I'm running out of days in November, so if I'm going to get this done, I'd best get to it. And, really, what better day to post than Thanksgiving? Most of America has little better to do today than eat copious amounts of food, watch football on TV and surf the Internet!
In addition to being Thanksgiving in the US, today is also my 44th birthday. Yay me! Some days, I'm not entirely sure how I got to this point in my life and other times, it just seems so right. A dichotomy of life, I suppose.
On to the business at hand. I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my last post. It was gratifying to not only have people be interested in what I had to share, but offer to deal with anyone who gave me crap. No one did, so I think you scared them away. I expected some questions but got none, though I did get some other great ideas, including a bunch of natural beauty ideas from Mary; go check them out if you didn't see them! This time around it's a related item that was alluded to in the comments, so this one may not come as much of a surprise.
Potentially (Less-)Surprising Personal Revelation #2: I don't use shampoo on my hair.
This is a change I made almost three months ago. Once the no-soap thing worked so well, I started looking at the other products I used and that we're exhorted at every turn to spend money on. Shampoo quickly bubbled (ha) to the surface as something I needed to re-evaluate. Some bloggers refer to this as "No 'Poo" but, personally, I can't stand that particular phrase. I'm just shampoo-free.
The most common substitutes I found were apple cider vinegar and baking soda, as well as some herbal preparations. The more research I did, though, the clearer it became that baking soda was going to be the most effective for cleansing, which my generally oily hair would definitely need. At first, though, I went overboard and simply used too much, too often, and it dried the crap out of my hair. This was remedied by one deep-conditioning treatment and then I resumed with a more reasonable proportion of baking soda.
What works for me is one tablespoon of baking soda mixed into one cup of warm water. Before I get in the shower, I just put two tablespoons in a measuring cup (I have this great, flexible one-cup kind that I highly recommend for this, available at The Container Store) and place it somewhere that will stay dry. I use the first tablespoon for my face, as I mentioned last post, then I fill the cup up with the running water and mix it a little with my fingers. I pour it onto my hair in sections, letting it get down to my scalp and massaging it in. I don't do much with the length portion because my hair is still relatively short (above my shoulders) and it gets taken care of when I rinse out the baking soda. I fill the cup up again with water to get any residue, then pour it over my head and rinse it all out. That's it.
A few times last month, I tried castile soap on my hair and, when it's really in need of a little something more, I can use it. But the baking soda is my usual routine and it works for me. It takes almost no time and it's super cheap, as you can find a box of baking soda for under a dollar (though the price of it has gone up in recent years and I've seen the brand name stuff for up to three dollars!) and that lasts for a good while.
Why do this? If you are interested, there is a TON of information out there about why sulfates aren't good for our hair. Here is one article that I think captures it pretty well, but there's so much more. In short? It's kind of like fast food. It's inexpensive, it's convenient, it's marketed to us by brilliant minds and it tastes/smells delicious. But it's not good for us in the long run; it's too harsh and it's wasteful. We simply don't need cascades of bubbles for healthy hair, no matter what commercials have led us to believe.
Has it improved the health of my hair? I've always had pretty healthy hair and I'd say it's about the same. I didn't go through a period of feeling like my hair was dirty for the first week or so, like I've read some other people experienced when doing this. Apart from the short period where it felt really dry, it just feels normal and I feel better about saving money and not using so much detergent.
There are some other things related to this, like conditioning and coloring, but those will have to wait for another post. Let me know if you have any questions or advice about this part of my new regimen.
Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts
November 24, 2011
March 18, 2011
Forgetting And Remembering
Are you familiar with the saying, "You'd forget your head if it wasn't attached to your neck" and variations thereof? I often think that, if it weren't a saying that's older than I am, it could have been written expressly for me. While my maternal grandmother died before I was born, two of her sisters were very close to my mom and were like grandmothers to me and my brother. From them, I heard that phrase a LOT in my youth and, really, it hasn't changed much.
