Grease. Or, Not Washing My Hair Every Day.

Man, oh man, have I had an embarrassment of riches this week. First, Jordan took over the blog with his epic rafting/Deliverance tale, and now my precious friend Mary Frances is taking over to tell a slightly less adventurous, but equally as harrowing, tale. I bet most women who read this blog will relate: the process of training your hair to not be washed every day. 

Since the pictures of her in this blog post are...we'll say "less than flattering," I pulled some pictures from her website so you can see how adorable she is (and how adorable her dog, Porter, is. I mean, COME ON with that). 

Mary Frances is a jewelry designer whose studio is in West Asheville (visit her incredible website here). Jordan and I met she and her boyfriend, Hobbs, at church one Sunday. Since then, Fran (as she's called by the cool kids) and I have bonded through our three-times-a-week Pure Barre dates. One day a couple of weeks ago, a few of the PB girls were discussing hair care regimens. I'll let her take it from here. 

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I wash my hair every day, or at least every time I shower. Apparently it’s not good for your hair. At my last haircut, the stylist gave me a big “shame on you” speech about how I shouldn’t. What.Ever. Sometimes I skip a day, but honestly, it’s rare. Unless I’m camping or without access to a shower, these locks get shampooed almost every single day. I have pretty thick hair, or so I think, so you’d think it wouldn't get greasy easily - well, you’d be wrong.

For a while now (okay, like, a week), Mary Catherine and a friend at Pure Barre have been telling me that they wash their hair just a couple times a week. So, I decided to try it. I washed my hair the night before “Day 1” began.

Day 1. 

7:30 AM - Hear alarm go off. Look at the clock and realize it’s too late to get up, get dressed, pour coffee, feed the dog, take said dog to daycare, and get to Pure Barre by the 8:30 class. Look at PB app and see Mary Catherine is teaching the 9:45 class. Book it and roll back over.

9:40AM - Get to Pure Barre.

10:00AM - In the middle of plank position, remember what MC and I had talked about last week. Decide today’s the day I’m going to try it - I won't wash my hair every day this week. I figure, I’ve got nothing to do this week, so why not? I mean, let’s be real, I work for myself, usually from home - who do I have to impress?

12:00PM- Take a shower post-PB. Stand there wondering what the heck I’m supposed to do in here if I can’t wash my hair. Wash my body twice for good measure.

12:46PM - Text MC asking what she suggests I do in the shower since I can’t wash my hair. She tells me to stand there unmoving and then buy dry shampoo.

4:40PM - Feel my hair that I decided to air dry and notice that it’s still not dry. Text MC again.

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5:00PM - Pick up dog from daycare and discover that he somehow has gotten some poop on his back. Remember that Porter only shampoos his hair when he gets groomed, which is only every 6 weeks, and his hair is angel soft. Thinking more and more about how that stylist may have been right. Consider bathing Porter when we get home to remove said poop. Remember that we just moved into an apartment that is mostly carpeted and decide against it. 

5:15PM - Get home and use baby wipes leftover from my niece’s visit a few weeks ago to wipe away poop (it was just a tiny bit, I swear!). Decide beyond a doubt that Porter will not sleep in the bed with me tonight.

10:50PM - Look at hair one more time in the mirror. Decide that tomorrow, I'll dry my hair post-shower rather than air dry and see if it makes a difference.

11:00PM -Throw hair on top of my head. Snug with Porter in bed.

Day 2. Woof. 

7:30AM - Wake up raring to go. Snug the pup one last time before getting up and dressed for the 8:30 PB class.

7:45AM - Check hair in the mirror. Notice “cute” top knot from previous night has turned into a top knot mullet. Take hair down to brush + redo for PB and see large crease in hair a few inches from my forehead. Cringe. Throw hair back up in top knot.

8:45AM - Midway through plank, remember I’m not allowed to wash my hair in my post-workout shower. Cringe again.

