 Welcome back to another vlog. It's Thursday. Had to think about that for a second. Oh, and the battery's dying, one moment. Okay, there we go. It's currently 12.30 on Thursday and I just got back from the gym and the grocery store. So let's do a quick little haul while I put this stuff away. I got some Dave's killer bread, the thin slice. Dave's killer bread bagels. Then I got some quick oats and then some protein, banana nut, instant oatmeal, some raspberries, lemons, Alfredo sauce, olive oil, eggs, spreadable butter, cheese. Ooh, this sounded interesting. So my plan is I wanted to make zucchini noodles with chicken broccoli and Alfredo sauce and make like a chicken Alfredo but do vegetables instead of regular pasta. So I got frozen zucchini noodles because they didn't have fresh, regular ones at my Walmart. But then I saw this and I was like, oh, that sounds kind of interesting. It's creamy Alfredo rice cauliflower with purple, green, orange and white cauliflower. So that could kind of work as well. If the zucchini noodles don't end up working out. Then I got some frozen peas, a couple of apples, vans, gluten-free blueberry waffles. And then I had to get a couple of ollie pops. Of course, like always strawberry, vanilla, my favorite flavor. And then turkey breakfast sausage and ground turkey. That was it. I'm gonna make myself brunch. I'm just gonna do eggs with the turkey sausage and one of those bagels probably and some fruit. And I have about an hour or so because then I need to stop at salon centric. There's a few things that I need to restock on there. And then I am going to the salon to work the front desk, which actually I am not really dreading. I'm in a weird way kind of looking forward to it because it's gonna be a very chill night because like half of our staff is actually in Mexico right now for a wedding. So we just have a couple of like nail and massage clients coming in tonight. And that's how it was last night too. It was very low key and chill. And I love that. Oh, and also if you saw my last vlog, I am still dog sitting for my friend. She is at that wedding in Mexico. She is still here. They are loving spending time together and they've been playing with all their toys and they completely ripped the guts out of one of them. So I need to clean that up as well. I'll see you a little bit later. It's time to now chill it at home, taking a break from it. Oh, Cosmoprof, or not Cosmoprof, Salon Centric Hall. They don't give you bags there. So I brought my own tote bag but I needed a couple more foiling combs and I really love these with the extra long tail because they just fit really nicely over the foils. And I prefer this one that has like finer teeth because it's really good for teasing the hair when you're doing TZ lights. This one's good too. One of mine broke recently, so needed more of those. And I'm actually at the salon now so I'm gonna bring this inside and put it away in my station. I also needed another large round brush. I love these ones from the Cricut brand. They're so good. They're pretty inexpensive compared to some of the other brands and they're just really good. Like they get good grip on the hair. They get it nice and smooth but without tangling. I have like a more expensive Olivia Garden one that's like more bougie. And I honestly don't even ever use it anymore on clients because I just don't like it as much. Like I love these. So yeah, got another one of those. So that's stuff for the salon. And then I got two things for me. I needed more dry shampoo because I am all out and especially now that my hair's short and I have been wearing it smooth, dry shampoo is a must for me because otherwise when I wear my hair smooth, it gets oily very quickly. I have never tried this one before, the IGK First Class Charcoal Detox Dry Shampoo. I'm pretty sure my friend Julia that I do the podcast with, I'm pretty sure this is her favorite or at least used to be her favorite dry shampoo. And I don't know, I just wanted to change it up and try something different. So got this. So hopefully I like it. And then the last thing I got was some more Grande Lash Serum. I am so happy that Sawn Centric sells this because if you are a beauty professional and you can get it at the beauty supply store, it's half the price than what you would pay at a regular store like on Amazon or something. I love this stuff. It works so well. I had stopped using it for a while. So I'm gonna start using it again. We'll see. My lashes still look pretty good now too, but when I was using thought stuff consistently, they were really long and full. I am gonna go into work now. And like I said, it's gonna be a pretty chill night. I will try to get some clips here and there. I'm gonna make myself a coffee though, first thing. It's 6.19. I'm telling you, it was... Anyway, I wanted to try the dry shampoo. I'm so excited about it. Cause my hair is looking a little greasy and flat, clearly. Let's test it and see. Give it a good shake. I normally like to hold it at least like a bottle's length away. Cause if you spray like too much, too close, that's when you'll get a really intense white cast. So you don't wanna overdo it. That smells really good. So I just do thin sections and I don't like to spray it directly on my part. Cause then I feel like it can look a little funny if there's a little bit of a cast at all. And even though like, they make dry shampoos for dark hair, but I don't really like those. At least the few that I've tried, I just feel like it still can leave a little bit of a weird, even if it's a dark color. So I just like regular shampoo. And I think as long as you're using it correctly, you shouldn't have too many issues. And then once I go around in thin sections and just do the roots, then I'll just kind of lift up and I'll do a little bit