Happy Memorial Day!

First off, as promised, an update on the hair. Here is what it looked like after the hennaing:

My hair right after using henna

Here it is on Saturday:

All nice and clean and auburn!!

I am so ridiculously happy with how it’s turned out. I’m hoping that the color will be a bit richer the next time I use it. I’m thinking when I touch up the roots, I’ll go and do the whole thing again a week after the roots to get it a bit richer. In certain lights it’s not as red as I’d like it.

I love the French White dishes!

This has been a fun, long weekend. Saturday I went over to Whole Foods to pick up what I was going to take to our friends’ party on Sunday. I went a little overboard and bought a ton of fruit. When I say a ton, I mean a pint of strawberries, a small container of blueberries, green grapes, 1/4 of a seedless watermelon, pineapple, cherries, and a papaya. I was going to make an Italian-inspired pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, roasted red pepper, yellow pepper, roasted garlic, and the macaroni all seasoned with basil, oregano, extra-virgin olive oil and a little red wine vinegar. But I was reading something that made me think of fruit and it sounded so much better than the salad. I am so glad I listened to my instincts, but that’s later. At around midnight, 1 am that night I remembered about them and went and prepped them so all I’d have to do is load it all into the cooler Sunday. I broke out most of the French White dishes we’d received as wedding presents and stuffed them with the fruit. Only two needed plastic wrap in lieu of the lids because they were so full!

So on Sunday I get home from Mass, get hubby out of bed, and start to load up the cooler. It wouldn’t all fit! I had so much, that I couldn’t fit it all into the cooler! 🙂 I was happy. We get to our friends’ place and find out that they had bought a bunch of fruit already, but we were all in agreement that more fruit was a good thing. Then some other friends arrived and they brought more fruit! So we had plenty of fruit. And the best thing, most of it was eaten! It was a wonderful party and I got to contribute some amazing, simple food that I forgot to take a picture of before it was dug into. 🙂

Today was a day of kicking back, relaxing, and doing not much. I did make up a very nice lunch though. I had one of my spinach and feta chicken sausages with some spinach and roasted red pepper that I sauteed in evoo and red wine vinegar and it was finished off with some macaroni with evoo and basil. It was wonderful and simple and so satisfying. I wish I didn’t have to worry about reheatability of my lunch during the week or else I’d eat like that every day!

The Military is getting into hot water

Solar Panels Advance on Camp Lejeune. (Click for the article.)

The military may help make solar heating more affordable for everyone! By December all 900 of the homes at the Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina will have solar panels that will be used to heat the water for the house. This is so awesome! One panel on the roof will provide 75% of the hot water that house will need. It’s wonderful to see something as big as the military supporting these products and working on making their carbon footprint smaller. Also the fact that so many are being installed will hopefully help the cost to come down and become more affordable to the budget-conscious eco-geek. 🙂 

Almost Everyone Has a Solar Water Heater In Dezhou, China. (Click for the article.)

It has become a very popular alternative in China. The city of Dezhou not only home to the largest manufacturer of solar heating, 90% of the homes there have them installed. Because of the abudance of manufacturers in China, it’s become very easy to own a solar heating system.

There is even talk of Suntech, the China-based leader in solar panel production, building a factory here in the US. That would be amazing for everyone involved. It would help to bring the cost down here and hopefully make it more popular. Who knows, we could even rival China in use of the system. I know this is one thing I look forward to researching more once I have a house to install it in.

Meatless Thursday, May 27, 2010

Yes, I really like and miss the old logo.

It’s Thursday again! It’s getting close to becoming my favorite day of the week. 🙂 So, lunch. Lunch wasn’t all that creative. I’ve still got about half a pizza in the freezer from last week. So another slice of the “veggie lovers” from Pizza Hut was had for lunch.

Dinner on the other hand was much better. I had some of the wonderful cheese tortelini from Whole Foods and added a bunch of veg. I chopped up some sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, spinach, and garlic. I lightly sauteed them in olive oil and basil, then simply mixed them all together. Simple, yet awesome!

