Another Thing....

I've recently been going over the friendships I have and have been making and I have been thankful for the people I have around. Times will always be tough, but there are still good people out there.. Unfortunately there are... "not-so-good" people too (not that they are bad!). Those ones are the difficult ones, it seems. Sometimes I wish my friends had their priorities straight. I also feel like the one that is so close to me is also the one that is most distant. I wish I didn't feel like they lied to me, but the truth is that they do. I don't see why people take me for less than I am, as if I'm stupid. I can put dots together that are miles apart, don't underestimate me..
Well, here is an example of thinking it's a good idea.... when it's really not.. and being loved for it! <3 Hah: 

What led up to this moment:

TOO MUCH FUN!

Did it again.. *sigh*

So I definitely have been failing at keeping up with my blog, dammit! :( I downloaded a blogger app today though to hopefully avoid my failing.. heh. I'm having a tough time getting my goals in order and following through with them all but I have been making continuous progress so that feels good. The other night I ended up going out for beer pong and binged on some Jack in the Box.. oops.  I didn't even think about it twice. :/

Then yesterday I went to the beach with a couple friends and got my ass kicked. It was awesome.. except for the red lump on my nose from being smacked by my boogie board. >.< We followed the beach with a trip to the pool in the evening and I was beat! Today I ended up cleaning up a huge amount of the house, including the bathroom (except for the tile tub/shower.. that's a job for another day hah). I feel really good about it. I also juiced for the whole house today and it felt great. Since I just got my juicer I really like trying all sorts of fruits and veggies together... I think eventually I will get to smaller recipes with more of less variety.
 Today I juiced: Kale, Spinach, Apples, Lemons, Limes, Strawberries, Sweet Potato, Ginger, Red Beet, Carrots, Radish, Green Leaf Lettuce, Cucumber, Tomatoes, and Grapes. Wow!
Anyways, here are a few photos from the wedding.

The view of the courtyard from the Hyatt (my family mingling on the bottom left corner):

 

Frankie and I looking quite dapper:

 My Cousin and I:

 Rhinestone center pieces:

 Our Dinner Schedules:

 The Cake:

 The Dining in the Ballroom:

 My Cousins:

Sparkling Seating Cards:

 Main Course: Filet Mignon with Asparagus:

Overwhelmed... Already

I'm already overwhelmed and it's only day 1. Wow.
It's always awkward going back into work after you've called out, I can't help but feel like people don't believe me whenever I call out.... maybe because of my age? Who knows. Regardless, work was rather lame today while feeling under the weather and as soon as I got home I felt the need to continue my pace and clean up around the house a little and then go out and shop with Dad. Going to Vons after a tiring day at work (Vons) is the very last thing I should be doing. I sacrificed my (day 1) work out to go shopping for fruits and veggies so I could come home and aid my sick Prince... It ended up taking 2 hours to shop, and 2 more hours to juice, clean up, and put everything away in the kitchen. So here I finally sit to blog and I don't even know/remember what I want to say. Overwhelmed.
Emotionally today was difficult, I thought about Mom a lot.. It usually happens while I'm alone at work (which is almost every evening shift) and I zone out. I'll hear a song that reminds me of you, a thought that just brings you up, a familiar face, and a lot of the time it just comes as if I started thinking of you for a reason.. A reason more powerful than I can understand... As crazy as that sounds, I believe in those things. Besides thinking about my Mom, the thought of moving out has been looming over my head for months now and some days it's stronger than others.... Today was one of those days, it's like I "re-wake up" and realize how uncomfortable I am here and have to do something immediately to change something around me.  It's been even more difficult because Frank has gotten really sick, whereas I just haven't been feeling well, and that comes with a whole wave of other emotions. I always feel alone in my head even though we have each other... then again I feel that way to everybody.. and I always have. It's like I'm just on another page or something, like I see the world differently. But back to Frank, it's so hard to watch him suffering and instantly in return I start stressing on his health, why he feels that way, and how I can help, dragging my emotions down further.
Progress that has been made ::
My SS card came in the mail (not that I know what progress that shows?!).
I went shopping for some food.
I sorted what needs to be washed (like 3-4 loads ugh!)
I cleaned the ratties, and the fishy's homes :) and spent some time with Lily Chili. :) :)
I still came to blog even though I really didn't want to and I didn't know what to write. <-- very good.