10:00AM - Go to “Luke’s” with Mary Catherine.

11:00AM - Get home, ready to shower.

11:25AM - Lay on the floor with Porter remembering that he only washes his hair every 6 weeks. Try to convince myself that this is actually a good idea. 

11:45AM - Turn the shower on and get a little sad remembering that I’m not allowed to wash my hair again. Consider doing it anyway because #yolo.

11:47AM - Get in shower and decide against the shampoo. Stand under the water wondering, once again, how people who don’t wash their hair every day waste the appropriate amount of time in the shower.

11:52AM - Get out. Kidding - I stood, unmoving, under the hot water for at least 10 minutes.

12:15PM - Begin drying hair. Get halfway through and realize that it’s not drying. Oh, right. Grease. Throw it back up in a top knot, half dry and all.

12:17PM - Notice hat in the corner of room and decide that should I choose to go in public today, that hat will most certainly be on my head.

12:30PM - Consider buying dry shampoo. Forget and go to work.

12:45PM - Get to work and remember I forgot the hat. Hope I don’t see anyone I know today.

4:45PM - Feel face and realize that not only is my hair greasy, but somehow my face is as well. Remember I washed my face in the shower this morning. Consider if it’s possible that grease from hair has traveled.

5:30PM - Get home, see roommate, hope she doesn’t notice the greaseball on top of my head.

10:15PM - Examine hair one last time before confirming that tomorrow will be the day I stop this nonsense. Remember that dry shampoo was supposed to be a key element in this experiment. Forget about it and go to bed.

Day 3 - Shampoo Day. Holler. 

7:30AM - Wake up, look in mirror, see greasy top knot mullet, and wonder if it’s weird to shower before a workout class. Decide that yes, that would most certainly be weird.     

8:30AM - Get to Pure Barre. Sit next to a woman who tell me she just ate a donut before class. Make a mental note to be this woman’s friend.

9:15AM - In the middle of plank (when apparently I do all my serious life-contemplation) remember that today I get to wash my hair. Smile. Then fall out of plank and go back to my huffing and puffing until class ends.

10:00AM - Race home. Take a quick pic of my greasy hair for all you dear readers.

10:02AM - Jump in the shower. Wash, rinse, repeat* for approximately 20 minutes while dancing and singing aloud to Leon Bridges, confirming that this is 100% worth a second noise violation from my overly finicky downstairs neighbor.

*I understand the whole wash rinse repeat thing is a huge marketing ploy to get oblivious consumers to use up their shampoo supply quicker therefore having to buy it more often. #what.ever. I am their ideal consumer.

10:15AM - Brush hair and realize it still feels a little greasy. Understand that it may take a few days of going back to my wasteful hair-washing-every-day routine for said hair to lose all grease.

11:58AM - Finish writing blog post and come to the conclusion that washing my hair only a few times a week is not the life for me. I'll leave it to the rest of Asheville’s hippie population. Though maybe next time I’ll actually buy the dry shampoo. 

The end. 

I Went to Luke's and It Was Awesome.

In case you live under a rock or hate Gilmore Girls, you have probably seen "Luke's" take over some corners of social media in the past 24 hours. 

Some brilliant marketing genius over at Netflix had an idea: to celebrate GG turning 16 (but really, to promote the fact that it's coming back to Netflix in November), why not turn hundreds of coffee shops around the country into a Luke's? 

My friend Mary Frances and I decided we needed to take advantage of this momentous and singular opportunity to pretend we were actual Gilmore girls. Fall in Asheville has started to kick in, so amongst the blustery, blowing leaves, we sought out a participating coffee shop (Biltmore Coffee Roasters) and started to get VERY EXCITED. 

Each participating business was sent a box of swag from Netflix to give customers the Stars Hollow experience. They got a sign for the front door (pictured above), signage for inside (pictured below), hats and aprons for the employees, a special blend of coffee, and Gilmore Girls cups and coffee sleeves. 

