Summer Hair-Care Tips
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While this summer may not be quite back to "normal," it does mean we can be outdoors enjoying all the summer season has to offer. Before you head out to the beach, we thought it a good idea to share our best summer hair care tips to ensure you will have the healthiest hair this season!Before summer gets into full swing, place a call to your stylist and make an appointment for a trim. When you trim your hair regularly, you encourage healthy hair to grow. Getting your haircut frequently helps prevent split ends and breakage. First begin your summer hair care routine with a scalp treatment. Healthy hair begins at the scalp. Whether your scalp is dry or oily, A scalp treatment is a great way to prepare your hair for the summer. If you have dry hair, we also suggest adding a mask to your routine. A maskwill add nutrients to your hair to help heal and prevent damage.Can't wait to hit the beach? Don't forget your SPF! Just as you would protect your skin when enjoying a day out in the sun with an SPF, protect your hair from the damaging UVA/UVB rays with a product with SPF for your hair. Itprotects your hair from the sun, as well as chlorine and saltwater. We also recommend wearing a hat. A hat will help protect your skin and hair from the damaging and aging effects of the sun.
Virginia Beach-based hair stylist Dallas Hoegerl recommends keeping a leave-in conditioner in your bag to spray into your hair. She also suggests rinsing your hair in fresh water before diving in. Jumping into the pool with wet hair helps your hair absorb less chlorine. When you rinse your hair post-swim, add the leave-in conditioner which will help keep your hair moisturized. If you are a blonde, wash your hair with a color-safe clarifying shampoo once a week to remove impurities and buildup, which will keep your blonde looking fresh. If you're a blonde with an icy or cool shade, a purple shampoo is a must-have during the pool and beach season. The sun and saltwater will contribute to fading your toner faster; a blue or purple shampoo once or twice a week will help prevent any unwanted yellow or brassy tones. The summer months offer the perfect opportunity to let your hair do its own thing! Enjoy your natural hair and try to use your hot tools as little as possible during the summer. An anti-humidity spray or Our Curl-Enhancing product are perfect for enhancing your natural hair typeIf you have curly hair, hydrating products are your go-to all year long, especially during the warmer months. Our Curl-Enhancing Ritual products are perfect for enhancing your natural curl. After cleansing, follow with a curl-enhancing cream product like our curl butter. These products will bring your curls to life, prevent frizz and unwanted crunchy curls. Add the cream to very damp hair using an old t-shirt instead of a towel to remove excess moisture and let your hair air dry. If you want to achieve more volume, use a diffuser attachment on your blow dryer. Keep your just off the beach look all summer long with a sea salt spray. Sea Salt Sprays are great for any hair type. It will give your hair the effortless, "fresh out of the ocean" textured hair we all love and crave. Spray throughout wet hair and air dry for a natural texture. If you desire more body and volume, spray, comb through, and flat brush dry with your head help upside down to achieve maximum volume + texture.Rinse and repeat these tips for healthy summer-perfect hair all season long!
Passover, Plagues, and Holy Communion
For the first time in recent memory, nearly every nation on the globe will be gathered in their own homes, sheltering from a plague, during PASSOVER. It's Holy Week and I can't go to Church and none of her laypeople are receiving Holy Communion.
I was recently asked to write a post on Passover for an ecumenical Christian Facebook group I admin. I love this group and was excited to write something for them. So far, it's been well received, and I am glad. It is such a great feeling when one can string words together people can connect to. I had to omit a big chunk of who I am in writing for a broad, mixed audience, not for myself. This is normal when you're a writer; I usually leave those pieces and don't need to return to them. This week, I've been really struggling with not being able to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion. It's Holy Week, and I keenly feel Christ's absence. I began to add to this little piece and work through my feelings as part of an Examen prayer, and oddly enough, by turning what was a post for a predominantly protestant audience into a very personal and Catholic one, I am feeling much better. It's as though by writing about Christ in the sacrament of Communion, I grew close to Him again. I didn't have any intention of sharing - this was strictly a personal thing. Still, I've been absent from this blog because of the incredible blessings of my work and the opportunities to serve my community through volunteering; I haven't had time to focus on it. Considering we're all taking a break from our regular lives, it was a good time to return. So here it is, Passover, Plagues, and Holy Communion, just in case someone could use these little words I made sentences out of.
THIS PASSOVER
For the first time in recent memory, nearly every nation globally will be gathered in their own homes, sheltering from a plague, during PASSOVER.
"But for you, the blood will mark the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thereby, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you.This day will be a day of remembrance for you, which your future generations will celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord; you will celebrate it as a statute forever." Exodus 12:13-14
When we receive Holy Communion, we're intimately united with Jesus Christ. He becomes part of us. When we take part in the sacrament of Holy Communion, we express our unity with Christ and our union with Catholics the world over. The last meal Jesus shared with His disciples was a Passover meal, where he specifically asked us to become one in body and spirit with Him. His greatest desire and ultimate sacrifice was to unite His body, blood, soul, and divinity to our own. This Passover, the Jewish people will celebrate God's deliverance of their ancestors from death in Egypt, and we will celebrate God's promise to deliver us from our mortal deaths. Through His sacrifice on the Holy Cross, through His blood, our world will be saved from this plague and any others to come. As we celebrate His defeat over death this Easter, we may forgo our fancy hats and Sunday best, for sweats and slippers as we sit in our homes, and not with our church families. We'll listen to homilies from a responsible, socially distant space. Still, our hearts will never be closer to Him or each other as we unite in prayer for this plague to pass over us all. Remember our unity to Him and one another as we, the faithful body of Christ, ask for His healing over the world.
