I thought I was completely caught up with Ted Lasso and would finish off the season, but alas there is one more left on Wednesday. My husband and MIL watch Succession - supposedly I missed out on a good show!

I finished season 2 of "Sex Education" and was so bummed when it came to an end. The opening scenes were usually pretty raunchy, but overall it was hilarious and heart-warming all at once. I think season 3 drops this summer, which I'm excited about. I am struggling with the latest season of Ted Lasso. I think I'm about 7 episodes in and plodding through but almost begrudgingly. Hubs and I started "The Last Thing He Told Me" on AppleTV last night and so far it's pretty good. I read the book a couple of years ago so I don't remember anything more than that I loved it. Jennifer Garner plays the main character so that's an added bonus. We finished "Beef" on Netflix the other night, which I thought I was going to strongly dislike and ended up loving. The final episode was a bit meh, but overall the show was like watching a train wreck I couldn't tear myself away from. There's something about characters with seriously heavy issues (like White Lotus) that I am disturbingly attracted to. I have "bad sisters" and the new season of "Workin Moms" on my list but I can only usually get through one show at a time. I have a feeling I'll be working on Ted Lasso for the next couple of years. It seems to take me 4 days to get through an episode 😂

I used to do the Lift with Sohee program (https://soheefit.com) where you could do a 3 or 4 day split that offered both an at-home and gym version. You kept the same workout for a month with a focus on progressive overload, but her workouts always took me about 45 mins. I switched over to RISE (https://shop.achievefitnessonline.com/products/rise-program) primarily because I wanted something that incorporated mobility, power, agility AND strength and I love it! I started following Jason and Lauren Pak on IG and their take on fitness in general is sound and sane (IMHO). I do the 4 day version, but there is a "RISE Lite" that is a 3 day version and can be done at home. I think a lot of people do the home version, but I've never delved into it because I've only ever done the 4 day gym one. I love that every day is full body of some sort that starts off mobility warm-ups proceeded by some sort of power move (that can be easily modified to suit your fitness levels/abilities) before delving into strength. They provide TONS of options and alternatives if you don't have specific equipment. Again though, the workouts always take me 45-60 mins depending on the day, how much time I spend on mobility, resting between supersets, etc. I don't know if that helps much, but I thought I'd throw out my two cents. Actually, here's my third cent that piggybacks on what @skwiggs already mentioned. If you're looking for well-rounded, balanced workouts that incorporate mobility, strength, power, stretching, etc, with various options and take 30 mins or less than Zuzka is probably your best bet. Granted, I don't have much to compare her to other than Sohee and Jason & Lauren and I haven't checked out anything Zuzka-related in a while, but her approach always seemed pretty balanced.

I LOVED Shrinking on Apple! We just started Ted lasso and I am flying through Sex Education on Netflix. It makes me both cringe and laugh hysterically and I’ll be sad when it comes to an end. I might have to check out the Sisters show.

I know I'm resurrecting a very old post, but the name "Sohee" caught my eye as these were the workouts I did for a while. I subscribed to her monthly programs for about 5 months before switching to one called "Rise." I didn't mind Sohee's, but I wanted something with more mobility and I actually prefer incorporating both lower and upper body workout into one session. The upside to Sohee's were that her moves were fairly basic and straight forward. Basic bench press, squats, hip thrusts, lat pulldowns, pull-ups, etc. The Rise program has some of that along with a lot of interesting KB movements that sometimes make me feel like I'm patting my head and simultaneously rubbing my belly. Which is both fun and humbling. The downside is that I want to be in and out of the gym within an hour and sometimes (especially when I'm waiting on equipment) it takes much longer than that. I do substitute moves if I give up on waiting or cut back a set if I'm not feeling it that day, but I find I'm wanting to tweak these workouts more and more to make them my own. Which I know is perfectly acceptable, I just have the mentality that I have to complete it all.

I'm glad you resurrected this thread @sarah too ! Chloe never did finish watching Stranger Things (or Wednesday for that matter). She got really scared and would only watch it with her dad but then I think too much time passed and she hasn't gone back to it. TV shows have been on my mind lately and most recently I've been watching Physical. There are only 2 seasons and I just started the second but I'm completely addicted. It hits home for me because of the fact that the main character (Rose Byrne) finds happiness & meaning in aerobics and becomes an instructor, but her struggle with bulimia is a strong undercurrent in the show, too (there's the trigger warning in case anyone was interested in watching but unsure). There are a lot of f-bombs and her self-judgment and judgment of others is sometimes a little hard to take, but overall I can't stop watching and am thoroughly enjoying it. I seem to have a strong pull towards shows that offer at least some level of dysfunction (see my previous post about White Lotus 😁) I had brunch with a couple of friends last Friday and we started talking TV shows. Here is the list I came up with based on their recommendations- I'm curious to know if anyone has watched these and/or your thoughts: -Abbot Elementary -Shrinking (I've seen commercials for this on AppleTV. It has Harrison Ford & Jason Segal and looks pretty funny) -Firefly Lane -Moms -Trying -Love My parents are trying to convince me to watch a British detective show called "Happy Valley." I've added it to my list but as you can see I have a long ways to go (esp seeing as I can only handle one at a time) Ted Lasso is for sure next on my list once it comes out! I kind of let House of Cards fall by the wayside. I like the show but my mind wanders a lot and I find myself having to rewind and rewatch a lot (and I still don't understand what's going on).

