5 Things I Did This Week: February 26 to March 3

1. Take a spin at the "healthy" thing.
I decided that for the month of March (with the exception of St. Patrick's Day and a work event) I am going to be healthy. I've never really done it before--even when I was training for the marathon, I still ate whatever I wanted--but I'm curious to see what kind of affect it might have on how I feel. The rules of my made up health plan are these:

• No alcohol
  With the afore mentioned exceptions, I'm sorry but a girl's gotta have a life!
• No refined sugars
• No bad carbs
• No excessively fatty foods
  For me, this is really targeted at the 1/2 cup of half-n-half I use in my coffee each morning...
• Limited red meat
  More focus on fish and chicken, but I would never cut red meat right out--I'M A ROWETON FOR GOD'S SAKE.
• Daily exercise
  To varying degrees of difficultly, but daily all the same.

As I was looking around for meal plan ideas, I found this Mediterranean Diet that's along the lines of what I'm going for. Except that diet allows for 1 glass of red wine a day, which I'm still trying to avoid. I guess all in all, this is a pretty standard list of healthier living habits, but the idea is to go all in for March. So, we'll see how it goes!


2. Draw the 3911 Cannon Court embroidery.
Mom recently did the coolest embroidery of the Roweton Ranch. So, since I'm looking to leave Cannon Court soon, we thought it would be fitting to do one of my house as well! Here's what we've gotten so far...

3. Try out an ascot.
What better way to try out a quirky little ascot than with a leather skirt and monochrome outfit, that's what I always say. Now that I've done the ascot for the first time...I think I like it! There might be more in my future...that's for sure!

4. Watch the Oscars.
The only way to watch the Academy Awards is with the wonderful, knowledgeable Sue Roweton. In addition to adorable decor, Oscar bingo and ballets, she also know almost everything about every Academy Award winner, nominee and random person in the background of a shot. It's entertaining to say the least! If you want to check out my review of the Oscar Best Picture nominees, click here.

5. Visit Dad at the Sale Barn.
This was a random idea my mom had, which usually turn out to be really great. And this one was no exception! It was interesting and smelly and that's all I have to say about that.

2018 Oscar Best Picture Nominee Reviews

I'll be watching the 2018 Academy Awards at home with mom (only right after our annual Oscarfest) this year and am excited to how all these movies fare. There were some really good ones and some eh ones, but ultimately one of the most diverse years we've had in a while. Want more of my opinions?? Keep reading...

Call Me By Your Name ★★★★★

If I can't spend at least one summer of my life in a county home in Italy then I'm going to be pissed. The movie is beautifully and nostalgically (can you experience nostalgia if you didn’t live through it?) set in 1980s Italy and I’m in love with it. Albeit, there were some parts of this movie that made me highly uncomfortable, it’s still my favorite and I hope it can take home the little gold guy.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ★★★★

I actually liked this one a lot more than I thought I would…like even when the movie was over, I was still kind of stunned that I liked it. The characters are really rough, but in an enjoyable way. And while it’s disappointing to see another terrible portrayal of Missouri (i.e. Ozarks and Winter’s Bone), at least no one is an admitted or implied meth addict.

Lady Bird ★★★★

On the other hand, I thought I would like Lady Bird a lot more than I did. It is a great story of a rocky mother-daughter relationship with a side of preadolescent angsty struggles. I guess I can’t quite pinpoint what didn’t do it for me…but something didn’t?

The Post ★★★★

It’s another pretty straightforward story of investigative journalism, this time about the Pentagon Papers. Of course, it was well-told and dramatic as hell, but maybe a little too dramatic when told between viewings of war movies and fish sex…

The Shape of Water ★★★★

Speaking of fish sex. I really did enjoy this movie. It was interesting and the vintage vibes were great, but it just didn’t have the feel of a favorite to me. I liked the characters a lot too as they unfold around the unlikely coupling of woman and fantastical, sea creature. Oh, it’s weird alright…but it’s good.