Thoughts on… Bonzai Aphrodite

I had the idea to do a weekly post with my thoughts on a certain moive, book, website, TV show, etc. And what better way to start it all than with the site that started it all for me!

Bonzai Aphrodite is the blog of Sayward Rebhal. She regularly posts about her life with her husband and son on their urban farm. They are veg*n (her spelling) and will post amazing vegan recipes. Even as an omnivore I’m tempted by quite a few of them. She also will post recipes and instructions for homemade items like laundry detergent, kombucha (both the tea and the starter), deodorant, and toothpaste. There are quite a few that I’m looking forward to making. She also will post helpful tips for the urban gardener, including starting plants from seeds and potato tire stacks.

There are two regular posts that occur on Bonzai. The first is the Monday Monthly Mission. The first Monday of each month a new mission is posted. Sayward, and those who want to join her, attempt the mission and we talk about it on the last Monday of the month. They have ranged from using less plastic to no ‘poo to saving change to this month’s mission, driving less and cutting emissions. I always read them and try to work on them if possible. Some, like trying no ‘poo and saving change, I was already doing in my daily life. Others, like less plastic and cut emissions, make me take a look at an area of my life that needs work. It’s wonderful.

The other is the Friday Feedback Forum (isn’t alliteration fun!?). Every Friday Sayward will post her plans for the weekend. Then we’re all encouraged to either share our plans as well and/or make any suggestions for what we’d like to see on the site. Lately, because of the recent arrival of the little guy, there have been more people asking about childcare posts than anything else. But Sayward has done a wonderful job making sure every post isn’t about childcare. Yeah, the little guy usually gets mentioned, but he’s just soooo cute!

Bonzai Aphrodite is a wonderful community for everyone who wants to or lives a green/natural lifestyle. Everyone should have it in the blog list!

Rating:

Finished!: The Night Watch

This is a story about a small group of people who are living in London during and just after World War II. All of their lives are connected, many in ways they don’t know about. The main focus is on four women and one man, but there are others in their lives that are also throughout the book. It follows them from the beginning of the war, near the end, and soon after. But, as always with Sarah Waters’ books, there is a twist.

This is a wonderful book. If I saw this audiobook at Half-Price Books, I would not hesitate to buy it. The narrator was great. She put a lot of inflection and emotion into the story and really helped bring it to life. The story is amazing. The way she weaves their lives together in such intricate ways without them realizing how close they are to each other is wonderful! I will admit, when it got to the end, I was like “That’s it?! But what about…”. But it’s not an unsatisfying ending. You just wish there was a sequel to keep going in their lives.

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SPOILERS!

Mainly for my own sake, I need to figure out how everyone is connected. Bear with me.

Duncan is Viv’s brother, was in prison with Fraser, and lives with Mr. Mundy
Viv is Duncan’s sister, Reggie’s mistress, becomes friends with Fraser, was taken to the hospital and helped by Kay, and runs a match-making agency with Helen
Helen runs the agency with Viv, is Julia’s lover, and is Kay’s ex
Kay lives above a doctor, is Helen’s ex, was involved with Julia, helped Viv, and looks forward to seeing Duncan and Mr. Mundy arrive every week

Wow. Such an intricate web that they don’t know about. I also loved the fact that it’s told backwards. Somehow it makes the story better. I’m really looking forward to physically reading it sometime.

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Rating:

Spring Book Challenge: Read a historical fiction novel.

My Life: Diet – Food – Source

Diet

Food

Source

Current: Mainly Wal-Mart with what Whole Foods I can afford
Goal: Completely from Whole Foods, farmer’s markets, and my garden with an emphasis on the farmer’s market and garden when it’s possible

Right now my husband and I are living with some very generous friends. We are trying to save what money we can so we can afford our own place and also trying to impose as little as possible on their life. Thusly we do most of our shopping at Wal-Mart and I don’t have a yard to start a garden in.

