Recently, my older daughter picked up a gig at a neighboring farm, caring for all the animals, morning and evening. This means she gets up early (dark early) to get to work, coming back home just as the rest of us are finishing up breakfast, and then going back up again at the end of the day.

It’s so odd, this business of raising people who came from my body and yet aren’t anything like me. A job that would require me to haul my butt out of my warm bed and go shovel manure and swing hay bales and fill water buckets would shrivel my soul, but my daughter acted like she had won the lottery.

Ever since she got the job, she’s thrown herself headlong into taking charge. She organized the medicine cabinet, and sorted all the blankets, putting the damaged ones in a separate pile. She wormed the horses and donkeys, but only after re-calibrating the dosages — based on what she’d learned from the two vets who run the other farm she works at, the doses seemed high — and then she sent an email to the owner, notifying her of the changes. I showed her how to use Google Docs, and she’s written up her own chore schedule, as well as medication charts, etc.

Anyway, the other morning after my run (because I do haul my butt out of bed to go running in the dark, #inconsistencies) I trekked over to the farm to see where it is she’s been running off to every day.

My daughter was down at the chicken coop when I arrived. She held up a broken plastic scoop. “I threw them some grain and the cup went flying.”

She introduced me to Tulip, the lame lamb. “She has trouble stopping once she starts running, so she crashes into things,” she said.

She filled water buckets, and then headed into the barn to feed the horses, donkeys, and rabbits. The first time she cleaned out the male rabbit’s cage, he came running at her, stamped his feet, and next thing she knew, she was drenched with rabbit urine.

Finally, still in my sweaty running clothes and now thoroughly chilled, I headed back to the house.

This same time, years previous: back in business, a dell-ish ordeal, the quotidian (10.20.14), autumn walk, a pie party!, how to have a donut party, part II, classic cheesecake, rhubarb cake.

Let’s talk about hair, shall we? Specifically (and, obviously, because I rule this space), let’s talk about my hair.

Here’s the deal: the texture of my hair — lots of body with one part (uneven) wave, one part curl, and one gigantic part frizz — has been giving me (minor) fits.

Maybe you can help?

First, here’s what my hair looks like when I let it completely air dry:

Also, after washing my hair, I usually spritz in some Pureology Colour Fanatic, the first step in battling the wiry-frizz problem. It makes my hair a couple degrees softer. And it smells good, too.

Currently, I utilize two different styling treatments, which sounds complicated, but really, it only takes five to ten minutes.

Straight(ish):
When my hair is halfway dry, I use a large wooden brush and a monster hairdryer to blow it out and give it some shape. Then I follow up with some heavy-duty hair-straightening to quiet the persistent frizz. (To protect my hair from the heat, I spritz a little Fructis Style Flat Iron Perfector Straightening Mist prior to ironing my locks.)

Here are the results, back in July, when it was super hot outside and my hair was a bit shorter than it is now:

Curly (ish):
When my hair is halfway dry, I spritz in a little Aveda’s Be Curly Curl Enchancer to draw out the natural curl. Then once the hair is completely dry, I do a quick pass with the curling iron, focusing on the extra-frizzy and/or straight clumps. When utilizing this method, I have to avoid all combs and brushes which would, immediately and irrevocably, obliterate my hard-won curls.

To tame the poof and keep it out of my eyes, I often twist back the sides:

By the end of the day, the curl has relaxed considerably but so has the frizz, so it sort of evens out:

And on Day Two (I wash my hair every other day), my hair is lankier, the curl even softer.

So here’s my question: Is there any way to get my hair soft and smooth from the very beginning, without all this spraying and straightening and curling?

I’m envisioning some sort of serum — just a couple drops of something (that’s not terribly expensive, pretty please) — that I massage into my still-wet hair that magically turns my hair silky-smooth.

Does something like this even exist?

(I have my doubts, but one can always dream…)

This same time, years previous: hair loss (ha! apparently October is Jennifer’s “let’s talk about hair” month), where the furry things are, the quotidian (10.19.15), would you come?, pumpkin sausage cream sauce.

Years ago, one of my friends went on a trip and brought me back a gift: a hot pad for my cast iron skillet handle. I’d never seen anything like it before and was completely smitten. Ever since, it’s been in heavy use.

But then, o woe, I partially burned it up while making “steek” on the outdoor cookstove the other week. The hot pad was mangy before, but now bits of charred fabric were flaking into the food. It was time for it to go.

And then a few days later when I was making my birthday list, it occurred to me that I could request a new skillet sock. I already had a pair of my cousin Zoe’s handmade hot pads on my wishlist, so it’d be pretty easy to just add a skillet sock, too. But oh no, Zoe didn’t have any skillet socks on her site! I poked around Etsy, and then around Amazon, too, but, nothing looked right. All the skillet socks were either too flimsy or too tacky. Besides, how could I know if they were properly made, durable and thick enough to keep my hand from burning?

On the verge of giving up all together, I decided I could at least ask Zoe if she’d made them before. Maybe she had a secret stash somewhere? Zoe replied that she had tried to make them, but wasn’t pleased with the results. “But I’d be willing to try again for you if you can wait…” 

“Only if you WANT to,” I wrote back.

A couple hours — HOURS! — later, an email from Zoe popped up on my screen: she had two hot pads finished and ready. (WHAT?? ALREADY?!?!)

Even though Zoe sent me photos so I knew what the hot pads looked like, and even though I ordered the hot pads myself (since my husband said it’d be easier), I didn’t open the package until my actual birthday, be impressed. 

Turns out, the hot pads couldn’t have been more perfect: thick and sturdy, practical and beautiful. I get a kick out of the subtle humor, too: the chili peppers on the one, the coffee on the other — HOT!

They belong in my kitchen, these hot pads do.

Thank you, Zoe!

P.S. I just checked out her site this morning, and now she has a whole selection of skillet socks for sale, lucky you!

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (10.17.16), rich, that thing we do, deprivation.