid of the deep conditioners and Strong Roots my hair worked up a quick lather.  I used my Organix Macadamia Oil shampoo followed by the Moroccan Oil shampoo (one wash each and yeah I stashed a bottled of Organix without knowing it so I got a fresh bottle).  I am totally out of Aussie 3 Minute Miracle and forgot to get it when I went shopping.  So this week I used just the Moroccan Oil Conditioner, 2 Minute Treatment from Aphogee and the Moisturefuse from Mizani.  Each seemed to build on each other nicely so I was happy with how it felt.  I used the Dr. Miracle's Deep Conditioner for about 30 minutes before I washed it out and toweled dry about two hours.  My hair wasn't completely dry but felt good when I LOC'd and detangled it.  Next to know hair loss and it looked great when I looked at it in the mirror so I took a picture.

I was tired of fighting with the super straight look and working out/swimming so I opted for flexirods this week.  My hair still detangles like it's only five weeks post but my new growth is out of control.  I'm not sure if the swimming and chlorine made my hair revert but it's really wavy at my scalp.  I'm planning to sign up for the next set of classes after which I think I'll feel comfortable enough to not be swimming weekly unless I want to but I really like swimming and it feels great when I'm done.  If anyone is swimming with a relaxer what other styling options are you using besides just wearing your hair down?  Anyhoo here's a photo of the crazy roller arrangment.

As of right now I'm relaxing and watching a Snapped marathon.  I turned in 10 week reports for a few students who I hope follow up with me soon so they don't fail the class.  My hair is in a bonnet and probably will be until the morning.  The Orkin guy is coming by to protect mom from the mean squirrel who keeps looking at her when she goes outside and to spray for spiders and the like.  I need to get the car to the shop because the check engine light came on again and if it's another evap system leak I'm going to scream.  I'm thinking it may be a LONG overdue oil change but if not I just don't want to be shocked into more gray hair.

How is your weekend and wash day progressing?

Saturday Missions

This may get updated over the course of the day.  Today is swim lesson day and it was so much fun.  I am by no means ready to compete but each week we build a little more and a little more and if you want me to swim for a bit I can as long as I can take a breath.  Eventually I'll get to the breathing mid stroke but it feels better and like a good workout when I'm there.  Plus I heart my instructor she's funny and encouraging without it sounding fake.  So I decided that since this is a hair blog I should share more about the random stuff I do to it.  Since it's swim day I always prep my hair with leave in conditioner before I get to the pool.  This is my hair with enough conditioner to coat it but not make it sopping wet.

This is my hair after I get in from the pool.  It's not as dry as it was before I left but it wasn't dripping wet either.  The double cap isn't making it dry but it's stopping me from having to fight to repair it so much.

This is right after the shower I took to stop smelling like the pool and pull the chlorine off my hair too.  It does that semi part up front on its own now.  But it wasn't super tangled and seemed to enjoy being good and clean before I added my prepoo conditioners to sit for a bit.

And this is what I'm going to look like for the rest of the day more than likely lol.  There's a plastic bag under the bonnet letting my hair get a little extra love post swim lesson.  I will be looking into better swim caps soon.  I don't think any will keep my hair completely dry but we can get closer.

Ok whenever Wash Day fully gets under way I'll update you and what is going on with all of this hair.

Wash Day: Yes I know It's the Middle of the Night

So Saturday was swim class as normal.  I loved it.  Learning new kicks and working on swimming longer.  Floated around in the deep end again and I didn't wet myself--well that would be interesting in water anyway but I didn't panic.  Classes end on mom's birthday I think or the weekend of her birthday so I'll see where I am in three weeks and either sign up again or give it a break for a few weeks.  Turns out my instructor also does private lessons--may have to look into that.  It's good less body stressful exercise and it makes sure I tend to my hair well.  After a longer than expected trip to Wal-mart I came home and ate before washing my hair.  I normally wouldn't wait that long but I was hungry and sick (still am that's why I'm up--well sick that is) and wanted to eat before I got super involved with my hair.

Phase One is applying because of the swimming otherwise at some point during the weekend I'd just prepoo and wash my hair.  I washed my hair and conditioned it briefly with the RUSK shampoo and conditioner that I got from Ulta after I got my hair done last time.  I toweled it off and relaxed a bit before I started my prepoo.

