Yes I'm very sorry for disappearing

Juggling more free time is actually making me less productive in some realms.  Grading papers is taking up more time than I anticipated but I do have 140 ish students so that could have been me underestimating MIGHTILY how much time that would take.  I also had to go do something else homeowner like and had to purchase the liens on the land next to my house so that hopefully sometime in the next year I can either negotiate with the original owner to purchase them or in the event he is unable to be found yet again that it becomes my land officially and gets linked to my home.  That was a really long sentence.  Anyhoo, mom really wants to build a garage and I don't mind that either.  There's actually a storage area that could be a great pass through to the garage if we can keep it right next to the house.  If not it's not a huge deal cause really any place that there is to park my car out of the impending snowy winters will be appreciated.  I also sent off my first mortgage payment and trying to make sure that I stay on top of the very minimal bills we have right now.  For the moment I am relaxing, washing clothes and hoping my fantasy football teams hold on and win their respective matchups.

Today was wash day too and instead of being sick--which is why I was MIA most of last week--I was able to make it to the gym and do cardio rotating exercises for at least 45 minutes.  Can I say whomever designed the elliptical machine is an evil genius.  I covered the same distance on it that I did on the treadmill but was feeling exhausted and sweating like I had been jogging instead of briskly walking.  I have no idea how much I weigh now because I still haven't found the scale in the boxes that are yet to be unpacked but I feel a tiny bit smaller, clothes are a little loser or bigger than it feels like they were before and best of all my lower back hasn't been hurting much if at all.  The back exercises totally rock.

My hair is doing okay.  Today was not a buttery smooth detangle but my hair was curled most of the week and while I skipped the gym the first half of the week, I made it on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and today.  For sweaty moments between wash days on top of sleeping like a semi dead human thanks to the cold medicine.  I figured I'd include photos of the hair loss and my freshly detangled hair for a change.  Nothing stellar and it may actually be a little darker than I want because I didn't have the lights fully on when I was moving around today.  How has life been treating everyone?

Another Busy Wash Day and I Ain't Got Nobody...

Forgive me.  For some reason Another Saturday Night by Sam Cooke just popped into my head.  I love Sam Cooke but really me and single hood are okay with each other right now.  Anyhoo, wash day went pretty smoothly today.  I got up and did a bunch of nothing.  Then ran to the gym.  45 minutes of good sweating and then I grabbed dinner for mom and I, well lunch and dinner, and then came home.  My body is fighting my brain sometimes with the working out.  Sometimes not, like today I was really tired and just wanted to go home.  It felt like a shin splint was flaring up and I really just wanted to hop off.  Then all of a sudden a wave of good feeling hit and then the right music came on the Zune and it was on a popping.  Before I know it 20 of the 30 minutes I had set on the treadmill were done.  I did the full thirty and contemplated doing the back workout again but opted to believe the trainer and put a day between muscle sessions.  I then hopped on the bike and did 15 minutes on that before calling it a workout day.  I feel great when I leave the gym, even when I get rained on trying to get in and out.  Good thing I was coming home to do my hair.

Wash day consisted of:

Strong Roots Red Pimento Oil on scalp
Two deep conditioners on the length of my hair
All left under a cap for about 2 hours
Wash like normal with the spin of the Shiny Silver to remove any more yellow tinting on the gray
Quick post wash deep conditioner
About 40 minutes of air drying before adding leave ins and oil to trap the moisture
Wrapped on flexi rods and under my bonnet now

I finished about four hours ago so I SHOULD be dry when I wake up in the morning.  And another minimal hair loss day.

Hair Post Woo Woo

Howdy everyone,

I managed to finish all of my hectic stuff yesterday and short of a minor detour with mom's brand of cheap crazy today went pretty well.  I decided not to skip or rush wash day and started as soon as I sent out this week's study guide for the exam on Friday.  And for a change I remembered to use my Hair Therapy wrap and slapped it on after I had the soup of prepoo things on my hair and under my plastic cap.  Didn't think much of it but let it sit for about 40 minutes and then went into the normal wash routine with the added step o the Shiny Silver shampoo to make sure there is no more tinge of yellow in my gray.  I did an abbreviated post wash deep conditioning and then waited for about 40 minutes post shower for my hair to lose some water.

I was ready to fight with my hair since it's been a few weeks since the perm and my hair did not get super straight like it normally does.  Imagine my shock and awe as the big rake went through my hair like it was butter.  The next two combs did the same thing and the net hair loss was amazingly limited.  See the photo below if you're up for a surprise.  Not bad for four weeks post especially after the last few weeks of what seemed like shocking loss post relaxer.  I know my hair is getting adjusted to the weather, water and my new schedule but lots of shed hair is not sexy.

