I've drooled Mamacat's hairsticks for ages at Ebay and was so happy that she gave this last chance of custom ordering them. It seems like I'm not the only one though- poor mamacat must be drowned in orders by now! Yet, she has managed to provide very prompt and friendly service. 

I've found good looking aprons online (also more beautiful than neither of my aprons) - Mennonite Maidens sells a nice garden apron, and Plainly Dressed's prairie apron looks also about as perfect as they come. I've just got this mental barrier- hairtoys are one thing, but the idea of having to order one's aprons from the other side of the world still sounds a bit too weird. But, maybe I'll do it in one of these days anyway.

We saw the house today. It was in bad shape as we predicted- but otherwise very close perfectness. It's a tough decision, are we or are we not seriously interested. Besides the price, that house would take a lot of work and extra money for repairs. But still... *sigh*

I've toyed with the idea of hiring a seamstress- but, it seems that it's much cheaper to order an apron from overseas, as ridiculous as that may sound. Having a seamstress to do minor repairs to clothes isn't too expensive, but having a seamstress to make even simple clothes is! Especially since I've used to spend more in hairtoys than clothes. I'm really looking forward to getting a sewing machine and learning to sew (though I sucked in handicraft at school...). Before that, though, I'm fairly sure that I'll end up ordering an apron or two online.

Today was a happy hair day. In the morning, when I took my night braid down, I noticed that my hair is tickling my back. Not my shoulders, but well down my back!  It doesn't feel long yet, but it's definitely on its way towards it. Me likes! Up it went again for the day (french twist for a change), but even knowing that my hair is definitely growing made me feel all fuzzy and happy for the whole day (which was definitely something since I had a meeting today. A side note: I HATE being a chairman in meetings. Almost as much as I hate leading people. Which makes me an ideal leader according to Plato. Arrgh.)
It seems to hover less than two inches above my upper BS. Not many months until my hair is longest it has ever been. Soon I can start counting the days. And clean the house so it's ready for arrival of my long hair.

Lisabelle's beautiful avatar reminded me of that I haven't done a French tuck for a long time. I didn't have difficulties making it, but just didn't manage to make it secure enough. But, now I realized that since my last try, I've switched to Amish hairpins. It worked!
  I really like the look, must do this more often now that I have means to make it last.

That's the problem. We could probably do some minor repairs by ourselves, and the house is big so we wouldn't need to have every room in our use...BUT it's already clear that there is need to do some big repairs too (like insulating attic floor, getting more sewage and pipes, adding electricity, making big repairs to sauna, bathroom and kitchen) and many of these repairs would have to be done before we could move in.  We don't even know yet, what exactly should be done- we just know that it would need A LOT of repairing. So, T to whom I left the decision as he is better in calculating stuff than I am, is just trying to decide, whether the house is worth of all the work that we should do simply in order to determine, whether or not we should even consider buying it. It's very complicated. For my part, I know that whichever way he decides, my feelings will be mixed: in case he chooses that we should not bother, I feel sad because in spite of everything it is in many ways the nicest house we have seen so far. If he thinks that we should take a closer look, I'll be just terrified about the massive amount of work that is ahead of us. 

French tuck worked well- and it was sooo pretty. But the hair decided to be just weird. It felt quite clean in the morning, but by the evening, it was gunky, looked like a grease pit and I sensed faint, yucky tinge of sebum smell. Off to wash. To crown it all, yesterday turned up to be the worst shedding day for a long time- I wonder, whether a 100 hairs were enough. But, for once I remembered to examine the hair, and it seemed to be 100% shed hair, no breakage at all. That's something... I washed the hair with Lavender Spice, added Honey Butter soap to the ends and finally did improved ACV rinse.
   The hair is clean again, but scalp is STILL a bit gunky. It's so weird! I can only wonder, what's going on. My whole skin is behaving weirdly too, though. Maybe it will pass. I hope so. But, I guess I better forget the twice a week washing schedule for now. I don't think that harboring the gunk will do any good.
   I hope today'll be a little better. No chance of me wearing a French tuck-hair too clean. But I suppose that a nice pair of hairsticks can improve my happiness just as well.

