Yes! That was my experience, too! I actually washed my hair yesterday (it was day 3 of no washing) and whereas I'd normally skip the shampoo process I used it again and lo and behold - it turned out decently. I have some "safe" clarifying shampoo at the moment but when that runs out I might just use the ginormous bottle my husband buys from Sam's 😁

@skwigg this whole post is amazing! I don't know why I'm giddy and got warm fuzzies, maybe because I feel like "FINALLY someone gets it!" I have spent countless minutes (ok...hours) reading blogs, watching YouTube videos, and holding my thumb on an IG reel while trying to apply hair product in the manner of the Ig-er only to revert back to what I did before. Because truly at the end of the day I think we know our own hair better than anyone else. It's funny you mention that about shampooing...I was sort of doing a natural "cleansing" of my hair every day during the summer as I love to swim. I never really shampoo'd it after being in the pool (maybe a co-wash) but once we closed down our pool and I quit swimming I realized my hair constantly felt gunky. I'd co-wash, apply a conditioner, leave in a little bit because my hair felt dry and/or weighed down, then use curl cream, then gel, and it felt awful. Finally I researched "clarifying shampoos for curly hair" and came up with something that seemed acceptable and I think that helped somewhat. But I realize now that when I washed my hair this past weekend for the first time after 5 days (once I'd straightened it) I was in a hotel room with my kids and used whatever the hotel had on hand (I hadn't brought my own). It had to be something cheap, but once I washed, applied leave in Kinky Curly Conditioner and finished with the Curly Custard I was shocked at how nice my hair turned out. I was thinking I wouldn't shampoo again for another week but now I'm thinking otherwise. Can I pause for a minute and LOL 😆 about the Stooges pic? Because I have been there. Grown my hair out, had it all chopped off. Grown it out, chopped it off. Rinse, repeat. My hair wasn't as curly in my bob stage (I'm not sure if having Chloe altered things a bit and/or I'd gone through a keratin treatment that stripped my hair of life and soul) so it didn't look terrible but I was over the short length after about 3 days. That's interesting about color and getting older, too. Looking back I think my hair has always been fine and thin except for when I was pregnant. With both kids I look back on my hair and realize it never looked and felt more luxurious. I tried taking prenatal vitamins after giving birth but it is not the same thing 😁 I couldn't even describe what color my hair is when I let the color grow. There were (are) some grays but it was really more of a dark, dull brownish mud color. If the new hair had grown in thicker, softer, fuller, more healthy I probably would've been more inclined to leave the color out but it didn't seem much better. At least not that I can remember.... I also agree that following bloggers, YouTubers, and IG influencers is futile and that Sally Beauty and Target offer products that are just as great if not better. Right now I'm having luck with the Kinky Curly products but sometimes when seasons change I switch products. I will definitely say that using curl cream+gel does nothing for my hair. I seem to do better with lots of moisturizing products as my hair tends to be dry. I also need a crunch or hold to scrunch out otherwise I end up with the bush. The problem I often have is hold provides me with a nice cast and when I go to scrunch I end up with dry, brittle-feeling hair. If I want soft I get no hold. Whatever I did on Sunday worked wonders (must be the cheap, crappy hotel room shampoo 🤣) but I will try to mimic it again at home. With all of that being said, your hair DOES look fabulous! I love the length, curls, and Andie McDowell (I almost wrote Andie Griffith 😁) color/style!

