Hey There Curly Hair || Wash n Go and Shameless Selfie

For all you curly haired ladies (and gents) out there you know how hard it is to just get your curly hair to look good in it's natural state.

A little back story. My last relaxer (chemical straightener) was in January of 2008. I transitioned for about 28 months before I was completely natural in mid 2010. I usually do twist outs, braid outs, blow outs, or a puff. Never have I done a wash n go. Why? Because it should be called a wash, rake gel through each clump of curls, let the gel set, fluff and separate curls if need be and pray that you don't smoosh your curls as you get dressed. Then you can go.

Phew. I got tired just writing that. 

But since my hair was in twists for about a month I noticed my curls were poppin like THAT girl at the club. But in a good way. Plus I'm on a no buying spree until I use all of my hair products (post coming soon) and I had a small tub of eco styler gel that I hadn't touched in about 2 years. I figured it was now or never.

The picture below is my second day hair of my wash n go after sleeping on it and making it through a Saturday morning spin class. I used a mixture of eco styler and homemade flax seed gel (50/50).

My thoughts? In.love. Let's just hope it lasts for about 5 days before I have to redo it.

Less is More || Reclaiming My Inbox

I'll admit it. I'm the type of person to enter my email into sites for their one time coupons and what not. It probably doesn't help that I have three four five email addresses (that I know of, I probably have more if I take a second to think about it). I have my yahoo which I use for my main email, my GMail which is my professional email (i.e. it's on my resume), I have the email address for my business Love-Lea, LLC,  I have a Comcast email whose sole purpose is to just exist simply for the sake of having Comcast as a tv and Internet service provider, and then I have my work email.

Not too bad right? Wrong.

Five email addresses means I have five times the opportunity to sign up for "exclusive" coupons for stores and merchandise and what not. True. But that also means all of those "exclusive" coupons and what not that I signed up for translate into the thorn in everyone's Internet presence side. Junk Mail.

And because I'm a self-proclaimed coupon queen, three of my inboxes have changed from having a specific purpose (for the business, for my professional life, for my family/friends) into one big clusterf... mess of junk mail.

Situation 1: I was in Peru for a week total. Meaning I hadn't checked my email in 7 days. Why did I touch down in Baltimore only to find that I had 300+ emails in my Yahoo! account, 50+ in my professional account, and 20+ in my business account? Clearly I must be more popular that I thought. Not.

95% of those emails were junk. Coupons from stores announcing their "Super Last Time We'll Ever Have Prices This Low For Real, For Real" Sale or daily deal sites, I'm looking at you Groupon, Living Social, Schwaggle, KGB Deals, BMore Bargains, MobStub, Google Deals, and SniqueAway. Funny Story? I was getting daily emails from all of those places, sometimes multiple per day depending on the cities I subscribed to. That totalled to about 15 emails per day just from those daily deal sites.

I realized that I was going a little cray cray just from deleted emails. So I did what I should have done a while ago. Every email that I found myself deleting without even reading, I simply hit 'Unsubscribe'. So hopefully within the 7-14 business days that it takes the computer to tell itself to stop sending me emails, I will have less clutter in my inboxes and more peace of mind. I'll also spend less on those impromptu purchases of a professional culinary knife set endorsed by a celebrity chef that is on sale for $29.99 plus free shipping. But that's another story for another time.

Moral of the story? When life gives you a bag of lemons for 70% off...hit Unsubscribe.

Less Is More || My New Year's Resolution

Hello Party People!

I'm back from traveling the world to Peru and figured I'd put my bloggin' hat on and get back at it.  It's now the third week of January and I hope you all have put away your $6 (or $12 if you're doubling for the first few months like me) that goes towards the 52 Week Challenge! It's not too late to start and I'm sure you can find those $6 in your couch, car, extra purses, bags from college, or if you finally unpack those suitcases from going to Peru.

So I've introduced the Bloggin' on a Budget series. Now I'm going to introduce the Less is More series. They're related yes, but going on different principles. The Less is More series will focus on what I chose to be my New Year's Resolution. Less.Is.More. So in this series I'll update you on how I plan to stick with my resolution way longer than people do at the gym. It'll cover decluttering, organizing, parting with that pair of jeans you've had since high school knowing that you don't fit into them and all that jazz through every part of life. Because for the most part, less truly is more.

Stay tuned lovers.