Girl Power

This isn't my normal witty post* but it is my inspiring "teach the children well" side.

I am a huge proponent of girls growing up with positive role models to make them feel loved and heard. I was raised almost perfectly, there was that time when my mom made me dislocate my elbow because she wanted me to do the spider crawl damnit, the crab crawl was not cutting it**. I had loving parents who made me feel like I was smart, pretty, and good at sports. Not all those things were true all the time but I did have a pretty good self confidence.

This article is about girls and what you should do to inspire them today, tomorrow, and this weekend. Girls really do need women to be positive role models and encouragers. In high school, I definitely had a fair amount of meat on my bones, I could have used an eyebrow pluck, and my hair was god awful but I didn't really realize any of my "flaws" until I was older and on my own with no one reminding me daily that I was fine the way I was. During high school, it was the women around me who made me feel like I was perfectly normal. Granted, someone should have stopped me from eating Jack in the Box three times a week and I am glad I changed my eating and exercising regimen in adulthood.

blegh of 2001

I would like to add though that if a girl is unhealthy (as in eating shit), it is also important to to teach her how to respect her body. It is important to introduce girls to physical activities and stimulate her mind. Not all of it is about looks....but it is a lot.

So read the article and go make a girl feel lovely. It doesn't even have to be a young girl, all women could use a feel good moment about their appearance.


*It wasn't supposed to be a witty post but apparently I can't help myself.
**Mom, I love you lots, more than my cats. I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I don't even remember the pain or anything. Plus, you know it is kinda funny. And...you are a parent, things happen and then your children get to remind you forever. You'll have a second chance in toddler class with the grandkids.

New Brother or Sister?

I was thinking that Buk, Sam, Stanley, and Simon needed a new brother or sister. But even after typing all those names, I realized that probably is enough. Anyway, we were thinking that maybe Buk needed a new sibling pup to wrestle around with and Simon could use a younger doggie to pounce on. Since Gus left, we realized that maybe the babies were sad. So we started looking on the Humane Society website. Daily. I emailed T about twice a day with adorable dogs AND cats that I wanted to snuggle.


Then Gus came to visit (and will be back next weekend). Gus came inside, loved Buk for about 2 minutes and then went outside to play and came back within 10 minutes and had rolled in something dead. For christ sake! T and I ended up giving the boys cousin baths.

Although we love Gus like our own and he is SO precious, I decided we don't need another animal. That same week, I ended up taking Simon to the vet for shots and Stanley to the vet the day after because his face was puffy. Over $150 later (which isn't that much for animals) I decided our family was happy enough.

story of our lives; Simon trying to be funny and everybody else just pissed.

I don't need another dog to train and another bed for Simon to piss on.


Plus, Simon and Buk have become best buds and started sleeping/wrestling together. That then got Sammy's underoos in a twist and he sleeps with Buk on his bed now too. They are too sweet.

Don't judge me. on so many levels

Fall

I LOVE the fall.
But, I say that about every season when it comes.

I am glad I live in a place with seasons.

I love the autumn because I eat more, cook more, read more, and craft more. I try to gym more.

It is about time to redecorate the house with those fall/winter items.
It is about time to start thinking about hosting another dinner party.
It is time to start knitting (and finishing the projects started from last year).
It is time to doing those DIY projects, or at least give them to T to do in his winter time.

It is time to go to the gym at least 3 times a week (usually 2) to burn off those cinnamon rolls or heavy creams that go oh-so-well with soup.
It is time to sit on the couch, after cleaning the house of course, and read under a blanket with the fire place (I say fire place because we have a gas one, boring, I know but you get what you get and it is better than nothing) going. (who knows how many times that will actually happen)

If I get to do all that, then I am so happy. If I get to do some of it, I need to take more Vitamin D supplements. If I don't get to do any of it, you will find me in my bed at 1pm curled in a ball.

It will be time to make these styrofoam peanut garlands soon enough.

All photos courtesy of Real Simple DIY projects

Hair Roll

For those of you that are interested, I am going to post what I have been doing with/to my hair and the results that have occurred each day:

- Day 7: Hair washed (with baking soda and acv rinse) last on Day 6. Put hair into pony tail. Later in the day I had to meet family and wore it down. The pony tail made my hair really flat, which was new. Tried to curl my hair and it didn't really hold. Not good in the end. Lesson learned: with no hair regimen, hair can gets straighter after pony tail.

- Day 8: Washed hair with 2 Tbs baking soda/water mix and rinsed with about the same amount of apple cider vinegar. Put the flax seed hair gel in my hair and blow dried (is that a word?) until semi dry. Let the rest air dry. Spent the next 5 hours outside in windy conditions. Needless to say, my hair went a little frizzy. Wind, no "real" hair products, and curly hair mix not. Flax hair gel is pretty sweet.

