Hedonistic me

Used my Giovanni tonight. My hair is better already. I let it dry most of the way and then made two tight, twisty buns on each side of my head. It'll give me good body in the morning. The two buns look kind of cute too. I can sleep cute tonight!

Had our son measure my hair for the big September 1 measure-in. I'm still 35.5 so that means for the 12 month period of Sep. 2005 to Sep. 2006 I've got a total of 5.5 inches growth.  I wanted six.

I would like to get a little trim. Hmmm, I'd like between 1/4th and 1/2 inch trimmed. The ends are in nice enough condition but I sure do like a sharp hemline. I had a girly girl in front of me at the mall once and she had this diamond sharp, super straight, professional looking hemline. It looked good.

I always meant to write about when I rode my bike with my hair down at Prince Albert National Park in Canada. It was freshly washed and there's this little touristy village with lots of peeps on bicycles. So I was riding along, beautiful breeze, lots of sunshine that day, and my hair is feeling positively lovely on my shoulders and arms. Usually I wear it up so this day was different from most. I glanced down at my shadow on the road and my hair was flowing behind me, undulating in the wind especially on the sides. A fully hedonistic moment, I admit. And that's not all. There was a red convertible driving next to me with a guy and a Miss Trendy Blonde Chick riding in it. The guy looked over at me a few times. The chick looked straight ahead like stone, not once at me. It made my week!

And the other day we were fueling up when I took my hair down real quick just to redo it, but my husband asked me to wash the windshield, so I hurried to do it because I didn't want him to think me a lazy bones grrrl. With my hair still down I saw two, count 'em, two!, men at the gas station look over at me. Not bad for an old broad, I tell ya. Hey, I gotta get my kicks where I can! It made my day. Peripheral vision is very valuable. We women employ it often.

Truckers are in-the-know

Nebraska stop 

You know that if truckers eat there it's gotta be good, right? Hahaha! That's an old saying my husband told me.  His dad and brother were both truckers.

What do truckers know? They've been driving all day and night and they're hungry. They'll eat anything.

The menu

I ordered a patty melt 

Good eats on the road in Nebraska.

Look at this upscale menu will you. Actually my meal was not bad. I ate a fabulous greasy patty melt. My husband ordered a steak but it was hamburger in the shape of a steak. I thought it was pretty funny but he didn't. Hehehe!

Bought Giovanni

My hair has been blah ever since I ran out of my BSHM products. I bought Giovanni Smooth As Silk shampoo and the 50:50 Balanced Hair Remoisturizer for $6.69 each, 8.5 fl. oz. They're supposed to be more natural, similar to the Aubrey Organics line but of all their shampoos I chose the one with dimethecone it it. There's no dimethecone in the conditioner. But seriously, how can I resist this product description?

Soft and smooth, sexy and sultry. It's how you feel when you have silk against your skin. Now Imagine (they capitalize the 'I') that same feel in your hair. Smooth As Silk Shampoo has a pearlized formula that glistens in your hand and transforms your hair into a silky palette that's ready for anything. Lather and glow with the flow the begins your style. Smooth As Silk Shampoo wears beautifully on you.

I'll try it tomorrow.

My husband saw a gray fox today. I'm green with envy. Now he's seen two and I've seen none. He said it was fat and sleek and shiny. The vegetation is so green here due to lots of rain. In fact the Albuquerque area has had 10 inches of rain this year. It's the highest amount of rainfall ever recorded!

My hair is stringy today and this is only day three. It's the Pantene. I'm going to throw it away.

Animal of the day

What beautiful eyes 

A toad. This photo was taken in Nebraska last week. What little boy hands those are. I love children's hands. I have a ton of photos of our son's little hands from when he was a tot with chubby little fingers.

This is the first time he's seen and picked up a toad. He even witnessed one chowing down on a big bug! We took a walk in the evening and he said, "There's the one I saw before!" I asked him how he could know it was the same one. There were dozens of them in the campground. They all looked alike to me. He said he could tell by its beautiful, sparkly eyes. Is this kid a lover of toads or what.

