Just taking a break.
I
am cleaning out my computer/junk/spare bedroom/garbagecan/storage room
in preparation for a visitor arriving the end of June. It is a cousin
H's age and she is here from England for ten days. We are thrilled she
is coming and it is a great motivator to get this room clean!! There
will be trips to drop off stuff at Value Village and spare magazines to
the hospital, and bags of stuff to donate to whoever needs/wants it. I
also have to figure out how to efficiently store all my packaging,
shipping materials etc. Big job this!
Today is a rainy drizzly day so it is perfect for this kind of cleanout. I have been listening to various radio stations from around the world thanks to my computer being in here. Found a terrific one playing old French chansons, was listening to Putumayo for a while, then a traditional Iranian station, some Bollywood , and now I am thinking some Celtic music might be nice. What fun.
H is at a conference at Acadia University for the weekend. She'll be home tomorrow. I am going to see a film with a friend tonight. Not sure what yet, but I'll be sure to have a big bag of popcorn! I cannot watch a movie at the theatre if I don't have popcorn. Just walking into the cinema and smelling the stuff gets me going:)
It's funny, I became a member of Vox less than a year ago...I have met some wonderful people in these few months and have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them. But somewhere along the line the thrill of blogging has gone and now it gives me not much pleasure!!!
I shall of course miss my friends...Dee, you have been a very wonderful and warm human being. I shall continue to enjoy your photographs, Cheers and many smiles, ....
but now I must move on...let's see no one knows what the future holds...I shall sign off with quotes from Kahlil Gibran:
"Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration. "
'I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end."
'Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream. '
Kahlil Gibran
Here's a small art post for the weekend. I'm working on an idea that involves a character from another original painting I did some months ago. The below is more of a study. I'll be experimenting with palettes and balance and doing more study paintings. Then I'd like to do a larger final painting. It involves the themes of human evolution, spirit and motherhood/childhood.
"The beginning". Approx 16"x10", watercolor, ink and pastel:
Sketches and layers:
I wish you all a wonderful weekend with your family and friends.
Today, my feathers are ruffled and I feel a bit on edge because the same old topic, my old ghosts, continue to wrack me. Making psychological, sociologically and religious shifts in life's paradigm does not come without uprooting the foundation entirely. My mental house creeks. There was rot and mold that had to be ousted. There were roots which had entwined the pipes of this organism and I hacked them away. I speak in metaphor because speaking literally hurts my mouth (pride?), then later, the people who've always known me. But, inveriably, I'll write more and more till it trickles out of me. I've written this a million times, and erased it, clicked delete. So, I say this the best way I can. Now it has been years since I've moved away from a conservative and religiously closed-off life and I continue to find areas of detritus I have to shake loose. I've seen too much and done too much to know, we aren't evil. We're not born bad. We all make our choices. There is no one who has the one simple truth. There are billions and billions of years to have added up to this moment right now, and it can't be summed up with a glib sermon or the pointed finger of a white man who has only known his comfortable, christian bed, the one he was born in. Having heard from pentacostal and baptist pulpits a religion of isolationism and racism (yes, racism), the one that sends entire countries and cultures to a elected and prescribed hell, I reel inside. It's a shame it wasn't sooner that I saw reality. It's hard to see past one's own ethnocentrism. It is the same ethnocentrism within a self-serving system which reduces homosexuals to comic book characters or shapes them into monsters; I can not and will not sit in another conversation and say nothing when I hear such atrocious sentiments. I can not be divided into two camps of thinking. I must say what is right and stand up honestly for what I know is real. We are all equal in the eyes of God. All. Equal. There are billions of people whose hearts beat and blood flows just like my own. There are women round our world holding their own babies in their arms, feeling the love I feel and aching for it never to end. These people are not doomed to any hell, any more than I am. There are problems which pious prayers will never answer... but love will. The eyes of my heart were jaded once. Now I see, always so imperfectly, but I see how the language of love is the substance which is GOD. Any more than that, I can't say for certain. I've stopped claiming that I know the one truth. I'm human like you.
I've heard people call themselves recovering fundies... and I've thought about that a lot. But, you know me and how much I hate labels. Still, I do feel often that I am recovering from something. Today my brain hurts a little. And it should.
Val recommended Aubrey's line of shampoos and since I've used some of their other products, it seemed a good choice to try next.
Ingredients:
Deionized Water, Vegetable Glycerin, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein (made from organic, non-GMO soybeans), Coconut Oil-Corn Oil Soap, Sweet Almond Oil, White Camellia Oil, Carrageenan, Organic Geranium Oil, Organic Lavender Oil, Linoleic Acid (Vitamin F), Organic Rosa Mosqueta® Rose Hip Seed Oil, Vitamin E, Macadamia Nut and Aloe Vera Oils, Aubrey's Preservative (Citrus Seed Extract, Vitamins A, C and E).
Mmm, carrageenan. You'll remember it from soda pop, ice cream and toothpaste, right? There are only two ingredients that give me pause and you'll probably be surprised: Vegetable Glycerin, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein.
What could be wrong with veggie stuffins, right? Well, I've learned to be careful with shampoos pushing protein. My hair, in its crowning glory, is extremely ... sensitive, as sensitive as something dead can be.* After the Borax experiment and resultant flogging by my hair-stylist, she reminded me that my hair has special needs. While I'm white (save the freckles), my hair needs to be treated similarly to black hair. Extra protein can turn hair brittle when over-used. You have to experiment to find if your hair likes more rather than less. Glycerin, long-loved by vegans and Hippie-types, can dehydrate. "Dehydrate? Why, we thought it was a moisturizer!"
