hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[Britesea]

My hair is actually prettier since my hair turned. It went to more of a silver than simple grey

 

[wyoDreamer]

My sister had beautiful dark chestnut colored hair that is now mostly silver. It is very pretty. Mine has so much blond that it is hard to really call it grey - until I pull it back. Then you can see the grey.
Your hair looks very nice in your avatar @Britesea .

 

[Britesea]

thank you! *smile* When I was young, it was mouse-butt brown

 

[wyoDreamer]

That is my oldest sister - mouse-butt brown - but she dyes it a reddish-brown now, lol.

There are 5 of us sisters, we have 2 blonds and 3 with all different shades of brown.

 

[hqueen13]

LOL @wyoDreamer I hope that I can let it go naturally gray, too. I think silver hair is beautiful. I've already got gray strands, here and there, so I'm not that worried about it. I think my sister is also ignoring hers. My mom dyed her hair for many years, and I just don't want to get into that habit. It's costly, and I don't like what it does to your hair long term. Thanks for the tips on the shampoos. I don't mind spending more (lord knows Deva Curl was bad enough!), it's tricky to figure out what works for curly hair that maintains the curl without either frying it or making it too gunky. It's such a personal thing, and then on top of that you add in challenges with water quality and dang it's difficult to maintain good hair! And I'm such a low maintenance person (read: lazy) that I don't like to put a lot of effort into it.
The hair cut was great. AR did a great job on my hair, it looks good, and is the perfect length. We employed several tricks from youtube videos, so really, I could do it myself, but I don't think I have the guts to do that. She was all nervous at first because she'd never cut anyone else's hair, she'd only cut her own. But she did great, and now I think that I could begin playing around with doing it myself based on the techniques that the video showed, which were really helpful if you have a simple cut to begin with. Youtube has some really useful stuff on it!
We grabbed lunch while it finished drying, and then started to dye it. It turned out exactly like I wanted, though maybe a hair darker. The blue is SUPER subtle, so you have to be in the right light to see it, otherwise it just looks dark. But in good light it's really apparent that it's blue. And when we finished cutting it my hair was SO much happier. The curl came back almost instantly, and it's behaving much more like it used to a long time ago. Now I just have to maintain it!
Not much else to report. I hope we are going car shopping this afternoon. Not excited about it, but it MUST happen. Wish us luck, I think we need it!

 

[Britesea]

I've had comments from hair dressers about my hair being in good condition. I use a shampoo bar to clean it 2-3 times a week, then a dilute solution of apple cider vinegar for the final rinse. Occasionally, when it's dry, I rub a little coconut oil onto my hands and just brush it over the bottom half of the hair- where the split ends might start.

 

[hqueen13]

@Britesea I wish I could maintain mine so easily. What shampoo bar do you use? The new shampoos are doing better, so that is good. I just hope that I can get it strengthened because I can tell I still have a lot of breakage. Now that it's short I've been wearing it in a pony tail, and I don't want that to do more damage, too. I think I'm going to need to keep it trimmed for a while until the damaged part can grow itself out, which might be a long time. I guess we'll see. I'm still loving it, I told AR that I might want to use the rest of the dye, and dye it a little higher up, and see if we can get it more blue this time. It's so subtle that no one has said anything to me, LOL. I still don't want to do my whole head because the grow out line is so annoying, but I'd like it a little more blue than it is.

