I got my present, Juri!  Thank you so much, I really liked it!   

Try to imagine one of the scariest hairtoys ever.  Start with an elastic band and fasten it in the center with a metal band so it looks like a figure 8 with a metal thing in the middle.

Then take 3 of those big beads and thread them on fishing line.

Now loop the ends of the fishing line around the top and bottom loops of the figure 8 and fasten them with metal clips.

Shudder.  Those things would rip out your hair in 10 different ways.  The beads were cool, though.   

hello there   just wanted to drop you a little note 

Merry Christmas for you and your family and a very Happy New Year 

Welcome back juri! We sure missed you.

I hope you enjoyed your trip. and waiting to hear about it.

Thanks, Beesan and Lisabelle! I missed you all too!

Well, what can I say about my trip...it was hard work! My job there was to help my aunty K and cousin B with the gift baskets the flower shop sells. It was kind of crazy how many goodie and fruit baskets we made during the week. Saturday thu Monday weren't that busy, (but I still put in about 7-9 hours on Saturday and Monday). However, Tuesday - Friday were kind of nuts. I'm not sure how many baskets we made during those days, but things seemed a lot busier. Wednesday and Thursday were crazy because I would start work around 7:50am, work until 6:30pm, eat dinner and take a shower at my cousin L's house, L and I would go back to my aunt's house an hour later and work for a couple more hours. Man, I was tired when I came back from Maui.

Anyway, I gathered the goodies to put inside the baskets, put the paper shreds/filler on the bottom of the baskets, restocked items, helped deliver baskets to the flower shop, and did various errands that related to the baskets. There were a couple of times when we were low on fruit and so B and I would have to make a trip to the market to buy more fruit or go down to the produce distributor to get the larger boxes of fruit my aunt had ordered. There was a funny experience on Friday when B and I were taking baskets to the shop. We were arranging the baskets on a table when an elderly woman asked my uncle who made the baskets. He replied his wife, daughter, and his niece (me). Then she said, "Oh, how precious." I thought that was rather amusing. I hope she bought one...or several.

But I did get to do some fun things. Last week Sunday I got to see my aunt and uncle perform in their church chior. And the same day my cousins L and B, and myself, went to the mall for a couple of hours. We were really surprised because we thought we would have to make baskets (we only worked a couple of hours that day). Oh, and on Tuesday I went to Borders with L because she's in the church's hand bell group and they were going to perform there. I had never seen a bell performance in person so I thought it was rather neat. She said the group was rather small and she wasn't kidding--there's only six people in the group!

There's more I wanted to say about my "trip", but I can't remember what. Ack. Well, all in all, I had a good time and might go back to help for Mother's Day.

Oh, my mom's BF is going to fix something on the computer, so don't mind me if I don't show up again for a few days.

Thanks, BB! Happy New Year to you! 

As for the elderly woman, I guess she was impressed. Perhaps even more so when she asked, "Were they (the baskets) just made?" and my cousin B said yes.

And the hand bells, since L's choir shrank a whole lot since she first joined, her situation sounds almost like yours. Before they each only had to play one or two bells, but then they had to learn how to play multiple bells and they don't practice a whole lot (if one person can't come, practice is called off). L told me that sometimes they go three months without practice and then suddenly have a lot of them. Actually, she kind of wants to quit the choir, but then they'd only have five members and I guess the group would have to temporarily disband.


Hair
Man, it's been a while since I talked about that. Well, this month has been full of hair surprises...and some annoyances.

-Much to my surprise, my hair has grown an inch this month! I ran out of biotin in November so I didn't expect such fast growth. However, I've been doing near daily scalp massages so perhaps that accounts for the extra half inch.  ???

-As silly as it sounds, I can wrap my hair once around my neck. I don't know why I find that interesting, but I do.

-I did a Dutch classic on Sunday and was shocked at how large the bun portion got compared to when I first did one in September. I measured the bun and the sucker was 13" in circumference.

-Drier air means my scalp is a bit flakier. Ewwwww!

-I can't seem to make comfortable buns using hairsticks, but claw clips are a good substitution.

-While my braid is getting longer, I still have to figure out how to get rid of the loose portion of hair at the start of the bun. I try to use equal tension on the right and left locks of hair, but for some reason one side is loose while the other looks okay. 


Gift baskets
I finally remembered what I wanted to say about gift baskets!

-The shredded paper that lines the basket costs $38 for one box! I was shocked when my aunty told me that. I wouldn't have thought that shredded paper can cost so much.

-If you want a basket for a major holiday, it's better to order one/buy it a few days in advance. Towards the end of the week we were running out of some items and had to use substitutions. For example, while the baskets still contained X amount of goodies, sometimes we had to use three different cookies with two repeats instead of five completely different cookies. (I know this opinion was taken from only one experience, but I'm sure other gift basket makers have the same problem)

-Fruit baskets are really popular.

-Shop around for gift baskets. I was looking at some web sites for Oahu florists, and their baskets start at $50 while my relatives' baskets start at $25. Of course, the $50 baskets would have more things than the $25 one, but IMO $50 is a rather high starting price.

Shameless plug for my relatives' shop: If you're ever in the Kahului area on the island of Maui, and need flowers or gift baskets, please stop by Kahului Florist at the Maui Mall!  They also carry cute beaded bracelets, cell phone charms, and decorated notebooks that are made by my aunty and cousins.

Went to a New Years' party tonight/yesterday (depending when this is read) and I even though I came home a couple of hours ago, I still feel like I ate to much. 

I think I might have reached a hair milestone of sorts: tonight was the first time I broke a claw clip so badly that I had to throw it away. I had put my hair in a bun for the party and when I was lightly pinching the smallish claw clip to make sure it was securely attatched to my bun, I heard a snap. I took out the clip and discovered that I had broken all three prongs on one side! It was even more embarrassing when I had to take down my bun and shake out my hair because I couldn't find the prongs just by feeling around for them. Yeesh. I wonder if anyone makes claw clips out of steel or titanium...

I'm sorry that your clip got broken.  I completely forgot how to say "power hair" in Japanese.  (It was a vocabulary term from the Kabuki theater chapter in my Intro to Japanese Culture course.)  It looks like your hair is on track to that! =P

This is really overdue, but I finally have a pic of the wonderful gift I got from my secret santa, aka 13bodies.

So there's the three sets of hairsticks, vial of broccoli seed oil, loads of BPAL imps, two origami cranes, and oodles of paper stars. It's hard to see, but the imps are Blood, Umbra, Nefertiti, Whip, Iambe, Black Rose, Shanghai, Snake Oil, Hetairae, and Elegba. I haven't tried  them all yet, but man, they smell good!


And I thought I'd post an example of the lovely gift baskets my relatives sell in their flower shop. This is a lauhala basket, and although I had wanted a $35 one, she put in extra things things so I *think* it would retail for about $40 (not pictured is a bag of Maui potato chips).  Normally there's a large, fluffy bow, but since I had to pack it into a suitcase, my aunty just made a flat one. Still, it's very nice. It looks kind of small in the photo, but in RL it measures 13" x 9".