Henna Hair Dye

So I decided I wanted to try something new with my hair.  I am sad to say that genes did not bless me... as I am 24 and starting to grey/white.  I am too cheap to start paying to go to the salon every 6-8 weeks to get it professionally dyed plus I do not really like the thoughts of tons of chemicals being that close to my nose.  I looked up a few "natural" options such as an organic hair studio in Anchorage but it was still $60+ each time to get it dyed.  Again I am too cheap.  After some more research I decided to try to dye my hair with henna.  I read a bunch of reviews online or different companies and decided to go with Henna Hut's Dark Brown Hair Dye   (http://hennahut.com/dark_brown_hair_dye) along with their Henna Oil (http://hennahut.com/essential_oils) and a hair dye kit.  Here is what I got in the mail.

My first step, well really second after research buying it, was to do a strand test.  I "harvested" some hair from my brush and from what fell out in the shower and split it up into 4 different groups.  One was my control.  The other three I would dye for 30 minutes,  45 minutes and 1 hour.    I mixed the henna with a little bit of water to make a "yogurt" consistency. And the dyed each of the 3 samples.

After 30, 45 and 60 minutes I would rinse out the henna and allow the hair samples to dry. After the hour was up I did not see a drastic change in the color, which was the goal.  I was "planning" on keeping the samples to compare 48 hours later.  Since the henna can take up to 48 hours to completely set in... however after Mike took a shower he shut the door to the bathroom, where the samples were, so the cat would not get them and the air movement of the door made the paper towel and hair samples fly and disperse. So I decided that I would just do the recommended one hour when I did my head.

Friday night Mike was working nights and Hans also had to work.  So Samantha, her sister Kim, and I all went to the Aces Game against Idaho Steelheads. The game was good with an exciting ending. A Win for the Aces in OT.  After the game they helped me put the dye into my hair.  Here is a before picture of my hair from the back

 Lets just say it looked a little gross and green but I loved that it did not have a chemical smell at all, actually it had more of a organic smell that is hard to describe, maybe manure is a good way.  Now the reason I waited until Friday to dye my hair is there were warnings and comments online about the henna doing weird things to grey/white hair.   Such as turning it green or blue for the first24 hours after it was dyed, but promised that after 48 hours the henna would set in and the hair would not be blue. To say the least I was a little nervous, but feeling adventures.

After leaving the dye in for an hour I washed it out, here is what my hair initially looked like

and here it is today, 4 days later

I am not disappointed with the results but henna did not cover up the greys.  The greys did turn a bit green for the first 2 days but when i washed my hair it came out.  It might have dyed them a little but you can easily see, when you look that the greys are there.  Maybe I am going to have to just go with the grey for now, but will continue to search for a option to cover the greys.

Research

Can I just say I highly dislike research!!!  I am in the Arctic Engineering Class through UAA this semester.  I have to write a 4 page paper on an Arctic Engineering Topic, I choose Water System Design in Arctic Regions.  Easy Peasy.... except the research.  I know the information but I need to have 5 references.  including 3 journal articles or specialty conference papers, what ever that is.  I have one reference, it is a book and I have spent the last 2 hours looking at the UAA library's web page and ASCE's (American Society of Civil Engineers) web page looking for journal articles.  I have found a few that might work... except ASCE wants me to pay $30 dollars for the full text! Are you kidding me, I thought that is why I had a membership with you....

I emailed my professor about it so hopefully she can point me in the right direction.  Seriously this paper should take like 4 hours total to write, if I could just get the references to include.  Ugh... not what I want to be doing on my Sunday off but, I need to get this finished before I leave for vacation.

Update:  When Mike went to work I went to the library at UAA.  I found 4 articles in three hours and now all I have to do is write the paper.  No problem...

Shin Splints

Last night, before dinner with Samantha and Hans, Mike and I went on a 3 mile run around the neighborhood.  Lets just say that it did NOT go as planned.   About 1/2 through the run I started getting shin splints on my right.  I was not a happy camper.  I was pissed at my leg for doing this to me.  I would walk and the leg was OK, start to run... not so much.   For those of you have have not had the joy of experiencing Shin splints here is a link to learn more about them -  http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/shin-splints/DS00271.  Under risk factors here is what Mayo has to say :

"Shin splints are most common among runners, particularly those just starting a running program. If you have flat arches, your feet may have a tendency to roll too far inward (pronate) when running — which can contribute to shin splints."

Basicly I have to ice, rest and maybe get a new pair of shoes.  So I plan to "cross train" until Monday the 25th and then try running again.  This makes me sad. Tonight I walked and did some Yoga.

