grease be gone.

i do not often do product reviews, but i simply HAD to tell you about my fancy new shampoo. i know, random, but seriously, this stuff is too cool for school.

stacks of solid shampoo by LUSH.

you see, last year when my pregnancy was headed into the second trimester, my head turned into a grease factory. so much for that "healthy hair" everyone had promised. it was awful, but i found a new shampoo and conditioner and figured it would all wash away (literally) after the baby was born. so problem solved.

and then i gave birth to pringle. thanks to some wild post-pregnancy hormones everything was once again out of whack. argh! at first i did not notice, because i was too busy oohing and aahing about my baby. but six weeks after pringle's grand entrance, i emerged from my cloud of euphoria long enough to chop off my locks. oh dear. now there was nowhere for the goo to hide. so at the moment when you feel like a lumpy sack of potatoes and your only saving grace is your hair...i was stuck with a greasy do. depressing to say the least. i tried skipping the conditioner. no dice. i scoured the shelves at target and tried out five different shampoos, but apparently the oil factory had amped up production, because nothing was working.

solid shampoo by LUSH.

i attempted to find some information on the internet, but the searching yielded few results. apparently oily hair is a taboo topic. why? i do not know. so i am taking the topic out of hiding and putting it in the spotlight. during my googling, the only useful thing i found was this list of the top 10 shampoos for oily hair. i have always been a drugstore shampoo kinda girl, so i balked at the idea of spending $30 or more for a bottle of shampoo based solely on some random online review. and i was even less convinced that i should buy a bar of shampoo. yes, a BAR of shampoo. 

jumping juniper shampoo by LUSH.

but i had reached a point of desperation, so pringle and i headed to the mall and went to LUSH to pick up a bar of their jumping juniper shampoo. ummm..can we say wow? i was totally skeptical that bar soap for my noggin would work, but the reviews were nothing short of glowing. and now i have to add my two cents...this shampoo is beyond fabulous. 1) my hair is 100% not greasy. yay. 2) it lathers better than any shampoo i have ever had. 3) it only costs ten dollars 4) it seems to last forever. 5) it is not liquid, so the transportation security administration does not care how much shampoo i have in my carry-on. 6) it will not spill in my luggage or gym bag. 7) it is a BAR of shampoo people!

jungle conditioner by LUSH.

so for everyone out there with oily hair or any other hair issues or non-issues...seriously, you should check out LUSH's solid shampoos. there are 15 varieties designed to combat every possible hair problem. i like my little puck so much that i am heading to LUSH to buy their solid conditioner. yay for shiny, happy hair!!

this product has earned the pickel stamp of approval.

note 1: i was not given any compensation to write this review.
note 2: all photos of LUSH products are courtesy of the internets.

muscle mama.

i am trying to get back in shape since pringle was born. although "back" in shape is maybe not accurate, since i do not think i could argue that i was in shape before i got pregnant. details. anyhow, i am tackling this "get fit" in multiple ways. 

pickel on the left doing abs, while pringle sleeps in the stroller second from left. photo courtesy om yoga miami.

first, stroller boot camp. sounds cute, right? ummm...there is nothing cute about this class....except of course the darling babies riding in their strollers. we speed-walk up and down the sidewalk and stop to do lunges, squats, abs, and pushups. ouch.

pickel and pringle in our yoga pose. photo courtesy om yoga miami.

second, baby & momma yoga. okay, this one is pretty cute. and since we are not gasping for breath, the mommas can chat. when the babies cooperate, we help them stretch. then while they rest or sleep, the mommas do yoga. it is relaxing and lovely, but our instructor makes sure the poses we do work as many muscles as possible. more ouch.

third, i have headed back to the gym. i get on the treadmill and walk two miles with as much speed and % grade (you know...uphill) as i can handle. and then for a few minutes i lift the ten pound weights and hope that i will have michelle obama's arms the next time i gaze in the mirror.

fourth, i started a one hundred pushups challenge. supposedly, if i follow the routine, in six weeks, i will be able to do 100 pushups. i will believe it when it happens. although, if you add together all the pushups included in yesterday's workout, i did eighty-eight, so maybe there is something to this!!

fifth, just for good measure (as if all of that wasn't enough), i somehow convinced two people to do the pushups challenge with me, but they in turn suckered me into doing the two hundred situps and two hundred squats challenges. yikes. 

i am hoping to maintain my motivation, because although i am not always a fan of exercising, i LOATHE dieting. i will do anything to ensure that ice cream and cookies do not have to be eliminated from the pickel food pyramid.

wednesday windows #9.

this week's theme: the wonderful world of our condominium building.

