"I would not interfere with any creed of yours,or want to appear that I have all the cures.There is so much to know... So many things are true...The way my feet must go may not be best for you.And so, I give this spark of what is light to me,to guide you through the dark, but not tell you what to see." -Author Unknown
Shhhhh… I once promised my oldest daughter that I’d never publish a picture of her on my blog without her permission. I just couldn’t resist this one, though. It looks like we’re parked at Albertson’s here, and she’s snapping photos of her dream car. Something about the silly shoes (sorry, dear, the artfully decorated shoes) and the yellow mustang just looked awesome to me. (She has great taste)
Sixteen
Luckily, she’s also informed us that ANYTHING with an engine and wheels will suffice. And she can wait until February, she says. What a lucky mamma I am.
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And now for the camera review portion of this post, whereby I qualify that I have not yet received the Nikon D90 that Nikon may or may not yet have decided to send me (emphasis on “yet”). This photo was, in fact taken with my old camera, I just stumbled upon it in my files today. If it was taken with the Nikon you’d surely see the aura of her desire for freedom and independence being cast upon the mustang.
Watching my kids learn has been the most fascinating aspect of not sending them to school. Partly, I’m sad for the children whose education isn’t self-driven, because the “love of learning” face that toddlers are known for grows more beautiful the older a child gets.
At 4, Grace is very helpful around the house. Recently, she wanted to help me fold laundry. She sat by my side, wadding things up into little blobs while I obsessively created perfect folded squares. She looked at her pile and said “Mommy, show me how you fold.” So I did, we started with long sleeve shirts and she mastered it after 2-3 of them. Madelyn (6) came in and Grace was beaming at her new “pile” of perfectly folded shirts.
At 6, Madelyn is enjoying writing notes. Of course it’s faster to speak out loud but she is enjoying writing notes. She’s been playing Farmville and Yoville and some other silly FaceBook games and she has friends who write her notes while she plays. She loves chatting online with her friends and has decided that she’d rather communicate with everyone in writing. I must have spelled “I love you” out loud for her a thousand times last week. She doesn’t want me to write it for her to copy, she just wants me to say the names of the letters, including spaces and punctuation, for her to transcribe. She runs into the room several times a day to ask “Mom, how do you spell “get your stinky feed off of my pillow or you can’t be on my bed anymore” or maybe “Please please please get out of the bathroom I need to pee.” If I don’t say “space” or comma” when it’s time, she gives me an odd look. If a word doesn’t look right to her, she says “Are you sure this is spelled right?” At the end of each note, she EXPECTS a period, a question mark or an exclamation mark.When I don’t tell her to write one, she asks “Is this a complete sentence?
The kids have set up a system of mailboxes at everyone’s door and spend all day long passing notes throughout the house. So they’re learning to write and read and use punctuation and capitalization through love, through the desire to communicate. At this point, I can’t even imagine another way anymore. Imagine being assigned “Write “I love you” fifty times today. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? It’s become increasingly ridiculous to me that kids are taught reading and writing OUTSIDE of the desire to communicate. THAT is what reading and writing are for. No wonder schools fail, when written communication is irrelevant.
At 12, Meagan spent many years as a victim of our aggressive work schedules. There just wasn’t much time or money to do the things she wanted to do. She always wanted to do Soccer but I could never find the sign-up information and Saturday 7am practices and games were NOT something we wanted to participate in. Actually- here, they practice like 3 days a week and play games on Saturdays at the crack of Dawn. So this year she decided she wants to take tapdancing. It works for us. We signed her up for a class for her age group and all of the girls in the class have been dancing since they were toddlers. The teacher showed them the dance really quickly. Meagan felt a bit lost, like she was in over her head. She set up the laptop in the kitchen and watched youtube to learn the beginner’s moves. She practiced tapping in the kitchen for hours and hours and hours. She didn’t even consider giving up. At class yesterday, she remembered the entire routine. She practices at home all the time. It’s noisy, but beautiful. She’s taking jazz, too and her smile is just phenomenal when she dances.
Learning is beautiful, when it’s rooted in love. Sometimes it’s my 6 yr old pleased to present us with personalized love notes or surprising us with notes she’s spelled on her own. Sometimes it’s my 4 yr old screaming at anyone who tries to fold a long-sleeve shirt because that’s her responsibility and sometimes it’s my 12 yr old tapdancing in the kitchen at 2am.
