hair update

It's been two months since I cut my hair and started taking 1-2000mcg biotin  daily. My hair has grown exactly one inch. This seems pretty normal, and I'm a little disheartened. And annoyed at the awkward hair ahead of me. Today I'm upping to 5000mcg. A lot of people online say you have to take that exaggerated dose to see any results. We'll see.

update 4/30
I decided to leave my second bottle of biotin unopened and bought some Nature's Bounty extra strength Hair, Skin and Nails vitamins instead. They have 5000mcg biotin, 50% daily recommendation of vitamin E, and a wealth of other vitamins, as well as added collagen, calcium, alpha lipoic acid (whatever that is,) and silica. I will be very disappointed if after a month my hair has not grown more than another half inch.

p.s. I forgot to mention, I did notice my eyelashes have gotten a little longer and my fingernails are growing a little faster, so I know the biotin's not been completely in vain.

Hair Update

The verdict is out: My hair is growing at the rate of half an inch in 4 weeks! It's been exactly 4 weeks since I cut my hair and started taking supplements. Some days I take 2 or 3 thousand mcg, whatever that means. Fortunately, I've not had any of the adverse side effects some people talk about. My hair has always grown fairly fast, though, so I'm not really sure if the biotin is making it grow faster or not.

Not my favorite length. Between 2 and 6 inches is the worst, as far as awkward lengths go. I guess it'll be about 5 inches long by the time I go to school in the fall. (Oh, wait. I haven't told y'all about that? Well, hang in there.) 'Sgonna be rough, folks. I've got to print some pictures of my hair when it was long and amazing for inspiration. Right now, I'm kind of just sad that it's not cool and platinum anymore. :( Nix the kinda. Really sad.

In other news, my ZenniOptical order finally came! I love all 3 pairs. I got a tortoiseshell pair, some fun red&pink half rims, and a funky black and yellow pair. Yay! My cute glasses will distract me from my poofy hair and strange cowlicks.

How fast does your hair usually grow?

And so, the journey begins again. I cut my hair off, mess with the color, cut it some more, then grow it back out. It's what I do. What you nice people missed while I was away from the blogosphere was this:

The platinum pixie!
I've always thought platinum would be fun, but I didn't think I could pull it off. I tried it anyway and LOVED it. It was a pain to get it the right color, but it was worth the pain. Plus, with my mom being my stylist and doing it all when I wanted, how I wanted, for absolutely free, it was no big deal. ;-)

Anyway, I went to give myself a trim the other day and ended up cutting it down to an inch and a half. The only platinum left is at the tips of my non-bangs. So, I've decided since I'm back to healthy, non-damaged hair, it's time to start over and grow it back out.

I heard biotin was the way to go for encouraging quick, healthy hair growth, so I ran to Walgreens and got some. Some people don't notice any difference when they take it, and some say it's miraculous. I've started taking 1,000mcg a day. A lot of people take way more. Some say less is enough. Time to see whether or not it works for me.
Hopefully it'll grow quickly! Now that I've decided to be done with the short, platinum look I want my long curls back immediately.
(Incidentally, I'm wearing the same outfit in both of these pictures.)

If you have any hair growing tips, or experience with biotin, I'd love to hear about it!

Stay tuned. Next post will be an update on the big move!

beginagain

In my lack of blogging, I have neglected to inform you...


I got a haircut.

And then I got it shorter still and had a fun night out with some girlfriends for Valentine's Day.


(and in case you were wondering, this is why I did it)
(I ruined it with a flatiron. The curls were dead and could not be revived.)

Also, I just visited my sister at her college on Saturday. I am happy.

The End.
<3

Rapunzel No Longer

And so, my friends, after more than two years of dedication,
the journey ends here.

But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

In September 2007, I decided to cut off all my hair. I'm not putting up a picture because I don't like them. However, if you want to dig in my archives, it exists.

June 2008, I became a redhead. Best. Hairstyle EVER.

