A week in the life...
Another week gone and here I am again. I only seem to get to be on the web on my days off, and not consistently at that. Jim had a bad nights sleep and is napping, which means I get free time! Of course, this means that the minute I start typing Jack will not leave me alone. I even put him through the dreaded "fluffing machine", which is really just me rubbing all his fur the wrong way really quickly. He now has to bathe away my contamination. He likes lovins, but there's a limit. :)
So, what happened this week?
Whole lotta crazy, but what else is new? Work was insanely busy. We are located right on a primary highway corridor and 4 colleges in the area, big ones, all had their graduations this week. So we were swamped with travellers, and large family groups, all looking for celebratory meat and beer. Yay us! Course, that makes my job infinitely harder, as it does for all my co-workers. We already perform at least 3 different functions in the restaurant each, and with it being this busy we get to do them all simultaneously and as fast as our little feet can run. I'm sure I have lost some weight this week, just from the activity. That and we hit some high notes temp wise this week. Heat generally makes me nauseous and unwilling to eat anything because eating makes me hotter. But I drink simply astounding levels of water, which makes Jim worry that I will desalinate myself and end up in the hospital. Yes, dehydration is a killer, but so is hyper hydration. I solve this by dropping the occasional "energy" packet into my bottle. Basically turns a bottle of water into Gatorade. Artificial sugar, which sucks, but all the electrolytes my body needs as well as a B-vitamin shot to keep my energy up. Handy little things, and cheap too! The only downside to all of this is that my feet and legs have been swelling something awful, and I get home nearly crying with a desperate need to not walk for a few days, only to have to get back up in the morning and do it again for 7-9 hours, where I don't get to sit down. The only time I manage to sit for two minutes is when I have to go to the bathroom. How much does that suck?
But at least the bear problem has been fixed in a nice non-lethal way. The Game Warden came out, looked at the situation and at the pictures we took of him and decided that yes, he needed to be got rid of, but there were things we could try that didn't involve killing him, or tranquilizing him and dragging him away. He gave the Boss' grandson a box of rubber bullet. One shot in the ass with that thing out of a small rifle and he went tearing off back into the woods. No one has seen him since Monday. I hope he finds other places to forage. I know he was loving the ham scraps, but the high fat content would have been very bad for him. He was only a teenager anyway.
By the way, did I mention I am trying to type without my glasses on? Yeah, so you'll have to pardon the inevitable typos. I am recoloring my hair. I did this lovely teal color, with streaks of a darker blue and a brilliant purple through it at the beginning of February. It ended up just amazing, looking like some deep Caribbean ocean. I had the teal part redone on my roots in March, but it really didn't take. Now here is is most of the way through May and the color has faded really badly. It still shows bright teal in some places, and the purple really stands out now. Most people hadn't even noticed there was purple in it because of the way it blended. My stylist is amazing. But there is a large pricetag for continuing touchups with him, and I just can't afford it right now. So, back to Sally's Beauty Supply for my old friend Manic Panic and my own try at covering up the white-blond showing through the color and the two inches of much darker roots. The color I chose is called "Atomic Turquoise", and seemed to be the closest to the teal I had, at least judging by the color swatch above the jar. I applied it a little after 11:30am and it looked like the right stuff. I even managed to not get the color all over my face, neck, and ears the way I usually do. I've gotten rather practiced with a color brush for my roots, and then I just grab handfuls of the stuff in my gloves and slop it on like shampoo. It's called "saturation" technique, and it really works for me. Of course, that will change as my hair continues to get longer.