I forget and lose things everywhere. I've lost (temporarily and permanently) more jackets and hoodies than any one person ever should. I've had to drive back to hotels to get some vital item that I left behind (usually in the bathroom) on more than one occasion, and have had to ask them to mail things to me if I'd traveled too far by the time it was remembered. I've misplaced a drivers license, only to have it resurface months after I'd paid to replace it. I've lost enough earrings to supply a small store for one-eared people. I forget the names of people I've known for years during conversation and have had to explain a few times that calling someone "what's-his-name" isn't meant as a slight or any disrespect, I just can't pull the name out of my brain when I need it. I pretty much forget what day it is almost every day. I put things "away" in a really good place, then can't remember where that place is. I've forgotten to pay bills, take the credit card at the store, take the keys before leaving the house or the car, turn off the stove, blow out a candle, return library books, take my medicine and go to appointments; those things that all of us forget from time to time.
I have a knack for being able to remember only the first letter in the name of someone or someplace. I can almost guarantee that if you've known me in-person for any length of time, you've heard me say, "Oh, you know, that street...it starts with an 'N'," or something just like that. Probably more than once.
One of my favorites is forgetting something I just said not five seconds before. That always makes me feel good.
Not far behind that is starting a post with an idea in mind and not remembering what the point was a few paragraphs in. Fortunately, this time I do recall what the point is, but my list of posts is littered with half-finished drafts that seemed like a good idea but then I went off on a tangent and made a complete mess of it before losing the thread completely.
The irony is that there are so many things that I'd like to forget but simply can't, no matter how much time has passed, how much rationalizing I've done over it, or how much I know something wasn't really my fault. Usually things that are a result of my having done something stupid.
Like being around nine years old and making an observation to my mom about someone at another table in a restaurant (quietly, I'd thought) and the feeling of utter mortification and shame that swept through my body when I realized that the person had heard me and someone at their table said, "How rude!" loud enough for me to hear.
Like being in middle school and forgetting something (I can't even remember what it was anymore) and being told to call my parents about it, but I either forgot to do that (duh) or just didn't feel like it. When I was asked about it, I told my mom that I hadn't been allowed to use the phone in the school office to call. She went back to the vice president and railed against my being denied the use of the phone and backed me up all the way. Weeks later, when it came up again, I admitted that I'd lied about not being allowed to use the phone. The expression on my mother's face when she realized what I'd done and the position I'd put her in left me feeling about an inch tall.
Like being in college and forgetting about Mother's Day one year and knowing how hurt my mom was by that.
Like the last 48 hours of my mom's life when I practically lived at the hospital and every moment of her last few minutes is etched on my brain for me to relive again and again. Wondering if we could have done something different. Wondering if I hadn't left to go to lunch that day when she began to decline, could we have caught what was happening to her? Seeing the grief on my brother's face when we knew she was really gone.
But even with of all the things I've managed to forget over the years and will no doubt continue to forget, remember, and forget again, there is one thing that I will never, ever forget.
March 18th was the day that brought my mom, Betty Ann Burns, into the world and it was so much a better place for having her here.
I forget and lose things everywhere. I've lost (temporarily and permanently) more jackets and hoodies than any one person ever should. I've had to drive back to hotels to get some vital item that I left behind (usually in the bathroom) on more than one occasion, and have had to ask them to mail things to me if I'd traveled too far by the time it was remembered. I've misplaced a drivers license, only to have it resurface months after I'd paid to replace it. I've lost enough earrings to supply a small store for one-eared people. I forget the names of people I've known for years during conversation and have had to explain a few times that calling someone "what's-his-name" isn't meant as a slight or any disrespect, I just can't pull the name out of my brain when I need it. I pretty much forget what day it is almost every day. I put things "away" in a really good place, then can't remember where that place is. I've forgotten to pay bills, take the credit card at the store, take the keys before leaving the house or the car, turn off the stove, blow out a candle, return library books, take my medicine and go to appointments; those things that all of us forget from time to time.