Darkest Hour ★★★

This movie actually really helped me to understand British culture better: stoic, stubborn and loyal…did I get that right? I enjoyed getting more of insight into early-Prime-Ministership Churchill, since a lot of what I’ve seen recently is from The Crown. All in all, it was definitely worth the watch, but nothing to write home about.

Get Out ★★★

Woah. No one can actually give you an accurate teaser for this movie. “It’s like a horror comedy about racism,” is what I picked up on before watching it. I’m gonna go with “satirical thriller with a backwards take on racism?” I don’t know—I said it couldn’t be done. Anyway I was eh about it, but I liked the creative concept of the plot

Dunkirk ★★

A most disappointing war story if you ask me. I didn’t know anything about Dunkirk before I pressed play on this sucker, and maybe that was the issue, but the telling was terribly confusing. If you haven’t seen any of these yet, my suggestion would be to see Darkest Hour first…just so you’re seeing these two overlapping movies in chronological order of events.

Phantom Thread ★

No. I did not enjoy this at all. It was long and slow and strange and unclear. Just no.

5 Things I Did This Week: February 19 to 25

1. Try a new St. Louis restaurant.
Usually when we go out for Sunday breakfast, Nana and Bob get to pick. But this time...I DID! I chose one of the few breakfast places on my St. Louis Restaurants List: Yolklore. Bob said that he and his friends had talked about it and they knew it was a trendy place for young, hip kids because the menu prices were all in single digits. I didn't even realize that was a stereotype! Anyway, the food was pretty good, but I'm not falling over myself to go back.

On our day apartment hunting, we also found ourselves in Maplewood driving by Reeds American Table. This one has been on my list for a while and I definitely wasn't disappointed! We sat at the bar and watched the bartenders whip up breakfast cocktails and make our cappuccinos. Aaron thought the menu was a bit too trendy, but I loved my Gouda/prosciutto/fried egg/croissant breakfast sandwich. I'll probably never get him to go back, but next time, I'm taking a gal pal and getting one of those delicious looking cocktails!

Bonus! Aaron introduced ME to a new restaurant. He tends to stick with what we know (Imo's, Wasabi...more Wasabi), but this time he was determined to take me to a "burger joint" off of Manchester called Carl's Drive-in. When we finally found the place, it was worth the wait! Greasy, skinny burgers with root beer floats on bright red bar seats with snarky waitresses. Exactly what you'd imagine of a "burger joint."

2. Put my pro/con skills to use. 
The main intent of this St. Louis trip was to find a new dwelling. Aaron's lease is up on March 31 and now that I'm making move, he needs some digs that are a bit more woman-friendly. So, we toured a couple of rental options, including two that my company owns: The Residences at Forest Park Hotel and The Lofts at Lafayette Square. Perhaps you remember them from my rebrand a couple weeks ago? Anyway, the two Fairway Management properties (that's one of the JES Holdings' companies) were leaps and bounds above the other places we toured and soon we had it narrowed down to one unit in each of the two buildings. Thus...a pro/cons list was inevitable.

3. Just lounge and be lazy.
Sometimes, I go a whole week without wearing anything interesting or challenging at all. So, for this week, I thought I might post a little insight into my favorite jammy situation, AKA: what I wear anytime I'm not at work on a week day...pretty much my at-home uniform: old (but very soft) recruitment shirts, thermal fitted pants (wide-bottom pants are the worst for sleeping in) and slippers.

4. Visit the Science Center.
In retrospect, Saturdays are not an ideal day to visit free museums...but it was a great way to kill time between apartment tours on a rainy day in February. Aaron had never been before and we enjoyed ourselves as we wandered through exhibits in geology, biology, paleontology, astrology and...architecture (wow, that one really threw off my groove).

