Completely Not a Post--Message to Spammers

Hi random bots and strange people who somehow think my blog is popular or getting enough traffic for your spam posts to help you in the slightest.  One let me tell you I don't think it is and secondly, short of getting the notifications about your posts--which is kind of annoying, no one is seeing said posts--not even me.  I have a fantastic spam filter so they are in a holding cell until I delete them all.  While I am pretty sure this won't deter you at all, just wanted to give you a heads up so you can direct all that energy elsewhere.

Holidays Update

Hey everyone

I have been busy as all get out for the last few days so I apologize for disappearing a little.  Our travel day turned out to be a little longer than it needed to after getting to the airport in what I considered a reasonable amount of time considering it takes usually ten minutes at most to check in.  Oh not on Thursday morning with Southwest.  While every other carrier was virtually empty at check in, Southwest had a line around the corner for all of their departures.  We missed our flight and ended up going standby the rest of the morning.  After slipping on to the first flight by the skin of our teeth the second flight has us booked before we deplaned and we arrived about an hour later than scheduled.  We got here in time to go see small humans at gymnastics and then came home and crashed eventually.  The next morning I was woken up by small humans checking on me which was followed by a grocery store run and finally a shower before an almost 3 hour drive to the best two hours ever.  Well the best two hours without a really pretty man, good food and a sturdy...well let's just move on from that thought.

I was able to check off another item from my bucket list, actually two since visiting family was on there too, and had my first set of pinup photos taken.  I have to say it was a blast and I have never felt less self conscious in my life doing something girly and out of my norm.  Loved it and I highly recommend doing it yourself if you are so inclined.  Lone Star Pinup was the best.  Whenever I get them back I'll share my favorite one or two with you but seriously it was oodles of fun.  And I will definitely be repeating the experience sometime next year after I spend the next full year getting my sweat on lol.

And now I am just recovering from kid time.  They are super funny and smart and full of energy and I am not at all sure I could do the parent thing but they make me think about it more.  Doing it "alone" creeps me out but who knows what's in store for me now.  I put alone in quotes because mom is around for sure but there's not another parent to chip in and do the things I suck at or pick up the slack when I am tied up.  Going to do some more thinking on that and then last minute Christmas shopping later this afternoon.

Here are a couple of quick snapshots I took of myself after another 3 hours in the car home and a few hours of family time.  I had taken off the fake lashes at that stage--big congrats to those who wear them all the time that was an experience for sure--to show my nieces but otherwise everything was basically as it was when I was made up and styled.  I tried to do close ups on the eye makeup but they looked disturbed in every shot I took and then I noticed you could see them in the side shots of my hair lol.  Anyhoo, here goes.

Goodies from Influenster

This may not be a REAL post because it's going to be sharing goodies from my new gift box which normally has nothing to do with hair but in this box actually does and in one of the best ways too. While not the box I was anticipating initially, too much demand not enough boxes it happens, this is a pretty cool VoxBox as well.

 This photo is of the entire unboxed package of goodies.  I always seem to end up with random nail polish colors but hey the polish is nice lol.

 This is a new clay infused fabric masque from Montagne Jeunnesse.  I really love them.  The masques are usually nice and purifying without being super perfume laced and creepy.  This sample is called Crushed Artic Cloudberries.  It will be my present to myself after I'm done with the grading.

 This is the only miss in the box for me.  I love a good healthy treat and have been turned on to some good snacks through Influenster but the Soyjoy did not make me remotely happy.  I don't really like fruit in my chocolate.  It should offend the chocolate Gods on some level to be so muddled up.  The bar itself was fine, the fruit not so much.

This polish is very vibrant green.  Sally Hensen makes fantastic polish and it coats well even if it's not my best shade lol.  It's okay I'll play with it when I see my nieces who will think it's Ninja Turtle green and be fascinated.

The two best items for me in this box are the Dry Shampoo from Not Your Mother's Clean Freak brand.  I haven't needed to use it YET because I'm so freshly out of the beauty show but seriously this may refresh the funk that the sweat can create when I'm working out.  I'll update you on that progress.

