Curly hair

Read my first post on curls!

So, when I listed 7 things about myself .. one of them was that I used to straighten my hair with a clothes iron. I realllly wish I could find a photo of this moment. I can't even find a google image of this. I think that means I'm officially stranger than I thought. Oh well.

This was the end result. I'd sleep on it so it looked more natural.

I was such a curl hater but I did totally rock the straight hair!

So .. if you read my first post (you should) then you'll understand that it's been a long time since I had this look. Now I follow a method called Curly Girl. It's pretty great. It all started with a book written by Lorraine Massey.. but that's awkward to put into conversation. 'I love your hair, what do you do to it?' 'Oh I curly girl it'. Yeah .. no. So I've taken to saying I'm simply embracing the curl! Aside from the awkward name, the actual method as far as I can tell is pure genius. Here I'm going to go over the basics you need to know for starting this whole ordeal without including any of the more complicated things (google it .. there's tons of information, I'm just not explaining it right now).

Me and the book!

And a strange photo edit that I hit on my phone by accident.

Sorry about that ..suck at using my smartphone still.

1. Cut out silicone and sulfate. I bet you don't even know why they are bad or how to find them in your hair products. I didn't either and I secretly think they are partially responsible for so many curly heads fighting genetics. Thankfully, instead of memorizing a huge list of 'no nos' ingredients wise, you can find lots of lists of Curly Girl approved products out there!

2. Do one last shampoo. Yup you heard me right, it's like the last supper. Use your regular shampoo for one final wash and then prepare to throw it (and all other unfriendly products) into the trash along with all your frustrations.

3. Only condition. From now on, you're a no shampoo using kinda folk. I know, it seems scary because if you don't use shampoo then how will you clean your hair?! Trust me, conditioner works just as well and your hair won't be greasy or dirty or anything else horrible you can dream up.

4. Throw away your brush. You DO NOT NEED to brush your hair. Buy yourself a wide tooth comb. Or use your fingers. The only time the comb or fingers should be near your head is when your hair has conditioner in it and is soaking wet.

5. Apply friendly products ONLY and apply them IN the shower while your hair is still dripping. At first I thought this was stupid advice but I tried it anyway. It wasn't stupid advice. After applying product, take an old cotton tshirt or microfiber towel and use that on your hair. NEVER use a regular towel, only cotton or microfiber. This alone will make an awesome difference in the amount of fuzz you have, aka little to none (even on humid, hot days).

 Here is a photo. 

Stolen from Wikihow.

6. After you've scrunched your hair with the microfiber or cotton, you can let your hair air dry (which is the best and really does result in the nicest curls) or you can blowdry with a diffuser. Either one works pretty well, and obviously a blowdryer wins if you're pinched for time.

Best diffuser ever!

Couldn't live without it.

7. Be patient. Some people see immediate results. Some people need a few weeks. Some even need a few months. Sometimes you may notice it seems to look a bit messier after starting this routine, but that's normal. It just means your hair has been treated particularly harshly and needs a week or so to recover (but it will get better, I promise!).

So now that you know the process .. want to see the results?! I bet you do ..at least a little bit.

This is an old school photo of me and my favorite person from my town!

This is before I started Curly Girl.

This is shortly after starting it.

Much improvement already!

This photo always cracks me up. I look like a loser!

But it is a GREAT hair photo :D

Last one! One of the more recent photos of my hair.

So, that's enough photos of my face for the next year or 10.

Hope you enjoyed! If you have curly hair ..I hope you're now considering trying this, at the very least :) Or else I just spent a lot of time watching Buffy& writing a post that is going to waste.

Glamour.

A question I find myself being asked constantly is 'How do you have such an amazing sense of style? You exude glamor and sex appeal.' Glamour. Ladies& gents, but especially ladies. People say confidence makes you beautiful. I say malarkey. What makes you beautiful? Glamour. Now, I know. Trying to match up to my glamour is daunting. Kim Kardashian frequently says she wishes she could rock what I rock.

The next Sport's Illustrated cover image? 

