"Permanently" straightened my hair!!

Hey y'all!! So obviously you know my hair is naturally curly- and of course, because it's curly, I want it straight, as the sentiment goes.

I can straighten my dry hair in about 15 minutes minimum, if I am not trying to be to precise; 20 minutes if I wanted to look polished and professional. So I had options.

But if I didn't do anything to it, this is what it looked like:

 (no product or blow drying)

(with product, and blown dry for at least ten minutes)

And that wasn't terrible. But I also have really dry hair, so I wash it only about twice a week unless I want it to start drying out and breaking. So while it looks passable on day one, here's what day two and three look like:

(hair is up)

 (Hair is up!)

 (HAIR IS UP!!!)

(Here's my personal favorite-

GAH!)

And that's how it'd be for the next couple days until I washed it again. As I was looking for photos of my yucky hair to post, it hit me anew how much I was putting my hair up in a ponytail- and that really looks terrible in photos!

About every other time I wash it, I would dry it and then straighten it, which got me to here:

But if any wind, water or even humidity touched it, I'd be here:

I could get it super glossy and perfect, but only after 45 minutes of blowing dry, straightening, and teasing:

Ain't no momma got dat kinda time!  But even after all that, the next morning after sleeping on it, I'd need to re-straighten it for 5-10 minutes, and I'd be here:

Not terrible, but it definitely looks like I just rolled out of bed.

So- after researching the HECK out of DIY permanent straightening systems, I settled on this one:

It only cost $27 on Amazon- compared to the five to seven HUNDRED dollars it costs to have a hair-dresser use this exact same product in a salon. 

After sweating the possibility of burning off my hair for a few days, I finally took the plunge. I had my trusty assistant apply it for me after washing it with a clarifying shampoo:

(Bye bye curls! hopefully!)

There are two products to put on- one you let set for 25-45 minutes- I left it for 40 once Seth was finished applying it:

(It was super thick. My hair would have stood up perfectly straight)

Then you wash it out. Looks pretty straight here:

Then you blow it dry:

(This was the really scary part- it was frizzier than ever here!)

And then straighten the living daylights out of it.

(Whew!)

The you apply cream #2 for 5-7 minutes. Then you can't wash it, sweat on it, put clips, hairbands, or anything in it or even put it behind your ears for 72 hours.

Then you can wash it, and hopefully it dries straight!  Here's how it looked after the first washing while still wet:

And here's once it dried- DRUMROLL!!

So it's not perfectly straight- but it's so much better and 10X more manageable. In fact, it doesn't look that different that the photo of when it was the second day after straightening it. And it feels SO. MUCH. SILKIER!  And it's crazy- I can just put it up in a clip and it looks like this:

(VOILA!)

It would probably take less than a minute of straightening to perfect this- so not exactly the wash-and-go hair I was hoping for, but I'll take it over messy curly hair that looks dirty because it's so messy, even when it's not.

(Turns out it took 2 minutes by the stopwatch. That's 1/10th of how long it used to take to get it this straight!)

I had read reviews about people who left it on too long and it fried their hair, so after 40 minutes of application I started worrying that the sections I had done first were going to process too long so I washed it out. Those sections are considerably straighter than the second half- so my advice is if you have thick or long hair that would indicate a long application time, plan on doing your hair in two parts so you can control how long each part processes better. I'm sure a professional would have known that, and funnily enough, though there were about a hundred (not even kidding) reviews I read about this product on amazon.com, no one thought to do it in two parts. 

Also, if you have "virgin hair" like mine, meaning you've done no chemical processes to it like coloring or other straighteners or relaxers or blow outs, then your processing time will be much longer. The box says the max time is 45 minutes, so I stopped after 40 thinking I couldn't have what they called "resistant hair". But I realized that course, virgin hair is exactly what they were talking about, and based on the success of the first half of my hair that got 20-30 minutes longer than the second, I'd say that a processing time of 60 minutes is going to work better (but only if you have virgin, super healthy hair- otherwise you really could damage it.)

Now, I'm excited to try out hair-styles I never could before like this: and this 

which I never could before because it would take 15 minimum to straighten my hair, just to put it up anyway, which didn't seem worth it. Yay! I'll need to learn to french-braid my own hair- yikes!

This may sound like an excuse, but the truth is- I didn't exercise like I should have and wanted to because I knew that even if I had an hour to do it, I didn't have the second hour it would take to wash the sweat out of my hair and re-do it (which would be necessary, because sweat would curl up the roots of my hair) or if it was already curly, now it would look even dirtier and messier. So now I have the freedom to rinse the sweat out of my hair witho

ut having to carve out the time to re-do the whole thing, complete with blow-drying for 15 minutes, and straightening for at least another 15. Yippee! And it'll last forever- until it grows out, and usually you don't have to touch it up for up to a year because the weight of it keeps the roots straight.

Well anyway, that's the hair-logue! It feels strange to have polished looking hair after almost no effort, (almost as if I were naturally a Roberts girl) but it feels great!!  