Just Keep Swimming

This is the phrase I sing to myself when I feel like quiting during a run.  Monday night Mike and I ran this route in about 33 minutes! 
 
This is also how I am feeling about life right now.  Just Keep Swimming!  and you might get somewhere.  Life is just chugging along nothing really exciting going on.  This past weekend we went to our first Aces game of the season on Friday.  Saturday we hung out at home, walked downtown to the 5th Ave Mall, and then had our first Dinner for Nine of the year.  Our dinner for 9 group is great and we had a wonderful meal.  Sunday we went to church and then taught Sunday School to 2 Kindergartner's and 1 2nd grader.  It was a small group but they kept up laughing.  Sunday afternoon we just hung around the house, watching football and baking cookies.  Sunday evening we went to my friend Angela's house for a little while, her 1 year old Olive decided she really liked me, she was so cute bringing me books to look at.
This week is already 1/2 over.
Monday we ran, as I said above and the vegged. 
Tuesday we went to the gym and vegged.
 Tonight we are going out to dinner at Suite 100 (http://www.suite100restaurant.com/) with Samantha and Hans for their 4th Wedding Anniversary!  No big plans for the weekend.  Just looking forward to going to Minnesota soon!

EIGHT MONTHS

I still get struck with grief at random times, 8 months later. For example yesterday I was poking around on blogger and I find a tab that has places your blog is refereed from. I click on a blog that has referenced mine and bam there is a description of Callen service (http://glossary-of-field-work.blogspot.com/2010/02/420.html) and 2 months later here (http://glossary-of-field-work.blogspot.com/2010/04/449-still-thinking-about-him.html). I love that Callen touched so many peoples lives. That his heart was made of Gold. As my mom posted face book Callen was an Angel. And I know he still is up above us.

I recently went out a purchased and read the book "Choosing to SEE" but Mary Beth Chapman. It is about her struggle with grief after loosing her 5 year old daughter, Maria. And how their family has worked through the grief. Always trying to SEE what God had planned for them in the future. Trusting that God had a bigger purpose for Maria's Death, than death alone. The book made me laugh, remember, cry, questions, and grow. I will not lie, I still question why God took Callen. But seeing posts in Facebook about how Callen has taught so many people so many things has allowed me to start to SEE why he was taken when he was. At the same time it as if people have "moved on," with fewer new posts on his memory page and his personal profile but I am guilty of not posting there as well.

This past week I have tried to SEE more. Last Saturday on my first outside run I was nervous and worried about pacing myself, running out of steam and what others would think seeing my red face panting. About 30 seconds before I was supposed to start running 2 Eagles flew over head. I know they flew over right then because if I had started running already no way would have I looked up. Then Monday night I went on another outdoor run a different way. After my run I was walking back to the condo and over head flew another Eagle. 3 eagles in 2 runs not to bad it you ask me. Before reading the book I would say no big deal, wee have eagles around here, but it really spoke to me, like Callen was watching over and tellign me I could do it, plus my mom has a thing with eagles and Callen!

Mike and I are also reaching out and enjoying nature a little more this fall taking a few walks at Kincaid park. It is so pretty out there and  we have to keep our eyes open for moose, porcupine and bear. Tuesday night we drove down there for a walk after dinner. First off it gets cold early in Alaska now, there was frost on the ground. We hiked down into a couple valleys and then back up to this ridge. We made it to the top of the ridge just in time to see the sun disappear behind the mountains, at 7:00 PM. The sky was full of color and it reflected on the water. It was breath taking... and then we turned around and the mountains had an amazing pink glow to them. I really love the colors nature creates.  God true paints the sky and the trees and the mountains.

I miss you Callen.

C25K update

Well I took the leap this weekend.  I decided since it was beautiful outside, think sunny blue sky's and high 30's/ low 40's, I would run outside.  I have not ran outside before simply because I am not good at pacing myself and I like to know how much time I have left.  Any who, I walked from the condo to the bottom of the Minnesota Drive Hill by West Chester Lagoon and started my week 8.1 run.  Which is run for 28 minutes, Yikes. 

I started my run/jog trying to go at a decent pace but not push myself too hard to start with.  I had decided at the start that I would run from the bottom of the hill to mile one and then turn around.  (Mile 0 started about 0.5 miles from where I started running.)  So I am running I see mile marker 0, then look for mile 0.5.  I did not see the 0.5 marker since it was on a bridge but made it to mile 1 feeling pretty good so I decided to keep going to mile 1.5 and then turned around.  After turning around I was just about spent so I paused for a moment to look at how much time I had remaining on the ipod.  Guess what? I had only 3 minutes left!  Holy Cow I was like 3 minutes, I can do 3 minutes, and took off trying to get back to the mile 1 marker.  I got to it and past it before the 28 minutes was up!

