300/30 day challenge

ok so this one is actually about a fitness challenge failure.  I don't like to quit these things but I can barely sit up today.  I started this 300 for 30 days ab challenge 4 days ago.  I just can't do another day of it.  It is so painful.  The exercises are great, and I will be adding them to my regular workouts but the number and rep counts are way to high.   How useful is a workout if you have to spend the rest of the day in recovery?  This morning I read through the comment section of the blog post and as it turns out this is actually just ab ripper ( I think it's from the P90x series) and if you do it every day you are at risk for actually ripping your abs.  My abs have survived 2 pregnancies so I'm not going to tempt the ab gods.

Ok so I'm not going to be finishing my 30 day challenge, but I do like the exercises demonstrated and I'll add them to my workout rotation.  So I guess there is a good thing that came from this failure.

Not so fast

I was pretty excited when I first tried this homemade dishwasher soap 6 weeks ago, but I have steadily become disenchanted with it.  It started with a few dishes being a little spotty and then steadily progressed into not being able to tell the difference between clean and dirty dishes.  This one lasted a long time and if it had actually worked long term it would have been amazing but I've given it all the time I can and now it is time to eat off of clean dishes.

******UPDATE***** I mixed it with water into a paste and used it as cleanser for my tub.  So all is not lost, it works great as a mild bathroom and kitchen cleaner :)

Make your own green glitter....or the case of the crusty pile of green salt

I still don't have my camera back...ummm Mom...I kind of use that a lot.  I tried to make my own glitter because I was making my own 

Calm Down Jar for the girls and I needed more glitter because I had used most of my glitter supply to make glittery letters to go over my piano that spelled 

Joy.

So I was really excited when I saw this picture on Pinterest 

MAKE YOUR OWN GLITTER!!!

Awesome!!! Now I can avoid one more trip to JoAnns...it get's a little weird when more than one employee recognizes you because you have been in more than 3 or 4 times that week.

Ok so the recipe says to mix up some salt with some food coloring and bake it on a tin foil lined baking sheet, and 10 minutes later you will have a 1/4 cup of gorgeous glitter.  

well I decided to make green glitter cause it's my favorite color and I thought it would work well in the purple calm down jar I was making...sounds cool huh?

Well what I got was a sheet of crusty green salt, not sparkly at all.  I used gel food coloring so maybe that was it.  I'm willing to try this one again with liquid food color but for now my calm down jar is just a little less fabulous than I want it to be.  That's ok it doesn't calm the kids down at all it makes them run around screaming SPARKLES!!! SPARKLES MOMMY!!!!

get ready to laugh

Ok I'm willing to try just about anything, and I'll even post pictures so we can all have a good laugh.

I tried this sock bun curls tutorial about a month ago and it didn't work because my hair was not long enough to get all into one pony tail on top of my head. 

That girls hair turns out so pretty!  I'm so jealous! I want curly hair, but my hair is just too short.  

so I got to thinking (this is where I usually get into trouble...I get a BRILLIANT idea!) what if I did multiple buns and used some small children's socks?  (I was folding socks at the time and was trying to figure out where the matches to all these little socks had gone)

Ok so I tried it last night....

 Peter thought this was an awesome look, although he was laughing so he might have been being disingenuous.

 Here is the back (that lower bun would prove to be a literal pain in the neck and was ripped out by some crazy woman trying to sleep, obviously she doesn't subscribe to the "pain is beauty" philosophy)

 and side.  It kind of reminds me of when I was in middle school and I used to wear my hair in 2 buns on top of my head.  I was a weird kid.

 and this is what I looked like this morning after removing the buns.  Do I look a little tired?  Yeah Claire came and slept with me last night and she is not an easy sleep partner.

 My hair looks like it's been through some sort of horrible ordeal, and I don't think it wants to talk about it.  I tried brushing it out to get those "Hollywood waves" talked about in the video.

 Here is my version of "Hollywood waves"

Now this will work with longer hair, I know this because I've seen it in multiple Youtube videos and a semi pretty curl did come out of the bun on the very top of my head.  So maybe if I grow my hair another foot it will work.

If you see me today don't be surprised to find me with my hair up!

what should I use them for?

I set out to make bath tub crayons for my girls for christmas and what I got was cute soap that doesn't write on the bath tub.  

 I made them in this cute heart mold I got at Joanns because I also want to make these heart crayons for Valentines day because there are so many allergies in Violet's preschool class that choosing an appropriate treat for valentines is impossible.

This is a simple project.  Just melt clear glycerine (which you can no longer get in store at Joanns, so I got a pound of it on Amazon) in the microwave, add food coloring (I used neon gel), pour into whatever mold you want and try to convince your 2 year old that they are not candies but soap.  I might as well have skipped that last step because she took a bite out of one anyways.    

So they are cute and easy to make but they do not write on the tub.  So what should I do with them?  I have 23 little soap hearts now.  Any ideas?

going without shampoo part 2

So on wednesday I decided to try going without shampoo.  I've gone as long as I could I need to wash my hair!  The first 2 or 3 days were nice, but by day 5 my hair was crazy!  It was super oily and was doing something really weird in the back.  So I went back to the original blog post about how to clean your hair without shampoo and she says that your hair will go through a super oily phase as it adjust to the lack of detergents in your shampoo, so I decided to give it one more day.

So today (day 6)  I decided to give it one last try and this is what my scalp looked like after I had my hair dry....

except I didn't have guys in orange and green trying to clean up all the oil! (maybe if I could find some guys in orange and green suits my hair would look good).

So sorry to the proponents of a shampoo free lifestyle but I just can't join your ranks, it's just not working out.  Maybe if I had shorter hair.  I do however like the way my hair looks on days 1 and 2 so I may continue to do this a few times a week just to cut back on my shampoo use, because my hair did look really nice on those days.

 now if you will excuse me I have a date with my shampoo bottle!