A photo from before the wedding. <3

I Sense There's Something In The Wind....

I had an interesting few days. I was invited to see my cousin, on my Mother's side, get married. It was absolutely beautiful. Very formal. Now I'm feeling under the weather after my few days of fun. :(

Besides that... today is my last day of Facebook for a month if I can make it XD. Since my computer is broken at the moment I really don't have a reason to browse or anything, and I'll be temporarily deleting the app from my phone. Leaving it active is just so I know it's not that I CAN'T have it, but more so that I don't WANT it... We'll see. I'll still be on Instagram (like I said to Frank "This shit's like crack to me!" lol coming from a tumblee I guess...). I also have all notifications disabled. I really don't have that much of a use for Facebook since I don't really have that many consistent (the best word I could find...) friends.
I really didn't prepare myself as much as I would have liked for the month ahead but I'm really going to try to the best of my current knowledge to get me started. Every time I go outside I see more motivation surrounding me though, so I'm feeling slightly more confident than I probably should.

As Of Tomorrow ::
I will be blogging daily on various things, weather it's what I've eaten, a photo, or even just my thoughts. I'm going to be grinding through the rest of "Clean" and hope to post some things I've found interesting or delicious from this book. I will be exercising daily, and increasing my water intake as much as possible (at first this is going to be so hard) ! I will also be setting goals for myself around the house for every few days and financially for each week. I will be taking the unused time in my days for things like crafting and playing with my animals. :)

For Right Now ::
I'm feeling very fed up with a lot of people. Everyone is a lie. Haha, I know that sounds odd but it's the first way I thought to describe it. Everyone has an excuse for why they can't reach their goals and I just think it's all BULLSHIT Laziness. People that aren't knowledgeable on a subject and unwilling or unmotivated to find out. Blah.
Tonight I've binged on my last snack ( a DQ Blizzard yum ) and plan to take a nice long shower and trim/paint my nails. My new shampoo and conditioner has been awesome! Now all I need to do is stop using the hot iron. :/ I also need to keep better track of when I have done things.. because I've been forgetting things lately. I need to get my act together all around and it's going to take some work. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow so this journey develops nicely. Breaking Bad this evening in bed with the love! I've been waiting like 6 months for this!! <3

There's Always a New Tomorrow

"You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change." Something I read today somewhere. The past few days have been extremely difficult for me.. and Frank too. I think my feelings, especially about the privacy issues, have started to rub off on him. I feel bad but it's the truth. :/ I don't know why, but I've been a little out of control in the sense of what I want to change lately. I've been spending lots of money, eating a ton of junk, and generally not doing what I want for myself. X_X What The Fuck?! It's discouraging but I keep telling myself I'm just preparing, and that's what happens when you prepare for something you've never done.. fail. I guess coming here and blogging about it might be a sign that I'm still willing to try.
I got a hair cut the other day and touched up the black. The blonde streaks are soon. My poor hair. :( It's so much harder to hear an actual stylist tell you how bad your hair is.. I mean, I already knew but I was just trying to fool myself. As of next week, another commitment to be made is investing in a very expensive shampoo and conditioner. I was recommended Joico Moisture Recovery for my extremely dry hair and I'm going to try it. My other recommendation is to completely stop using box dye kits and only using professional color or getting it done at a salon once, and only touching up my roots every 6 weeks. Hair cuts are necessary every 6 weeks if I continue to fry my already blown out hair shaft. D: *sounds horrible* This is what it's going to take to be long though. I've been CRAVING a fun color in my hair.. but alas my priorities have stayed somewhat in order.
The only other thing I've done successfully on my list is get a new Social Security card since mine was lost or stolen. The next step toward that is applying for food stamps. Ugh.
My main issue this week has been my lack of privacy. I'm a 20 year old girl trying to live in a living room... with her boyfriend, Dad, and Grandmother (who has dementia). Seriously? Why am I doing this to myself...? I don't know. I'm so ready to go (mentally not financially) but everything in life likes to get in the way. :( I don't even know how to begin to bring it up to dad... Especially with Grammy needing the help..
I'm really hoping I can recover this month after the wedding.. Maybe I'll start to see a direction.