5. Enjoy accidental fresh flowers.
These are leftover from last week when I was so disorganized and distracted that I failed to communicate with my co-baby-shower-planner and accidentally bought flowers, even though I had assigned that task to my co-baby-shower-planner. Sometimes I really piss myself off. Anyway, they made for a nice little brightening to my weekdays...especially since my TV is not longer bright...in that it's broken. UGH. I don't want to talk about it.

#picturegameweak #weakweek

5 Things I Did This Week: February 11 to 17

1. End a comfy day with comfort food.
After a long day of cookoff'ing (and a missed Valentine's day), Aaron and I decided to do a comforting home-cooked meal for dinner. We spent the day watching movies (literally, three movies) and finished our last one while enjoying our favorite chicken-fried pork chop recipe with snow peas and smashed potatoes. Not to mention a side of brownies...of course.

2. Build a Jumanji chili booth.
The annual Rootin' Tootin' Chili Cookoff was this weekend, which means many, many hours of my week went into building/painting/bossing people around on our booth. This year's theme was Jumanji (the 1995 version, of course) and we had an abstract layout of the jungle breaking out into a simple suburban home...completed with a Jumanji board floor. We placed 2nd in Best Booth, but I still feel particularly proud of design. It took a lot of work and GOD I hope it's the last one I have to do.

3. Pull off a beard.
Well, I certainly never thought I'd have that on a to-do done list. But, it's true. I have a firm belief that if you're going to dress-up, you have to go all out. So, when the chips fell and an Alan Parrish was still needed for chili booth...I took up the torch and found the perfect color beard on Amazon. With a little colored-hair spray and a helluva lot of a teasing, my hair complimented the beard well...the rest, was an easy craft job.

4. Throw a baby (goat) shower.
Long story short, Blair was obsessed with baby goats when she was a little girl. So, when the time came to throw her a little office baby shower, it only seemed right that the event be focused around a common theme of our mocking here: baby goats. The idea was good in theory, but there are NOT a lot of options for baby goat decor...besides the invite, we had tiny, colored goat figurines and baby goat cupcakes, but I think we pulled it off.

5. Raise money for a good cause.
All this booth work and fundraising is for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Columbia. The Chili Cookoff raised over $110,000 this year and JES Holdings is proud to be among the top contributors!

Oscarfest 2018

Another year, another Oscarfest. Since we went to St. Louis last year, mom and I decided it was time to give Kansas City a turn. We left from Columbia on Friday and took our time cruisin' down I70. Unlike our normally planned meals, we even did dinner by the seat of pants, which result in our discovering a very cool brewery/winery outside of Kansas City called Arcadia Moon. Once we arrived in the River Market, we stopped by Farmhouse for a drink before calling it a night!

Our 'fest truly began on Saturday though. We woke up with a little Quay Coffee--a favorite of ours in walking distance from KC Loft Space*. After we were ready, we realized we had some time to kill before our first movie, so we stopped by the Nelson-Atkins Museum for a bit.

For lunch, we went to Char Bar in Westport. We ordered and kindly told our waiter we were on a movie-mission and might be eating a little quickly. The food was delicious--we shared a pulled pork sandwich, fried pickles and a blue cheese wedge salad. As he checked on us and brought the food, our waiter made polite inquiries about what movie we were seeing, how many Oscar movies we had seen, had we heard about the Movie Pass? Finally, as he arrive at our table with the check, he offered to let us pop over the Tivoli with his Movie Pass and use his movie for the day. Delighted, I left mom at the table as collateral and scooted down the street to buy the tickets!

At the Tivoli, we saw "Call Me By Your Name," and proceed across the street to Beer Kitchen, where we cashed our tickets in for free beers! And some tasty pretzels. We headed back to the River Market then and rested/read before our next movie. We took the streetcar to Alamo Drafthouse and settled into our big, comfy recliners for dinner, drinks and our viewing of "The Post." After the movie, we set-up shop at Brown & Loe for a couple of beers.