- Day 9: Went to the gym in the morning. Apple cider rinse after work out. Put in Flax hair gel and blow dried (again word?), then curled the pieces that looked like shit. Good hair day in the end.


- Day 10: Took a shower at night on Day 9. Didn't use baking soda or acv. After shower put in the flax gel. Slept on it. In the morning, it was super curly and only needed a couple pieces curled. Best day so far. We will see how long it lasts.

- Day 11: Hair lasted 14 hours yesterday. Didn't look superb by the end but it didn't look awful either. Hair in pony tail today, husband wouldn't go to the gym in the morning and told me to go back to sleep instead. I did. Then I didn't wake up in time to take a full, hair-washing, shower.

Overall, I really don't feel like my hair is much different. I don't really notice I am not shampooing my hair. I like it.

The Side Project - No Shampoo

On Saturday, October 2 a good friend of mine, N.M. (Natural Mel), sent me an email. She explained that because I am a tree hugger and a cheapskate, she had an idea for me.

The idea: wait for it, wait for it.....*No Poo*.

Now, before you get too gross out, let me explain.

"No Poo" is short for "No Shampoo". It is a movement for people to not use shampoo and use natural cleansers and oils instead. This doesn't mean you don't clean your hair, let me repeat, this doesn't mean you don't clean your hair...the difference is that you don't clean your hair with shampoo because people argue that shampoo has harsh chemicals, such as sulfates, in it. It is true that some/most shampoos on the market have sulfates, however; I already use shampoo without sulfates so I was not sure that this experiment was really for me.

Instead of shampoo, you are supposed to give yourself a baking soda scalp massage (which some hairstylists use on scalps to get rid of hair product build up anyway) and rinse with apple cider vinegar (you know that is my favorite thing!). But, instead of embracing NM's suggestion, I wrote her an email back pretty much making excuses about why I couldn't do it right now. But, I knew I was making excuses and that bothered me.

So to make myself feel better, I did some research because I was curious/nervous about hair products. Could I still use them? I have frizzy (which no poo is supposed to help) curly hair and I was afraid that during the "transition period" (more to come on that), my hair would just be a shit show. After some research, I found some pretty interesting natural home recipes for hair gel, which I used and like so far. Turns out you can still put that regular hair product stuff in your hair, the baking soda will take it all out, but of course all the hippy dippies don't think you should use it. Which I think I will embrace.

My other excuse not to do "no poo" had to do with the transition period. Websites say that it will take 1 - 3 weeks for your scalp to stop overproducing oil. I guess because we dry our heads out with shampoo, our oil glands make up for that by producing a lot of oil. So when you decide to go No Shampoo, the first couple of weeks your head still produces that oil and then it finally settles down and gets into a natural rhythm. I told NM that I didn't want greasy hair at work but then after thinking about it, I don't wash my hair that frequently anyway (about 3 times a week because I don't want to dry it out) and I will just have to wear pony tails before revealing my new luxurious hair styles which really isn't so bad.

As you may have guessed, the day I got the email and told NM I wasn't going to do it, I started doing it because I couldn't not try it. It is too environmentally friendly and if it really improves my body, I HAVE to try. I am all for being healthier and not having so many chemicals in/on my body. So, Saturday night 10/2, I washed my hair to get all the crap out of it and now I am on day 7.

Day 2 - oh yea, I got my hair cut off too

Turns out my hair never, or hasn't yet I don't know, gone through a greasy period, it just is a little more limp/not as curly. I think I never had greasy hair to begin with. I wasn't one of those people that ever looked like I had greasy hair. My hair just used to feel dirty when it had product in it.

I am hoping that within a couple weeks my hair will be more curly and look better. Right now, I am trying to get used to working with it (it doesn't help that it is rainy). I still pretty much do the same thing but it does act a bit differently so I am seeing if that works out all right because, yes, I like having my hair look good. sorry.

I am also wondering what this will do for my scalp. During the winter my scalp gets really dry and itchy (I know, gross but you can't tell or anything) so I am curious if this will help. We shall see.

But, for a while, I am going to give little updates hither and tither about the process.

Who knows, maybe it will inspire you.

Day 5 - couldn't get my bangs to work that day

My Love for Men

I have somewhat of a problem and I have had it for years. Actually, I can tell you the exact moment I started to have this problem. Unfortunately, I don't remember what the year was but it had to be around 1995 (or whenever Home Improvement was popular).

My family was camping with the John H's (my uncle and his family) and I had a dream one night. The next morning my heart hurt. It wasn't an actual physical pain, it was more of a Tiger Beat thing. I don't even think I looked at Tiger Beat before this incident but I can sure tell you I bought them all in 1995/96 and again in 1999/2000. I had a dream.

I dreamt about JTT, you know, Johnathon Taylor Thomas. The 4 foot midget son from Home Improvement. In my dream he was so kind and had everything in common with me. We made a great pair.

