Christmas hair

I was going to do a reindeer but the hair and the earrings matched my ugly sweater…

happy halloween hair

My hair was a big hit today!

Wait ’til they see the turkey at Thanksgiving!

continuing the cliché – Welcome to 2014

I hate to say I am making resolutions… resolutions don’t have a good track record for me, or apparently for most of the rest of the world.

But I definitely have goals in mind for this year.

First, my weight. Well, as you know, I’m leading the biggest loser challenge for my location at work. So, of course, I’d like to win that!  1st place is $300, 3rd place is $100, that is what I got last year. I’m proud that I am starting this year at the weight I ended last year’s challenge because that means I didn’t just gain everything I lost back! However, starting at a lower weight also makes winning harder.

For me, money is an incredible motivator, so I also signed up for two 4 week Dietbets and the 6 month challenge as well. Which puts a goal of 4% on me for January 30th to win the 4 week challenges and month one of the 6 month challenge. At that point I will reassess if I want to join more. I feel real confident about the 6 month challenge, it will end two weeks before my birthday and I am pretty sure I can lose at least 10% by then!

Exercise goals. I am planning to restart the 5k training program. The first 5k I found that I absolutely want to do is in April (originally I thought it was in March.) I may look for another to do in March as well. I also want to add in strength training but I don’t have concrete goals related to that yet. I have been working towards being able to do a pull-up and a chin-up. My goal will be to be able to do a pull-up and a chin-up by my birthday in July. And in general, a little bit of exercise everyday, so continue to work to get at least 10k steps per day (seriously addicted to my Fitbit!)

Sewing. I don’t really have definable goals but I would like to use up the majority of fabric in my stash.

My hair. My goal is to let it grow! I do what is called “search and destroy” where I look through my hair and snip any split ends that are found. That will be sufficient for quite a while.

And that will do for now.

hair addiction

I have a new addiction, my hair.  I have been actively trying to grow it out healthily.  Not that I had many bad habits before as I used heat on it maybe three times a year if that.  The things that most negatively impacted my hair would be dye, tight ponytails, and combing wet out of the shower. 

I have switched to henna for dyeing it because I can’t imagine giving up the red.  And I have to say, I am much happier with the henna.  It doesn’t fade at all!  I just took a break between that last sentence and the one before it to go mix up a batch so I can do my hair later… I have roots showing. 

As for tight ponytails, I try not to, but I am still struggling with any other way to keep my hair up for running.  I can’t stand the feel of sweat soaked hair beating on my back.  But I’ve switched to fabric only hair scrunchies, no more tight bands, so hopefully that is minimizing the breakage.

For the combing while wet, I have stopped combing my hair after I get out of the shower.  Instead I head out to work and detangle with my fingers as I drive then use a comb after I arrive.  The other day I needed to stop two places on my way so I put a Buff on and let my hair fill out the tube.

Thanks to the Long Hair Community forums I have been reading the ingredient lists on shampoo and conditioner and paying attention to the after effects of their use.  One thing you hear about often is “cones” meaning silicone variants.  When I don’t use a conditioner with silicones you see much more frizz and when I search my hair I find splits.  The silicones hide the damage better!  Of course, that is why if a conditioner is marketed as “repairs dry and damaged hair,” you can often find high up in the ingredient listing either dimethicone or amodimethicone.   I use both silicone containing and “cone-free” conditioners but it’s good to go without the cones occasionally to get a good idea of the non-hidden condition of your hair…

And so, here is my hair yesterday.  The pictures are taken after drying.  The first picture is before any combing.  The second is after combing and brushing.  No silicones for three days before this so all the frizzies were flying free.

I have this crazy goal of waist length hair.  I’ve been doing some woodworking and making fancy wooden hair forks for updos.  Like I said, new obsession.

In other news… I did my treadmill 5K yesterday before I washed my hair. LOL!  No land speed records were set but I upped the running vs walking minutes a bit.  Nothing major, just a bit of enough to make me feel like a running goddess warrior princess.

