New Length Shot, New RInse and a Picture of My Dog

This posting is going to be all over the place, so I do apologize.

First thing is a new length shot from Lyndsey. Her hair is looking better every day.

Looks great, huh? It's gained in length and looks so much healthier.

Next, I made myself a chamomile and lavender hair rinse.

Chamomile

Lavender

 It smells amazing and I made enough to last me a couple of rinses. I haven't used it yet because I haven't washed yet. I plan on taking it into the shower with me to rinse after conditioner.

I set it to simmer for a moment in water and within seconds (really!) the whole house smelled like lovely herbal tea. My kids complained that the smell was too "spicy," but I thought it just smelled amazing.

I'm still waiting for my shipment of Monistat 4% to arrive. I'm thinking it should be here any day, but tracking USPS is so unreliable. I'm just so impatient!

And last, but not least, I got this great picture of my dog, Daisy. She's an eight pound Tibetan Spaniel/Poodle mix. We've had her since she was a puppy and she's two now. I just love dogs!

Up to no good.

I caught her there. I hope she didn't place a huge bid for some junk on Ebay. She's sneaky like that.

Brief Update: Order of Monistat and The Morbid The Merrier

Just a brief little update...

I finally went ahead and ordered 3 boxes of Monistat 4% from drugstore.com. They only had them in the prefilled applicators, so this will be interesting. I've hit a bit of a stall, I think, and I'm blaming it on my diet. I'll take a picture for you guys right before I apply the Monistat and then again, two weeks later, so you guys can see any changes.

I've been working on talking Lyndsey into putting down the flat iron, and she did a few months ago, but was still using the blow drier. She finally put that down and she's been excitedly showing me the much improved condition of her hair. It's growing really fast, too, whereas, she had complained before that her hair never grows. I'd say it's hitting between her shoulder blades now. As soon as I get a minute, I'm going to dash over and take a length shot from her to put up here.

I used to love bath products. My bath product budget has mostly been overtaken by hair accessories now, but I placed a few orders recently, just for fun.

I ordered some fragrance, lip balm and bath powder from The Morbid The Merrier on Etsy. I am in love with their "Harlot" lip balm in Funnel Cake. It smells and tastes absolutely scrumptious. I'm not a lip balm person, but I really like these. I placed another order and when I get that, I will do a proper review, but in the meantime, I'll share a little bit about my first order.

It seems like a lot of the perfumers with a darker edge (BPAL, Moona Lisa, etc) have some version of an absinthe scent. I haven't tried either BPAL's or Moona Lisa's, but I have tried some from now-defunct online companies. I'm honestly not very fond of the smell of absinthe due to a few too many absinthe-fueled nights in Germany. (The kind where you partake just a bit too much and the mere thought of drinking that beverage again makes you dry heave. *shudder*)

The Morbid The Merrier has Cocoa D'Absinthe, which is cocoa and absinthe (duh.) The cocoa smell is rich and true and the absinthe is almost an afterthought. It's a beautiful scent.

I made my husband smell it since he's familiar with absinthe, as well, and loves chocolate. He took the sample bottle tentatively, brought it to his nose and lightly inhaled. His eyes widened and he brought it back for a second whiff. "This smells good!" he pronounced. That really impressed me since he's not really a big fragrance person.

The lip balm comes in these oval tubes. For someone who constantly loses lipstick and lip balm due to rollage, oval tubes are sheer genius.

The bath powders come in these awesome boxes, which are tied up with ribbon. The box is cardboard, but is so cute that it's easy to reuse. In fact, it's the perfect size to store hair sticks. ;-)

Anyway, I'll do a proper review of The Morbid The Merrier once I receive my next order.

Aiea Cemetery and Ewa Beach Train Tracks

Today Lyndsey and I went on a little trip and visited Aiea ("Eye-Ay-Ah") Cemetery and old train tracks out in Ewa ("Evah") Beach.

Aiea Cemetery has long been of interest to me. It's just this tiny little island of earth surrounded by major roads. The tombstones seem mostly to be just rocks set up on one side. Unlike most cemeteries, which are lush and green and thriving with life, everything in this cemetery is dried up and dead. I believe that most of the names I could read were either Japanese or Filipino.

We couldn't find a grave more recent than 1947. Most seemed to be from 1910-1930.

Many of the headstones were merely poured cement which had the names of the deceased and their dates written by hand before the cement dried. Only a few weren't obviously homemade.