Pottery Barn Hack

So....we had a duvet that was black cotton. It was a magnet for Willow's white dog hair and there was so much hair everywhere that she might as well have been sleeping in the bed with us.  So I decided to get a new one, but duvets are super expensive, unless you get one from IKEA, and their styles are limited to solids and geometric patterns...no flowers, stripes, polka dots, unusual solid colors, nothing.

This, and my budget led me to Pinterest, where I found a pin called, "Make your OWN damn duvet!" (haha) and I was inspired.  So I bought 2 pewter colored king size flat sheets from shopbedding.com out of which to make my own. Then they said they were fresh out of pewter after the fact, so I picked gold instead. Not my favorite, but when you ask Seth what his favorite color is, he says "GOLD!" *eyeroll

I decided to mimic the pintuck duvet sold by pottery barn.

Here's how mine ended up turning out!!

I'm going to get a big frame (maybe with gold on it, lol) and put a picture of the three of us in it and put it on the wall behind the bed.  You can't really tell from the pic, but the curtains in the background have gold lacing through them, so it was perfect! :) 

Internet Validation

I just read my cousin Elisa's blog post regarding sensational blog posts...check it out!

http://elisakatherine.blogspot.com/2014/01/sensational-web-posts.html

I love that. The other day on ksl.com there was this article about one young mom's journey toward accepting the fact that babies change your bodies and your life, and that it truly was okay. http://www.ksl.com/?sid=28431172

I kept thinking as I was reading it, "Duh, duh, duh."  Not to invalidate her process at all, but just that since her blog post had gone so viral and was making sense to so many women who read it, I just kept thinking, "Why don't you guys already know this? This sentiment is so in line with the gospel, and you're acting like you've never thought about this before; why is that? Why did this never resonate with you before?"

For her to believe her own feelings on a subject, she had to have online approval and be told others shared her feelings.

I wish people, especially youth, college age, or young parents could have the confidence and trust in their own spiritual growth that they don't need anyone to see it or laud it for them to know that it's right and feel good about their choices.  And this is part of the reason I got off facebook- because I felt the need within myself to feel satisfied with my own life even when public online approval and admiration were lacking.

I still have a blog, but I structure it as a way to share photos, videos and short stories with my family and friends, rather than as a forum to, even subconsciously, ask for approval.  And certainly validating each other is a wonderful way to encourage it each other.

And approval isn't inherently bad, but it's exactly like Elisa's widget said- I don't want to need my thoughts to go viral before I truly believe them and that they're right.  How do we give this empowering confidence to people? My opinion is that we need to spend a little more time with ourselves- meaning off the internet, less reading of blogs, internet articles, etc.

But are they all a waste of time? Obviously, I just read Elisa's post, and the KSL article, and I'm writing one- so I think the answer is to simply become extremely choosey about what we choose to digest on the internet, to change the purpose of our internet use to sharing the gospel, education, and communication, rather than surfing the web for entertainment.  This would also mean that we will have to change how we spend our free time- which will result in what I mentioned earlier- spending a little time getting to know ourselves; our strengths, our resolve, our true beliefs based on our actions. ;)

New bed...new bedding!

So Eddie's new big boy bed needed new big boy bedding, obviously. All I have for his bed are two crib sheets- one is light green, one is cream with beige Poohs on them: no idea where they came from.  But now he likes using a pillow which he didn't before, requiring pillow cases, and he needs bedding other than just a baby blanket. I wanted him to have some big boy bedding, with planes or boats, like these:

But!  Duvets rarely come in toddler size (there's tons in twin) and the only ones I could find that weren't over $50 each were on ikea.com, which had a seriously limited selection- like maybe three! *face palm

So naturally I got on pinterest and found the free patterns for a crib size duvet, and a toddler size pillowcase. Then I ordered a crib duvet insert and toddler-size pillow on ikea.com for like $17 total. Score!

Then I went to Hancock Fabrics to get my fabric for everything...and it was kind of a downer. I spent forever in there because I couldn't decide what to get because I didn't really like any of the choices. But Eddie was in Phoenix so I thought being bereft of baby was the best time to shop.  I wanted to make two duvet sets (potty training = unforeseen messes and middle of the night bedding changes).

There was only one fabric with boats on it, and one with planes. Lucky they were both on sale. The backings  I wanted, however, were not on sale and I ended up just going with the choices at the store and to be honest, I don't love them. But I thought it was worth not having to go to a second store.  I mean, now it's obvious I should have, but sometimes you just feel pressed for time and go with it, ya know?

Anyway, now the project is done, and Eddie is currently sleeping soundly with one of the sets. :)

But, considering I did make them myself, I am still excited about the fact that a pile of fabric is now transformed into usable linens.  Here they are, complete with a matching pillow case!

Moral of the story: go to more than one store. But at least they're done!! (These photos show how cute they can be- but that's only because of the baby.)

(^cream&beige sheet- haha)