Anywho, how are you? What's new and exciting in your life? What can I be going to the Lord in prayer about for you? How are you??
I have a confession to make...wait for it...wait for it... Ok, here it is:
I have a confession to make...wait for it...wait for it... Ok, here it is:
I am incredibly out of shape...INCREDIBLY.
That said, I have something to, errr...brag {?} about... I STARTED WORKING OUT THIS WEEK!! Whoop! So, I knew I was terribly out of shape before I started working out, but when you do a veryrigorous modest workout circa 9am and are already feeling that tell-tale achy soreness by oh...4pm that afternoon, that's when you know - you're pathetically out of shape - there's just no other way to describe it. But, even though I am still in ridiculous pain today...I still did my workout! I'm not gonna lie...I almost decided against the multi-stop push-ups today, though...We hatesss them precioussss! But, I am proud to say that I pushed through them! {Haha...pun!} I'm contemplating adding in running next week...we'll see how that goes :D
Yesterday, after our weekly breakfast date with Chamilton, Catia and I hit-up Town Talk to peruse their latest loot! Them was dangerous waters, they were...! But, we were very proud of our discounted purchases...and our exercised restraint when it came to saying "no" to some of our desired booty. I came away with some delicious bries and some hummus and some **fresh** rosemary {Oh, it's heavenly}, and teas. All for just over $6!! I was impressed.
A little mini-rant corresponding to the rant in my previous post: If you can't make/grow it yourself, buy fair trade! All but one of the teas Catia and I came away with were fair trade products - the other was an ethical trade product. So, there is a difference between fair trade and ethical trade. Ethical trade doesn't, apparently have any real regulated standards - they are generally left up to the producer, from what I understand. Whereas fair trade has heavy standards instituted across the board for any company that wants to carry the fair trade label. Ethical trade is still better than nothing, in my opinion, but I guess that's left up to the individual consumer. Anyways, the fair trade teas we ran away with are Saphara teas - soooo good. And, the ethical trade tea we got is actually Celestial Seasonings. Now, CS put a little blurb under their ethical trade "stamp" that says this:
P.S. - Happy Fightin' Texas Aggie Ring Day to all you Aggies! So proud of your incredible accomplishment!
P.P.S. - Do you like the new sidebar?? I decided to break it up and organize it all...it was fun, I won't lie =D
P.P.P.S. - Josh threw up his first Man Talk post tonight! Check it, men and boys on your journey to becoming men!
That said, I have something to, errr...brag {?} about... I STARTED WORKING OUT THIS WEEK!! Whoop! So, I knew I was terribly out of shape before I started working out, but when you do a very
Yesterday, after our weekly breakfast date with Chamilton, Catia and I hit-up Town Talk to peruse their latest loot! Them was dangerous waters, they were...! But, we were very proud of our discounted purchases...and our exercised restraint when it came to saying "no" to some of our desired booty. I came away with some delicious bries and some hummus and some **fresh** rosemary {Oh, it's heavenly}, and teas. All for just over $6!! I was impressed.
A little mini-rant corresponding to the rant in my previous post: If you can't make/grow it yourself, buy fair trade! All but one of the teas Catia and I came away with were fair trade products - the other was an ethical trade product. So, there is a difference between fair trade and ethical trade. Ethical trade doesn't, apparently have any real regulated standards - they are generally left up to the producer, from what I understand. Whereas fair trade has heavy standards instituted across the board for any company that wants to carry the fair trade label. Ethical trade is still better than nothing, in my opinion, but I guess that's left up to the individual consumer. Anyways, the fair trade teas we ran away with are Saphara teas - soooo good. And, the ethical trade tea we got is actually Celestial Seasonings. Now, CS put a little blurb under their ethical trade "stamp" that says this:
We've been working to establish Sustainable harvests and fair wages for more than 30 years. By buying this product, you're supporting ethical trading practices that benefit the people and areas that produce our ingredients. THANK YOU!
Sounds pretty legit...and, after skimming their website, it seems the be a pretty well grounded statement. Anyone know any specifics about Celestial Seasonings? Other than the fact that they have a number of just plain awesome teas, haha.
Health Au Naturel! As many of you know I've been testing out numerous natural hygiene product recipes. I felt it was probably time to give you all a little update on how that has been going.
Well, I suppose that's all for now, folks. It's time to call it a night - I'm judging an elementary school science fair tomorrow, so I need to get some shut-eye so I can be on top of my game with the kiddies at 8am tomorrow...barf.
Oh...I GOT MY OFFICIAL OFFICIAL ADMITTANCE LETTER FROM U OF M TODAY!!!! It's all official...I got my salary/employment papers yesterday, my departmental acceptance letter the day before that, and my totally 100% official university acceptance today...WOW.