throughout like the mid strand. That way it gives it like a little more texture throughout and some extra lift, like some more volume. So I'll usually just let it sit for a second, especially if my hair is greasy, just so it can, you know, absorb the oil and like dry down. Cause when you first apply it, it's not wet, obviously it's dry shampoo, but it can feel like cold to the touch. So I just let it sit for a second. I'm gonna apply a little more to these front pieces. And then if you do get a tiny bit of white cast, you can usually brush that out. And then I'll go through and just judge it, shake it out, get it evenly distributed. I don't know if you can hear the dogs playing, but they were napping while I was gone. So now it's apparently playtime. And then I will brush it. Oh my God, so much better. Like gave my hair so much more volume and it doesn't look or feel oily anymore. I like that a lot. Oh yeah, that is good. I'll see how my hair feels tomorrow after I sleep on it, but I like this. So far it is a winner for me because it doesn't feel heavy in my hair because I feel like some dry shampoos you spray it in and then your hair just feels almost worse than it did. But yeah, that did exactly what I wanted it to. And you can see I don't have any white cast. I'm also gonna use the lash serum, but I'm gonna wait till later after I wash my face, obviously. I am going to make some dinner, take the dogs out. I have to edit our new podcast episode that has to go up in the morning and just kind of have a chill night. It's a few hours later, I got the podcast edited so that is currently uploading and I just washed my face. Now I'm getting ready for bed and about to do my skincare. And you just wanna go right on your lash line like where you would do liquid eyeliner. And then I sometimes will do a little bit extra on the bottom. It takes time, you're not gonna get instant results. I think it says that it takes up to at least six weeks to start seeing results. I can't remember how long it took the first time I started using it, but all I know is it worked. Like I definitely got good results, but you have to be consistent and do it every day. And then my good ol' Nivea cream, which the price of this has been going up. I'm sad about it, but whatever. So I do a nice thick layer of this and then I go sit in bed and I just let it absorb and then whatever is left and doesn't fully absorb on its own, I'll just rub it in. And yes, it might get on your clothes and on your pillowcase and I know that can be a really gross feeling, but it just is what it is. And I make sure I go like around my eyes too. That's really all I do. I don't use any special serums or eye creams. Literally just that one product. It's like $10 for a tub, which will last me about a month at least. No, probably longer than that. And then I bring it down onto my neck and my chest as well. I'm gonna put some lip balm on my lips as well and fill up my Stanley cup and get in bed and chill for a little bit. I'm not gonna lie, I've been back into playing Candy Crush. I had it played it in like over 10 years I think, but then I randomly for whatever reason, I was bored one night and I downloaded it and now I am addicted and it's just become like my nighttime routine. I'll just play until I run out of lives at night before bed. I look forward to that time of the day so much, like just being done with everything for the day, doing my skincare, getting in bed, nice cup of ice water and just playing Candy Crush and going to bed early, like, ah, there's just nothing better. Now that I'm standing here, I'm gonna also put some Polymers cocoa butter on my chest and my tattoos, which I don't think I ever showed you. This is the tattoo that I got in Italy. It is a cherub, little baby angel with a baby devil and they are just in the clouds hugging, giving a little kiss. It's just so cute, like when I saw it, I immediately was like, that is what I want, but also it kind of, for me, it's like a yin and yang kind of thing. I'm a Gemini and it just kind of like represents balance. You know, like we all have good and bad in us and just kind of embracing that and you know, Gemini is the sign of the twins and then I got this one that says Amor Fati. It is Latin and means like lover of fate, which basically just is like, you know, whatever is meant to be will be whatever happens happens, which has always been my life motto. I totally believe in fate and it honestly just helps me to not stress out and overthink, just kind of like let it go, let life happen the way it is meant to. So yeah, that's what I got when I was in Italy because I know I had shown me going to get a tattoo in the Italy vlog, but then I forgot to get a clip showing like what I actually got. I'm gonna go chill in bed. I will see you tomorrow. It is 6 30 a.m. The sun is just starting to come up. I am not a morning person typically, so it's rare that I am up and dressed this early in the morning. It actually kind of feels good though and I got up pretty easily, which is nice, but the reason I'm up this early is because I need to go to court today. If you guys remember several vlogs back, back in September, I was driving home from work one day and got hold over and the cop gave me a speeding ticket for $250. When he handed me the ticket, he literally said, yeah, this is the date and time, just go take this to court and as long as there's nothing else on your record, they'll just take it right off. Like so nonchalant and casual and I was like, thanks, sir, thanks for that. But what a waste of time then. So I was like, oh, what a bummer that I have to get up early and take a day off. And I was having like a woe is me moment because I also have no idea. I've never gone to fight a ticket before so I don't know what the process is normally like. I don't know