But Jesus, turning and seeing her, said, "Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well." At once, the woman was made well. Matthew 9:22
God bless you, and we hope you are well.
The Kitchen Is Closed + I stretch those poetic muscles...
The kitchen is where little fires are put out, and big ones can happen. It's where our lives get lived. Where little bits of our mothers get absorbed into ourselves when we're too busy to notice.
The other night, I said something my mother always said when I was growing up. "The kitchen is closed!" It was out of my mouth before I realized I was saying it. The kitchen is always such a big part of a home. It's where you gather around to share a meal. In the eleventh grade, you'll sit with your mom on the linoleum, share a pint of ice cream, and talk about a boy who broke your heart. It's where your little sister will choke on a Jolly Rancher one Halloween evening, giving you the chance to test out the Heimlich Maneuver you learned the summer before. It's where a single mom, totally exhausted and overworked, will dance with her children to Fleetwood Mac. It's where, after wiping down the counters and putting the dishes away, at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, she'll turn off the lights and declare to everyone within earshot, "The kitchen is closed!" Which we all understood meant, "Don't mess it up!" It's where she'll rush out one morning, a patient on her mind, and it's where a fire will catch.
Little fires are put out in the kitchen, and big ones can happen. It's where our lives get lived. Where little bits of our mothers get absorbed into ourselves when we're too busy to notice. I'm not concerned I'm turning into my mother. That's not what this is about. She is in me as much as I ever was in her. We don't turn into our mothers after all, but we often take parts of them and make them our own.
My kitchen is always a mess these days. I'll wash up, and not five minutes later, one of the boys will have filled the sink with cups and missing spoons. As much as these little messes annoy me, it's where evidence of our living can be found. Like the messes, we make with flour and chocolate chips when we celebrate our wins or console our losses. Our daughter often brings her blocks into the kitchen and pours them onto the floor. She'll play at her father's feet as he cooks dinner, building towers to the clouds for her unicorns to climb down. His favorite podcast about aliens, space, or Big Foot will play as the sun fades, and I sip a glass of my favorite wine.
Over dinner, we'll discuss the highs and lows of our day. Sometimes, dinner rolls into a meltdown over math homework. It's where the kids will put the groceries or silverware away in all the wrong places. I'll search for a wooden spoon purchased in Greece and wonder how the sugar got in with the Tupperware. On a busy morning when we're all just a little bit grumpy, I'll discover someone (usually me) forgot to run the dishwasher, and we'll eat our toast on paper plates. My husband and I will sit at the kitchen table and discuss our future, break the news to our kids their dad is deploying, or tell them we'll be moving in the middle of the school year.
The kitchen is the first room we'll unpack in a new home and the last one we'll clean before we move out. In the kitchen, we'll shake our heads at our teenagers and laugh at a joke. It's where dreams are told and plans are made. It's where we'll wonder if we're doing this parenting thing all wrong and realize we survived our mothers' kitchens, and our kids will too.
In years to come, we'll see where they've made the bits of our kitchen their own. It is where I'll think about writing, and ideas will emerge over sudsy water. I'll run to write these words, remembering when I used to write poetry so much more often than the random haikus that have shown up here.
In the kitchen, I decided I wanted to begin exercising my poetic muscles again. And so here I am. Though I fear my muscles have atrophied, I'm flexing them here just the same because this is a reflection of a kitchen, and it is mine.
The Kitchen
On Saturday mornings the kitchen is always open. You make the eggs, I pour the coffee. "Use the small mug." you say "You never finish." I plant a kiss on your cheek, you love me despite my discarded, half-drunk, big mugs of coffee. On Saturday nights at half-past ten, after we've wiped down the counters, and put away the dinner dishes, I'll holler at the kids, "The kitchen is closed!" Just like my mom used to do. We'll go to bed, snuggled in between is a daughter turned-furnace. The floorboards in the hall creek two sons are on a recon mission for a lucky charm. One grabs the bowls, the other pours the milk. We don't say a word drowsy smiles on our faces. You take my hand in yours because in a house like ours the kitchen is where the love gets poured.
NaNoWriMo Week One Update
The first week was a real challenge for me.
Writing is hard and it’s a solitary experience but my soul has felt so much more peaceful these last few days. Writing is a balm for me, it brings me immense joy, why I ever stopped or put things ahead of it makes no sense to me.
I’m not as far along as I’d like to be with respect to #nanowrimo, but I’m so pleased with what I’ve written I’m happy.
Yesterday I sat and wrote for a bit and had a lovely view. You can check my Instagram post or read about it briefly in this video.
Here's a brief look at how my week went...
NaNoWriMo 2018 Let's Do this!
NaNoWriMo is a race to write 50,000 words in a single month - November and I haven't attempted it since 2013. The last time I completed National Novel Writing Month was in 2011 and 2012. I hope to reach the goal this year. I have a lot of stuff that will be fighting for my attention but I'm determined to achieve this goal.
Here's a little more about my thoughts on NaNoWriMo. I'll be vlogging my way through the month and post weekly updates on my progress on my YouTube channel and on my Instagram.
Picking At My Creative Scab - Is this Writer's Block?
Aria of Words
I have an ariamade up of wordslike cells replicating within me.My hands at the ready,fingers tapping against the keys,searching for the stringof perfect words, nouns, phrases,to make up a sentencethat says it all.My own perfect concertoflaton to a blank page.