Sunday, September 16, 2012

What am I supposed to do with wavy hair?

 I have never ever been fashion-forward. I never get in on the front end of a trend. So I was thrilled to find out "beachy waves" are in style because that's what my hair usually does all on it's own these days. Other than the baby curls when I was little, I've always had mostly straight hair. Over the last several years it has become curlier, a LOT curlier! I have blamed aging, the water, shampoo and starting thyroid medicine. Whatever the reason, I love it!. So far I have been unable to bring myself to try the "no-poo" approach many are advocating online these days for curly girls. This year is the first time I've stopped shampooing daily, believe it or not. I was so greasy for all my teen and young adult years that I just continued to shampoo daily until this year.Crazy right? I did take some online advice about not dry-brushing and some other tips.
 This is my hair after "plunking" it into a microfiber towel for a while and scrunching a little. Other than that I did nothing else but let it air dry.

The photos below are where I dry brushed it just to do a comparison. I like both looks and am having trouble deciding how best to style it. Since it is wavy and not really ringlety curly, I seem to be able to get away with things truly curly folks can't.

O.K., Which one looks better?

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Red Roses and Voluntary Vines

I decided to take advantage of the roses my sweet husband brought me yesterday and use them as a prop. Don't worry, he wasn't chintzy and gave me an entire dozen. I just thought posing with the whole bunch would look silly (see the last photo). I was pretty happy with the outfit except for the belt. According to an article I saw recently, I should really be wearing a medium width belt. Well usually I wear this with a skinny belt. This wide one ends up looking like sort of an under the boobies band. So I'm torn between liking that it makes my leg line look really long and worrying that it emphasizes the effects of gravity and time. That's all I've got to say about that.

You know I just have to note some little oddity in almost every post. Well, see that vine under the table? Yes, it actually grows up through the chair a little. I didn't plant it. Apparently a watermelon or squash seed fell from our deck to our new flower bed bellow the deck producing this unexpected vine. Also of note--the chartreuse sweet potato vine above is actually growing in a pot. It just spread all over once I moved it to the back yard. Apparently it loves morning sun much more than the unforgiving afternoon sun that our front stoop receives. My garden and my life are always a bit random, but it's always interesting.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

If I'm Joseph, where the heck's my cute, colorful coat?

I don't have a lot of followers, but I still feel like I've strung people along all Summer. First of all, this summer has been incredibly busy with vacations and activities, and the clothing I tend to wear is totally functional. The other factor this summer has been a change in our lives that took my complete attention for several months.

You see, in Georgia children at the age of 14 get to decide which parent they live with. Guess which parent has been carefully coaching the kids since the age of 4 to choose them? Answer--not me. Yes, the best interest of the child is supposed to still be primary, and, no, I don't think it was in our case. However, that is a huge complicated legal gobbledygook that I'm sure doesn't belong on my casual little blog.

Whatever the background, let's just say my husband and I find ourselves suddenly empty nesters four years earlier than expected. The boys will be home on alternate weekends and parts of school holidays, but things have changed completely. The whole thing kept me too busy to worry about photographing myself and all that this blog entails.

We are counting on eventually being able to say like Joseph "What you meant for evil, God used for good." His own brothers sold him into slavery, he ended up in prison and went through all kinds of trouble to later realize God used him to preserve the children of Israel. Every single experience was preparing him for his later role. It's a pretty amazing story, but living in it is not nearly as cool as it sounds at vacation Bible school!

So, here I am still here and kicking. Now I'm going to go reorganize my fall clothes. I'm just sure there's a multi-colored coat in there somewhere.

And as for why I don't post much in summer . . . here is a typical less than flattering outfit and my lovely family.