So I donated my .........

Hair :)


So it was almost 3 years ago, back in Nov. of 2011 that I decided that I was going to grow out my hair in order to donate it. Here's a before picture...

In theory it should have only taken two years. Hair grows at an average of half an inch per month, and since you need at least 10 inches to donate it to Locks Of Love (yes that is who I donated to), then yes it should have only taken two years. ... ... ... Well I guess I can make up the excuse that we did have to move across country two years ago, and the stress of that could have slowed down the growth of my hair for a period of time. ... ... ... Yeah I'm going to go with that. I did end up trimming my hair every 3 to 4 months, but that was just to keep the dead ends at bay.

After about 6 months of growing it out, it was awesome, I finally had my hair long enough to do some of the fun braids that I had been wanting to try out on my own hair. At that point I was wondering when I would donate, because I wanted to be left with some hair in the end.

After a year I could do almost any style, that I couldn't do before due to my lack of length. I remember wondering at this point if I still wanted to donate at all, because I really enjoyed my hair just like this, but I continued to grow it. I wasn't going to just give up at this point.

At the two year point my feelings were mostly the same as they were at the one year point. I loved it, and the only problem I was having with it was dryness. I would wake up on most days with the Hermione look. That's when I would throw some curl cream in it, braid it, then call it a day. If I wanted to leave it down however, it would take some washing or curling with an iron for it to look normal.

But it was a few months ago, (at about the two and a half year point), that the hair started to drive me nuts. There was hair everywhere. All over my shower, and my bed. I was finding my hair in the most strange places. Also showers were no longer fun and refreshing. I looked and felt like a drowned rat afterwards. It would take so long for my hair to dry, and it almost wasn't worth washing my hair. I got in to the habit of just braiding it right out of the shower. It was at this point that I realized that having chin length hair would be nice again, but I put it off so I could get it a little longer, and maybe give them a little more hair.

But it was Sunday night, that I had just had enough. I put it into a low pony and had Jeremy measure it. 13 inches... WOW... 13 inches from the elastic to the ends. Yup it was time alright. Once I made the first snip I began to feel relieved. Olivia saw the ponytail right after I had cut it, and she said "Oh no mommy your hair broke." Heehee. I told her it was okay, and that I didn't need it anymore, and that I was giving it to someone who did.

So here I am, two days after, felling relieved and only a little sad. The good news is it will grown back, and as crazy as it sounds, I think I would like to do it all over again. So here I go back to the beginning, starting to grow out my hair, to donate it. :)

:)

FanGirlHairDos

So... I'm doing youtube videos now... How did this get started?

Well I have a God given talent for doing hair, and I wanted to share it with the world, but in my own way. I love Mindy from Cute Girls Hairstyles, and she is such an inspiration, but I didn't want to copy her, and look like I was trying to be in competition with her (because I would lose). It was my husband's idea to do something nerdy, and pick hairstyles of characters that are more on the nerdy side. I didn't like the idea at first, because I felt like it may limit me. "How am I going to come up with a different character hairstyle every week?" Jeremy's answer to that was "Well eventually you wouldn't have to, because if you get enough people to watch your videos, they will make suggestions for you." Yes my husband is a very smart guy, and I'm lucky to have him. The next question that we asked each other was, "Where were we going to film it." After a little brain storm session, I remembered that there was an empty corner in the school room, that we could dress up and make nerdy. That's how we came up with this...

It was fun decorating. As you can imagine we already had most of these nerdy things in our house, we just had to pull them all together, and buy some more to full it in (because why not?). Once that was together, and once we had a list of hair styles to start with, there was nothing left to do but film.

This is our first video, where I demonstrate the Katniss braid from the hunger games movie.

My daughter has beautiful hair, and is the ideal model for me... if only she wasn't so wiggly, and if only she was as excited about this as I am. She is only four however, and I'm hoping she'll come around.

