i don't shampoo my hair

Forgive the lack of introduction, but I've been wanting to write this post for AGES, and now that I'm here, I need to get it out before I wander off and completely forget about it again.

So, long story short: I don't shampoo my hair. After I'd been using my homemade deodorant for a while, I started looking for other ways to make my body care more natural. I read a lot about this no-shampooing method and decided to give it a try. What I use now is after almost a year of fiddling with ratios, but it works for me and I have a feeling some version of it may work for you too.

Here's what I use to wash my hair (all photos taken with my phone because I'm lazy):

Baking soda and apple cider vinegar. That's it. When I first started, I was scooping and mixing and pouring and did I mention I was lazy? I had to come up with a simpler solution that wasn't leaving me with a stack of dishes.

Solution, part 1. Rather than having to go out to the kitchen every time I wanted to take a shower, because I would realize I'd forgotten everything when one leg was already under the water, I decided to keep my ingredients in the bathroom. I used a canister that was previously holding q-tips for the baking soda, and tossed in a teaspoon measure. For the vinegar, I repurposed an empty Philosophy face wash PLASTIC bottle. Very important. The glass canister does not go in the shower with me. Everything that does is plastic. Because along with being lazy, I'm a klutz.

Solution, part 2. I still needed to figure out how to keep from measuring and mixing all morning. Enter the plastic candy bottle from Michael's. I premarked the liquid levels with a Sharpie and now my morning routine is MUCH easier. So how do I do it?

3 teaspoons [or 1 Tablespoon] baking soda go into the plastic bottle. I get in the shower and fill the bottle with water to the top black line (3/4 c). Shake shake shake. Then I squeeze the mixture onto my scalp with one hand and scrub (gently!) with the other, moving the bottle all over my head to make sure I reach every place. The key is to get the baking soda to the scalp and roots of the hair, where the majority of the grease and oil are. Yeah, yeah, ick. We all have it. When the mixture runs out, use both hands to "shampoo" the baking soda all over. Rinse. 

Then! Fill the plastic squirt bottle with apple cider vinegar to the bottom black line (1 1/2 Tablespoons) and fill with water to the top black line. Shake shake shake. Squeeze the mixture ALL OVER YOUR HEAD. If you have long hair, pay close attention to the ends. This is going to act as the conditioner, and make your hair all smooth and shiny. Same as the baking soda: when it's all done, massage into hair. Rinse.

Now, some key points:

* Yes, it's vinegar. Yes, you will smell it while you're putting it in your hair. No, you won't smell it all day. Once your hair is dry, the vinegar smell is gone. TRUST.

* CLOSE YOUR EYES with the vinegar.  Again, trust me on this one.

* I usually leave the vinegar in the way I would conditioner, like while I shave or something.

* That's it.

Oh, one more! I had read that one's scalp and hair may take up 6 weeks to get used to not having shampoo. Mine took about a week, but yours may take longer. Don't give up! Also, depending on your hair, you may be able to get away with doing this every other day. I use product in my hair and it starts to feel gross after about 36 hours, so I don't.

There you have it. It's fast. It's cheap. It's totally natural. Why aren't you doing it already?

briefly

HI! HI! HI!

So I was sick and then I felt better and then my kid got REALLY sick and I got no sleep and Fred was sleeping everywhere but in his bed because that's where my really sick kid was, and then she got better and then I got REALLY sick, like, sicker than I've been in years, and I would lie in bed and moan and wake Fred up in the middle of the night to say, hey, I'm really sick, and so he left his bed again, and after many days of being REALLY sick, I got better and now I have energy and can eat and Fred can sleep in his bed again, and we're ALL HAPPY.

How are you?

tuesday, tuesday, gotta get down on tuesday

And a good morning to you!

Let's see, since we last spoke, I opened my Etsy shop and slowly began driving my family crazy. Yay for indie businesses!

Honestly, opening the shop has been awesome. I am so happy and so excited, and yes, there are road bumps (including a major one that made me weep last night, but that I've hopefully solved, MacGuyver-style), but I love making these products and sharing them. Plus, you know, they smell good. That's always a bonus.

