The Great June 3rd Hair Dye Caper

Mood: Harumph.

Listening to: Hritik Roshan shake his handsome little behind while singing Senorita – Zindegi na Milegi Dobara

I have been dying my hair at home for more than 10 years. I’m a natural blonde, but it hasn’t looked this naturally light blonde since I was about 8.  So. I’m not a newbie when it comes to finding my way around a home dye kit box. Before we left the states, I stocked up on hair dye because I knew that it would be damn near impossible to find hair dye in my color in India, and I’m a vain broad like that. Just go au naturel – oh the horror.

After looking in disgust at my inches grown in roots, I decided it was time to bust out a box.

I followed the box directions to a T, making sure to thoroughly coat my hair. There was an incident about a year ago in which I ended up looking like a leopard because I didn’t do it right and make sure the dye hit every single strand. I was conscious about that when I was coating my hair with noxious smelling chemicals this time.

After waiting an hour (yes, you heard me an hour. Usually when I dye my hair it takes 20 minutes!) I washed and rinsed as instructed. After stepping out of the shower, I looked in the mirror and gasped in horror. Not only was most of my hair about 3 shades blonder than I’ve ever dyed it before, there were a few spots that did not get bleached for whatever reason. So some dark, dark blonde spots, and almost white hair everywhere else. Yeah, I totally wasn’t letting it be like that. I took the left over dye (which was oozing out of the bottle and all over the counter at this point) and coated the dark spots. After yet another hour, I washed and rinsed, it was all almost white. At least I wasn’t going to look like a 12 year old doing her own hair.

The kit I used was by Garnier, which is not unusual. I’ve used their products before. I still turn in surprise every time I pass a mirror because it is so light. I’m still getting used to it. It doesn’t look bad, but I don’t think it’s very flattering for my skin. There's a joke floating around that I have Viking genes. It's entirely untrue (that there is prime Dutch and German stock!), but now it looks even more like I do. I also have a much needed meet up with some hot jasmine oil in the near future, because my hair is doing an amazing impression of very dry straw, and not just the parts that got dyed twice, all of it. So now I have hair breaking off as well as falling out. Ugh. I am so tempted just to shave it all down to about 2 inches and start over again.

Here’s what it looks like. Please don't mind the craziness and sticking out random directions - it does that all the time.

Becky

Finding my Style at 30

Mood: It’s hot outside. Dutch people don’t like excess heat.

Listening to: 9XM music videos. I think Bol Bachchan may be my new favorite song. I can’t get it out of my head anyhow.

A while back I read somewhere that people generally are at their best dressed when they are in their 30’s.  It was like a light bulb snapped on in my head. You see, I thought it was just me that took until she turned 30 to develop any kind of stylishness at all.

My teen aged years were spent in large t shirts and baggy jeans due to some over protective parents and a lack of comfort with my own body.

My early 20’s were spent in a Subway uniform, a diner apron, and later maternity clothes. I worked way 

too much to ever invest in clothes and didn’t have the money to anyway.

My mid-late 20’s were spent in homage to Guns in Roses. Black GNR tees and baggy jeans (again with the body confidence that just was not there).

I have never been one to use color in clothing (hello black, tan, and jean), be comfortable with fitted clothes, and never considered myself to be stylish at all.

Last year, I started not being so afraid of color and branched out a bit. To be sure, my beloved tee shirts and jeans were still very much in rotation, but after Daddy G complained that he sometimes wondered if he married a boy, I knew it was time for a change. Skirts made an appearance. Lower cut and tighter (nothing scandalous, just fitted) shirts started making appearances too.

After moving to India, Daddy G pushed me to expand even more. Obviously, anything low cut was left in the states, but my wardrobe no longer consists of only black band tees, even though I admit they are still my favorite.  Brightly colored tunics and jewel toned skirts are now worn on a regular basis.

I’m glad I’ve hit my stride, even if it has taken me until I turned 30 to find it. Hopefully, after losing some weight, shopping will be a bit more fun too. As lame as it is, I do find myself liking who I am as I get older. 

Hopefully it just keeps getting better.

When did you find your style? Have you always had it or was it something you had to develop?

Becky

On Excellent Writing and Hoarding Behavior

Mood: It’s hot outside. Dutch people don’t like excess heat.

Listening to: 9XM music videos.

Today looks like a great day to spend writing. As with other things in life, it looks like I’m a binge writer too.  Cie La Vie people.

As I’ve mentioned, I like reading blogs as well as writing them. I have 168 feeds in my outlook that I keep up with religiously. See, the problem here is, there are just too many talented, funny people that I really enjoy reading. A further problem, is that I keep finding more funny and more people I really admire and want to read. This recent active foray into the blogging community has been so amazing, I can’t believe I didn’ t do it earlier. I’ve been blogging since 2004/5 ish on my own, but it was always and anonymous place to just post thoughts. I actually feel a part of a community now, and it is glorious.