I have a knack for being able to remember only the first letter in the name of someone or someplace. I can almost guarantee that if you've known me in-person for any length of time, you've heard me say, "Oh, you know, that street...it starts with an 'N'," or something just like that. Probably more than once.
One of my favorites is forgetting something I just said not five seconds before. That always makes me feel good.
Not far behind that is starting a post with an idea in mind and not remembering what the point was a few paragraphs in. Fortunately, this time I do recall what the point is, but my list of posts is littered with half-finished drafts that seemed like a good idea but then I went off on a tangent and made a complete mess of it before losing the thread completely.
The irony is that there are so many things that I'd like to forget but simply can't, no matter how much time has passed, how much rationalizing I've done over it, or how much I know something wasn't really my fault. Usually things that are a result of my having done something stupid.
Like being around nine years old and making an observation to my mom about someone at another table in a restaurant (quietly, I'd thought) and the feeling of utter mortification and shame that swept through my body when I realized that the person had heard me and someone at their table said, "How rude!" loud enough for me to hear.
Like being in middle school and forgetting something (I can't even remember what it was anymore) and being told to call my parents about it, but I either forgot to do that (duh) or just didn't feel like it. When I was asked about it, I told my mom that I hadn't been allowed to use the phone in the school office to call. She went back to the vice president and railed against my being denied the use of the phone and backed me up all the way. Weeks later, when it came up again, I admitted that I'd lied about not being allowed to use the phone. The expression on my mother's face when she realized what I'd done and the position I'd put her in left me feeling about an inch tall.
Like being in college and forgetting about Mother's Day one year and knowing how hurt my mom was by that.
Like the last 48 hours of my mom's life when I practically lived at the hospital and every moment of her last few minutes is etched on my brain for me to relive again and again. Wondering if we could have done something different. Wondering if I hadn't left to go to lunch that day when she began to decline, could we have caught what was happening to her? Seeing the grief on my brother's face when we knew she was really gone.
But even with of all the things I've managed to forget over the years and will no doubt continue to forget, remember, and forget again, there is one thing that I will never, ever forget.
March 18th was the day that brought my mom, Betty Ann Burns, into the world and it was so much a better place for having her here.
November 24, 2010
An Order of Birthday, Happy on the Side
I thought about calling this "An Order of Birthday, Hold the Happy," but I decided that wasn't really accurate or honest. I don't want to hold the happy, I'm trying to embrace the happy. It's just that it's not front and center for the the first time on my birthday.
Birthdays have always been a big thing in my family, something I've probably written a few times here on this day in the past. But celebrating one without my mom here just seems...incomprehensible. There's not much more I can say about it than that.
I'll be spending the day, and Thanksgiving, with my now-smaller family and I'm grateful for that, just as I'm grateful for all the kind wishes that I'll receive from my friends. I just don't know if I'll be able to get through the day without bursting into tears and thinking, "She should be here. She should be here. She should be here."
The fact that I'm fighting to keep my dinner down right now tells me that I'm going to have to leave it at that. For those of you who are all about honesty and being real and revealing yourself on your blog, there's nothing more honest or real or personal I've ever written than that.
Birthdays have always been a big thing in my family, something I've probably written a few times here on this day in the past. But celebrating one without my mom here just seems...incomprehensible. There's not much more I can say about it than that.
I'll be spending the day, and Thanksgiving, with my now-smaller family and I'm grateful for that, just as I'm grateful for all the kind wishes that I'll receive from my friends. I just don't know if I'll be able to get through the day without bursting into tears and thinking, "She should be here. She should be here. She should be here."
The fact that I'm fighting to keep my dinner down right now tells me that I'm going to have to leave it at that. For those of you who are all about honesty and being real and revealing yourself on your blog, there's nothing more honest or real or personal I've ever written than that.
January 22, 2010
A Blogoversary Giveaway!