I was scrolling back through some posts and found this one that I missed! I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who doesn't use curl cream. I do tend to have dry hair, but I find leaving in a little conditioner works better than using a cream. I, too discovered the beauty (like how I did that? ha ha..though it was totally accidental) of buying the products from Amazon! Even comparing prices to other stores it works out to be a better deal.

@Joyce that is very cool! Well, maybe not being thrown out 😂 How did you get on the set?

My husband watched it (he dressed up as Eddie for Halloween) and my daughter started watching it (he’s 12) but decided she’s too scared to watch it alone so she’ll only watch it with my husband. They both love it though! I’ve also heard Wednesday is a hit. I’m watching House of Cards for the first time. I don’t understand politics well (I should really know more than I do) so I also have to mostly watch it with my husband for him to translate what’s going on 😂

No worries @sunshine ! Thanks for letting me know about glycerin and what you said totally makes sense. I was curious to see if the products I'm currently using have it listed as an ingredient but I didn't see it on there. Granted, there might be other words that mean glycerin but don't actually say it. :)

I literally LOL at your last comment. I'm actually still smiling as I type this because I honestly don't know where else I can have these random discussions about my hair. 😆 Truly - the struggle is real. My straight-haired friends (which I realize now are about 99.9% of them) will never understand. It makes sense not to switch products, despite seasonal changes, if you find something that works. I've always noticed that I need to use more/less of something depending on if it's summer or winter, but I've never gone from some hold to zero hold in a matter of days. What's interesting is that I started thinking exactly what you wrote - in many ways I'd rather have more frizz and touchable hair than "perfectly" (that will never happen) defined curls that don't move. Or they move a little bit but full like straw. So while my hair may have looked quite a bit frizzier after my dog walk it still felt really, really soft which I did enjoy. We can't have it all, right? 😂 I will say that last night before I applied my gel in the shower I wrung out quite a bit more water and I definitely noticed more hold. It was still nice and soft once I messed with it a bit and removed some of the crunch but we'll see how it goes today. Usually when I take it out of a pineapple pony tail once I get home from the gym I have to use a lot of water to prevent it from looking like I have a beehive. I like the idea of using some styling balm so that I'm not completely rinsing out all of the product. That makes sense! Despite the fact that so much of this curly haired stuff doesn't..LOL.

I feel like I am in a curly hair conundrum again. It seems like I find something that works fairly well, stick with that routine for a while, then I wash my hair again and suddenly things stop working. I generally find this to be the case when the seasons change and I have to switch out products, but it has still been fairly cold with low humidity, so I’m not sure what’s going on.  About a week ago I noticed that I was doing my usual routine of using clarifying shampoo, and the conditioner Skwigg said she uses (Aussie brand) because I liked how soft it made my hair feel, followed up with a kinky curly girl curling custard. Then, suddenly I noticed my hair wasn’t having any hold. It would feel incredibly soft, which I loved, except as soon as I’d go outside to do anything, it would get very frizzy and puffy, despite the fact that the humidity is still low. I tried several more wash attempts to see if I’ve done something differently with applications, but the results were the same. I tried using a different gel, but still very little hold. I thought maybe I was rinsing out too much of the product (I do like to apply it when my hair is soaking wet in the shower), so I applied my gel outside of the shower on less soaking wet hair. This definitely gave me more hold but I had less curl definition and more frizz. I thought maybe it was a protein imbalance (I’ve read that when your curls start feeling really soft and you don’t have a lot of hold or definition it means you need more protein). So I went back to using the innersense curl radiance conditioner, and while I love the results, I have no hold and know that my hair will probably look very frizzy again in two hours. It seems like as long as I stay inside my climate controlled house eerything is fine but that is definitely not realistic 😆

I was skimming through recent threads and realize I only get notifications to the ones I actively follow. I thought this was one of them but I guess not. :) @Joyce I feel you on the holidays. They're meant to be a joyous, warm, loving, celebratory occasion but for many they can leave you feeling down and sad. I'm sort of a mixed bag with that time of year, although when January comes I find I'm both happy to have a bit more structure and "normalcy" and sad because the holidays are over and this time of year always feels gray and cold. As I was reading further down the thread I saw what @skwiggs said about carbs+fat=bloat/puffiness. I feel like bloating is always one of my big issues and that might just be due to gluten, which I am really careful about but understand that I live with 3 other people who *do* eat it so maybe there's cross contamination here and there. I definitely find I am way more satisfied when I eat protein+fat. I still eat carbs throughout the day, but if I don't have butter, cheese, salad dressing, whatever, I'm never really satisfied. The weird thing is that when I eat something like GF pasta or rice (I made a Hello Fresh chicken fried rice the other night for dinner) I find that I'm insatiable. There wasn't a lot of chicken to go around (I feel like they always skimp on the protein 😁) and I went back twice for more before I finally thought I'd had enough. It's one of the reasons why I think I generally don't eat a lot of pasta. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but it always seems to take bucket loads for me to feel full and satisfied.

