Pondering...

Lately I haven't been blogging.  The season of Spring brings many, many activities, and especially so this year. 

Instead of blogging I've been living vicariously through all of your blogs.  Some of you are very serious writers and some of you have a natural talent for letting words flow, especially if it's something funny.  Some of you are complete freaks.  That's what I like about the blogging world.  Too many times we can get in a rut with our thinking but the blog world opens the eyes and shows the big picture.  And how not to take life so seriously.

Since we had our vacation it's been a struggle to get back into the swing of things.  I'm reticent to do exactly that.  It feels like I'm losing my grasp on nature.  On vacation it wasn't about being inside, it was all about being outside in the woods, the sun, the snow.  Once home it's all about getting things done in the house.  Waking up for school, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, making beds, back to real jobs, back to hobby businesses.  There's less and less time spent outside. 

I'm mourning this loss.  I sit outside and read under trees until the sounds of lawnmowers drown out the sounds of birds and the dog shepherding the cat for the millionth time today.

We've planted the garden but it doesn't seem to be doing as well as last years.  Maybe our heart isn't in it as much.  We did figure out that we need to keep planting something every week.  I started more seedlings yesterday.  Jace planted more rows of corn and microgreens.  I planted peppers, cilantro, and basil.  The tomatoes are "waking up" and starting to stretch upwards.  One plant already has a baby tomato.  If things keep growing it looks like we'll have a nice crop of watermelon and canteloupe.

On the inside of the house we have the kitchen/masterbath remodel in progress.  We (I) am moving things to other rooms, consolidating, throwing things out.  It looks like we have an official start date for the last week of April.  We know the contractor and he has this great business practice of starting a job and working on it till it's actually completely finished before starting a job for someone else.  This makes him very sought after.  Of course I'll have some pics for you to see when we're getting underway and the finished work. 

So that's about it for now.  We're getting by, although reluctantly.  Time keeps marching forward.  Summer will be here and it'll be time for swimming lessons and harvesting. 

Yosemite National Park

The other week we skipped town and went on vacation.  This was no small secret.  I managed to keep it quiet for 7 months.  Because as we all know my blog caters to the more criminal element.  I knew you'd all be dying to break into my house knowing I was gone.  In the end this could have actually helped...

I came up with clever plans to save money.  We shared the car ride with a friend and her daughter who also wanted to explore out West.  We only thought about finding an orphanage a few times to drop off the yammering chatterbox in the back seat who wanted to know, "are we there yet?"

We stayed in a budget hotel.  I had joined their hotel club discount program and reserved the room 7 months in advance.  We shared the hotel with a friendly bunch from some logging company.  By friendly, I mean they would all open their room doors any time any noise or other door happened to open.  We figured they were thinking some bombshell model was just strolling the halls hoping to find some guy from a logging company she could shack up with on first sight.  We played tricks on them by opening our door just to see how many of them would open their door.  Then we would shut our door and laugh hysterically, because we're grownups. 

Rowan really enjoyed getting to see "big snow."  We took her to ski one day.  She was very frustrated, but determined.  She whined and complained and didn't listen to the ski teacher.  Somehow she made progress and by the end of the day she was zooming at 1 mph with a smile as big as Texas.  I, on the other hand, had mastered the bunny slope and made the stupid mistake to go down the "more difficult" trail.  I made it down...eventually.   My friend learned how to snowboard but couldn't turn.  They are henceforth to be known as the Bullet for their straight-shot-speed-of-light technique down the slope. 

This was the only bear we saw, thankfully.  

We spent a lot of time hiking.  Pictures truly can't capture the rare beauty.  A picture can't grasp all the sounds and smells that surround you in that moment.

Pictures can tell a story.  Like the one about a 5 year old who was whining and had to be carried part of the way.  She was our bear repellant, but she really did so well.  One day she hiked 5 miles.  And she slept like a rock!  

One day out hiking around, this cute little kitty came out of the woods, silently.  We never heard a thing.  One minute it wasn't there and the next it was right in front of us.  Rowan had to be held back as she insisted she wanted to pet the "nice kitty."  I was nervously trying to take a picture and figuring out what I would do in case it attacked us.  In the end, it never even looked at us.  It was hunting after something else.  It slowly stalked and disappeared back into the woods, never making a sound.

We came home and have since learned that the park was hit by a horrendous snow storm and the whole place was shut down. 

We also came home to a flooded kitchen and master bathroom.  So if you guys had broken in maybe you could've turned off the water coming out of the pipe under the kitchen sink.  My time is now spent dealing with this inconvenience.  In the next few weeks months, we'll be having a quarter of the house gutted from floor to ceiling and replaced.

But my mind and my heart are still here...

Code Class Is Killing Me

Remember when the weather was all yucky and we were in the middle of that thing called winter?  Well, I was really bored and reading my email.  Between the intriguing mail about finding local forklift operators and meeting my true love Nigerian prince, I had an email for a code class.  It was from a known source.