When he was six he saved a snail from drying out on our driveway. He put it at the side of the house where it was damp and the little snail recovered by late afternoon.

The Snail Story (when we lived in a house)

After dinner our son was all red faced and in tears. I asked him what was wrong and he said he'd gone to check on the snail and it was gone.  It had run away. I tried my hardest not to laugh. He's got a heart of gold. I told him he should be happy that Snailly (yes, this snail was named) got well and returned to his habitat to live out his life free and unfettered.  Be happy for him, I explained.

I told him he had changed the course of that one snail's life and for that he should be glad, and that's got to be one happy snail now. He felt a bit better. 

To this day, he still remembers when the snail "ran away."

Hair

After two weeks of use I hate Pantene. We're going in to Santa Fe for a couple hours next week sometime and I can buy something else. And I've been out of shea for a month.

Been wearing my hair in a single braid down last couple days.

I can feel my braid bounce on my lower back when I walk now and that's a new sensation. I'm dangerously close to the 36" goal I set for myself sometime back. I suppose my next goal will be 40". Forty inches is definitely a mile marker, a worthy milestone. A lot of people disappear or post less after they reach a certain length.  I wonder if that will happen with me.

My daughter-in-law

How weird is it to type that? Pretty weird! I'll have a daughter-in-law soon. I am entering a new chapter, a new season.

Today she sent me an email thank-you for the roses we sent to her yesterday. She loved them. I am happy. I'm keeping her card open on my desktop to look at it all day.

Flower in New Mexico

No photoshopping 

It came out of the camera like this. I have to save these settings into custom! Looks totally like it was photoshopped. I'm in manual setting, it was dusk but I used the flash, and it was a tad breezy. I think the aperture was open a little too long, combined with the movement from the wind, I got this. It has potential.

Unusual effect

I like it! 

We need something pretty after the chicken picture.

I can't really use this particular photo, the flower and leaf quality and background aren't the best, but the effect is fascinating. I'm going back to take more.

Poor chickens

In South Dakota 

When I prepare meat I pray over it when I wash it. I eat less meat than I used to, but I'm still omnivorous. I always give thanks for our food and pray for good stewardship over the animals. All too often the stewardship is lacking. This is the second truck like this I've ever seen, but these chickens look healthy. I still feel bad about it though. How can you not, especially when you're an urbanite unused to the sight of animals going to slaughter.

Several years ago in Barstow, California I saw a truck like this full of chickens that were thirsty and I think hungry. It was about 3:00am at a truck stop. The were pecking at each other. The truck was overfilled I think. The temperature was in the 90s even at 3:00am. It was horrifying. I wish now that'd I'd taken down the license number. Surely there must be someplace to report something like that. I mean, we have to eat but the chickens don't have to be cruelly transported. I didn't eat chicken for weeks after that. Then I finally bought one and I began to pray over it, and all farm creatures, as I took it from the plastic package and washed it over the sink.

I had a beautiful girlfriend, Juliet, whom I worked with, ask me once how I can eat "that stuff." She's all vegetarian and Miss Healthy. I told her I like it, it's good for me in small amounts.  God gave me canines for a reason, and I don't want be all thinly like she is. She's so wan! She thought I was all wrong. We differ on that topic, but turned out we have more important stuff in common. We both unexpectedly got pregnant, both quit our jobs, both are homeschoolers now. What a world!

Border patrol is different every time

Reentering U.S.A.;kfj 

The line we are in has a lady border patrol agent and she's all business. Our line was the slowest! She's searching, she's asking questions, she pulling peeps to the side of the road for further inspection. Here's our experience in passing through the border both ways (entering U.S. and/or entering Canada). And let me add, our new passports make passage a world easier.

