First of all, hello to our new followers! I’m so honored that you are here! If you’re new to reading this blog, you can learn a bit about our journey by reading our About page.

So this is Day 9 of my daily life posts. If you’re just tuning in, you can read all of them, or at least go back and read about why I’m doing this month of daily life posts.

And that reminds me; why did I start on January 26th? That seems like an odd time to start a project. Why not January 1st? Or even wait a few more days and start on February 1st? Well, I would have loved to start on January 1st, but I didn’t think of it till the 26th. 🙂 And as for waiting, normally I would have. In fact, I normally would have waited until spring, when my life was a bit more exciting.

But Hubby and I had just watched the movie Julie & Julia. I was inspired by the main character, Julie, who started her project (to cook all the recipes in one of Julia Child’s cookbooks in one year) on a mid-August day. She didn’t wait till it seemed like an obvious time to start something so momentous. She just went for it. And so did I. 🙂

So anyway, Day 9.

Hmmm…let’s see, aside from the usual of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the family, what all did I do?

Ah, that’s right, I did my hair.

Why mention this on a homesteading blog?

Well, just because I’m a homesteader doesn’t mean that I don’t care about my appearance. I like to look nice as much as most people.

Sure, there are days when my hair goes up in a bun and my flyaway bangs get pinned back, or I throw on a hat. But often I like to “do” my hair.

The pictures below were taken a couple years ago when my hair was a bit longer than it currently is, but shows a good contrast between my “Hermione hair” as my man calls it, and how I like to style it on a regular basis.

Before, with my hair like Hermione Granger from Harry Potter – I had gone to a party where we dressed 80’s style, thus the off-the-shoulder shirt. But then. those are coming back in style, aren’t they?

After, with my wild hair tamed down (much easier to keep that way in the dry air of Nevada rather than the humid air of Oregon!)

However, in the spirit of reducing (my time, the energy used, etc), I try to find the fastest, easiest way that works for my hair with as little hair product as possible. And now that it’s growing out, that means straightening it, no hair mousse needed like when I let it go curly. Yes, I am blessed with hair I don’t have to wash every day, and it’s cooperative enough that unless I get caught in the rain, I can straighten it one day, and not have to mess with it (other than brushing) for 3-4 days afterward. So I spend 20 minutes on my hair once or twice a week to get it looking how I like it. Then all the other days, it’s usually less than a minute. Can’t get much easier than that!

Ok, let’s see, what else did I do all day?

Princess girl and I went on our Bible Study Date. It’s a weekly date that we have. She wants to have more in-depth study time, and I know that if I don’t make it a “date”, the chance of it getting pushed under the rug in lieu of “more important things” like dishes and laundry (heavy sarcasm there) is all too likely.

And, I started working on a belt. This is where the “failure” part comes in. I found instructions online of how to make a paracord belt. I figured it was high time I give it a try. I want a new belt, and I like the idea of having lots of paracord on me. I typically wear a survival bracelet, but I want to change things up.

So, I worked and worked while watching TV with the family. It took me 3/4 of the belt to finally really get the weave right so that it was consistently looking good. And then I ran out of paracord. And still a good 6 inches left till it was the right length. Grrrrrr!

So I ripped it all out and I will start over tomorrow with a different color that we have more of. So, yes, my first attempt at making a belt out of paracord failed. But as Adam from Mythbusters likes to say, “Failure is always an option.” Because even though it didn’t work out the first time, I learned a lot in the process.

And that’s a great attitude to have for a homesteader. Failure is going to happen. Whether it’s that your tomatoes didn’t do so well this year, or the litter of rabbit kits all died from heat exposure (please don’t ask me how I know 😦 ), you are going to fail somewhere, sometime in your journey. The question is, what do you do with that? Do you give up? Or do you collect the data and analyze what happened and do better next time? It’s all up to you.