@skwigg if you get a bonnet please share a pic. I think my family is finally (somewhat) used to me walking around in a heated shower cap (?) when I do a deep conditioning treatment or when I've plopped my hair in an old t-shirt. I'm glad you resurrected this thread as I've recently gone through an obsessive-ish phase with my hair again. About 6 months before Covid I had my highlights updated for the last time up until this April. It was partially because i was so frustrated with my hair and this curly hair "guru" Scott Musgrave has a studio about 30 mins from my house. I found him online, he created this whole MAP course that I received access to, and he worked a miracle on my hair. I say that in the sense that I felt like I finally learned which products to use (and which not to use) and how to apply them. Of course once I got home and attempted to do it all myself it sort of flopped. I experimented for a while and watched and re-watched the videos, spent way too much money on various products, etc. I think this was maybe back in 2018? Anyway, I had my highlights redone at some point and was struggling a lot with my hair again so I went back for a visit with him. I felt like a scolded child when he told me how color was ruining my hair. He basically told me that I had no reason to complain because I was the one doing all the damage (even though I'd quit applying any heat - dryer or otherwise and was babying my hair as much as possible). After that I didn't take a single heating tool to my hair and I didn't apply any color. I loved that my hair grew long but it never got any healthier. I felt like highlights or not my hair was still thin, fine, and susceptible to damage. Then I found all of these curly girl sites on IG saying that sulphates weren't the devil and while color isn't great for your hair it's not satanic to have your hair colored. Which was great because after 3 years I couldn't even tell you what color my hair was. Brown? Dirty blonde? It looked like mud to me. So this April I finally went back and had my highlights redone and I loved the color. I was terrified of losing the length I'd finally gotten so he did a "dusting" and called it a day. I really needed more than that but alas that's what I went with. I was noticing this fall that I wanted more brightness around my face so instead of waiting another 3 years I made an appt for a deva curl trained stylist at the same salon who would re-do my highlights. She did all sorts of fancy treatments to help with my dry hair, redid the color, and then told me I needed a couple of inches cut off because I had so many split ends (which was a fair observation). A couple of inches turned into about 3-4, which in curly world felt more like 6. I loved the way she styled my hair, but I'm not sure if she didn't apply enough gel or what because it was fairly humid here that day and it looked like I had a bush sitting on top of my head that afternoon. Again, I attempted to style, re-style, wash, wet, and go through another exorbitant amount of products I already had at home. I went back to what worked before but with the cooler temps here I was fed up with constantly sopping wet hair. So for the first time in years I flat ironed my hair last Wed. It was fun and different and I liked that my hair was dry and I was able to wear a winter hat and actually feel like I looked half decent but 5 days later I really needed to wash my hair. I used the Kinky Curly Girl leave-in conditioner, rinsed it out, reapplied some more and actually left it in, and then used KCG curling custard, which I think seems to work well with my hair. I was in VA this past weekend with my kids at a hotel so I used a hotel towel to scrunch/dry my hair and left it alone. It was one of the best hair days I've had in months I was so excited. I'm sure the dryer air had something to do with it but I was very pleased. Which is NOT to say it will look like that today or tomorrow, which frustrates me about my hair.Every time I take my hair out of a pony tail and try to "refresh" it looks different than my wash day. Wash days are different despite similar/same applications and products. I guess it makes life interesting 😁 I probably didn't need to spend 6 paragraphs on my hair but alas, here we are.

I stumbled upon Manifest on Netflix and while I almost passed because I don’t generally enjoy sci-if or paranormal stuff I am totally hooked. My husband and I had started watching “In the dark,” which we are both enjoying but I’m having to put that on hold while I watch Manifest. It takes me a while to get through a show and I think there are about 4 seasons of Manifest so hopefully I’ll get back to it ITD one day. I’m also eager to watch the new season of White Lotus - I loved the first one. I think the dysfunctional characters made me feel so much better about myself 😂

We finished Ozark last week and as hooked as I've been on the show I was happy to see it end. Although, was it just me or did it seem as though they left it open for more...? I feel like the older I get the more sensitive I become to violence, and the disturbing nature of the show really got to me towards the end. With that being said, it did not diminish my love of Jason Bateman at all 😁 I started "Call the Midwife" on Netflix last week. So far it's been good but I might die of old age before I finish all 11 seasons. I just needed something different.

I always appreciate this thread as I don't watch more than one show at a time but when I finish it I'm always champing at the bit for another. Somebody Somewhere seems appropriate - I'm finishing up The Woman in the House across the Street from the Woman in the Window, which has both scared me and made me laugh. I have one episode left and then I think I'll watch Somebody Somewhere. We also finished Pieces of Her not long ago, which I really enjoyed (enjoyed as in, it also somewhat terrified me and yet I couldn't stop watching). I guess "terrified" is the wrong word - there were some pretty gory parts where I found myself with a blanket over my head. The show is based on a book by Karin Slaughter and while I haven't read Pieces of Her I've read a few others and liked them. Anyway, I have my list, thank you! :)

Thanks @skwigg . The things your FitBit tracks sound like the things I'm looking for so maybe I'll look into it. I'm curious to see if it does anything with menstruation tracking? Not that I don't already use an app for that so it's not really necessary. I definitely don't want to aim for any step goals! If I were to get something like that I'd keep mine super low 😁 I think Whoop is a little too advanced for me. Perhaps it's beneficial for more serious athletes but I don't think it's worth a $30/month membership!