On a shampoo note, Jim has insisted I grow my hair out. Now see here's the thing. I had shaved my head, and I mean completely shaved it, in August of 2011. Jim didn't like it. He never likes it. He wants me to have long hair (he likes to play with it). Well, I prefer HIM with long hair too, and so he hadn't cut his hair in something like 6+ years. He told me if I cut my hair again he would cut his off. His hair was down to the middle of his butt. I agreed to this, under protest. Long hair is completely wasted on me. It gets in my way, so the minute it gets long enough to put up I never wear it down again. To the point that when it finally does come down my friends are stunned by how long it actually is. The worst problem is that my hair grows SO SLOWLY. I'm talking less than a half inch per month. I was getting frustrated. I'd already been through one summer with it not long enough to put up but long enough to be hot and useless. I refused to do it again. I told Jim at the beginning of winter this year that if it wasn't long enough for me to put up by this summer I was gonna cut it all off again. You just don't understand. That kitchen hit 113 degrees last year! I can not survive that kind of heat with a mass of hair that I can't get out of the way! So, on the recommendation of several friends and hairstylists, I went to the Tractor Supply Store (yes, I live in the South and this place is like the Mall for rednecks) and bought a huge bottle of Mane and Tail shampoo and conditioner. These are HUGE bottles. Like three times as much shampoo as the regular stuff, but I guess that makes sense of you're going to use it on horses. The funny part is that the company knows that people have been using it for ages, so they actually put instructions for human use on the back of the bottle! I started using this stuff at the beginning of December, and it has more than doubled my hair growth! It's been just amazing that a simple shampoo could do that, but there it is. So, if you're having trouble growing out your hair and it's in terrible condition from repeated colorings or whatever, definitely try some of this stuff. I can tell you it works. For real.
I'm keeping the color in for about an hour, because I feel like it takes better the longer you leave it in. It's a semi-permanent dye, so you don't have to worry about the chemicals of regular haircolors melting your hair off. It just doesn't happen with this. Of course, it will dye your towels and whatever clothes you own the same color as your hair, but it washes out eventually, just like it washes out of your hair. The key to lasting punky color is to not overshampoo and to use the coolest water you can stand. Makes your shower torture during winter, but is really kind of nice in the summer time. And it helps all the color not bleed out so fast. One jar of Manic Panic costs me $10 and an hour of my time. The same color at the salon, which admittedly is better all around, is the same amount of time (if they don't have to bleach your first) and $80. You can see why I went cheap. Of course, the next time I do it I will need to bleach my roots again, as it will be at least 4 inches of dark then. But lbeaching my natural hair is easy. When I had the salon do this the first time it took 51/2 hours, becaue they had to bleach my hair twice. I had previously dyed my hair red, which is hard to get back to blonde without making it orange, and black, which just NEVER comes out. My stylist actually said: "Girl you know they say "once you go black you never go back"? Well, it's the same for haircolor!" So yeah, most of that time was spent trying to get the other colors out of my hair so the teal would go on right. But he did it without blistering my scalp or melting me bald. My hair wasn't even crunchy! It was just miraculous. I had to laugh when I finally put my glasses on and could see what he'd done. The color was beyond gorgeous. Everything I'd hoped for. But he was teal all the way up to his elbows, and there was splatters of color everywhere! It looked like he'd just slaughtered a Muppet! Too funny. I felt bad for him having to clean all that up. But he was a total sweetheart about it. He was already a friend of mine, but now I will go to him for hair stuff forever because it was just that awesome.
Wow. I had no idea this was going to be "the Hair Episode". I've been ranting a long time about shit that will make all my guy friends snore.
On the upside, I have seen Iron Man 3, which was a lot of fun. I have to say that the first one is still my favorite, but you just can't beat Pepper Potts beating the ever-loving shit out of Guy Pearce. Too awesome.
I am also going to see the Great Gatsby with friends in a few hours. I agreed to go, but only to keep my friends company. I was forced to read the book and I hated it. SO BORING. Fitzgerald's writing style is almost rougher to get rhough than Stephen King. Not only does he spend an entire page just to get to "and he knocked on the door", but he does it in such overly flowery verse that it just sounds like gibberish. As much as I tend to like Baz Luhrmans stuff I'm almost positive this movie is going to be a visually stunning, and absolutely punch-me-in-the-face boring. But at least I don't have to watch Leo pretend to be a deep-south racist with bad teeth. We'll see how it goes. I really shouldn't pre-judge things, but really the book was so awful!