when i moved into our condo, i was told that condo rules prohibit pets; however, there is one lady who has medical authorization to own a dog. i did not think anything of this fact. after a few weeks i met the lady and found her to be aggressively friendly. strange combination, but i have not other description. having been accosted by her multiple times over the last five years, including her yelling at me for not joining the condo board, loudly insisting that her large, growling, and barking dog (which may have been foaming at the mouth) was perfectly harmless, and running her hand down my leg at a meeting, i have since changed my opinion. she is simply crazy. after being harassed himself, even the mister, who is much less feisty than moi, finally had to agree. the lady is cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

it just so happens that her reserved parking spot #116 is right along the path from my parking spot to the building entrance. i used to cut through her spot (between her car and the column)...you know, shave a few seconds off of the journey to my house. but then pringle joined my adventures and i have had to learn to think for two. one day i realized that crazy lady technically owns that parking spot and i am not the least bit interested in introducing pringle to that world. since that epiphany, i have avoided the spot like the plague. or tried to. but occasionally when lost in my own thoughts, i find myself wandering through the corner of her spot. do i just forget it and continue? ummm...no. because apparently i am a little wacko myself. i have actually retraced my steps, as if that erases my tread into psycho territory, and walked back around the support column. anyone who observes this probably thinks that i belong in the loony bin, but i have to protect my young!

living in miami, i am constantly surrounded by people for whom english is a second language. the resulting english can be amusing. i am not gonna lie, it took me a minute to decipher the meaning of a "computer for car key," and still, i am only assuming that my analysis is correct.

interested in participating in wednesday windows? check out the instructions.

shameless.

when i was a kid i remember begging my mom to let me buy this or that for my teacher. twice a year i got to pick something little to show my teacher how much i loved her. it was never anything earth-shattering, but it was my childish way of saying "thanks." from my perusals of the blogosphere, craftosphere, and facebook, this tradition continues, yet the kids at my school do not seem to have gotten the memo. i am a big believer in the motto "it is the thought that counts," so does that mean that despite wrangling your kid for six hours a day, five days a week, for 10 MONTHS that i do not even warrant a thought?

patiently teaching 5-year olds how to weave paper.

in five years of teaching, which thanks to various administrative shuffling, puts me somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 kids, i have received nine gifts and only a handful of cards. now i know the economy is in the dumps, but is it truly too much to ask that you go to the dollar store and buy a candle or sit your kid down with a paper and some crayons and tell them to make a thank you card for their teacher? really?

more times than i can remember my mom told me that it does not take much to say thank you and it sure does make the other people feel special. so this year, thanks to the brainchild of ms. pumpky, i have taken matters into my own hands. blatantly begging some might say. i prefer to think of it as continuing education...teaching kids that they should say thank you. i am not picky. handmade cards and dollar store gifts are the apple of my eye; all i ask is that you think of me. to that end, i placed a box on my desk, stuck a fake present in it and pointed it out to my kids telling them that if they have cards or gifts for me, they can just put them in the box. i plan to give them daily reminders of the box's existence. shameless plugging? perhaps. but i have decided that it is necessary since their parents refuse to teach them how to be good people.

the beggar collection box.

for those of you that have kids in school...do not forget the teacher. they work hard day in and day out to try to prepare your child for the future and it is always nice to know that you care. no need to spend a fortune...feel free to have your kids make a popsicle stick photo frame or some other crafty dealio (click here if you need some inspiration) and i guarantee the teacher will love it. after all there is a reason they chose to surround themselves with little people.

movin' on down to the west side.

oopsy poopsy, i seem to have once again wandered off on an unannounced hiatus. sorry about that. i am back and with an updated dandelion design. i have been hibernating...alternating my time between the couch and the sewing machine. ain't life grand?

today the mister and i went on a "quick" shopping trip, which turned into a seven hour adventure. only us. we leave the house and something inside our brains (okay fine, my brain) snaps and we enter some sort of time warp reserved for shopping. now i am still semi-banned from shopping, but we were on a mission to find gifts to give to our friends and family when we visit lesotho. the mister has already taken care of buying the "big" gifts, but today was the day to find all the filler stuff. my territory. to stay on budget we decided to visit dollar stores, but my favorite one closed last year. my attempts to find a replacement store have been greatly hindered by my instinct for self-preservation which has prevented me from entering the seedier neighborhoods which are home to the best discount shopping experiences. so i dragged along the hubby and we found not one, but two fabulous stores.

the first one was almost too much for me. i was not sure if it was a good idea to get out of the car, but i did. once we got inside i was thrilled, because the place was a gold mine. i even found a hot pink house dress. yay! and then the announcements started. some sort of live video and audio surveillance. the voice on the loudspeaker kept saying that we were being watched live and police would respond to any suspicious behavior. and then she asked the clerk a question to which the clerk was required to respond. all of this over the loudspeakers! the mister and i were kind of dumbfounded and wondering what we had stumbled into. we took it in stride and then the announcements started again. and again. and again. we got a little paranoid that maybe we were the suspicious characters, but we persevered. and we emerged unscathed.

the next store was a doozy. a GIGANTIC store with the world's most random collection of stuff. which i suppose explains the name of the store...."stuff." no joke. once we got over the name of the store we entered and discovered that two large and noisy fans are responsible for the climate control. result...sweltering. we wandered the aisles with sweat dripping off our brows. by the end the mister was ready to melt. but we found.......MSG! whaaat? don't get me wrong, i have seen this stuff on ingredient labels my whole life..my mums is allergic to it, so naturally the name is seared in my memory...but i have never actually realized that i could purchase a bottle of monosodium glutamate. never a dull moment in a dollar store.

seven hours, three dollar stores, two kmarts, and costco = nail polish, lip gloss, perfume, pencils, socks, radios, and shoes. might not seem like much, but finding the perfect bargains is a lot of work. today's trip was glorious. total success.