I sure hope you get your sticks soon!  How frustrating and disappointing!!

Life: Attended martial arts last night and got a freebie private lesson because nobody else showed up. So, we got to run through all the material for my next stripe test in one evening. Awesome. 

Finished playing through The Pitt add-on for Fallout 3. I felt kinda like the plot line was a bit short, but I really should go back and play it again, since I missed out on quite a bit of the scenery.

Hair: Slept last night with my hair loose, partially as an experiment to see if I could get away with that with my new silk pillowcases, and partially because I spent too much time on the internet last night and was too tired to braid up, etc, when it was time to go to sleep. Conclusion this morning, not good. Hair was -very- knotted and unruly. Oh well, I will try variations of braiding tonight.

Tomorrow is wash day, so today I decided to have some fun with my hair! Detangled carefully, brushed out my crown, oiled the lower, detangled after oiling and brushed the oil through. First I tried putting my hair up in Mickey Mouse ears, but my hair is just too slippy. So, I did my hair up in odango, instead. It involved four hair ties, and it took two tries to get them looking right, but thankfully no bobby pins. I'm not used to using any kind of hair product, so I tried to keep some of the shorter hairs from sticking out with mousse, which didn't work. So I ended up using some hairspray to keep the fuzzies from poking out of the odango. All of my hair products are ancient, from that last time I got all my hair chopped off some half dozen years ago. I'm surprised they still work! Anyway, I am really liking this style, and it wasn't -too- hard to put up. Posting pictures here, let me know what you think! 

Life: Life's been pretty stressful. Work's been piling up at work. Got a whole bunch of projects I'm trying to finish up before the hundred other projects hit me after Thanksgiving. I'll be traveling to visit family down in TX, too, for Turkey Day.
Got to the gym this morning and did intervals on the treadmill and followed it up with stationary bike. I've never used the stationary bike before and I have got to say that it was not fun. Calves are very unhappy with me now. Not sure if this is a sign that I should use the darn bike more, or less. 

Hair: Washed this morning with just shampoo. No conditioner or ACV today, as an experiment. Towel blotted, sprayed with detangler, and then oiled with camellia. It was definitely a bit more challenging to comb out, but not too bad. I'll def. be adding the ACV+Honey back in. It just so happens that we were out of ACV this morning, and just using honey didn't seem right.

Hair has been feeling thinner lately, so I did a new thickness check and I'm down into the normal thickness range.   
Not sure why this could be. I think I've been shedding more lately, and I have been stressed. I'm hoping that the new thickness is in part because my hair is less frizzy now because I'm taking better care of it, seasonal shedding, and because maybe I measured it wrong when I did the first measurement. How do you ladies measure thickness? Braid circumference? Tie a string around? Measure just below a tight ponytail?

Michelle, I'll be visiting the outskirts of Austin. I have some family in the area, and maybe I'll catch up with an old friend or two, if they haven't all made plans already or moved away.

Life: Same old, same old. Will be working partially over the weekend trying to get ahead of the grind. Had my second "private" lesson last night when, once again, nobody showed up to Martial Arts except me. Been worried that my hamstring tendonitis has been flaring up again. It's coinciding with my attempt to return to doing productive things at the gym, so I hope exercise isn't exacerbating it.

Hair: My experiment in not using in-shower conditioner and not rinsing with ACV was a failure. I went back to my old routine this morning with new conditioner and ACV + Honey and got my old results. I'll try to pinpoint what my hair is really wanting, but I'm getting the sneaking suspicion it's the silicone. I think it might be silicone-withdrawal symptoms I'm facing, instead of silicone-dependency, since I know through previous years of not using any conditioner that it's not strictly necessary for my hair. Does that even make sense, silicone-withdrawal?

Hairtoys have finally begun to arrive, and boy am I excited! DH surprised me with a lovely hair stick I'd been eyeing on Etsy, and a hair stick pair that had been lost in-transit finally made their way to my door. I also finally got around to ordering some deep conditioner, so I might give that a try this weekend, time allowing. Perhaps I'll even write up a review. 

Still no word yet on the Amish hair pins. I'd contact them, except it did say 4-8 weeks to ship most things on the order form ( it technically only has been about 7-ish weeks ) and it says on their website that it takes 2 weeks for them to reply to email, and they don't list a phone number. I suppose I should get around to poking them anyway, since in 2 weeks the 8 weeks will definitely be over, but I think I will try waiting just a bit more.

la diosa: Thanks! It's silly, but sometimes I don't know what excites me more, what's inside the shiny boxes the postman brings, or receiving boxes in the mail!

Life: DH invited over a friend over last Sunday. I told him I didn't mind cooking dinner that night, but no way was I going to clean the house, too! Weekends are a precious thing, and it takes roughly a day to clean the house. I'm not going to waste my entire weekend for him to have a guest over! 
So he agreed to clean the house, and it took him a day and a half. I think he now has a new-found appreciation for the frantic house-cleaning I tend to do when the looming threat of visitors pops up! 

Thanksgiving is drawing ever closer, and this will be my first time going home since getting married earlier this year. Excitement! Nervousness! Parents have apparently redone my old room in anticipation of our arrival. They've also redone the kitchen. I'm scared of going home and feeling like I've gone to a stranger's house. 


Hair: I did a deep treatment last night with an over-night leave-in conditioner. I've just rinsed it out, so we'll see how I like it when it dries! This is only the second time I've ever done a deep treatment, so I don't really know what to expect. 

Now I need to figure out how to pack for my new hair regime. In the past, my hair toys consisted of ouchless hair tie, a claw clip, and a paddle brush. Clip and possibly brush were optional. Boy have things changed! 

I purchased one of those little travel accessory kits that come in a clear vinyl bag. It's got a little oil dropper, two taller bottles, a spray bottle, two small screw-top cosmetic jars, and a two-compartment flip-top thingie, and a sheet of labels. I've pretty much decided that contents will be, in order, camellia oil, shampoo and conditioner (or maybe full-strength ACV to dilute later... not sure), detangler, and I guess facial cleanser and maybe sunscreen in the little screw top cosmetics jars. I have no idea what I'd put in the flip top thingie. Not even sure what it's for... cotton balls? I guess I'm leaving it out at any rate.

I haven't made decisions about combs and brushes, but I'm guessing I'll bring the whole lot of them. At least I'm not bringing make up or hair-drying appliances.  I also don't know if I'm going to bother with bringing any satiny pillowcases. I think my mom might be offended if I do? That, or I'll get merciless teasing. 

Curlgirl64 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2009 at 5:39pm:

Ok ok! You've convinced me. 

Now all I have to do is remember to take it BACK with me. 
Maybe I should invest in a nice silky sleeping scarf. 
Oh Cuuurlgiiirl! Care to take commissions?