Favorite Things from September

September was actually a really tough month for us. Mau traveled for most of it, so baby FLO and I were a twosome on most days and nights. Initially, I thought this would give me a chance to iron out a real schedule for him, but it actually turned out to be the opposite. Whatever glimpse of a schedule we got the month before has completely disappeared, and our sweet babe refused to take naps and woke up at all hours of the night. So, I spent most of this month wanting to rip my hair out. Actually, that’s another not so great thing about this month. I went to get my hair done and it was a complete disaster. More on that below. But, let’s focus on the positives, shall we?

After all, September did have a few high notes. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary, the baby started solids, and I made some progress on my capsule wardrobe for fall.

Beauty

I typically like to dramatically change my hair to commemorate a big life event. A physical change helps me reset my mind, whether the change is positive or negative. So after becoming a mom it seemed natural to think about what my “mom hair” would look like. Lots of women cut their hair after becoming moms, I didn’t realize that it was mostly because a lot of women lose their hair after having a baby. Oh, the joys of motherhood.

I was lucky and didn’t experience hair loss, but I did have some weird texture issue. (There seem to be a patch of hair that no matter how often I washed or conditioned would always remain greasy. Anyone else?)

I thought a lot about what my hair should look like now that I am a mom. Then I realized that the hair that I have right now has been the easiest style to maintain. When I blow dry it out, I can get at least two days of decent hair out of it. With some dry shampoo, (this is my fave) I can stretch it to three days, especially if I add a little curl to the bottoms. Longer hair is also easy to throw in a pony or a bun—since baby FLO loves to get fists of it at any chance he gets.

The Hair Disaster of 2016

Since my usual hair girl was out of town, and I didn’t want to wait, I went with Mau’s hair guy. Mau wanted to me to try his guy out and said the salon was always full of women and was really nice. Since I wasn’t going to experiment I thought I’d give him a shot. All he had to do was update a few existing highlights that help hide my grey, and give me a trim. Boy, was this a disaster. Even though I used words like “subtle,” and “natural” and “few,” my hair ended up having thick chunks of yellow in it. I pretty much looked like a zebra. It was bad. Really bad.

In between tears on the way home, I stopped to pick up Clairol’s root touch up kit. Then, I watched about 45 million youtube videos on how to fix bad highlights and ultimately followed this tutorial. There are two lessons in this story. First is to be patient, and if you have a hair girl that you really like, harass her until she agrees to do your hair. Second, someone has already experienced your pain and YouTubed a tutorial for you. So next time bad hair happens to you, just google. I didn’t perfectly correct my hair, but it looks decent enough for me to wait a couple of months and beg my hair girl to redo it. Lesson learned.

Home

I’ve been on the hunt for a natural woven rug for our living room and entry way. I really wanted something that felt cozy, but also looked beachy and fit with my existing decor. I ordered a rug on Overstock but sent it back. The problem is that I fell in love with this rug and just couldn’t bring myself to spend the money. And then, I found a very similar one at Ikea—and I absolutely love it! I also heard that fall is the best time to buy rugs since people tend to purchase them before the holidays. So if you’re in the market for one, now is a great time to buy.

Baby

Aside from nap strikes, baby FLO has been doing great and I was really excited to finally introduce him to solids. We started with baby cereal and then quickly moved on to bananas, sweet potatoes, squash, pears, broccoli. He is not into avocados, chicken but we are making some progress with broccoli. I thought I’d need to purchase a food processor to make baby purees but this actually works great for us. Such an easy clean up and I’m happy to be using something we already had.

For our most recent trip, I thought it was too hard to bring along the homemade purees so I bought a few of these pouches and baby FLO loved them.

Style

A few months back I reported that I have officially cleaned out my closet and was starting anew with the goal of eventually building a minimalist capsule wardrobe. It made the most sense to start by identifying the basics that I would need, and with each season add a few new pieces. Over the summer I bought a few new pair of jeans (these and these) and several v-neck tees, and a few white flowy tops — I realize that I have a thing for white flowy tops. Actually, if you look at your closet, I bet you will also find patterns of the kind of clothes you buy. Turns out, most of us purchase the same kind of items over and over again. Filling up our closets with tons of similar items that we typically do not wear. I also noticed that I purchase similar colors. Knowing that I have a penchant for flowy white tops, as well as pink and blush helps me to stay away from those or at least think critically whether I really need another one of them in my closet.

For fall I’m aiming to buy a few sweaters, mostly looking into solid, neutral colors that can be paired with jeans or a dress. Really loving this one, and also eyeing up this one. And just ordered this one.

 A good pair of booties like these, and maybe a fun dress for Thanksgiving, and a new hat. These minimal purchases along with clothes I already have should give me enough to work with.

Mindfulness

I thought I would add this header to this month’s highlights because I am pretty proud of this small little change I’ve implemented. In my last post, I talked about being a better listener and being more present in my conversations with Mau. Part of my distraction was my cell phone. And no, of course, I didn’t get rid of it! But, I did turn off social media notifications and I have to say that I am noticing that I pick up and glance at my phone a lot less.

Before, every single time my phone would light up, I would pick it up. Now, I sometimes forget about it for a bit, because there isn’t an enticing notification peaking my interest.

Cheers to October and all the fun fall brings. Thanks for reading everyone. I really do appreciate it!