52 New Things: Bought 10 Boxes of Cereal and saved $30 on Groceries! (0 to go:)

Wow,  I went to Smith's and everything was on sale.  So I bought $86 worth of groceries, but I saved $30:)  And now I have a massive amount of healthy, delicious, nonperishable food.

Special K was on sale for $1.79,  come on.

Yum!  I love having food.

Well, there you go! 52 new things.  I liked doing it, but I think the most important new things I did were not the ones I blogged about:)  Here's to another year full of trying new things!!!

52 New Things: Saw Frozen (2 to go)

We went and saw Frozen.  It was so good!  The music was very "musical" style, not typical Disney.  There were a lot of life lessons, particularly about love and emotional health.  

Christoph.  He's a bit of a fixer-upper.:)

And of course, this guy was everyone's favorite character;)

52 New Things: Went to Mt. Fuji Sushi, Farr Fresh and Heard this Band (3 to go)

Awwww!  They're so cute:)

 We went to Mt Fuji!  It was during happy hour, so it was pretty crowded.

These guys were really good!

They were really great, totally not "sushi" music at all, but I loved them:)  We went to Farr's frozen yogurt after, that was delicious!  And yes, it was probably 12 degrees outside.

52 New Things: My Hair Adventure... (6 to go)

So.  Several new things. This week has been a hair adventure.  I attempted to put in some subtle ombre highlights.  They turned out pretty well, but the dye I used to tone it was actually a high lift dye, and it turned my hair suuper red!

"Hmm, I wonder what's happening under this cap right now.  Probably my hair's turning orange."

It was Sunday the next day, so I had to go to church with orange hair. (You're welcome.)

The sun'll come out...tomorrow! This is a fairly accurate pic of the color

I went to Salt Lake for Christmas.  I got my sister's hair dresser to do my hair.  She didn't think it was that bad (my first red flag).  She said she could still do the highlights and dye the rest back to the original dark brown.  Cool:)  But not cool at the same time, because it was still orange when I left.  Yes, I cried in the car on the way home.  Yes, like a baby.  Yes, for the first time I contemplated that I might have to live the next five years with orange hair.

So relaxed, just sending in sample pics to Sesame Street in case they like the eyebrow look on me.  Because yes, I bleached them out too.  Totally unaware that the dye would NOT hold at all and I would still have orange hair.

I made an appointment for a color correction at a really nice salon a few blocks from my house.  By nice, I mean expensive.  I read some mixed reviews, and I started to get a little worried that I would have a similar experience as at my last hair appointment.

So I had an idea.  This one was actually good.  I thought, why don't I just get a couple boxes of dye and toner and do a strip test.  If it turns out, money in the bank.  If not, I'll just go to the salon.  And you know what?  Money in the bank:)  After presents on Christmas morning (and no Christmas pics, sorry) Mom and I scrubbed up and did a little hair repair.  I conditioned it for an hour afterward (because my hair had been treated how many times by now???).  When I washed it out, ahhhhhhhhhh it wasn't orange anymore!

The roots were very, very dark. In my zeal to wash out the extra dye, I toned it down a little (It's still darker than before:/) but I really washed out the bottom right under the line of dark dye.

There is a distinct line between dark and light (symbolic?;)

The brassiness is probably the bigger problem.  It wouldn't be so noticeable if it wasn't so red.

I like the subtle highlights showing through:)

Line of red in the middle of my hair

And I just couldn't leave it.  I got the Revlon Frost and Glow Honey highlighting kit and light ash brown dye. 

I put in the highlights in.  I looked a little like Rouge from x men:)  

Then I toned them with the dye.  I also put some of the dye just lightly on the black part of my hair.  Guess what? It actually turned out pretty great:)  Not perfect, yes over-processed (ha) but luckily I have beastly hair that is thick and full of body and basically nothing can destroy it.  Of course I will be babying it for the next few months, but I think it'll be fine:) I got a purple toning shampoo to help balance out the slightly red and gold tones that are still in my hair.  Other than that, I finally like it:)

Ahh, so subtle, just the way I like it:)

52 New Things: Made this Afghan (12 to go)

I made this pretty afghan and just finished a few days ago.  I love it soo much!  I love how it turned out with the X.  I wish the light pink was a little darker.. you can barely tell it's different than the white. I wanted it to be more of a fade than light/dark contrast.  Oh, well:)  I have ideas of what I want to make, it's just hard to translate them into blankets with very limited colors at the craft store.

