Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day!  Be it a day that you get to spend with someone special, or a day that you get to treat yourself to something you enjoy, or even if it's just another day to you, I hope it's a splendid and blessed one!

I decided that instead of doing a Valentine's makeup/hair post I would post all of my favorite funny V Day videos I've discovered so far, because if your work place is anything like mine right now, you are so hyped up on sugar and chocolate, working is just not going to happen.  At least not until after I crash from the pound of red hots I ingested for breakfast.

OKIDOKIES!! Here we go!

Josh Groban simply, ROCKS my SOCKS off.  I love his sense of humor, and this is a fun little blurb that I think you'll enjoy.

If you're anything like me, then you have a deep love and appreciated for morbid humor; this is an old video, but it's a favorite of mine and many of my friends, so take a look and have a laugh!

I have to admit that when I was first introduced to Kid President, I thought, "great, another parent trying to proclaim their political agenda through their kid."  But the more I got to listening to him, the more he made me giggle and smile.  I really enjoyed his love song and I hope you do too.

I keep adding to the list throughout the day as I discover more, but I hope that these made you smile; now go indulge in someone that you really like, be it chocolate or candy or a nap in front of your favorite soap opera!

*hugz*

There is hope for humanity Day 3: the quiet place project

How many of us can remember a time when we experience true silence?  Where our minds weren't talking, our fingers weren't tapping away at one technology device or another, we couldn't hear the cars or the airplanes or talking on any level.  It was silent, and we were, for once, listening to that silence.  I think that we've all lost, on some level, the ability to listen to the silence and understand what it really means.  I know that even when I'm trying to focus on nothing and pay attention to quiet and to calm my mind, my brain is still running at a million miles an hour and trying desperately to create some sort of white noise.  I thrive on it.

The quiet place project is here to help us achieve that silent time again.  This awesome little site offers several different ways of helping you connect with that lost concept of quiet meditation.  The first part being the general experience and explanation of why you should choose the quiet place.  After that you have the opportunity to experience relaxation techniques and after that, my personal favorite, the thoughts room.  The thoughts room is wonderful; you are encouraged to share every single thought that you have that's weighing you down and watch as the words simply fall off the screen and away from your heart and mind.  There's no one who can read what you've typed, can't respond, can't do anything.  It is all for the benefit of you getting them off your chest and out of your brain.

The quiet place also offers soothing music to listen to while you're experiencing the site, and I know that is some way that might be defeating the purpose, but honestly I would rather not let my mind's internal speakers go haywire without noise.  Instead, I think the music is a great way to slowly acclimate yourself to becoming accustomed to lack of outside noise and speech.

Give this website a try, sometimes I use it just as a way to relax a little at work, but mostly it's a reminder to me that it's so important that we just take a break from the world and sit back and enjoy the quiet.  I think that, for me personally, when I don't take that time to be in the quiet, I lose my ability to really focus on prayer and God and meditating on His Word.  I've become so bombarded by the noise and so distracted by all the difference stimuli that I can't focus spiritually as easily as I used to.

Well this ends this week's worth of "Hope for humanity" series.  I will start up again on Monday and I wish you all a great weekend!

Maintaining yourself through times of illness

Hello all, 

It seems these days that we are all suffering from one sickness or another.  Myself included.  I've been fighting a chronic issue all week and have finally found something that will hopefully either fix it completely or at least give me the strength and pain relief to get through it until I can gather my forces and continue to move forward.    We all have these issues, problems, chronic or not, sickness is something that can truly break a person's spirit.  When a human breaks because of the pain, it's one of the most difficult and heartbreaking things to bear, and I know that in times of severe sickness there isn't much we wouldn't give up for the opportunity to live a normal and pain free life, and interestingly, we always seem to be hit with a sickness that manifests itself in a way that we would easily trade for any other type of sickness or pain.  Funny how it works. 

I just want to take a moment to encourage those of you who are suffering.  You will get through this, you will make it, and you will be victorious.  Even if it takes time, the only time we fail or we lose is when we give up our hope that it gets better.  Even if you start seeing the evidence of your sickness through things that you used to pride yourself in, your figure, your hair, your eyes, your skin, what have you, know that in the end it's your spirit that will remain and your spirit is what makes you beautiful from the inside out. 