On Sunday, we got up early and went to the infamous and Instagrammable Made in KC coffee shop. It was actually not as cute in person as it is in Instagram. But the coffee was good and we made good time to hit our next movie for the 10:00 a.m. showing of "Phantom Thread." If you've seen "Phantom Thread," you will understand why it is not likely that I was craving a mushroom omelet...but alas, I was. So, after the movie, we brunched a placed called the Big Biscuit and had my mushroom (and veggie and bacon) omelet.

Finally, we wrapped up our Oscarfest with "The Shape of Water," at this cool retro theater called Screenland. While we waited for the movie to start, we embarked in some of the arcade games they had. I'll tell you this much: Mom kicked my ass at Galactica.

We stopped by Texas Roadhouse (of course) on our way and learned quiiiite a bit about the Olympic Biathlon that was playing while we ate. By the end of Sunday evening, we realized what an excellent job we had done of balancing movies, beer, food, resting and chitchatting...the makings of a perfect weekend :)


*KC Loft Space is an apartment community that belongs to my company and, luckily, has a guest loft they rent out to residents and employees.

#showmeyourtetons

Since, Elizabeth moved to Jackson, Wyoming in 2015, she has been subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) hinting that we might want to come visit her. Finally, in 2017, Abbie and I committed to the adventure and booked our flights into the small, but very welcoming and stylized Jackson Hole airport. I landed on Thursday around noon and was greeted, not only by my dear friend Liz (friends in Jackson Hole call her Liz), but an adorable little mimosa offered by the airport staff...I think I'm gonna like it here!

Liz took me to lunch at one of, what I soon discovered would be many, Thai food restaurants in town. I got a delicious little veggie stir fry dish and sampled her green curry meal, as well. Liz had to pop back to work before we picked up Abbie that evening, so I took the opportunity to roam around the quaint and very manageable downtown. I popped into a couple of cute, local shops and admired crafty cards, Indian American inspired jewelry and everything cowboy. I looped around the little park/ice skating rink in the middle of town, which is corned by these very cool antler arches. 

Photo is from later in the week, but I didn't have any other great ones from the downtown area.

While roaming, we received news that Abbie's delayed flight from Bentonville caused her to miss her Denver layover flight. So she wouldn't be getting in until later that night. Liz and I headed back to the house she is house-sitting this winter--a 60s style, wood-paneled, cabin-esque place with the greatest view of the Grand Tetons!

Then we headed out to meet Liz's friend at a win bar called Bin 22. We bought a bottle of red wine and made a new friend who later joined us at a local broomball game. Finally, we picked up Abbie at the airport and came back to the house to rest up. By "rest up," I mean that Liz and I both passed out by the cozy little stove and Ab shuffled off to bed.

The next morning, we took our time waking up and were greeted to windows blurred with snow flurries. At about 1:00 p.m., we headed out to rent skinny (cross country) skis at a little place downtown called The Skinny Ski and made our way into the Grand Tetons National Park to hit up a cross country ski trail. Liz showed us the ropes and after a bit of practice, we were scootin' right along. After about a 1.5 miles, we decided to head back...but not before attempting a slope. It turned out to be an adventure...but ultimately a horrible idea :)

It was on this adventure that we discovered our trip hashtag: #showmeyourtetons. Liz explained that "grand tetons" translates to "large nipples," named by the French explorer who discovered them. The #showme... has always been a theme for our annual girl's trips, and in this particular instance...it just happened to work out particularly well :)

Straight from cross country skiing, we headed out the "hot springs." I'm not sure what I thought "hot springs" would be...but they were a surprise. Firstly, they stink like sulfur (should've seen that coming) and, secondly, the "hot" part is hit or miss. However, Liz's friends were there and some of their friends' friends, who were highly entertaining. It was a great experience--though, I'm not exactly dyyyying to do it again :)

On Friday night we had the most amazing girls night, complete with elaborate taco bar and game night. Liz has the sweetest friends in Jackson Hole and we quickly bonded over What Do You Meme? We finally went to sleep--another late night--and slept soundly until the next lazy morning when the only thing that finally stirred us was the required ski return time at 10:00 a.m. Liz and I went into town to return the skis and I treated myself to a Cowboy Coffee cappuccino.

