Hey everyone,
As you all know - if you have read some previous posts, I just moved into my first house with my boyfriend. I am loving the house and the neighbourhood but not so much liking the very small amount of money in my bank account and the very large amount on my credit card.
This isn't so much a result of the down payment but rather a number of small purchases that have been made at walmart, etc for things like paper towels, and other small household purchases that just seem to have been adding up. I also had a bit of a starbucks/ bridgehead/ amazing bakery on Bank street (Bread and sons) binge that has lasted just over 3 weeks. This may be why I currently have a terrible cold.
I want to get my finances in order pronto so I can relax and start planning for a big trip, joining some activities like ballet or a sports league in the fall and buying some nice things for the house that will last a lifetime ie. art, good quality furniture and finally perhaps taking a university course.
Luckily I haven't been receiving my new salary yet although I started my job just over a month ago so I will also get a back paycheque which should take care of the remaining balance on my credit card.
Anyways - you don't care about the ins and outs of my financial status. But what may interest you is a challenge I am going to embark on; something called spend no money. I haven't run this by my boyfriend so we'll have to figure this out haha. I don't want him just paying for my half of everything - since this will defeat the purpose and may put a dent in our "perfect suburban life".
Anyways - today is Monday - my challenge will be not to spend any money for 1 entire week. This won't be impossible because the fridge is decently stocked right now, we even have some left over crown royal for this coming canada day and we have all we need to live comfortably. Any spending I could do this week would likely be frivolous - but if I don't impose this challenge on myself, I know that tomorrow I will head to bridgehead in the morning for a coffee and then maybe bread in sons in the afternoon for a bun or brownie, then maybe I will decide I need something red for Canada Day, then I will decide to buy a membership to a gym although it is gorgeous out so I should just run outside.
I think the biggest challenge will be food, possibly commuting as well.
I definitely have some good tools to help me get through the week: my bicycle, a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant, lots of canned beans, a decent sized wardrobe, low maintenance family and friends who aren't $$ crazy, Gatineau park with lots of nice hiking trails and beaches.
I'll check back in on Monday and let you know if the week was a success.
Free yourself!
Monday, 27 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Goodbye shoulder length hair - Hello armpit length hair!
Hey everyone,
Another post about hair. This time I will discuss everything I know I can do to encourage my hair to get from shoulder length to armpit length. This might sound a little funny to you but essentially arm pit length hair would be when your hair reaches the point where it touches your arm pit crease from behind (see picture for proper explanation haha).
My ultimate goal is waist length - maybe hip length if it is really healthy at waist length.
Anyways - I wanted to share with you everything I know that you can do to speed up hair growth while maintaining beautiful hair.
1 - Vitamin B Supplement
2 - Fish oil supplement
3 - Eat seaweed
4 - Buy a silk or satin pillow case
5 - Use monistat, yes monistat, diluted with oil or water on your scalp
6 - Do not use shampoo
7 - Deep condition your hair weekly
8 - Apply an egg and honey mask to your hair (ensure to rinse with cool water or else you will cook the egg - gross)
9 - Eat a mostly raw food diet
10 - Eat Marmite - I can't find any in Ottawa. HELP ME!
11 - Wear your hair up as much as possible
12 - Do not eat processed food
13 - Take MSM Supplements
14 - Make sure you have enough iron in your diet
15 - Don't get frequent trims (sounds obvious but many of us have a habit of heading to the salon every 2 - 3 months)
16 - Do not colour your hair or use henna instead, or honey (see previous post).
17 - Do yoga
18 - Eat eggs
19 - Eat lots of nuts and seeds
20 - Avoid the bad stuff (alcohol, cigarettes, sugar)
21 - Stay positive
22 - Avoid using elastics - go for clips or scrunchies instead
23 - Braid your hair before bed
24 - Don't wear hair up until it is completely dry
25 - Get enough sleep
26 - Give yourself scalp massages
27 - Eat yogurt
28 - Eat beans
29 - Eat mangoes
30 - Eat bananas
That's all the hair wisdom I can come up with right now. I know some people have fast hair growth despite not really trying that hard - but I think my hair grows quite slowly. I am doing my best to follow all the the items listed above.
I hope to be at arm pit length at some point in the fall. I'll keep you posted.