I did a quick search on the forum with Oura ring and when I couldn't find anything I typed in "tracker" and found this post. I can't quite tell if it's a new thread or I'm hijacking someone's journal so just in case I will issue an apologetic disclaimer. 😬 I haven't tracked anything in years. My apple watch was a pain and I had (have?) a really old FitBit that drove me nuts. I used Polar HRM prior to that and eventually put them all aside because I was so obsessed with the numbers. Before knee surgery I was still using my OTF arm band to monitor where my HR was during intervals but I never cared about calorie burn. Since knee surgery I haven't done cardio in almost 2 months. Well, up until last weekend when the PT approved me to do intervals on the bike and I spent a day last weekend testing it out. I'm happy to say I'm loving the results of just strength training - not just feeling (looking?) stronger but mostly the lack of ravenous hunger and exhausting fatigue I felt after running and tons of cardio. With all of that being said, I have a birthday coming up and was toying with the idea of getting a Whoop band or an Oura ring. I don't really care about calorie burn from my workout or even daily steps. I'm interested more in sleep, HRV, and all of that sort of fun data. So I'm trying to decide which, if any, tracker would be worth getting. It might be that I simply don't need anything and that's ok. There are so many gadgets out there these days that I kind of don't know where to start. I know there have been plenty of conversations around this before and I'll probably toodle around the website after I post this but thought I'd ask anyway. :)

Thank you for tagging me, @skwigg! I'm not sure how much help I will be but I'll do my best. Firstly, congratulations Letizia on both the marriage and the pregnancy! Both are very exciting. I think I still follow you on IG so I've seen many of your lovely photos. Skwigg's comment about noticing new, intrusive, and obsessive thoughts and stepping back from them are definitely key. I don't know that I can offer up any specific action steps to take but I will throw in my 2 cents from personal experience in hopes that whatever resonates will help. My first pregnancy with my daughter was a slippery slope into bulimia. Thank goodness she was born (and still is healthy) but I gained very little weight and wasn't told this was an issue by any doctor until the end of the pregnancy (despite me asking if it was acceptable throughout). This doesn't necessarily pertain to pregnancy, perhaps, but I will say that after I had both of my kids I was desperate to return to exercising. I didn't have weight to lose with either of them (I may have perceived that differently back then) but I still yearned to run, teach, etc. I was so focused on the exercise component that I can honestly (and very sadly) say that I missed out on a lot. Because I jumped back into high intensity stuff too quickly I think it messed with my milk production. I had serious issues breast feeding Chloe because she was born 3 weeks early and a little small so it was hard. I worked diligently with a lactation consultant but gave up because I was absolutely exhausted. My son, however, was an eating machine. I had no issues nursing him, but again, it was time consuming and my thoughts were often elsewhere. Going places, doing things, seeing people, exercising, etc. All in all I nursed him for about 3 months before I switched to bottle and formula feeding there, too (I did pump for a while but again, exhausting and time consuming). There is absolutely nothing wrong with formula feeding and my youngest, now 8 years old, is healthy as a horse. What I am sad about is that bonding experience you get from nursing your child, those precious moments when it's just the two of you (unless you're nursing in public, which is totally doable just a little more complicated 😁) that I will never get back. Don't get me wrong - I still spent a lot of time with both of my kids. We went to parks, on walks (and jogs), met up with friends, etc, but I know I spent a lot of time thinking about my body and gaining back both my pre-pregnancy figure, stamina, and endurance. If I could go back in time I would do many things differently. I would lie in bed nursing my baby more. I would take gentle walks and put fitness on the back burner. I would still make an effort to go to parks and be with people because having babies can sometimes feel very lonely and isolating, but I definitely would've spent more time being kind with myself and realizing that the most important thing was lapping up every moment of their newness. I did do that quite a bit, to a certain extent (and many days were exhausting and very hard) but I try to think about the learning opportunities I take from those days and apply them to the here and now. I apologize for that lengthy comment and if it's completely unhelpful. I can only offer up hindsights that, to do this day, are applicable. Having knee surgery and being incapacitated (for the most part) for 4-6 weeks has completely flipped my perspective on all of this. Nourish your body (and your baby). Eat a variety of foods for various nutrients. Understand that all of this with your body - the strangeness in how you walk, move, feel, sleep, etc - it's all temporary. I always said I hated being pregnant because it felt so cumbersome. But honestly it was just different and I think I was less open to changing my perspective. I'll be interested in reading what Sheena and sunshine can offer and hope that what I wrote was ok. It's hard to tap out these words without getting pretty emotional because again, I can't get those days back, but I love my two more than anything else in this world and hope that the rest of your pregnancy goes smoothly!