Today I think I am going to do a bit of sewing.  My brother-in-law dropped a coat off to me a while back to put in a new zipper.  I’m not charging him but he is giving me a new coat that he got from his work as payment so I’m cool with that.  Also, I got some Thanksgiving fabric that I am going to use to make a skirt for work.  Next Wednesday is our residential dorm’s Thanksgiving party and I’ll wear it for that.  Then probably again the Wednesday right before Thanksgiving.  I had one I had made for Halloween a number of years ago (and never wore) that I found and finally did wear this year.  Made me decide I was going to make a theme skirt for all the holidays.  Though the Halloween one was a bit fancy (for some reason when I made it, I put in a waistband and a zipper for a skirt that has a useful season of about one week a year) the rest I plan to make more basic with just elastic for fit.  They will, however, have pockets!

still just plodding along

I feel like I don’t have much to say right now.

I’m still running but not doing the C25K program at the moment.  I’m just following my own run/walk pattern for 2 miles on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and then for 3.1 miles on either Saturday or Sunday.

I signed up for the Foodie Penpal at The Lean Green Bean.  I’ve had fun this week shopping for my first penpal.  I think I want to go back though and get some different things than what I’ve already picked up.  It has to be in the mail by Friday at which point I stop obsessing about what I should put in and start second-guessing myself about what I did put in.

I think I am going to henna my hair again this week.  I am so in love with the henna… there is seriously NO fading!  It doesn’t seem like I’ve grown any additional length this month but it feels pretty incredible.

Oh, talking about my hair reminded me of a funny story from yesterday.  I’ve been trying to find an alternative on how to keep my hair up off my neck when I run.  Because I always do a ponytail that I then pull through halfway.  But doing the same thing all the time will end up breaking my hair so I decided to try something different.  I put my hair up in a bun with four hair pins for the first time for a run…  So then I started warming up, run, walk, run… everything going fine.

At a bit over two miles I heard a weird noise that sounded like something hit the treadmill, looked behind me, nothing.  I didn’t make the connection with the new ‘do.  About three minutes later I felt one hit my shoulder and then it bounced off the treadmill.  The hubby happened to come out at the same time so I sent him to get me a ponytail holder while I held my sopping wet hair off my neck.   So new hairstyle?  Fail.

random ramblings on a Sunday…

So… I did it.  “Ran” my 1st 5k.  Seriously, for what little amount I actually ran, it shouldn’t even count!  I bet I ran more on Week 1, Day 1 of C25K than I did yesterday!!!

My thoughts:  I’m happy I did it because deciding to do it is what started me on this new path of running.  I won’t do another like that.  I will do more 5Ks in my future, ones that involve less people and less asthma attack inducing substances.  In my pictures from yesterday you can see around my neck a half buff, I pulled it up over my nose and mouth whenever we went through the color areas or if I noticed a bunch of people throwing color near me… I’m sure it helped but I still had breathing issues after and ended up using my inhaler a lot yesterday afternoon and evening and then again first thing this morning.

I am not giving up though!!! My inability to run barely at all outside in the real world has really motivated me to get better at it.  So I found a local 5K on March 23rd, 2014 to aim for, nothing fancy, not too huge, and not expensive.  New Goal.

I’m going back to the beginning and restarting C25K with my incline set to 2.5 instead of the default 1.5 and I am going to run at 5mph.  I had gotten my running segments up to 5 minutes at 4mph at 1.5 incline.  I’m going to stick with the schedule I’d recently changed to of my runs being Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays with walking being Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.  Thursday is almost always an early day for work where I need to be there at 7:30 instead of 9 so that’s a good day for a resting day!  Recently I’ve occasionally hit 5mph to see if I could do it and found that, yes, I could sustain it for about 30-45 seconds during a longer run at 4mph so I’m thinking that by going back to W1D1 and knowing I only have to sustain that speed for 60 seconds at a time I will be successful.  I, and you, my couple of readers, shall find out!