Phase Two: I forgot to bring the Strong Roots with me when I went to the living room to sit down and add my deep conditioners to my hair.  I also forgot the conditioning cap so I walked back to my bedroom and slicked those on and still skipped the Strong Roots.  I put on my satin bonnet and chatted with a few friends before passing out for a few hours.  The joy of swim class, good workout, makes me tired.  After I woke up, I washed out my hair and went through the normal wash routine.  I added the Dr. Miracles deep conditioner post wash and killed about an hour watching tennis.  When I washed that out I put my hair up in a t-shirt and let it dry with the plan to take it down in half an hour.  Several hours later I finally took it down and took a few photos.  While my edges have grown in nicely I have been neglecting them so I added some of the oils I used to grow them out in the first place when I went to detangle and put it up for the night.

A few minutes later I had LOC'd and was detangled, yeah for only being 2 weeks post, and took a few more pictures.  I did notice that because I had waited so long to take the towel down that more of my hair was dry, and mostly straight, than I intended.  I was too tired to roller set it so it is wrapped again and I will check it tomorrow to make sure it's as straight as I want it to be before I have to head out to work on Monday.  I need to work on my ends as well especially as I am swimming each week.  You know all I'm seeing right now as I look at these photos again is there's a crap ton of gray hair on my head.  Oh and that wrap was quite pitiful lol.  I have yet to master that.  Oh well.  If I recover enough tomorrow to take photos of the finished product I'll update this post.  Have a good "lost an hour of your day" day.

Wash Day & Updates

It's been a busy few days.  After getting mom on a plane and our first interview candidate I finally got back to the gym.  I got two workouts in before the month ended and then took a swim yesterday.  I am now 20 workouts from matching all of what I hit last year.  I am in the process of prepping my meals for the week to stop me from eating badly and I will be upping my water intake again.  I finished all my chores and have all the trash ready to go out later today.  I had an epiphany about my love life which probably won't lead to drastic changes but I like to ponder on things.  I have made myself lunch instead of ordering pizza.  I tried to eat my salad but yeah I don't like Romano Basil dressing so it made eating the salad difficult at best.  I also cleaned out the fridge of a few things to go out into the trash as well.  Busy busy busy.

As for my hair, I washed it immediately after I got in for good to strip as much chlorine off of it as possible.  I mostly sat around for an hour or so afterwards and then got up to start my normal wash day prepoo which I let sit on my hair for the rest of the day while I worked on laundry and food and cleaning.  I woke up at an ungodly hour and started on my hair but took it super slow so it wasn't wrapped up and ready to hide out while it dried until around noon.  I had to remember to take my medicine then so that I can finish this antibiotic and not have anymore issues.  I lost a little more hair than I wanted to but I'm sure that was because of swimming and the overnight prepoo.  My hair wasn't sopping wet when I got out of the pool because I double capped this last lesson but because I had already but conditioner on there just in case I can't say how well that would work versus an alternative.  Ok I'm getting sleepy lol.

Middle of the Night Wash Day Recap

I hate when I fall asleep in the late afternoon because I'm always up longer than I plan on being whenever I wake up.  Wash day went pretty smoothly.  I prepooed over night which my hair seems to like after swim class.  Can I just say I really love swimming too?  If I could make sure my hair never got wet I would go more than once a week but it's a nice change up from being on the treadmill or bikes.  Whenever I can master the whole breathing to the side thing then I will be back to being part fish lol.  Anyhoo, I added almost everything back to my wash routine this week.  Not because I had to but because I am considering getting a relaxer this week ahead of my line's anniversary on Saturday.  I could wait until the next round of swim classes are over but I haven't stretched to 16 weeks on purpose ever and I'm slightly worried about what my hair will look like by the end of that time frame.  I tried to do some snooping about swimming a little over a week of a relaxer but everyone has different info.  Some say never do swim at all if it has been less than two weeks.  The Motions website said do what you want just be sure to wash and condition your hair as soon as you can after you get out of the chlorine.  Which I normally do along with wearing a bit of conditioner into the pool with me.  I may try double capping this time to see if that aids in the water staying away but the cap I swam in on Saturday stayed on my giant head with no issues so I'm kinda in love.

I deep conditioned a little longer than I had to and after washing it out and t-shirt drying a bit I did the now weekly LOC method and my hair felt great as I set it on flexi rods.  It should be dry at this point but I won't mess with it at all till I gotta go to the dentist.  Hopefully the expected snow isn't as bad as it was projected to be.  I need to get these cavities fixed so I can get this crown put on.  I so need to work on taking care of all of me seriously.

How are you folks?  What say you about swimming and fresh relaxer?