So a big thank you to all of the bloggers that I follow regularly. You all have given me the inspiration to keep writing, even when writing is damn near impossible. I’d also like to throw a special thank you out there to Lady in Red, my first real two way interaction with a blogger online.  Without her, this experiment very well may have been shelved before it’s time.  I really appreciate your friendship.

If anyone has suggestions of excellent bloggers to read – I love hearing suggestions. This was one of the benefits I found of the Liebster awards that I so cynically blogged about a few months back. It allows you to pass on stuff you enjoy reading.  I have definitely followed up on all of those suggestions.

Becky

Twitter Pated

Hello Everybody,

My husband decided to make a game out of taunting me because I'm getting old and technology averse. So not true, but this ought to show you DaddyG. If you're into the twitter thing (and I'm still trying myself to understand all the hullabaloo), I'm on twitter now.  Check it out. I'm not sure how often I'll use it, but hey, let's give it a go. You can find me as Becky G or bloggingbroad. If anyone is knows how to find a link for people to check out on twitter - I'd appreciate a line. I apparently am to old and crotchety to figure that out.

Becky

And Now for Some Random Thoughts

Mood: Calm

Listening to: Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons. Just because the kids are outside. We can't have that many emphatic (or otherwise) F words thrown around when they are at home, even if it an excellent song. 

I was looking through the key words that people search for when they find my blog. One of them was Getting Rid of Daddy Issues. This made me laugh really hard because the one article I wrote on that was lamenting the fact that I don't think they ever do go away. I'm sorry whoever came looking for that. That must have been quite disappointing to hear.

Can anyone explain Instagram to me?  I totally don't get the draw and a lot of the people I follow on facebook are absolutely nuts about it. I was regretting my loss of touch with new technology and aging (ripe old 30 year old) when I realized that I've been like this almost forever. For the longest time, I didn't want a cell phone. After I got one, it took me 5 years to start texting, and let me tell you, I still don't text more than once a week. I still don't quite get the draw of Twitter. I'm not technology averse, I just am not one to jump on a bandwagon for something that I see as stupid or unnecessary. As I've talked your ear off about, I march to the beat of my own drum. I really don't care if 10 million other people think Twitter is awesome. I still look at it like an enabling device for people with ADD that need lots of attention and will say stuff just to having something to say. 

I've always been the get off my lawn type. I'm also deathly afraid of being sidelined by new things and turning into my mother in this aspect. New technology absolutely terrifies her. She hates computers. I'll give it a try so I keep up with all you young whipper snappers, but if I think it's stupid, I'm not trying again just to fit in. I don't want my kids to have a hold of technology that I don't understand. That happened when I was growing up with some very unsavory results. Parents should not let their kids get a hold of things like this unless the kids are grown. 

Yet another mysterious disappearance has happened at the G household. One of my milk containers has gone completely AWOL. In India, we have to boil milk. It comes in plastic packets that are useless for storing the milk after boiling, so you must go and purchase some containers for storing the milk in your fridge. I boil 2 liters of milk every. single. day. I had 2 containers and both of them get washed every 2 days. Sometime shortly before we left on vacation (but before the maid left for Chennai) the other container disappeared after it was washed. After taking apart the entire kitchen - and I don't have a large or complicated one - I am absolutely baffled at where this went. I asked my housekeeper, but she had no idea where it was, even though she washed it and put it somewhere. 

I am an anal type person about what we have in our house. Everything has a place, and I generally know where everything is. When things go missing (and we have had more small things go missing in the past 6 months than I have in my entire adult life), my brain short circuits and sparks start flying everywhere. The milk container should be on the ledge. Why is it not there? Did the housekeeper hide it like she does the pressure cooker weight? This isn't a tiny metal piece, it's a big plastic container. What. The. Hell?

One of the downsides of us having a housekeeper is that there is another person in our house. There is absolutely no way for me to assure myself that things are not going missing because she is taking them. If it was just the four of us, I would at least have the assurance that unless we took it outside, it is here somewhere. I have no idea why she would need a plastic container....but after taking apart the kitchen, where is it? Daddy G has warned me about seeing ghosts where there are none a few times in regards to Indira, which I have honestly tried my best not to do. I have absolutely no proof this way or that. The thing is, I have never had things disappear like this before. I like Indira well enough, but I'm not naive enough to trust her and rule out anything. 

Grr. Paranoia.

Backlash of going on Vacations

Mood: Aggravated. I hate when stuff disappears

Listening to: Stairway to Heaven  - Led Zepplin

I love going on vacation. It’s usually quite a bit of work before hand packing and cleaning the house. I HATE coming home to a dirty house. I will work myself into the ground before hand just so I can come home to a clean house that doesn’t possess a mountain of laundry.

