I’ve practically stopped blogging, I know. No reason, just life. I’ll try to make this a catch-up post, and jot down a bunch of things that have been going on around here. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, BTW!
First, my hair. (This could be lengthy, so kindly skip if not interested, lol.)
I’ve made a foray back into the world of shampoo! I’ve realized conditioner-washing hasn’t been a good long-term cleansing method for my hair. It became weighed down and lost its bounce after several months of co-washing with a thick, shea butter restorative conditioner, which I think was just too heavy for my hair. I went back to my homemade coconut-clay shampoo, and it was amazing how it helped clarify and revive it.
I found a natural hair care company, Morrocco Method, and ordered a healthy hair starter pack with five shampoos and several conditioners. It’s not exactly regular shampoo–it’s all natural, raw, and wild crafted–and so far, I love it. The consensus among users seems to be that it works great as long as they have already gone no poo for a while, but if you are going straight from regular shampoo to Morrocco Method, your hair will go through a period of being oily, sticky and gross–much like mine did when I stopped using shampoos. Once your hair has detoxed from the chemicals in regular shampoos, Morrocco Method can work beautifully to keep your hair and scalp balanced and healthy.
I also brushed my hair for the first time in…I don’t know–fifteen or twenty years, haha. As a curly girl, you know NEVER to brush your hair (you’ll ruin the curls!) Use a wide toothed comb, a pick, or, best of all, your fingers. But I decided to try a boar bristle brush as it distributes the oils from your scalp through your hair better than other brushes. It felt so energizing to brush my scalp that I hardly slept the first night, lol.
My next earth-shattering news is–ta-da–I’ve decided to ditch henna. I’ve loved it for the eight years I’ve used it–ever since my hair started fading and people would ask me who Zia got her red hair from! It has been great to continue being a “natural” redhead, haha. Henna is affordable, conditioning, natural, and easy to do yourself. But I guess I’m just tired of it, and at this point I would really like a nice highlighted look, which henna just won’t deliver.
So, I’ve been growing out my henna for the past eight weeks, and about twice a week doing an overnight oil treatment to try to fade the color as much as possible–in hopes that I can highlight over it without a strange reaction between the salon color and the leftover henna. It has lifted the color, a little at a time, and right now I have lovely ashy brown roots with platinum highlights–which sounds infinitely better than mousey brown interspersed with gray. I counted down the days for a month until my salon appointment for yesterday, which they suddenly cancelled, and I now have another month of hat hair. You know, as in I should wear a hat when I go out–which I usually don’t.
I’ll have a strand test done, and if the remaining henna doesn’t cause my hair to turn green or crumble into dust, I’ll get highlights and lowlights–yay! If it does, I’ll need a color correction first, which will strip off all the henna. I am also badly in need of a trim, since I have been coaxing my hair to grow in every way possible and I couldn’t stand the thought of scissors. I still really want it long, and hopefully cutting off almost a year of split ends won’t shorten it too drastically. I am so looking forward to my hair appointment and now I’m just waiting in quiet resignation. Patience, dear girl.
On to other things!
My tribe of sweet houseplants became infested with fruit flies, to the point that they were taking over the house. I was about to bid my plants farewell and set them out on the porch to freeze and starve in the dark when I suddenly thought of Google. I found a neem oil remedy for fruit flies, and over the past couple of months I have effectively vanquished them. The solution I make is about a half of a teaspoon of neem oil, a little squirt of dish detergent, and 16 oz. of warm water. Shake it up good and immediately douse your plants–leaf, stem, soil, inside and outside of pot. You need to use the solution up all at once since it loses its potency after just an hour or two, I think. The trick is to keep doing it every 4-7 days, since the neem oil simply keeps the flies from eating or breeding, and anything in egg form will soon emerge quite healthily. I think I must have waited too long between squirts and missed a cycle of eggs now and then, which is probably why it took me two months to conquer them.
We’re not going anywhere in particular overseas (except for Caleb–more on that to come!), but we decided to get passports for the kids. Caleb already had his renewed, but yesterday we took Cash and Zia to have their pictures taken and turn in the forms for their very first passports. There was a giant American flag on the wall, so old and beautiful, with a plaque near it telling how it has 38 stars, since Colorado was the 38th state.
Zia has a birthday celebration at school today (which is hilarious because her birthday is still four months away) and she asked me to make a Shopkins cake with her favorite Shopkins on it. I made this gluten free white cake–which came out really nice and high with a few altitude adjustments. Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks!
I had a custom order in my shop for a shabby chic/French vintage style cord burning box, which is a very different style for me to create. Here are my rough design proposal sketches:
And here is one side of the finished box:
Have you heard of Hydrogen Peroxide Inhalation therapy? It is safe, cheap, you can do it yourself, and it is reportedly very effective. People have used it to cure everything from muscle aches to cancer, and a myriad of lung and breathing issues. The premise is that when your body is oxygenated, sickness can’t survive. I’m into my second week of trying it out for a respiratory difficulty I’ve had for several years. We”ll see how it works!
We had a beautiful February and first half of March, with many days reaching between 30 and 40 degrees. We went to the creek many times and just let the shopping wait, which was so the right thing to do.
And now, it’s winter in the mountains. Yahoo. Monday was another sunny, spring-like day and I went for a walk around our two-mile circle. Halfway around, I felt snow on my face, and it turned into a full fledged blizzard by evening. We’ve had a few more inches since, and the mornings have been around 10 degrees. Our snow never completely melted, though. Our poor little deer (below) has already been up to his neck in snow most of the year.
And here’s a little flash from the past–Zia and Cash, three years ago today.
Cash has since acquired more toe control. 😉
And here they are now, practically all grown up. Have an awesome weekend–I’ll be back soooooon!