In my family, I and T discuss of most decisions and then decide together. I usually get to decide more "everyday" things, and my responsibility are also big value and lifestyle questions. T gets to make big practical decisions. But, in every large question, we discuss anyway a lot, and neither of us would ever make a decision that the other would oppose. Seems to work...

This time, T decided after days of thinking, that it's best if we ignore that house, at least for time being. We agreed that in future we should look more for houses that need repairing- it might well be that our dream home is there instead of among completely modernized and shiney houses we've been mostly looking for so far.
I lament just a bit the nice kitchen and garden, but believe that T is  right in judging that the money and work required could well end up being too much for us.

Then to hair. Hair has been nicer today- the amount of gunk hasn't increased as I feared, and to balance the huge shedding, I've shed just a couple of hairs today. Nice! I remembered to put my hair in a low bun for change, with Lacerta Holostix.
   I met my mother for lunch, and she complimented both my hair and hairsticks.  So, this was again a bit better hair day. I hope this will continue.

Oh, and a new accessory shop has been opened in Helsinki. I checked it out, and it had some pretty (but cheap and rather low quality) hairtoys. Unfortunately, they were priced a bit too high for being rather low quality. Neverthless, any addition in hairtoy selections is good- one can always hope that more people would be inspired to grow their hair long.

Yes it is! My mother likes my buns, though she for some reason has a need to always spice her compliment with age-related comment -yesterday it was just "in your age" added to the compliment. Can you tell that one day, she's going to have a surprise?

If my hair wasn't long, today could well be a bad hair day. I can't quite describe it, but both hair and scalp feel somehow strange. I hope that if I just leave it alone for the day, I won't have to wash it in the evening...but we'll see. At least, it still looks nice when bunned with pretty hairsticks (Asian Moon). Speaking of hairsticks, I've forgotten to mention that I ordered two pairs of pretty LL hairsticks again. I'm hoping they still make it to this week's international shipment.

I bought Asian Moon pair because I thought that it would be nice to have a simple pair with beads for my minimalist seasons. I didn't anticipate that Asian Moon would become one of my favorite pairs! The beads match just perfectly with my haircolor and look stunning. I'm so happy that I got the pair- it was literally last minute order, as she had already sold the last pair, and had to hunt the beads to make my "extra" pair.

My hair went worse towards the evening yesterday, and I decided that I need to do something. Besides washing with Lavender Spice shampoo, I made Snowy's Deep Moisture treatment. I used my XZ intensive conditioner to it. I also went to sauna with the treatment. After rinsing I finished with ACV rinse, and my hair felt immediately very nice. I read that the treatment balances scalp- I hope so!
   Now that it has dried, the hair still looks and feels nice. Gunk is gone *knocks the wood*, hair is super shiney and soft. I think I made the right move. This treatment's a keeper! I'm going to follow with oil treatment next week or so.

Both my winter bonnet and LL order have been shipped! Christian Covering's email notification mentioned Jesus at least three times (which is quite an achievement given that it was just a shipping notification)- but, I suppose that conservative Christians are like that. In any case, I have nothing but good to say about their service so far- reasonable prices, and they completed my order much faster than they promised on site. 

Innovation: I found out how to insert Amish pins into a French tuck so that the style lasts all day! Yay! I'm happy to add French tuck to my everyday styles, and to enjoy it as long as my hair remains short enough to be tucked under the braid. 

Scalp situation: Hair was getting dirty yesterday, so I decided to wash it, with Rosemary Lavender Aloe. Before braiding for night, I also added some amlika leave-in conditioner. Hopefully rosemary and lavender soothed my scalp a bit...Today, hair is clean and scalp feels ok. Hair has spent the day in a cinnabun with Silver Sphere SpiralStix. It's a long time since I've worn that pair, and it feels almost new!

Other: I have a mild flu, hopefully it won't get worse. The weather has turned such that it's impossible to dress right: mornings are already cold, but in the afternoon it's still warm. I plan to spend rest of the week as much studying and working from home as possible.

Waiting: Mamacat hairsticks, winter bonnet and two pairs of Longlocks sticks. There seems to be some problems with De Renauding group order- if it won't work out, I'll have to order a horn comb from somewhere else. Or forget about it and order some hairsticks instead.