This week has been one of the more trying weeks; my husband and I both spent all day at one doctor's office or another, picking up prescriptions, lying on the couch exhausted from the physical toll of our respective hurts, but we knew we had each other.  Even as we were struggling, we could be there side by side and know that we would get through it together.  This is key.  You need someone to help get you through.  I know that God put my husband in my life for a very specific reason and that He has plans for us, but I also know that He gave me my husband because He knew that I would need someone to hold me and to hold when the going gets rough.  I want to encourage you in being able to have a friend, spouse, relative that you can go to physically be held and comforted by and in turn be able to do the same thing for them in their time of need. 

Something that's I've been really struggling with is moderation.  I find something that helps and after two years of hurting I just want to saturate myself in it, be it a food, medicine, what have you.  I have to remember that I can't do that because it could easily not be helping at all and it's just my brain going psycho or it could be that it might be helping, but not necessarily fixing the problem.  For instance, pain killers.  I try to limit my intake because I know that even if I take the pain killers, that's not fixing the problem, it's simply making myself blind to it.  Another thing is that I've been put on dose after dose of antibiotic regardless of whether or not it was confirmed that I was in need of them, and in the long run they have really hurt me because I think they were not helping, but in fact were actually deep-setting the issue that could have been fixed with a different type of medication. 

Make your doctor listen to you.  I'm so frustrated because I think I've finally been put on something that is helping and not hindering my problem, but when I went in again after two years she didn't even recognize me, nor recognize the multitude of things she prescribed me two years ago.  She didn't have my record up.  I felt like she was just brushing me off, but I persisted.  I wrote down everything that doctors and specialists had suggested and I told her I felt we were looking at it the wrong way.  She did a test and sure enough I was right, but why didn't she test for this simple, simple thing in the first place?  Because she wasn't listening.  I will be finding a new doctor.  You have to go to a doctor that listens to you.  You need to be able to talk with them, have them be open to listen to you and not just shove you out the door with the first thing that comes to mind or send you to a specialist because they don't know.  If she had asked more questions, and been more aware of what I was feeling or instead of when my test came back negative the very first time I went to her two years ago, just brushing it off as coincidence saying I would feel better and had instead said "hmmmm, since it's negative let's test for the next things that your symptoms indicate" I would be healthy two years earlier.  Even now I don't know if this is it, but she could have at least listened. 

Take time for yourself.  So often we are thrown in a world where work and school or spouse or kids or what have you is so first and foremost in our minds we forget that we just need to take time and take care of ourselves, even if all that means is lying down on the couch for a night and reading instead of going out.  You must give your body extra pampering, you must give it time to cope.  When you're going 100% all the time and in pain you will not survive, you have to give your body the rest and relief it needs.  Even if lying down can't fix the issue it can at least give your body a chance to stop moving and assess things.  Sleep is a powerful healer. 

I am a Christian, and recently I did go in front of my church to explain to them my plight and that I needed help.  At the end of the service, my pastor had everyone who wanted to join us up front and they prayed over me.  The sense of love and desire to make better was simply overwhelming.  I am so thankful to God for the church He has placed me in, and I know that with my asking His people to pray over me, where two or three come together in His name He hears them, and I know that I have an entire church backing me up and praying for my healing.  It is a blessing and brings peace. 

I hope that whatever it is that you might be struggling with will come to a close, and I pray that you will find rest and peace and the strength that you need to carry on until you are healed.  I hope that my random thoughts help.  

The pH of hair

Hello all, 


I know it's been a while since I've written so I decided I would get to actually writing something worth reading. Something that I think is important to understand when dealing with the hair is the actual science behind it, it's composition and what you're putting on your hair.  To start off, we'll begin with a brief explanation of hair structure: 


Hair is composed mainly of keratin, the same stuff you're nails are made out of, and has three basic parts: the medulla, the cortex and the cuticle. Your hair has a shaft, which is the part that projects out of the scalp or body, and the root is the part of the hair that is embedded within your skin.  When your hair is visible, it is already dead, you do not have "live" hair if you will, sticking out of your legs and head and face.  The cuticle is the shiny outside part that everyone sees and says "Oooo shiny hair!" or "yikes you need a haircut"  the cuticle is the main part of the hair that you can affect directly and immediately.  By that I mean, the cuticle is what is first altered by bleaches, or hair masques, or shampoo, etc. etc.  If you want to affect your hair's healthy from the inside out, that's when vitamins and water and healthy eating habits are useful.  They do affect the cuticle as well, but not on the immediate basis that other products affect. I'm not going to go into the medulla and the cortex because the cuticle is what I focus on mainly anyway. 

