tea berry-blue

Sauconies!

2009-10-13T22:06:23Z

This happened this weekend! We were going hiking an I wanted to wear my old sneakers, which are Sauconies, and not my new sneakers, which were Merrells. I explained to my father that Sauconies are the sneakers with big Ses on the sides.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

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Highlight of my weekend

2009-07-26T18:44:14Z

Big news!

My parents got a new cat! On Friday night, my mom and I drove to the animal shelter and met all the cats, and filled out an application. There were two cats that we thought were suitable– “Rachel,” a 1-year-old girl who was very sweet and affectionate but not very active, and “Harmony,” a 3-year-old gir who was very active but not very affectionate. So we put Rachel down first and then Harmony. The shelter asked people to put down multiple choices, and then they would have someone call and interview you and try to decide based on your lifestyle if one cat or the other is a better “fit.” Both of them were beautiful silver tabbies.

The next morning, the adoption counselor called to interview my mom and then called me for a reference! We chatted a bit and then they told us that we could come pick “Rachel” up that afternoon!

Now, we have a bunch of relatives named Rachel, or variations thereof, and my mom felt weird naming a cat the same thing as family members, so we were trying to think of another name. We put the kitty in the basement (our basement has a finished bedroom and is where we keep my books, so it is pretty nice) to give her time to adjust to her new surroundings, like the shelter people suggested. About a half hour after she got here, my mom and I went upstairs to get things together to go to the store to buy kitty a collar and some wet food and then went back down to check on her.

And we could not find her. We checked under the bed, under the sofa, inside cabinets…and finally, just when we were getting worried that she’d somehow gotten out, found her..
hidden behind the books on the bookshelf.

And that is why we named her Clarisse.

Clarisse Kitty!

Clarisse is a lovely little girl cat who loves to hide– but she isn’t antisocial! She just seems to like curling up in small places. She comes out as soon as you “find” her– and then wants to be cuddled, a lot. We haven’t tried introducing her to Harker yet, but Harker knows she is down there– he keeps peering curiously at the door. She is super teeny-tiny and slim, and we are having trouble finding a collar for her– we got the smallest size at the store, AND punched two more holes in it, and it is still a bit big. But she is pretty much full grown so she is always going to be a little pocketful of cat!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

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Shampoo-Free Tea: Result!

2009-07-14T03:55:05Z

I know, I know, I said you would get results after about a week, but there is a good reason why it has taken me so long to tell you how the whole shampoo-free thing is going!

It is called, I MADE A COMIC ABOUT IT.

Shampoo-Free Tea

Enjoy! This documents the process from start to end of the first day of shampoo-freeness. Click the image to read the comic!

It has been nearly three weeks and I have got to say, I do not feel like my hair is dirty, and I don’t miss shampoo at all! In fact, I am happy to report that when I went down to my grandmother’s house for the weekend, I brought down all my silicone-rich conditioners and all but one bottle of sulfate shampoo. I kept one bottle of shampoo in case I have an awful hair emergency. But other than that, my haircare regimen now consists of silicone-free conditioner, water, and castor oil or vegetable glycerin (I like to alternate what I put in my hair).

It was slightly greasy at about the two week mark, but other than that, all the warnings that it would make my hair look worse before it looked better? Lies! It has looked great from the first day on. I mean, I still have some bad hair days, but my hair is softer, shinier, and healthier overall. The softness is amazing– you can really tell that there are no products in my hair.

When it got greasy, I massaged my scalp with baking soda and then poured vinegar in– a recommendation I got from Destiny and several other sources. I was hoping it would make my head into a kiddie science project volcano, but it did not. Woe! It made my scalp feel a little dry for a few days, though, so I’m not sure if I will do that again.

But generally, I am very pleased with the results and I would happily recommend this alternative to icky chemicals to anyone and everyone– my mom picked it up already.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

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Curly Girl Day 1

2009-06-28T18:55:50Z

Destiny recently started posting about her attempts to go shampoo-free, so after asking her about it and doing a little reading of my own, I decided to do it, too!

I have always heard from stylists that shampoo is very bad for my hair and to only use it once every week or two, but to condition it every day. So when Destiny started talking about not using shampoo at all, I have to say I was immediately intrigued.

I started reading up. The most valuable information I found was from this WikiHow article. It was a lot to absorb, so I kept reading up and read a lot of other opinions and reviews of the book it was based on, Curly Girl, by Lorraine Massey.