Well, how it works is by sucking water out of your skin and suspending it in a waxy film on top of your skin, thereby making your skin feel smoother or at least that's the idea. Personally, I've always felt that it just plain sucked the moisture out of my skin. When I receive Hippie gifts like scented glycerin soaps, I promptly deposit them in their proper place: the drawer that holds my drawers. They're "smelly-goods," as we like to say in the hills.
Pressing on: I shook the bottle furiously (it instructs us to do this prior to each use) and poured some of the thin, milky product into my palm. I slapped it onto my head and attempted to follow the instructions to "lather." It didn't lather and that's okay. I'd expect no lather from a product with the ingredient list above but they instructed me to do so. I follow instructions, what can I say? Tell me to leap off a bridge...
Applying some more, I rubbed my head without poking any fingers into the hair, pretending to lather and then rinsed. My hair felt like vegetable soap had gone through it: slightly clingy, not smooth, with a residue. This is normal and to be expected -- at least on my hair texture. I ran some more through my hair to be sure of an even application ("repeat," said the instructions) and rinsed well. I let my hair "sit" for a while in the shower before applying conditioner and ran my hands over it to see what it felt like.
I couldn't run my hands through my short hair because it was fairly matted (again, expected) but it felt as normal as water-only-wetted hair would feel. This is good! I applied my eponymous TJ's Nourish conditioner and let that steep while I epilated. After rinsing the conditioner, my hair felt a-okay.
I styled my hair as usual, which is quite a process of heat, hair oils, styling gel or mousse, hair de-frizzer and then a shot of hair spray. My hair looked as it normally would and I have no complaints.
As to the "Ultra Smoothing" quality, I cannot recommend; however, perhaps compared to Aubrey's other products, my hair was smoother. All in all, the scent was mild. I had some concern over "camellia" because I find that a slightly offensive scent -- I chose it anyway since my hair has "smoothing" needs!
For the consumer wishing to make a commercial choice for the least amount of gook put into the environment, it seems excellent. I like to run any of my commercial products through this site, although I'll use any level if I really-really like it. Aubrey Organics White Camellia Shampoo comes up a level 1 out of 10 (10 being the most toxic to humans and 0 being none). So, if personal risk is your focus, I'd call that pretty good, too.
I've no qualms about finishing this bottle of Aubrey Organics White Camellia Shampoo. The cost is about $11 for 11 ounces. That's far more expensive than mixing up a gallon of Borax household cleanser that can double as shampoo but far easier on my hair. It's less expensive than Ojon Ultra Hydrating Shampoo, which left my hair feeling drier than Aubrey Organics White Camellia Shampoo but that may have been the salt from my tears at spending more than twice the amount. I've stone cold stopped using that, I'll tell you.
I liked Aubrey Organics White Camellia Shampoo for its non-damage to the farm (whatever comes out of us goes into the land and whatever food and water we get comes from the same place!) and its non-damage to me. I'd prefer to have a greater "smoothing" effect when using it but I can add that with conditioner. I recommend this product with only slight hesitation in that I didn't find it "smoothing" or "moisturizing" (it's advertised to help dry hair that needs smoothing). It's a good basic shampoo for my fine, thin and kinky hair.
* I can't swear by that answer but I know that it's dead and it contains keratin. I just like the way "-anon" responded.
DZgunrock - Cat Cluster
16th MAY 2008, No.242
cat meowing QUARTET + elebits
MEMO
・笑い声のMIX
・のっけから最後まで笑いが止まらない小説があれば読んでみたい
・どこを開いても笑える写真集とか
・車内で様々な国の言葉が飛び交うラッシュアワーの山手線
・明日は雑誌を切り貼りして遊ぶことに決めた→やっぱやめた
I've been saying "we" could do this since I was a teenager. -a very long time ago
"Rather than focus on how good or how bad companies are overall, we are going to focus on whether or not they have earned a carrot. When we offer a carrot to a company, we are signaling to consumers that this company has done something good and they deserve a carrot. This "carrot" can be thought of as a "recommended status", that is finite, and doesn't imply perfection, but it means that it would be appropriate for consumers to favor that company in the future. So we will boost the company's reputation in this way, as well as give them cash with our purchases. The downside to this approach would be that we may offer a carrot to a company that is not the MOST socially responsible company in it's industry. The upside to this approach would be that this will allow us to have much bigger impact, because we can engage with the least sustainable companies and get them to take more drastic steps. My opinion is that our priority should be on maximizing our impact, rather than making sure the most overall responsible company gets the most money."
Long video (under 11 minutes) and a short version are on their site. It's something to think about.
- 08:42 1 think one thing i miss about having Les (my integ) is pulling it. #
- 12:16 @susanjane: dude im kinda jealous, i dont even know where the nearest dunkin donuts is in San Diego. #
- 18:54 feels good to be active & healthy :) #
- 20:13 goal for summer: read dosteivsky #
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
My Groups
-
Rethinking The Church & Its Relationship to the Community Updated: 29 minutes ago
-
Buddhism Updated: Yesterday
-
The Yoga Space Updated: 3 days ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
Links from my Neighborhood
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT - ZING! WE...
<embed src="http://www.metrolyrics.com/scroller/scroller2...
More than 400 pairs of boots representing US troops from ...
Food prices have risen 45% in the last nine months and th...
Design to Inspire Contest: ...
I was inspired by a few lines by the French Poet Baudelai...