I was definitely tired by the time I got done running but I was so excited that I did it!  All on my own including pacing.  I think in total I ran 2.5 miles, so that is a pace of 11 minutes 12 seconds a mile!  While to most "runners" that is slow, that is HUGE for me.  I am supposed to run 28 minutes 2 more times and then up it to 30 minutes for 3 runs and I will complete the C25K program!!!  2 weeks left! Looks like I might make my goal of completing it before I go to Minnesota.

PFD Day!

Well our PFD's were deposited into our account today.  Yippee!  So as I have stated on here before I track our money that comes in and out pretty close.  It is convenient that Mike and I get paid on opposite Fridays throughout the year.  I have our budget set up so that our monthly budget is based on 4 paychecks a month.  Leaving us 3 extra paychecks a year for big ticket items, vacation or where ever we need to put the money.  Well October just happens to be one of those months.  So not only do we have 2 PFDs but and extra pay check to allocate for something this month.  We have decide to split the money up evenly between 3 things, after putting some money into savings in case we have to pay tax's on the PFDs.  Here were our choices:
1. 1/3 goes towards the VeraCruz, which we bought in July and is already 1/2 ours.
2. 1/3 goes towards our house down payment fund, which we just started in June and have a good start on!
3. 1/3 goes into our "fun" fund.  For a vacation, a camera, or whatever but most likely a DSR camera!!
So we have some fun and some responsible.  I figure if we put the money in the house fund and something major comes up that we really really need the money for we can always use it but until that happens it will stay where it is.

Tonight I have a yummy beef stew brewing in the crock pot for dinner.  It includes stew meat, onion, carrots, potato's, spaghetti squash, beef broth, garlic and BBQ sauce.  Hopefully it will trun out yummy with some tasty Great Harvest Bread.  After dinner I will be locking myself in the guest room/office/blue room and taking my midterm exam for the Arctic Engineering course I am in.  How fun....not...

Baking week

This is the way the week has started out. 
Monday night I made Rhubarb Muffins (http://thelocalcook.com/2010/05/07/rhubarb-muffins/) to put in the new cookie jar, or as I have called it now the Muffin Jar. And then decided to make an Apple Crisp with some apples that have been sitting around for a while.  The Muffins turned out Awesome!  The Apples Crisp is so so but the Apples used in it were not the best so what can you expect.

Tonight, Tuesday, after a walk at Kincaid Park where we saw a mama and a baby moose. 

And took some fall photos.

  We came home and I made egg plant, for the first time.  I do not like egg plant the way I made it tonight.   I breaded it with wheat flour, milk & mustard, and then bread crumbs.  Then baked it for 20 minutes.  The outside was crispy and yummy, however the inside was yucky, it made me gag.  Mike thought it was OK, but did not request I make it again.  As the egg plant was cooking I whipped up a batch of Chocolate chip zucchini bread and muffins, 4 mini loafs and 6 muffins.  After I cleaned up the kitchen I decided to make some Baked Kale Chips I have been meaning to make for a while.  http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/03/baked-kale-chips/  The Kale Chips are a success! Mike looked at them with some scepticism but after the 1st one he wanted the entire bowl! I wish I had made these  a lot sooner because they were super easy and super yummy.

Tomorrow we are having Steak with baby bok choy.  And then we have youth group and then the gym so no time to cook.  bummer.  Cooking makes me happy and my tummy full!

Weekend Fun

This weekend we had a ton of fun.  Mike and I watched Jacob on Friday night for a few hours and then caught up on our DVR list.  Saturday we slept in, and the headed to the gym.  I ran for 25 minutes without stopping!   Mike ran 2 miles without stopping.  After a quick shower we did some shopping Costco, Target, and Kohls.  Then we got ready and headed to the church auction.  There was lots of stuff there.  We did not win anything in the live auction but in the silent auction I won a Cricut!

and a cookie jar!

Mike won a picture of A Cabin with Denali in the background and a Ipod Touch

After the auction we wend to the Wood Shed, a bar down town, to celebrate a friends birthday. 

Today we slept in at little and then taught Sunday school at 11.  After church we just hung out at home.  Mike dorked around on his itouch and I played with the cricut and scrapbooked.  Tonight I am going to make some chocolate chip cookies to put in the cookie jar!