One time no one was even in the kiosk.  Another time they simply waved us through. We've had them ask a few questions, then wave us through. Other times they ask a ton of questions, then wave us through. Sometimes they search a little. Sometimes they search a lot. Once they asked me to go in back and show them the food, especially in the fridge. (They don't let beef through.) Once they instructed my husband and me to wait outside on a concrete bench while they searched the inside of the truck and then the inside of the trailer for about ten minutes. We weren't asked inside. I took a couple photos of them working and they told me to delete them. (These were two young women border patrol employees.) They were nice. I think they have an idea of whose a harmless ignant versus who has deceit on their mind.

On this day a young lady agent with short cropped hair asks a few questions of my husband then asks me to step out and show her the inside of the trailer. I took her straight to the fridge since I know now that's a major thing they look for for regular tourists like us. I was a little nervous and the road was awful so everything tumbled out of the fridge. All of my husband's beer in glass bottles, that is. So she commented that it looked like we really were having a good time and I was quite distracted but replied yes. (I figured not much point to me also explaining it's all my husband's beer, not mine, and I don't even like beer. My mind is fast forwarding because I want to be completely honest with law enforcement and I think if I say I don't drink beer then in all honesty I ought to say I don't drink beer, but I do like a shot of whiskey now and then. To my credit I don't blab out all this totally superflous information.) She helped me pick up the beer and asked which food is from Canada, meat that is, because it's not allowed across. I don't do the food shopping so I'm not really sure and I pick a few things like weiners and hamburger (our dinner for that night, in fact). I open the other cupboard and show her the wine and whiskey and she's says fine with that. Really they're concerned with people taking booze across in huge quantity for resale which is illegal.

From the freezer, she took some meat from there. I have no idea what it was but it's been in there since like spring of 2005, so no great loss. She saw our orange juice pop container (with cute animals on the stick to make fun home-made pops) and commented about how she has two daughters and they like those a lot too.

So we walk outside and she told me to give her the illegal meats and I handed them over and told her thanks. Don't know why I said thanks for taking our food. It's a lifetime affliction of mine - saying thanks too much. I've even said thanks when people have been rude to me. Probably someone could punch me in the nose and I would say thanks. She didn't say anything. We got round to the truck and I hopped in and he said good-bye and have a nice trip.

We dreaded her line because she was so thorough and we watched about ten cars go by in the other line before it was even our turn. But I'm sure she congratulated herself on catching the meat. And I don't mind a bit. We want thorough border patrol agents.

I got back in the car and told my husband I had to hand over dinner as illegal contraband. He said, "What'd ja do that for?" Apparently he purchased it at the supermarket in Minnesota the day before. Little did I know. But why did I feel so guilty then? Because I'm me! I felt I had to give her something. I'm such a case.

Billboard photography

Unusual signage 

South Dakota. I don't know what this is about. Nice thought though.

Second bowl, gone

Broken bowl #2 

Broke the large one now. The back of the trailer (we have a rear kitchen) bounces like a bucking bronco on bumpy roads. Broke the middle sized one last year.

Irreplaceable.

Have only the little one left which I've never used much.

At the market

Check-out 

You have to enlarge to see that it says 'Bonjour' on the LCD. Everything is in French and English especially the closer you get to Quebec. Quebec wanted to secede from Canada at one time ya know. I really wanted to see Quebec and meet some people there.

Canadians like fresh bread

Baked daily 

It was easy to find home baked fresh bread in Canada. It's delicious! The few times I've baked bread it was so heavy but this bread is light. Now were back in the states and back to our usual Home Pride brand of bread. It used to be my favorite and now...it's just so-so. We will miss daily fresh bread in Canada.

Canola and sunflower oil

Oils 

I didn't buy any but they look delicous for your hair! (I use avocado oil for hair and skin.) All these years I've thought canola was corn. Canola isn't corn at all. Canola is rapeseed. It's a major crop grown in southern Saskatchewan. We passed miles and miles of canola. Its yellow blossoms blanketed the earth. If you've never seen such a sight before it's striking. I'm sure the Saskatchewans find it ho-hum though!

Beatrice milk

Beatrice milk 

Beatrice is the major milk company in Canada. They sell three kinds: 0.1%, 3%, and one in between that I think is the 2%. They sell bags of milk too. We didn't buy bags because our fridge is small and we weren't sure how a bag of milk would be stored and used. We didn't understand the packaging at first and had to ask for whole milk but the 3% is the whole milk.