I'm probably gonna go back to it one of these days. I got the best compliment on this cut - that I looked like a silent film star. yayness!




I don't remember exactly what date I decided to start growing it back out (I'm guessing Novemberish '08), but in March '09, I was definitely on my way. And tickled to I look like a hobbit. ha!


Progress went slowly at first.
July 2009 had the hobbit look long gone, but my hair was still really short.

Exactly a year later, in July '10, it was long enough to wear braided pigtails to the rodeo. lol













Aaand about six months later at Christmas,
it was super long and straight.

(sidenote: check out Alyssa's rockin' ginger curls! JEALOUS. She makes me want to go round 3 with the red so bad. But then I would look like a poser. lol)

So, January brought the decision to be finished. Mission complete. My hair is longer than the length specified when I started growing it out.

As you can see, I am super pleased.
A lot. Even though this post felt really self centered and cluttered. My hair's kinda been part of the journey on my blog, and I thought you should know that part of the journey is over. Lucky for you, that doesn't mean I'll quit talking about my hair. HA!

P.S. Thanks Erin (pictured in the last photo) for the top photo, and thanks to Katie (in the rodeo pic) for the ending photo of me and Erin. <3 love you girls. lol

More Christmas Fun

Hello people!
It's a week til Christmas!! I'm so excited. I may have said that already. :D

Last week was the Sunday school class Christmas party. Anna Leigh and I teamed up to decorate a table. We got there and the other two teams already had their tables done, and quite splendidly at that. It scared me. lol But Anna brought some stuff from her family's Christmas village, and I brought some lights to illuminate it, and it turned out really pretty. So, yay!


We did a white elephant gift exchange, for which I brought a radio-football-pillow. Emily opened it, but I got it back from her when my turn came. Which means she was forced to open my package... and we won't even go there. Broken tiles, squished cans, duct tape, multiple knives... I'm not even kidding. Thank you Matt. lol But it was tons of fun. For the rest of us. ;-) My Sunday school class is a bunch of awesome people. Oh! I almost forgot to mention that Emily ended up getting the football back from me at the end of the game.


For the record, catchphrase is underrated. Best game ever. Actually, I guess it depends a lot on the people you're with.

"If you're not short, you're ....?"
"undecided!"
...**puzzled**
"You know - if you're not sure, you're undecided!"

The last few gifts I ordered are coming in the mail this week!! AH! The anticipation of giving all these people all this stuff is getting to me. :D

I hope you liked the pictures... I haven't had a picture post in a while. Now, I think I'm going to go to bed. I wish you all a happy weekend, and a merry Christmas. Again.

Caitlin

P.S. Check out how long my hair is getting!!

Happy Bullets

• We're moving this weekend!
• I own three boxes packed full of books!
• I get to keep my job!
• Today was the first day of school!
• I just now found the new, cool earrings I thought I'd lost!
• Yesterday I finished a fantastically pretty hat.
• I wore my pretty hat to work today, and I looove it.
• My French press and I are getting reacquainted.
• The hairs on my head are now long enough to wear up in a clip!
• God is so good. All the time.

What are you happy about this week?

Rapunzel Returns

Time for another hair update!

(Last update: Rapunzel, Rapunzel )

So, my hair's growing slowly but surely. I wish it would grow quicker, but the awkard mid-length part is pretty much over. Aaaand, despite my constant lust for quirky hair, I'm resisting all thoughts of cutting it again. Dying it, too. No more fun hair. I'm going to grow it back out long and natural. And then guess what? I'll chop it off again!! **evil laughter* ... maybe. maybe not.

But the point of this post is so that you can admire my constancy and determination.
Also so you can tell me my hair looks great. Which means you need to see a picture.

Lucky for you, I have four.
I was feeling snap-happy.

Obviously, I straightened it. It looks longer when it's straight. Which means it looks shorter than this when it's curly. (don't you love my redundancy?) I have to straighten it every now and then to help me remember that it's growing.