No. The world ain't ready for this much good loookin'

I am a spectacular specimen of the human race. I'd like to say it is ALL me .. but I tend to think that my family just has some of the most amazing genetics of all time. Following, I have included 3 photos of my VERY glamourous family. Basically we are an unstoppable force of awesome. Wherever we go, so does The Sartorialist. It's true ..he wishes he could feature us constantly. Always a step ahead in the fashion world.

My brother. You just wait until spring. 
It's a hat AND a drink dispenser.

Testing out fashions for 2011. 

You never know when inspiration will strike.

Make your eyes look bigger& your nose look smaller. 

Perfect for high fashion wannabes.

So, at this point you're thinking to yourself 'I am playing an impossible game. She's not even glamourous on her own, she's GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED to be this awesome. I'm doomed.'
Fear not, fashionista-in-training. I am here. I will hold your hand through the streets of fashion and lead you to your own style. I'm now going to include some no-fail trends of spring/summer 2011. Now, I have excluded the brilliant designers names from these pieces. 'WHY?!', you demand. I will lead you to the door of style brilliance, but it is up to you to find your way from there. Plus, you can't afford this. So, here are my most coveted items.

*From Regretsy. 
God forbid I ever forget to link again. 
Because my blog gets SO much traffic.

These beauties are called 'skants'. A fabulous mix between skirt& pants. You know, for those times when your hooha  just needs a little fresh air but your legs are cold?! Well. Worry no more because these beasts are SMOKING. I'm talking allll over the runways everywhere. You get these bad boys and you will have one of THE hot ticket items for this season. Keep is classy. How can you make this work for you? Include some elements from your own personal style. Think of flowing tops or great necklaces. Keep the shoes simple, you don't really want to detract from the awesome lower half.

You know all those times you think 'I'd be SO MUCH less inconvenienced by this scarf if it was a sleeve. That way I could look hip AND choke myself at the same time.' Well, ladies& gentlemen your answer has come to you. It's unisex. It can match anything. It's easy to make. I'm not seeing anything about this that doesn't scream 'amazingly fashionable'!! I would snap one of these up off the racks before it's too late! Now, you're thinking 'But how will I make this work for ME?'. Easy. It's spring ..so wear it with a cute skirt. Or, perhaps a pair of SKANTS?!

I have saved the best for last. This is a dedicated lady. Look at those gem sweaters! Nothing says personal style like rocking a one-of-a-kind awesome glitter shirt. Her personal style& personality SHINES in these photos. Even if you can't afford her shirts, you can certainly take some cues from her style. Let's start with that hair. Anyone can rock that. Those semi-invisible glasses? Please. Such a DO this summer. And lastly, the pleather tan pants. I'm going to try to get this woman to guest blog for me. Her style might be the one style on earth that is ahead of mine!

Here is a perfect example of all the styles combined into a perfect everyday casual style. Can't you see yourself going to pick up the kids, get groceries, ooze sex appeal at every stop sign& red light?!

So yes, ladies and gents. You too can be as glamourous as my family& I. Even if you aren't naturally as gifted at putting together looks. It just takes a little practice& confidence to pull it all off. Have a fabulous Tuesday :)

*Editor's Note:

I actually had to reactivate facebook 

for some of these photos. 

Y'all better appreciate.

Frizz Ease

There was a time when I always wore my hair straight. Even if it was going up in a ponytail, it was straight. It just didn't matter. When I was in a rush& left my hair curly, it went up in a bun to hide it. I remember one time at the pool, I was guarding and had to jump in to get someone. Then I had to stay on the deck for 7 more hours. This was one of the panic moments where people were going to see my curls. I ALWAYS had a hair elastic around my wrist ..except that day. I remember it so clearly. Horror of horrors. My secret was going to be exposed. And it was a secret. Most people thought I had wavy hair, but when I started showing the curls, people were shocked there was so much.

Typical hair look from my younger days. 

Seeing this photo, I miss it a little bit. Sad but true.