Next up on today’s ramblings… REI is awesome!  I wanted a Buff for yesterday because I thought it would be the easiest way to have something to pull up over my face (and it was.)  I had found them online but had never seen one in person.  I knew that REI carried them but also saw people that said they’d found them at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

So I stopped at Dick’s this past week on Wednesday on my way home from work.  The person had no clue what I was talking about and said they didn’t carry them because he knew every item in the store and tried to direct me to headbands since I’d described that a one of the gazillion ways you could wear them.  Thursday I went to pick up my race packet and stopped at the Dick’s near there.  Basically a repeat of the day before.  The woman listened to my description and said they didn’t carry anything like that.  I said I had seen online that Dick’s carried them and she also claimed to know every item in the store and that if they had them they’d be in her department.  Scream!  I left.  According to Buff’s website, the first Dick’s was correct, they do not carry them, however, the second one shows that they do.  I know that doesn’t mean absolutely that they do but it makes me doubt Miss “we can’t possibly carry it elsewhere in the store because it isn’t in my department and I don’t know about it.”

Friday, after work, I stopped at REI.  I admit I went in with a cranky chip on my shoulder!  It has been emotionally rough at work recently and I was pretty sick of stopping at stores and not finding what I wanted.  I walked around the first floor, nobody offered to help me and it reinforced my cranky mood.  I went to the second floor, walked around getting crankier.  Then, a salesperson asked to help.  Not really expecting much at this point (yes, I was being a pessimistic bitch inside) I told her what I was looking for.  I didn’t even have to expound on what a Buff was… she instantly started to tell me where they were, pointing downstairs.  Then she asked if I was familiar with what the packaging and such looked like.  When I said no she walked with me downstairs, took me right to the Buffs, then stood and chatted for a bit.  During the course of it she talked to me about their membership, gave me a little paper slip to get me signed up if I wanted (but it wasn’t a hard sell since my internal pessimistic bitch would have screamed at that).  It was a pleasant sales interaction which I really needed after my earlier experiences of the week.  (Yes, I paid the $20 for a membership… had that been a annual fee I likely wouldn’t have but $20 as a lifetime fee?  Absolutely.)  Oh! And something I found out yesterday when surfing the web.  The other REI in Pittsburgh (we have two) has a climbing wall!  And as a member I can use it on the weekends for free!  I can’t wait to try it sometime.

End result?  REI gained a new customer and Dick’s lost one.

These are the buffs I ended up buying, a full one and a half.  My hair is happy:

Okay, two more stories related to The Color Run, one of which also is related to my quest for a Buff…  I arrived to pick up my packet including my shirt.  The man asks “what size?” so I asked whether they were men’s or women’s sizes.  He said they were unisex so I said medium.  He then proceeded to do that eyes over body scan and said (in what seemed to me in my pessimistic bitch state to be a sneering tone) that they weren’t preshrunk.)  So I got a large (which based on how it fit yesterday was the better choice but that wasn’t the point!)  I headed out to their store (just in case they had a Buff that would mean I didn’t have to stop at the nearby Dick’s) feeling pretty deflated since I’ve worked really hard to shed weight and get more in shape this year!  I mentioned my Buff quest to the people at the store booth and my stop the day before and my planned stop for right after leaving there since they didn’t have any but one man had the suggestion that “you might need to try a couple different Dick’s”.  My dirty mind started to laugh and I told him “what a double entendre!”  He realized what he said and I left laughing!

I am done shopping for quite some time now I think!  I have nothing else super pending on my current “urgent want” list.  I have clothes that fit, accessories for exercising, dye and conditioners for my hair, new glasses, and the most recent online order that refilled our households vitamins.