Here is a preview for next week, where I show you how to do heatless waves over night :)

Thank you, and be sure to check out the video, if you haven't already. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment on here or on the youtube video. :)

My go to hair styles

So Friday I posted this picture to Facebook

I've been growing my hair out for two years. The last time I cut more than half an inch off was right before this picture was taken...

I haven't have a lot of pictures posted of how long my hair has gotten since then, so I had a huge reaction to the top picture, and many questions of how I do my hair now that it's long. Also just so everyone knows, I do not wear fancy hair styles like the one in that picture everyday. That would really be to much.


So an easy style that I go to all of the time in the Lace Twist.

I like to do it on the very front section of my hair, just to get it out of the way. So usually right after I wash my hair, or on days that my hair isn't crazy and frizzy, I'll wear it like this. (oh and go easy on me, I'm not wearing make-up in any of these :P)

Next go to in the Waterfall Braid

This is also another great one to just get that front section out of your way. So as long as the back of my hair looks great, I'll wear this one.

One that I do A LOT is pigtails. Yes I know, I'm pushing 30, and I still wear pigtails. I really don't care.
So I know we have all seen the braided pigtails right? Like this...

But have you seen the Rope Braided ones?

Or the Fishtail Braided ones?

Yeah I like to switch it up a bit, so that way even though it is pigtails at least it looks interesting. :)
Also pigtails are awesome because if you have to wear a hat (because it is really cold outside), the hat won't mess up your hair style.

So next is the Katniss Braid

 
Have you seen the Hunger Games? The main character Katniss Everdeen wears her hair like this, and I love it. I like to do this one, when my hair is to lumpy and frizzy to leave down.


Yes so those are my favorites! I hope this helps all of you long haired girls, and maybe some short haired ones too :)

July fireworks... Getting kicked by a three year old... and better curls

Okay so first off, YAY finally a new blog post. Things have been a little boring around here, so I'm having to combine a few things to make a post. Huuummmm out of the three I wonder which one you want to hear about most? Well I'm starting in order.


July fireworks

In most cases this would be called 4th of July fireworks, but since the people of Bremerton have been setting them off every night since the month started (I'm not kidding, I heard some last night), I'm going to stay with July fireworks. I'm really not sure what the policy is around here, about shouting off your own fireworks, but a lot of people were doing it.

Officially we went to see them on the 3rd in Poulsbo. We heard that they were letting people park at the movie theater for free to see the fireworks, and that the theater was a great place to view them, because the fireworks were being set off down by the bay. So we get there, and face our car toward the bay. We check online as to when they are going to start (really should have done that before leaving), and it's not until 10:15. WHAT?? Okay, but that make sense and here's why. Since we are in the northwest, we have longer days in the summer then the rest of the U.S., and shorter in the winter. Like Alaska haveing sunlight all day in the summer (all 24hr), and little to no light in the winter. Here it isn't that extreme, but the sun raises here around 5:30 and set at 9:30 (ish) (during the summer anyways). So yes I guess the waiting until 10:15 makes sense. We saw a lot of fireworks while waiting, because of random people setting them off.

10:15 comes around, and all of us get out of the car, and move to the grass, and we wait. They didn't end up starting until 10:30 (I guess it's a good thing I made Olivia take a nap earlier). So they finally set them off, and we can't see them very well, because instead of setting them off down by the water, they were setting them off a few buildings down for us, and those buildings were blocking the view. YUP!

We decided to head home early, because we weren't seeing much.

On the 4th we were happy to hear that they were going to set off the fireworks in downtown Bremerton. We were able to see them from our house. Yay, a lot better, and they set them off earlier. I guess if we would have known that in the first place, than we wouldn't have gone to Poulsbo.

That night was awful though. We went to bed around 10, and can't get to sleep until after 12, all because of those crazy people and their fireworks. There were also a lot of sirens. Great!