After picking up Ab, we dressed in our warm gear and headed back into town. On the way, we encountered a traffic jam, the result of some bighorn sheep on the Elk Reserve.

Our next activity for the day was snow tubing :) It was a totally touristy thing to do, but Liz was a great sport about it and we had the best time: spinning down in a group of three, learning the best strategies to win when racing and carefully determining the best photo/video ops.  

After tubing, we took a horse-led wagon tour of the National Elk Reserve. It was pretty amazing how close we could get to the elk (apparently they think the wagon is some of kind of large, friendly creature that may be bearing food). The tour guide had all kinds of elk trivia and Liz even knew a couple of follow-up facts.

We returned home and cleaned up a bit in preparation for our night out. In Jackson Hole, a true night out starts at the local hockey rink. It was essentially like a Friday-night, high school football game--everyone there to socialize because everyone in town was there. The rest of the night was, unfortunately, not photographed...I don't know why...but we hit up the two, go-to bars in town: The Silver Dollar and the Cowboy Bar. They were a HOOT. Especially the Cowboy Bar, which has the most tacky, cowboy-style decor, a local cover band and expert dance partners, a DIY breathalyzer (that we determined to be broken) and a lot of that local beer I bragged about earlier. 

On Sunday, Liz took Abbie to the airport early and I slept in (erhm...fought a hangover). After church, Liz came back to pick me up and we went to the National Museum of Wildlife Art. We had lunch at a little cafe there and then explored all of the exhibits we could fit into our time before my flight that evening. It was an amazing museum, and I would highly recommend it to any future visitors!

Jackson Hole was just the most amazing experience. What I'm most excited about is coming back in the summer, because that is the #1 thing everyone said: come back in the summer! And I can tell, it's definitely worth the return trip!

5 Things I Did This Week: January 29 to February 4

1. Try a local, Jackson Hole brew.
For the better part of this week, I was venturing around in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I am so excited to visit my dear friend Elizabeth and catch up with Abbie. A trip to a new city isn't complete unless you indulge in at least one local beer. In Jackson Hole, I managed to try an IPA from each of the three major, local breweries. I would give you a review of these brews, but as Aaron pointed out over the phone, "I don't think you've ever met a beer you didn't like."

Snake River Brewing   |   Roadhouse Brewing Co.  |  Melvin Brewing

2. Rebrand our St. Louis Amenity Sheets.
We have two, market rate* communities in St. Louis: The Lofts at Lafayette Square (in Lafayette Square) and The Residences at Forest Park Hotel (in the Central West End). Both are amazingly beautiful buildings and their's is among some of our more fun branding endeavors. We recently did a website rebrand for the two communities, so a print material rebrand was naturally next on the list. Do these "Amenity Sheets" make you want to move-in immediately, or what?

The Lofts at Lafayette Square

The Residences at Forest Park Hotel

3. Can you say, Snow Bunny?
Well, I didn't say it was the cutest snow bunny you'd ever seen...

4. Finish the Guestroom.
My pre-vacation project was to finish the guestroom. Since the walls are already painted, this meant that I would "fine-tune" some of the details of the room: paint the trim and window/door frames, paint the inside of the closet, replace the outlets, replace the air vent and paint the air ducts. Although this doesn't seem like a very big big undertaking...it freaking is. I promise you. Since I was going out of town Wednesday night, the magic had to happen in the three days I had time after work. But, it happen it did!

5. Tour the Grand Teton National Park.
On our first full day in Wyoming, we went Cross Country Skiing. Elizabeth used to give park tours via XC Ski Trips, so she taught us the skiing techniques and knew the best routes to go on. Our little trail traveled right alongside the Grand Teton mountain range and it was breathtaking. Most importantly, we learned that the Grand Tetons were named by a French explorer, translating to "Large Nipple." So, that was amazing.