Blueberries

Blueberries 

At home in Southern California if you buy blueberries they are piddly small little things and pricey. Up in Canada the blueberries were big, and sweet too. To top it off, they're affordable which was a treat.

MOM's way

MOM's Way sign 

We got a boot out of the name of this highway. It's 400 miles long and goes from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Thunder Bay which is next to Lake Superior in the province of Ontario. We drove on all 400 miles!

Little gnat

We're in New Mexico! It's been seven days of driving. It's a long, long ways from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, to New Mexico, ya know. We won't get to see Niagara Falls this year and we wanted to drive around Lake Superior (we did get to see it), but it was too far and the price of fuel spiked. Some days the drive was tiring but we saw a lot just from alongside the road too. Drove by Laura Ingalls prairie home. I don't think a hot cup of coffee can taste any better than when you're riding in your truck, seeing the country and sights you haven't seen before.

There's this gnat in here. I think he's from Canada and he's afraid to go outside in New Mexico. We can't seem to catch the little tyrant of a gnat.

He just flew right by my face and said 'Nanny, nanny, boo, boo.'

Rocket Man

I awake with songs in my head sometimes. Songs I haven't thought of for years. This morning I awoke with Rocket Man on my mind, by Elton John. I had to go to YouTube to listen to it. It takes me back to age 16 at a party.

My dad let me go because it was a Christian party. The kids were really bad and I was surprised because I was supposed to be changing my life, starting anew, turning over a new leaf, being good. These kids were as bad as I ever was. This song puts me back in that living room 30 years ago like it was yesterday.

Once when I was 17 I took a class. Can't remember what class it was exactly but the teacher played the song "I'm Not In Love" by 10cc. Remember that one? Great old tune. We were told we would have a class discussion about it, and who doesn't look forward to class discussions in high school (note my sarcasm).

Mostly I was silent in this class. But music - music I would talk about. I listened to enough that I ought to have something to say! The teacher asked the class to explain the meaning and the message of this song. Man, I piped up and explained it for five long minutes. I don't know what happened to me. I took myself away somewhere else with the explaining I guess! I went into minute detail. Finally I shut up and no one said a word. Dead silence. The class was completely quiet. Even the teacher took a minute to regain his composure.

To this day I'm not sure why. So I was embarrassed. I think it's kind of funny now though!

I'm Not In Love: by 10cc

I'm not in love
So don't forget
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong
Don't think you've got it made
I'm not in love
Oh no
It's because

I'd like to see you
But then again
It doesn't mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you
Don't make a fuss
Don't tell your friends about the two of us
I'm in love
Oh no
It's because

(Be quiet...big boys don't cry...)

I keep your picture
Upon the wall
It hides a nasty stain that's lying there
So don't you ask me
To give it back
I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me
I'm not in love
No no
It's because

Ooh, you'll wait a long time for me
Ooh, you'll wait a long time
(repeat)

I'm not in love
So don't forget
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong
Don't think you've got it made
I'm not in love
I'm not in love

Another travel day

I thought we were staying here for a day, but we're not. Oh no, oh noooo, here comes my husband. He's folding up my laptop! Good-by North Dakota. But I have so much more to typ

Which glass did you say this was?

Son catches frog early this morning

Today I grab a glass off the counter and pour my juice. I tip it to my mouth and my husband says. . .

"That's not the glass the tree frog was in, is it?"

What!

Head 'em up and move 'em out

Alrighty, I've had time to wallow in my angst. To weep and reflect on what I did wrong, to feel like I am all warts, and have a two day headache, neckache, backache, blah, blah, blah. I have things sorta planned out for the long term in my head. Life isn't always easy you know. No one said it would be.

Now it's time for me to stop worrying. I have to get back up on that horse and ride. Gotta get back cool as we'd say in California.