The weekend was busy, but are yall really surprised?
Friday afternoon we FINALLY got the BF a car. He found one that was an hour away, of course, so we went and looked, and ran right smack into some pretty heavy rains. It's better to test drive a car in the rain though. Unfortunately I forgot my rain coat, which is probably why it rained. That took forever, of course (WHY does it take SO long to buy a car?!), and when we left he and I split to divide and conquer the evening chores. He went to take care of Cowboy and Coyote, and I went to HR's, and RO's for their evening visits. The creek that runs parallel to their street (they are neighbors, which makes for easy farm stops!) was over another neighbor's driveway, and way up at the bridge right at RO's driveway. We got about 3/4" in pretty short time, and that was on top of the 3/4" we had gotten that morning. We got home WAY later than we would have liked, and just threw a frozen pizza in the oven to make do for the night.
Saturday I didn't have to be on the veggie farm as early as usual, which was good. I only had one route to do, it was 15 stops, though, and it took me all over the place. I drove 95 miles in about 4 1/2 hours. The BF had gone to help his brother in the rental house he's rehabbing, so he wasn't home when I got home. I relaxed for a bit, and then decided to go out on my evening rounds. HR texted and said she was home, so that was nice I didn't have to stop there again. I stopped by SR's to drop off the bags from the orders and collect my money which was helpful. Got home and we made dinner, and took it easy for the rest of the evening.
Sunday I got up and headed out to do chores, and the BF loaded the tractor and met me at the farm so that he could put away the hay that was being delivered. VERY glad to have a load of hay again! I finished up the chores, and the BF loaded the tractor again, and he headed over to Cowboy and Coyote's to start loading the manure there. I stopped by RO's to do a quick check on his horses (and the pig and chickens), and then went down to Cowboy and Coyote's. I was still driving SH's truck, so I dropped that off, and helped the BF finish loading, and then we headed home. We ate lunch and took a break for a while, and then the BF went to mow the grass, and I pruned the azaleas. I didn't quite get them done, but the last few were in the sun and I didn't feel like getting baked more than I already was from the past few days of being outside. We finished that, and then drove down to do the evening chores. We went to Cowboy and Coyote's first and washed SH's truck so that it can be pristine and waiting for him when he gets home. Ran by RO's and then headed home for the night. The BF grilled chicken and asparagus while I got in the bath for a bit and relaxed. We crashed early, and it was much needed!
Today's weather has been really nice, too. RO asked me to be there for the farrier for his new horse since he had to be away. The farrier was happy it was me and not RO I think. The horse has only been with them a few weeks, and they're having quite a bit of trouble with it. It's supposed to be a 6 year old Rocky Mountain horse, and it's supposed to have lots and lots of training, and be this well mannered horse. For starters, it doesn't look a day over 6... or 4 if you asked me. He's VERY baby faced, and a LOT smaller than I expected him to be. I thought this was a horse for RO, but I'm not sure that he'd hold up to RO's weight at this point. In traditional fashion, his feet were WAY too long, and he was shod all the way around. By the time the farrier got there this morning he'd thrown 3 of the 4 shoes, and was now lame because of it. Oh, and he's also not really catchable. I had to separate him from the other 2 horses, and then the only reason I got him this morning was because he was worried about the farrier's truck that had just arrived so he was distracted, and I was able to gently get the rope over his neck and then the halter on. It took me 10 minutes two different times when I was there last week for Oliver's lesson that turned into a catching lesson for the new horse instead. The farrier got to work on him and he was NOT happy. He did ok for the first front foot, but started putting up a fight with the other front. The farrier grabbed the chain shank, which I hate to use, but he was rearing, and it wasn't safe. That helped settle him a little bit, but he was still really worried. He finally got that done satisfactorily, and went to the back feet. Even though he wasn't happy with the farrier working around his hind end, he stood better for that than the fronts. I think his front feet were hurting badly, and that's why he caused the fuss. I think the farrier was impressed with me, and he made a quick off hand comment that he hopes I'm there for the next appointment, so I'll have to talk to RO about it. I also want to talk to RO about a plan to help get the horse into a better frame of mind because he needs work, and patient, kind, and gentle work. SO we'll see what RO agrees to, but it may end up being lessons for him and Oliver, depending on what he wants to do. I also need to figure out how to start teaching them things so that they can do the homework and work with the new horse themselves, because he's going to need it. They aren't feeding the horses anything currently, but I'm going to suggest that they start doing so just so that the new horse can get handled daily. Hay pellets right now are cheap and a good way to give them something to chew on without calories. I might also suggest some of the probiotic that I use, it has always done very well for calming down the horses I work with when they have been really nervous and worked up. I'll go back over there for another lesson on Wednesday, so hopefully we can put a game plan together at that point. I know they were really upset with the fact that the horse wasn't what they expected, and were considering sending him back (oh, yeah, on top of that the guy hasn't sent the papers yet, either....), so I need to see what they think at this point. I don't want to put a lot of energy into this horse if they're not going to keep it. But by the same token, it has to be handleable, and coopertive for what we need to do to maintain the horse. The farrier and I both agreed we would never buy a horse sight unseen, at least not with the expectations the RO and his wife have. They're too green to be buying horses sight unseen. So we'll see what happens with the little guy, but it will be a while before I'm forking a leg over him, for sure.

 

[Britesea]

@hqueen13 I just use J.R. Liggett's shampoo bar because that's what the grocery store has. This weekend, I just bought some eucalyptus shampoo bars from a local lady at the Farmer's Market. I haven't tried it yet because I still have half a bar of the other stuff. I'll let you know if I find a difference.

I think the biggest thing I do, is I only wash my hair twice a week; three times if I've been working outside and sweating a lot. I find shampooing more often just causes more dandruff. Of course, eating right helps a lot too *smiles*

 

[frustratedearthmother]

The weekend was busy, but are yall really surprised?

Nope, lol. But - when do you sleep?

 

[hqueen13]

@Britesea you are right on all accounts! I wash my hair twice a week, and prefer not to wash it any more often than that. I've been trying to figure out if there is some kind of rinse I can use that will help to just rinse off the dirt in between washings, but I haven't figured that out yet.

FEM, LOL, believe it or not we got to bed EARLY. Like generally by 8:30. The BF has been complaining lately that it's still light outside when we get in bed. We don't close our curtains because no one can see in, and so it's pretty bright since we have one window that faces sort of west. So yeah, I can't manage if I don't get 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Last night we were ready to sleep just before 9, and I got up at 6, so yeah, I need LOTS of sleep. The BF gets up even earlier than I do, he's usually headed out the door by 5, so him getting in bed with me isn't a big deal. That's the only way I can survive, I seriously do not do well if I only get 7 hours a couple nights in a row!

The car loan finally hit the BF's capital one account. There's nothing more real than seeing the numbers on the screen. The good news is the bill isn't due until the 20th, so that's helpful. The other even better news is that the BF's paycheck was about $250 above what it has been for the past few months. Overtime is back! At least a little bit of it anyway. Every bit helps, so I'm really glad that it's coming in right now. We can use the stability of not trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. I know we won't have a lot of freedom, but I was able to take care of the little bits of over spending that he had from the last check, and then fund all his other stuff, and still had about $80 leftover. WHEW. Now if we can just keep up that trend, and keep going in the upward direction it will help!

It's hot as crap here today. The high is 90, and it's partly cloudy and HUMID as all get out. And I have to teach Oliver this afternoon (or the new horse, not sure which yet). I'm not really very excited about that. I wish we could have done it on Monday or Tuesday, but RO wasn't home, so that didn't work out. So today it is. We'll see how it goes, but hopefully I won't have to do a whole lot of energetic stuff. I don't know that I have the energy for that on a day like today.

I'm doing a little bit of office work today, and trying to get some chores taken care of in the house. Mostly just trying to hide from the heat, honestly. I guess summer is officially here.