I have no catchy title

I'm not sure how long this will be as it's a pseduo update and rambling post.  We are back home and settled now.  We got back last week actually but in all of the confusion and emotional upheaval it didn't really seem like a good time to post.  My buddy, Baxter the pug, ran away the morning we left.  He was safely returned the night after we left but everyone was very upset in the interim.  Let me not say everyone.  The grownups were all kinds of upset.  The six and three year old were more upset that their aunt was leaving.  I really appreciated that more than they will ever know because it made me smile a lot to be with them.  However, it also made me think of some other things too.  Another birthday has passed for me.  I'm not sure if I mentioned that or not because we were busy packing, shopping, shipping and all that good stuff for my nieces.  So as of 2 weeks and 6 hours or so ago I am now another year older.  And for most of the last few years I've resigned myself to the babies were probably not on my agenda between the whole being single, taking care of mom, trying to get myself sorted out as an adult stuff I had going on.  But as I was woken up almost every morning by small faces who were just excited to see me I started second guessing that.  And as I was leaving with cranky grown ups and sad little people something hit me.  At some point they won't be little people excited to see me anymore.  I have other nieces and nephews and the I'm bored and all grown ups are stupid phase is on the horizon.  Not to mention that well before that phase their parents just may have other plans for their holidays.  So all the hugs and face crawling and giggling and playing that I get in abundance now will likely disappear sooner as opposed to later.  But I really don't want it to.  I love munchkins.  I am actually the friend that volunteers to babysit or stay home while the adults go out drinking or just seeing a movie that isn't PG4 lol.  Plus I have been well stocked in kiddie movies and books for quite some time.  After we get through the early year projects I think I am going to at least attempt to go through the training in order to either be a foster parent or adoptive parent.  There are three or four major projects ahead of that but it's mostly house stuff that would actually help that out more than not.

Ok moving on.  I need to squeeze in one more workout this month and I will have done 52 for the year.  That averages out to one a week even though I know the vast majority of them happened from mid September to now.  Regardless the Lone Star Pinup experience got me back to working out for me because I need to and the health benefits and bit of weight loss have been great.  I have been fleshing out my bucket list again.  I don't know if I readded pinup photos but I should.  I did add visiting family more and will adhere to that but I do need to work on developing my tiny branch of family because well it may just be me on some holidays and I need to not be a loser sad and mopey when or if that occurs.  So partially to escape from too much alone time with mom I ran out to take care of a few thing. I started at Midas to get the check engine light cleared up cause it was freaking me out.  Minor fix needed.  I went to the library to get a cd on hold after I went by the local Y to sign up for swimming lessons.  I haven't gone swimming since I was a child but, and you'll laugh, I've taught other people to swim since then.  I swam like a fish before my parents got divorced but something about being under the water when I knew what water could really do just messed with my head.  Well I found a class for the grown folks and will be there in a few weeks to try to get through the six week class.  I figure if nothing else I have for sure exercise for an hour once a week.  Now that isn't replacing a gym day as far as I'm concerned it will be an add to the work out weeks.  I will tell you how freaked out I get of course.  However, this is also a bucket list item and I want to be able to really enjoy any of those foreign countries I may get to with lovely sandy beaches.  Now to find a suit that doesn't make me look like Danny Devito from Batman Returns.

As for my hair, yeah I said if I didn't make it to the gym today I'd wash it but I did and now I want to get one more in and then I'll wash it and do not a whole lot else besides wash clothes and sleep until I cook on New Year's Day.  We'll be having duck and not sure yet.  I made a bunch of new salads and I grabbed a bunch of random things we can have as sides.  I will b the last day to eat any old thing and then it's back to healthier options at all times.  Not the healthiest cause seriously I don't love veggies enough to do that but I have added quite a few to my well that's tasty list over the last two years so I will keep experimenting.

I haven't made any resolutions yet and may not.  I'm in the middle of a mental overhaul about my life and what I want and that seems to be guiding me well.  Who knows?  I need to finish my good thoughts jar for the year and get ready for the next year.  I have to redo a few of them because my jar apparently got lost in the move even though I pretty much know what was on them.  Oh and because one photo is done from the shoot I will share it.