I'm going to go rinse the color out of my hair now, and put some flowers on my sandals (just for fun because it's May) and maybe do some other computer things before Jim wakes up and kicks me off. :) Maybe I'll wear red just to clash with the hair. You know, channel my inner Supergirl. ;)
So, what happened this week?
Whole lotta crazy, but what else is new? Work was insanely busy. We are located right on a primary highway corridor and 4 colleges in the area, big ones, all had their graduations this week. So we were swamped with travellers, and large family groups, all looking for celebratory meat and beer. Yay us! Course, that makes my job infinitely harder, as it does for all my co-workers. We already perform at least 3 different functions in the restaurant each, and with it being this busy we get to do them all simultaneously and as fast as our little feet can run. I'm sure I have lost some weight this week, just from the activity. That and we hit some high notes temp wise this week. Heat generally makes me nauseous and unwilling to eat anything because eating makes me hotter. But I drink simply astounding levels of water, which makes Jim worry that I will desalinate myself and end up in the hospital. Yes, dehydration is a killer, but so is hyper hydration. I solve this by dropping the occasional "energy" packet into my bottle. Basically turns a bottle of water into Gatorade. Artificial sugar, which sucks, but all the electrolytes my body needs as well as a B-vitamin shot to keep my energy up. Handy little things, and cheap too! The only downside to all of this is that my feet and legs have been swelling something awful, and I get home nearly crying with a desperate need to not walk for a few days, only to have to get back up in the morning and do it again for 7-9 hours, where I don't get to sit down. The only time I manage to sit for two minutes is when I have to go to the bathroom. How much does that suck?
But at least the bear problem has been fixed in a nice non-lethal way. The Game Warden came out, looked at the situation and at the pictures we took of him and decided that yes, he needed to be got rid of, but there were things we could try that didn't involve killing him, or tranquilizing him and dragging him away. He gave the Boss' grandson a box of rubber bullet. One shot in the ass with that thing out of a small rifle and he went tearing off back into the woods. No one has seen him since Monday. I hope he finds other places to forage. I know he was loving the ham scraps, but the high fat content would have been very bad for him. He was only a teenager anyway.
By the way, did I mention I am trying to type without my glasses on? Yeah, so you'll have to pardon the inevitable typos. I am recoloring my hair. I did this lovely teal color, with streaks of a darker blue and a brilliant purple through it at the beginning of February. It ended up just amazing, looking like some deep Caribbean ocean. I had the teal part redone on my roots in March, but it really didn't take. Now here is is most of the way through May and the color has faded really badly. It still shows bright teal in some places, and the purple really stands out now. Most people hadn't even noticed there was purple in it because of the way it blended. My stylist is amazing. But there is a large pricetag for continuing touchups with him, and I just can't afford it right now. So, back to Sally's Beauty Supply for my old friend Manic Panic and my own try at covering up the white-blond showing through the color and the two inches of much darker roots. The color I chose is called "Atomic Turquoise", and seemed to be the closest to the teal I had, at least judging by the color swatch above the jar. I applied it a little after 11:30am and it looked like the right stuff. I even managed to not get the color all over my face, neck, and ears the way I usually do. I've gotten rather practiced with a color brush for my roots, and then I just grab handfuls of the stuff in my gloves and slop it on like shampoo. It's called "saturation" technique, and it really works for me. Of course, that will change as my hair continues to get longer.