Braces Week Two

Merry Christmas!  My braces have been on for two weeks now.  I'm glad I'm doing these pics, because it makes it easier to see slight progress.  It's hard having these on, and I like to feel like progress is being made:)  The first pic is the day I got my braces on, the middle pic is today and the last one is from a week ago, just for comparison.

Wednesday, December 11, the day I got my braces on

Thursday, December 26, week two of braces

Wednesday, December 18 one week of braces

It's been worrying me a little that the gap between my front teeth isn't bigger.  Dr. Watson said it should gap really soon.  I knoooow it's only been two weeks... I just like to see progress.  However, looking at these pictures, I can tell that the angle of my two front teeth is changing in two ways.  They are less angled toward each other, and less angled in toward my mouth. Swollen gums are looking moderately better (I have some wax on my right side). It appears my left side has come down more, although it might just be the angle of the picture.  Yay, another week down!

Braces Week One

It's been a week, Hallelujah!!!
So, the good news is that my teeth are moving.  They already look straighter to me:)  That makes me really happy.  I just want them to move as fast as possible, I wish there was a way I could speed it up!
One bad news item, I had a bracket fall off on Friday:/  It was on a crown, and they used the regular cement, so they said it was a possibility that it would fall off.
I just covered the wire with some wax and they got me in first thing Monday morning to get it reattached.  This time, the roughed up my crown a little and put special adhesive on.  He told me he would repolish it and everything when the braces come off.
He reattached the arch wire to that side of my mouth and I was on my way in just a few minutes:)

I've gotten to the point just the last couple of days that I haven't been using wax.  I'm sure I'll use it again, but for right now, it feels okay without:)  I've also started eating regular food!  Which is awesome, because I love mashed potatoes and soup...but enough is enough.

I'm really happy to actually be seeing results.  I'm having a hard time being patient:)  He estimated 3-5 months of treatment, I hope it's only 3!  I've read that there's really no way to make it go faster though, the best things I can do is just have really good oral hygiene and stay away from problem foods. So, I will do that and have fun watching my teeth move.

I can tell my right side has come down to form a straight wire line, which is awesome. Also, I thought it might look weird with so much gum on top, but it looks like the tooth has pulled down further out of my gums, exposing more enamel rather than moving the gum down too. (That makes more sense; I don't know why I thought it would happen the other way around.)
My left side is coming down, although not as fast. The little tooth to the side of my big tooth is still pretty crooked, but to me it looks a little straighter.:) My front teeth are becoming less angled.  I can feel it on the back of my teeth, and also the bottoms of the front look straighter. They're still overlapping a touch, but they are definitely moving. The goal of the next few weeks is to get a gap going between my two front teeth. I'm getting a little chapped in both corners of my mouth.

Wednesday, December 11, the day I got my braces on

Wednesday, December 18, one week later

It takes forever to clean my braces.  Especially when I have to spend AT LEAST five minutes every night staring at them trying to see them move;)

52 New Things: Got Braces (13 to go)

Awwwwww, yeah.  Braces. 

So yeah, I got braces:)  Never thought that would happen, but it is happening.  I'm only supposed to have them on for a few months... I'm pretty stoked to get them off, obviously ;)
I got them done at Orthotime in American Fork.  Basically, I loooove this office.  They are so wonderful:)  They're fun and professional.  If you are anywhere in Utah Valley, get your braces done here, they're the best!
In the mean time, I have braces now, weird:) My mouth is exhausted from feeling them. I'm so stoked to get them off:)  They probably won't bother me as much, you know, after the first day I have them on.  I'm really excited to see my teeth move:)  I keep hoping I'll wake up in the morning and they'll look better. I'm so glad they're clear, they're really not super noticeable.
Using the wax is tricky, it's hard to put it on so it doesn't fall off:)  I'm worried about getting sores in my mouth.  I'm sure brushing and flossing will be a beast, so... not looking forward to that, but I'm definitely going to do everything I can to keep my teeth healthy during this treatment.

Today is Wednesday the 11th, I'll post a pic every Wednesday (unless it gets boring, let's be honest...) so I can chart my progress!