Some of you might think that once you stop losing your baby teeth you have to also stop wearing hair bows -- wrong!

Recently I made a few bows of my own for a Pinterest challenge (tutorial here) and here are a few of my favorite ways to wear them:


I just use a bobby pin to clip the bow in my hair.

If you're wondering why you can't see my face in any of these pictures, it's because I took them while I was just getting over the flu. It was a sickly, dehydrated, sleep deprived look that I took extra care NOT to photograph.

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Make your own unscented powdered laundry detergent

Jon's hair is so easy to cut, I should probably start making him cut his own.

I've been cutting it on and off since college. More "on" now that we are married, although occasionally his mom steps in with advice on how to disguise his misshapen head. (She calls them "corners").


We use a buzzer. He likes his hair so short that he usually wants a haircut every month. If it is long enough that it could be sticking in the wrong direction when he wakes up in the morning, then it is too long. Heaven forbid he should have to take time to run it underwater before he goes to school...

Anyway. With the cost of driving to a salon, paying, and tipping, I figure I am easily saving $350 a year by cutting his hair for him instead of having it done at the salon. We got our buzzer for less than $25 at Walmart. Worth every penny!

I don't think I'll be cutting my own hair anytime soon -- I'm just not brave enough. OR skilled. I only get my hair cut about 3 times a hear anyway, so that's more manageable.

PS - has anybody else discovered a lotion hoard in their closets or is it just me??

For the month of October I'm doing one thing a day that is a step towards a simpler way of living -- less cluttered, less wasteful, less distracted. My goal through this month of less is that by taking a new step every day, I will be able to live in a way that is more organized, more stewardly, more purposeful. Read more about it here, and let me know if you're joining in!

I used to be an every morning hair washer. When I got my hair done for my wedding, they told me not to wash it the day before. I washed it anyway. Who wants to be stringy and oily on what is supposed to be the prettiest day of your life?

Turns out it's actually healthier for your hair to not wash it so often. When you wash your hair, it strips all the natural oils away. The more you wash it, the more oil it makes... and the more you have to wash it. Also, the more I wash it, the more I blow dry and flat iron it. Hello, split ends.

By switching to washing your hair every other day, and then occasionally every 3rd day, it gives your scalp time to adjust and eventually produce less oil.

Less washing means less damage (so hypothetically I wouldn't need a haircut as often), less product used (less packaging, less money, less chemicals), and less time spent in the shower every morning (less water, and the main motivator: more snooze button).

I've been trying this for awhile, and I think my hair is definitely not as dirty on day 2 or day 3 (or sometimes day 4) as it would have been when I was washing my hair every day. Jon and I share shampoo, and I've had the same bottle in the shower since January. Is that gross? It's a big bottle. I wonder if Jon has stopped washing his hair.

I do cheat all the time and use this dry shampoo:

I only get my hair cut about 3 times a year, partly because I am too busy/too lazy to get around to making an appointment, and partly because I am consistantly horrified by how expensive it is. In the town where I grew up, I could get my hair cut for less than $20. Then I moved away ... to the real world ... and started coloring my hair ... ended up paying over $100 every time. And I'm not going fancy places! I just have a lot of hair!

My natural color is in between -- not blonde and not brown. I like to change it up, sometimes lighter, sometimes darker. I had a hair appointment today, and the plan was to get my hair cut and colored dark brown. My tan is gone, and I miss wearing yellow, fall is coming...

My mother wins things all the time. 2 bicycles, 2 basketball hoops, a vacation to Montana, a breakfast party (complete with hard hats?) from Honey Bunches of Oats, and she won Bible Trivia on the local radio station so often that they had to impose a limit to the frequency that a person could win.

Once when I was little I won a box of ice cream bars for finding a 50-cent coin in a pile of straw at HyVee. That is it. Apparently and unfortunately, the winner apple has not fallen from the tree.

UNTIL!! I won a giveaway from My Yellow Sandbox! Abby is always putting up new hairstyles on her blog, and did a giveaway with Schuyler from WynneMarieInk for her readers.

and this:


arrived in my mail slot yesterday :) Thankyou so much Abby and Schuyler!

I'll take a picture of it on my head when I wash my hair ... this studying for boards thing is killing me!! Only a few days left!

P.S. You may call me winner winner.

Okay so here's your long awaited picture of me minus ten inches of hair!! ...This is actually after me and Holly had a hose fight in the back yard. It was so fun!! We were yelling and screaming so much that Sarah came over from next door because she wondered if everyone was okay.. oops. Anyway, so I have just been attacked by a hose, but you get the idea. It's short!! And I'll try to find a better picture for you on my computer.