I vaguely remember reading it, thinking it couldn't be that hard if it was free.  It would probably reinforce my use of the strike through symbols that people love to see so much.  Especially repeatedly.  I think there may be a strike through anonymous group for those who can't help themselves from using it.  All. The. Time.  Stop it.

Last week I received my "Welcome to this unbelievably beginner class.  It's so easy that we're teaching it in kindergarten."  I clicked the sign in link and put my little registration info and password in.   How hard could this be?

The window (or is it a screen?) opened up with the course curriculum.  Holy. Cow.  I have homework.  And Tests?! 

This week I'm to read through 2 lessons, do my homework (with or without the extra credit), and take a short quiz if I'm "feelin lucky."  I am not.  Why, do you ask?

6 hours after starting the Introduction page.  You read that right.  Six hours after working on the introduction page I was hopelessly stuck.  I wrote the instructorbot.  No reply.  The husband was no help.  "Oh you'll figure it out."  It's like a bad dream where everyone speaks calculus and you keep saying, "I haven't even taken addition yet."  But when you say it it just sounds like, "sllf''s sojfoa ffd! lol fjkepp, right?" 

The problem was I had two files that I needed to use but I couldn't get them open.  I looked for a program to open them but they all wanted $29.95 to do that for me.  I had just about given up when I was reading a review for the updated browser I'm using.  In the comments someone said they didn't know why they had posted that baby screen shot, it wasn't necessary.

Hold up.  I don't have that baby screen shot on my puter.  Where is it?  So I reread and found it was in the Tools section.  Just like a...hmmm...I was going to say just like a man to leave the tools in the toolbox, but around here the man leaves his tools all over the house. 

I open the toolbox and then drag and drop those two files and like magic they open up.  I was so humbly thankful.  This means that part of my class will not be spent taking a sledge hammer to the computer.  I also had visions of throwing it out the window.

My lessons and homework this week have to do with learning HTML and CSS, which is not nearly as fun as CSI.  I'm currently working on my homework which consists of

3 paragraphs

and must include

the HTML and CSS stuff the lessons covered.

 
Basically, this blog works as a great editor to see if the tags I write are in the right place and the web page will look right.  You'll be seeing some experimentation and little bleebloop tech stuff.  You know, like strike throughs, bullet points, paragraphs, and highlighted sections in big fonts with emphasis.

Thanks for putting up with it.  I hope it will eventually improve the look of my page.  Unless of course you happen to see my Nigerian prince on a forklift.  Please send him my way and I'll just pay someone to fix my page with the inheritance money.

The Obligatory Spring Post

I know you are probably wondering how No Poo is going.  Well, let me tell you...I caved!  I caved like a big...thing that caves.  Let me take you back.  Last Friday I did the baking soda wash and I got my ratio wrong and used too much (I think) baking soda.  The hair was icky.  I had to be somewhere Saturday and no way was I going without good hair.  So I washed with shampoo...It felt so wrong and so right at the same time.  Herbal Essences was telling me what a failure I was.  I was telling it to shut up and lather or I'd be switching to its' arch rival Garnier. 

An interesting development is noting that I haven't had to wash my hair since.  That's weird.  4 days.  Smells good.  Looks good.  Oh, I will wash it.  I will try not using shampoo again.  We'll catch up on this later.

Someone has decided that their true name is now She-Ra, Princess of Power...mmm hmm.

That's a gun holster in case you're wondering.

We're also eagerly anticipating spring. We're working hard (me, not so much) at tilling the soil and getting the gardens ready. Here's what we found the other day...

Total throw up.  These are grubs.  What you can't tell in the pics is that they are 3 inches long and fatter than your finger. 

Obviously I asked Jace if he wanted to become a locavore.  Rowan just screamed like a little girl.  What a sissy.  I was standing many yards away using the zoom lens.  

Spring is here.  And it's a big, fat worm.



Homestead Debacle and More No Poo Hair

A comment from yesterday's post asked if I knew about the scandalous debacle about trademarking Urban Homesteader and Urban Homesteading.  I do know about this such debacle.  I will try to keep this short.

A family in California wants to trademark the words "urban homesteader" and "urban homesteading."  Right now, as I understand it, they hold a supplemental trademark.  This means they have a certain amount of time to prove that their use of the words is exclusive to only them.  Meaning, all of us other urban homesteaders don't use those words.  This is ridiculous.  I wrote that it was a fluid and everchanging movement and trying to narrow it down so finitely is a disservice and rather insulting to the rest of us.

Yesterday was the day many, maybe thousands, of people peppered Facebook, Twitter, and their blogs with those words.  One part was to post your visitor tally prior to your post and then after your post.  My visitor tally for yesterday was 112.  You'll be surprised to hear that once again 90% of the visitors were actually looking at the post about henna in my hair. 