Completely Not a Post--Message to Spammers

Hi random bots and strange people who somehow think my blog is popular or getting enough traffic for your spam posts to help you in the slightest.  One let me tell you I don't think it is and secondly, short of getting the notifications about your posts--which is kind of annoying, no one is seeing said posts--not even me.  I have a fantastic spam filter so they are in a holding cell until I delete them all.  While I am pretty sure this won't deter you at all, just wanted to give you a heads up so you can direct all that energy elsewhere.

Holidays Update

Hey everyone

I have been busy as all get out for the last few days so I apologize for disappearing a little.  Our travel day turned out to be a little longer than it needed to after getting to the airport in what I considered a reasonable amount of time considering it takes usually ten minutes at most to check in.  Oh not on Thursday morning with Southwest.  While every other carrier was virtually empty at check in, Southwest had a line around the corner for all of their departures.  We missed our flight and ended up going standby the rest of the morning.  After slipping on to the first flight by the skin of our teeth the second flight has us booked before we deplaned and we arrived about an hour later than scheduled.  We got here in time to go see small humans at gymnastics and then came home and crashed eventually.  The next morning I was woken up by small humans checking on me which was followed by a grocery store run and finally a shower before an almost 3 hour drive to the best two hours ever.  Well the best two hours without a really pretty man, good food and a sturdy...well let's just move on from that thought.

I was able to check off another item from my bucket list, actually two since visiting family was on there too, and had my first set of pinup photos taken.  I have to say it was a blast and I have never felt less self conscious in my life doing something girly and out of my norm.  Loved it and I highly recommend doing it yourself if you are so inclined.  Lone Star Pinup was the best.  Whenever I get them back I'll share my favorite one or two with you but seriously it was oodles of fun.  And I will definitely be repeating the experience sometime next year after I spend the next full year getting my sweat on lol.

And now I am just recovering from kid time.  They are super funny and smart and full of energy and I am not at all sure I could do the parent thing but they make me think about it more.  Doing it "alone" creeps me out but who knows what's in store for me now.  I put alone in quotes because mom is around for sure but there's not another parent to chip in and do the things I suck at or pick up the slack when I am tied up.  Going to do some more thinking on that and then last minute Christmas shopping later this afternoon.

Here are a couple of quick snapshots I took of myself after another 3 hours in the car home and a few hours of family time.  I had taken off the fake lashes at that stage--big congrats to those who wear them all the time that was an experience for sure--to show my nieces but otherwise everything was basically as it was when I was made up and styled.  I tried to do close ups on the eye makeup but they looked disturbed in every shot I took and then I noticed you could see them in the side shots of my hair lol.  Anyhoo, here goes.

Goodies from Influenster

This may not be a REAL post because it's going to be sharing goodies from my new gift box which normally has nothing to do with hair but in this box actually does and in one of the best ways too. While not the box I was anticipating initially, too much demand not enough boxes it happens, this is a pretty cool VoxBox as well.

 This photo is of the entire unboxed package of goodies.  I always seem to end up with random nail polish colors but hey the polish is nice lol.

 This is a new clay infused fabric masque from Montagne Jeunnesse.  I really love them.  The masques are usually nice and purifying without being super perfume laced and creepy.  This sample is called Crushed Artic Cloudberries.  It will be my present to myself after I'm done with the grading.

 This is the only miss in the box for me.  I love a good healthy treat and have been turned on to some good snacks through Influenster but the Soyjoy did not make me remotely happy.  I don't really like fruit in my chocolate.  It should offend the chocolate Gods on some level to be so muddled up.  The bar itself was fine, the fruit not so much.

This polish is very vibrant green.  Sally Hensen makes fantastic polish and it coats well even if it's not my best shade lol.  It's okay I'll play with it when I see my nieces who will think it's Ninja Turtle green and be fascinated.

The two best items for me in this box are the Dry Shampoo from Not Your Mother's Clean Freak brand.  I haven't needed to use it YET because I'm so freshly out of the beauty show but seriously this may refresh the funk that the sweat can create when I'm working out.  I'll update you on that progress.

