I love the new thread name!!!

I washed hair last night, with Rosemary Lavender Aloe shampoo and Cucumber Lime Yoghurt soap. Today, it's consequently clean and poofy- lots of aloe vera gel needed! I hope I'll survive until Saturday and will be able to go back to my normal washing schedule.

I started this day with a dentist appointment as I had chipped a tooth in weekend. That meant scarf bunning as it's the best style if one needs to lie back for any reason. I'm still wearing that same bun-  scarf buns are just amazing that way.

Split ends are back- not in great numbers, but I've S&D'd twice in three days now. Maybe it's because of dry winter weather...which brings me back to thinking that I might be wise to wear scarf buns a bit more often than I have recently done. I've oiled more generously than I normally do. Maybe that will help a little too.

Hair: starting to get dirty and therefore less poofy, which is good. I'm wearing a rope braid with crocheted scrunchie. A lovely style, but it becomes loose quite fast and has to be redone every few hours. I'm hoping that this problem will solve itself when my hair grows. A long rope braid secured with a pretty scrunchie would be just gorgeous... *dreams*

I've been watching Babylon 5 from DVD for this whole week- since we 2nd season episodes arrived here. I'm drooling at Ivanova's hairstyles. Her hair is easily iii thickness, but it's about same length as my hair so it's still quite educating. In an episode I watched yesterday she wore a very interesting style, it looked like a French twist, but with a "tail" that hung down. Must experiment with that. Another Ivanova style I should learn is lace braid, but so far that seems fairly impossible because 1) I have too little hair 2) much of my hair in front is halo anyway and I can't braid that 3) it requires practice, and lately I've been too lazy to practice anything. But, it's still a great style and I'm not going to forget that.
 
I feel I've made such great progress since my hair has reached Ivanova length. I remember all too well when it was short and the high point of my day was making Centauri do's in shower.

edit: for those of you who have missed Babylon 5: an example of Centauri hairstyle can be found here: http://www.midwinter.com/b5/Pictures/Characters/londo2.jpg

While shopping new gorgeous SpiralStix, I realized that I haven't really done much to prepare to styling difficulties awaiting me in near future, when my hair reaches over 25 in. Technically speaking, I know plenty of styles that work just fine at any length: braids, ponytails and of course down with twists style. But I want updos, preferably something that can be secured with hairsticks. Discovering that SpiralStix still work when any other hairsticks won't, was great (especially since BB suggested that they can be mixed and matched with regular stix). Neverthless, I want something that works even in case my hair decides to become a real PITA and spits out even Spirals.

Of course, practicing updos in advance has its difficulties- the Figure 8 for example just isn't possible at all before my hair is 65 cm long. But, today it occurred to me that Chinese bun might work. So, that's what I did today.

My problem with Chinese buns besides lacking length has always been the slipperiness of my hair. So, anyway, today I did the Chinese bun with Mamacat hairstick - they are just perfect for this job- but instead of Amish pins I secured it with bobby pins and added two Amish pins just for additional support. Now, hours later, the bun is still perfect! Very promising!

Otherwise, my hair is doing today wonderfully. Snowy's Deep Moisture treatment really made the difference this time. I suppose it means that I should make them more often for a while.

My Tenderheaded order arrived!

The silk sleep cap is...well, very silky. And big. As it looks like a shower cap on pictures at their website, I kinda assumed that it would also be about same size as a shower cap. But it's quite a lot bigger, hanging a bit like a snood, and could easily accommodate huge hair. In spite size and silkiness it sits quite firmly. I'll test it tonight.

I also received a bunch of their fabulous silk ribbons in luscious colors: Laura's Garden, Peach Blush, Jewel Turquoise and Ada's Rainbow. The colors are a bit more intense than on the pictures at website, brilliant and beautiful. I tried a Dutch braid with Ada's Rainbow, a ribbon in intense rainbow colors. The ribbon looked a bit too colorful, but when braided it was just perfect. Different colors "peeking" out of the braid created a fascinating look.

And now comes something completely different:

Galadriel's Short (and biased!) Introduction to Finnish Presidential Elections 2006

Today, if T's physiotherapy won't take too long, we're going to vote in Presidential elections.

This year, the Election is quite an event. There are 7 candidates, which is quite normal, and three of them are considered as "main" candidates in media (president who is a social democrat, prime minister from Center party and Coalition party's -biggest right wing party- candidate), which is also quite normal. There is one "independent" candidate who doesn't represent any party, which is a bit unusual though not unheard of, and candidates of smaller parties (Greens, Swedish party and Christian Democrats) are arguing as usual that they're seriously in game. But, this is where normality stops!

First, the most exciting question that everyone's asking is not, who is going to win the elections, but rather, will president Halonen be elected right on the first round of the election, or will there be a second round. Halonen's popularity is quite unprecedented in Finnish political history after early 80's (when both election system and world situation were very different from today). But, she HAS done great job. I've usually voted for Green party in all elections, but this time, I didn't consider Green candidate even for a moment. I, along almost everyone else likes the president a lot!
        According to opinion polls, she'd currently get about 50% of all votes- with error margin it means that no one really knows whether or not we'll get a second round (in which case the polls predict a landslide victory for her- neither of the other two main candidates seems to have much hope even gathering the voters from their own party to support them). It'll be exciting to see how it will turn out.