Hair needs to be pH balanced; it's neutral, meaning it has the same amount of acids and alkalis, which balance each other out.  I know it sounds weird to say that your hair needs to have acid, but interestingly enough, it's the acid in apple cider vinegar and lemon juice that makes your hair so healthy.  We'll get into that in a moment. 

Have you ever looked at the ingredients in your shampoo or conditioner?  You'll notice that Ceytl alcohol is often an ingredient, which is an vegetable (can be) derived acid that is meant to help keep you hair balanced.  You'll also notice, if you're familiar with the pH balances of other items a lot of alkaline materials in your shampoo, such as SLS.

So what happened when you expose your hair to alkaline or acidic products?  Well, when you wash your hair with shampoo, usually it feels a bit dry and rough, yes?  That's because the SLS or whatever alkaline based shampoo product you use actually opens the hair cuticle.  Now with soap based products, such as shampoo bars or SLS free shampoo, this helps your hair release the dirt buildup and rinse away with the soap product.  With SLS, because it is a detergent it will still open your hair cuticle due to its alkalinity, but it will actually rid your hair of the dirt instead of just releasing it.  Most shampoos that are SLS free will have more cleansing ingredients.  SLS doesn't need that because of its detergent properties.  

So now that you have put an alkaline product on your head and you have open hair cuticle, what next?  That's where the acid comes in.  When you apply a commercial conditioner, more often than not they use the cetyl alcohol as an acid base and when your hair is exposed to that acid, it closes up and creates that smooth and shiny surface. The first image shown is hair with closed cuticles, the second image is hair with open cuticles. 

 

So now that we have a very, very, very basic idea of why hair needs both alkaline and acidic products, this helps me to understand just exactly what my hair is missing and what it needs.  If I notice my hair is tangling a lot and looks dull, chances are rinsing a little bit of diluted acid based something or other through my hair will help it.  If my hair isn't getting clean or I'm finding a lot of buildup, I can probably use baking soda - an alkaline - to open up my hair cuticle and help release that buildup of product. 

If you want to know more about commonly used "hair" items and their pH balance please refer to this site.  Ida has compiled excellent information on pH balance.


Now that we know a little bit about pH and how it affects our hair, what about other issues we see like breakage, or hair loss?  You can administer several tests to help you understand your hair and it's needs a little better. 

1. take a strand of hair from your head and place it in a bowl of water.  If it sinks that means that there are "holes" or damaged ends in your hair and it's taking on water.  If it floats it means that your hair cuticle is intact.  

2. Gently pull on a single strand of your hair.  If it breaks immediately then you are in need of moisture.  Start running coconut oil through your hair the night before your wash it.  Adjust the amount of oil needed depending on the length on your hair.  If your hair strand stretches a lot and then when it breaks it curls up on itself that means your hair is lacking protein and is weaker than most.  An easy fix for this is to take a raw egg, mix it up with some honey and rub that through your hair and leave on for two hours.  Wash out like normal.  The protein in the honey and egg will help fortify your hair in it's weak condition, but the honey will also balance out the protein of the egg and leave your hair soft.  Do not apply egg to your hair too often as the protein if over applied can leave your hair feeling brittle.  

3. If you wash your hair and your ends dry within an hour then chances are they are thirsty and you should apply oil or mayo to them before you wash.  

4. Are your nails brittle and cracking and your skin dry?  Chances are you have a deficiency in some way and need to start eating differently or drinking more water.  The first signs of unhealth comes from your hair, skin and nails.

Please keep in the mind, the above tests are simple ways to evaluate your and each person's head of hair is different.  If a person has really fine hair then their hair will dry faster than someone who had a lion somewhere in their ancient heritage.  

When making hair masques to aid your hair's health it is also good to keep in mind what makes a great masques.  Typically when I make mine, I have a 75/20/5 balance.  75% moisture 20%protein 5%acid.  This is a great generic formula, but always feel free to change it up depending on what you feel your hair needs. If it needs a ton of moisture, than skip the protein and add more oil, that type of thing.  

Here is a list of ingredients to help you start working towards making your own hair masque recipes: 

Moisture
Oil - coconut, vegetable, olive, argon 

Mayo - I only use the kind that's made with olive oil, but you can use the generic as well.  DON'T USE MIRACLE WHIP!! As yummy as it is on your sandwiches, the extra sugar isn't good for the locks. 