The idea is pretty simple: most shampoo contains chemicals called sulfates which are used to strip oils. This is good because it strips out all the non-water-soluble products you use in your hair, but it is bad because it also strips the natural oil out of your hair and dries it up!

So, to repair your hair, you need to stop using shampoo with sulfates. However, in order to do that, you need to stop using hair products that require sulfates to get them out of your hair! These products are products made with silicones, which are…well, you know what silicones are. They’re plastics! Lots of hair care products have silicones in them because silicones coat your hair and protect it from all kinds of junk, and also work to glue split ends back together, but they also keep the natural oils in your hair from getting soaked into your hair like they should, and they also need sulfates or other harsh chemicals to come out!

So it is pretty simple: if you want to use silicones, you have to use sulfates. Sulfates damage your hair, so if you want to not damage your hair, you have to use neither sulfates nor silicones. This means changing your hair care regimen to only use silicone-free hair products. If you do this, you will never need to use any shampoo!

I told my mom about it last week, and she told me about this guy she used to know who worked for her father. Pete had really long, beautiful hair and he always said that they key to his beautiful hair was that he only shampooed it once a year, on his birthday. My mom said it never looked dirty or greasy. So that, combined with reading Destiny’s writeups and lots of testimony online, convinced me.

The next step was getting the products. Thursday at lunch, I went out to do this! This is tough, because there are a lot of ingredients that are silicones. Most of them end with “cone” but not all of them do! Fortunately, I found a huge list online.

And now I will let the video tell the next part!

I made this video four days ago. In spite of reading many warnings that my hair might look worse for the first few weeks, it immediately looked amazing! It has looked really good every single day since I started it Thursday night. Even today when I washed it at night and slept on it, it doesn’t look too bad, and I have never been able to do that before.

There will be more updates on this as I go! If anyone has questions they would like to ask me about the process please feel free!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

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This is Embarrassing

2009-06-24T23:45:07Z

So, if you’ve noticed, The Yogurt Diaries are on a short term hiatus.

This was an unplanned hiatus.

Why?

Because Sunday morning I felt a little ill. The typical sore throat, tired type thing. Monday, same dealio. I went to work and all, I was just…bleh.

Tuesday…still sick. So I go to the Resident Nurse in our office building and have her check me out. She’s chatting away and then asks me to stick out my tongue.

I do.

“You’re very dehydrated,” she said.

“I can’t be,” I said. “I just drank a twenty-ounce ginger ale.”

“Your tongue is white,” she said. “That’s a sign of dehydration. How much have you had to drink?”

“Well, the ginger ale this morning,” I said (this was at ten AM), “and I went through a pitcher and a half of water last night.”

“Stick out your tongue again,” she said.

I did.

“The only thing I can figure,” she said. “Is that you have thrush.”

“What?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve heard the term but I have no idea what that is.”

“It’s a fungal infection you get in your mouth. Usually only babies get it.”

“How weird! How can you tell if someone has it?” I asked.

“Because their tongue is white. Here, do you want to see?” She offered me a handmirror.

Hell yes, my tongue was white. “Oh my god!” I said. “It is white. How do people get thrush?” I asked.

“Usually only babies get it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an adult with it.” It took her a few tries to come out with the next part, but when she did, she finally asked, “Have you been with anyone…in that…you have had oral sex?”

“Definitely not,” I told her. “Unless I wasn’t informed of it.”

So, yeah. I have a disease that people get from breastfeeding and cunnilingus! Go me.

Yogurt is actually supposed to cure thrush, but since it is the only thing I had eaten consistently for the past week (and some days I will not lie, I had four containers in a single day), I think it is probably a good idea to wait to bring it back in full force.

In the meantime, I want to ask you all a question. I am well more than halfway done with my yogurts, so I would like to decide what else I should do. I would like to move on to a different food, but it has to have these qualifications:

–It must be something that I can reasonably eat once a day without it affecting my health (like, you know, giving me thrush).
–It must be something that I can afford to eat every day for a meal (top cost $3-4 although I would be willing to do something that had a couple outliers for comparison).
–It must be something that comes in several brand names that people can shop for.
–I would prefer that it be vegetarian, but I would be okay with doing something like, say, chicken noodle soup. I just try to avoid eating too much meat. It doesn’t have to be vegan, though, and things like soup broth or gelatin are things I’m more willing to compromise on than say, hot dogs.

So, if you have ideas or recommendations for things I can do next, let me know!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

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