Update on Freebies

I apologize if you tried to download some of the kits and got error messages. Josh helped me figure out the problem (who knew a space could be so deadly???) and they should all work now.

http://joshandcharlene.com/scrapbooking-freebies.htm

Help yourself to any/all of them!! And please, I'd love it if you'd tell me if/when you use any! It's so cool to see my kits in use :)

Also, and this is important (maybe)...I'm retiring a few of my kits. Goodbeans, Citrus and Turkish Carpet will all be retired at the end of the year. So you have a few days to get it and to tell your friends to get it too (don't give them the kit; please have them come get it from my site!)

Thank you!!

picture time

I saw my dear friend Sara on Christmas Eve, and we got a picture of us together. I bet you can't guess how far apart our due dates are :)
















And here's Jasmine in one of her new presents from her Great-Grandma Hudson

More to come, likely in the form of layouts :)

Christmas is behind us??? And final add-on

Since we got our Christmas cards out very early (so people would know our newest address) and it feels like we've been planning or shopping for months, it's hard to believe it's really over! Though for us it's not quite over for us, since we'll be celebrating with Josh's parents and his sister and her husband, once they (sis and brother-in-law) are in Africa until this weekend.

Jasmine loves opening presents! She got some great gifts, which she's really enjoying! She's been pushing around her doll stroller from my brother Phillip all morning, but up until I finally got it put together, her plane from my brother Daniel and his wife was the thing she kept talking about.

I need to apologize. I found out on the 23rd that I had managed to put the website over on bandwidth for the month, and was only on the computer for about 3 minutes on Christmas Eve, so I couldn't do anything about it. So I'm in the process of changing the links to a free webhosting service. Let me know if it works okay or is strange...I didn't want to go with yousendit, since they limit the number of downloads and/or how long the links are good. So we'll see how this works!)

Here's a preview of today's add-on:
the link is: http://joshandcharlene.com/scrapbooking-freebies.htm
(if you are a firefox user and have adblock on, you may need to open the link in IE for it to work!)

Add-on #4 (of 5)

I don't know what else to say today, so I'll just give you the link. I'm sure you can't guess what it is, if you got yesterday's :)

www.joshandcharlene.com

Happy Scrapping!! Don't forget...I'd love to see what you do with this! Feel free to send me a link to your layout :)

Jasmine Logic, a Happy Birthday and Add-On #3

I can't believe it. My sister Amy is 17!!! I was in 7th grade when she was born, the only one in middle school whose mom was having a baby, so all the girls I knew were jealous, especially when they saw her. What a sweet, beautiful girl! And you know what? She hasn't changed, just gotten bigger.
Here's a layout I made of her, using a kit I've just finished and will hopefully have up in Liddy's Loft very soon. (credits: flower by Debbie Fisher, all else from my Auld Lang Syne kit)


Jasmine is figuring out that the s at the end of a word changes it. I'm not sure if she's completely figured out the idea of singular/plural, but if she wants cheese she now asks for "chee," and a box is a "bok." :)

Ready for a link? Here you go! (You can see a preview there too)

Add-on #2 and a little more babbling

I was thinking it would be interesting to set up a poll and find out what my "audience" is. To the best of my knowledge, it's a handful of family and some scrappers, so I try hard to balance the two. That, and it's nice to talk about whatever's on my mind, which at this point is Christmas!

So I thought I'd describe my favorite part of Christmas every year. Not the presents, not the Candlelight service on Christmas Eve at church (though that's right up there, especially when we sing lotsa carols)...it's Christmas Breakfast. This year Josh, Jasmine and I will begin celebrating Christmas morning together, so we're figuring out what to bring from each of our favorite memories to make it our own.

Our family's Christmases have evolved, as I'm sure most people's have. Christmas breakfast has gotten more and more enormous, and more and more the center part of the day, though the presents are still a lot of fun ;)

After we open both our stockings and all the presents (and the coffee-drinkers enjoy their first cuppa joe), we head into the crowded dining room. Mom puts out the Christmas china (Pfaltzgraff Winterberry...what could be more appropriate for the Goodberry family??) and puts a Christmas Cracker on each plate. We all open our crackers, read the dumb jokes out loud and everyone laughs like it's the funniest thing we've ever heard, and then everyone stumbles over the French/Spanish/whatever other language jokes they put in there too. We then start passing around the Christmas spread: oranges, homemade sticky buns, swiss cheese/cheese logs/beefstick on crackers, eggnog, orange juice, milk and more coffee. YUMMM! It fills us up until dinner (well, I'm sure the Christmas cookies don't have anything to do with that!!) :)

Oh, and here's today's link :) Be sure to leave me a comment, please!! It encourages me to keep making freebies, so if you like 'em, tell me so!

