Random Eats and Hair

Happy Mother’s Day! It’s been a quiet weekend here so far, the dogs enjoyed a lazy day inside because it’s crazy windy this weekend and chihuahuas hate wind in their ears!

Friday we stepped out to another new That restaurant that was a cute little hole-in-wall and I got this nicely spicy eggplant tofu dish.

Yesterday I threw together a simple lunch salad of chopped tempeh, tomatoes, carrots, and peppers tossed with dill, lemon juice, oregano, salt, and pepper.

It was very tangy and bright for a summery themed dish. And hearty with a lot of protein after an intense gym workout.

Last night’s dinner was a little more of a splurge since I’m using up a box of Trader Joe’s frozen instant organic brown rice, I lightly stir fried a serving with organic frozen veggies, a dash of coconut oil, tamari, and a dash of sriracha for a little kick.

It came out great for a fast throw together, kicky vegan fried rice!

And my hair! Naturally curly hair can be a challenge to cut properly. A few years ago I got a horrible layer cut that traumatized me just a little. It was at a cheap place and I remember the stylist going on and on about back problems, kid problems, and life problems as she hacked too much off the sides. I will never go to a cheap chain place again! It’s too much of a gamble for naturally curly hair. I decided to grow it out for awhile before trying to get the cut fixed. A year later I noticed it was getting long and not totally annoying me, so why not keep growing it?

Growing up, I used to idolize girls with long flowing hair like Daryl Hannah from Spash or DJ in Full House. But my naturally curly hair just would do that and seemed to take forever to grow. Didn’t help that my mom kept it mostly short as a kid and I did not have the patience to grow it out in junior and high school. I’ve gotten it longish in my college and young adult years, maybe down to mid back length. But never waist length and I decided to just do it to check it off my bucket list so I’ll never wonder again what it’s like to have waist long hair.

Towards the end it really started to annoy me. Naturally curly hair is not supposed to be washed a lot, especially if it’s long, because it dries out and mine tends to run dry already with all the time spent running outdoors. But it has to be washed after a long run with sweat and sun lotion. So scheduling a my hair washing schedule around half marathon training was not fun. Plus it takes forever to air dry – hours. I also got tired of it constantly getting snagged in everything from buttons on my clothing, purse straps, seat belts, etc. It took forever to style applying tons of gel and other hair products too. Worst of all was it was getting too long to put in buns and even high ponytails, the weight gave me headaches especially during long runs. My hair was becoming too much of a thing and that’s what having very long, thick, naturally curly hair is like for me.

So yesterday I had a lot chopped off at a new stylist and overall it was a pleasant experience – thankfully! I took in a picture from my favorite hair style back from our wedding and she seemed to nail it with natural looking highlights and nicely even long layers – whew!

It feels so much lighter and looks better with more body, I’m thrilled and plan to keep it at this length now that I’ve worked going to a good stylist back into my budget.