So, now it's my mission to love my curls& help other people love theirs. And by 'mission' I mean on occasion when I'm not too lazy to explain. 3 years ago, my mother& I started a long suffering journey to loving our hair. It started when I went to Cuba, I was forced to rock the curls. It was hard .. some days we wanted to give up .. there were many a bad haircuts .. one rude hairdresser who reminded that me that my cold sore was gross (thanks for that, by the way) ..various other things. Through all that, we trudged.

I love this photo! Plus it marks the start of curl love :)

Now we love our hair. We found a great hairdresser .. Mom got her hair cut at the DevaChan salon in New York! She met Lorraine Massey and had a wonderful time. I didn't. But hey, my hair is still great :) There was certainly an evolution of curls& people are generally shocked when I tell them I haven't shampooed my hair in three years! There is a reason though, us curly girls don't need it (well, no one does. It's especially hard on our hair though!), as long as we follow a few easy rules.

My boyfriend even has curls! Isn't he handsome with them?!

So, what has sparked my post of curly love? Well, the title of course. I get SO sick of advertisements that tell me the only way to have socially accepted hair is to straighten it. No way! It took me 21 years to learn to love my curls, let's raise up a generation that just accepts themselves. You are pretty / handsome / clever / etc :) Embrace yourself, ladies& gents. You don't want to depend on someone else to validate you! Frizz Ease .. you let me down. Curls ARE NOT inherently frizzy. Sure, they can be. Properly loved curls, however, are not.

Can you see the frizz?! And I only use ONE product!

So, moral of the story? My hair is curly so I rock it. I will also mention that straight hair is also fantastic if that's what your DNA wants you to have! I mention this only so it doesn't seem like I'm setting back women hundreds of years by including ONLY curls. I'm covering all my bases from here on out. Keep it real, ladies& gents :)

Winter in spring

The title perfectly describes Cape Breton at this current moment. It's snowing .. it's cold .. it's windy .. did I mention there was SNOW?! The perk to the sucky weather today is that it's 12.52PM and I have already accomplished so many things! I will provide a brief overview and some details on the more exciting parts.

Haircut
Went to Rena at Hair Solutions. She was super sweet and it was a really laid back place. Had a few laughs, solved my hair issues, got bangs AND it didn't even cost me that much money! It was great and really perked up my mood. I now have lots of energy and am feeling better about the fact that it's freezing cold out. Mostly I'm just super happy that I have a hairdresser who can actually style my hair! Welcome back, fabulus curls :)

Contest
So, my blog contest only has today+ 3 more to enter! Hope you guys are planning on entering at some point! Don't forget the 4 ways to win (blog, comment, tweet, facebook) and also, all parts of the blog prize have been compiled and are just awaiting me to take their photo! I am trying to decide to how to best photograph them to show them ..I will be uploading both them& my photo of the day later this afternoon!

Silly String
I also bought 2 cans of this stuff. What I am going to use it for remains to be seen! Mostly I just want to spray someone or something with it ..I'm not picky. Contemplating covering my puppy in it, but can totally see that backfiring on me and ending up with a dog covered in silly string that I can't get off. LOL. He would hate me for the rest of his life. So I figure I'd spare him and just silly string something else. Just not entirely sure WHAT yet!

Today
You know that saying about today being a gift, that's why they call it the present or something? Yeah, if I wasn't so lazy I'd look it up. Well, I was thinking about that the other night at work ..and wondering how much truth was in it. Keep in mind, my evening at that moment was not going particularly well. My first thought was to think about how awesome my gifts have been from immediate family and friends (amazing) and those who got gifts for me because they wanted to come to my party / had to for some reason (less than amazing and also more abundant). Then I started thinking about about my days. Some moments are amazing, while most of the day is basically incredibly ordinary. I think these people might be onto something with this thought. So, my end thought? Each day probably is a gift, however most gifts are disappointing.

