Hair Color Adventures part 2 - Blonde

I decided it was time to do another hair color blog.  This time I went from blonde to blond(er).  Although I was already blonde to begin with for this blog, this is the same technique I used to go blonde when my hair was a medium reddish brown.
Here's what my hair looked like before hand...

Although it was already blonde, my roots were growing out pretty bad as you can see in picture 2, and my hair was just feeling...dull.   I went down to Marie's Beauty Supply and decided to pick up some hair products.  I picked up (from left to right):

L'oreal Super Blonde (my favorite lightener), Matrix So Silver Shampoo (for maintenance), Wella color charm developer no. 20, and Wella White Lady T18 toner.

Yeah, that is a giant bottle of Wella Color Charm Developer.  Hopefully it will last until I need to use it again because I only used a small amount for this hair adventure.

I started with bleaching out my roots(only my roots! My hair was so blonde already I didn't want to fry it!).  This part is easy, I've done it so many times I could practically do it in my sleep.  In fact, I did this part while cooking fried chicken and watching Supernatural.  

Note: I don't recommend bleaching hair while frying chicken.

Here's what my hair looked like right after I washed the L'oreal super blonde out:

Don't forget to rest a towel over your clothes when bleaching so you don't ruin anything.  I've made that mistake before.

Yuck! What too yellow!!  I wasn't worried though, I still needed to do the toner.  The Wella toner needs dry hair to work with, I'm not sure if dry hair is actually required, but I find it works a lot better than wet hair. While I waited for my hair to dry, I mixed the entire small bottle of Wella White Lady toner and 2x the amount of developer. (1 part toner, 2 parts developer).  It took a good 30-40 minutes to develop.  I waited until it was a nice, thick, rich purple color before putting it in. The first time I did this on my hair I mixed the developer then put it right in my hair.  Um, dumb me.  It didn't work out too well.  

I applied almost all of that developer ALL OVER my hair, getting it everywhere I could.  I see now that I missed a few spots, oops, better luck next time right?  So I put it in my hair, wrapped a plastic bag around my head to not get anything too messy, and waited for about 15 minutes. 

Here's what it looked like when it washed out and I dried it:

 Yay!!  I hardly see any yellow in my hair now, most of what I see is on the tips.   So there's my hair adventure for this year.  I like the way it turned out!  Here's a few comparison pictures:

Before

After

No more roots!

 

Back to Life

        I just want to start by saying that Kennecott, McCarthy and the whole damn Wrangell-St. Elias Park and Preserve has got to be one of the most beautiful places I have been to in this entire state.  Sorry Kenai/Soldota/Homer...you all are cute but nothing rivals the idyllic beauty of the barely touched land in the Wrangell area, at least in my opinion.

        The moment we crossed the bridge over the Copper River and started heading down McCarthy road, traffic was sparse.  And by sparse, I mean we didn't even see another car until we got 10 miles in, to Strelna and Silver Lake.  McCarthy road, for anyone curious, is a 58 mile long stretch of bumpy gravel road.  At times it was so narrow that we would have to pull over half into the bushes to let another car pass, which was hardly ever.  Sure, people live on McCarthy road, i.e. Papa Pilgrim (caution, his story is disturbing) and clan, but cabins and houses along this road were really few and far between, which I guess is why Pilgrim picked that particular location.  Most of the houses in that area looked like they had accompanying outhouses and sheds just stacked full of wood for the winter.  I get the feeling that a lot of people live subsistence style on that road.
        The first stop we came to was the Kuskulana Bridge.  I'm not all that fond of heights, and something about being in a car on the bridge made me nervous, so driving over the one lane bridge 238 feet above the river was not on my fun list of things to do.  Then my crazy ass decided it would be a great time to go walk along the metal grating underneath the bridge, which was still 210 feet above the river.  Go figure...in the car, it's scary; out of the car, it's fine! Why is that?

Our friend stopped his camper on the bridge so I could get a shot of him on it.

~210 miles straight down, and all that was between me and open air was that grating.

I did have fun though, I would do it again tomorrow if I could.