And feel free to sign up for Feedblitz (link on the side)...that way you're sure to know about any freebies, and about any kits I'm making and putting in the store too!

Christmas Memory and an add-on

Christmas has always been a beautiful holiday for me (though I successfully pretended it wasn't really Christmas the years I was in Turkey, avoiding the sensation of extreme homesickness...easy to do in a country that doesn't celebrate it, in spite of being the birthplace of St. Nicholas) but my favorite Christmas memory would have to be when I was 7, and mom and dad managed to find a Cabbage Patch Kid for me. At that point they were very hard to come by, and I think they had to get it from Canada because the stores couldn't keep them stocked. They did find one, though, a beautiful redhead named Hope Marcella. (I thought I had a picture of her on this computer, but I can't find it.) She was followed by many more Cabbage Patch Kids, but none came anywhere close to being as special as Hope.

Yesterday I got a one-month subscription to Atomic Cupcake and have been having a blast trying their actions (um, no pun intended). So, this being the Christmas season and all, I thought it would be fun to try to make a small add-on for my 2006th Noel kit, for every day from now until Christmas Eve (I won't be home that day so it may just be now through Saturday). I won't keep the links up long so grab 'em quickly!!

Glitter Elements

One Week until Christmas

I love Christmas. It hasn't lost its magic for me.

I love the cookies, getting to see family I haven't seen in a long time, that orchestra is suddenly "cool" again, and that it's the one time people, even those in Buffalo, actually want to see snow.

But this year will be even more amazing. It's Jasmine's second Christmas, but this year she's a lot more aware of all the things going on around her. She adores trees and asks us to turn them on whenever she sees them. She loves all the pretty lights. I can't wait to see her opening her presents, either, though I wouldn't be surprised if the paper is still as exciting as the presents themselves. She loves new clothes, so trying on her beautiful new Christmas dresses is an exciting prospect...it really is magical!

Credits: Everything from Tamra Burwick's 'Precious and Few' (polkadotpotato.com)

Credits: all from Holley VanDenBerg's 'Shabby Christmas' kit Fonts: Dactylographe

Christmas Dresses

I'll be making a layout (or three!) soon, but I wanted to get these up right away. Enjoy :)

Long-overdue trip to the Zoo

I've wanted to take Jasmine to the zoo for ages, but it just hadn't happened. The weather is so nice this week, though, and Jasmine is so fascinated by animals, especially giraffes (faff!) that Josh took the afternoon off so we could go see the animals.

I think she was more than slightly overwhelmed. They're a lot bigger than they are on her animals DVD! She warmed up to them eventually, though, and enjoyed herself. She wasn't as excited as I was that the gorilla came right up to us and put his hand on the glass...I thought it was neat to be so close :)

Here's a layout I put together while she was sleeping :)
Credits:
inked border by Nancie Rowe Janitz
patterned paper by Jen Reed (from her Digi Pick sampler)
staple from Jan Crowley's 'Little Black Dress' kit
journaling strips by Kimberly Geswein
"zoo" alpha by Christine Smith

Fonts: KGD Tiffany, 1942 report

Jasmine, what's a cow say?

We got a priceless video a few minutes that I thought I'd share.

And a few little gems from our talkative tot:

"wherearewe" when we park the car. I ask her "Where are we?" when we pull up to someplace familiar (Wegmans, either set of grandparents', our our apartment) so she asks now, too.

"Some?" when we're eating something she thinks looks good.

"moooooore????" when she's eating and has decided it's time for seconds (or thirds). Often she's not quite done with what we already gave her, but she's ready for it to be replenished.

"Mirror?" so she can admire herself and watch as she makes funny faces.

And my favorite:
"Bessoo" when someone sneezes. She now says it when she coughs or sneezes, too!

A sale!!!

Go check it out!!! This will be the last opportunity to buy my designs for awhile (until I figure out where I'm going to sell and they say yes!!)

Here's a link to my kits.