I always seem to forget how hard it is to come home. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no other feeling in the world like walking into your own house after a time away, sleeping in your own bed, and eating your own food. I’m talking about the abrupt halt to your vacation relaxing ways.

I thought I did a decent job cleaning up stuff before we left for Sri Lanka. My housekeeper left for Chennai 4 days before we left, so I was somewhat overwhelmed by more work than I was used to, but I thought I did ok. I came back to black ants raiding an almost empty cereal box (as in 3 – 4 flakes of cereal), a mountain of laundry that I forgot, and yet another mountain from our actual vacation. I came home to almost 300 RSS messages from all of the feeds I follow daily. It was a bit overwhelming. I came home to general disorder that I just didn’t have time to go around and clean up. I came home to a trash back that was neglected in our hurry to get out the door on Saturday when I had to start another trash bag because we were home a day longer than planned.

I finally plowed through all of the blogs. As much as I love reading blogs, I don’t think I’ll ever skip a full week again. Even if I do, I’m just erasing everything and starting from that point on. It took me 3 days to get through all that stuff with new stuff piling on top!

The ants I’m still battling. Once ants decide to pay you a visit, it’s damn near impossible to get rid of them, even on the 7^th floor of a building. I keep finding them in different places in the house. We generally are pretty neat and I’m a big fan of solidly sealed containers (damn you Chocos that I forgot to put in the cereal container!). I’m not quite sure why they’ve wandered into the bathrooms or bedrooms – we never eat anything in those rooms. I’m still hoping that eventually they’ll decide there is nothing to eat sitting around and will go looking somewhere else. Thank goodness they are the black ones. The red ones are bitey little bastards.

The laundry mountain is currently laughing at me. We are having a water shortage in our complex right now because a pump broke or some such nonsense like that, so we had to store water the other day for a few days. I managed to store drinking water, but my housecleaner complained today that there was no water for dishes, mopping and cleaning the bathrooms. Lesson learned; next time store water for that too. Because of the shortage, running the washing machine is pretty much out of the question, so the mountain will continue to grow.

I finally got my suitcases and all of our vacation stuff put away. That part is the worst for me.  I always wish there was a vacation fairy that would put all your stuff back where it belongs.

How do you deal with the return to earth after a vacation?

Becky

Austerity Measures

Mood: Aggravated. I hate when stuff disappears

Listening to: I Touch Myself – the Divinyls

As I mentioned in a previous blog, India has been extremely good for my waistline and my ass, along with other body parts. I have lost quite a bit of weight since I moved here. As I’ve also mentioned, we took a trip to Sri Lanka.

At home, I’m very, very disciplined about what I’m eating. I have no desire to gain any of the weight back and am very careful about portion size and what food I eat. I remember all too well how easy it was to get where I was when I was heavy. When I go on vacation, I don’t use it as an excuse to totally pig out, but I loosen my standards up quite a bit. For example, at home, I try to eat rice for only 2 – 3 meals a week. On vacation I can eat it every day. My body grabs and holds on to rice (especially when I eat too much of it) like it will never see it again. My skin (oy with the teenage skin!) and my waist line never quite look the same after I eat rice, but that’s why I don’t eat it more than twice a week. I much prefer whole grains/cracked wheat/brown rice. Since we just came back from vacation, I'm feeling a bit icky from all the unhealthy/larger portion eating.

I’ve also been aware of more and more chips/cookies/soda being at home. In the US, I was overweight because my portion sizes were out of control and I drank a lot; alcohol, soda, and sugary coffee drinks. We didn’t usually ever keep potato chips, cookies, or pop at home. In fact, the year before we moved into our house in Bangalore, I wasn’t drinking soda at all because I couldn’t keep it down to 1 – 2 a week and it was making me gain weight.  

Unfortunately, we have a cafeteria here at my apartment complex and it is continually a challenge for me to not go and spend 20 rupees (about 50 cents) on a small bag of chips, a soda or a packet of cookies.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to enforce some austerity measures. Hopefully I’ll be able to stick to them. 1 soda a week, 2 bags of chips a week, and only 2 packets of cookies a week. I’m also REALLY looking forward to going to my complex’s gym after my kids go to school this week. I went with my brother 3 times a week last year while my kids were in school and I haven’t felt that healthy in years, so I’m stoked to go back and help my body get stronger.

I’ve lost quite a bit of weight, but I don’t feel like I am quite where I want to be. I generally know how much weight I have lost, but I’m not a scale or a calorie watcher. I go by portion size, the fit of my clothes, and how my body looks in the mirror.  I’m down to a size 8, but I’m still a bit too jiggly for my taste, which I’m guessing has to do with the above junk that I’m eating. Since my portion sizes are reasonable, it seems to not be a problem of extra calories, but eating the wrong type of foods. I really would like to get rid of some of the jiggle and tone it up a bit.

Any other advice anyone has? 

Becky