The line at the shop was out the door, but it wasn't anything compared to more urban locations - I heard that lines were two hours long in some cities. We had to wait, but only a few minutes. However, the free first 250 cups of coffee were long gone by then - our barista (let's call her Luke) told us that they gave away those first cups in less than an hour. 

(That red thing is an arrow pointing to the "No cell phones" sign, not the number "47." Although this morning it took me about 5 minutes to figure out why I'd written what I thought was "47" across this picture. Penmanship is important, folks.) 

We stepped up and got our coffee, Luke's Blend (obviously) and then entered the drawing for a Luke's hat and apron. 

It was seriously kind of magical. Everybody in there, for the most part, was a Gilmore Girls fan and was equally as excited as we were. There was a woman behind us in line who I was positive was judging the hell out of us for being so giggly and excited, but when she stepped up to order, she actually stopped the barista and had her pose with the coffee cup for an Instagram picture. EVERYONE was about it. 

We sat outside, sipped coffee, discussed whether we'd want to be Rory or Lorelai (Fran picked Lor, I picked Rory -- we go together well!), and settled on the fact that Logan is definitively the best choice (read more about that hot take opinion here). 

Once we removed the sleeves of our coffee cups, we saw that there was a secret Snapchat code on the cups! It unlocked this adorable lil' Luke's filter that I used to take the photo below. 

All in all, it was just perfect. So happy that Fran found this place and that we got to have this real-deal Stars Hollow moment. To top it off, yesterday Netflix released a new featurette for the show. 

Like I said, marketing geniuses. 

ARE YOU EXCITED YET?!?!?!1

The Best Story Jordan Knows.

You know that moment at great dinner parties or cocktail gatherings when everybody's good and liquored up? You know what I'm talking about. 

The stories are flowing and so is the wine. Everyone is feelin' real relaxed. Someone has probably accidentally spilled or dropped something at this point (it's usually me). Raucous laughter is booming through the house. 

That's the moment when Jordan usually tells this story. 

To be fair, he does not tell it because he wants to. He tells it because I whore him out. I think this is partially because, though Jordan and I went to college together and I know all the players in this tale, I didn't know this story until a year after we got married. I heard him tell it at a dinner party. So having experienced it as a listener, I know that it's a pretty good story. 

Of course, there are two downsides to this: 

1. I have now already broken the cardinal rule of storytelling, which is: UNDERSELL. 
2. We have no stories to tell at dinner parties. 

Nevertheless. I will press on. 

Ladies and gents, my husband. 

Okay, so here's the deal. This story is not only 100% real, but also relatively uneventful. That's right – I'm telling you that this story may not even be worth your time.

I really think that what makes it interesting is not that it was exceptionally scary/dangerous/educational, bu that it even happened at all. Just weird. I haven't seen Twin Peaks but, from what I understand, this is very Twin Peaks. Anyway, here we go. 

It was sometime in mid-Summer 20...08? 09? One of those. I was an upcoming junior or senior at Birmingham-Southern College. I was staying at our fraternity house that summer along with a few others and, as college summers can be, it was hot and it was boring. One afternoon, someone had the idea to go floating down a nearby river which conveniently ran right through the hunting camp of one of the brothers. We'll call him, "Jay*" to maintain his anonymity. 

*Jay, I can already hear you whining about how that's your real name and it's not anonymous. But if you just keep quiet, no one will even know, man. 

So we loaded down a few cars with cold beer and inner-tubes and...oh God, this is a bad country song. But seriously, we had some beer and floats. And really not that much food as I remember it. Not that it's relevant, but I'm just kind of free writing here. In fact, another character - "Bill*" - and I were sharing this really great double tube with a cooler in the middle.

* Psst. Will, you're Bill. In case you were wondering. 

