A Crunchy Meltdown

I recently spent some time with friends who were poking fun at someone they knew who's wife asked him to cut their grass with a scythe.  I chuckled along with them at the "crazy lady" then later started to think about feeding my imaginary laying hens grass clippings marinated in exhaust fumes and wondered how hard it would be to cut the grass with a scythe.  There's something wrong with me.  On the other hand, who wouldn't benefit from a little manual labor?

On a scale of 1 to crunchy, I'm Mountain Rose Herbs.  I've almost completely stopped shopping in stores, so when I went with my sister to the mall today, I experienced a bit of culture shock. What used to be something as commonplace and innocent as a trip to the mall has become the spark that ignited the flame of a crunchy meltdown.

 

It's exhausting feeling like the world isn't safe, and no one knows.  I walked around the mall feeling assaulted by synthetic fragrances (among other things) and thinking, "People don't even know!!"  But never mind their endocrine systems, what about the condition of their hearts?  I'm learning some faith lessons on this crunchy, gravel path. I was able to feel in a new, very tiny way what Jesus must have felt.  I don't know if I will ever understand how He did not walk the earth in utter despair, knowing how many would not choose the life He would give His for.

Is the red pill worth it?  Knowledge may be power, but it is also responsibility.  Sometimes I don't want to take the time to figure out a healthy meal.  Sometimes I just want to forget the vegan vs. paleo debate, take 30 seconds to nuke some GMO corn chips with some cellulose coated cheese, chase it with some fizzy death syrup in a BPA lined aluminum can, cry for a little bit and take a long nap.

As a believer, I know that fear and isolation are inappropriate responses, but where is the line between trusting Jesus to save me from toxic everything and being responsible for what I have learned?  I don't know, but until He gives me a deeper revelation, I'm walking the tightrope as best I can.

Houston, We Have an Offer!

Just a few days ago, while half the family was out of town, we received an offer on our house.  Yay!!!   :::Panic:::   Pray.  

We had 24 hours to make a decision: 24 hours in which we would not be able to be together to discuss and process together, so all interaction had to take place via phone and text.  As usual, we had a variety of responses ranging from reluctance to, "What are we waiting for??"

Ultimately, we thought it was a good offer and didn't feel any "red lights" from the Lord, so we accepted.  Now we have less than 2 months to find and close on a new house.  I believe that because the Lord sent a buyer, He has a place for us to go.

If you would like to agree with us in prayer, this is what we are asking the Lord for specifically:

• wisdom and sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit 
• agreement and unity among family members
• no more than 20-25 minutes away from the church building
• in the Yukon/Mustang area
• at least 5 acres with some trees and preferably water
• in the price range we have agreed on as a family

There are many other things on our list, but those things are the most crucial.  We appreciate your prayers, support, and encouragement.  We are trusting Him.

Thank you!

Locks au naturale - Homemade Hairspray

Homemade hairspray is easy peasy, and it works!  You may not be able achieve this look,

but that's probably for the best.


What you'll need: 

1 whole orange (for dark hair) or lemon (for light hair)
2 cups filtered or distilled water
1/4 cup rubbing alcohol or clear grain alcohol like vodka or gin
essential oils for scent

Cut the citrus fruit of your choice into wedges and boil with the water until it's reduced by half.  

Or, if you're like me, forget about it and boil it until the liquid is almost all gone, add some more and boil it again.  

Strain into a glass measuring cup and let cool.  If you have less than a cup of liquid, add water to make 1 cup.

Use a funnel to pour it into a spray bottle, add the alcohol and essential oils, and voila!

 Just kidding.  I am SO glad I didn't graduate from high school in 1988.

Anyway.  If you don't want to use the alcohol (it can be drying and is not without it's health concerns) you can omit it and store your hairspray in the fridge.  It should last for a couple weeks that way.  I don't use hairspray very often, so I added the alcohol and one batch has lasted me a good 6 months or more.  I used rubbing alcohol because it was what I had on hand, but I probably will try vodka next time to see if it is less drying.  