Slowly I have been buying what I can from Whole Foods instead of Wal-Mart. Sometimes it’s a little more expensive, but it’s a much better product. There are times that it is less at Whole Foods than at Wal-Mart or Whole Foods has something that Wal-Mart doesn’t. My hope is that soon we can start going to Whole Foods as well as Wal-Mart as part of our weekly grocery shopping. That will allow us to really start buying healthier products.

When we get our own apartment, chances are I still will not have a yard. But I’m not going to let that stop me. I am going to start container gardening like mad. Depending on space it could be as simple as the herbs I use the most in cooking (basil, dill, oregano, rosemary) to hanging plants and/or pots with tomatoes, peppers, and lettuces. The basic things that I tend to use quite a bit in my cooking.
In time we will have a house of our own with a yard. That yard is going to be a beautiful urban farm. I plan to have many plants around the yard allowing us to get as much of our vegetables, herbs, and fruits from our backyard instead of the market.

I consider myself quite lucky to be living in Columbus. There are a mulitude of farmer’s markets in the area. One of which I really keep meaning to go down to. The North Market has a farmer’s market every Saturday from, I believe, May to October. There are also businesses there that operate year-round that have wonderful organic and homemade products. My hope is that we will soon be able to afford to go shopping there once a week. It would be wonderful to have locally grown, fresh, ripe produce to work with and eat.

Finished! The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a black woman who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. But that is just the beginning of the story. When she went in to Johns Hopkins and got diagnosed, the doctor took a small sample off of the tumor without her knowing. This sample was sent to George Gey, who was attempting to grow cells in a laboratory. He hadn’t had any luck keeping the cells alive. Until Henrietta’s. The cells were labled HeLa, for the first two letters of her first and last name. These cells thrived and grew while Henrietta’s body failed and died of cancer.

The HeLa cell line is one of the first immortal cell lines. These cells are the most used cells in experiments by scientists. They have used these cells to test the first polio vaccine, in research for cures for cancer and AIDS, and have helped scientits to map genes and chromosomes.

Over twenty years after the HeLa cells first started to grow, Henrietta’s family found out about them. Twenty years! The book covers both the life of the HeLa cells and the life, and death, of Henrietta, her husband, Day, and their children and grandchildren. The stress and hardships they have been through since finding out and the clashes they have had over how to handle what they have found out.

Rebecca Skloot, the author, wanted to do something to help the family. She founded the Henrietta Lacks Foundation and is donating a portion of the book’s proceeds to it. The Foundation is set up to give scholarships for her decendents and also so they can afford to have health insurance and be able to benefit from the advances in medicine that have advanced from the HeLa cells.

It is an amazing read! The chapters aren’t simply in chronological order. One chapter will be about when they first started sending the cells to other scientists for their research, and the next could be about the author talking with Henrietta’s cousin about her childhood. It is a very well-written book that doesn’t use terms that you need a degree in biology to understand and has you feeling for the family by the end.

Rating:

Spring Book Challenge: Pick a Nestie who you know has different taste in books than you do and read what she chooses for you

A Hairy Weekend

This weekend was all about my hair. Well, not all, but mostly. Here’s how it looked on Friday night:

This is how it’s looked for months.

Saturday I got a haircut. It looks wonderful!

I’ve been getting nothing but compliments about it. I love my stylist!

But here’s the change that’s the most fun!

It does look a little more orange in person.

I hennaed my hair! I had read on Bonzai Aphrodite about her experience hennaing her hair and it got me seriously considering it. Then I started reading the comments and found Henna for Hair and started reading about henna. I’d been worried about using it because I know that if the henna isn’t the right purity, it can mess your hair up badly. But luckily they sell body art quality henna, which is very pure and possibly the best to use on your hair.