Some of the graves had these odd structures made from metal and piping which were reminiscent of a bed. I believe this next photo is of an infant grave. There was nothing to indicate anything about the space it occupied except that it seemed to be a crib.

I think this next one is probably one of the older graves.

This next structure was unique among the graves. It was apparently an old Japanese grave which housed several members of the same family.

Next, we headed out to Ewa Beach to see the train tracks. Admission to the Museum was $10, so we opted to stop on the side of the road and walk down the tracks. They haven't been in use for years, but still seem to be in good shape.

Hawaii has a large wild chicken population and we saw a hen with five little chicks. I've heard a rumor that the chickens came from an abandoned chicken farm, but I'm honestly not sure if that's true. The chicks were cute, either way.

That's Lyndsey taking a shot of a very strange fence we found. The fence was made of wooden slats, old mattress frames, cots and chicken wire.

It even looks like they included the bottom part of an old crib. I guess that's one way to recycle.

Here's a picture of my bare foot on the train track, just for fun:

I really wonder what the reason is behind the way the graves are set up. If anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it.

We have about nine weeks left here in Hawaii and I'm trying to cram in every bit of sightseeing I can in that short amount of time. I'll be sharing as much as I can with you guys. I hope you're enjoying seeing a side of Hawaii most tourists miss.

Taking A Tour of the Island Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning, Lyndsey and I are taking a tour of Hawaii via her minivan. I'm pretty excited about it because it'll be the first time I take my shiny new camera out. I'm also mildly paranoid about taking the camera out.

Hawaiian landmarks like Pali Lookout, Halona Blowhole and other sites that you drive straight up to are hot spots for thieves. Rental cars in particular are targeted. It's probably because few tourists are around long enough to prosecute.

The last time we drove out to Halona Blowhole, I took the path down to the cove, snapped some shots, then went back up. In that short amount of time, someone had walked up to a rental car, smashed the window, stolen the handbag in the passenger seat and split. I watched to see who walked back to that car, then went to see if I could help at all. The couple who had rented the car had recently arrived on holiday from German and were scared and horrified that their personal items were stolen. I helped them call 911 and talked to the operator for them. I was surprised that the rental agency hadn't warned them that rental cars are targeted by thieves. I really felt bad for them that  I guess it says a lot about Germany that the woman thought nothing of leaving her handbag in the front seat.

So, yeah, nervous about taking the shiny, new expensive camera out. I am excited to be out taking photos without any children to cater to. I'm hoping I might be so lucky as to take a few good length shots in front of beautiful scenery, but my hair might not cooperate. (My hair tangles terribly with the slightest breeze.)

I'm hoping to post some awesome shots here tomorrow. I hope you guys don't mind photos of island paradise. ;-)

Introducing The New Model, Flexi8s and A Bit of Cuteness

I figured it was about time to introduce our new hair model. My neighbor has graciously allowed me to use her hair to experiment on and take pictures. I really feel I can't honestly recommend anything without getting the opinion of someone who has hair completely different from mine.

Lyndsey has color treated, heat styled hair. The ends are currently dry, but she's giving the Triple Moon Anointing Oil a test run to see if it helps out the condition of her ends. I ordered some more Panacea Salve and she'll be using that as soon as it arrives, as well.

This is her hair as it is this evening, washed yesterday and blowdried (I've been trying to get her to put down the blowdryer. She did shelf the flat iron finally!):

As you can see, it's about arm pit length. I've brought over Flexi8s, Ficcare Maximas, lotions, oils, salves, forks, etc, to try them out on her hair. I'll be occasionally posting pictures to show what's working on her hair to help out you folks with hair different from mine.

Here is her hair in a cinnabun held with a Medium Flexi8:

To highlight the differences in our hair, here is mine in the same style with an XXL Flexi8:

We both like the Flexi8 for holding our cinnabuns. She also commented that it didn't bother her and she wasn't aware of it during the day. Often, barrettes and ponytail holders cause her scalp to ache, as she's pretty sensitive.  So, thumbs up for the Flexi8s!

Random cuteness alert! This is my sweet little baby:

Since she's in so many of my hair shots, I figured I'd give her a hair shot of her own. I think she's pretty cute.

She walked off with my Tangle Teezer today and stashed it somewhere in her toy box. I was planning on doing an indepth review of it today, but it will have to wait until I find out where she put it. I guess I should have known purple glittery plastic was up for grabs in this house.

Anyways, stay tuned for my Tangle Teezer review coming soon!