Styling Products for Long Hair that is Fine and Wavy?

I forgot to weigh in this morning. Oops. Do any of you know of any Hair styling products that would help my long and wavy but very fine hair look like this after it dries? I love how my hair looks after I condition it and partly dry it but before I brush it.

None of the syling products I have tried could keep each wave separated yet be light enough to not pull the waves out of my incredibly limp fine hair. Should I just hairspray it while it is damp like this? That is actually something I have not tried.

I am substitute teaching today, in English. They are reading Romeo and Juliet. It should be fun. Scott is working this evening (Yay!), so he is dropping me off at the school and then I get to take two city buses home. I would walk the 5 miles if I hadn't just been sick. Best to take it easy one more day, I think. I will end up walking almost a mile, even taking the bus.

Here is what I ate yesterday, taking it easy on the sodium:

Small bowl of Special K, strawberries and organic soy milk
2 pieces of toast with peanut butter and jam
Waffle cone with one scoop of butter pecan at Baskin Robbins while Scott ordered his ice cream birthday cake
Leftover baked chicken, onion and carrots

My hair has just enough curl and is fine and light enough that it doesn't look good brushed. I have to straighten it if I want to wear it plain old down and brushed. There are other pictures here on my blog of what happens if I just let it down. It all flies away in different directions. I love how it looks in this picture: each wave separated into a distinct tendril and all of it staying down against my back. How can I get it to stay like that all day?

147.8 Still Sick But Wanted this Dress

My husband received some birthday money yesterday from his parents and nicely asked me if there was anything I wanted him to get me for my upcoming birthday. I suddenly realized that I really wanted this dress that I had seen at Costco. I knew they only had one or two in size 8, and they would be all gone soon.

My husband had to work swing shift yesterday, so he would be asleep when Costco opened at 10. I know it was wrong to expose all the Costco employees and customers to my chest cold. I was in and out of there as fast as I could go. I only coughed twice, and both times I covered my mouth.

I do feel much better. My voice is almost back to normal. No more sneezing or sinus headache. Almost no runny nose or coughing. Just a little chest congestion. I am staying home today, but I plan on fulfilling a substitute teaching assignment tomorrow. This guy's classes are reading Romeo and Juliet, and he specifically requested me ahead of time because I majored in English.

For exercise yesterday, I shopped at Costco and I did four sets of arm workouts on the Total Gym. My arms feel better today for it. I gained 3.6 pounds yesterday though. That is the biggest gain I have ever seen. Here's hoping it is mostly water retention from eating too much salt. Here is what I ate yesterday:

Cup of chili dip and a cup of corn tortilla chips
Half a Costco combo pizza
Small green apple with peanut butter and chocolate chips


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144.2 Corn Weeds

I did a little gardening yesterday, with manual clippers. It felt kind of good to take my aggression out on these corn weeds. We call them that because last year, these Johnsongrass  weeds tricked us into letting them grow. We thought they were corn stalks.

To answer your question, "How fast does Johnson grass grow?" Ug, too fast! The huge leaves you see in this picture are only about two months' growth from dormant woody stalks.

We just rented this house last year. It has a second lot attached to it, and we had permission to plant corn there. It was just too good to be true that corn was already growing in this dog run behind the house. We are city people who had never grown corn before. We were fooled.

You can see clumps of woody Johnson Grass stalks sticking up amid the wreckage in the photo below. This shows that we were not the first residents this Johnsongrass fooled into letting it grow. They probably called it a corn weed too, after they figured out it was never going to grow ears of corn.

I know now that corn grows in single stalks, while Johnson Grass grows in clumps, and that is how you tell the difference between real corn and corn weeds. But even UC Davis says Johnsongrass seedlings look like corn.

Update a few years later: I've completely rid us of this Johnson Grass by taking a spade to the plant while dormant in winter and cutting the root system over and over and then putting a turtle pool over where it used to grow. My theory is that cutting the roots stunted it and then preventing sunshine from getting there killed it.

This is gnarly hardy stuff, though, so you have to take a shovel to it multiple times. I placed the blade of the shovel in the middle of the woody winter clump, put my foot on it, and threw all my weight down into the root system, then dug out what I had cut off and burned that.