I asked my son for his new fiance's work address. I intend to have some beautiful flowers delivered to her. A thoughtful idea I received from my friend Mermayd!

I now set forth to be the mother-in-law I want be...as Jules so objectively suggested. My goodness, I'm giving myself a tall order.

And I feel better already. :)

M-I-L

In one year I'm going to become a mother-in-law.

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHH!
AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHH!
AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHH!

Fast Cars and Freedom lyrics

RASCAL FLATTS LYRICS

"Fast Cars And Freedom"

Starin' at you takin' off your makeup
Wondering why you even put it on
I know you think you do but baby you don't need it
Wish that you could see what I see it when it's gone
I see a dust trail following an old red Nova
Baby blue eyes, your head on my shoulder

We went to a talent show at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. A twelve year old boy played a guitar and sang this song. I was crying by the end! I'm sure that boy's parents have to keep a stick by the front door to keep the girls away.

All of the Canadian kids were so entertaining and so sweet. They sang, danced, lip-synched, did magic, played their instruments. One group was all girls. Some big girls and some little girls and they sang a song called "Summer Girls." The guy who introduced them said, "Summer over 20 and summer under 20." Haha! There were so cute! It was so down home and sweet. I felt like I was in another world, as though I'd stepped back in time.

At home, a school talent show would be full of hip-hop and Britney Spears' acts. So narrow. So age-inappropriate. As it was, there was one 11-year-old American girl from Illinois who danced and she was bumping and grinding to a tune from Flashdance for all she was worth. It was sad. Technically she was excellent, but her demeanor and her movement was different from the rest of the show. I think U.S. children are being robbed of their childhood.

Our son was in the talent show too. He showed everyone his bike which he's quite proud of and he named the province and/or state that each flag on his trailer represents. He has about 20 flags on it! I hope he blended well with the Canadian children.

Ouch, my toes

This morning I have cramps in my left toes. That's weird.

Yesterday I wore the wedgie sandals my sister picked out for me and actually they hurt my feet. I wear them anyway because they remind me of her.

We're back!

Waiting to get into Canada

We decided to go back to see more of Canada. Stayed in Minnesota one day. It's nice and cool today.

We now have passports which makes going across the border both ways much, much easier. I think even the border patrol agents like passports. But today, we were asked to pull aside and they had us step out of our truck and they searched it.

Two agents went into our trailer and searched it too. They searched inside once before, last year I think, but they had me in there and questioned me about where the food was and I showed him. Of course, we don't mind at all. It's an important job they do. It looked like they were stopping and searching everyone. I took a few pics of them searching the truck, but they said I wasn't allowed to so I deleted them. I scared myself because I don't want to break the law or get in trouble! I deleted them fast!

We're in a campground that has Wi-Fi. Yay!

Canadian border 

Minnesota side going to Ontario, Canada.

Travel day tomorrow

Going back to the states. It's been a long month up here! We should make Minnesota tomorrow.

A week in the life of

• My dad got a serious bladder infection and is home with a catheter and bag.
• Our eldest son became engaged to be married.
  
• Perimenopause has arrived.
• I want a nostril piercing.

(Filed in Dynamic Christianity for comparison with future journal entry on topic of body piercing.)

Pantene (I fell off the wagon I guess)

Ran out of my favorite Body Shop Honey Moisturizing Shampoo and condish two weeks ago.

I bought Pantene Pro-V Silver Expressions at the grocery store. I chose it out of the scads of hair products for sale because it says on the bottle 'designed for all shades of silver, white, gray or graying hair.'

Suddenly it all rushed back to me why this stuff is so popular! There's dimethecone in my BSHM products but it doesn't hold a candle to the load of silicones in the Pantene product line. After Pantene my hair dried slick as snot. These cones are amazing. I could have twirled around like the girl in the Pantene commercial and my hair would look just like hers, only with grey, and I'm perimenopausal. The background music would have to be from Psycho.

