Friday Fragments - May 11, 2012

I need to visit more blogs, I still feel out of the loop.  Maybe I returned from my blogcation too soon.  Then again, it's May and I always feel disconnected with the endless running back and forth.  May has eternally been a busy month for me.

So what are my fragments for this week?

On Sunday my brother, the temporary house guest... and his dogs, departed for Florida.  It's not a decision any of us would make but he's hellbent on getting back to the beach.  ultimately it's his life and he is the one to live with the consequences.  He'll find employment eventually, at least he arranged for a place to stay before he got down there.

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I decided to let my hair go gray.  In July I stopped coloring my hair.  Last week I finally got the old color cut off.  There are still wisps of "copper" at the tips since she didn't want to cut it too short with all of my curls.  It's a great change, especially before summer.   Best of all, I don't have to fuss with it too much.  In this picture I actually bothered with a curling iron.  Since then I've been letting it dry naturally with a little gel to boost the curls.

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Ultimate Frisbee season has ended.  The one team they missed due to poor scheduling (I suspect a mother's club is soon to be formed after this screwball season) invited the guys to a scrimmage and BBQ today.  I thought that was a great show of sportsmanship.  In the end it's about having fun so I think they succeeded.

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Today at work was Technology Hell Friday.  We changed internet carriers so we took the opportunity to bring in new network equipment at the same time.  It meant the office was down for a few hours so that's never pretty.  On the upside I didn't have to lift a finger - otherwise that would have been much much more than a few hours of being out of commission.  The guy did a beautiful job.  He even cleaned up the glob of wires in my technology closet!

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Have a great weekend and happy Mother's Day!

Saturday Survey - Going Gray

Okay, let's talk gray hair. I'm done fighting it. I've heard all of the arguments about how it ages women 10-20 years. I'm ready, I don't care. I'm more fed up with trying to fight it. My grandmother went silver by her 40th birthday and yes, it aged her but she never seemed to mind.

So how do I do it? Stop coloring cold turkey? Color just part of my hair and gradually get there?

Who here has gone gray? How did you do it? Or do you know anyone who has gone through this skunk stage and survived? (I found online that this is called skunking when we decide to let it grow out - but no real advice)

My hair is naturally a million shades of brown with red and blonde mixed in. At some point in the last ten years my roots have become nearly black with tons of gray. Had I not used our friend Miss Clairol I would be truly salt and pepper right now. I have huge swaths of gray over and behind my ears where the black hair barely shows. I almost wonder if I should match the dark brown/black in my next coloring session and then let the gray take over from there.

Fed up, confused, tired, and ready to look like a grandma...

Curly Girl

Saturday night I was talking to friends how I am shopping for a new hairdresser.  I just cannot find anyone who can deal with this mop.  I mean I walk out of the salon looking great but I can never reproduce anything close to what they create.  I try to explain how I really need a low maintenance style - I'm just not willing to dry, fluff, straighten, curl, and slop more goop every damn morning.  We're talking about a person who doesn't wear make-up, why would I want fussy hair?

My bone straight hair turned into curls after my daughter was born.  It looked exactly like a perm that had grown out.  It was flat on top and frizzy on the bottom.  My only consistent solution for the last 20 years has been to pull it back into a ponytail.  Shorter styles have been attempted only to leave me without the ability to pull it up when it looks ragged.

I was told about a woman who has learned to embrace her curls but she has a whole routine... I need to talk to her to get the details.  Well lo and behold that woman came into the office on Monday.  Don't you love how stuff like that happens?

After she told me her curl treatment I looked it up online and found a couple of sites repeating her details.  Yesterday I did as much of it as I could and sure enough, no frizz and curls further up my scalp than ever before.

OMG

First, I have to wash and condition my hair upside-down.  No slicking my hair back under the shower as that weighs down my hair follicles, I have to train the hair strands to stand up. 

When I dry my hair, don't use a towel.  I'm supposed to use a T-shirt.  Well, I had to skip this step as I didn't have a shirt to sacrifice at this point, but I also didn't aggressively towel dry my hair either.

Next, no brushes or combs.  Use enough conditioner that I am able to use my fingers to comb through the strands and then scrunch them.  Of course this form of combing as well as the drying has to be done bent over just like I had to wash it.  Focus on keeping the hair away from my scalp.

I already don't shampoo every day, but they suggest wetting it down on off-days.  Curly hair is evidently very dry and needs lots of moisture.  Well doesn't that explain why humidity and rainy days curl me up like Shirley Temple?

I'm really excited about this.  It makes so much more sense than the blow-dry and straighten routine everyone has been trying to force onto my head.

Any other curly tops out there?  How are you taming or embracing the curls?

Hair Goes CHOP CHOP

Before: long and frizzy and not much I could do with it other than a ponytail

After:  shorter and kind of sassy.   I had a little bit of a Mary Tyler Moore flip going on.  I said that to my daughter and she said, "yeah that lady who wore the curtain in the Gone With The Wind scene!"  No, that's Carol Burnett.  UGH!

Sadly, once I wash my hair it will never look like this ever again!