I use it when I put my hair up to help things stay in place and smooth flyaways, and and sometimes I use it along with a diffuser to help add volume and define my "curls" if I'm trying to look a little extra fancy.  Like most homemade, natural products it is not an exact replica of what you would buy at the store and there is a bit of an adjustment phase while you get to know the way the product works, but it's worth it to me to know how to pronounce everything I'm putting on my body.

What about you?  Have you ever made your own hair styling products?  Would you?

Locks au naturale - Thirty Two Poo Cubes (say that five times fast!)

UPDATE: I am no longer using 'poo cubes.  I found something simpler, easier, and more frugal that I like even better!


 I apologize for my absence, I've had a little extra trouble keeping up with life the last few weeks.  Sigh.  Moving on.  In my last post I mentioned talking next about hair or skin care.  So I've decided to do a series on natural hair care, then natural skin care.  I am so. smart.

Natural hair care has probably been my biggest struggle.  It took me a year to find a replacement for commercial products that I'm truly happy with, but I'm grateful to report that I have indeed finally found something worth blogging about.  I shall recount my journey for you now.

1.  No 'poo.  No 'poo is crunchy blog slang for washing with a baking soda and water mix and rinsing with an ACV (apple cider vinegar) and water mix.  Tons of people rave about the results.  To be fair, I only tried this once or twice, and everyone says you have to give it time, but greasy hair is one of my "things," and since my hair looked worse after trying this method, I wasn't willing to give it any additional time.  I may try again at some point (if I ever quit my job and work at home), but for now I'm going to stick with what's working.

2.  'Poo bar.  I made my own and also tried a store bought version.  I really wanted to like it because I liked having only one product in the shower, and it was really easy to travel with.  I didn't love the texture of my hair, though, and my ends constantly looked dried out so I ended up trimming my hair more frequently than I wanted to.  I tried a diluted ACV rinse with the shampoo bar, but didn't like the results.  I also tried putting coconut oil on the ends of my hair regularly to combat the dryness, only resulting in really greasy looking ends after the first washing and really dry looking ends after the next.

Side note - Most commercial hair products contain silicone.  Translation: they coat your hair with plastic that disguises dryness and damage.  Anytime you switch from commercial products, your hair will most likely go through a transition/detox phase, and because it will no longer be coated with plastic, it may look dry for awhile.  You do have to give natural products time to really judge how they're working.  

3.   Store Bought 'Poo.  I gave the shampoo bars about 6 months and still had unacceptably dry ends, so I switched to Aubrey Organics.  It's the brand they sell through Mountain Rose Herbs, so I figured the ingredients would be trustworthy.  It was a step in the right direction, but I still definitely didn't love my hair.  Plus it's pricey, and the shampoo contains carrageenan, a natural preservative derived from seaweed, but not without its health concerns.  Just because something is natural doesn't mean it's good for you.  Do your research.  You can't see me, but I'm shaking my finger at you.

4.  'Poo Cubes.  I remembered reading this blog post over at Crunchy Betty about "sorta 'poo" at some point and mentally tucking it away for future reference in case my other options didn't pan out.  They didn't.  So I tried this, and WINNER!  I've been very pleased with the results.  My hair looks clean and shiny and feels soft with no dryness.  Here's a specific breakdown of exactly what sorta 'poo means.