But absolutely the best part of the box has been the Goody Quik Style Dry Fit head band.  One of the things I hate about working out is how much the sweat pours from my head down into my eyes and just makes me a great big old mess.  I've used this band three times now and so far my face sweats yes but there's no downpour from my scalp.  It also keeps the sweat off my neck as much too.  And while I was original a little shocked at the bright pink trim I noticed it matched my sneakers and made me feel more coordinated.  I know there's that Keep Your Do head scarf but that feels like I should be tying my hair down for bed even if it works great it's not the aesthetic I'm going for when I get sweaty.  Plus I'm pretty sure when I look like it's time for bed I am more likely to go to bed.  Anyway if you wanted my best endorsement for anything in this box it would definitely be this head band.

There you go.  Updates from the newest cute little purple box of goodies.

All of the products reviewed were provided by Influenster for the purpose of giving honest feedback.

We have achieved Creamy Crack & Other things

The time has flown by this year.  It has seen major improvements, some bad habits returning, a job loss, a new job, and some random maturing in ways that were not anticipated in January.  All of which is good.  Really good because I am finding out that achieving some goals aren't impossible and that other things are more important to me than I would have though.

Let's get down to it.  I have been back in the gym again which is great, I need to update the total again because I forgot that we are into a new month.  And I'm sure I didn't update the total for the year.  Be right back.  All right, that's all updated now.  I would have gone more this week but fun with mom has prevented one trip and Thursday was creamy crack day and Friday was dinner with some advisees (is that spelled right?).  Today I am in a wee bit of pain but am going to try to get out of here at some point today or tomorrow to get back on my hustle.  I clearly am not focused but here goes.  I kept holding on another week and another week because I really didn't want to go back to the other woman that relaxed my hair shortly after I got here.  Between the billion and one texts about her specials to my general feeling that she was basically ignoring my wants in order to get me back into the shop more often were causing some extreme resistance about caving in to see her.  Plus after texting my former hairdresser I found out the perm that my hair actually likes and realized it definitely wasn't what was pulled out of the giant pink tub and applied directly to my hair after using same tub and comb on someone else.  I went hunting for someone in town that used the same perm and confirmed that Ulta locally did and after several days of forgetting to make an appointment I stopped by on Wednesday and lucked into an appointment on Thursday.  My appointment, as seems usual with stylists late night was overbooked at best and I never actually met with the girl I was supposed to see.  Someone else volunteered because that stylist was so backed up and I have to say despite not being a short brown woman she did a great job.  My hair feels great, she was attentive and funny and just let me be quiet sometimes as the best thing ever to make you relax is someone playing in your hair.  Plus at some point during my wash out she lathered on a big dose of heaven and it felt and smelled great.  Turns out it's a Mizani product that left my hair so easy to comb through it was like butter.   And my hair had done an amazing growth turn around in three months.  I was super worried since I have been in the gym so much but it seemed to help along with potentially the inversion as well.  Either way I need to keep it up and we'll see what my hair is looking like come my official 10th line anniversary in February.  I also got my eyebrows done and everything is on schedule to go be a pinup later in the month.  I'm definitely thinking about doing it again in 2014 after some more time in the gym.

My last two gym trips included 30 minute express and 12 minute abs which isn't a full hour of working out but my body feels great when I'm done.  Planet Fitness is going to get me sexy again if I let it lol.  I need to find a scarf that I used to have that I assumed I packed but really I did not which is frustrating as hell cause it works so much better with wrapping my hair and tying it down for bed each night.  And I can't find the Elasta QP Mango Butter and Olive Oil that I packed but thanks to Wal-greens I didn't have to but it from Amazon again and overpay by leaps and bounds.  Four bucks a bottle got my original formula and I'm happy again.  I think I'm on course for great things in the new year.  I need to finish adding to my good thoughts jar because I've slipped on that but there are so many things to write.  Making new friends, reconnecting to old ones, my students are clamoring to take more of my courses.  I am loving my life right now.  And in a few weeks I get to see my family woot woot plus have another birthday that will push me even closer to 40 lol.