    
         I'm actually surprised I've never heard of people bungee jumping off of it, or something like that.  Although I'm not any kind of expert on bungee jumping, maybe it's too low? Who knows.  It was fun and exciting, that's all I know.  After a quick lunch, we got back in the car and continued our *slow* path down McCarthy Road.
        I want to point out right here, that after hearing all kinds of horror stories about how McCarthy road was just so terrible and people just had so many tales of getting flat tires and getting stuck or whatnot, the road really wasn't that bad.  I can see how it would be, if you were flying down the road at 60 mph, but we were going about 20-30, and it really wasn't that bad.
Our next stop was the Gilahina Trestle.  Awesome.  I don't think my husband or our friend really wanted to stop, but I thought it was neat, so we stopped.  Here it is:

Gilahina Trestle: Leftover old world beauty

        On we go.  About 4 hours and many pictures later, we arrived at the Kennecott River, the end of the main road.  There was a little campground, and the only way to get across the river to the little town of McCarthy is a small footbridge.  It used to be a hand tram and people would have to slowly pull themselves across, part of the hand tram is still there, sitting broken and dilapidated. Farther on to the very end of the road is the town of Kennecott.  It was 5 miles, and luckily we brought our bikes, otherwise the walk to Kennecott would have been slow going.
        The campground at the end of the road was just beautiful, but also full of hippies. Lots and lots of hippies.  On a scale of places I like to hang out, a crowd of hippies rates about the same as in a truck on a 238 foot high bridge.  It's not that I think "They're bad people!" or anything, it's just not my vibe.  I think it there was a 4th of July hippie-fest in going on in McCarthy, but maybe that's the usual crowd.  There was a live band that night at "The Potato" (the main area of downtown, I'm guessing), and fireworks.  The view from the campground had a roaring river in front of us, mountains on all sides, and off in the distance we could see the old abandoned town of Kennecott nestled in the the base of the mountain.

Kennecott, all tucked in for the night.  Or something.

Freya exploring the campground.  She's not a big fan of the outdoors.

Main Street McCarthy, it's a happenin' place!

          We biked up to Kennecott the next day, and took our sweet lab/husky mix, Deshka. She had a fun 10 mile run that day. She could have run forever if I let her, but I kept stopping to make sure she was doing okay and not going to collapse. Kennecott has an interesting history about it.  It was founded in 1911 and in 27 years managed to profit about $100 million.  In 1938 it was very quickly abandoned, and a lot of things were left behind because the company didn't feel it was that important to cart back out.  It's currently a huge tourist trap, and looks like it's in the process of being restored. Although it's considered "abandoned" I think about 12 families live in the Kennecott-McCarthy area year round.  That's gotta be rough.

         I still can't believe our 5 day road trip was over in the blink of an eye.  It went by so fast I feel like I barely had time to think, and before I knew it we were back in Anchorage.  I could literally feel a heavy net of depression settling over all of us in the truck as we turned down our street and headed home. Yes, even our dogs were pretty sad that our long trip was over.  Back to the daily grind, back to working most of the day and having about 3 hours left to do anything at all afterwards. Back to being constantly nitpicked and told I'm doing things wrong, wrong, wrong, and being hassled every hour of every day of my frickin life.

The Mill

I think this was the old hospital and the schoolhouse(?)

Inside the factory

Climbed up on the dam to enjoy the view!

Inside the old General Store

      

        So damn you, Wrangell-St. Elias, McCarthy and Kennecott for being so damn beautiful that I just want to leave behind the city, throw away the confines of everyday life and embrace my inner hippie.  I want to frolick through the forest wearing flowy dresses and flowers in my hair and live off the land, not ever worrying about the daily grind ever again.
        Alaska, why are you so gorgeous! Kennecott, you are definitely getting a spot inside one of my books.  Maybe this coming weekend I can get back out there and be in the peacefulness of nature again.  Maybe not.  Even in this state full of unbridled wilderness, it's hard to find a place quite like Wrangell-St. Elias.

        Join me for my next adventure when I travel with my friends back inside the Buckner Building in Whittier next month.  Because for some strange reason, we are obsessed with that place. 

5 day Road Trip

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted.  I've been feeling really down lately...haven't wanted to do much of anything.  Made me sad because during that time, time just FLEW by!  I can't believe it's already July!  I took a few days off of work (really needed a break from everything Anchorage) and tomorrow we embark on a 5 day road trip/camping trip.  I can't wait to be out there in the Wilderness.  We're headed up towards the old abandoned town of Kennecott.  Used to be a mining town back in the day.  I've wanted to go since 2006, so I am extremely excited to leave.
We're leaving right after I get off of work tomorrow(the whole family; my husband, two dogs and a ferret and I :) ), around 3:30/4:00.  I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.  Hoping to do a lot of writing if it's raining...I had wanted to take a few wilderness cosplay pictures, but still haven't finished my gunbelt (see above, been feeling down and not doing anything.) I regret that now because I bet this weekend will be the perfect time.
I hope everyone has a fantastic week/weekend!!  Hopefully I'll get back into posting blogs.  I really was hoping to keep on a once a week schedule, but that didn't happen.

Happy week and weekend (and 4th of July, if you're celebrating!)