Honey - Honey is a humectant and will attract moisture, but please keep in mind that you need to rinse it all out because your hair will be sticky if you don't and it is also a natural peroxide, so over time and extended use it will lighten your hair 

Avocado

Protein

Eggs 

Mayo - I put mayo in here too because it technically has the protein in it, but I still prefer to keep it in the moisture group 

Avocado - same story with the avocado 

Acids, from least to most acidic

Coffee

Wine

Vinegar 

Lemon Juice 

Please keep in mind that this is a very basic list, but an excellent way to get started.  If you have darker hair and want to keep your hair darker, I would recommend using the coffee.  You can also use green tea, but I haven't tried this method.  

I know that sometimes our bodies just don't do what we want, regardless of whether or not we're putting the right stuff in them.  Things happen; sickness, stress, pregnancy, it can all affect you regardless of how well you're taking care of yourself.  Making yourself a homemade hair masque can not only be good for your physically, but sitting back for a while and just giving yourself a coconut oil head massage or sitting down and watching a chick flick while letting egg protein soak into your hair can be a great health benefit for you emotionally and mentally which will in turn help your hair to be at its best. 

I hope this was useful and not all just redundant information, and if you have questions feel free to ask!   




*I also want to take this moment to share two blogs with you.  The first is by a woman who has been struggling with health problems that have been affecting her hair's for a long time.  She has pushed through it with tons of grace and happy attitude and I love reading about her life and how now she is finally able to work on getting her body as healthy as possible:  Long Haired at Heart


The second blog is one that I found a few months ago and aside from the amazing hairstyles, this gal has experimented a lot with different hair treatments and masques. It's so awesome to see someone with beautiful healthy curly hair that is taking care of it all the way down.  Definitely check her out: Sarah's Place for Long Hair

Home made hair masque

I thought I would share a hair masque recipe with you guys today.

First off, you'll need: 

Olive oil, an egg and a RIPE avocado.  In this particular tutorial, I did not have a very ripe avocado, and you'll see why you need a ripe avocado.  By the way, did you know that if you say avocado enough times it starts sounding like a made up jarble word? Avocado avocado avocado...seriously.  Try it.

At any rate, take one egg, one avocado and enough olive oil to make everything jive together smoothly and put it in a blender or food processor.  I chose the latter. A mini food processor to be precise. Chop or Grind:

Until it looks like this:

And place in a bowl with a spoon (spoon is optional actually, but the bowl isn't.  No putting your fingers in a blade infested food processor container):

Although it looks like the avocado is mixed up throughouly, my avocado is not ripe enough to actually mix into the mixture.  You want to mix it to the point that it looks like green mud...or horse pucky...or something that you would try to feed a baby.

Go to the bathroom and either lay down a plastic something on the floor so you don't green mush all over the floor or be super careful when applying to your hair.
To prep your head you need to put a towel that you don't mind getting icky around your shoulders:

Also, brush your hair; it will make application a lot easier:

Start applying your baby food mush stuff to your hair, trying to apply as evenly as possible.  Unfortunately, again because my avocado wasn't ripe enough, it applied in little chunks, but I still got all of the egg and oil in my hair too:

It looks like I have green dandruff. Groovy.

Okay!  Let that sit in your hair for at least twenty minutes to two hours. Then go the shower and rinse that nasty green goop out of your hair.  Shampoo and condition as normal, but seriously, make sure you get that stuff out otherwise it's not good.

You are left with nice shiny and healthy hair!
Remember, that hair is dead.  You cannot reverse damage or split ends, HOWEVER, you can help prevent them by giving your hair treatments and treating it well.  I like to make the analogy that our hair is like old lace; it is beautiful and delicate and lovely, but if you just throw it around and treat it like sandpaper it will start to look like sandpaper.  Treat it well!
Healthy hair starts from the inside too; drink lots of water, at least half your weight in ounces, and eat good foods.  The healthier you are, the healthier your hair, skin, nails will be.  They need nutrition too, just like everything else in your body.
Use good products on your hair, be it SLS free shampoos, shampoo bars or no shampoo at all, find a routine that works for you and your hair type! Something that works for me will not necessarily work for you.
Be patient.
Love yourself <3
:) 

Okay, I want to get a little serious

So, this is going to be a branching off of what I usually write about because this has been pressing on my heart for a while.