So I started to think about getting some to do my hair with. I found out they’re right here in Ohio, so that just made me want to get it from them more. Supporting the local economy is a great thing. I was very surprised and happy when I saw their Ancient Sunrise line at the big Whole Foods in town. I gave in and bought it.

I’m not sure if I mixed it up the best way, but it worked just fine. My hair may not end up as dark as I was hoping, but at least it’s red. The henna actually penetrates the hair instead of simply coating it, and works with the hair. It also takes a few days for it to darken to it’s final color. I’ll post a pic of the darker hair at the end of the week. But I recommend henna for anyone who wants their hair to be colored red. Ancient Sunrise has a whole range of colors, but there are other herbs and natural things to make the hair color blonde, brown, or black instead of red. Pure henna simply makes your hair red, which is fine with me!

If you’re curious at all about henna, go check out the Henna for Hair website. They have all sorts of information that explains how henna works with your hair and different ways of mixing it up to get different shades. Very informative site, which is why it’s up in the Hot Links. I would recommend Ancient Sunrise to anyone who wants to color their hair over any hair dye.

The Taming of My Skin

Since the eighth grade I’ve had eczema. To put it simply, my skin gets extremely dry patches and gets really annoying. It seems to come up now when I get stressed. And lately, boy have I been stressed.

Until recently I’ve been using hydrocortisone. When it first started I had prescription strength, but after that I used the over-the-counter stuff. I knew there had to be a more natural alternative. I didn’t want to keep using that stuff. I had bought some Burt’s Bees Body Butter that was doing wonders for my dry skin elsewhere, so I tried it on my eczema. It worked for a bit, but then the butter wasn’t doing the trick.

I finally looked in the aisle at Whole Foods to see what they had for eczema. I found Brigit True Organics Magic Stick. It has been wonderful! I originally got one that was the size of a Chap-Stick. It allowed me to constantly have it with me so I could put it on whenever. When that ran out I got the bigger one (pictured on the right) because they were out of the small. It’s a little more bulky, but just as great.

But, a couple of weekends ago, it seemed to slightly fail me. My thumb has it the worst right now and it was starting to heal. But that weekend it all flared back up and didn’t get much better despite putting the balm on. When I got home I washed my hands thoroughly with Dr. Bronner’s tea tree oil soap and applied the balm since the soap is a bit drying. It was so much better the next day. So now I try to wash every once in a while with the soap and reapply the balm. It seems to be getting better, but I still am worried about how it’s doing.

Last Monday I was at Whole Foods and ran across Peaceful Mountain’s Eczederm Rescue. They had a tester out so I tried some. OMG! It was the closest I’ve come to hydrocortisone yet. It takes the itch away and soaks in so much faster than the balm. After thinking about it for a few days I decided to buy a tube.

I’m finding that alternating the Balm and Rescue is the best thing for the area on my thumb. It’s really made an impact on the other areas that are not nearly as bad, they’re pretty much just really dry skin. I am so glad to have finally found a natural way to get my eczema breakouts under control!

Green fish!

When I read this article, it made me want to try caviar! I’ve never had it before, but it’s totally changed my mind about it. But that’s not why I’m posting about it.

Right now The Little Pearl simply sells sustainable caviar. You can read all about them in detail on their site or in the article. But here’s the Cliff’s Notes version.

Tired of the caviar that’s out on the market, Richard Brauman started The Little Pearl in 2005. His goal: “source caviar from farms and fisheries where fish are handled humanely, harvested year-round and fed a combination of their natural diet and commercially produced food pellets.” (CNN.com)

Now he wants to create sustainable fish farms. He’s already got the process figured out (again, details in the article), but he needs the funding. This month he’s one of many in the Pepsi Refresh Project. If you want to see healthier fish farms in existance click here, vote, and then spread the word.

I think it’s a great idea! You hear so much about how fish farms are horrible for the fish and they eat crap, sometimes literally, but wild fish populations are dwindling and we shouldn’t be fishing them either. I think this is if not a solution, a step in the right direction. Now I’m off to spread the word!