G'night & Shalom!
~MW
Health Au Naturel! As many of you know I've been testing out numerous natural hygiene product recipes. I felt it was probably time to give you all a little update on how that has been going.
- Hair care: I started this out following SimpleMom's hair care regimen, but I just couldn't do it. The transition period was just too much for me. By day 9 or so my hair was in an absolutely horrid state - I couldn't comb through it and it felt like straw...but weird insanely greasy straw. It was just gross. So, I caved and washed my hair. I'm at a loss in the realm of all natural, at home hair care. In all honesty, I'm afraid to try another regimen...though I've contemplated giving SimpleMom's another whirl the beginning of May...we shall see
- Face care: Here I also used SimpleMom's regimen for the Oil Cleansing Method. Now, this I like. It's WAY cheaper than throwing countless dollars away each month to harsh chemicals in pretty bottles on supermarket shelves. While I still experience breakouts {like this week...ugh!}, and so must admit that I keep a supply of acne spot treatment {I haven't tried putting tea-tree oil in my cleanser yet, though...} on-hand, I am overall quite pleased with this one. My face feels awesome after I cleanse it each night and I only need a little splash of water in the mornings to "wash the night away." As far as using coconut oil as a moisturizer, I think I'm going to try getting my hands on some raw shea butter or coco butter instead...while I like the idea of natural antibiotics/antiseptic qualities (which shea and coco butter are supposed to have too) in the coconut oil it seems to be a little drying...how an oil can be drying, I don't know, but that's my take on it.
- Deodorant: This one just breaks my heart, y'all. SimpleMom's homemade deodorant recipe, which I have seen all over other blogs on the interwebs, is awesome. I mean, I absolutely loooved it. Yeah...loved it.
Everything was going wonderfully - I didn't smell...at...all...and I felt like I hardly sweat at all...even though I really was. But, then...I started to break out in this horrible, horrible rash. I mean, it was bad - I'm still getting over it. I finally, after trying to just use Tom's natural deodorant while I figured out what to do about my little problem, decided I need to give my underarms a bit of a breather from any kind of anything under there, cause I was still either experiencing crazy burning or breaking out in one way or another. So, I've been deodorant-less for about 3 days now. Gross, I know, but honestly, I haven't been too wet, and unless I really get my nose up under there I don't smell. Ha, the J-Man discovered I haven't used deodorant for a few days and got uber grossed out - it was priceless. But, since it has been lovely weather and I really haven't been sweating all that much I know that once summer really hits I'll probably need a little something extra under there to help out.
Here are my thoughts: either my skin doesn't like the baking soda (which I'm not entirely convinced is the main culprit, since I even tried decreasing the baking soda significantly) or my skin doesn't like the corn starch. I've heard that some corn starch has talc in it and that the presence of talc may have been the issue, but I made sure I was using a brand without talc in it...and like I said, even after significantly, significantly decreasing the baking soda (I mean, it was almost non-existent in a few batches), I was still breaking out. Oi, it was so painful.
So, what is my next order of action with this issue? I'm dropping the corn starch all together and switching to arrowroot powder instead. I realize that if I really wanted to figure this out scientifically I would try just using corn starch, then just using baking soda, then just using coconut oil {oh yeah, I'm 99.99% certain that the coconut oil isn't the problem as I haven't broken out anywhere else on my body that I have used it, and I'm not allergic to coconut...}, etc., etc. until I find out which ingredient starts the reaction over again, but I'm not that patient right now, haha. So, to the arrowroot powder it is!! I'll let you know how it goes. Other than saying upfront that arrowroot powder is pricey! I paid almost $6 for about a quarter pound of the stuff...and then freaking Tobi ate like half of it...ooooo, I almost kabobbed that doggie when I saw my precious powder strewn around the living room carpet and his white little face to add to it all! Oh, that was a fun morning, haha.
Well, I suppose that's all for now, folks. It's time to call it a night - I'm judging an elementary school science fair tomorrow, so I need to get some shut-eye so I can be on top of my game with the kiddies at 8am tomorrow...barf.
Oh...I GOT MY OFFICIAL OFFICIAL ADMITTANCE LETTER FROM U OF M TODAY!!!! It's all official...I got my salary/employment papers yesterday, my departmental acceptance letter the day before that, and my totally 100% official university acceptance today...WOW.
G'night & Shalom!
~MW
P.S. - Happy Fightin' Texas Aggie Ring Day to all you Aggies! So proud of your incredible accomplishment!
P.P.S. - Do you like the new sidebar?? I decided to break it up and organize it all...it was fun, I won't lie =D
P.P.P.S. - Josh threw up his first Man Talk post tonight! Check it, men and boys on your journey to becoming men!