Two (and a half) shop-related things to tell you about:

1. I'm having a GRAND OPENING SALE! That's right, all items are available for a seriously low and awesome price until February 29, so grab your goodies now and get hooked.

1.5 There's a Facebook page for the store. Like away like a mad person and learn about new products and relish the opportunity to call me out in public.

2. Carrie is hosting a CUH-RAZY giveaway on her blog -- it's bento madness! I really didn't want to tell you about this giveaway because I love bentos and I don't want anyone to enter because I want to win ALL THE BENTOS but Carrie is hilarious and super sweet (and hawt, ya'll) and offered me a little spot on her site to peddle my wares. Go enter her giveaway and then stay for the blog.

there is no title for this one

There are some, er, technical difficulties with the shop right now. Namely, a sick kid and my paranoia that the germs are traveling en masse via a green cloud of doom straight for my sinuses. So there's been a lot of napping and juice drinking and generally not doing much of anything. Just a regular week here!

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 62. I miss him. I dream about him a lot -- mostly dreams where he's annoying the shit out of me. I wake up feeling relieved that I'm still capable of remembering all of him, not just the good parts. There's never any feeling in the dream of wrongness or "you're not supposed to be here" stuff. Just... life with my dad. I'm glad that even though he's not here anymore I can still have that conversation with him where I keep repeating something and he's not getting it and I throw up my hands in frustration and he chuckles and we move on to talking about something else. Maybe he's somewhere having that same conversation with me.

...and we're back!

{I hope those of you who stopped by yesterday and were like, SOPA WHAT? clicked around and read about it. As a librarian -- and a person with feelings -- I'm against censorship. And against plain old stupidity. OK! Moving on.}

I have super exciting news!

I GOT A PONY!

Oh. Wait. No, sorry.

I GOT AN ETSY SHOP!

For the holidays, I decided I wanted to give my friends something handmade but that didn't involve copious amounts of butter and sugar. Not because I don't believe in butter and sugar -- because DO I EVER -- but because I wanted something that would last a little bit longer than a few days without going stale. I was going to be shipping some of these gifts across the country to recipients who would be traveling, and I wasn't sure how long my sad little box would sit unattended at their door.

So! I made a sugar scrub. You know, for hands and such. Well, mostly for hands. And a lip balm. FOR THE LIPS. And my mom helped me package it and she also tested some of my early mixes. The batch that won was the one that made her say, "I'd pay for this. And I know a lot of people who would pay for it, too."

DING!

I turned the idea over and over, and decided that yes. I could do this. I could sell this. I would make it and it would be lovely, and I would put pictures of it online, and perhaps people would click and think, "Oh! Doesn't that look lovely! And my hands are so dry and grizzled from this hideous winter weather. A scrub would be just the solution." And then send money to my Pay Pal account and in return receive a pretty package from me with their winter weather solution.

I labored over a name. All the good ones were taken. I wanted clever but not cutesy. I wanted the name to give a shopper an idea of ME and of what the products represented. And so, after much haranguing of the internet and my husband, I woke up in the middle of the night with the name. It's not a show stopper. It's not going to make anyone chuckle. But it's the name that stuck.

The shop's not quite ready yet. I'm planning the grand opening for this weekend. There will be goodies -- I hope you stop by. I'm so excited about this venture of mine. It's a test for me in so many ways, and I'm ready for the challenge.

{I also want to thank all of the folks who helped me brainstorm name ideas and supported my ideas and asked for more! information! because yay! indie business! You guys are the best.}

And so, introducing...

Seriously. So excited.

tomorrow

Here we are. The eve of a new year.

For obvious reasons, I won't be doing any wrap-up posts. I'm ready to move on, move forward, take steps, and LIVE.

I've thought a lot about what I want to do in the coming year. I don't like to think of them as resolutions, because as I've mentioned, that just leads to disappointment. And I'm not sure that calling them goals is exactly right either. More like, wishes. Hopes.

I want to keep reading.

I want to keep writing.

I want to make something pretty.

I want to be here more.

I want to be with my family more.