Let me know if you have anything else you think I should try.
Free yourself!
Another post about hair. This time I will discuss everything I know I can do to encourage my hair to get from shoulder length to armpit length. This might sound a little funny to you but essentially arm pit length hair would be when your hair reaches the point where it touches your arm pit crease from behind (see picture for proper explanation haha).
My ultimate goal is waist length - maybe hip length if it is really healthy at waist length.
Anyways - I wanted to share with you everything I know that you can do to speed up hair growth while maintaining beautiful hair.
1 - Vitamin B Supplement
2 - Fish oil supplement
3 - Eat seaweed
4 - Buy a silk or satin pillow case
5 - Use monistat, yes monistat, diluted with oil or water on your scalp
6 - Do not use shampoo
7 - Deep condition your hair weekly
8 - Apply an egg and honey mask to your hair (ensure to rinse with cool water or else you will cook the egg - gross)
9 - Eat a mostly raw food diet
10 - Eat Marmite - I can't find any in Ottawa. HELP ME!
11 - Wear your hair up as much as possible
12 - Do not eat processed food
13 - Take MSM Supplements
14 - Make sure you have enough iron in your diet
15 - Don't get frequent trims (sounds obvious but many of us have a habit of heading to the salon every 2 - 3 months)
16 - Do not colour your hair or use henna instead, or honey (see previous post).
17 - Do yoga
18 - Eat eggs
19 - Eat lots of nuts and seeds
20 - Avoid the bad stuff (alcohol, cigarettes, sugar)
21 - Stay positive
22 - Avoid using elastics - go for clips or scrunchies instead
23 - Braid your hair before bed
24 - Don't wear hair up until it is completely dry
25 - Get enough sleep
26 - Give yourself scalp massages
27 - Eat yogurt
28 - Eat beans
29 - Eat mangoes
30 - Eat bananas
That's all the hair wisdom I can come up with right now. I know some people have fast hair growth despite not really trying that hard - but I think my hair grows quite slowly. I am doing my best to follow all the the items listed above.
I hope to be at arm pit length at some point in the fall. I'll keep you posted.
Let me know if you have anything else you think I should try.
Free yourself!
Monday, 6 June 2011
Goodbye bleach - Hello honey!
Hey everyone,
Again - this is probably a post that will mostly interest women. I have recently been absolutely obsessed with this website called the Long Hair Community. I am doing my best to quickly grow out my hair - so I am just eating up all the information on this great site.
Because I had been hoping to grow my hair out I had completely given up on the thought of ever highlighting my hair again. I have naturally dirty blond hair which I haven't coloured in over two years.
But... today I was intrigued by a link to a post on using honey to lighten your hair. Apparently it works on blond, red and brown hair. I am not sure if it works on black hair. The results are significant for some of the women who have tried this method. The results appear to be more effective for people who have naturally lighter hair.
For those of you who are interested in a less damaging way of highlighting your hair for the summer - I would suggest you give this a try.
You will need to buy some honey - preferably dark honey - they recommend jarrah honey.
You will need distilled water.
And you will need to ground cardamom as well as extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil.
Mix 2 tablespoons of honey with 3/4 cup of distilled water. The ladies on the forum also recommend adding some extra virgin olive oil and cardamom. You need to let the mix sit at room temperature (do not heat) for 1 hour. This will allow the honey to produce peroxide through a chemical reaction.
You then soak your head with water. You have to make sure your hair is very wet when you apply the honey mixture. Then you should apply the mix to your head using a brush or bottle. After applying you need to wrap your head using saran (because you want your hair to stay very wet) and then put a swim cap on top of the saran. The mixture will be less effective and may dry out your hair if your hair doesn't stay moist for the hour of application.
You should not go in the sun or get too warm while the mixture is on your hair for the next hour since heat breaks down peroxide.
It is not clear how you would remove the honey after the hour. I think I will try to rinse it out using conditioner. FYI - I bought this Olive Oil conditioner so I can do deep conditioning treatments once a week. I bought it in the section of the store with relaxers and other products for black hair. I am very interested in using some products that black women use since my hair is also delicate and prone to breakage.
Most women who have seen dramatic results have used this treatment a few times to get their impressive results.