Changes

Keeping a very long story very short, my stuff is back up in Liddy's Loft, for the time being. So the calendar isn't available on our website anymore, but the Christmas freebie is still available (so feel free to take it!! and don't forget to show me when you use it. I'd love to see your creations!)

It's funny. I'm actually really excited to get in and try designing something I've been pondering, but I've been doing everything but! So it's time. I'll show you if it works (and if I can find someplace to sell it) :)

Ever have one of those days...?

Ever have a day when you feel like you get behind no matter how hard you try to at least stay in the same place?
Like merely treading water would be an improvement?

I need a vacation. Out of the snow.

A few quandaries

Hey! Check out baby's ticker!!! "They" have a good chance of survival at this point!! Eddie is good proof of that :)

So just a few things I've been pondering:

You know the song "Big Yellow Taxi"?? Why "put up a parking lot"? Shouldn't it be "put down"? Parking lots are flat, unless you're talking about a parking garage, but that's not what's sung!

Why does an apartment complex that pays for the heat put up windows that aren't well insulated? Sitting in front of our living room window was like sitting in a fridge, until Josh and I put up plastic yesterday. It was really bothering my skin to turn up the heat too much, and we still didn't want to sit on the couch, which is right in front of the window. I just don't get it.

Rats. There was a third thing too. Wonder what it was??

Don't forget, you can still grab my Christmas kit (see link below) :) I'd love to see what you do with it, if you use it!!

2006th Noel

I made some of this for Liddy's Loft's mega-kit, but since it isn't needed now, I changed the colors and added more papers. Enjoy it, and please leave me a comment if you snagged it :)

http://joshandcharlene.com/

(feel free to grab others you might not have, too! :)

Changes happening!

Liddy's Loft is now closed. After three hacks, she's decided it's time to try something different.
So I am now 'homeless.'

My kits are all on hold, except for my calendar. You can see (and download it) here...I'd love it if you wanted to make a donation to paypal, but it's not required. Just think of it as something to make Jasmine's Christmas a little more presents-filled ;)

I'm working on a Christmas kit, most of which I made for the megakit Liddy's Loft was putting together. I'll hopefully have it done by the end of the week, so watch for it :)

In personal news...I'm feeling the baby's hiccups now, which I love. Josh likes it too, because s/he can't stop hiccuping when he tries to feel it, unlike when he tries to feel the baby kick :) Jasmine is talking up a storm. She seems to understand the concept of "two," though I'm not exactly sure if she knows that it means two of something, or just more than one. She repeats everything we say, and she remembers words too. It's a riot!

Wanna see why we asked for a new camera for Christmas???

Not all the pictures we took this past weekend turned out like this, but I didn't get any good ones of Heather and her new husband, Ben...and half of the pictures at the Baseball Hall of Fame are completely unusable. Very sad.

But we had a good weekend. Not "great," since Jasmine thought hotel rooms are for playing in, not sleeping, and didn't crash until 3:30, and we got to the wedding about 3 minutes before the processional...but we had a really nice time overall.

Unsolved Mystery: Bitsybaaaaaum!

Jasmine has a word. "Bitsybaaaaaaum." We have no idea what it means, but she says it all the time. There is no consistency to when she says it, or what she's doing when she says it (though the past couple days she's said it when she's at the table...but it's not the only time). It really seems like she's saying something specific...we just have no idea what that is!

Hopefully we'll have an answer someday; meanwhile, if you think you can decode it, by all means, let us know :)

Black Friday

My grandpa always called today "Amateur's Day" because the "amateur shoppers" would go out shopping. We used to go hang out at the mall, collect a couple things at awesome prices, but mostly just gawk at the number of people running around.

Josh and I went to Best Buy with my sister Vivian two years ago, not when the stores opened, but just in the afternoon. I couldn't believe how long the line was...thankfully it was moving, or we might still be there.

Last year we avoided it altogether, because it just wasn't worth it, now that we had Jasmine. And we planned on doing the same thing this year.

But then we were looking through the Wal-Mart ads, and realized they would make awesome Christmas presents...so he got up at 4:30 and went! He was home by 6, completely successful :) He went out again at almost 8 to see if Best Buy still had the camcorder we had been looking at...nope. But he got a few more presents, so though we have a limited budget for Christmas this year, these made for great presents.

So I think I should stop saying we won't go out on Black Friday, since we don't have a very good track record for actually doing that :)

Black Friday Sale!

Liddy's Loft decided we couldn't be left out of the loop for "Black Friday" (the day after American Thanksgiving, and the biggest shopping day of the year around here) so everything in the store will be 50% off!!
So c'mon by! A great opportunity to pick up those kits you've been eyeing (or even my calendar, as gifts for family and friends!!)

Word Art!

Happy Friday! I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. Then again, Jasmine and I decorated some of the apartment yesterday, and I'm sitting here listening to "O, Night Divine," so I shouldn't be that surprised!

I made up some music and dance word art. I still have to write up a (hopefully clever) description for the store, but it's made. And I'm giving away one of the phrases, just to show you I still make freebies when I remember :) Get it here! (in the "scrapbooking corner," in case you can't figure that out! But feel free to look around!)

And here is a preview of the whole kit:


Available very soon at Liddy's Loft :)

Shabby Pumpkin Mega-Kit

I was a part of this mega-kit, but in a small way (only a couple papers). But it's beautiful, and this week only it's $3!!!! :) (regular price is $8)

Check it out here!

Calendar is in the boutique!!

I had really hoped to be asleep by now. Jasmine was asleep before 9, but woke up when I tried to carry her to bed. She's now happily reading Josh's Islands magazine (shhh! Don't tell him!) and not acting as tired as her mommy. We're getting up early tomorrow morning for my Glucose Tolerance Test (appointment is at 7:10) so it could be an early morning.

Anyways, my newest creation is up! My 2007 calendar, using "All Teal, All the Time" and the expansion pack (which will also be up, hopefully tomorrow if I get a chance) is available!
This would make a great Christmas gift; simply put your pictures in the pages, choosing which page you want for which month, and print! And I made it 4x6, so you can use those cute little photo albums instead of having to create something to display it. I made two little "charms" to mark birthdays and anniversaries, giving you a quick reminder when one is coming up! And it's only $5 :)

Another General Update

Josh and I are both feeling much, much better. If Jasmine leans on me (which I still try to keep her from doing) I don't usually feel it, though I often feel it a little bit later. But nothing like the pain I was in 2 weeks ago. God is so good!

Jasmine is 1 1/2 today! Where did the time go??? I think she's in a growth spurt, because at 3 this morning I heard her talking in the kitchen. I thought Josh had gotten up with her, but no, he was still asleep. So I got up and went to her, and she had to pick out a snack from the fridge. Then she went right back to sleep, and slept 'til 9:45, so that's what she needed!

I'm 26 weeks pregnant!! Almost 6 months! I can't believe how quickly it's all going! I'm getting big, and my belly is starting to get in the way of things, though not so big that I'm bumping into anything yet. :) And I can still get up from kneeling, which I remember having a hard time doing at the end with Jasmine. Belly pics time next week :)

I'm finishing up a calendar and an expansion pack for the Teal kit, but I've also started something new. It's a music/dance embellishment pack, in remembrance of my ballet teacher. I got the shocking news a week ago that she passed away in June. She was only 45, and died of a heart attack in a dress rehearsal. She was such a huge part of my growing up, and then when I taught ballet in Turkey, I emailed her for help on how on earth to teach it!! So I thought this would be a fitting way to remember her. Watch for a possible related freebie soon...

Three Layouts!

I had a blast this morning...Jasmine and I got dressed up and Josh took a bunch of pictures. She looked soooo cute :)


Okay, so Blogger isn't doing what I hoped it would. You can see my layouts here:

Fun in Photo Shoot

Princess Jasmine

Princess for a Day

And I did another one, using my kit: All Teal, All the Time (Expansion Pack):
Personal Penguin

CT, part 2

I have two more ladies on my CT, that weren't officially added until after my "big" announcement. They are:
Jenna and Kim. I'm thrilled to have them both on board! I have a great CT :)

Still been procrastinating on the finishing touches on my new kit and calendar, but hopefully they'll be available very soon. In the meantime, you can see some of the layouts my girls have made using the expansion pack:

Updates about everything!

I have exciting news in my scrapping life: Liddy's Loft is opening back up, to a more limited extent, and I am starting to sell there. Holley is keeping things simple and hopefully non-stressful, since her life has been getting busier :)

Josh, Jasmine and I had an appointment with our family doctor on Thursday. Jasmine is perfect, which we already knew. The doctor was pretty sure we were right in our diagnosis...we both likely fractured our sternum from the seatbelt. Thankfully, it isn't slowing down the healing when Jasmine puts her weight on my sore chest, it just makes it hurt more. He said it's usually better in 6-8 weeks. That's a long time! But it was nice to know that we will recover without any more hospital visits or strange braces, just patience, prayer and some added calcium :)

Jasmine needs some mommy time, so I guess that will do for now :)

Layout time!

I'm working on an expansion pack for the Teal kit, and I'm really excited about what I've come up with. I'm hoping to have a preview up before too long...

In the meantime, I got a Private Message last night from one of the ladies at TDC, letting me know one of my layouts had been chosen as Layout of the Day. I was so excited!! You can see the layout and the comments here. :)

When I loaded more pictures onto the computer a couple days ago, I found out that, for some reason, not all the pictures I took the day of the accident showed up the first time. Thankfully they were still there, and I got a couple good ones (and a lot of lousy ones). It was very eerie, looking at pictures that I took on our drive, moments before the accident...last night we drove up the same street and I compared where the last photo was taken with where the accident was...it seems like it was only about 2 buildings before the accident, that I took the last picture. I'm thankful I wasn't actually taking a picture when it happened, but just the same, it was pretty close!

Here is a two-page layout I did about the storm last weekend. The bottom picture is my favorite...wind storms can knock down trees and limbs, but looking at this tree, it's obvious is wasn't a wind storm that caused this destruction.

(papers: Iced Cocoa by Christina Dudley; sketch for first page by Kimberly Geswein.)

My Creative Team!!

I'm sorry this has taken so long to do. I had intended to make the announcement last weekend, but with being without power, it sorta didn't happen!!

So, without further ado, I introduce to you the amazing women who I am now very lucky to be working with (alphabetically) (edited to add: I'm waiting to hear back from one more person, so if you read this, go check your email!!!):

Danielle
Iris
Kimberlee
Lisa
Tracy
and Verna

I'm very excited about my team and the amazing things I've seen already from them :)

Story Time

Sorry that the pictures are backwards chronologically..it's the first time I tried using Hello to bring my pictures over. It was certainly faster than the old way :)

What a week it's been. Hard to believe it's only been a week...it feels like at least a month!

The snow started in the afternoon on Thursday. They were predicting 1-3 inches for most of us, with 3-6 inches in Lockport and Amherst (north of us). Imagine our surprise when we woke up Friday morning to an average of 22 inches!! We lost our cable before bed on Thursday evening, and the power went out at some point during the night.

Josh went out in the morning and got some pictures of the snow and the sagging trees, and discovered that a huge tree had come down and was blocking our exit from the complex. So we spent the day in the living room and kitchen, eating whatever we could from the fridge, knowing it was likely to go bad. At around 5 he found out that the tree had been moved, and the road was getting plowed as we headed out (the snow was melting quickly, too) to my uncle and aunt's house, up north of the city, where they had gotten barely a dusting and still had power.

Our timing was perfect: the water pump that gets purified water to the areas we live in lost power, and our area was waterless for an hour or two right after we left. After it came back, they said we needed to boil our water before using it to drink or use for cooking...kinda tough with an electric stove and no power!! So it was good that we weren't home.

We had a great visit with my family, and Jasmine got good at crawling backwards down their steps. She was getting a little tired of the steps by mid-afternoon on Saturday, so we went home for a few things and then headed to my parents' (an hour east, no snow there).

Unfortunately, there were many mounds of snow from parking lots, taller than our cute little car. A woman was getting ready to turn left out of a gas station and couldn't see us, and we didn't see her until it was too late. Josh hadn't been going very fast since I was taking pictures, and he did slam on his brakes, but we ran right into the side of her truck. She was fine, didn't have enough damage to need any repairs at all. But we weren't so lucky. The seatbelts did their job and we didn't get hit by the airbags, but it totalled the car.

Josh's neck was a little sore, so they put him in a neck brace (and on a stretcher!!) to make sure he was fine. Something hit Jasmine's forehead (she had her doll and a bottle of water in her hands and was asleep when it happened, so we think it was one of those things). It didn't bleed but she got a "strawberry," so they put her in a back-thingy and on a stretcher too. I was okay; my chest hurt from the seatbelt, and I remembered an online friend who had been in an accident at about the same point in her pregnancy, who spent the remainder of her pregnancy on and off of bedrest, as labor kept trying to start.