After church, I ran around looking for batteries for the camera. "You guys, I have to find batteries!! I have to get a picture of my hair or all that time spent fixing it will be WASTED!"

Obviously, I found some batteries. And now you have this lovely post.

You're welcome.
:)

Rapunzel, Rapunzel!

Ok, so I'm nowhere near Rapunzel, but my hair is growing!
And I'm so happy about it, that I decided to do a blog post and show off.

This is me in July, when my hair was red and the shortest it's ever been.
I loved it like that.
So fun!

This is me today, and my hair is blonde. And I need to color it again.
It's growiiiiing!!!
My roots are getting very long, and I want my hairs back to their natural color.
I look like a hobbit!
:D
And I'm wearing my favorite little bird earrings in both shots.


You could have seen these pics in vibrantly edited color, but alas!
Picnik would not behave.

On a totally random note, I'm eating a PB&J and some yogurt. Yum.
Grape jam! My favorite!
What's your favorite?

Highlights

Speaking of highlights, my hair has lightened up rather a lot since I dyed it. Which sort of disappoints me, but oh well.

But that was just an aside thought. I'm actually here to
tell you about the highlights of the past few days.

Let's see. Well. Today Laura and I went to Publix. On our way, we were talking about how we forgot to tip the pizza guy Saturday night. He was a nice pizza guy, and he had way awesome dreads, and he deserved his tip. But I called in the payment on the phone, and completely forgot to tip him. Which made me feel absolutely dreadful. The pizza place is next to Publix, so we were saying wouldn't it be nice of us to go in and leave him a couple dollars. But I decided I didn't feel bad enough about it to just walk into a store and say, "here's some tip money for the guy with the dreadlocks... I forgot to tip him the other day... so, could you give it to him?" (What were the chances of him actually being there, right?)

So, we went to Publix, remembered everything on the list but the cream of chicken soup we needed for dinner, and headed home. I drove around the back of the store to leave. It's faster that way. Some guy putting boxes in a dumpster looked at me like I was crazy. And as we passed the back of the pizza place, lo and behold! "Hey, stop!" Laura and I said simultaneously. "It's the pizza guy!" "Quick, do you have money?" I stopped the car, and Laura frantically dug out some money. I snatched it from her, saying "quick, I think he's leaving!" and hopped out of the car. "Hey, wait!" I yelled to the startled pizza guy, who was getting is his car. He turned around. "Hi. You delivered our pizza the other night, and I forgot to tip you. So, here you go." He grinned and said thanks, and we left.

And I really don't care if you think it's silly - I believe God put that pizza guy in the right place at the right time so that we could give him his tip. I felt bad about forgetting it, and so God helped me out. Hopefully it brightened that guy's day. And I sure wish I knew his name just so I wouldn't've had to write "pizza guy" so many times.

I know pretty well how to make a short story long, don't I?

Saturday morning we all went to the park. Uncle Guy pushed Alli in the stroller, the girls had their roller blades, and Laura, Aunt Cindy, and I just walked. It was a nice, enjoyable walk. We got to the mile marker, and knew it was time to turn around. The girls were getting tired, and a storm was rolling in. After unsuccessful attempts at placing a bet on who could get to the car first, Uncle Guy declared that whoever ran the mile back fastest would win 50 dollars. Laura dropped out quickly, because she'd already been running. So it was just me and Aunt Cindy. And it didn't take long for my legs to start burning. We jogged, by the way. There's no way we could have full out run the mile.

We got close to the end, and the finish was in sigh. I seriously thought my legs were just going to stop. Aunt Cindy's a good coach, though. Very encouraging. We weren't too far from the water station that marked the end of the mile when she yelled "Now I'm gonna beat your booty! woo hoo!" and went into high gear. And then I realized, there's no way I was going to put my poor dear legs and lungs through that torture and not win. So I ran ahead and won. Yay me! Now I have 50 dollars. And I know that I'm capable of jogging a mile without stopping. That's something I haven't done before...

