That's me! So extremely sporadic, and I don't mind. :) I don't like feeling like my blog is something I HAVE to do. Then it would just get shelved on the list of things that I ignore just for spite. haha!
But, I was inspired to make a post, because we are cutting waaay back on our grocery budget in order to help with finances and so that we can be at peace doing what God wants us to do, following His path for us, and still not making any stupid financial decisions.
I've tried several things over this past year that we've lived here in Florida to make money including ChaCha advisor (<-----BOOO!!!! Don't EVER do this!!!) waiting tables AGAIN despite my hate for the food industry, blogging (which I have since stopped doing for the money), hubpages, and now I am happy, at peace, but still struggling to make things work smoothly as I undertake building a new career teaching piano lessons.
I've played classical piano since I was five years old, so teaching beginning students is a breeze. Piano students are an entirely different breed, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE them!!! I have never found any work that brings me more joy, that is more fulfilling, that allows me to come home happy and rested, excited for another day of teaching! This, of course, excludes everything I do at home with my own children. I'm talking strictly career-choice, here.
Now, it IS kind of tough, because just starting out I don't have very many students, which makes the money part of it a tiny bit stressful. So I just keep hanging on to God's promises that He will provide, rest in the fact that I know now that I am following His will and give thanks for the opportunity to spread the love of music wherever I can.
However, this doesn't really help with the fact that we are still living on (mostly) and airman's budget. Yikes. That can get tough. We have found ways, here and there, to live a little more simply, and then there are ways to live more cheaply that actually require more up-front money.
Take, for instance, my projects of the next month and my inspiration for this blog post.
I am about to undertake (drum roll)
Homemade deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, and cleaner to replace ALL cleaners that we use in this house (surface, laundry detergent, dishwasher soap, etc.) Now, this is going to require quite a bit of up-front cost unless, you know, you just wanted to bring me a gallon of castile soap and some essential oils in gratitude of my wonderful and inspiring blog. :o) However, the cost over time is going to be PENNIES! Do you hear me? PENNIES!!!
Even cheaper than buying the 97 cent bottle of uber-cheap shampoo from Walmart that DESTROYS your hair (AND you won't be buying from Walmart!!!) you can make your own homemade shampoo with some up-front cost and massive long-term savings.
This: http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Shampoo/ is the link I am using, but I'm kind of mashing a few together to get what I want. We love tea tree oil in our house, so I will be using peppermint castile soap and grapeseed oil, which I will purchase from amazon.com and tea tree oil from my local health food store. They, surprisingly, have an even better price than amazon does.
It is so super easy, and so super cheap, and so super healthy for your hair to make your own shampoo, and you don't have to spend time clipping coupons to get a whole bunch of chemicals that are doing damage to your scalp for a few cents cheaper than retail price. Save MORE money, and have BETTER hair with a little more upfront cost, and a few minutes of your time.
Second project: homemade deodorant.
This http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2009/03/quick-stick-deodorant.html is the link I will use, and I imagine it will be cheaper, but a little messier and probably a bit more time consuming than the shampoo. I like stick deodorant. I don't want to sprinkle my armpits with powder, and I already rub coconut oil in my pits to help with my body odor. What can I say? It's in my genes, aggravated by the intense workouts I do. So what. ;)
So, I have an almost empty stick of herbal deodorant in my drawer, which costs me about $4 even at the commissary. Making my own, again, PENNIES!!! And maybe...what...a half hour of my time? Totally worth it!
Which brings me to my third and final project for this month: toothpaste.
I HATE HATE HATE having to shell out big bucks for natural toothpaste when most of us have the two most effective teeth-cleaning ingredients right in our own cupboards: baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. I will probably try adding a smidge of xanthan gum to get a nice consistency, and some cinnamon and peppermint essential oils for flavor and nice, fresh breath. Once again, no chemicals, pennies to make it, but my problem is...what the heck do I put it in??? I want something squeezable, 'cuz I'm weird like that. Maybe some leftover, rinsed out glue containers? I don't know. Someone help me out with this one.
So, my local readers, if any of you would like to watch me and see how all these experiments work for me, and if you want to try it yourself - maybe for an adventure, maybe to save a little money, let me know! We can have a fun project day and save some money, and treat ourselves better while we're doing it!
Much love to you all, and may the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be in and upon you as you consciously live in this world and not of it.
Some random ramblings of a woman who's passionate about just about everything that happens in this life. Health is my major soapbox. My family is my joy. My Savior is my reason for everything, and I hope his light and love shine through in everything I do and say.
Showing posts with label no shampoo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label no shampoo. Show all posts
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, July 30, 2010
And so it begins...
Well, I'm kinda past the beginning and the beginning of my blog has kind of caught me in a whirlwind of changes for myself.
As you may have gathered from my last post, I'm kind of ok, a HUGE natural health freak. Thanks to my firstborn daughter who I love more than I can even put into words, I started reading about natural health when she was born because, like every mom, I wanted what was best for my child and this seemed like the best path for us.