I was able to meet with the trainer and figure out how to use the equipment beyond the treadmill.  Thanks to a skin condition flare up I haven't been back but I should be back to it tomorrow.  And surprisingly save last night I have been eating pretty healthy and avoiding all the feel good foods just cause.  I even abandoned my lovely big philly cheese steak sub at Subway in favor of a plain chicken strip sub (the teriyaki looks weird to me lol) and have been pleasantly surprised at how tasty it is.  I even made this last night so as not to give in to my super lazy must eat now routine.  And after finding some of the lettuce soggy remembered to check how to layer it properly so the next batch will be delicious and crispy.

How does things in your parts of the world?  Short of students not being equipped in all aspects of young adulthood, things are good here.  Inching closer to my license, mom's vacation and being financial again with my sorority.  Oh the delays of processing dues.  I could have paid them before I moved but I didn't want to have them transferred.  Oh well back to the grindstone.

And now in much better news

I've been holding off on updating you on what's going on because I was annoyed and tired and blah blah blah.  Well ladies and gentlemen as of 9AM yesterday I am officially a homeowner.  Took way too much freaking time considering how long we had to do everything but it's over, the for sale sign is out of the yard and I actually slept great knowing whatever happens from here on out is my decision.  So things will be painted, floors will be changed and blissfully so I never have to hear about it again, very soon new AC units will be installed.

After I knew the house closing was close at hand I also said enough of laying on my tushie and went ahead and joined the gym closest to my house.  For the low low cost of 20 bucks a month I have full run of a 24 hour gym, massage tables, a tanning bed if for some reason I want to get even more chocolate, showers and the like.  I don't need the showers really because I can get home in nearly record time from the gym if I need to shower and go elsewhere.  Today marked workout two for the week and month.  I am seriously loving the treadmill even though I think I did too much the first time and my back sort of tweaked almost 24 hours later. So I shaved 15 minutes of treadmill time and spent on one of the stationery bikes.  I'm not sure how accurate the step counter is because it tracked my total steps at 4 miles for the day.  The treadmill said 1.5 when I stopped and the bike said 3.14 miles after I hopped off.

Next time I need to start stretching a bit more but it's so much fun when I'm there.  I'm also scheduled to meet with the trainer to figure out the best way to get pinup fresh lol.  Session is booked and I can't wait to get it done.

Wash Day, Exams, Tennis, Gym Time and Ex-Boyfriend Season

I'm sure you are wondering what any of those things have to do with each other but please let me enlighten you.  So last Saturday was much needed relaxer day and that warranted a cut and for several days all was well in my world.  By the end of the week of humid classes and really hard sleeping my hair was feeling kinda funky.  So instead of utilizing my normal "my hair feels great I'll wash it in two weeks" fresh relaxer pass I had to wash it today.  I prepooed for about two hours and then altered my wash routine slightly.  Instead of starting with my Organix shampoo I used the Shiny Silver shampoo I bought from Sally's the other day.  I'm sure some of you are wondering why I bought Shiny Silver shampoo but remember that some of my gray was tinting yellow which isn't attractive and since I hadn't yet decided if I wanted to see the stylist again I figured I should try to take care of it myself.  Turns out this is pretty common and there are tons of shampoos for silver and blond hair to remove "brassiness" and the unfortunate yellow tinting.  Ok moving on from the aside.  I then followed my normal wash routine and just added the Shiny Silver conditioner to the mix.  I deep conditioned twice after letting my hair air dry a bit.  I first used the protein deep conditioner from Tropic Isle Living (Coconut) and after letting that sit for 20 ish minutes I did my normal As I Am deep conditioner for about the same amount of time.  I air dried a bit again and then put on my As I Am leave in and the Great Detangler leave in.  There was surprisingly more hair than I'm used to being in my comb right after a relaxer as well so that didn't make it me happy.  I opted to wrap it since my freshly relaxed hair tends to behave in a wrap and because really I don't have to go in very long tomorrow and can get it together before or after that if I need to.

And in extra stupendous randomness

Okay the move and working are getting me back to feeling like a grown up.  The house closing is hopefully less than a week away so I will officially be a homeowner type person.  In October there's a piece of land next to the house we are buying coming up for sale that we want to purchase to build a one or two car garage on so I can quit parking on gravel and mom can quit freaking out about me stepping out into the empty yard.  She wants to enclose the front porch and have that connect to the new garage.  I truly don't care truth be told.  It would be nice to have a place to pull the car out of the snow but that's about it for my concerns about it.  There are some other minor things that we want to do that will basically be pick a project every few months or once a year kind of thing.  I kinda hate the wood laminate floors in the kitchen.  They look nice but really don't like them under my feet.

