Julie

Running Again

I laced up my new Brooks Ariels and took Gracie out for a run on this beautiful Spring evening.

Gracie and I are in the habit of walking 3 miles a day after walking most every day for the last 3+ years. I’ve lost a lot of weight and I’m feeling much stronger. Now I’m ready to push myself, work on my cardio vascular fitness and firm up my body. It’s been a long time since I tried to run and tonight’s run was exhilarating!

I’m not particularly interested in running races – most of them are overpriced and crowded and I don’t need or want any more ugly tee shirts. I don’t want to injure myself (or Gracie), so I’m going to take it slow and easy. I have nothing to prove. I just want to run for the joy of running. I want to feel fit and good about myself. Tonight was a good start.

Happy New Year

Dinner is served!

First Christmas dinner with my lovely sisters Cindy Liggett & Lori Blain in more than 30 years! What a beautiful day of celebration.

My 9-1/2 foot tree….one of the prettiest trees I’ve had so far.

The sunset as I was taking my evening walk was quite beautiful tonight.

Long Hair

About two years ago, I decided to grow my hair. I wasn’t sure how long I’d let it get but I thought I’d grow it out until I didn’t like it, or I felt it aged me, or I thought it was too hot, or I thought it was just too much of a hassle, or until it just stopped growing. After a while it got to the “too much of a hassle” stage and so I cut off 4 inches of it.

Then, last summer, after reading about the concept of abandoning shampoos altogether, I tried out the “no poo” method of hair care. I didn’t like using the recommended baking soda & vinegar rinse in my hair, and just rinsed and conditioned my hair regularly . I went 3 months without shampooing my hair and it really wasn’t a problem… my hair did not look oily and it didn’t smell bad. But after 3 months my hair started feeling waxy around the roots and on my scalp. So I started using a gentle shampoo again, but now only shampoo my hair about every 7 – 10 days.

Concurrent with my “no poo” experiment I essentially stopped blow drying my hair and using curling irons or hot rollers on my hair. I can count the number of times I’ve used heat on my hair in the last year on one hand.

I’ve discovered that these changes have improved my hair’s condition by:

Greatly reducing the fizziness
Bringing out some natural body that I never knew existed there – I always thought my hair was super straight and had no body in it.
Eliminating split ends

I’m really delighted with my hair. Oh, and it hasn’t been this long since I was 13 years old.

Out walking Gracie this evening, going the route we’ve walked hundreds of times, and Gracie got attacked by a boxer we’d never seen before.

I tried kicking the dog, yelling at the dog and then I picked up the biggest, heaviest stick I could find to bash him, but lucky for that dog (and for me) he decided to walk away. That dog could have killed Gracie & at one point he made eye contact with me as if to say “You’re next!”

I wasn’t particularly afraid of him, but I felt so helpless and I was afraid he’d hurt my Gracie! Thankfully, Gracie wasn’t hurt, at least I can’t find any wounds on her, but I’m still so upset by this. Next time I’ll be better prepared with pepper spray and a worthy stick and I won’t hesitate to use them if I see that dog again. I’m just glad I didn’t have Milo with me because I’m certain that dog would have killed Milo.