It was pretty neat though, because I honestly didn't think I *could* run anymore. And somehow I did. Hooray!

See? Another really short story dragged out into 3 paragraphs.

What else? ... We went swimming in a big fancy shcmancy, really nice hotel pool Sunday. That was cool.

...Um... Laura and I made sure to be online for Daniel Gardner's live broadcast today. Funny stuff there. If you're not familiar with Daniel Gardner, check out some of his videos on youtube or the website : www.thinkgardner.com. You don't have to like them, but I rather enjoy his random sense of humor.

In other news... I'm suffering from perpetual hunger. I think I'm going to have to get a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats before I go to sleep or something. I always have weird dreams, so it doesn't matter if I eat before bed or not.

I registered for the Prayer Advance this week. That's happy. Except for having to pay the late registration fee. :)

I thought I would share with my dear sisters these wise tips from my uncle.

"When you have a husband, your main purpose in life is to NOT move his stuff. And don't try to change him."
"Once you get married, don't try to kill your husband."

*nods head sagely*

And so, I leave you now.
Have a good week.

Return of the Redhead and other Short Stories

Once upon a time, a couple of years ago now, Goldilocks dyed her long, curly hair red. It was very red. It was supposed to wash out, but it never did. She did all sorts of things to her hair during the next two years. She cut it, cut it some more, turned it blonde again, and cut it some more. Not quite so very long ago, she dyed it strawberry blonde. She decided to let it grow out. Then she dyed it plain blonde. Once upon yesterday, she colored it yet again.
Goldilocks is no more.












She's a redhead.

At least for now.

The End.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time, CaitiJo got a message from a nice lady named Billie. Miss Billie wanted a warm, soft, yellow hat for her dear, sweet head. CaitiJo made two different hats, and Miss Billie picked her favorite. She bought it and loved it. CaitiJo was very happy to have made Miss Billie happy, AND to have invented a cute new pattern! Sadly, she had shipped off the hat without writing down how she made it first.

One day, she sat down at the computer, and stared at the pictures of her hat until her eyes hurt. She wrote down what she saw, and tested it. It wasn't quite right, so she reworked it til it was. She took more pictures, then put the hat away, because, well, who wants to buy thick, warm hats in the summertime?!

The hat sat there, lonely in the storage bag for some weeks, while CaitiJo continued to work on slippers and fingerless gloves in silly oblivion.

After sending some gloves to Autralia, where it's starting to get pretty cold, CaitiJo realized that it doesn't make sense not to sell cold-weather stuff when she's shipping internationally. So, today, she fixed up her pictures, and created a new listing for the hat inspired by Miss Billie.

Now CaitiJo wants to make more, but needs somebody to buy this one first so she can afford more yarn.

The End.

________________________________

Once upon a time, Caitlin was very tired. She decided to write a blog post anyways. She wasn't really sure why. Especially since she needed to be packing.

It's very important to pack when you're going away to live with relatives for 4 weeks. It would be terribly inconvenient if one went to stay away from home without packing first. Of course, packing does no good unless you bring your luggage with you.

Perhaps you can tell Caitlin is tired? Perhaps you can't.
Perhaps she'll go get some water and say this is The End.
...
yep. She will.
The End.

We've come this far together...

Don't be scared of me now.

Disclaimer: I'm not always silly. I do have serious thoughts, and sometimes I feel like sharing. More often than not, though, my mind is absolutely full of random thoughts that I love sharing. So, for those who may be concerned for my well-being, do not worry. I just feel like sharing some randomness and love. :D **laughs** And maybe letting the silly part of my girlishness come out for a few minutes.