Here are some photos full of gray in all its glory.

Midweek update/Happy Thanksgiving

For those in the Eastern Time Zone it is now Thursday so Happy Thanksgiving.  This will be short but I may update it again later as the day goes on.  I did manage to get another work out in before the overeating commences.  I have made some cupcakes and a pecan pie even though I'm not totally loving the cupcakes appearance.  They smell good but we'll see how they taste.  The turkey is enjoying it's marinade and will be fried all delicious like tomorrow.  I'm going to make some biscuits and some rice to go with it.  Mom will make too much dressing that only she will eat lol and we'll make another neutral side dish to go with her ham.  I'm not a big ham girl but it should be fine.  I need to book my ticket for Christmas but that's all the major activity I need to accomplish.  I am on day four of inversion (Thursday would be five but it's barely Thursday) and so far so good.  How is everyone doing?

Recap, Reboot, Redo

I went a little MIA again but this time I promise I have a good excuse.  Last week I was getting ready to do my weekly wash day recap and I started getting weather alerts.  Lots and lots of weather alerts.  Thunderstorms, high wind and then the big one--potential tornadoes.  We lost power as I was roller setting my hair and that began the long painful odyssey of being in a house with a cranky 61 year old.  That's right folks mom came back on Saturday.  I won't bore you with details but just know it required two BIG BIG margaritas to get through the day.  Anyhoo, back to the storms.  I finally got to experience a storm event significant enough that it broke through on your cell phone to tell you to cover your ass.  Ok so it said that in much more polite language but it happened.  Thankfully we came though the storm perfectly fine.  The trees limbs/tree we had removed probably helped that because the wind did tear up the aging fence a bit but save that we were unharmed. Without cable and internet and telephone service for several days but you know by the end of day two I was adapting--save missing seeing the sexiest man alive in his lovely new sweater line oh Adam Levine is so pretty--and watched some of my favorite old movies and remembered why I didn't watch one movie more.  Mom on the other hand had to be frequently reminded that we had a house, power and were both fine while others were not.  So it is no surprise she was the first one that noticed the cable had returned and spent the rest of the evening engaged in as much tube time as possible.  I finished watching Up and then flipped it on so I could see recovery stuff before going to bed.

I finally got back to the gym on Friday after being off nearly a full two weeks.  The first week I just was feeling like crap and couldn't drag myself there even if I wanted to and let's face it I didn't want to.  The second week well yeah there was that tornado thing.  The workouts felt great and I found myself creating exercises in the car and waiting on dinner to cook.  No gym today because it's wash day and I was feeling lazy but will try to make it a few times before they rightfully close for the holidays.  I will also be dodging all Black Friday shopping guilt from my mother because I am NOT getting out in that madness.

Wash day went mostly fine.  Lost about the same amount of hair as the last photo and then I decided to try the inversion method again since I still haven't found a new stylist.  I could go back to the old one but yeah she's annoying the crap out of me with random text messages about specials and her travel plans.  After I put on my leave ins, I added oils to my scalp and rubbed it in well before bending over and trying to play a game of spades to kill the four minutes.  I stopped the game when I started to get dizzy and realized I had been hanging my head for six minutes.  Another roller set which should make it through the actual two days of work I have this week and then it's time for eats and sleeping to bringing in the holiday.

I will be roaming your pages and catching up over the break as well.  For my American friends what will you be doing to enjoy/celebrate Thanksgiving?  For those outside the US, any big plans coming up?  Or any good recipes I should try while I am enjoying a stove with even cooking temperature?

P.S. I knew I was forgetting something.  I am typing all of this on my new laptop lol.  Toshiba was having a sale and instead of stalling for another six months or a year I went ahead and treated myself.  1 terabyte of hard drive space, blu ray player, 8 gigs of memory (will probably update that soon) with all the standard bells and whistles along with a ten key pad to punch in the numbers easier.  Yeah new laptop.