New Music
Hopefully you will all love this song as much as I do! It's really sweet& cute. I also noticed a crazy trend with my music ..I obviously love male singers way more than female ones. The only female singer I ever put on here, I ended up retracting my like of her song due to her stupid behavior. Way to go, JG. Ruining female artist's chances of being discovered as the next big thing via my blog. I hope you reform your vulgar tweets because of this consequence. So, for now I will continue my trend of beautiful songs sung by guys :) Enjoy!
Oh, and also ..sorry for the weird video that accompanies this song, but it was the best version I could find of it. I am amazed I could even find it!

Sunny Tuesdays!

Today was beautiful. It was sunny, it was considerably warmer than yesterday and I cleaned my entire car, inside& out! It is SO nice to have it sparkling when I drive it .. no more shame in owning in the dirty car LOL. Thanks, boyfriend for helping me and letting me use your car cleaning supplies :) You rock!

Before cleaning out my car, I embraced the day by wrapping my foot and hitting up the treadmill. It was excellent ..I pounded out 5 miles on hills with the sun from outside shining on my back. Almost made me think it was actually spring-like out! Oh, sunshine. You lift the cloak of anger and bitterness from me. Also, it stayed bright out until about 7.30! Hello, spring ahead. I love you almost as much as sunshine. Afterward, I had an Orange Julius and proceeded on my mission to clean the poor Civic. Then Margaret convinced me to play basketball ..which was interesting. On the bright side, I was the fastest person up the court! Thank you, many miles logged.

My post the other day (yesterday? I'm not really sure) mentioned that practically all magazines say there are 2 ways to have good hair; straighten it or artificially curl it. I don't really care, my curls rock& my boyfriend loves them. Or at least, he tells me he does and that's all that matters. The only thing that bothers me is that it makes it impossible to find cute ways to style curly hair. Seriously ..my hair is constantly the EXACT SAME. This bothers me from time to time.

Mostly because for 21 years of my life, I have NOT embraced the curl. Actually, I fought the curl with clothes irons, hair irons, serums, gels, creams.. hell I would have shot a unicorn if I thought it would give me what genetics didn't -- straight hair. It was painstaking work of straightening and praying to sweet baby Jesus there was no humidity, rain, clouds, anything that would destroy my highly time consuming straight hair.
And then, when disaster struck and it rained within 2000 miles of where I was standing and the curls started to creep up, first on my forehead and slowly all over, I would cry on the inside and wonder why they just couldn't cooperate. Yeah, I thought this until I was 21. Yeah, I know curls aren't really self-aware. No, it doesn't mean I didn't still hate them for it.

So then one day, I put down the creams, gels, irons and administered CPR to the unicorn. I sat down with trusty google and typed 'how to get gorgeous curls' and instead found a whole new lifestyle. I did a lot of reading .. a lot of practicing .. I learned all there was to learn about all the kinks and waves and curls and types 1 - 4B. Yeah, there are a LOT of different kinds of curl. Why oh why can some magazine not just show us girls who don't want to straighten our hair (or artificially curl it ..what's the point? It's already curly)?!
So my new mission = get curly hairstyles. Grow my curly hair out (shocker.) and try to help others make embracing their own hair easier on them!

On that note, I think I've done enough typing for the day. Now, my photo. Yes. I have it. Just call me awesome. I also even know what day I'm on. I spent this afternoon updating my Project 365. I am on day 41 as of today. I cannot believe I've kept it. Oh, and also that I still have over 300 days left. Really makes the year seem impossibly long!

Stay classy boys& girls :)
And let me know what you prefer ... curly or straight?!

A whole weekend!

With no posting! And now it's Monday ..why was I too busy to post you ask? Good question. I think I was just exhausted, sitting down& uploading photos, writing a blog, being witty, etc just wasn't appealing to me. Not that I need energy to be witty, really. That just comes natural ;) So, now onto the important questions of how I spent my Saturday& Sunday!

Saturday - work til 3. Read magazines .. learned the new trends for spring .. how to do an at-home manicure .. how to straighten my hair so I look pretty (that is a rant for an entirely different day. I try to stay away from my hair on this blog.) .. and various other things I've promptly forgotten. Afterward, I proceeded to not attend hot yoga (oops!) and made 45 jell-o shots. Then, off Karli& I went to Lindsey's to enjoy some shots& skull vodka :D It was all delicious. Then we headed to Daniels, where we met up with public health people and headed to Capri. It was fun .. then I went to Garrets and fell into delightful sleep.