how long I'm gonna be there for but my mom reminded me and it's so true that at least this happened locally. So it's close by. It's gonna take me less than 20 minutes to get to the courthouse. So at least I don't have to drive to a completely different state and I'm fortunate enough that with the job that I have, my schedule is really flexible and I'm able to take the day off and yeah, I mean, I could have had my schedule open and taken clients today and made money instead but at least I don't have like a limited set amount of days that I can take off for the year and I don't have to like waste out one of my days. I'm grateful that I even can go and fight it. Wish me luck. I'm excited to finally go and just get this over with because it's just been one of those things that's been like looming over me in the back of my mind, like low key stressing me out for weeks and weeks now. I will check in when I get home and I'll let you know how it all goes. I need to bring myself a real coffee because that decaf earlier, not doing it for me. So I got out of the ticket kind of, the whole thing was very, very bizarre. There was just a long line of people wrapped around the building when I got there and then right at AAM, they let us all in. We went through security. I mean, it was pretty quick. Went into the courtroom. We were divided, like the room was split in half by last name and we just had to like sit on the benches and just keep like scooting our way up till we got to the front and they just had a few people like lined up. They call your name. They would look at your ticket or whatever the offense was and there wasn't even any, like it was so fast. There was no like, oh, so what happened? There wasn't even an opportunity and I don't think it mattered for me to, you know, say, explain the situation. And he said that I basically have, well, I guess three different options. I could come back to court to speak to an actual judge at a later date in February. And then if the judge decides to dismiss it, it would be like fully wiped away. Or I could hire an attorney and see if there's other options or I can go take a four-hour driving, defensive driving course at the local community college and pay $65 for the course. So I feel like if I try to go to court and fight it again, there's a chance that they won't dismiss it and then I'll end up having to pay the entire thing and then, you know, risk my insurance going up. If I hire an attorney, I don't know what the outcome of that would be but that's gonna be more than $65. So I feel like the driving course, even though it's so stupid and such a waste of time, I feel like that's just gonna be like my safest bet. So I have until February to do it and luckily Mondays are usually my days off and they have a Monday morning class. I guess I'm just gonna go do that, suck it up, get it over with. It's so stupid. Meanwhile, there were people in line in front of me that I overheard had gotten to car accidents and they just dismissed them. He asked, oh, was anyone injured? Okay, you filed a claim with your insurance? Okay, dismissed. Have a good day. If anybody should be going to driving school, don't you think it should be the people that are actually getting into car crashes? Make it make sense. Make it make sense. I will say at least I wasn't there for long. I was in and out and under an hour. So I'm gonna make more coffee and some breakfast and just sit and show for a little bit. I'm starting to feel tired now so I honestly might take a nap and then I have a little tiny bit of editing that I need to do. But other than that, I think I'm just gonna stay home the rest of the day, do some laundry. I'll catch up with you later. It's a few hours later. I ended up taking a nap. It felt amazing. And now I'm gonna do some cleaning because the living room I still haven't picked up all the stuffing from their toys and it has just gotten worse, I think. So I'm gonna clean that up and the thing is starting to pile up with dishes. So gonna take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, load up the dirty ones, just straighten up and I'm gonna do some laundry. I have a whole bunch of clean clothes that have just been piled up that I need to put away and then I have a decent amount of dirty stuff that I need to wash. So and I'm also gonna wash my bed sheets because the dogs have been sleeping in bed with me the last few nights and I'm gonna wash them. Also the newest season, which is also the last season of the crown got released today so I'm gonna watch that while I do the laundry. It's another couple hours later. I got all of my little chores done. Oh, I really badly need to dust this mirror. Oh my God, look at all of the dog hair. Oh, love that. I'll flip you back this way. But yeah, I got everything done. Laundry is still going, dishwasher is running and my friends just texted me and asked if I wanted to go out and grab a drink and I figured, why not? It's actually a pretty warm night. The temperature has been dropping but we randomly had a really warm day today so it actually would be pretty nice to just sit outside and sip on a cocktail or some wine or something. My outfit is very casual. I love these jeans. They're from Good American. I got them. I wanna say like earlier this year, I'm not sure if they're still available. They're the good 90s. And then plain black bodysuit from Target, my new balance sneakers. I forget which ones these are exactly but I can link them down below for you guys. It randomly has been warm and humid the last couple of days so gave all the plants a nice bath. And now I need to get ready for work. Let me show you my hair. I washed it last night when I got home before bed and I just let it air dry overnight. It looks absolutely insane and this side like crawled up more than this side so