144.2 Coffee: Why Cold Water

The first time I drained a water heater, I understood why I needed to use cold water -- not only for coffee, but for tea, hot chocolate, spaghetti, rice, steamed vegetables, and anything else I would be putting in my mouth. Water heaters get coated with a white film that drains out with the water. It is thick. Our water drained out into the gutter, and the white film made up about a third of what came out. That film is the reason you are supposed to drain your water heater every few years. I don't think ours had ever been drained. It was gross.

If you use hot water from the tap to make anything you will be drinking or eating, then you are ingesting this thick white film. Ew! Turns out, this coating on the inside of water heaters is mostly salt. I don't know about you, but I don't want salt in my coffee!

Not only do I use cold water for coffee and cooking, I let the cold water run for a few seconds before I start collecting it into the coffee pot or pan. The farther I am from the water source, the longer I let it run first. This clears out any water that has been sitting in the pipes for any length of time, and is more likely to have sediment in it. I have lived my whole life drinking tap water rather than bottled water, but I know to run it a few seconds before I collect it. If you want to conserve water, then just rinse out some dirty dishes as you let the water run before collecting it. Or, let the water run into a container that you use to water plants.

I am still sick with this cold, coughing now as well as sneezing. The runny nose has slowed down, thank God. Because I am sick, I am not exercising. My body seems to be burning up all the calories I eat just to combat the sickness.

Here is what I ate yesterday and lost 1.4 pounds, just from fighting illness:

Small bowl of Special K, strawberries and organic soy milk
Cup of Healthy Choice chicken and rice soup
One bean and cheese burrito with 3 tablespoons of salsa
Cup of corn tortilla chips

I am back to drinking coffee today, so I know I am getting over my illness. That is how I can tell. It should be noted that I drink my coffee black, without any sweetener. I have ever since I read Dr Tarnower's book in high school in the late 1970s. Do you know that a typical cup of doctored coffee at Starbucks has 450 calories? Yes, it does. I bet Starbucks uses cold water to make that coffee, though.

145.6 Still Sick

Yuck, I am still sick with this cold, sneezing and nose running all the time. It is giving me a sinus headache. I might give in and take some Tylenol for the headache. I was trying not to suppress my immune system with drugs, but there isn't much it can do against a virus, anyway. A virus just has to run its course. I did take my temperature and it is a steady 98.6, which says to me it is probably a virus, not a bacterial infection.

I didn't get much exercise yesterday. I stayed inside so that my body would not have to spend any energy keeping me warm and could give all its got to getting me well. I went up and down the basement stairs a few times, doing laundry. I did a minute or so on the stair step exercise machine.

Here is what I ate and gained 2 pounds, which is OK because I was below goal:

2 small green apples with peanut butter and bittersweet chocolate chips
3 servings of sweetened instant oatmeal
2 cups of corn tortilla chips
2 pieces of Costco combo pizza
Small bowl of Special K, strawberries and organic soy milk

143.6 I am ill.

I lost .4 pounds yesterday, and I was trying to gain a little. I came down with a cold late last night and cancelled my substitute teaching assignment for today. My throat itches and I have a bit of a sinus headache with some runny nose. Maybe being sick is helping burn off the calories.

For exercise yesterday: I walked my dog two miles round trip to the post office and a mile around the park. I shopped at Costco, and I did a few minutes on the stair step exercise machine.

Here is what I ate and lost .4 pounds, along with all that exercise:

Two small green apples with peanut butter and chocolate chips
Cup of Fage nonfat plain Greek yogurt with strawberries and honey
A third of a Costco combo pizza
Small bowl of strawberries drizzled with Hershey's Special Dark chocolate syrup

Scott took this picture of me and my dog a few weeks ago.

I suppose I will have to rethink the "I don't feel well" thing. The opposite of "I feel well" is "I feel ill." Let's try that will a few different verbs, adjectives and adverbs:

I am ill.
I am well.

I feel ill.
I feel well.

I feel good.
I feel bad.

I am good.
I am bad.

Using the word "well" instead of the word "good" does make clear we are speaking of our health. If I say I feel bad, we don't know if it is sickness or guilt which plagues me. If I say I am bad, it for sure sounds like I am admitting guilt, not complaining of sickness.