So yeah that was our 4th :P


Getting kicked by a three year old

So a few days ago (I think it was the 2nd), I was downstairs (in the basement) and I hear Nathaniel crying. Now this was not a normal I'm upset cry, this one was an "I think someone is trying to kill me" kind of cry. I rush upstairs and find Nathaniel, holding his month, and blood all over his hands, so my first reacting is "What in the world just happened?" and Nathaniel's response is "Olivia kicked me." I'm standing there thinking, okay there is no way that is true, she's three, and you're seven. So I ask Darien (mean while I'm getting Nathaniel to rinse out his month), and he saids he didn't see. WHAT THE CRAP... he was in the room, he is my only liable witness, and he doesn't know. So I get Nathaniel cleaned up, but from what I can tell (there was still a lot of blood), he only cut his lip. "Well how did that happen?" I asked "I was laying on the couch and she kicked me so hard that I rolled off and hit the coffee table." Okay that makes more sense, but I'm still not sure I believe it. "Did her kick make you fall, or were you trying to be dramatic?" His only response was... "What?"

Yeah I didn't get anything else out of anyone about it, so I just let it go. Two days later, the side of his face was really swollen, so I take another look, and wow... from what I could see it looked as if his gums were scraped up around his front teeth. So that's why there was so much blood. I ended up taking him to the doctor, and I am happy to report that he will heal, but it will take a few weeks. I still don't really know what happened. Maybe Olivia is strong enough to kick him off the couch.

This is Nathaniel on the 4th. As you can see, his face is swollen (on his right side, your left). He wasn't feeling to good that night, and he didn't want to eat his pizza. I ended up making him soup, and I'm glad he was able to eat that.

Better curls

I've always had wavy hair, but it mostly frustrated me, because it was so hard to get any of my waves or curls to show. In order to get them to show I had to use a lot of moisturizer, if I didn't and I just let it dry without it, my hair would get frizzy. This also got worse when I moved back to the west cost (because of climate change).

Back in January I went to Sally's and told the lady (who was working there at the time), all of the problems I was having. She recommended I try Brazilian Tech Keratin Kurl. She said that she had tried it, and that it really helped her with her moisture problems. Keratin Kurl formula is for curly/wavy hair, and they also have a formula for straight. At the time she mentioned that it was sulfate free, but I didn't really know what that meant.

It turns out that sulfates are a fuller, that most shampoos have in them, but they are known to cause dryness and skin irritation. Wow, so yeah... Why are they in my shampoo?

The bottle (the new shampoo) ended up costing me $8.99, and I have never in my life spent that much on a bottle of shampoo... so I was really hoping that it would work. I am happy to report that it did, and really well. From the first use I had curls showing up that I didn't even know I had. The bottle ended up lasting me about two months, so I'm fine with paying the price. This also had me looking at all of my products like soap, lotion, deodorant, ext... to see how many more of them had sulfate in them. Guess what... all of them did. So that's why my skin is always dry. I really feel like I need to switch all of them now.

You're Not My Mommy!

Last monday I when to a bible study (women only), and I left the kids with Jeremy. When ever this happens he turns into mister mom, and does a wonderful job, in a manly sort of way. Last monday however, his job was made a lot harder my our wonderful daughter Olivia. I was only going to be gone for 2 hours, so no big deal right? Wrong! She was very upset, and Jeremy said it didn't matter what he did, she was just so upset. Finally she just ended up crying herself to sleep. She woke up not to long after I got home, and she was very happy to see me, so my guess is she just wanted me. Try as Jeremy might, he is not the mom, even if he is a super fantastic dad.

A few days later I decided to deep condition my hair. It really needed some softening. When I do this, I wash my hair, then put in the deep conditioner, then put a shower cap on my head, and then I top it off with a towel (to keep the heat in). I walk around like this for a few hours, to let it all sink in. However, about 30 mins after I put the towel on, Olivia started to fuss, so I picked her up. She took one look at me, and started to ball. Apparently I did not look like mommy with a towel on my head. This started the whole really fussy and no one can make me happy stuff again (just like last monday). Needless to say, I ended up washing the conditioner out sooner then I wanted to. Yup, but everything was better after that. Life is fun, isn't it.