For the full Jackson Hole tour, click here!

5 Things I Did This Week: January 22 to 28

1. Improve the daily juice.

In the last month's of Roweton's Home Center, I was lucky enough to procure a juicer. I've learned a lot in the two months of my juicer owners:

• It takes a LOT of fruits and veggies to make a juice.
• It's ok to mix fruits and veggies in the same juice.
• Cleaning up juicer equipment is a reeeeeeal bitch.

Anyway, my go-to juice was: 1/2 grapefruit + apple + 1/2 cucumber + 8ish carrots + spinach. But when Aaron came in town, we got a little juice crazy and I think I've made some improvements! This week it was: orange (rind removed) + apple + 1/2 lemon + 8ish carrots + 1/2 cucumber + spinach...and it was delicious! And Aaron agreed, which is the real acheivement.

Hehe, I made it look like a cocktail. Even though it's just a juice...hehe.

2. Share the (cross stitching) love.
After I posted the cute little picture of my dino cross stitch at my desk, a co-worker of mine expressed interest in the project and I offered to teach her how to do it! So, I put together this little Cross Stitching Kit for her! Then, I taught her how to do it over lunch one day. It was super easy to share and the materials didn't even cost that much:

• Hoop: $1.20
• Thread: $2.50
• (2) Needles: $1.50
• Fabric: $0.50*
• Pattern: FREE
• TOTAL: $5.70

*I just cut the fabric out of a large bolt I had, so this is just an estimate?

3. Swap a necklace with a bow.

You might've caught my "sweater hack" on my InstaStory earlier this year. It's a clever little trick where you tie a ribbon bow and pin it to your sweater--a stylish little look I've seen around my mom bloggers lately. This week, I thought I might try it on a non-sweater top in place of a necklace. You know how sometimes you put on a top that needs a longer necklace, but also you can't stand to mix metals and the zipper on your skirt is that weird goldish silver color? Oh, is that just me? Anyway, that's a real life problem I have and a cute little bow makes for a great necklace when the problem presents itself.

4. Paint more things white.

You know I love white house things: trim, walls, doors, fixtures! And while I have transformed most of my very oak-house-things home to white at this point, there are still a couple more projects to makeover. This week, it was the trim in the guestroom and the inside of the front door (and some touch-ups to the stairwell). I have NOT been in a painting mood lately, so I reeeeally had to drag myself through this one. But, it's done now and I can move on to the next painting project...guestroom walls and "the tall wall" perhaps?

5. Write Color a letter.

Last weekend, in The Great Purge of 2018, I discovered a 3-ring binder of colored child's coloring book pages, arranged neatly in page protectors. PAGE PROTECTORS. I'm a psycho. Anyway,  instead of purging the binder (like I most definitely should have), I got the idea that I might write letters on the colored pages and mail them out into the world, well, my friends specifically. This week, I sent out a blue kitty (Abbie), a princess (Lindsey) and, what I am pretty sure is, Puffy the Magic Dragon (Richard). Fair warning, Abbie: I have a LOT of colorful kitties headed your way. 

5 Things I DID This Week: January 15 to 21

I used to do this weekly series called "5 Things to Try This Weekend/Week" (check them out) that I thought I might try to revive? The formula, I believe, was:

1. Food   |   2. Craft   |   3. Style   |   4. Project   |   5. Misc

But you know what would be even better? If I didn't make the list in advance and put all this pressure on myself to definitely do five things even if they don't end up meshing with my week. Instead, I'll give you a recap on 5 Things I DID This Week...

1. Make 4 fabulous, grocery-free meals.I wish I would have taken photos of all of these, but I didn't know I was going to do this until Wednesday, so here we are. The lesson to be learned from this thing is: FREEZING FOOD IS AMAZING. Especially if you're making dinner for one.