All of that is well and good and some things that I expected to be more expensive are actually cheaper.  Waiting to see what the utilities end up looking like, especially the gas bill in the winter but other than that so far I'm enjoying the move.  What I'm not enjoying is all this extra alone time with mom cause she's making me remember all the alcoholic beverages I love to enjoy.  Like for real I'm experimenting with new things and keep buying things that I just have to open and enjoy because she is seriously killing my desire to take things and mix them up.

Beyond the empty calories I have been enjoying a WHOLE lot of tennis.  I swear in a past life I must have been a tennis champion because I can really watch tennis for hours on end as long as it's not Nadal or Federer on my screen.  And I will even tolerate Fed depending on who is is playing (and hopefully it's beating Nadal and his ass mining shorts crap).  So in my final poll for the day I am asking you about sports and your consumption.

Have a great weekend all

Fresh Relaxer, Shorter Hair, New Stylist?

Okay I barely made it to 12 weeks because my hair and I were fighting something awful the last few weeks.  My hair was feeling really brittle no matter what I did to it a few days post wash.  I think I mentioned a few weeks, possibly months at this stage, my ends were looking a little funky and that was confirmed today after my hair was good and straight.  The hair at the back of my head hasn't really suffered much but my sides were supporting my lazy and were wilting as a result.  So I lost a good three inches on each side but my hair looks full and feels better right now.  I really like the woman who did my hair she's funny, prompt and was pretty affordable.  However, she was a bit pushy and her shop is in definite need of an upgrade.  The chair was busted a bit, worked but it has seen better days.  There was exactly one sink, two dryers, and limited chairs.  Mom went with me and had a blast chatting with the random women in the shop but after seven years of being kinda spoiled in a different kind of environment this was definitely a new experience.  Plus as I said she was kind of pushy.  My old stylist knew I wanted to take care of as much on my own as possible and this woman wants to see me again pronto.  She says it's to remove some of the yellow tint to my gray but eh not sure.  So that leads me to my first poll for the fall about how to decide on finding a new stylist.  The woman I saw today came highly recommended so I don't discount that and really I am a bit of a passive client which may not be the best for anyone lol.  So I'm open for suggestions and anything else you want to share in the poll or on this post.

I did take a photo so you can see what my hair is looking like now.  It's a shorter version of my last cut in June.  I tried to take it with my new Samsung Galaxy 4 but my fingers and the touch screen not loving each other yet for that anyway.  Surprisingly adapting to that lack of keyboard option pretty well.  The hair in the back is still on my neck and driving me slightly crazy.  The hair on the sides when stretched hits my collarbone.  All that slightly lighter hair on the top is JUST GRAY.  I mean it will happen in its own time man that's a lot of gray isn't it?  I'll make a separate post for all of my other randomness.  This is really just for the hair kids lol.

For REAL Wash Day

Hey everyone,

life has finally settled down enough that I had a full fledged mostly normal wash day.  After running around and getting my passport application done (check one more thing off the bucket list) as well as letting mom do normal mom running around, I came home and added my Strong Roots Red Pimento Oil to my scalp and the Organix conditioning masque to my length.  Time kept ticking and my lazy overwhelmed me.  I washed everything out this morning and was impressed that with a few less products my hair still felt really good and maintained some slickness longer than normal--my hair can dry out quickly.  It is MUCH more humid here than where we just moved from so I am having to get used to that and based on the amount of hair that shed this morning I think I have two weeks tops to get a relaxer on this hair or embrace going natural and chop it all off.  I'll give you a moment to stop laughing cause we all know that's not happening.

I opted for a flexi set since I've already used a heat pass for this stretch and still kinda don't know where my flat iron is because it's in a box in the room of no return--or where all the boxes are and I can't quite get to my boxes because of all of mom's boxes that are in the way.  I did find a few more products and used our shiny new washer and dryer.  It's amazing how quickly new appliances work.  Anyhoo, I probably only used about 12 flexirods and most of those are in the back of my hair because the length is the most different back there.  I feel like the routine is more stable now so I'm doing a better job of moisturizing when it feels dry and taking my vitamins when I remember--it's not back to being a habit yet which I know is bad.  My hair will have about 20 hours to get good and dry before I leave for work in the morning so I'm happy about that.  If it's not dry then I know the humidity will continue to be an issue and have to work around it.  No classes tomorrow but a few meetings and office hours for students.  I will be grading papers and looking over assignments for the week since none of that happened this weekend lol.

How is everyone doing?  Where should I go first with my first official passport?  I was on my mother's as a child because we were military and I was 2 ish so I wasn't old enough (at that time many moons ago) to have one of my own.

P.S. I made my first pseudo button.  If you ever get bored and want to see my bucket list click on the overly festive bucket and it will take you to my bucketlist.org page.