Sorta 'poo is a mixture of 1 Tbsp. castile soap and 1 tsp. coconut milk.  Milk.  Not oil.  If you know my sister, you can ask her to tell you that story.  I make coconut milk myself with a blender, but you could probably use a store bought brand.  The thing that's tricky about this method is that coconut milk is perishable.  You can't whip up a big batch and leave it in your shower.  It will go bad.  Reading through the comments on the aforementioned blog post, one brilliant reader said that she froze coconut milk in teaspoon sizes so she could make a fresh batch of 'poo as needed.  Taking that one step further, I froze the castile and coconut milk together in measured amounts in an ice cube tray.  So now I have a sandwich bag in the freezer containing a bunch of little white 'poo cubes.  My hair is pretty long, but also thin and fine.  I found that I don't even need an entire cube, so I cut them all in half and still have more than enough per washing.  This method also turns out to be very economical.  Without doing the exact math, I was able to make 32 'poo cubes for less than $5, I'm sure.  I typically wash my hair 3 times a week, so one batch will last almost 3 months.  Maybe not as cheap as a .99 cent bottle of Suave (do those still exist?) but ~$20/year for shampoo is pretty durn good.

Admittedly, this method is not as convenient as having a big bottle of something in your shower, but I've adjusted.  If I remember the night before, I pull a cube out of the freezer, put it in a tiny glass jar, and let it thaw.  If I don't, I grab one in the morning and it melts quickly as you rub it in your hands.

Something else interesting about this method is that when I followed it with an ACV rinse, I actually liked the results this time.  Specifically, I use about 1 part ACV to 3 parts water and some essential oils to help it not smell so vinegary.  You can play with that ratio to fine tune the results.  The vinegar rinse is important because it helps balance the pH of your scalp after washing.  

So.  Hair is kinda like fingerprints, or snowflakes, or grass (always greener...).  Ultimately what works well for me may not work well for you, but here's a list of options to try, and hopefully your process will be speedier than mine was! 

The cardinal rule of newbie pressure canning

With my Christmas money in hand and visions of a well-stocked pantry dancing in my head, I bought myself this bad boy:  an All-American 30 quart pressure canner.  I chose the All-American because it's made in the US and it's said that with proper care your grandchildren will be able to use it.  It also has very few negative customer reviews and a metal to metal seal with no rubber gasket to be replaced.  The 30 quart is the second largest model they sell and is supposed to can 19 pints or 14 quarts.  I reasoned that it would probably be best to can fewer larger batches than a lot of smaller ones. The largest model seemed to border on ridiculous (32 pints or 19 quarts.)

I've only canned once before: 6 half-pints of pickled jalapenos using the water bath method.  High acid foods like fruit or things pickled in vinegar can be canned this way, but low acid foods must be canned in a pressure canner.  It was a pretty successful venture, so I felt confident that I would be able to handle pressure canning as well.  I was wrong.  So very wrong.

The first time I used my pressure canner I learned a lot...the hard way.  I will now share my great wisdom with you in case you're ever inclined to try this yourself...or just for your amusement at my expense. 

Tip #1   Just because you CAN can 19 pints at once doesn't mean you newbie SHOULD.  Having one successful canning attempt under your belt and a ginormous canner does not qualify you to can 3 pounds of dry beans at once.  

Tip #2    DON'T newbie can alone.  If you are a seasoned canner, solo away, but for me an extra pair of hands (and an extra brain) would have been a big help.

Tip #3 (and this one is the most newbie important) DON'T BUY A PRESSURE CANNER THAT DOESN'T FIT UNDER YOUR RANGE HOOD.   If, for some reason you don't heed this first bit of advice, DON'T wait until your beans have been cooking for 2 hours, you have boiling water and lids ready to go, and your hot jars lined up on the counter to come to this realization.

Tip #4   DON'T newbie decide to hot pack your jars, then put them into cool water in your canner, close it up and carry your canner (which now weighs approximately the same amount as a healthy middle schooler) to your car and drive to your sister's house so you can use her stove.  You may find when you arrive at her house and open the lid to inspect the contents that a jar (thankfully only one) has fallen over (thankfully not broken) and the lid has come off so you now have beans floating in the water, all your carefully measured head space is no longer so carefully measured, and everything has cooled too much to continue without danger of later spoilage.  Then you might find yourself packing up, driving home and despairing of the mammoth mess you now have to clean up.  Cleaning up after a success isn't nearly as disheartening as cleaning up after a failure.