Over the years I have found several recipes for homemade hair products. Did you know I actually used to be a licensed cosmetologist? Unfortunately my license expired, but I do all of our family haircuts, saving us (15×8x12) $1440 a year on haircuts. That may be an exaggeration, we don’t really get hair cuts every month, in fact, I trim mine (yes, myself) every 3-4 months. Anyways- and I don’t have damaged hair these days because I never actually style it and don’t use any chemicals. but I used to. And I like the idea of homemade beauty products because they’re better for the environment. So without further ado, here are some homemade hair conditioner recipes.
To use, prepare the conditioner, slather onto damp clean hair, cover with a showercap and go sit in the sunshine or somewhere warm for 30 minutes or so.
The heat allows your cuticle layers to swell up nicely, allowing the moisture, protein and oils from the conditioner to soak in and be absorbed into the microscopic areas between the cells of your hair.
Avocado & Sweet Almond Oil
- mash one very ripe avocado and a tsp of sweet almond oil. An over-ripe avocado may be too acidic. You want it ripe so that it’s very soft, but not browned or anything. If it would make a perfect guacamole, then your hair will love it, too.
Honey, Egg & Olive Oil
-Put 1/4 cup olive oil, 2T raw honey and 1 egg into the blender. Olive oil is preferred over vegetable oil because the molecules are smaller, in fact, they’re the closest in size to human sebum. The egg adds protein which is very helpful with chemically damaged hair. The raw honey is soothing and helps your hair retain moisture longer.
Banana Smoothie
-Add a ripe banana to the above mixture. The bananas are high in potassium and moisture, in addition the banana oil is also beneficial. Be sure to use the blender for the banana or it will be stuck in your hair. Rinse very thoroughly. You may want to bring a wide toothed comb into the shower.
NONE of these methods will work if your hair has a buildup of oil or styling products (which can also reduce shine) Before deep conditioning, use a buildup-removing shampoo, like Neutrogena’s coal tar shampoo. (which is not recommended for every day use) You can also strip hair of styling products by adding baking soda to your shampoo. Your hair should squeak when it’s clean- slide your finger up firmly from your forehead, pressing into the hair and listen closely.
Good luck- have fun!
On a final note, if you want to thrash your hair at home and highlight it with Clorox, try mixing 1/2 teaspoon of Clorox bleach with shampoo and combing it through your hair. Wash it out a lot when it’s done and finish off with a vinegar rinse.
1- When we went to Portland last year, I saw a lady at the science museum with translucent teeth. I want whiter teeth, but seriously that was ridiculous.
2- One thing about celebrities and supermodels, they have veneers, their teeth aren’t whiter than yours, they’re covered with a film of a substance that will always be whiter than is humanly possible to obtain, OK. Don’t even try to go there. They sell veneers to normal people, too. You don’t need a SAG card. They’re expensive, but at least your teeth won’t turn sheer like the lady at the museum.
3- It is possible to remove stains on your teeth using OXYGEN. That’s right, the O in H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) Keep in mind that it’s a weak acid. Rinse your mouth out with diluted baking soda so that you don’t eat through your enamel.
4- Some people think that the peroxide & baking soda method involves brushing with baking soda, but the fact is that baking soda is abrasive. It’s not a good thing.
5- I think everyone should have whiter teeth because yellow teeth are so ugly. Especially mine. I just want them a little bit whiter. I don’t have one of those shade-meters, but I want one.
6- I’m willing to bet $10 that the ad for “Housewife discovers $10 whitening secret” is baking soda & peroxide. And she needs to shop better because a bottle of peroxide at the dollar store is… well, a dollar and a box of baking soda shouldn’t be more than 50 cents. A dollar at the most.
7- I wonder if she’s using the professional peroxide, but that wouldn’t be that great on your gums. It would be faster, though. You could paint it onto your teeth, let it soak for a little while & then rinse it off. Neutralize the Ph with baking soda and then sparkle.
8- Teeth are supposed to be a little yellower as you get older.
9- I have a few check points when I unfairly judge people upon appearanceskim for clues to a person’s personal sense of style. #1- bare arms and legs should be the same color. #2- your lips should never be lighter than your skin and #3 your teeth shouldn’t be whiter than the whites of your eyes. It’s all about balance.
10- You might wanna whiten your teeth if you’re looking for a lover, looking for a job, looking for a raise, going on television, having portraits taken, going to a reunion, recovering from an illness that made your hair fall out, or celebrating the anniversary of quitting smoking, drinking coffee or tea.
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