The other thing I was trying to accomplish with my post was to not specifically say why I was writing the post that way.  I wanted it to look commonplace and not give exclusivity to the trademark seeking louts.  For me, if I wrote it saying, "I'm writing this because of that family," then it gives them exclusivity and wouldn't show generic usage.

So if I get a letter in the mail saying I should stop using those words I will show it to you.

Today was Day 2 of No Poo Hair.  I'm doing rather well.  Last night I washed my hair with conditioner only.  Here's my pic.  I wore it up today because I just do that a lot anyway.  It looks and feels fine.  I'm not surprised.  I have a feeling the real test of sticking it out is in another day or two. 

Of No Poo Hair and Homesteading

First off I want to mention the visitor counter.  I installed it long after this blog was rolling.  My official visitor count as of right now is 5,761.  When I track my stats, an overwhelming amount of visitors appear on days I blog about my hair.  I'm talking over 1,200 people have read about me using henna in my hair.  Just thought I'd mention that little factoid.

Today at my little urban homestead I will again be talking about what I've done to my hair.  I hope Blogger's servers are prepared to handle the incoming traffic of my hair groupies.

Thanks to the internet and the library (ancient way people research things), I've been able to expand my efforts in urban homesteading without fear of horrible consequences, i.e. losing a limb.  There are so many involved in this that it creates a wealth of information, free for anyone who wants to learn.  It's an interesting movement that is fluid and ever evolving.  With so many people participating there could never be a finite location or singular ownership of the idea.  The things I've managed to conquer:  productive gardens my family can use as a source of food (in winter we would starve, but I'm working on it), a real compost pile,  crocheting wearable items, making household bath and beauty products, cooking and eating better, exercising, canning, and giving back to others in the urban homestead movement without a price tag attached. 

On to the hair.  I know you're asking what I'm talking about.  No Poo Hair?  Some of you may know about this and have even contemplated it, maybe even tried it.  The No Shampoo Method is to use alternatives to shampoo to wash your hair and still come out with clean, managable hair. 

I have tried several different recipes, some from videos off Youtube, and all of them had failed me.  I ended up with what I call "sticky hair syndrome."  This will make the hair look and feel like you have never washed your hair, sticks together, and is uncombable.  It's disgusting.  I was depressed thinking I wouldn't be able to go the distance in this urban homesteading project. 

Well, last night I decided to try again but I cut down the traditional No Poo recipe...a lot.  The traditional recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of baking soda per cup of water.  Generally, people need 2 cups of this to get all of the hair wet.  I opted for putting 1 teaspoon of baking soda in 2 cups of water (16 oz.).  I made a total solution of 2 teaspoons baking soda to 32 oz. of water, since I have long hair.  I poured it onto my dry hair and made sure it all got wet. 

The apple cider vinegar rinse I use is 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar to 20 oz. of water.  I rinsed my hair 3 times with this solution.  The apple cider vinegar acts as a conditioner for me. 

Lastly, I rinsed 3 times with only water.  I just had to wait for it to dry....

Here's my result for day 1 of No Poo Hair.  My hair feels like it usually does when washed with shampoo and conditioner.  I'm very happy with the results.  I've read the stronger baking soda solution is good for people with curly hair and the weaker solution is more appropriate for people with straight hair. 

I'll keep you updated and include any variations I might add, such as any other natural conditioners or essential oil usage.  I hope you found this urban homesteading project useful.

Cost Saving Tip and Homemade Arthritis Ointment

Even though that title sounds incredibly boring, there's two important pieces of information I want to pass on.

Last week I decided we needed some more vegetable storage space.  The crisper box wasn't cutting it since we've increased our vegetable and fruit buying.  The stuff just won't fit.  Instead of being a good homemaker vegetable lady and storing the vegetables cut up and in prim and proper bags, I just threw them in the fridge.  Well, as so often happens, I'd get lazy and not feel creative in my cooking.  By the end of a week those vegetables were looking pretty sad, if not angry and threatening to riot.  So in the compost they would go. 

One day I thought if I got an extra storage bin then maybe those vegetables would last a little longer.  It turns out that's true.  I bought vegetables last week and they are still looking fresh as daisies.  This is going to save me a lot of money.

Now for the homemade arthritis ointment.  It might be good on aches and pains, too.  Starting last fall I noticed some twangs in my knuckles.  It wasn't enough to limit my activities.  Just a gnawing soreness.  It's persisting through the winter.  I decided to research for some home cures.

I came across this recipe:  2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil.  I put it into the jar and stirred and stirred and stirred some more.  It did not want to blend.  I still applied some and it really did work.  I left it alone for an hour and when I came back it looks like it's starting to blend on its own.  Oh sure, you'll have a little vinegar smell (very little) but the soreness is all gone!  This recipe will give you 2 ounces.