So just in the last year since the birth of my second daughter I've really, truly been getting down to business with it. I kind of toyed with it, ate healthy, exercised occasionally, bought organic when I could, etc., but I've decided to take it to a new level as another little baby step on my way to my PhD.
So in this last week I have decided to stop shampooing my hair and I've also started a colon cleanse. Let me tell you, natural health is not for the weak of stomach. I know you just read that and went, "Gross! Time to quit this blog."
But wait! It's just begun. I'm begging you to stick with it just to the end of this entry and maybe I can change your mind.
Let's start with the no shampooing. I've been reading about it for a while and just never really had the nerve to quit washing my hair. I like my hair. I think my hair is beautiful. I can tell when other people's hair gets greasy and it kind of makes me shy away from them a little bit. If they don't even take time to wash their hair, how dirty could the rest of them be? Shake hands??? I think not.
So you can imagine my trepidation when I got in the shower and ignored the shampoo bottle for the first time. I could practically hear it screaming my name. And what about conditioner? I hate combing out my hair already. What on earth am I going to do without conditioner?
So I got my baking soda paste together and rubbed it pretty thoroughly through my scalp. If that's what I have to clean it with, that puppy is getting SCRUBBED. It didn't foam, it didn't work through my hair easily, it didn't feel like a typical wash, but I had made the decision and I was going to stick with it. So after I rinsed out the baking soda, I rinsed my scalp and hair with apple cider vinegar and water.
Wow. What an underwhelming sensation it is to know that I was purposefully putting something in my hair that smelled like stinky feet. Blah. I could only hope it didn't smell that way when I got out of the shower. So I let that soak for a little bit to balance out the ph of the baking soda and rinsed. Now my hair was a tangly, snarly mess and I did not even want to think about how I was going to get it combed out. There was a faint smell of apple cider vinegar, but I figured you'd have to bury your nose in my skull to find out and if you're getting that close, you've got something besides a sniff of my hair coming to you. I decided to blow dry it and then detangle it because I knew trying to brush it while it was wet would just cause more snarls. It was surprisingly easier than I thought to comb it out, and it actually felt and looked pretty darn clean. So I've been doing it for almost a week, now. I actually asked one of my friends to smell it the other night to see if I've just become immune to my own stench, but they said it didn't smell like anything, and it doesn't look greasy at all. I know it's only been a week, and according the the internet (and they don't lie on the internet! lolz) it'll be a few more weeks before things get really nasty and I'll want to wear a head scarf everywhere I go. But a short period of grossness followed by a lifetime of wonderfully naturally wavy, bouncy hair....hmm....I think I can put up with that. My apologies to everyone who has to look at me for those few weeks, though.
Ok...so now that you all know how disgusting my hair is let's move on to the internal cleanse. Right now I'm in the very beginning stages of step one which is a colon cleanse. Since this is my first time doing it I'll probably continue it for approximately four to six weeks. It all depends on what my body feels like.
That's one thing that I will reiterate to you over and over again. LISTEN TO YOUR OWN BODY!!!
I am following the protocol in my favorite "diet" book of all time, "The Coconut Diet" by Cheri Calbom. This book has literally changed my life and is a major part of the reason I have decided to walk down the naturopathic career path.
So, as I said, the first part is the colon cleanse, then I'll be moving on to liver, gall bladder, and kidney cleanses. She promises less cellulite, faded wrinkles, glowing skin and a whole bunch of other stuff, so I'm really curious to see how this is going to affect me. I should probably take a before and after picture, and IF I'm satisfied with the results of the after picture I'll post them for you guys.
So for the colon cleanse I've done sort of a semi-fast for the first few days. Raw food only and only if I get SUPER hungry. After a week or so, I'll add in more meals of strictly raw food and towards the end I'll start putting light animal proteins back in: eggs, yogurt, raw milk, etc.
I'm drinking a fiber shake three times a day which....isn't the best or the worst thing in the world. Luckily it goes down fairly easy and the taste disappears in a few seconds. Then there's a herbal cleanse that I take three times a day, and a probiotic morning and night to make sure that the good bacteria remain in my intestinal tract after so much cleaning. The only thing I haven't worked up enough courage for, yet, is the enema. I promised myself I would do one tonight, so I've got water heating and I'm sitting here procrastinating, trying to tell myself it will be ok. I don't even know why I'm so scared. It's just water, and it all comes back out.
Ok, so I won't go into too much detail about it tomorrow when I post, but I will let you know, noob to noob, if it's something to fear or embrace.
And, hey, if you've done one before and you're reading this, please feel free to let me know what you like, what you don't like, any special tips or "recipes" you've tried and I'll try them out and let all the readers know what I think.
'Cuz, you know, it's, like, a blog and I'm, like, narcissistic and stuff.