• Monday: Creamy Artichoke & Spinach Pasta
  All made with pantry items, frozen spinach and, of course, I do always have cream on hand for coffee purposes, so that was a big part of it. Also, I'm sorry, but can anyone else just eat artichokes from the can? It's probably disgusting, but I love them.
• Tuesday: Chicken + Veggie Stirfry
  Oh, stirfry. You make meals on the fly possible. I just prepared LoMein noodles with a skillet of frozen chicken and veggies, plus a bit of soy sauce and sesame oil.
• Wednesday: Cheesy Spinach Pizza
  Pizza dough mix and sauce are the best weapons to have in your pantry artillery. I always have shredded cheese (although I actually didn't this time and had to grate block cheese) literally any veggie toppings will do.
• Thursday: Tuna Casserole
  I kinda had to wing this one, because I didn't have cream of mushroom soup (the easiest way apparently). It was my first time making tuna casserole and it was pretty damn good!

2. Upcycle a canvas drop-cloth into curtains.

A couple weeks ago, Sam gave me a canvas paint drop-cloth that went unused from his fraternity homecoming efforts. I got back to Columbia early on Sunday and the urge took me. Thank to my mother having now walked me through how to make curtains, not once but twice, I crafted the heck out of that drop-cloth. I wish I would've made this a tutorial, but alas, at leas you can check out the final product...

3. Wear a whole week of "easy hair."
For which my hair is very grateful. Learn more about "easy hair" here...

4. Purge the house.

My fella came in town this weekend to help me do some getting ready to move things. I'm not planning to make the move for another couple of months, but condensing this house down into an apartment is foreboding as hell. We spent a solid couple hours of both weekend days going through our respective areas and sorting everything into Goodwill, Trash and Keep Piles. After the piles were sorted and dropped off, we treated ourselves to a motorcycle ride and Andy's custard. Sunday was the perfect day for it!

5. Actually read books (instead of audiobook'ing).

Of my list of 35 books completed in 2017, I would say 90% of them were audiobooks...shameful! I know. But this week, I actually put in some good time with two non-listening books (an eBook and an actual, real-life paperback book). I'm slooooowly working my way through "A Little Life," which is so good, but soooo long, and investigating the logistics of possibly renting my house with a book my grandpa gave me called "Landlording on Autopilot." The downside of audiobooks is that even though they are 100% more convenient and you can listen to them while doing anything else, they have actually made me very reading book lazy. Ha, though it is understandable if I'm struggling to motivate myself to read a book called "Landlording on Autopilot..." 

"Easy Hair" Updos

I have been "growing my hair out" since Sophomore year of college, which might lead one to realize that it hasn't actually been growing much all! Any in-person acquaintance of mine can confirm: I complain about this frequently.

Now, my ideal hairdo is the straightener-style curls like this... #selfieoverload

But I've heard that heat is a big no-no in the way of hair growing, so when I have a low-key week at work, I like to (hair)do "easy hair." The steps to "easy hair" are as follows...

1. Take a shower. The key is to take a shower in the evening, shortly after getting home from work. If you have thick hair like mine, that's how long it takes to dry, so that when you go to sleep on it, it won't be wet.
2. Let it frizz. While drying, you may notice some sever frizzing...especially if you have coarse hair, like mine. Don't you worry a wink, that's what the sleeping is for.
3. Sleep. Do not wear your hair pulled back or a head band, go all natural on this. Try to lay your hair as flat as possible on the pillow beneath your head.
4. Cross your fingers. How your hair actually looks in the morning is a total gamble. Sometimes I wake up with the most awesomely, casual waves...aaaaand other times I have kinks all over the place, which is why you've got to have a couple updos in your pocket for emergencies.
5. Updo! I have three, basic-as-hell updos for my "easy hair," consisting of low-pony, high-pony, top-knot and half top-knot. Check them out below!