On a shampoo note, Jim has insisted I grow my hair out. Now see here's the thing. I had shaved my head, and I mean completely shaved it, in August of 2011. Jim didn't like it. He never likes it. He wants me to have long hair (he likes to play with it). Well, I prefer HIM with long hair too, and so he hadn't cut his hair in something like 6+ years. He told me if I cut my hair again he would cut his off. His hair was down to the middle of his butt. I agreed to this, under protest. Long hair is completely wasted on me. It gets in my way, so the minute it gets long enough to put up I never wear it down again. To the point that when it finally does come down my friends are stunned by how long it actually is. The worst problem is that my hair grows SO SLOWLY. I'm talking less than a half inch per month. I was getting frustrated. I'd already been through one summer with it not long enough to put up but long enough to be hot and useless. I refused to do it again. I told Jim at the beginning of winter this year that if it wasn't long enough for me to put up by this summer I was gonna cut it all off again. You just don't understand. That kitchen hit 113 degrees last year! I can not survive that kind of heat with a mass of hair that I can't get out of the way! So, on the recommendation of several friends and hairstylists, I went to the Tractor Supply Store (yes, I live in the South and this place is like the Mall for rednecks) and bought a huge bottle of Mane and Tail shampoo and conditioner. These are HUGE bottles. Like three times as much shampoo as the regular stuff, but I guess that makes sense of you're going to use it on horses. The funny part is that the company knows that people have been using it for ages, so they actually put instructions for human use on the back of the bottle! I started using this stuff at the beginning of December, and it has more than doubled my hair growth! It's been just amazing that a simple shampoo could do that, but there it is. So, if you're having trouble growing out your hair and it's in terrible condition from repeated colorings or whatever, definitely try some of this stuff. I can tell you it works. For real.
I'm keeping the color in for about an hour, because I feel like it takes better the longer you leave it in. It's a semi-permanent dye, so you don't have to worry about the chemicals of regular haircolors melting your hair off. It just doesn't happen with this. Of course, it will dye your towels and whatever clothes you own the same color as your hair, but it washes out eventually, just like it washes out of your hair. The key to lasting punky color is to not overshampoo and to use the coolest water you can stand. Makes your shower torture during winter, but is really kind of nice in the summer time. And it helps all the color not bleed out so fast. One jar of Manic Panic costs me $10 and an hour of my time. The same color at the salon, which admittedly is better all around, is the same amount of time (if they don't have to bleach your first) and $80. You can see why I went cheap. Of course, the next time I do it I will need to bleach my roots again, as it will be at least 4 inches of dark then. But lbeaching my natural hair is easy. When I had the salon do this the first time it took 51/2 hours, becaue they had to bleach my hair twice. I had previously dyed my hair red, which is hard to get back to blonde without making it orange, and black, which just NEVER comes out. My stylist actually said: "Girl you know they say "once you go black you never go back"? Well, it's the same for haircolor!" So yeah, most of that time was spent trying to get the other colors out of my hair so the teal would go on right. But he did it without blistering my scalp or melting me bald. My hair wasn't even crunchy! It was just miraculous. I had to laugh when I finally put my glasses on and could see what he'd done. The color was beyond gorgeous. Everything I'd hoped for. But he was teal all the way up to his elbows, and there was splatters of color everywhere! It looked like he'd just slaughtered a Muppet! Too funny. I felt bad for him having to clean all that up. But he was a total sweetheart about it. He was already a friend of mine, but now I will go to him for hair stuff forever because it was just that awesome.
Wow. I had no idea this was going to be "the Hair Episode". I've been ranting a long time about shit that will make all my guy friends snore.
On the upside, I have seen Iron Man 3, which was a lot of fun. I have to say that the first one is still my favorite, but you just can't beat Pepper Potts beating the ever-loving shit out of Guy Pearce. Too awesome.
I am also going to see the Great Gatsby with friends in a few hours. I agreed to go, but only to keep my friends company. I was forced to read the book and I hated it. SO BORING. Fitzgerald's writing style is almost rougher to get rhough than Stephen King. Not only does he spend an entire page just to get to "and he knocked on the door", but he does it in such overly flowery verse that it just sounds like gibberish. As much as I tend to like Baz Luhrmans stuff I'm almost positive this movie is going to be a visually stunning, and absolutely punch-me-in-the-face boring. But at least I don't have to watch Leo pretend to be a deep-south racist with bad teeth. We'll see how it goes. I really shouldn't pre-judge things, but really the book was so awful!
I'm going to go rinse the color out of my hair now, and put some flowers on my sandals (just for fun because it's May) and maybe do some other computer things before Jim wakes up and kicks me off. :) Maybe I'll wear red just to clash with the hair. You know, channel my inner Supergirl. ;)