In hindsight, I should've realized that two semi-adults and 30 Keystone Lights weren't going to make much headway on this river. Which, by the way, was not at all a river. A creek after a rain, maybe, but it hadn't rained in Birmingham for at least a few weeks because the water was low. Low enough for us to question Jay's previous assessment of a 3-5 hour float time.  

"But I don't want to get in the way of a good time! Let's go for it." 

-- last words of the first guy to die in any teen horror film 

Along with Will, Jay and I, we have a few other characters. Let me set them up using as few adjective as possible: Mark – ginger, outdoorsy. Lindsey – female, relative stranger to me, athlete. Rob – diabetic, resourceful. Jerome* (tall, fratty) and 3 lady friends of his from another school. Don’t know the names of the three girls he brought, but let's go with Alvin, Simon, Theodore. There were other people there (like Keith and Thomas/Ford) but they played a relatively normal and uneventful role. Good God this is taking so long to type out. How does my wife do this every day? 

*I wish I could tell you this guy was actually named Jerome but he's someone else and I'd never get a chance to use Jerome if I didn't use it now. Sorry, man. 

We ended up putting in on the river around 1 PM -- a little later than we'd like, but given our projected float time, we were thinking we'd be back at least an hour before sunset. Everyone inflated their tubes and started getting into the creek. Which was barely even moving. Not hyperbolically And since we were two people plus beer for us and Mark, we were way slower than everyone else. Right when we hit the river, the group began to spread out - some folks swimming ahead and others dragging along the bottom. Before long*, Mark, Lindsey, Bill and I were far behind everyone else. We were all chipping in to lighten the cargo weight of our cooler tube and, really, the next thing I remember is it starting to get dark. 

*In fact, it was very little time. Kind of suspiciously little time? 

Earlier, we had entertained the "What if the creek forks and we don't know which way to go?" scenario, but had decided it useless to worry about. Besides, it probably wouldn't happen anyway. Or whatever.

But when darkness fell, things were a little different. So, to recap: strange creek, wilderness, swimsuits, plastic toys. Not a great situation. But then we rounded a bend in the creek...(seriously.) 

Standing there was a guy in cargo shorts, an old t-shirt, glasses, and a hillbilly haircut. His two boys, maybe around 4-8 years old, were playing with PIECES OF GARBAGE in the stream. That's for real. And this isn't sad - they were perfectly happy and having a great time. But it was weird. As we got closer (of course he was staring at us the whole time), we tried to engage him in conversation to help us find the group. 

"Hey sir, have you seen some people floating down the creek recently?" we asked like white idiots. 

"Oh yeah! Y'all with that group? They must be two hours ahead of y'all." 

"...great." 

"Say, do y'all need a ride?" 

In case you were wondering, now is when things got weird. I think we can all immediately recognize and dismiss the "Oh, what a good neighbor! He sounds like such a gentleman and a hero," angle. 

Not today, Walt Disney.

This is real life and this is how you end up on 60 Minutes. In my head, it was safer to gamble on floating at night than go anywhere with Cletus* here. Mark pipes up that we absolutely would, which I didn't like at the time but, again, in retrospect, was the right move. And then Cletus adds a condition: "Well, I think I'm gonna need them tubes then." 

*Cletus, I didn't change your name. But I don't think you have the internet so you'll never know. 

To be clear, our trade was: a ride somewhere with a backwoods stranger or floating down a stranger creek at night. I feel like this could also be used as a commentary on our current choices for President, but I digress.

So we get out of the water, hand the man our tubes and climb into the back of his old pickup truck. Again, it's Mark, Lindsey, Bill and I, and we're lost in the woods with a stranger who just took our tubes (only means of escape?) and is now driving us somewhere. It's starting to get pretty dark now and we make a quick drive up to his trailer home – tarp on roof, moldy sides, the classic terrifying dilapidated trailer in the woods. In the dark. 

He pulled into his driveway and left to go get something out of his house. No clue what. I would've thought about that more had we not looked down to see two things of note in the truck bed with us. 