I know that what is written on this blog is to be generally considered fairly shallow and vain.  I want to try my best to address why I do like writing about this so much and why it's been a journey for me to get here.

I've never really considered myself a beautiful person - NO, I'm not fishing here for those who might know me - but it was really set in stone for me when I went on a camping trip with a family whose daughter applied makeup on the way to the camping site.  Me, with my boy cut hair and camping clothing, couldn't hope to compare to the person with curly red hair, five inches taller than everyone there, smart, matching hiking gear, and with perfect makeup.  Her daddy took a picture of her and said that a photographer wouldn't even have to edit her photo at all and then took a picture of me, looked at it and said, "Well, we'll have to work on you."

It hit me like a knife in my gut; never before had I been so unfairly judged or insulted.  And that feeling of accepting that I just wasn't that great looking pretty set itself into my heart permanently.

*Enter violin music* Pathetic, I know.

So imagine if you will, someone who has been told all her life the classic, "you have a wonderful personality and are so pretty on the inside" trying to accept that she will never be anything more than the awkward girl next door.  It's frustrating.  And it's hard, especially when you're trying your best to be stoic and realistic about it.  I started growing my hair out and it got really long, to about my hip.  I started obsessing; I finally had something of my own that not a lot of people had and it was soooo pretty and lovely and everyone wanted to touch it.  I couldn't NOT think about it.

Everyday was focused on the opportunity to show off my hair, which - when looking back at it, wasn't all that great.   I mean, it wasn't bad, but there was a lot of damage, I didn't wash it enough and the bangs just kinda sucked.

So I chopped it off.  Again.  And started up a new mindset: if I can't be pretty, then I'll be bada$$, hip, funky, cool, hence the spiky pictures of my hair that I've posted in two posts back.

I tried to not think about my appearance and how I felt about myself, because I knew that, in God's eyes, I was beautiful to Him no matter what, and as much as I tried to remember that my opinion of myself only got worse.  I was still constantly thinking of how I looked and how I just didn't compare to other people.  I knew and know it's wrong to do that, again, I was hand-crafted by my Sweet Abba and that should have been enough, but I think that I started embracing a mindset that was just as negative as being constantly obsessed with myself in that I didn't have a realistic idea of how I truly looked.  I would downplay myself on purpose.

Slowly but surely, I have begun to accept a more realistic and accurate idea of my own beauty.  I think a lot of why we have this falsified concept of what is attractive in this world is because of how much society pushes synthetic beauty.

Aha! Little lightbulb goes on in my head! I know that the way the world views us normal, non-photoshopped, looking women is wrong, but I know that we are beautiful and should strive to value ourselves as such, why not promote a more natural, better, organic means of promoting that beauty?

And here we are.  It's still a journey and I still struggle with my self-image a lot, but I've really come to appreciate the little things that I've been doing to pamper myself and my ego.  I love long hair.  I just do and I always will.  I will NEVER cut it shorter than my waist ever again because I feel beautiful with it.  And not only because it's long, but because it is truly healthy.  I like having longer nails.  I have to find a balance because I am a pianist and having long nails can effect my proficiency in playing, but as long as I keep them healthy, I am happy.  I like making sure my skin is hydrated through the best means possible and I love sharing what I'm learning with people.

This isn't just about external beauty either, it's about becoming beautiful from the inside out and it's about learning to embrace yourself and who you are and taking care of yourself.  It's our job to maintain our bodies; we've been given them for such a short period of time, why not take care of them as best as we can?

I know that hair and skin and nails still seems a bit shallow, but it helps me stay grounded.  When I get these things off of my chest via blogging or on youtube, it helps de-stressify my life and allows me to tackle the many difficult things that I am challenged with.  Brushing my hair is relaxing and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

I know that I am and always will be beautiful in the eyes of my God who created me, and I know that He has a purpose for my life that I'm sure has nothing to do with how perfect I can get my french manicure, but I do know that to fully achieve what His will for me, I need to have a good opinion of myself and feel confident in who I am.  Without confidence and endurance, without the faith that there is Someone who cares enough about us that we should treasure ourselves I believe that we have very little that we can truly call our own.

Okay...*gets down from soapbox*.  I think I'm done for now, but like I said earlier, that was very important for me to share with you.  Thanks for listening!