I haven’t seen Yellowjackets but my husband watched it and gave me a very detailed synopsis. It did sound REALLY good. We finished the latest season (I think it’s split into 2 parts) of Ozark, which never fails to completely blow my mind. Jason Bateman is my favorite - his level of calm in the face of total chaos is astounding. We also recently watched Stay Close, which is another Harlan Coben series on Netflix. We watched The Stranger and really enjoyed it, this most recent one was decent. I’d marked in Goodreads that I’d read the book “stay close” but couldn’t recall anything about it and I didn’t rate it very highly. I thought the show was pretty good. Other than that I’ve been watching reruns of Modern Family, Friends, and older movies like The Hangover and This is 40 to keep things light. Paul Rudd is also my favorite. He always makes me laugh 😊

I'm still finishing up Nine Perfect Strangers (which I'm really enjoying...Nicole Kidman plays creepy well) and loving it. I read the book in early 2020 so I can't remember how closely they align but it's entertaining. I still have the Brittany documentary (as well as others) on my list to watch, but @skwigg your mentioning of control and finances made me think of Britney Spears and the whole conservatorship debacle, which I am (somewhat sadly) intently following. I still think some of the stuff she posts on IG is whacky (either that or really creative and I'm totally missing the deeper meanings) but I'm happy she's gaining her "freedom" if it really is as awful as it sounded. @sarah too I, too, am looking forward to something uplifting to watch so I think Ted Lasso is next. A friend approached me the other day and said her husband convinced her to start watching some totally messed up show. When I asked her for the name she said, "White Lotus." It was like a knee-jerk reaction for me to jump up and down yelling, "I LOVED that show! I could not stop watching!" My friend looked at me as if to say, "What is WRONG with you?!" I told her it made me feel better about myself to watch so many dysfunctional relationships 😂 I also enjoyed the acting.

I want to watch: Nine perfect strangers (read the book and thought it was ok but willing to give the series a try) Ted Lasso season 2 Morning Show season 2 The Brittany Murphy documentary (when it premieres Thurs) So far all I’ve watched lately was Bohemian Rhapsody (for the 4th time) and cried. Again.

@jalapenocheese LOVED mare of eastown! Such a great show!

@jalapenocheese my husband said to me this evening, “I heard about this new show on Netflix called ‘clickbait.’ Sounds really good.” We are watching episode 1 now and I’m hooked!

I’m so excited to start season 2 of Ted Lasso! I also just saw that The Morning Show season 2 is premiering. I haven’t watched anything on TV for almost 2 weeks now so I look forward to both.

We finished White Lotus the other day - it was crazy good. We also finished the second season of Dirty John: The Betty Broderick story, which was also crazy good. Mostly crazy but still good.

I love when this thread gets updated - I always appreciate recommendations! I'm waiting for Ted Lasso episodes to accumulate before I start watching, but now that I've thought about it I'm tempted to re-watch the first season. Has anyone seen White Lotus? Steve Zahn, Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, etc. It's on HBO or HBO Max (or both?) and I'm completely addicted. It's about a family, a single lady, a couple on their honeymoon and maybe some others who all vacation at an island resort in Hawaii. They, along with some of the island employees, all have different backgrounds and stories that they bring to the table that get complicated. I've laughed, cringed, and champed at the bit for each week's episode. Tonight's is the last one but it's been a ride.

@Joyce I was hooked after episode 1 I just haven't had time to watch the second. I love the acting! Kate Winslet is great.

@Joyce We just watched episode 1 of Mare of Easttown last night! It was excellent.

I'm actually getting together tonight with some Friends to watch the reunion show! I've seen snippets and I'm SO excited! Some of my pals were bummed they weren't doing the continuation thing, but I'm happy the cast is going to be reuniting and rehashing. My one friend that's hosting is actually wanting to do a get-together to watch the 90210 follow up (I guess where the original cast members return to do several more episodes?) and a bunch of other stuff. In all honesty I haven't watched anything since "A Teacher" (which I posted about above) and 1 episode of "Shrill" which I enjoyed.