Just a Quickie: Question for readers

Hey everyone,

after having a great fall in knocking things off my bucket list, this spring I signed up for swimming lessons again so I could get comfortable being in the water again.  Turns out I wasn't as afraid of the water as I thought and it has been the thing I really look forward to on the weekends.  I coat my hair with conditioner and then put on a swim cap before each lesson but as I get closer to relaxer crunch time I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience swimming with a fresh relaxer.  The first round of lessons started about a month post my last relaxer and due to lots of snow forcing cancellations of class is rushing up on my next relaxer.  My hair feels fine now, I always start a prepoo as soon as I get home from class on Saturday, but it's starting to do that hey lady I need a relaxer thing and if I don't do it before swim classes start I'm not sure what I would look like by the time they were over when I'd be about 16 weeks post.

Any feedback, thoughts would be great.

Thanks
SG

Saturday Updates

Not sure how long this will be but figured I should say something since I haven't actually shared any news since Sunday lol.  I have been in the gym kinda religiously.  I skipped Thursday because I was exhausted but otherwise was in the gym the rest of the week and hit the pool this morning again for swimming lesson number two.  My body is tired now.  I'm not sure if it's from the actually floating and kicking I did today (that was cool) or a combo of the full body workout on the weights I did in addition to the 30 minute express station and 12 minute abs from yesterday.  Either way I haven't allowed myself to doze off because I'm sure I will be up at 5 in the morning if I do.  I still love my swimsuit as well and ordered a new one along with a pair of boy shorts to replace the ones I have now.  Not because there is anything wrong with them but when I get out of the pool it feels like I've gained 10 pounds of water.  I also ordered two new swim caps.  The silicone one I bought isn't bad but I have a HUGE head so things don't fit it easily.  Well not hats anyway.  And maybe it's not huge but it's still bigger than my swim cap is ready to accommodate.  Unless I'm part fish at the end of these classes I think I'll sign up for phase two in a few weeks.  It's good exercise, I run into everyone in town and it's cute watching the kids master skills faster than me.

I think I'm going to need a trainer for my workouts though.  I do enjoy being in there and getting up a good sweat but I'm not sure I'm doing the right things to get me slimmed down the way I want.  My weight keeps going up and down even though all of my clothes are starting to fit differently.  I am doing pretty good upping my water intake as well and remembering to take all of my vitamins.  Overall I'm feeling better even if the scale doesn't love me yet.  And I may be able to attend a conference on someone's dime if things go well.  Back to my prepoo.  God my week was boring lol.  What is going on with you?

Working Out, Wash Day and Webbed Feet

Ok so my feet aren't webbed but I did start my swim lessons this weekend.  I was a little stir crazy after being stuck in the house because of the bad weather.  We are expecting more snow but no where near as bad as it was, hoping desperately, so I had to get out and about while I could.  And I have to say I hit the gym three days in a row and then had swim lessons yesterday.  I got cute swim suits (vintage swim dress and adorable shortini--yes they make up all kinds of words now) from SwimSuitsForAll.Com and then had to run around and find a swim cap because while I trusted that the conditioner would help guard my hair from the chlorine I didn't want it to have to work too hard.  I found one and headed out to the class terrified of the water like normal.  I have to say though it wasn't so bad.  Remembering how to be underwater without freaking out as good.  Need to work on being comfortable on my back but all in all was a treat.  With that hour in the pool I hit four workouts for the week and 5 for the year so far.  That's almost a tenth of my total for all of last year.  And the workouts are getting longer too.  I've been hovering in the 35 to 45 minute range but all of my gym stops this year have been at least an hour.  I only stopped on Friday night because I wasn't sure how much we would do in swim class the next day and didn't want my legs to be jelly.  BUT the upside of going often and staying longer is one or two of the workers/trainers keeps checking on how I'm doing and correcting my form when thy need to so the workout is more effective.

So of course after the pool I wanted to do my hair.  See the key word there is wanted.  I started a prepoo and put my plastic cap on under my satin bonnet and promptly fell asleep after I ate lunch.  I woke up three hours later and then I cooked dinner lol.  I was slightly tired and then proceeded to do nothing and went back to bed a few hours later.  I did wake up first thing this morning and washed my hair though.  I detangled with my mini rake before I washed though since I was sure between the overnight prepoo and pool time my hair was going to be a tangled mess and I was kinda wrong.  Very little hair loss there and after the wash itself.  I opted for a flexi set again today but really do need to work on something else.  Any good youtube videos for vintage styles ladies?

Here's a photo of the total hair loss for the day.  I chuckled when I saw it because there was so much gray hair in it lol.  Oh well such is life.  Back to washing clothes an watching the game.