I want to be a better librarian.

I want to bake something good.

I want to start something new.

I want to finish something I've already started.

I haven't known what to say.

I talk to some people about it. I don't talk to others about it.

I don't cry.

I'm probably not acknowledging that Sunday will come and hit me over the head. I'm hoping for a speedy arrival of Monday.

I know that some are made uncomfortable by others' grief, and that's the main reason why I haven't come here and said anything. But another truth is that I'M uncomfortable with my own grief. It doesn't fit right. I'm not sure what to do with it. Do I wear it? Carry it in a bag with me? Put it in a drawer to take out and look at every now and then? Or swallow it, and feel it sit in my stomach, cold and hard.

There have been other things I've wanted to say here, things that have nothing to do with illness and death and fathers and shitty mornings and waking up at 3 am wondering why I can't go back to sleep and then Oh, right. That. Happy things. Pretty, shiny things.

Before I can share those things with you, though, I wanted to share something else. I need to post this. To release it. Then I can tell you about the pretties.

When my dad was sick, he told my mom what he wanted for his memorial service. Specifically, the hymns he wanted. He also said no eulogies were to be given. She stopped him and asked him -- what if I, his only child, wanted to say something. Fine, he relented. But only her.

I both did and didn't want to give the eulogy. I wanted to because he allowed it. Because I could tell people what I thought of him and how much I loved him. I didn't because... well. It was his funeral. I honestly didn't know if I could physically do it. If I could stand. If I could speak. But I did. Here it is.

***

I'm not sure where to start this. How to tell you about my dad. Which, honestly, I probably don't have to do. Each and every one of you knew him. We've been struck the past two weeks by learning just how many lives he touched, and how deeply people cared for him. From his very best friends here at church to the receptionist at the condo management office. We knew he was gentle and generous, loving and kind, funny and accepting. What has amazed us is that EVERYONE saw that in him. That's who he was, inside and out, no matter who you were.

From a very young age I knew my dad was different. That he saw in people something others didn't. When I was a child, he was a juvenile probation officer, and I called his probationers his babies, because he treated them as he treated his own child, with love and respect and honesty. My mom and I would joke that my dad had no boundaries when it came to getting to know someone. The best example I have of this is from a family vacation when I was 12. We had gone out to dinner and the waiter connected with my dad so much that when his shift was over, he came and sat down with us for the remainder of our meal, just so he could continue talking to my my dad. Over and over, my friends would tell me how much they loved my dad, how instantly at ease they felt with him, how it felt like they had known him forever. He made everyone feel this way. The last time I saw him, he was in the ICU and he had a smile and a joke for every person who came into his room. And when my mom and I would come in each morning, he had the biggest smile for us. Unless he didn't like his breakfast.

He was stronger than anyone of us could ever hope to be. When he first got sick he wasn't supposed to live a year. He fought and he survived each battle and he lived eleven more amazing years. Each year left us feeling like we had received a gift. We wanted to be normal about it, not make a big deal about each birthday, but it was hard not to. He'd done it again.

I wish I had to time to tell you everything about him, but I'll have to settle for some of my favorites. Sitting at the dining room table with him in the morning when I was 5, he with his coffee and me with my milk, singing Gilbert and Sullivan. Having him join me Saturday mornings to watch Looney Tunes cartoons. Having him do the same with his granddaughter. Our date when I was in high school to see the latest Star Trek movie. Making fun of my mom's choice of music, teasing her about bubblegum pop, and then his introducing me to the extended length version of In a Gadda de Vida. Asking him to please pick the music for my wedding and knowing he would be there to hear it. That his cell phone ring tone was the Harry Potter theme.  He was the most brilliant person I have ever known, and as a kid I loved just flipping open a dictionary and asking him to define the weirdest, longest words I could find.  And he did. Every time. His absolute love of science fiction, and his joy when I would recommend a book to him. Watching him read to my daughter, her in his lap as I had been so many years before.

It is because of him that I have the sense of humor I have, that I read the way I do, that I listen to the music I do, and that I love the way I do.  He taught me that, just as he taught each person he met to love and be loved by him.