Prior to yesterday I wanted to get a white sports bra but that’s no longer on my list.  I hang my sweaty sports bra up to dry as soon as I’m done running and then actually wash it about once a week so one is really all I need at the moment.  For walking I can wear my daily bra or even one of those so called sports bras.  I said once before that I could do a whole post on sports bras… it’s true!  I can’t stress enough how important a good bra is for keeping me going.

During what I refer to as Week 0.5, I followed up my workouts with a whine session on the couch where I held my breasts and whined about how bad they hurt.  I am not a small chested woman…  Before losing weight I wore a 42D, currently I am a 36DD (really hoping that when my band size again decreases that the cup size goes down to a D or else I won’t be able to buy everyday bras at KMart and Walmart… anyhow, back to the current topic.)  As a 36DD those cotton pullover sports bras just don’t cut it… there is no support happening there.  So I did some Internet research and found a few options.  I went to (where else) Dick’s and tried on various bras, jumping up and down in the fitting room.  And I found an awesome bra from Under Armour, the Armour Bra.  Expensive but worth it, fits great and no bounce!  (The next one won’t be from Dick’s though… they’ve gone on my “the list.”)

“The list” is continually growing and changing in our house.  It is an unwritten list of businesses that we are currently not patronizing for some reason.  It can be various things that land a business on “the list” such as  service, quality of product, pricing, and political views to name a few.   It isn’t a permanent placement usually, political views being the exception… eventually I usually give places a second chance.

I should probably shut up now.  I am at about 1500 words at the moment.  Oh well, I am feeling chatty today so on to the subject of my weight.

I started the year at about 230.  By the time my workplace’s biggest loser competition started on January 21st I was down to 225.  I did the competition and placed 3rd among the females earning $100 at the end of April.  I continued losing but then in August stalled and my weight started creeping back up.  So at the beginning of August I hit 180 and this morning was 188.  Time to rein in the bad habits again!!!

I am recommitting to focusing on the calories.  With a longer term goal of 150 I can’t stop now.  I also have a short term goal of 175.  Initially I wasn’t going to do my new clothes shopping until 175 and then I just couldn’t wait any longer.  I initially typed that I needed a new reward for 175 but honestly, looking at that graph above, having it go back down and touch that line will be its own reward.

Okay, I really am going to shut up now.  Time to get off the couch.

a week from tomorrow…

I am obsessed.  If anyone that knew me were to read that I am sure their response would be either: “what else is new?” or “about what now?”

So one obsession is the running.  Not that I am awesome at it yet but I enjoy it.  That surprises me every day.  I am absolutely planning to continue running after next week!  When I started the C25K program I thought I probably wouldn’t continue after doing The Color Run and would at that point find a different exercise to substitute in its place.  Nope!

The next?  My hair.  I got my Amazon order Tuesday.  Thursday I set 100g of henna to dye release and when I got home from work that night the DH helped pour it on my head while I worked it in.  Turns out I only needed 50g (mostly because I mixed it too watery) so I froze the other 1/2.  Supposedly you can do that… we’ll see when I thaw it next Wednesday or Thursday.  It put a bit of red into my hair, a good start.  Now I’m sitting here with a mixture of coconut and almond oil coating my hair.  After I run tomorrow I will wash it well.  I expect it to be super soft!  In the meantime I look like I swam in an oil spill.

I have an obsessive / addictive personality and so have to be cautious when I start new things that I am not starting fifteen new things at warp speed all at once!  Because the end result of that is often failing at fifteen new things soon after starting…  And so I need to monitor myself.  I feel like I’ve done good at limiting my crazy this year and so have been pretty successful at various things I’ve attempted.  (weight loss, quitting smoking, some sewing projects, cleaning projects, upping my water intake, and my latest obsessions )

besides running

I cleaned out my side of the closet today to make room for my recent shopping extravaganza spoils.  Out went the 2x shirts that bag around me making me look pregnant, the 20W pants that I’d taken in to about a 16 and had been wearing to work even though I could again take them off without unbuttoning.  They are being replaced with shirts in size L and pants in size 12.  Halle-freakin-luiah!

