Sunday, March 7, 2010

Sore neck & funky hair ...


I'm having pillow problems again -- grrr! As you might recall, I complained about pillows a little over a year ago here. Yesterday morning I woke up and could barely move my head. My neck and shoulders were so sore. I had been using down alternative ones and those were working pretty good for awhile. However, they seem to lose their shape pretty quick. So rather than listen to me complain, Rick let me use his pillow, which I'm sure was one of my old rejects. You should see my room right now. Between our sleeping pillows and the extra ones I keep on the bed, there are ELEVEN pillows in this room! It's stupid. I lasted one night with the one Rick gave me. Yesterday it was bad enough to go up to town to look for a new one.

I've tried just about everything -- down, down alternative, fiberfill, memory foam, even some made from buckwheat. The only thing I haven't tried is the rubber/latex ones that Bish recommended in my first pillow blog. That might be my next option. Anyway, I came home with a contour pillow, much like this one in the picture. It is a memory foam one, which I was skeptical of because I don't like the other foam one I have. It's way too hard and heavy. This contour one is much smaller and lighter, so I decided to give it a try. I slept pretty good on it, but my neck is still sore. I'm thinking that might be because of the night before, and not so much because of the new pillow. The contour one feels like it's what I need, which the curved part going right under my neck. So, I'm going to give it a few more tries and see how it works.

I also did something really SCARY yesterday. I bought one of those hair color removing kits and decided to give it a try. This was a big deal for me because I have reddish-brown hair, but over the years I've been coloring it a very dark brown. After damaging it so much, the ends were starting to look black. So, putting a peroxide mixture on very dark hair was a little unnerving for me. I was trying not to freak out, even when I saw the instructions would say my hair would be red-orange because hair coloring strips the hair of its natural pigments. The directions said you would have to re-color right away, so I was nervous about that too. Since my hair had gotten so dark, I had to leave the mixture on a whole hour. The freaky thing was -- it worked! However, my hair was not only red-orange in places, almost copper, but blond in a few other places. So, then I re-colored it with a shade closer to my original. As you can see in the picture below, the ends are still kind of dark. Sorry for the scary looking picture, but the whole thing freaked me out bigtime! I'm debating to do the remover again to even it out more the next time I color. Even with the darker ends, most of the black is gone. Now it's red and dark brown -- ha! So, with a little more work, I might be able to get it back to how it used to be. Maybe ... wish me luck.


11 comments:

  1. I like the red! I developed a sulfate allergy in the last year, and now I can't color my hair at all. At the rate it's changing, I'll be mostly white by the end of the summer. Ugh!

    I nominated you for the creative liar, er...I mean creative writer award. Details are on my blog. :)

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  2. good luck getting it back to the original color. I love the shade you're going for.

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  3. I hope the pillow works for you. As for your hair color, trim off the ends a little at time. The nice thing about hair is that it grows back.

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  4. Change is good sometimes. You cut your hair shorter, too! Looks cute!
    I had about five inches cut from my hair in January just because I needed a change. I'll probably grow it back long again though. But I'm so glad to have it look a little different for a while.
    I hope you find the perfect pillow!

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  5. Hope you find more comfort in the contour pillow.
    I rather like the new colour. The shorter look looks good too:) Personally I like to change my hairstyle every few months as I like a change now and again, still keeping the short cut . Hair grows so it does not worry me!

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  6. Your hair looks great, I really like it! I hope your pillow works for you. I had one like that for years and years, loved it. I took it with me when I traveled. Not sure what happened to it, I think I wore it out. LOL

    Nancy

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  7. I actually found those pillow give me neck kinks whereas regular thin pillows don't. Your hair looks find btw!

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  8. I like your hair color. I don't dye mine because the upkeep would never happen and I'd look half and half all the time!

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  9. Couldn't resist commenting on this post as well, because I have this pillow! But I sleep with the smaller end under my neck. You might want to give that a try!

    As for the hair color – your hair looks great; but having been there, I'll tell you that sometimes it takes two applications of the hair color remover Your hair should come out looking like Billy Idol. It's pretty freaky, but once you get the darker and (most importantly) red tones off your strands, your hair will then hold any color! I tried going from my natural blonde to a strawberry blonde once, and there is no going back once you've added that red tint. So I stripped it and WAH LAH! I must admit I was shocked at the Billy Idol look, but amazed at how well it worked after applying color!

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  10. I love the hair color!
    About your neck have you tried Massage Therapy or Acupuncture even Chiropractic?

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  11. My hubby uses the exact pillow you pictured and he LOVES it.

    Like the new hair colour shade! Pretty.

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