"Eat your oatmeal, don't wear it."

Jamie at Jamie Ridler Studios ask today, What do you wish to accomplish?

I wish to manage to have at least one good belly laugh a day even if it means laughing at my own stupidity, and this morning I outdid myself. Awake a good half hour before my normal 6:00 alarm, I decided to take advantage of the extra time to try out a new natural home beauty treatment. I'm always willing to try natural home cleaners and beauty products, so when I heard Dr. Oz the other night endorsing using oatmeal and banana to condition old and tired damaged hair I knew I had to try it. All you have to do process some oatmeal with banana, rub it into your hair, leave it on for 15 minutes and then shampoo hair...right...

Opting to use my blender instead of the food processor as I planned to use the blender anyway to make a breakfast smoothie...why dirty two appliances...I set about making my natural conditioner.

Lesson 1. Should have used the processor as the blender did not do a good job breaking up the oatmeal.

Lesson 2. Never put oatmeal and banana in your hair.

It took two shampoos, combing my hair with a wide tooth comb, then a fine tooth comb, followed by a third shampoo and cream rinse to get the porridge of of my hair. During the whole process I kept hearing my mother's voice reminding me of all the poor children around the world who would be thankful to have the food I just wasted. So here I sit, with very clean but still dry and damaged hair. But I did accomplished something. I got my belly laugh!

ALL THAT GLITTERS

With some time off this week I had a chance Monday to do one of my favourite activities…Frenchy shopping, but this time I was on a mission. I was on treasure hunt for all that glittered, more specifically, tops,…skimpy, shinny, sexy and glittery tops to go with a black skirt I was lucky enough to find a couple of weeks ago. No, I was not looking for something to wear bar hopping, but something to complete my belly dance costume. While I found oodles of tops that shimmered, none were large enough to cover one boob let alone two. While luck wasn’t with me in my top hunt, I did find another skirt perfect for dancing, a pink floral print wrap around silk skirt that I plan to wear on our final night of lessons a week from now.

I was feeling pretty excited about my find, envisioning that I would be the “bell of the ball” for the final dress up night, until I went to my lesson Monday night and “she” arrived, a little late, in full belly dance attire.. One of the things I love about my belly dance lessons is that we are a group of women of all ages, size and body types that get to “let it go”. Instead of sucking it all in, we are encouraged to let it flow and ripple, the more the better. Throughout the dance you feel your body move in ways you may never think possible and you work muscles you didn’t know you had, so that the following day you feel tight and toned …for a while anyway.

To get back to “she”, she is probably the youngest of our group, fairly tall, slim and toned. with beautiful long curly “naturally” golden locks.. You getting the picture now? She was the embodiment of a goddess in a class of…well the rest of us. Now, I’ve always believed that our bodies are our temple to be loved and honoured, but it gets really hard finding the love when there are those among us walking around with nicer temples…makes me feel like I got stuck with a shack.

Back to “she”, she was wearing a gorgeous costume that a friend brought home from the Mediterranean, a deep purple low cut organza skirt. trimmed with beading and silver coins and to top off the costume, a purple bra decorated with matching beading and coins. We have the option of showing our bellies, but for good reason we choose not to, but if I had a temple with perky little boobs like hers, I too would be showing it. But, alas, I don’t think my boobs have ever perked, except for maybe that time I walked into a hornet’s nest and was stung all over.

After the lesson was over we all flocked to her like pigs at a trough to examine her costume close up. I had to resist the temptation to poke one of those perks just to see if they were real. Throughout all our poking and lifting her skirts, she remained calm and accepting until we had our fill. But I had noticed in previous lessons a calmness and an almost zen like quality about her. Even without her costume, there is a warm and radiant glow about her, and while I am a little envious of her youth and beauty, it is her calmness and natural glow I would like to capture for myself.

EARTH DAY

March 28, 2009

Hi everyone!

Today, being earth day is a great time to start a blog, don’t you think? I woke up this morning with bounds of energy and a feeling that Spring has finally sprung even though we still have several feet of snow in our yard.

I look after children in my home and for the past week we have been talking about earth day, doing earth crafts and singing ”This Little Planet of Mine”. Believe me, I can’t sing a note so by the end of the week they were getting pretty tired of me singing this song.

I have been respectful of earth day in my own way, starting first thing this morning by treating myself to a home facial of avocado and yogurt. Next, I used what was left and massaged it into my hair, wraped in in plastic and then a hot towel for a real deep conditioner.

While waiting for my home conditioner to work I started my laundry using detergent that I make myself…good for the earth and my wallet plus the advantage of not having that perfumie smell on my clothes.

The Recipe

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above (I always use Ivory)

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

Sorry, I did use my dryer…I have a clothes line but access to it is difficult this time of the year…but I do use dryer balls instead of fabric sheets.

By this time my husband was up and ready for breakfast so we enjoyed a leisurely meal, he his Jeffro Bodene size bowl of ”high fiber” cereal and me a dish of yogurt…homemade…flax seed and fruit…strawberries and cantaloupe…sorry again…not local but when the only other option is apple…what’s a girl to do?

Before all that energy had a chance to take off and leave me I cleaned my entire house…well the upstairs anyway and this is where I’m feeling really smug. I did it without using any cleaning products…just my handy little ”Ultimate Cloth”. These things work great…just dampen with water, wring well and off you go. Great for mirrors, furniture etc….and faster too. I was done by 1:30 and now I can relax.

We had thought of going to a concert tonight …a new CD release show…but the artist is new to us and after checking him online have decided against it. In honor of earth hour, part of it is to to take part buy candle light from 8:30 - 9:30 which would be fun. By the way, we saw Steve Poltz at the Al Whittle Theater two weeks ago and if you don’t know him you should check him out. His show was fantastic. We first saw him last fall at the Deep Roots Festival in Wolfville and fell in love with him. He is a great singer/songwriter/comedian.

But I do intend to participate in earth hour some way…certainly turn out the lights and I am thinking a bath by candle light would be nice and I’m sure my husband will ”come up” with and idea …typical man that he is.