Secondly, this is probably also among the most comical presidential elections in world history: not only voters like the President, but American tv-comedian Conan O'Brien has also announced his support for Tarja after having discovered that he looks like her. The interesting thing is, that it may even have a little significance: Late Night is a SubTV show, and SubTV is a channel watched mostly by younger people, many of whom think that all sorts of elections are among the most boring events ever invented. Conan's support campaign has brought some color to the scene, and it might mean that some people who don't normally vote, reconsidering. OTOH, as his affection to President is clearly uninvited, I don't think that anyone can turn agains Tarja because of him. Veeery interesting. Though president seems also to be both awared- and pleased- of the support she's getting from this unexpected direction and her commercials have been shown right before Late Night...ROFL...

The official voting day is on 15th. It'll be interesting.

Sleep Cap

It works! It was very comfortable to wear, and it stayed quite well through all my tossing and turning (though tonight, I'll try to make it even more secure with little clips). I wore my hair in a simple low ponytail, but in the morning there wasn't any tangles. Woohoo! And no lumps under my head, no braid getting caught...I like this thing!  It has only one downside: T says I look like a cooker when I'm wearing it. So I may have a challenge in fitting romantic moods and sleep cap together. 

Hair: Today's washing day, but my hair feels still relatively clean. If only I hadn't to go to Department tomorrow (I prefer not to look like that philosopher who decided to live in a barrell), this would be perfect time to try just a rinse with herbal tea or something. As it is, I'll probably go with just a light wash.
        
I think I've finally discovered ponytail-type styles. I've always thought that ponytails look best with BS-waist length hair, and now that my hair is slowly nearing BS, I've also started to wear them. I still wear the simple low pony only at home, but segmented pony (at the moment, I need 1 elastics in the base+ 2 for making segments) is nice enough to wear anywhere. I've also started to wear quite often the "herring pony"  : start as if making a herringbone braid, but tie off at neck and leave the end loose. Decorate with a nice ribbon- this style is perfect for showing off nice ribbons.
 
Health: Health graph is diving again. I had a dentist appointment this morning. The X-rays she had taken at last visit were there, and she had discovered no less than 9 (nine!!!) "new" holes.  "New" is really relative: when I was in student health care that provided me dentist services in nominal cost (5€ or so), they never took expensive X-rays. Not once. So, now my dentist found 6 year's worth of hidden karies. Woe is me, I have dentist appointments scheduled for February too. And it's expensive- my poor budged likes this just as little as I do. I'm so mad to Student healthcare right now- why couldn't they ask me to go to a private dentist and have the X-ray taken there even once during my studying years if they didn't do that at Student dental care? 
   Smaller worry is, that yesterday I managed to rip my nail badly, it bled an amazing amount and my finger is still so sore that many regular chores are painful to do (and I'm not even thinking of cleaning fish tank- as it is contaminated by fish tuberculosis, I can't expose any wounds to the water).
    Good things for last: I've still managed to eat healthily. I've decided that I'm going to weigh myself only at the end of January. My problem has usually been that I want to lose weight quickly, which ends up in me being in so strict a diet that I can't stay on it for long. Maybe, if I weigh myself less often, I can see a bit slower progress more easily and can keep up with this diet for longer. (And, if it doesn't work and I haven't lost any weight with my current plan, I can always make adjustments for February's plans. ) 

I'm still working to find the solution to that little problem .

Last night, I secured the sleeping cap with two snap clips and left my hair completely loose. The clips made the cap stay very securely. And, in the morning there was a surprise!
    I washed my hair yesterday with Lavender Spice shampoo bar, and when I went to bed it was still just a little damp. When I took the cap off at the morning, it turned out that I had most gorgeous, slightly wavy ends. I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say that my hair looked just like out of a fashion magazine or a movie (and I'm not thinking of Paris Hilton now!). What can you do in such a situation but leave it down just as it is ?! I made a side part and tamed wispies with tiny amount of aloe vera gel and that was it! Now it has straightened a bit, but not too much. So, today's first day in my longhair history when I'm wearing a "bed head" and enjoying it!

   Shopped my first RapunzelStix. I've been looking for nice pairs of RapunzelStix for quite a long time as I imagine that they are ideal for Chinese Buns, Figure 8's and any other styles that require a bit longer sticks. And now ALL the pairs available were so gorgeus that I could have bought them. I had very difficult time choosing just two... And now, my hairtoy budget for this month is completely spent. But well spent.

I also received my supplemental pad order from LisaJaney. I got a couple of extra long pads for night, and a couple of light pads- my periods can be quite moody and so I prefer to have quite wide a pad selection. In this shipment, was the cutest pad ever- a pink one with little planes! How can one not smile when taking that one to use, even when feeling utterly crappy and sore?

Today, Liina had her annual vet appointment. According to the vet, she is "wonderfully healthy" for an 8 and ½ year old rabbit. She had only minor dental and digestive problems, both easily taken care of. I'm so happy for her, and hope that it means that she will stay with us for a few more years still (maximum life expectancy for rabbits is 12 years, but they start developing fatal health problems from around age of 5, so Liina's excellent health is already quite exceptional).