I'm just gonna blow it out really quick but what's so great about it being so short is that I can blow dry it in less than five minutes. I have flat iron to just smooth it out even more. And by the way, I always get asked when I bust this thing out, I always get at least a couple comments that are like, what, a cordless straightener? What is that? This is the Dyson Corral flat iron and I do really like it because it works really well but it's also not like frying my hair. Like other flat iron after you pass it in one spot, like this one, you literally just have to do one pass and then that's it. And then you can touch it right after and it's not gonna burn your hand. So it's nice, like all of the Dyson hair tools are meant to create less heat damage on your hair and I really do feel like I've been using this and the blow dryer for the past like two years or so. And that really was like the time when I had grown my hair out and I got it super healthy. And I do think what contributed to that, not like the only reason but one contributing factor was switching to the Dyson blow dryer and flat iron. So if you can afford the splurge, it's an investment, but if you can afford it or get it as a Christmas gift or something, I do think that it's worth it, especially if you are someone that puts heat on your hair very regularly. The only thing is with the flat iron, the battery life isn't super long on it. So you have to remember to plug it in and let it fully charge after every single use, otherwise it will die in the middle of you using it. Like mine is saying that the battery is low because I forgot to charge it last time. And then once it dies, even if you plug it in, it won't turn back on until the battery is charged up. And I feel like it takes a while to charge but it does heat up very fast. It's not ideal to use when it's plugged in anyway because the cord is just magnetic but it's not super strong. Like it pops out very easily. And as you're using it, oftentimes what I do in any way, the cord will just pop right off. I just suggest let it fully charge after every use and then just use a cordless. But anyway, there's the hair all done in just about 10 minutes. Now I'm gonna take that dry shampoo and even though my hair is clean and freshly washed, I'm gonna spray it with this to give it a little bit of volume and also to help prevent it from getting oily as fast. My hair always, I mean, this is pretty much everybody but whenever I wear my hair smooth like this, it definitely gets oily way faster than if I wear it with curls. So I like to add that dry shampoo just to extend it a little bit longer. I am gonna go put a little link up on and finish getting dressed. I have three clients today. My first two are highlights, one of which is a new client, the other, I've already done her hair a couple times and then my third client is one of my regulars and we just touch her roots up and sometimes do a gloss on her ends. Hours later, I apologize for being such a bad vlogger. It was another one of those days where I was just back to back really busy. Not in a bad way though, everything went really smoothly. It was a great day but I just didn't have a moment to think about getting content and you know, you're like already almost done foiling your client's hair and then you realize, crap, I forgot to get a before picture. And then my first client, she was brand new and she also takes medication that makes her hair very thin. So I wasn't sure how she would feel about me being like, oh, can I get some before pictures and take some video of your hair? But she was super sweet and she really liked her hair and she pre-booked her next appointment so that's always a good sign. Everybody today pre-booked their next one so that always makes me feel good and everyone's hair came out really good. You know, some days you have those moments where you're like, crap, like that one little spot could have been blended better or that wasn't like my best work. Or I wish I was just in like a more personable mood but today felt really good. Like I was on, I think I did a great job. Everybody was happy, I was on time with everything. The only thing is I didn't get content in like after pictures. Oh, and my third client especially, I didn't get any clips of her hair because we just have some of the best conversations. So we just got so lost in conversation and ended up taking longer to do her hair because we were just talking so much which ended up being great because she was my last one of the day anyway and it was fine. And then me and my coworkers after we were done we all shared a little glass of Prosecco. So that was nice. And then I cleaned up and came home and now it is 546. I'm eating an apple because I didn't eat anything yet today. I don't like doing this to myself but I just wasn't, I didn't plan ahead. I didn't have anything to bring with me to work. I didn't really have time to eat at any point anyway and I just wasn't hungry this morning so I didn't have breakfast before I left. It's not good, but that's gonna be my New Year's resolution for 2024 is to be better about meal prepping and making sure that I have food to bring with me to work. I don't know if you can hear them but the dogs are playing. But I have this seasoned chicken left over from yesterday so I'm just gonna keep that up with a couple of these little corn tortillas and I have some cheese. So I'm just gonna do some little mini chicken tacos. Then I'm gonna hang out with some friends a little bit later. I'm pretty tired though so I don't think we're gonna stay up too late. My one friend has been in town visiting the past few weeks and he goes home tomorrow. So I wanna see him one last time before he leaves so I'm gonna eat and just sit on the couch for a minute, get my energy back and I'll check in later.