But absolutely the best part of the box has been the Goody Quik Style Dry Fit head band.  One of the things I hate about working out is how much the sweat pours from my head down into my eyes and just makes me a great big old mess.  I've used this band three times now and so far my face sweats yes but there's no downpour from my scalp.  It also keeps the sweat off my neck as much too.  And while I was original a little shocked at the bright pink trim I noticed it matched my sneakers and made me feel more coordinated.  I know there's that Keep Your Do head scarf but that feels like I should be tying my hair down for bed even if it works great it's not the aesthetic I'm going for when I get sweaty.  Plus I'm pretty sure when I look like it's time for bed I am more likely to go to bed.  Anyway if you wanted my best endorsement for anything in this box it would definitely be this head band.

There you go.  Updates from the newest cute little purple box of goodies.

All of the products reviewed were provided by Influenster for the purpose of giving honest feedback.

We have achieved Creamy Crack & Other things

The time has flown by this year.  It has seen major improvements, some bad habits returning, a job loss, a new job, and some random maturing in ways that were not anticipated in January.  All of which is good.  Really good because I am finding out that achieving some goals aren't impossible and that other things are more important to me than I would have though.

Let's get down to it.  I have been back in the gym again which is great, I need to update the total again because I forgot that we are into a new month.  And I'm sure I didn't update the total for the year.  Be right back.  All right, that's all updated now.  I would have gone more this week but fun with mom has prevented one trip and Thursday was creamy crack day and Friday was dinner with some advisees (is that spelled right?).  Today I am in a wee bit of pain but am going to try to get out of here at some point today or tomorrow to get back on my hustle.  I clearly am not focused but here goes.  I kept holding on another week and another week because I really didn't want to go back to the other woman that relaxed my hair shortly after I got here.  Between the billion and one texts about her specials to my general feeling that she was basically ignoring my wants in order to get me back into the shop more often were causing some extreme resistance about caving in to see her.  Plus after texting my former hairdresser I found out the perm that my hair actually likes and realized it definitely wasn't what was pulled out of the giant pink tub and applied directly to my hair after using same tub and comb on someone else.  I went hunting for someone in town that used the same perm and confirmed that Ulta locally did and after several days of forgetting to make an appointment I stopped by on Wednesday and lucked into an appointment on Thursday.  My appointment, as seems usual with stylists late night was overbooked at best and I never actually met with the girl I was supposed to see.  Someone else volunteered because that stylist was so backed up and I have to say despite not being a short brown woman she did a great job.  My hair feels great, she was attentive and funny and just let me be quiet sometimes as the best thing ever to make you relax is someone playing in your hair.  Plus at some point during my wash out she lathered on a big dose of heaven and it felt and smelled great.  Turns out it's a Mizani product that left my hair so easy to comb through it was like butter.   And my hair had done an amazing growth turn around in three months.  I was super worried since I have been in the gym so much but it seemed to help along with potentially the inversion as well.  Either way I need to keep it up and we'll see what my hair is looking like come my official 10th line anniversary in February.  I also got my eyebrows done and everything is on schedule to go be a pinup later in the month.  I'm definitely thinking about doing it again in 2014 after some more time in the gym.

My last two gym trips included 30 minute express and 12 minute abs which isn't a full hour of working out but my body feels great when I'm done.  Planet Fitness is going to get me sexy again if I let it lol.  I need to find a scarf that I used to have that I assumed I packed but really I did not which is frustrating as hell cause it works so much better with wrapping my hair and tying it down for bed each night.  And I can't find the Elasta QP Mango Butter and Olive Oil that I packed but thanks to Wal-greens I didn't have to but it from Amazon again and overpay by leaps and bounds.  Four bucks a bottle got my original formula and I'm happy again.  I think I'm on course for great things in the new year.  I need to finish adding to my good thoughts jar because I've slipped on that but there are so many things to write.  Making new friends, reconnecting to old ones, my students are clamoring to take more of my courses.  I am loving my life right now.  And in a few weeks I get to see my family woot woot plus have another birthday that will push me even closer to 40 lol.

Here are some photos full of gray in all its glory.