1) A rusted machete. No, you shut up! I am not kidding. 

2) Several torn up little girls tennis shoes. Recall: this man has two children. They are both male. 

Four college kids. Lost in the woods. In the dark. Stranger picks them up. Rusted machete and dirty kids clothes in truck. If that doesn't sound like some new scary movie, you're an idiot. In fact, I know it is like a scary movie because then they guy's wife comes out. I don't remember much about her looks but her interaction was brief but powerful. 

Walking out of the trailer and not really talking much to us, she came over to the cab of the truck, opened the door to grab a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it. She was staring into our eyes as she drew and exhaled. Duh. Terrifying. As she breathes out, she says, "Hey, this is kinda like Deliverance idn't it?" And then just walks away back to the trailer. End scene. 

As the mom walks in, the dad walks out and, pointing directly to Lindsey, asks, "Hey girl, you gotta pee?"

You are getting all of this, right? I mean, come on. Some man just pointed at the only woman in a bikini top and shorts and asked her if she needed to pee. Again, out of the situation, it's only odd. But here, it really only is good as a psychologically destabilizing comment. Did you really care if she had to pee, man? 

She says no, he comes over and climbs in the truck. We end up tearing down this dirt stretch of road, legitimately reaching 30-40 mph. Which is pretty fast on a dirt road with kids in back. We make a pitstop and buy him some beer as a token/bribe. As we get back in the truck and continue to hope we won't be murdered, one of the guys (can't remember which) looks at me and says, "Hey man, if you want to jump out of this moving car right now, I'm with you." Incredibly, we stay in the truck and get dropped off about at the entrance to Jay's land. And we lived. 

That's the end of the suspenseful stuff. Seriously. That's it. I told you it wasn't going to be worth it. I mean, if it was really a great story we probably wouldn't have survived, so I guess, really, it's as good as it could be without me not being here to tell it.

After hiking about ¾ mile, we see the lights of Jay's cabin. At this point, I'm ready to kill Jay. We walk into the cabin, expecting everyone to be frantically looking for us or maybe cheering our return, but there's only one person there. We tell our whole story which, although scary, is at least over. We quickly realize that's not the case for everyone else we were floating with. 

No one else had made it back and, by now, it's nearing 11 PM. That's about 10 hours of time on the water, if they were, in fact, still on the water. As decisions were made on whether or not to call Jay's dad (we did) to bail us out (he did), we hear something crashing through the woods.

We run out to find Rob the Diabetic bursting out of the thicket, all cut up and looking for insul... I mean, water. He tells us that he floated between our groups and ended up getting a flat tube. He left the creek, aiming for the road. He ended up finding the house first but not before FASHIONING HIS TUBE INTO SANDALS. Real life Bear Grylls stuff here. It was and is still an awesome thing that no one talks about. Resourceful Rob! Or Resourceful Rob the Diabetic, if you want to keep the medically-relevant name. At this point, we finally decided things had gotten bad enough for us to call Jay's dad.

It's now around 2 AM. We hear someone hollering for help from up the creek. We run out to meet the voice, Bill cutting his foot in the process, only to find Jerome's ass complaining that he needs water. He probably did, but considering we were almost murdered by meth-heads and Rob almost died in the woods with a tube for shoes, needing water was hardly a "help"-worthy scenario. Especially when you're surrounded by fresh creek water. I'm just saying.

At this point, Jay's dad arrived with a friend, both packing mad heat and cargo shorts and ready to kill something or save Jay or whatever. They take a canoe to our put-in and disappear. After a few hours, Jay's dad and his friend  arrive back at the cabin. At this point, it's just after dawn. They basically tell us everyone is fine and is just going to float back to us. Not a lot of info but, hey, we did ruin his weekend, so I get it. People end up showing up in a few groups.

