Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Happy Anniversary to Us...

"Love is a force more formidable than any other.  It is invisible-it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than material possession could." -Barbara de Angelis

We celebrated 34 years of marriage...


I am so excited to be celebrating our many years together...


We completely got off our low carb diet, and ate almost all carbs.  We even started one night early by having dinner at Tupelo Honey Restaurant where they have the best sweet potato pancakes. Naturally, we had to order something with the pancakes.


This is a sweet potato pancake...as you can see it is the size of a dinner plate, with bacon, pecans, fried chicken, and peach butter on top of it.  Real maple syrup on the side.  We could not eat all of our dinner, so we took the remainder home with us to eat the next day.


Only the next day, we went to a bakery where we had focaccia pizza, and a chocolate eclair for dessert.  We ate the leftover pancake meal the next day.  Three days of carbs...Yes, we truly carbo loaded, and it was so good.  Happy Anniversary to us...

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Walking through splendor...

"Falling leaves
Hide the path
so quietly." 
   -John Bailey (Autumn Haiku)

One day, while walking at a local park, I met some ladies that looked liked they were serious walkers.  So I introduced myself because walking with someone else makes the time go faster, makes for pleasant conversation, and makes me more accountable to exercise.  This was the beginnings of new friends, as well as hiking adventures.  My first hike was up Stone Mountain, which was ranked as difficult.  When we pulled over to the side of the road to the trail, I thought, "What trail?" Believe me, there didn't appear to be any trail, but a two foot stake in the ground told us that, yes, indeed, this was a trail.  One of the ladies, Sharon, is an expert at finding these pretty obscure trail markers.  

Do you see a trail in here?

See the stone steps on this trail?

We usually try to hike 3-7 miles a couple of times a week.  We have one lady (Sharon), who has an app on her phone that has maps of hiking trails.  Believe me, I am so glad for her and the app.  Sharon is our wilderness expert who knows about animal tracks, survival, and is a wealth of general knowledge about the area.  She would make an excellent tour guide.  She brings great supplies that are vital to a safe hike like a first-aid kit, bear spray, knife, and map.  We would be lost without her.  Literally.  

left to right:  Sarah (for some reason I want to call her Sally), Sharon (our fearless tour guide, first to spot bears, expert on the wilderness), and me (documenter and photographer of our hikes)...

Sometimes we have others join us which is alway fun...left to right: Sharon (another one), Sarah, Me, and Sharon (our guide)
Some trails are more clear than others...
I always like it when we can actually see the trail...

fences are nice...you know you're not lost...



See how large the trees are...

 We always get to see some pretty glorious views of God's creation...

View from Blue Ridge Parkway

Sliding rock

Looking glass falls

Flowers in November...NC Arboretum

Bent Creek...we followed a trail beside this creek...

Even the littlest plants are beautiful...

View from a trail by the Sandburg home...

One of the falls in Dupont forest...

We find some interesting things on our hikes...

I think a forestry worker must have forgotten his tool...

the forest service stacks branches like this throughout the forest...
Sharon is good to go scout out our trails before we hike them.  One day she texted me asking if I would like to go with her to find the mouth of our next hike.  I did want to go, and I am glad I did.  We took the Blue Ridge Parkway.   As we climbed, it got more and more foggy.

Drive through Blue Ridge Parkway...

The fog begins...




Getting more dense...

It is pretty thick here...
Tunnels are cut through mountains to allow traffic to go through.  These were particularly beautiful and eerie on this day...




Inside one of the tunnels...looks sort of spooky...

I am excited to be part of these hiking adventures...



On top of Stone Mountain...

In front of one of the falls in Dupont Forest...
November is the month of Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for new found friends, and adventures.  Be blessed.  
























Monday, November 2, 2015

My hair color change...

"A gray head is a crown of glory; it is found in the way of righteousness." -Proverbs 16:31

I have decided to say good-bye to coloring my hair.  I have been thinking about going natural for quite awhile.  Pre-mature white hair runs in my family on the paternal side.  My grandfather Norcross always had the prettiest white hair.  I never remember him with any other color.  My brother, Tom, was about 60% white when he died at age 32.  I started going gray/white when I was 20.  I have been coloring my hair for 10 years.   It was my son, Luke, that won me over to the idea of going natural after he showed me photo after photo of very beautiful ladies with white, gray, or silver hair.  He encouraged me to embrace my white hair, or whatever color it is.  (My stylist says silver is the new "in" color.)  I took the plunge...

I decided to go natural for several reasons: 

  • I am tired of touching up my roots every 10-14 days.  When I started coloring my hair, I vowed to never be one of those ladies whose roots showed giving away the fact that they colored their hair.
  • It took too much time to color.  I did an overall dye job professionally every 3 months, which took a minimum if 2 1/2 - 3 hours.  In between the my overall dye job, I touched up the roots myself...it took at least an hour.
  • The cost.  For my hair to look natural, I wanted different tones in it.  So when I got my hair done professionally, my stylist first did an overall brown color.  After she did that, she frosted my hair with highlights.  The cost was $100-$125 not including the tip.  The sad part was in 2 weeks I had to touch up the roots.  My pretty highlights were gone at the roots. Root touch up was $6-7 every two weeks.  
  • Dyed hair never has the luster of natural hair.  It sort of looks flat.
  • Dyed hair is damaged hair.

September 22 was my last day with brown hair.


My stylist said I did not have to have that horrible growing out your hair look... you know the skunk look...white down the middle.  Instead, she put on color remover which stripped a lot of my brown color out, and left a lot of yellow.  She did the color remover twice.  It looked like Guy Fieri's hair...only with more yellow.  It was not pretty.  My stylist said not to worry, we were not done yet.

Getty images: Guy Fieri

She then added a pretty silver semi-permenant color to my hair...and it looked okay.  Very different though.



It will take several months before my hair is completely grown out to its natural color.  My hair stylist predicts it will be all grown out by March.  Oh, that is such a long time!  and I must confess I have been tempted to go back, but I am determined to not.  I want to see what color my hair really is.  Luke encourages me to not go back...he loves the new me.  I think the verdict is out with Warren.  He says he likes it, but doesn't he have to say that since he's my husband?

Will I look older?  Maybe.  But those ladies who are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s are not fooling anybody with their hair color.  In fact, some look ridiculous with dark hair.  I have had a ton of compliments on my hair.  From strangers.  Who stop in the the stores...or at church...or meetings.  I never had such compliments when it was brown.  The compliments encourage me.

The semi-permenant color is wearing off leaving me with a yellow tinge, which I do not like.  But when I cannot stand it anymore, I will have more toner applied, so I will look good again.  It has taken me awhile to get used to the new color, but I am liking the new that is coming in.



"Ok- let's find all the cool white haired ladies out there!  White IS a color, and it is awesome!  It is like silver." -Meryl Streep


Here's to the new color...
 
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