:)

Aurora in Alaska - Spring 2012

I should be finishing up a paper, but I wanted to take a few moments to share a beautiful site, the Aurora Borealis in Alaska.  My friend and I drove up to Birchwood a few miles north of Anchorage and stayed until around 1:30 in the morning snapping picture after picture of the beautiful aurora.  Although when we arrived at our shooting location the aurora was not much more than a faint green light, by about 11:45 it became a vibrant, dazzling, dancing display of lights and colors.  Much brighter and more active than anything I have seen during the last 8 years that I have lived in this state.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from that night:

It's been cloudy ever since this night, but I really hope that the clouds disperse and leave at least one more clear night that I may hopefully be able to practice taking more pictures of the aurora.  Although I'm not sure if I will see it as vibrant and beautiful as it was last Thursday anytime soon in the future.

Exercise!!!

So, I've been on a pretty hardcore exercise regimen for the last six weeks.  Hardcore as in I got almost every day, unless I'm out of town, and take kickboxing and weight training classes twice a week in addition to running and regular workouts.  Okay, so maybe that's not *hardcore*, but for me, who went from doing nothing but sitting around this winter...that's hardcore.  :)  Problem is, I haven't lost
one.
single.
pound.
since I started.  How can this be? I'm on a strict two shake a day diet with a salad for dinner, while exercising my ass off!  So I started off being a completely lazy blob, stuffing my face all day with junk food, to eating much better and exercising and it might as well all be for nothing it feels like.  I'm literally hungry all the time now, and even after I treat  myself to a little snack like hummus, within the next half hour my stomach is growling LOUDLY.  Loud enough that people comment on it.  I just don't understand unless it is because of my birth control pills.  I'm on Jolivette, it's not the combination kind which I was on before, and when I went on this pill is when I started gaining weight.  I gained it fast, blew up 20 pounds since October, and I thought it was from me just being lazy around the house (which I'm sure didn't help).
I'll be going off of them soon, just as an experiment to see if that helps (because from what I've read online, I'm not the only one who has gained an excessive amount of weight in a short time on these damn non combination pills and then has trouble losing it.)
I thought I'd try my hand at intermittent fasting.  The idea is you fast one day a week and it helps the fat melt off faster and muscle build faster.  It's an interesting article that I linked to, very informative.  I wouldn't mind the IF either, as I used to be able to go pretty much a whole day without eating when I was busy and just forgot.  I absolutely hate that my stomach is always growling and hungry causing me to think about food every 10 minutes.  I just hate revolving my life around food when it was never that way before.
Even now, I just ate a nice big delicious salad about 20 minutes ago, and I feel starving.

Something's gotta start giving here.

Rockabilly Style

I have really been in to the rockabilly, psychobilly style lately!  I sure don't know how to style hair nicely but I was thinking of trying to practice victory rolls and pompadour styles. I'm also planning to start this little project soon, a cute little rockabilly style dress:

 http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/katjusha

The pattern is free, so I figured why not?  Plus it could serve a duel purpose if I can make it correctly...it looks really similar to the Pre-War Spring Outfit from Fallout.  Woo-hoo, I found a way to make it cosplay related. haha.

Planning on going to Joannes to look for fabric next week.  Should be fun!

Also on an (un?) related note? I unfortunately have been really liking the style for Milla's Jovovich character (Alice) in the new resident evil movie.  I know those movies are practically an abomination compared to the games, but I think they are fun in their own way.  And I really like her new outfit.  Another new outfit I discovered I really like is the new look for Lara Croft.  I might have to add these two to my ever-growing list...

A New Year!

Wow! A new year is here already! I haven't written in this for a while, I know. Let's see how many new years resolutions I can break this year:

1) Get in shape! (Almost certain to be broken by next month, but we'll see...)
2) Actually finish something I'm writing! (I'll give that one about 6 or 7 months before it's broken. I have lots of ideas, I just feel extremely lazy lately)
3) Pay off most of my debt! (HA! Well...we'll see...)

Okay three's enough for now.

It has been extremely cold here lately. -31 out in Willow when we all woke up New Year's day. It was cold enough to keep food frozen on my windowsill overnight! Wow. Well classes are going wonderfully, I must say. I start a new job on February 1 (Programmer/Analyst 1 job). I was trying not to write it too much anywhere until I actually move over to that department, but I am just so extremely excited. SO EXCITED. I can't wait to be over there. My work will help me with school and my school will help me with work. I just...seriously can't wait. Speaking of school classes start next week. I still need to buy books, they are just so expensive.

I hope this new year brings a lot of good things! For everyone! 2012 has to be good! There have just been so many unhappy years in a row for so many people, I just want things to start looking up now.

Dash got me Skyrim for Christmas....I have been so addicted to it. I know I have heard so many stories about how it craps out at around 40-60 hours of gameplay on the PS3, but here's hoping they make a patch to fix that before I get there. :) haha!