At least it wasn't a total waste.  I ended up pouring the beans back into the pot, cooking them for the rest of the day and freezing them.  Since we're trying to move out of this house and I'm increasingly interested in building my own tiny house, I think I'll keep the canner and just try future attempts at my sister's house or our church building.  Since it's my mistake, I'd have to pay to ship the behemoth back, anyway.  Unfortunately I didn't make a good first impression, but I trust that in the future my canner and I will become good friends!  I'll keep you apprised of our relationship.  : )

Next time I think I'll write about my hair or skin care routine, both of which I am finally thoroughly pleased with.  I'll take votes if anyone has a preference.

And now it's time for another good idea, bad idea.

Whew, December has been a busy month.  Along with the usual seasonal parties and concerts, etc., we got to work extra shifts at work.  So on the Saturdays I wasn't working I was playing catch-up, not blogging.  Things have started to slow down now, and we got a 4 day weekend for Christmas, so I'm back to share with you one idea I'm pretty proud of... and another that didn't turn out quite so well.  

Good idea:

This doesn't really have anything to do with sustainability or healthy living (except that TOMS sells organic shoes, which I like) but I just thought it was an idea worth sharing, regardless of its relevance to the theme of this blog.

I had been wrestling with one of the great questions of life: whether or not it's okay to wear socks with TOMS.   A classic catch 22 scenario - should I look like a dork or have smelly feet?  The answer is neither!  You can have your socks and eat them too!  ...You know what I mean.

Instead of putting socks on your feet, you can put the socks on the insoles!  I pulled out the original insoles and use orthotic inserts because I work on my feet all day, which is what originally inspired me with the idea, but I suspect you could do this just as easily with the original insoles.  

I prefer this to no-show socks, because those usually don't stay in place for me and I find them uncomfortable.

Here's a handy dandy step-by-step graphic for you.  I simply put the sock on the insole upside down, so the hole faces down.  Then I put the insoles back in and ta daa!  The look of no socks, with the advantage of wash-ability and absence of odor!



Bad idea:

I've recently been learning about the virtues of activated charcoal.  Not the stuff you find at the bottom of your grill or on your overcooked steak, but the stuff that's sold as a supplement and is commonly used in water filters and poison control situations.  Activated charcoal has been purified and it has a high amount of surface area and is very porous, so it is highly ADsorbent.  This means it acts more like a magnet attracting substances to it, rather than dissolving substances in it (absorbent).  You can use it to whiten teeth, in facial scrubs, and to make mascara. 

I had been wanting to purchase some black eyeliner from 100% Pure for evening makeup looks, but I hadn't gotten around to in time to have some for my work Christmas party.  The day of the party, it occurred to me that if you could make mascara with activated charcoal (which I haven't tried yet, but is on my list), maybe you could make eyeliner!  So I opened a capsule and mixed it with some of my homemade moisturizer.  I applied with an angle brush, my usual method, and was quite happy with the look of it.  I headed off to my work party feeling pleased and slightly apprehensive.  I knew it wasn't a great idea to wear something in public that I hadn't tested around the house first, so I periodically rubbed under my eyes hoping to avoid the dreaded "raccoon eyes" and was hopeful that any crisis would be thus averted.

Alas, not so.  When I arrived home and looked in the mirror: no raccoon eyes.  Whew.  Then I noticed black flakes on my CHIN!  My first instinct was to frantically brush them away, so there is no picture for your enjoyment.  Fortunately I sat in the back at the party, the lights were rather dim, and I didn't mingle with very many people so I can laugh about it rather than feel terribly embarrassed.  When I do get around to attempting homemade mascara, I'll be sure to wear it around the house for several hours before I venture out.  : )

This Circular Thinking Is Making Me Dizzy

When we first began considering this process, we sought counsel from a good friend who is already doing much of what we're hoping to do and is much farther down the road.  His advice was to have someone take care of the farm full-time and to read the book You Can Farm by Joel Salatin.  I was immediately interested in being the full-time person, so I bought the book and read it.  It was fascinating and incredibly educational.  I was a few chapters in when I realized that the author was the man I called the "profound farmer" featured on Food, Inc., a documentary that was influential in our family's process.  Joel Salatin is now one of my favorite people, and I'm currently in the middle of Family Friendly Farming: A Multi-Generational Home-Based Business Testament.  Wow!