Once we all regroup, we get to hear what happened to the other folks. One group ended up spending the night under the deck of an abandoned shed in the woods (I am not making this up). To add even more crazy spookiness to that equation, in the middle of the night, someone randomly walked up the porch steps into the shed - all while this group was sleeping underneath trying not to be noticed. Or that's what they told us. 

And Jerome's lady friends? Alvin, Simon, and Theodore? They ended up totally separated from what was already a group of total strangers and huddled on a rock in the middle of the stream. All night. So they were pretty thrilled when they got back.

Anyway, we're all okay, the story's over, blah blah blah. Whew. 

All in all, helluva weekend. 

Sunset on Max Patch.

Every so often, Jordan and I have a very "Asheville" experience that reminds me why I'm so thankful that we live here. 

When we moved from Birmingham in July 2015, I was so nervous. I'd lived in Memphis for a year, but other than that, Alabama had been my home throughout my childhood and young adulthood. It was alien to consider the idea of living in another state, let alone one in which neither Jordan nor I had any friends or family. 

Moving away together was one of the greatest things we could've done, both for each of us individually and for our marriage. Picking up and going somewhere neither of us had any connections created any immediate need for us to cling to each other and really grow as partners. We became stronger, more intuitive to the other's needs, more grateful, more generous. 

So when Jordan asked if I wanted to go watch the sun go down on Max Patch, a bald on top of a mountain about an hour away, my answer was, "YEP." We packed Tom Hanks, a picnic, some wine, and took off.

To our surprise, the mountaintop was filled with other folks who had the same idea. While at first it was a little annoying that we weren't as original as we'd thought, it became a kind of community experience. There with forty or fifty strangers, we watched nature really show off.

Here's a little "pretty" for your Monday morning. Happy October!

Stop Yelling - Ask, "Why?"

Today on The Huffington Post: 

Stop Yelling: Ask, "Why?"

A Miracle Product for Dogs.

Our sweet little puppy has a bit of an anxiety problem these days. 

If you've ever met Tom Hanks, you know he is the chillest and the illest. At this point, we have probably taken a few dozen different pictures of him asleep in various positions, locations, and places in our house. If we're here, he is mostly cool as a cucumber. 

Recently, though, I've started working a bit more (hey, Pure Barre! Woo hoo!) and because of that, both Jordan and I have been spending more time away from our house. Last year, TH went from being kept in a crate while we were gone to having full reign of the house. He does really well with that - doesn't chew up or destroy anything - but we have noticed that he's started chewing hot spots into his poor little legs. He'll start chewing these hot spots while we're gone, but these days he keeps chewing on them even when we're home.  

We called our vet to ask her advice, and she recommended a product that they actually use in the vet's office. 

Enter: Comfort Zone. 

Comfort Zone is a diffuser that releases a pheromone they call Adaptil. Adaptil mimics the Dog Appeasing Pheromone (DAP) that nursing moms release to calm their puppies. To use it, you simply plug it in. The rest is done for you. The scent is imperceptible to humans, but I am here to TESTIFY that it works for dogs. 

No joke - literally within minutes of plugging these diffusers in, Tom Hanks had a noticeably calmer demeanor. We have not seen or heard him scratching, chewing, or restlessly gnawing at his paws or hot spots - not even once - since we plugged these in. I am completely bowled over by these results. We have two downstairs - one in our bedroom and one in the dining room. Probably overkill, since they work for up to 500 square feet. One cartridge works for 30 days, and the plug-ins are good for up to 6 months. 

Mere minutes after the diffuser was plugged in.

My disclaimer is that TH is already a pretty calm dog - he just needed a little push over the edge into Chill Town while we were gone. If your dog struggles with aggression or behavioral issues, this may not be the product you're looking for. 

But if your dog is skittish toward, barks at noises outside, or has separation anxiety (like our little fella), this may be a life-saver. 

I ordered mine on Amazon at this link. 

Thanks, Comfort Zone! We love you! 

This post is not sponsored - it's just that good a product.