On Sunday, Garret& I did nothing much of anything. I actually can't remember what happened, and that's sad because it was only yesterday! Oh, wait. No, we got Tim Hortons (I didn't win. I haven't won yet. Frig you, Roll Up The Rim. You suck.) and then headed to my house where I fed him his favorite meal -Mom's lasagna! Yum for him. Then he went home, I went to work& it was annoying. I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I love Angel and wished all my customers would stop being annoying. I must have sold about 150 - 180 $2 crosswords. WHAT. THE. HELL. So then I ran out, of course. Life was great. After work, I came home& curled up to watch Breakout Kings. Instead, I got sucked into something else that I can't even remember now. I am going to watch it tomorrow.

So then, I couldn't sleep until 2 and woke up at 3.45AM to take Matthew to the airport ..I did. I met Mom there .. we saw the child off .. I went to Garrets .. blah blah blah ..exciting part?!
So. Lunchtime-ish .. we go to the SPCA. It was CRAZY in there, so many barking dogs. None of them really appealed to me (which was nice, because I'm not getting a dog and Garret refuses to get one.), until I turned the corner. Oh. My. Love. A beautiful little American Staffordshire was just sitting in her cage, waiting for me to save her from her overstimulating life at the SPCA. She was the sweetest, kindest looking dog I've seen in a long time& she was just so calm amid all the chaos. How could I not love her?! So, I fell in love with a dog that I cannot have ..this is my plea to someone to go rescue her. She deserves a great home& I truly wish more than anything I could give it to her. Seriously, if you can help out in anyway.. so sad to see so many animals with no love in their lives. Then we hit up Boston Pizza, where I had a delicious pasta. Then we went to his garage, where we decided to take his bicycles for a ride.

Yes. In this weather. It's 50km/hr winds and -13C with snow falling. I rode his amazing road bike and have decided that I'm definitely going to have to upgrade sooner rather than later. It was amazing. Then I was very cold and headed home to visit Mom before she left for work and catch up on my blogging / TV shows / posting of photos / hanging with my own puppy / etc. So, now here I am, getting caught up on my blog& photos .. puppy has been given lots of attention and soon Intervention& Heavy will be on. This will be an excellent evening all around :)

So, this post is seeming incredibly long and I still have to add 3 days worth of photos! So, here we go. Starting with a photo from Saturday. This is the album cover for a record Matt has. The record is the soundtrack to Alice in Wonderland! So much fun ..Matthew's stuff is neat to photograph because it's all so peculiar.

After that, I have yet another photo of something that either Matthew or Dad owns. It is a Sherlock Holmes guitar pick. I don't particularly like this photo, however I was in a rush to get jell-o +myself ready for the evening, so it's all your getting!

And, then lastly? There is my photo for today! Guess what it is? There's no way you'll ever guess. I took the photo and I don't even know, really. It's some type of wind up robot that dances back& forth. It's cute. It's Matthews. Yes, 3 days of lightbox photography of items that Matthew owns. Enjoy!

And now my excessively long 3-day catch up is done. I hope you enjoyed it and feel like you know what's happening in my world again. My world really IS that exciting ..most days, anyway. I also decided that's time to get back on the fitness train, my foot is mostly healed. I'm restarting Insanity tomorrow .. plus a run. Eventually, I'd really just like to be a professional surfer in Hawaii or New Zealand or something. Dream big, right? For now, I'll be happy with some muscle, ripped abdominals and a better diet!

Oh, also, I feel like it's time to share another song with you folks. It's Andrew Allen -Loving You Tonight. I'd prefer to share my favorite song by him (Sooner) ..however, it doesn't appear to exist except live. I hate live versions of songs when they are recorded with all the talking / background singing from those around the person filming / the person themselves. On that note: