Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

But I don't blame you for thinking I might have shuffled off this mortal coil. I have been L-A-Z-Y, but, even more sadly, my life has been quintesentially boring. I have stuff I would love to talk about here, but I just can't right now.

So here's what I've been doing:

• Celebrating my 35th birthday in late August (yes, I am a Leo), and receiving a salad spinner from both Booby and my mom (I got other stuff, too, never fear)
• Celebrating Booby's birthday (he turned 33; still a young pup)
• Going to the Jersey shore over "Ernesto" weekend
• Getting my hair cut, twice, and not really liking it much either time
• Failing to adequately water my vegetable garden and then witnessing it wither into dry, brown sticks (goodbye, tomatoes)
• Getting a new dishwasher
• Getting a new mattress (will the excitement never end?!)
• Obsessively watching Project Runway
• Avoiding cleaning with all my might (that one wasn't really hard, and I still did some laundry and cooked the occasional meal)

Beyond that, life has been very sedate and sedentary. I'm feeling pretty peevish about the state of my coiffure, so another cut 'n' style is in my near future (in the 100-degree heat, it seemed like a good idea to chop 4 inches off of it. Now? Not so much).

I also have BIG plans this weekend to start using pure henna to retain that copper penny red hair that is my trademark. Farewell, Wella #145, Titian Red Blonde! I've refrained from dyeing for the last 7 weeks so as to leach as many chemicals out of my hair to better prep it for this new method, and now I have an attractive reverse skunk stripe down the middle of my scalp (true to form, Booby didn't even notice).

If anyone is interested in the results available from using pure henna (not to be confused with the henna generally available at, say, Sally Beauty Supply, which will eff your ess up if your hair is already chemically dyed), you can go here. I ordered my henna from here (before I found the first, US-based site), and that site was enlightening for the information about chemical dyes provided. Nothing says directly that the PPD in chemical hair dye is carcinogenic, but since I am cutting down on chemicals in most other areas of my life, a natural hair dye can't hurt. The nicest thing about it seems to be that I can use whatever natural ingredients I like to alter the color (lemon or lime juice, paprika, even herbal tea), and I can add small amounts of essential oil to make the henna smell nicer (that's something you certainly can't do with commercial hair dye), as apparently, henna has a very earthy, haylike scent. The only drag about using it is that I'll have to wait several hours after mixing the color for the dye to release (or I can leave it on the unlit stove and hope that speeds the process) and I will have to leave it on my head for about 2 hours.

Wish me luck!