7 comments:
Yeah I've loved the facial cleanse as well. Adding tea tree oil might be nice. Let me know what you think about it. I haven't been using coconut oil as a moisturizer simply because my skin doesn't feel too dry.
As you know I've been using the curly girl routine, which calls for conditioning every day and limited shampooing. I've been using TheraNeem, which has a plant extract as its first ingredient, NOT water! Amazing! I got it at whole foods so it was a bit caro but I'm using smaller portions of product (about a teaspoon of conditioner a morning and about that much when I shampoo) in addition to using lemon or baking soda spritz to get rid of buildup in between, and a lavendar spritz when I don't shower in the morning. I think your routine was majorly missing moisturizers (alliteration love!). Anyway, theraneem is good, very good, and you can pronounce all the ingredients. I may try something else next time just to run the gamut.
I'm not having great results with the deodorant. I'm still sweating and smelling. Maybe not as badly though. I should do an armpit to armpit comparison like I did when I compared dove to I think clearasil (dove worked better).
Also, I have completely switched to men's shaving products. They aren't as perfume heavy and they seem to work better. I got an all-natural aftershave and don't seem to have as many ingrown hair/razor bump problems. Stings like crazy, but that's the tea tree oil.
Let me know how that arrowroot works! I got some too but haven't used it yet. Apparently using it in cooking instead of cornstarch yeilds a nice clear glazy sauce instead of an opaque one.
Hmmm, definitely not clearasil, as that is an acne medication...
Not sure if anyone has mentioned lately, but, um, YOU RULE AT LIFE! :-)
as for celestial seasonings, it really depends on how deep you're willing to go. celestial seasonings is owned by the hain celestial group, which is a publicly traded company with majority ownership going to heinz, and other large shareholders being exxon-mobile, phillip morris, monsanto, citigroup, walmart, and lockheed martin. all of these companies are unethical. that means that every product you buy from hain celestial puts money into the pockets of big tobacco, the war industry, the (arguably) most insidious agricultural company in the world, one of the largest oil companies (environmental destuction much? talk about the opposite of stewardship...), a company responsible for the collapse of of the u.s. small business domain and the transference of work and vast sums of money out of our local economies and directly to china, and a financial institution that received enormous bailout monies (to the tune of the u.s. government covering 90% of it's losses on it's $335 billion portfolio), who's largest single shareholder is the prince of saudi arabia, and who awarded approx. 1200 employees bonuses ranging from $1 million to $10 million *EACH* after it received bailout money. on the surface celestial seasonings may seem like an ethical choice, but you don't have to dig too deeply to see some of the problems with supporting this company. but like i said, it really depends on how deep you want to go with it.
that's funny that you tried the simple mom thing for your hair - i just came across that the other day and was thinking about trying it. bummer it didn't work for you :-(
dude i'm totally going to try that face cleaning thing! sounds awesome.
as for deodorant, a couple things. i haven't used deodorant for about 7 years. my understanding is that in order to successfully go deodorant-free, a couple things are necessary. first is to give it time as your pores unclog and your body gets rid of all the chemicals and stuff that have been goin on in the pits for years. second, and this is very important, most people have to modify their diet. it sounds like you're already making the appropriate modifications - you have to consume fewer chemicals, less processed food, and reduce red meat intake (notice i didn't say *eliminate*, just reduce). all of these things contribute to body odor. also, part of why you shouldn't use deodorants is that most deodorants also have anti-perspirants in them, which is bad because your body excretes some toxins by sweating them out in your pits. if you remove your body's ability to get rid of toxins, they stay in your body longer. anyhow, these days, on occasion if i have to do some sort of public function where i'm concerned about stinking, i sometimes ( and i mean like 6 times a year maybe) use some natural tea tree oil based deodorant (NOT anti-perspirant) and call it good. anyway, hope you figure out something that works for you!
keep up the good work little sis! and congratulations again!
Good stuff:) And the LOTR quote was epic XD And so is the man talk! Really amazing insight into what it means to be a man. Thanks for posting it:)
Laughing about the blurp about Tobers.
I can just hear you when you caught him. I bet he licked it reallllly sloooowwwwwllllyyyyyy.
We should go running together sometime!!! I am actually getting better. And I really want to be able to do push-ups.
AND CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING ACCEPTED INTO THE SCHOOL OF THE LAND OF THE FROZEN TUNDRA!!!!!!!!! You're amazing! :)
Do they have a mascot?
Yes, they have a mascot, but he's so loaded down with furs and parkas no one remembers what he is.
Leaves a deep snowshoe track though...
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