a little Thursday version of a lot of random

Catchy title, right?  Don't let it fool you, I am currently out of blogging ideas and my brain is slightly fried because I'm trying to remember a whole of things right now.

Anyone else?  

Also, and this sort of goes along with what this says, I am the queen of talking myself out of doing things.  I am really bad about it, actually, and sometimes I have to give myself a pep talk to not cancel my plans.  This makes me sound like a terrible person, but a lot of people don't realize how much of an introvert I am.  I can fake being the opposite, though, and God has given me the ability of being able to carry on a conversation with a brick wall, and I am really good at getting people to open up.  

Someone asked me recently about my hair and how I style it and what products I use, and so I took this the other night to show you, and I thought I'd share the life-changing secret I learned from another blogger.  

First, every single night, I sleep with my hair up in a pony tail when it's long enough.  I cannot stand for hair to be in my face in the middle of the night, so that helps, and a scrunchy doesn't leave weird bumps and lumps.  And other elastics make my hair hurt.  Todd swears that's not a thing, but it is.  My hair hurts all the time.

Here's the life-changing secret that's good if you have longer hair: I only wash my hair at night.  I towel dry it, put the product in it, and twist it all up on top of my head like this.

I lean over, gather it on the crown of my head, and pull it through the scrunchy, and one more half time, to make a version of a top knot.  Google it, it's a thing.  When I wake up the next morning, I immediately take it down and rub the hair at the roots pretty vigorously, and by the time I need to leave, it's mostly dry.  Sometimes I give it a quick blast with the hairdryer, but usually I don't have to do that.  This would work well if you like your hair messy, or with beach waves, or if you need volume.  This morning my hair had way too much volume and I had to blow it dry on hot for a couple of minutes to flatten it a little.  I had some serious eighties wings going on.  As for products, I use drug store things.  I use mousse for curly hair by Tresemme, and my shampoo and conditioner are also that brand right now.  I switch it up occasionally, but I buy cheap.

This is an old picture of a little area outside of my town's library, and I have to tell you that I'm so excited that now they automatically renew your library book when you go past the date.  (And Todd said, "Amen.")  This is revolutionary.  And welcome to the future.

Speaking of the future and online things, one of my biggest pet peeves is an outdated website.  It makes whatever the place is look old and the opposite of tech savvy.  Other pet peeves include, but are not limited to, grammatical errors, misspelled words, and bad writing.  Every website needs a proof reader, and guess what?  I am a good one.  I am FOREVER finding errors in printed things and on websites.  I am also very particular about pictures and the quality of them.  

Confession: sometimes I'll be about to take a picture of something to post to Instagram, and when I'm trying to move it around to get the best angle or light, I make myself stop.  Overthinking it makes it fake, and usually it's when I'm trying too hard.  I always want to make sure that I come across as genuine on social media, and just about every picture I have on Instagram is not staged at all.  That being said, I pay attention to things like colors, lighting, and a good contrast.  And if I have to rely on a filter, it's not a great picture.  

Ever since I was a very young girl, I have loved to take pictures.  I think God gives to us gifts and talents, and He gave me an eye for certain things, and it's things like that that make people a good photographer or videographer.  I am NOT AT ALL proclaiming to be a photographer, but I do love to capture moments and pretty things.  Instagram and social media has made everyone a self-claimed photographer.  I'm not, but I enjoy taking and looking at pictures.

My dad used to give me his nice camera on vacations, and let me be responsible for all the pictures.  He was good at it too, though, and in his hallway at his house, the walls are lined mostly with pictures he took, including one of took of me sleeping when I was young.  It woke me up, though, and I remember him making me pretend I was still asleep.  

I have a new coffee maker I love!  It was a Christmas gift, and it has given me back a little of my counter space.

It's a combination coffee pot/Keurig.  It is very minimal, and there is not a button to make it brew that you can push the night before.  I just come down every morning, make my cup in the Keurig side, then I turn it on to brew the rest of their coffee.  I prefer mine from the Keurig, so this works perfectly for us.  

Welp.  That's about all I've got.  I am writing this on Wednesday night, and Missy is about to come get me, so I need to end it here.  I hope your Thursday is great!  Thanks for reading, friends, and love to all.