To begin with, those of you who haven't seen my album on facebook ought to see a couple of pictures from St. Patrick's Day. We broke a record at preschool. 8 out of my 10 kids got in trouble. tsk tsk tsk. **sigh** But we still had fun! Some of you may recall my mention of a green wig from a previous post.



I say, everyone loved it. (of course I did. I think it's pretty cool.) One of the other teachers couldn't stop staring, though. She said "You know, you really should grow your hair out. You look completely different with long hair -I mean, I know that's green, but long hair is really pretty on you. You really need to grow your hair out long. And straighten it." :-P The 2 year olds kept saying "mermaid! mermaid!" So, I liked being the green-haired "mermaid" for a day. I'm trying to think of what other holidays it would be appropriate for. Earth Day is all I've come up with so far.



Everybody got a shamrock painted on their face. Here are 3 of my sweet boys showing off their shamrocks and smiles. L-R: Silas, Ethan, and Jackson. If you want to see the rest of my pictures from St. Patrick's Day, check out my album on Facebook. I think it will work. If it doesn't, somebody please let me know.


To move on to another random topic; my (semi) conversion.
I always thought I hated dreads. Hate as in "ew! a guy with dreadlocks! GROSS!" Hate as in a rant ensued whenever I saw them. "Ew! Why would anybody do that?"

Then I watched Stargate Atlantis. And more recently, American Idol. And so, I present unto you the reasons I am no longer permanently prejudiced against dreadlocks.

Their names: Jason.
Both Jasons! Cool.
Here's some interesting information I just found while looking for this way cool picture.

"After Stargate Atlantis season 4 shooting was over, Jason Momoa had his dreadlocks cut off. The weight of them was causing him headaches, and even whiplash when filming action scenes. It may be that they sew them back on for the start of Season 5 filming."

Okay, so ...watching him flingin' the dreads while fightin' the bad guys might just lose a little of the intensity if I'm sitting there thinking "he had those sewn back on... O_o"

Then we have Jason Castro, whom I think is adorably cute. (I'm allowed to say that, right?) Although, pictures aren't very good to him. Most pictures made him look silly or girly. Gr. He looks better live. A longish interview video. Jason's not so good at interviews. Better at singing.

Lest you think my conversion radical, I attest unto you that I flipped out the other day (sort of, and not in a good way) when I saw some middle-aged white man bicycling down the road, with his super-long dreads pulled back behind him. I still said "yuck!" in my head.

But maybe I accept the dreads because both of these Jasons have nice faces, so it doesn't matter what kind of hair they have? ... Partly. But somehow they really add to the "cool" factor when "Ronan" is knocking out a bajillion Wraith at once with his big stick.

And I'll move on before I lose you here.

The other day, I was browsing a random article. I do so quite frequently. You know how web pages always have random links and ads and such - especially news pages. They're full of links to other articles, and sometimes I just have to click. The curiosity... Anyways. So I was reading this article about traveling for a date to meet someone you met online. (*insert loud guffaw*) The people who write those always add really corny jokes. Anyways, these helpful tips were provided by match.com, as was a little sign-up box, intended to lure me in. "You must be 18 or older to use this service" caught my eye. And then the little, laughing lightbulb in my head said "Haha! I'm old enough to use a dating service!" in a sarcastic, highly amused little voice. Then it added "I'm old enough to enter stupid sweepstakes now, too!"

And I occasionally like to eat Spam.

So, I suppose this post is a confessional of sorts. Let's recap, shall we?

• I like the attention I get from wearing a green wig. And I actually think it looks cool.
• I like some dreads, on certain good-looking guys.
• I would never, ever use an online dating service, but sometimes I read their articles.
• I think most sweepstakes are stupid. (okay, that's just because I know I'd never win. -and then they spam you after you give them information.) Which brings us to
• I like Spam. Sometimes.

*Dory voice*

And, uh, well... well, I don't think I've ever eaten a fish.
Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

Actually, I have eaten fish...
And I love all of my friends, and I'm sorry if I scared you. :D

-Me