I have a bad habit of posting on things I haven't tried out.
I just get so excited and want to tell you all about it.
I will definitely do the honey treatment in the next month and report back.
I personally think highlighting your hair is overrated - I just thought naturally highlighting my hair would be a fun change for the summer given that I will not be cutting it. I really can't believe how much women spend on highlights. I haven't been to the salon for a full do recently, but a couple years ago the cost was about $180 for a cut, highlights, wash and blow dry. Luckily my hair was growing at a snails place and my hair is naturally light so I didn't really get it done more than once a year.
I would also like to say that I really think people with dark brown or black hair look best with dark brown or black hair. It is the people who have the sort of darkish blond hair who sometimes need a little pizazz. My hair is starting to fall into this category.
The most important reason to just let your hair be or consider a honey treatment is because of the harmful effects of conventional hair dyes. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found that hair dressers were more likely to get bladder cancer because of their daily exposure to the harmful, toxic ingredients found in hair dye.
It is time we all started thinking about alternatives to things we always suspected were a little toxic. I think anyone who has smelt hair dye must realize it is going to do bad things to your body.
Until next time, Free yourself!
Again - this is probably a post that will mostly interest women. I have recently been absolutely obsessed with this website called the Long Hair Community. I am doing my best to quickly grow out my hair - so I am just eating up all the information on this great site.
Because I had been hoping to grow my hair out I had completely given up on the thought of ever highlighting my hair again. I have naturally dirty blond hair which I haven't coloured in over two years.
But... today I was intrigued by a link to a post on using honey to lighten your hair. Apparently it works on blond, red and brown hair. I am not sure if it works on black hair. The results are significant for some of the women who have tried this method. The results appear to be more effective for people who have naturally lighter hair.
For those of you who are interested in a less damaging way of highlighting your hair for the summer - I would suggest you give this a try.
You will need to buy some honey - preferably dark honey - they recommend jarrah honey.
You will need distilled water.
And you will need to ground cardamom as well as extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil.
Mix 2 tablespoons of honey with 3/4 cup of distilled water. The ladies on the forum also recommend adding some extra virgin olive oil and cardamom. You need to let the mix sit at room temperature (do not heat) for 1 hour. This will allow the honey to produce peroxide through a chemical reaction.
You then soak your head with water. You have to make sure your hair is very wet when you apply the honey mixture. Then you should apply the mix to your head using a brush or bottle. After applying you need to wrap your head using saran (because you want your hair to stay very wet) and then put a swim cap on top of the saran. The mixture will be less effective and may dry out your hair if your hair doesn't stay moist for the hour of application.
You should not go in the sun or get too warm while the mixture is on your hair for the next hour since heat breaks down peroxide.
It is not clear how you would remove the honey after the hour. I think I will try to rinse it out using conditioner. FYI - I bought this Olive Oil conditioner so I can do deep conditioning treatments once a week. I bought it in the section of the store with relaxers and other products for black hair. I am very interested in using some products that black women use since my hair is also delicate and prone to breakage.
Most women who have seen dramatic results have used this treatment a few times to get their impressive results.
I have a bad habit of posting on things I haven't tried out.
I just get so excited and want to tell you all about it.
I will definitely do the honey treatment in the next month and report back.
I personally think highlighting your hair is overrated - I just thought naturally highlighting my hair would be a fun change for the summer given that I will not be cutting it. I really can't believe how much women spend on highlights. I haven't been to the salon for a full do recently, but a couple years ago the cost was about $180 for a cut, highlights, wash and blow dry. Luckily my hair was growing at a snails place and my hair is naturally light so I didn't really get it done more than once a year.
I would also like to say that I really think people with dark brown or black hair look best with dark brown or black hair. It is the people who have the sort of darkish blond hair who sometimes need a little pizazz. My hair is starting to fall into this category.
The most important reason to just let your hair be or consider a honey treatment is because of the harmful effects of conventional hair dyes. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found that hair dressers were more likely to get bladder cancer because of their daily exposure to the harmful, toxic ingredients found in hair dye.
It is time we all started thinking about alternatives to things we always suspected were a little toxic. I think anyone who has smelt hair dye must realize it is going to do bad things to your body.
Until next time, Free yourself!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)