April 2010 Archives

Yesterday evening, around dinner time, my doorbell rang.

I hate when my doorbell rings.  At least when I'm not expecting anyone.  It's never anything good.  So I slowly walked to the door, trying to see what I was facing.  I couldn't see anything until I got right up to the door.  Then I saw a little brown bag.  I looked closer and I saw it had my neighbor's six year old son's name on it, in a six year old's handwritting.  I opened the door and he popped up from around the corner and yelled, "Surprise!  It's flowers!"

So I opened up the little brown lunch bag and pulled out an adorable little flower basked (of sorts).  It was a clear plastic cup, a green pipecleaner as a handle, with some white alysum inside.  It also had a little popsicle stick thingy with a little may day poem on it. 

As part of his school project he was instructed to leave it on a neighbors doorstep and then surprise them when they opened the door.  I was actually incredibly flattered that he choose to give it to me instead of any of the other neighbors. 

Here are a few pictures of my sweet little gift.  As you can see, I couldn't decide the best spot for the the flower "basket".

In my early twenties I never really did much with my hair.  I'd get up in the morning, wash, condition, and go.  No product.  No blow-drying.  I'd get my hair cut basically when I started to get frustrated with it.  There was no set schedule.  Needless to say, my hair did not look very good.

In my mid-twenties that changed.  At the suggestion of my sister I had my hair highlighted.  And I got a new cut.  And I started using product and using a blow-dryer in the morning.  It made such a huge difference I decided I better keep it up and turn it into a routine.  I get it cut about every 7-8 weeks.  I get the highlights done about every other hair cut.  Every once in a while I'll switch up the shampoo/conditioner and the product but the rest stays pretty much the same. 

I recently deicded I wanted to try tresemme for my shampoo and conditioner.  While I was at the store ready to purchase my new tresemme, I stood there for what seemed like an hour just looking at all the different options and trying to decide. 

• My hair is really fine so the 24 hour body option sounded good.
• My hair is colored so the color revitalize option looked good.
• My hair tends to break and I have those annoying little hairs that stick up at the top of my head so I thought the anit-breakage option looked good.
• My hair is a little on the dry side so the smooth and silky for dry hair option looked good.

Anyway, since I didn't want to wash and condition my hair four times a day, I ultimately decided on one -- the smooth and silky option -- and it actually does seems to be doing what it says it should do.  It could also be the new product I've been using -- paul mitchell super skinny serum smoothing. 

After applying the product I then blow dry my hair upside down.  After it's completely dry, if time allows, I'll quickly run it through a flat iron.  My hair is almost totally straight, but the iron gives it a bit of a more polished look.   

Just about two weeks ago, there was another piece of hair maintenence that I did for the first time.  It is still TBD whether or not it will be a regular part of the routine.  I had my eyebrows waxed.  I am guessing most other women have this done at least once long before they their thirties, but it's not unusual for me to be late to the game.  I am hoping to just keep it up on my own using the tweezers and only have them done professionally a few times a year.

What is your hair maintenance routine?

A couple of months back I saw the book The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks at the grocery store.  I was actually in need for a book to read, it was 40% off, and I liked the other Nicholas Sparks stuff I have read, so on a whim I bought it.

II read it fairly quickly, and I really, really liked it.  I didn't want to put it down.  It is probably my second favorite of all his books I've read, after The Notebook.  So I was quite excited when I saw the movie was coming out.  Even though I am quite a homebody, and am almost never the one to initiate an outing, I quickly sent out feelers to a couple of girlfriends to see if they'd be interested in seeing it.  I knew there was no way I was going to get my boyfriend to sit and watch this movie, let alone actually pay to see it.  Then I checked rottentomatoes.com.  And I kind of panicked for a moment.  It was given a rating of 13%.  13%!  I was embarrassed that I had started this thing in motion, and now people were going to hate it. 

I had one friend in particular that I thought might like to see it with me.  She was actually very interested, even though she hadn't read the book yet.  I let her borrow the book and she read it in a weekend.  She loved it as much as I did.  And she still wanted to go see the movie even though the ratings were pretty abysmal.

So I'm heading out shortly to go see it.  I'm thinking we'll still enjoy it, despite the critics.  We know it's not going to be winning any Oscars, and we've set our expectations accordingly.

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Are you a fan of Nicholas Sparks?  If so, what's your favorite of all his books.  Have you see this movie?  If so, what did you think?  Have you ever organized and outing or an event that was a complete bust?!

There is a couple that my boyfriend and I like to go out to dinner with every, or every other, weekend.  For a while, when I first started my diet in November, I opted to not go out.  At all.  It was easier for me to resist going out to eat than it was for me to go out to eat and not get something bad.  Once I lost most of the weight I wanted to lose, I started going out again.  I would look up restaurants ahead of time and plan what I would get before we left.  I've managed to find several different restaurants that I feel comfortable going to and can enjoy something that is acceptable on my diet. 

Lately, this one particular couple we go out with tends to want to get dessert.  Either at the restaurant we're currently at or to go out somewhere else specifically for dessert.  I have a (very) difficult time saying no to this.  I would be perfectly happy not getting dessert, since my parents brought me up with dessert being far from a regular occurrence, until someone else mentions it and then I really want it.

We went out last night and it was no exception in terms of the dessert situation.  The other couple shared a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie.  Another friend got a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream.  

For me this was a total lose-lose situation once the idea of dessert was brought up.  A classic Catch-22.  I was either going to be upset because I caved and ordered some, or I was going to be upset because I was going to have to sit there and watch them eat their amazing little slices of heaven while I sipped the rest of my water.

I ended up choosing the water.  My boyfriend, who is a saint (I think I may have mentioned this a time or two already on this blog), abstained with me.  He is a guy, under thirty, and is blessed with a fantastic metabolism.   In orther words, he is thin and healthy.  So he has no reason to watch what he eats as closely as I do.  Of course he has to pay attention somewhat since he still wants to be healthy and eating a lot of sugar and fried food and other crap just isn't good for you, whether you are overweight or not.  

Anyway, I do think it is prefectly reasonable to treat yourself to foods that may not be very good for you but you enjoy, every now and then.  And I do allow myself to go "off-diet" and indulge, but these are special treats, rather than regular occurrences.  The difficult thing for me is not to start down that slippery slope.  The slope is slippery, and also very steep, and I go down fast.  Once I get started, if I am not really careful, the treats will start to become more routine than every once in a while.  It's hard, but I know myself well enough by now to know when to say yes, and when to say no.  I am pretty proud of my willpower last night and the balancing act I did.  I treated myself to a nice dinner, but didn't go overboard by piling dessert on top of it.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle this recurring issue, please feel free to speak up.  I don't want to miss out on going out to dinner, but I don't want to be faced with this major stuggle every time either. 

Well, I guess I didn't have to wait long as things are already starting to bloom.  I absolutely love taking pictures of flowers so as soon as I saw the blossoms I ran outside armed with my camera.  Here's the result:

Some magnolia blossoms...

Some daffodils...

Some random little blue flowers that I have no idea what they are called but love...

And some pretty purple mums I bought for my parents for their 35 wedding anniversary...

And since you're aleady here, and it's Easter, you should check out my Easter Lily pictures from last year.