Wash Day & Inversion Updates

This may or may not be that long.  I have been suffering the worst cramps in recent memory but I have to concede that thanks to the depo shot (even though I've been off it for about a year) I haven't had anything resembling a regular cycle.  I slept most of yesterday though, in between doses of pain killers, and chats with my brother and mother but that's a long story.  I have been keeping up the gym visits and need to update the stats to the side.

Wash day went about as smoothly as it can considering I'm about 10 weeks post now and I slept hard with no concern for my hair yesterday.  I got up earlier than I wanted and did the inversion before starting my prepoo.  I can't claim it worked or not because I missed another day so really I need to just start all over and see how it goes.  My hair feels great I will say that much but since I'm in bushy having with new growth I may wait until my next relaxer to start over. I will also add the hot oil felt great on my scalp though.

The only major differences this wash day were hair loss (of course I'm ten weeks post) and I switched up conditioner order so the last one that hit my hair before the deep conditioner was my Moroccan Oil.  I air dried a little before doing the deep conditioner for about an hour, not intentionally tennis was on and I got distracted.  I rinsed that out and got rolled up before 4 today which was a goal.  My hair is taking longer and longer to dry on the longer parts.  I put the front on more rollers and am just praying that I don't have to come up with a funky comb over tomorrow morning.  I also need to get up early and call a mechanic so they can check on this error code that my check engine light is giving off.  Thanks to the nice folks at AutoZone I know what it means and didn't just spend money aimlessly and allegedly it should be a simple fix based on the stuff I saw online.  Keep your fingers crossed.

It's time to fix some dinner and watch some more tv.  What's up in the world?  I feel so out of the loop.  Oh and here's a photo of the hair that left my scalp and loved my comb.

Wash Day While Home Alone

I haven't written in a while and it's totally because I'm being a lazy something or other.  Mom left a week ago or so and I haven't been very productive at all since then.  I think the lack of stress caused by inane conversations is letting my brain go mushy.   Couple that with the time change and I'm tired but not so tired if that makes sense.

Today was wash day.  I woke up, grabbed a bite and then started prepooing my hair around 9/10.  I washed it out around 3 I think.  Standard wash day routine.  Actually new standard wash day routine I need to update that.  To keep my gray hair from getting brassy and yellow again I have been using the Shiny Silver shampoo before my other shampoos.  So technically my hair is getting washed three times right now.  It's all white no so I may skip the Shiny Silver for a while.  After that I did my Moroccan Oil conditioner followed by the Aphogee 2 minute treatment and the Aussie Moist 3 minute treatment.  That got left on longer than 3 minutes today because I opted to shave my legs all over a sudden.  Why may you ask was I worried about that as the weather begins to change?  Well because I want to get another pedicure and they always look at you so oddly when your legs have hair on them.  I say another pedicure as well because after lucking upon a sale at Kate Spade and Lane Bryant I spent much of last week collecting boxes from my front porch.  One day I had some more time to play with after one such collection so I went to get my air pressure checked on my tires and then because of a crappy location went the opposite direction of home which took me by a nail salon.  Beyond the fact that I just kind of wanted someone to rub my feet it's been a while since I got a pedicure and they were in need of some TLC.  After the save, and the post shower shave for the inevitable hair that was left, my initial wash phase was done.

I air dried for a while as I played on the computer and then went to deep condition.  I skipped this step last week and my hair reminded me of that.  It was super dry.  After washing that out I started making dinner and then combed through which was back to being like butter lol and was getting ready to roller set my hair before it dawned on me I wanted to try something new.  The whole inversion thing that is making the rounds sounds intriguing but I always forget to do it.  After warming my oil and massaging my scalp, I set the timer on the stove and hung over the edge of the sink for my required four minutes. My scalp was nice and tingly but that could have been from the peppermint oil lol.  I thankfully didn't feel dizzy though so a I grabbed my flexi rods, set my hair and ate my delicious fajitas in my favoritest new thing, stand and stuff flour tortillas.  I'll see how my hair is looking after the end of this week.  I think you are supposed to do a week on and week off at most so that your hair doesn't get accustomed to it.

What is going on with you?