One Ping Only turns six today! Sometimes it feel like it has been forever, but other times it feels like it has been no time at all. I'm not going to wax poetic about it, I'll just say thanks to those of you who have been a part of it during some or all of that time. It means a lot to me, especially your comments (yes, Ben, I do put a lot of stock in the commenting!) and the fact that you are supportive even when I'm spotty on regular posting. OK, on to the fun part!
To celebrate the blogoversary, I'm doing a little giveaway. I'll be sending to one winner the following:
Here's the deal: It's a simple affair, no requirement to tweet about it (though if you wish to, you're certainly welcome to); subscribe (again, unless you'd like to), write an essay or otherwise turn cartwheels. All you have to do is submit a guess in the comments, in the form of a dollar amount, as to how much money you think is in this bank:
Though he looks like a hippo, the fine people of Target said he's a donkey. So, it's a donkey bank.
I love banks and I have probably too many of them. I put all my change in them -- my rule is that if any coin makes it to my room in my pants pockets at the end of the day, it goes in a bank -- with one for just pennies and one for silver coins. Mr. Donkey there is the one with silver coins. Usually when he fills up, I take them all out and wrap them up and bring them to the bank for a little mad money.
He's almost full and instead of saving the money, I'm going to take Mr. Donkey to a Coinstar machine when the entry time is over and his contents will be tallied up and donated to the UNICEF Haiti Emergency Fund in honor of the person who can guess how much he holds. To give you some perspective on the size of the bank, here he is posing in front of my laptop next to a soda can. (That is not an ad for Dell, by the way, I just needed a clean background!)
What I'm looking for is a guess of the total that will appear when his contents are emptied into the Coinstar machine. Because there's only silver coins inside, the total will be to the nearest nickel. The person whose guess in the comments is closest to that total wins -- that's it! If two guesses are the same distance away from the correct amount, the person with the guess under the total will win. I was going to limit it to North America, but what the hell, it's only postage, right? (However, I don't think the Starbucks card can be used outside the U.S. so I'd have to leave that out. That would go to the next-closest person in the U.S.) Comments with a guess must be submitted by 11:59pm PST on January 29, 2010 to be eligible.
Let me be clear: This money is getting donated to this cause even if no one enters. I just don't like random number generators all that much and picking names from a hat is a lot of work -- I did it once and that was enough. I thought this would at least be a different way of picking a winner! Also, I have no idea how much is in there; I'll find out when the total shows up on the screen, which I'll take a picture of to share here.
So help me celebrate my blog's anniversary with a little fun and a little giving; two things I believe in greatly.
To celebrate the blogoversary, I'm doing a little giveaway. I'll be sending to one winner the following:
- A copy of My Life. My Loves. My Lists. (For you to do your own lists this year)
- A $20 Starbucks card (Or Peet's or the like, if you'd prefer)
- The new Norah Jones CD, The Fall (I'm loving listening to it right now.)
- Two single-serve packets of Nutella (In honor of my friends who are big Nutella fans)
- A six-pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Don't need to explain those, do I?)
- A donation in your honor to the UNICEF Haiti Emergency Fund (Keep reading for info on that one)
Here's the deal: It's a simple affair, no requirement to tweet about it (though if you wish to, you're certainly welcome to); subscribe (again, unless you'd like to), write an essay or otherwise turn cartwheels. All you have to do is submit a guess in the comments, in the form of a dollar amount, as to how much money you think is in this bank:
Though he looks like a hippo, the fine people of Target said he's a donkey. So, it's a donkey bank.
I love banks and I have probably too many of them. I put all my change in them -- my rule is that if any coin makes it to my room in my pants pockets at the end of the day, it goes in a bank -- with one for just pennies and one for silver coins. Mr. Donkey there is the one with silver coins. Usually when he fills up, I take them all out and wrap them up and bring them to the bank for a little mad money.