Watch Out! The world's behind you!

So, I feel that I've hit an interesting point in my life where I need it to change or I feel as if I'm going to lose my mind. I think about my mom daily and it constantly troubles me. I don't have anything to say about it besides how disappointed I am in all of it. She was only 43 years old. Lately I've been surrounding myself with healthy desires and I'm convinced it is subconsciously due to my mother passing at such a young age. I thought to myself, "If I continue living this way, I'm already half dead.", and couldn't stand it. So here I am. Preparing myself for something that I can't even grasp yet. I've decided to take 30 days out of my life to live my life. Funny huh? But we'll come back to that.
I've been so depressed (which isn't something recent for me at all) and confused lately that it's driven me to search for the right way to live,the life with all of the happiness intended. I've always felt that we are born on this Earth with all the tools we could possibly need to succeed... if we didn't have them all along how could we have made it this far? I feel that my state of being has caused my depression to peak like it has, so I'm going to try to change it.

I've been reading the book Clean by Alejandro Junger (I haven't finished it) and I was so surprised to find such a similarity in myself... So this book has inspired me to make a move. I've recently bought a juicer and have enjoyed juicing fruits and vegetables for a meal. The strangest thing is that I swear I can feel a difference in my energy and mood which leads me to believe, even more, that I can over come whatever "funk" that I've been in for so long naturally by generally bettering my life. Then I come to find myself stumbling on documentaries such as "Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead" and "Food Matters" with everything tying itself together in everything I've been thinking! What more can life say? I need to do something differently. So I'm going to.


Over the next week I'm going to prepare myself for a drastic lifestyle change. I've already quit smoking cigarettes out of the blue. It's been 32 days today. Which I'm actually very proud of myself for, but not really (if that makes sense? I feel that I should be able to quit without a problem since it was no big deal to me.. even though I smoked a ton of cigarettes :/ there was no true reason for it in the beginning - which is a good enough reason to quit). To prepare myself for the next 30 days I will be blogging every evening and slowly eliminating things from my routine.

My guidelines (I don't have a plan yet, I hope to by the next few days) for July 13th to August 13th will be No Facebook, No fast food, soda, or bottled juice, Extremely Limited "hang outs", Daily exercise, Hobbies, Diet change (not going on a diet, but changing the way I eat completely), Making personal relationships stronger, Spending more time with my animals, and Responsibilities (which generally ties it all together, but more specifically things like: possibly getting another job, cleaning up the house, getting rid of any debt). I really don't want to sacrifice some of the things I'm going to but I feel that I have to. I need to see the other side.

Side thoughts:
 Working out sucks sometimes! So why do people decide to continue to do it? There must be benefits from it or else it wouldn't be "worth it" and I'm interested to find out.

 I've already received strange reactions from close people in my life, which I didn't expect to happen but I have also gained a lot of support from those who truly matter. I just hope that everyone can realize this is something I am in need of doing and support me regardless. 


  Some people will be surprised by some of this information, don't pry out of concern rather than an actual interest. I will be okay just like I have been, this is just an adventure and hopefully a life changing experience.


Re-reading this makes me feel inspired. I hope I can remind myself that.

Damnit! There aren't enough bloggings about red hair!

This last week has been a pretty rough one. I just had 2 days off work after working 8 days in a row, for starters, and so much other crap has been happening along the way that I can't do anything about!

So, I've decided to start writing about this awesome Red Hair adventure since that's definitely what it has been the past few weeks.