I guess I'll be a bit vulnerable here and tell you that the reason I was interested in being the full-time farmer is because, while I mostly enjoy my job, it's not exactly a meaningful career, and I don't have a family of my own, so I struggle sometimes with investing the bulk of my time and energy in doing something that isn't really meaningful to me.  For a season is one thing, but for nearly 15 years is another.  I've always had a soft spot for animals and several years ago I discovered a love of gardening and the outdoors.  This seems like an opportunity to invest my time and energy in something that will be more meaningful and ultimately fulfilling.  Now, I'm sure I'm romanticizing it in my imagination, but I'm just as sure that I'd still like to try it.

So I have a plan.  I think I'd be glad for the Lord to interrupt or rearrange my plans (famous last words), but I'd rather have specific goals than vague hopes.  In very simple terms, my plan/hope is to work at my job for another 1-3 years while I pay off all of my debt (other than my mortgage which someone else is paying anyway) and save enough to have a healthy sized cushion while I transition to working on the farm and possibly building a business out of it.

Here's where the circular thinking comes in.  I'll have a moment of frustration that the process is going so slowly, then I'll think, "Okay then, what can we do right now while we wait?"  Then I sigh deeply and think, "Not much.  I can barely keep up with my life as it is."  I want to start learning as much as can now instead of waiting until I can actually do it full-time, but I don't have much time for learning until I can quit my job.  Similarly, in reality, we have a relatively large yard and we could grow a lot of food in the space we have...possibly even have some laying hens and rabbits.  But we're trying to sell our house, and not only do I "not have time", but an attractive lawn is generally more appealing to potential buyers than a yard sized vegetable garden and animal poo.  Not only that, but we're interested in emergency preparedness (New York City is a prime example of why this is a good idea), but we don't want to stockpile things that will only have to be moved eventually.  We're trying to get rid of things before the move, not add more.  I feel a sense of urgency that it would be wisdom to do this sooner than later, but the process is not going quickly at all.  So I'm caught in this tension of wanting to do as much as I can as soon as I can, but feeling like I can't effectively do much at all.

 

I guess what's important is to continue doing what we are able to do as we are able to do it, and realizing that we have actually done quite a lot.  While I don't know that we've made much progress in the area of sustainability (other than learning, which really is valuable!), we are continuing to learn and make healthier choices in our food and health and beauty products.  Things like organic apples, cloth napkins, and homemade moisturizer are simple changes, but not insignificant ones!

Now an update.  The offer we made on the house in Mustang was a consignment offer, meaning their house stays on the market while we try to sell ours, and if they have another offer we have 3 days to come up with a plan to buy it even if our house hasn't sold.  We didn't know what kind of response we'd have to our house or how easy or difficult it would be to sell, but it looks like it's not going to be easy.  We haven't had a single official showing of our house.  Some neighbors across the street came over and asked to see it one day and said they might be interested but they'd have to sell their house first.  There has been no interest other than that.  I think houses in our neighborhood generally don't sell quickly, and our house is unique on top of that, having 5 bedrooms, etc.   Well, another offer was made on the house in Mustang and accepted.  We considered taking on 2 mortgages to make it work, but felt like that wasn't what the Lord was saying.  I think I'm equally relieved and disappointed.  While it was wonderful in so many ways, I think ultimately it was too far and too expensive.  I do feel a little sad if I think about it, but at the same time, I really haven't thought about it that much. We haven't processed it as a family yet, so I'm not sure where everyone else is, but I think I can confidently say that the bottom line is: we trust the Lord.