He's almost full and instead of saving the money, I'm going to take Mr. Donkey to a Coinstar machine when the entry time is over and his contents will be tallied up and donated to the UNICEF Haiti Emergency Fund in honor of the person who can guess how much he holds. To give you some perspective on the size of the bank, here he is posing in front of my laptop next to a soda can. (That is not an ad for Dell, by the way, I just needed a clean background!)
What I'm looking for is a guess of the total that will appear when his contents are emptied into the Coinstar machine. Because there's only silver coins inside, the total will be to the nearest nickel. The person whose guess in the comments is closest to that total wins -- that's it! If two guesses are the same distance away from the correct amount, the person with the guess under the total will win. I was going to limit it to North America, but what the hell, it's only postage, right? (However, I don't think the Starbucks card can be used outside the U.S. so I'd have to leave that out. That would go to the next-closest person in the U.S.) Comments with a guess must be submitted by 11:59pm PST on January 29, 2010 to be eligible.
Let me be clear: This money is getting donated to this cause even if no one enters. I just don't like random number generators all that much and picking names from a hat is a lot of work -- I did it once and that was enough. I thought this would at least be a different way of picking a winner! Also, I have no idea how much is in there; I'll find out when the total shows up on the screen, which I'll take a picture of to share here.
So help me celebrate my blog's anniversary with a little fun and a little giving; two things I believe in greatly.
November 24, 2009
Happy Birthday: Revealing/Reveling
Today is my birthday.
In person, I'm always completely open about my age and will offer it without hesitation. I'm not a believer in lying about age; it's pointless because you're exactly as old as you are, no matter what you say, and there's no shame in proclaiming your actual age. Maybe this is due in part to my looking older than I was as a teen (which was good then) and then looking younger than I am as an adult, but it's just a strong belief for me.
However, I've been less forthcoming here and I was reflecting on that earlier today. I think the reason is two-fold: First, once it's laid out online, it's a fact frozen in time. Second, people often have preconceptions of someone based on their age, and that's something you can't overcome online because you don't "meet" them and see their personality.
I can't change either of those things, but I've decided that it just doesn't matter to me all that much anymore. Mellowing with age? Perhaps.
Today is my 42nd birthday and I'm happier with who I am than I have been at any other point in my life. I'm grateful every day for my family and my friends, both those I see in person and those with whom I interact solely online. I've come through a huge change in my work life and I'm finding my way just fine. The landscape of people in my life has also undergone changes, some of which were hard to take, but all I can do is appreciate the time I had with some people and not lament their absence. Are there some things that are missing, things that might make my life even fuller? Sure. But they don't diminish the person I am today. I'm not defined by them any more than I'm defined by my age alone.
So Happy 42nd Birthday to me. Here's a toast to number 43 and all those beyond, with a nod to all those behind.
In person, I'm always completely open about my age and will offer it without hesitation. I'm not a believer in lying about age; it's pointless because you're exactly as old as you are, no matter what you say, and there's no shame in proclaiming your actual age. Maybe this is due in part to my looking older than I was as a teen (which was good then) and then looking younger than I am as an adult, but it's just a strong belief for me.
However, I've been less forthcoming here and I was reflecting on that earlier today. I think the reason is two-fold: First, once it's laid out online, it's a fact frozen in time. Second, people often have preconceptions of someone based on their age, and that's something you can't overcome online because you don't "meet" them and see their personality.
I can't change either of those things, but I've decided that it just doesn't matter to me all that much anymore. Mellowing with age? Perhaps.
Today is my 42nd birthday and I'm happier with who I am than I have been at any other point in my life. I'm grateful every day for my family and my friends, both those I see in person and those with whom I interact solely online. I've come through a huge change in my work life and I'm finding my way just fine. The landscape of people in my life has also undergone changes, some of which were hard to take, but all I can do is appreciate the time I had with some people and not lament their absence. Are there some things that are missing, things that might make my life even fuller? Sure. But they don't diminish the person I am today. I'm not defined by them any more than I'm defined by my age alone.
So Happy 42nd Birthday to me. Here's a toast to number 43 and all those beyond, with a nod to all those behind.
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