Beginning: My hair had been black for quite a few months with frequent dye upkeep and I had tried going red so many times before, I'm thinking at least 5 times.. but it was never quite red. I had been letting my hair grow out and the black fade for about one month before I decided I was too impatient to wait any longer and I just went for it. I had researched for hours about different Red permanent dyes, when I finally came up with some positive feedback on a particular dye, and once I looked that up I found even more positive responses!! So I went up to a Sally's Beauty Supply (and if you don't know what a Sallys is, you need to find out ASAP. It's a great way to get everything in one trip and at low prices. Which is great for red!) and purchased two boxes of the dye, a new mixing bowl, and some 30 developer.  I decided to try one over the roots and black in my hair knowing it probably wouldn't affect the black, but was pleased with the color it turned my natural hair, without even having to bleach!

Actually going Red from black. Bleaching: You always know how fun it is to bleach your hair... T_T Spend an hour covering you're whole head and another hour to pull out all that dye, then about a week feeling like you've only got straw on your head. It's dreadful. I wasn't expecting much when I bleached my hair the next day after doing the red over the black, and to my surprise it came out pretty well. I bought a box bleach kit from a drugstore. I'm pretty sure it was  L'Oreal. I put as much of it as I could through out my hair using a tint brush and put a plastic bag on my head and released the air from it. Then waited... Rinsed it out and conditioned with the conditioner that came in the box. In this photo my hair is still wet so it appears slightly darker. It was very orange, but that was okay with me since I was going red anyways.

Red Dye: I still had one box of dye so a day later I went red. It was definitely a little light when it first came out, but was expected after bleaching. I was none the less satisfied because my hair was finally red! You can tell the red was definitely new because I was still rockin black eyebrows ;P .. looks a little odd. I've since then switched em up to match. :)

Red Fade: The red in the photo above faded quite quickly.. I believe 2 washes! Ouch! After all that time and damage to my hair I was bummed. :( So I decided to switch to another color I had been considering that was very similar. It turned out AWESOME. Just the color I was looking for. It has more of a blue, magenta hue rather than the copper, orange like before. 

More Fade!!: This problem had been driving me nuts.. especially because I couldn't find any good information... until I sat through, like, a 15 minute video that just so happened to bring up my concern. My hair was only fading in the lower back center of my hair, and the tips... but everything else looked absolutely great! Wtf? The solution I eventually came up with was Red Protein Filler for your hair. They have it in neutral as well. I haven't seen the full potential it has held but I decided to try it out. I put it on my dry, unwashed, faded hair only on the orange-blonde faded spots and let it sit for probably an hour. Then I put my regular dye over the protein filler and let that sit (also with a bag on my head).  I almost forgot to take a photo, so I took it mid-protein filler. The orange color was lighter than that even, poor lighting! The darker color is where I had applied the protein filler already:

When I went to wash it out, I did not use shampoo, I rinsed and massaged it all out and used a hair treatment cream that I also got at Sally's just to try. Intense repair for dry damaged hair. It was by Ion. I mixed a good amount of the RED protein filler (I also bought two of these they are only a little over $5 each) with the ion conditioning treatment and only used that. I let it sit for about 10 minutes, possibly a few minutes longer. I towel dried my hair then let it air dry. It felt better. Not extremely, but after all that it didn't feel like straw much any more, if at all. :) I was satisfied. I've been rocking the new color for about 3 days and have not needed to wash yet. If you think that's gross, please try having red hair. :) Luckily my hair doesn't get very greasy to begin with.

The color is very vibrant where I applied the filler so it's still a little brighter than the top. Depending on how badly it fades out (crossing my fingers hoping it won't fade too bad) will determine if I try the protein filler again or go darker. I have one more trick up my sleeve in case of extreme fade. But I'm not an expert and all of these tactics have been self taught over hours slaving away on research and trial and error experiences. My head has been just about every color of the damn rainbow and so far no color has been this much of an issue... But it's just too damn sexy. ;D

I'll keep you all updated. Especially about the filler and fade. <3

xx