Shopping for clothes has never been my favorite activity.  Still isn’t.  But it was necessary and I know that having things that actually fit does feel better.  I did pretty decent with sales.  Last week I got a pair of pants from New York & Co. for $16!  Thursday, I got clearanced sleeveless shirts for $2 each from the evil Wal-Mart (I wear them under uniform shirts for work – which those are all too big but I’ll likely wait a bit to replace them, I just leave them unbuttoned and open like a cardigan.)  Then yesterday, sweaters and pants on sale, both $16.99.  The store (KMart) only had one color or the pants I wanted in 12 Short so I bought a pair of grey pants from the store and shopped online last night for 2 pairs in black and a pair in denim.  I also got some workout shorts and capris and a white shirt for the upcoming color race.  About the only thing still on my “clothing to buy” list is an additional sports bra (sports bras… that is a whole post topic there!)  Pretty impressed with KMart’s online ordering, I placed the order at 11:30pm last night and got a shipping confirmation with tracking number at 2:45pm this afternoon.

I refuse to spend a ton of money on most of my clothes.  One, I plan on losing more weight so I will need to replace them, likely before they wear out.  Two, even though I don’t often work “front-line” at my job, I really never know when I might have to provide back-up in a crisis…  as a last resort, if a kid’s behavior is a safety risk, we restrain… you would not want to be wearing $60 pants, have to assist in a restraint, and find your knee going down into a pile of mud, or feel your pants catch on a rock and rip!

I didn’t sew today, probably tomorrow.  I finished a rainbow themed quilt top a few weeks ago.  Currently I’m working on a denim quilt top with chopped up old jeans and leftover scrap denim from various sewing projects.  I need to get fabric for the back of both of them (another item on the “to buy” list, geez.)  I’m thinking of using flannel and just doing a double thickness of it with no batting for the denim quilt.  I have the batting for the rainbow quilt.  Here’s a picture of it from midway through it’s creation…  I’m currently too lazy to walk upstairs and get better pictures of the rainbow top actually completed and the denim one in progress.  And because it’s been too long since I’ve posted Tippy helping me sew… here is also a picture of her doing her stretching exercises (she hangs on the cat tree like this often)

  

I got excited today thinking my order from Amazon was in the mailbox.  Walked to it and it wasn’t.  The order contains henna for my hair, coconut and almond oils (actually for my hair as well but I’ll probably keep them in the kitchen since I can cook with them if I want too.)  I went to a health foods store last weekend and got a box of henna and indigo and did my hair.  The indigo took more than the henna… it looks good but it just isn’t red enough!  That was my first natural dye job, won’t be my last!  I don’t want to use permanent chemical dyes anymore because I am trying to grow my hair as long as I can and damaging it with dye jobs won’t help that goal (plus, permanent or not… red fades.)  I love Manic Panic dyes (no damage and awesome colors) but with the running and accompanying massive sweating I foresaw rivulets of color streaming down my face and back since it bleeds color for weeks after use.  So, my answer to the dilemma is henna with an occasional indigo addition if needed:  Red, more permanent than permanent chemical dyes, no damage, and no bleeding.  Woo-hoo!  My hair currently measures 23 inches from my hairline to the ends.  First goal, 25 inches.

So to add to my crazy out of character shopping sprees, I ordered three pairs of glasses from Zenni for myself (including a pair of prescription sunglasses with cool rubberized tips on the temple ends for running outside!) and one pair for DH on the 19th.  I’ve gotten the notification that their manufacturing is done, I expect I’ll get a tracking number Monday or Tuesday.

Well, I’m going to shut up for now.  This is why I came back to having a blog… so I can ramble about anything I feel like in  a format more conducive to rambling than Facebook is.