So we all took an ambulance ride (no sirens or lights, thankfully) as a precautionary measure. I was thankful I was the one (of the three of us) to walk into the ambulance...I don't want to think how much harder it would have been for me if I'd also had to relive the "fun" of my first ambulance trip from after Jasmine was born.

We were there for a few hours...Josh had X-rays done, and they looked at all of us. They were all confident we were okay, and his parents took us to McDonald's for dinner and then to their house for the night. They were using a generator, and their power came back Sunday evening. We stayed there Sunday night, too.

Monday we stopped by our apartment and found that our power was on!! We also stopped at the car (now that we knew where it was) and picked up all our stuff (our computer, camera, all our clothes, toothpaste, you know, nothing important) so things were starting to feel more normal. Still no internet, but we were happy that things were slowly getting back to normal again.

Tuesday the internet was back when we came home from looking at cars (long stories there, too) and Wednesday (yesterday) we found our car!! A 2001 Honda CR-V...green...it's gorgeous!! We love it :)

So things are getting normal again. Still no internet at the office (so Josh may work from home this afternoon)...laundry's getting there (we were totally out of clothes)...it feels good to have things getting settled again.
I go see one of the OBs in my midwife's practice this afternoon, to make sure everything is fine with the baby, and next Thursday we all go see our family doctor and make sure we're all healthy.

And there you have it :)

yuck. There's a lot of work left to be done before things look "normal" again around here. 

sorry it's off-center, but just to give you an idea of the magnitude (and bad weather) 

Yup, it seems like all the trees look like this (or worse) 

And this is a blurry look at what it looked like as you got further south (sorry; we were driving) 

This is what it looked like about 20 minutes north. 

because the leaves were still on the branches, it was the healthy trees that lost branches, instead of the dead trees like the Ice Storm of 1991. 

more sagging trees 

sagging tree (and a branch down) 

Yup, really. October 13th 

22 inches of snow 

Power free and enjoying a bit of 18th century in Buffalo!

This is Charlene's mom. She's living the Amish life right now, no power, no internet, no car.... The Buffalo weather took down their power and internet, a driver who couldn't see around a snow bank (yes, a snow bank, and yes, in mid-October!) took care of the car part. They're looking for a horse and buggy and trying to find a jungle drum for communications, but until then, they're even more behind the times than usual for Buffalo. :-D It could be a week, the area is just decimated.... Everyone is fine and warm living with relatives who managed to get their power back.

Charlene's mom, in sunny and warm Rochester, garden spot of Western New York

Come join me!!

The Digi*Dreamer is having a big grand opening over the next two weeks, starting Monday the 16th. I'm leading Bingo, twice, and would love to see lots of people in there playing. You can win my "Overjoyed" kit :)

The two game times are Wednesday, the 18th, at 5 p.m. EST, and Saturday, the 21st, at 11 a.m. EST. I'm hoping that at least one will work out for most people, between time differences and work/life schedules. It should be a lot of fun :D

We won't even talk about the Yankees...I'm disappointed that the season is over (no more baseball games in this house until spring training) and really disappointed with how poorly they played. One thing I liked, though, is that we can't blame the pitching. They really did pretty well, but the offense just couldn't do anything! As my mom likes to say, they seem to slump as a team, and this was a really rotten time to slump!

Creative Team Call!!

This should be fun....
Edited: Thanks for applying!! See the list of my new Creative Team here! :)

It's Up!

My "All Teal, All the Time" kit is up now. Feel free to take a look. I had a lot of fun writing the description...what do you think??

Preview: All Teal, All the Time

I'm just putting the finishing touches on my new kit, which I'm hoping to get into the store tomorrow. It's all about Josh's favorite color, which has become one of my favorites, too. I had so much fun coming up with patterns, and then when I made a layout using it, I thought of more elements that would be helpful. So, without further ado, here is a preview of "All Teal, All the Time":



And here is a layout I made with it:

*****

In non-scrapping news, I got my hair cut last night. I'm really pleased with it; yesterday I curled my hair (just a bit) for our date...by the time Josh got home to get us, the curls were out and my hair looked unloved again. It was full of split-ends and was just too heavy (due in part to the pregnancy, I'm sure). So this was much-needed, and I'm excited because it doesn't fight my wave, but just lets it do what it wants to do anyways :)