Twisted Goodness

My hair has reached a hither-to unheard of length. I can very nearly sit on it. It's mostly remained uncut due to a) laziness b) frugality and c) my love of complicated braids. Unfortunately, Reason C is normally out of my reach. I cannot French braid my own hair. I shun things like hairspray and blow dryers. My mom burned me in the forehead once with a curling iron and I've never gotten over my hatred of them. Most of the time, I just wrap my hair up in a bun and stick it to the back of my head. But Kathy sent me some links to some seemingly easy instructions for just pig-tailing your hair and then pinning it up which produces the complicated hair-weaving effect that I wanted. All I had to do was part my hair in the middle and braid it outwards, Pippi Longstocking style, so that when I go to pin it up on my head, it doesn't bulge out in a funny way. I run into a bit of a snare when I get to the ends. I finally discovered that I can fold the ends underneath the top of the braid and pin it down. A couple of weekends ago, I discovered that I can make an additional full circle with the end of the second braid. The best part about doing my hair like this is that it lasts for four days. That's four days that I don't have to fuss with my hair. Plus, it looks cool.

Since we're speaking of twisty, braided things, I should also mention that I managed to bake my own soft pretzels the other day. I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and was very happy with my result. They tasted like pretzels. Huzzah! Unfortunately, you're supposed to eat them all within 2 days because they get hard rather fast. Now I have four extremely hard pretzels that I'm thinking about things to do with- possible croutons or something.