I quit Pantene a couple years ago fearing it may desiccate my ends. After the Pantene my hair was so amazingly shiny it didn't need a whit of my ususal sandalwood and jojoba oil. What does this portend for the future. I must oil you know. Can not give up the oil. But will my eo work in combination with Pantene? It's not like I have unlimited ends you know. This is it baby. This is the whole tamale. When these ends are gone it's the end of an era.

My belief is that long term blow drying was the culprit for toasting my delicate ends which necessitated a three inch trim last September. And thinking back, when I had my trim I was using Aubrey organics and I realize now my hair just didn't do well with that product. I liked the idea of it being so natch, but fact is my hair didn't look good. Hate to sound all girly, but it was dull, lifeless, limp.

Okay so I washed and conditioned with the Pantene products two weeks ago. Quite exciting since I've been using the same products for ten months solid. Trying to leave as small of a global footprint as a comfortable American can, you know. It turned out so smooth it was as if I had someone else's hair. It stayed nice for the whole week which was a little unusual. Usually by day five I look, uh, not at good as day one, two, three or four. So my next wash I did a scalp wash only for the week instead of a full wash which leads me to note that I threw away those stinkin' Good Hair Days plastic hair pins. Why did I buy those things? Why would anything be better than plain bobby pins like what my grama used a hundred years ago. My Good Hair Days hair bun came undone so I did the scalp wash but all of my hair fell and ended up completely wet. Didn't use my usual vinegar rinse because I didn't want to inadvertently leave residual in the length as I thought I was doing a scalp wash. Today is day four and it looks sorta oily and flat, moreso than last week day four.

I tried water only. I think it might be useable on an occasional basis when my hair is already clean but needs a rinse for sweat or dust. I had a two week window where (pre-Pantene) my hair felt smooth yet unusally weighty, strong. It was weird. Some kind of meeting of the cosmos in my hair I suppose. I wish I could duplicate the feeling.

Pictures askew

Crooked pictures 

I'm into askew and crooked pictures lately. Sky is washed out.

Taken at Waskesiu Lake at Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan. Pronounced "wahs' kuh sue."  The name gets terribly thrashed by everybody who doesn't know how to pronounce it - including us.  Haha!

Red squirrel

Red squirrel 

Doesn't he have the cutest little tummy?

Franklin's ground squirrel

Franklin's ground squirrel 

He's also called a whistle pig for the sound they make, but I'm going to have to listen for that tomorrow. These fellows are bigger than a red squirrel or a 13-lined squirrel. They're diurnal and have sort of a bar pattern on their coat. We have a few running through our campsite so it's not too hard to get a picture of them. I think they're cute.

I'm fond of rodents as long as they're not in my house. We had some mice in our trailer awhile back. Yes, it happened at Heyburn State Park in Idaho. I may have forgotten to write about it. Quite exciting as you can imagine. We caught not one, not two, but three in our kitchen dishes cupboard. Can you say, disgusting?

Oh, anyone up to coming over for dinner?

Butterfly in Canada

Summertime weeds and wrong way butterflies 

Okay, I know Canada is a big place. I'll narrow it down.

Butterfly in Manitoba, Canada.

Facing the wrong way.

The Shipping News

I read the 1994 Pulitzer Prize winning book The Shipping News.


Chapter 11 is entitled A Breastpin of Human Hair and it starts; "In the nineteenth century jewelers made keepsake ornaments from the hair of the dead, knotting long single hairs into arabesqued roses, initials, singing birds, butterflies."

The following passage is what made me want to read the book. It sounds like a paradigm for life. What struck me is that there are also 256 shades of gray in photography and computers.  That and a wooden nickel will get ya a cup of coffee.

From The Ashley Book of Knots:

In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible. . . . Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result.

The great out-drawers

Skivies in my backyard 

I made a joke. Haha! Sadly, I have not had many, or rather any, awesome photographic moments this year. I have zip for a 2007 calendar so far. So I was wandering about outside and my husband told me not to take a picture of his unders. Click!

We're online! Spent over 90 minutes on the phone which will count as roaming and I have no idea what the bill will amount to (oh dear) but here we are online, still in Canada. Instant happiness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!