As you may have gathered from my last post, I'm kind of ok, a HUGE natural health freak. Thanks to my firstborn daughter who I love more than I can even put into words, I started reading about natural health when she was born because, like every mom, I wanted what was best for my child and this seemed like the best path for us.
So just in the last year since the birth of my second daughter I've really, truly been getting down to business with it. I kind of toyed with it, ate healthy, exercised occasionally, bought organic when I could, etc., but I've decided to take it to a new level as another little baby step on my way to my PhD.
So in this last week I have decided to stop shampooing my hair and I've also started a colon cleanse. Let me tell you, natural health is not for the weak of stomach. I know you just read that and went, "Gross! Time to quit this blog."
But wait! It's just begun. I'm begging you to stick with it just to the end of this entry and maybe I can change your mind.
Let's start with the no shampooing. I've been reading about it for a while and just never really had the nerve to quit washing my hair. I like my hair. I think my hair is beautiful. I can tell when other people's hair gets greasy and it kind of makes me shy away from them a little bit. If they don't even take time to wash their hair, how dirty could the rest of them be? Shake hands??? I think not.
So you can imagine my trepidation when I got in the shower and ignored the shampoo bottle for the first time. I could practically hear it screaming my name. And what about conditioner? I hate combing out my hair already. What on earth am I going to do without conditioner?
So I got my baking soda paste together and rubbed it pretty thoroughly through my scalp. If that's what I have to clean it with, that puppy is getting SCRUBBED. It didn't foam, it didn't work through my hair easily, it didn't feel like a typical wash, but I had made the decision and I was going to stick with it. So after I rinsed out the baking soda, I rinsed my scalp and hair with apple cider vinegar and water.
Wow. What an underwhelming sensation it is to know that I was purposefully putting something in my hair that smelled like stinky feet. Blah. I could only hope it didn't smell that way when I got out of the shower. So I let that soak for a little bit to balance out the ph of the baking soda and rinsed. Now my hair was a tangly, snarly mess and I did not even want to think about how I was going to get it combed out. There was a faint smell of apple cider vinegar, but I figured you'd have to bury your nose in my skull to find out and if you're getting that close, you've got something besides a sniff of my hair coming to you. I decided to blow dry it and then detangle it because I knew trying to brush it while it was wet would just cause more snarls. It was surprisingly easier than I thought to comb it out, and it actually felt and looked pretty darn clean. So I've been doing it for almost a week, now. I actually asked one of my friends to smell it the other night to see if I've just become immune to my own stench, but they said it didn't smell like anything, and it doesn't look greasy at all. I know it's only been a week, and according the the internet (and they don't lie on the internet! lolz) it'll be a few more weeks before things get really nasty and I'll want to wear a head scarf everywhere I go. But a short period of grossness followed by a lifetime of wonderfully naturally wavy, bouncy hair....hmm....I think I can put up with that. My apologies to everyone who has to look at me for those few weeks, though.
Ok...so now that you all know how disgusting my hair is let's move on to the internal cleanse. Right now I'm in the very beginning stages of step one which is a colon cleanse. Since this is my first time doing it I'll probably continue it for approximately four to six weeks. It all depends on what my body feels like.
That's one thing that I will reiterate to you over and over again. LISTEN TO YOUR OWN BODY!!!
I am following the protocol in my favorite "diet" book of all time, "The Coconut Diet" by Cheri Calbom. This book has literally changed my life and is a major part of the reason I have decided to walk down the naturopathic career path.
So, as I said, the first part is the colon cleanse, then I'll be moving on to liver, gall bladder, and kidney cleanses. She promises less cellulite, faded wrinkles, glowing skin and a whole bunch of other stuff, so I'm really curious to see how this is going to affect me. I should probably take a before and after picture, and IF I'm satisfied with the results of the after picture I'll post them for you guys.
So for the colon cleanse I've done sort of a semi-fast for the first few days. Raw food only and only if I get SUPER hungry. After a week or so, I'll add in more meals of strictly raw food and towards the end I'll start putting light animal proteins back in: eggs, yogurt, raw milk, etc.
I'm drinking a fiber shake three times a day which....isn't the best or the worst thing in the world. Luckily it goes down fairly easy and the taste disappears in a few seconds. Then there's a herbal cleanse that I take three times a day, and a probiotic morning and night to make sure that the good bacteria remain in my intestinal tract after so much cleaning. The only thing I haven't worked up enough courage for, yet, is the enema. I promised myself I would do one tonight, so I've got water heating and I'm sitting here procrastinating, trying to tell myself it will be ok. I don't even know why I'm so scared. It's just water, and it all comes back out.
Ok, so I won't go into too much detail about it tomorrow when I post, but I will let you know, noob to noob, if it's something to fear or embrace.
And, hey, if you've done one before and you're reading this, please feel free to let me know what you like, what you don't like, any special tips or "recipes" you've tried and I'll try them out and let all the readers know what I think.
'Cuz, you know, it's, like, a blog and I'm, like, narcissistic and stuff.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)