My hair is layered with bangs and falls just below my ears so I can tuck it back if I want. I wash it every 3 or 4 days. Takes 10 minutes to blow dry and curl under. Other days I just dry set it in velcro rollers before I climb in the shower to make it curl under and by the time I'm dressed it's ready to go. I've tried putting it in hot rollers and all kinds of different things but my hair has always been straight, lays flat and limp and won't hold curl so it might look done up for 30 minutes but that's it and it's back to flat and straight. I can't stand hair spray & other poofy products. judith I understand your hair concerns. I'm 56 and a few years ago mine became extremely thin. I stopped coloring, stopped drinking diet soda, started using nioxin shampoo and rogaine, eating protein bars and drinking more water. Went to the doc and tests came back fine. I wish I could say my efforts solved my problems but my hair is still thin up front and I have a lot of daily loss. I gave up on using the rogaine because it's something to be used for life and I'm not that dedicated. I'll never go back to coloring simply due to the freedom of appointments and cost savings. My hair never was shiny and ful and my nails have always been horrible. I can't tell you how many things I've tried there (biotin, lotions, polishes, etc). I can't change what I've been given. Mines not horrible. I've accepted it and moved on.

How did a question about wasting turn into a slam-fest? Everyone does things that are wasteful as well as conservative. I still have old lightbulbs that have not burned out yet, and CFLs in the ones that have. I have a plasma TV, a new microwave, a jacuzzi and a crockpot. The crockpot is used around 1-2 times a month and I love it in those instances. I drive a truck, don't have a clothesline and use my air conditioner. I recycle religiously. I conserve water, pick up trash in parking lots, give anything away that could possibly be used again, use freecycle and drag my scrap paper from work home (with my boss's permission)for my daughter to color on. I turn off lights if I'm not in the room. I turn off the water when I brush my teeth. I also fly back to my homestate of Hawaii 2600 miles away(and fly my daughter back) using tons of jet fuel. Before we throw stones at our neighbors try googling Al Gore's house and George Bush's house for a shocking comparison of energy waste/conservancy. It just goes to show we all make choices. Acknowledging that we are making a choice when we expend/reduce energy use is the first step towards using less. That person who uses old bulbs and a crockpot may recycle everything, drive 50 miles a month in a tiny car and not use plastic. As a side note, I grew up 30 miles from the nearest town, where we didn't have a Wal-mart/Kmart/Costco or anything similar. Due to bad roads it took over an hour to get there, once we made the 1/2 hour trip down our 4wd road to get to the highway. We had catchment tanks for water, and the water went right down the sink and onto the trees on the side, outhouses, solar and kerosene for light. I got my clothes from the "free box" at our local co-op, and we bought our food in bulk. We had no refrigerator/freezer/television/radio/appliances except for a gas stove, and that was used by ten or so people in a community kitchen. The shower was a hose attached to a tree. When we got hot water, it was from a paloma, and we took "Navy" showers. (Some habits die hard, I still take 5 minute showers and turn the water off when shaving, etc). Our homes were made out of recycled lumber and bamboo, with every scrap used. We'd go to town once a week for supplies, and we'd carpool with neighbors to get there. You may be imagining someone living like this pre- 1950. I'm 30. I've lived in San Diego for two years now and enjoy having air conditioning. I think that frugality is only as good as quality of life. Awareness and compassion for why people are living the lives they choose is essential. When people tease me for saving every last drop of water I remind them the mentality I grew up with...When you are constantly conscious that the water you are using can be depleted and there is no way to get a water truck to fill the tank up you use a lot less! Sorry.... I just grew up more frugal than most people could ever imagine, so the argument about bulbs, etc. is just silly to me. Try using a kerosene lantern at night to do anything. We got everything done during daylight hours, believe me! Wear them until they're standing on their own, then wash clothes by hand, wring them out with a foot powered wringer. Don't use any pesticides, herbicides, anything not organic. Wash your hair with fresh Awapuhi ginger. Live in harmony with the bugs around you... misquitoes, cockroaches (we'd call them B-52 bombers), you name it- and the way we killed them was with our feet and hands. This was in the rainforest, with 100' trees, 1-2' vines, giant tree ferns. There was mold. On everything. So, after venting! The waste I see every day (personal pet peeves): 1. Watering giant lawns that no one ever sits on 2. Private swimming pools 3. Eating food out of season 4. Throwing away plastic containers

socks -- Are you keeping an eye on Oski? Our first Westie, Charlie, rescued my diamond ring from going down the drain of the laundry tub where I was washing him -- and brought it up two weeks later. (We'd already filed the insurance claim and were about to choose a new ring.) I will never replace this special ring! Our last Westie, Eliot, loved playing with small stones in his mouth. So...maybe Oski found your diamond? I have never had my diamond (c. 1964) 'checked'. I can see the prongs are strong on the pear solitare. Maybe I should have the baguettes checked though. BTW, if you have reduced your homeowner's coverage by a percentage, be aware that coverage on your unscheduled jewelry is also reduced by that percentage. (As I found out after we were burgled.)

What fun stuff! I am such a jewelry lover. I have a big 5 drawer chest of drawers I use as my jewelry armoir and it's STUFFED full. I've got vintage, contemporary, cheap costume, high end costume, and fine jewelry-I mix a lot of it up too. I wear multiples of pieces at a time, especially necklaces. If I'm wearing a lot of necklaces I don't wear other stuff, but if it's just a single pendant then Ill add some earrings and maybe a couple bracelets. Definitely a boho look, or a Chanel look, depending on my mood. I have some vintage pieces my mom gave me that she'd found in a mobile home they flipped-they belonged to the elderly woman who'd lived there before and her kids didn't want the stuff so she gave it to me. Some of it looks like that Coro you've posted up top. I'll need to check the brand. There were some with a fairly famous brand, still in the boxes-I can't recall the name now since I don't wear those pieces it's been a while since I've looked at them. I envision my granddaughter playing with my costume stuff one day, as I did with my Grandmothers. And I was lucky enough to be passed on some of my Great-Grandmother and my Grandmothers favorite pieces.