@sarah too We only have 2 more episodes of White Lotus season 2 left and I am already bumming hard about it. There's something so pleasurable about watching so much dysfunction. 😂 It truly has been one of my favorite shows ever. I'm not sure if I like season 2 better than the first, but definitely just as much. I really loved the Australian hotel owner from the first season, but the characters from this one are awesome, too. Not to mention the scenery and language. I feel like I could listen to them speak Italian all day long. I am getting sad about it coming to an end as I don't know what else to watch either. My husband suggested I watch House of Cards so I might start with that.

I decided to go back to what was working for my hair and put the notion that nobody else's hair routine works exactly the same for everyone else. 😁 I will say that the Aussie conditioner is phenomenal - my hair felt like silk afterwards! Who knew such an inexpensive product could provide such great results. I think leaving in some conditioner and using the curling custard is what gives me the best results (for now) as does applying it to soaking wet hair in the shower. I tried styling upside down again and it was kind of a mess. I gave it the ole college try and I might try again in the future but for now I guess I'll stick with what's working. I still haven't quite figured out how to lift up my roots and the hair at the back of my head (and it's kind of embarrassing because I feel like I have a bald spot back there - my hair is so fine - but I can work on it in the future. I also realize that when seasons change I will probably have to redo everything again. LOL Either way it's still a fun topic to talk about!

I tried Skwigg's hair routine last night (upside down application of products in the shower, although my hair was probably more soaking wet) and I was really pleased with the results. Granted my family would probably look at my hair and not notice a single change, but I definitely felt like I had more volume and movement (as opposed to it being plastered to my head). I wasn't able to find Biotera Gel so I used what I had on hand, which was Badabing gel and I think has a really strong hold. The downsides were that the back of my head didn't have any hold - I'm not quite sure how to apply the gel to the top part of the back of my head when it's upside down. Here's what I ended up with last night: Unfortunately this morning it felt really dry and straw-like. I didn't notice that when I scrunched out the gel last night - it definitely felt soft - but this morning it was super stiff. I'm not sure if that's the gel or maybe I didn't apply enough curl cream? I realize so much of this is individual, too, and what works well for one person's hair may not work for another. Kind of like food, exercise, diets... 🤣

I discovered a couple of things: 1) Garnier products are not easily found in stores around here (at least not the Smooth Air Dry) and Garnier Curl refresher is NOT the same thing as Curl Renew. I bought the former as I couldn't find the latter and I assumed they'd be similar. I sprayed the Curl Refresher on dry hair (that I plan on washing tonight) to test it out and now I can barely get a finger through my hair it is so stiff. That will be going back to the store 😬 I'll check out Amazon for curl renew as I can't seem to find it anywhere else. Thanks for the info on the conditioner! Right now I'm using a generic sally beauty supply one and sometimes the leave-in, which my hair seems to enjoy. Although I'm not sure a leave-in+curl cream+gel would do well together...seems like a lot of product?

Have you noticed your hair sticking to the back of your head when you flip back over after applying upside down? Not sure if that makes sense. Like when I put my head right side up the underneath pieces are all stuck and clumpy. Also, what kind of conditioner does everyone like? Not sure if this has been mentioned. I can always scroll back 😊

I'm wondering if maybe towel drying upside down helps with getting the hair to unstick from the head? I might try that next time just to see what happens. I do prefer the volume I get in the roots when I've attempted to style/dry that way. For me it always seems like there's a trade off - if I want my roots to look decent I have to forgo the rest of my hair. If I want the bottom 2/3 of my hair of my hair to look good I have to forgo the roots. The sacrifices we make in life 🤣

I do the same with putting products on soaking wet hair in the shower. Do you apply both cream and gel upside down and then scrunch out water with hands & towel upside down? That's the only thing I haven't quite figured out. I've tried all the tricks and trades of "rolling your head from front to back" and using chopsticks to "lift" hair off the roots and back but it still looks too plastered to my scalp. I've also discovered that wetting my hair on the second day hair is both a help and a hindrance. Help in that when I take it out of my pony tail pineapple I can get get it to look a bit more presentable, but hindrance in that it washes out all the product. I haven't tried any sort of reactivating product other than water+conditioner in a spray bottle so maybe I'll check out Curl Renew. And yes - I always think, "best laid plans" when it comes to styling my hair. Every time is a surprise. 😂