I had the same dream about Nick Carter and Justin Timberlake later in life. (Well, I won't lie, Justin still visits me in my dreams.)

Sometimes famous people just bring the dork/nerd out in me. They make me act like a fool. If you don't believe me, read the letters I sent to JTT (which he did send a card back, thank you!), look at the pictures (or rather not) of my Nsync phase.

Recently though I have developed another "nerd" habit besides falling in love with pop icons. I look at the weather, a lot, and try to predict the weather of the day myself. My idol in my quest for a new career is Cliff Mass. He is the weather god of the Pacific Northwest. So, when I read that he was coming to Bellingham to give a lecture, I was beside myself. I was ready to go to the lecture by myself. I didn't think T would want to go (plus, what if I really ended up liking Cliff, I hadn't seen him before or anything).

So, on Saturday night, our "date night" included a captivating lecture by Cliff at the local community college. I armed myself with my Dad's copy of the dude's book and was ready to learn. Dr. Mass is a pretty funny guy and had some interesting things to say about our weather up here in Bellingham. I learned a lot that I believe is actually quite relevant to our farm. However, he is a pretty normal Jewish (that isn't a bad thing, just an accurate observation) looking 45ish year old so T didn't have to worry about me leaving with the Dr (now that I am married, it is all about looks).

I still managed to embarrass myself that night though. Not only was I the 2nd in line to have him sign my book (right after a group of 3 kids), I decided to say something to Cliff. Jesus, what is wrong with me? I said something to the affect of, "I am so glad you came to Bellingham. You seems so excited in weather when you talk. It is inspiring." It was weird. What the hell am I inspired about? You can't be inspired about weather.

So I don't know, maybe Cliff knew I was starstruck. He IS on KUOW and has his own blog but the whole thing was embarrassing. Not to mention, my husband was standing right there listening to me talk, make no sense, and have a horrible nervous laugh.

Oh well. I really should start thinking about what I want to say to JT when I see him though.

Cliffy Poo

Beer De Root

My loving father made rootbeer for my wedding. I requested it. He came through with some great rootbeer that everyone loved. (I don't remember what batch people preferred though, was it B5 or R6?)

After the wedding, I guess some leftovers remained. When visiting my parents one weekend recently in Puyallup, my sweet father gave us some more rootbeer to take back home. I looked forward to the rootbeer floats.

Something my father forgot to remind us though (which honestly, I suppose I should have remembered) was that his rootbeer is deadly. Seriously, it could injured someone. It isn't that it is poisonous. It isn't that it grows mold. It is that it explodes. It explodes with force.

I really wish I had a camera set up at home so I could have caught this on video (and then sent it to America's Funniest Home Videos because Buk probably shit the bed), poor Buky.

So, we bring our tasty rootbeer home from good ole Puyallup and set it on the kitchen table. It is a warm September week so the house reaches 68 degrees during the daytime.

I guess that is too hot for the rootbeer.

Who knows when the rootbeer decided to go for Buk but sometime during the day, it exploded ALL OVER THE PLACE! T calls me when he gets home and says, "uh, the rootbeer exploded and it ruined everything on the table (which is a lot, you know that is where I store all my crap!). Also, there is glass all the way into the living room." Sweet jesus! I ask if Buk is bleeding, but T reports he seems okay, just a little shaken up about having to stay on his bed all day to avoid the horrible table monster.

So everyone is okay but we could have had some major bleeding if Buk wasn't so smart to stay put.

To punish the rootbeer, I then drank a rootbeer float.


There is a moral to this story....if you plan on making homemade rootbeer, just know it explodes and have fun picking up glass shards. This isn't the first time my father's rootbeer exploded.

Shit Kickers

T and I are taking a Small Farming class through the WSU extension in Bellingham. The class is only in it's second week and already has us figuring out where we want to go with our land. Although T already has an idea of what he wants to do, it is really helping me understand the process and help plan out our future.

By the end of November we will have our Whole Farm Plan somewhat laid out. It is pretty exciting.

But it sounds like our plan will not include me quitting my job to become a full time farmer. The reasons for this being: I like my career, I hate weeding, T has the real passion to be a farmer, someone has to make money, and T won't let me get cowboy boots.

In our Farm class a "small" farmer came in and gave a little talk. She had "work woman boots" on (a little different than cowboy boots because they don' have the pointy toe). It was really sassy/farmy/badassy.

I want some.

When I brought up the proposition of me obtaining some cowboy/girl boots, T said they looked dumb on the farmer that came to the class. What the hell? I want me some shit kickers and I want my husband to think I look like a badass farm girl when wearing them.

I guess he just really knows it is about fashion, not work. I might start trying to pull it off though.

He didn't like my idea of naming our farm Boot Farm either. What a SOB.