Month: June 2013

When it Gets Hot….

It gets hot, and I want to move someplace cold. (Think about Alaska….). I am not one to complain much, but I don’t like the heat, especially when there is humidity with it. For all of you who may be reading this and thinking “Oregon has nothing on (fill in Midwestern or East Coast State here)”, what I have to say to you is that I have been to Missouri and New York in the dead of summer, so I have an idea of what it can be like, and I didn’t like it that much.

Why am I going on about how much I am not heat person? I am going on about it because I have spent the last few evenings out helping get cabins ready for camp meeting, and each night (tonight was the worst of it so far), I have come back covered in a layer if sweat, feeling grodie and disgusting. I can handle being dirty a bit better, but being sweaty is the worst for me. I am glad I am not staying on the camp grounds this year. Call me spoiled, but I’ll take the 5 minute commute to church, that is a small price to pay for air conditioning, my own bathroom, my own bed, and food that won’t make me sick. I have stayed on the camp grounds in the past, so I have had that experience.

Not only is there the sticky layer of sweat on bare skin factor, but decency is also a factor in my aversion to the heat, I can always put more layers on in the winter, but there is only so much I can take off and still be decent in the summer.

On memorial day, when I was helping my mom clean cabins, I started playing “Marco Polo” to find which cabin my mom was in, after I went to get clean water. My mom and I were a pair on the larger team we were on for the section of cabins we were in. So, the game kinda stuck and I started using it to find my friend who is in charge of getting the cabins for the overseas guests ready, as one or both of us were separated and were trying to locate the other (and it was faster than cell phones).

I am going to end this ramble right now, and get some sleep because the next two weeks are going to be even busier than this past week has been.

Cold Weather Fan

I am not really looking forward to what the weather is going to be like here in the next week. It will be going from cooler than average with a fair amount of rain to hot (90+) with elevated humidity from all the rain we have had. I prefer the cool and wet, because it is more comfortable and I don’t tolerate heat all that well.

I have been a fan of Fall and Winter my whole life, because of the cooler weather, and cute warmer clothes. I also love the rain, even when most other people are tired of it, I am still loving it.

I am holding out hope that one day I can move to the Inside Passage region of Alaska. I have been doing my research, and from what I have found out so far, it sounds like my kind of place. I say that because I love the cool, wet weather, the great outdoors, and the beauty of the mountains and forests. I realize that it is isolated, and made up of islands that in order to get in and out of each place you have to take a ferry or a plane, and that is part of why I am attracted to it.

The idea of packing up and moving 1300 miles away is nothing new for me. I know I went to New York (I packed up my life intending to be out there for at least a year) for that week for a reason. What that reason is exactly I don’t know, but I kind of get the feeling that I went off college for four years (I wanted to switch schools after my first term, I hung in there, and really enjoyed my Junior and Senior years), and taking off for New York that I have been preparing for a new bigger adventure in life.

DIY Laundry Soap

Over the course of the last few years, I have come to realize that my skin is super sensitive to fragrances in every day products, particularly laundry detergent, fabric softeners, deodorants, and body washes.

The past six months, have been filled with research and idea gathering, for how to make my own products such as hair rinses to eventually replace shampoo, and making my own laundry soap and dish washer tablets and so on and so forth.

You may ask, Why do i want to make all this stuff myself. My answer to that has to parts. The first is the fact that there are why to many skin and intestinal irritating chemicals out there, that are a part of our every day life, all to many of them are harsh and poisonous and many of us think nothing of using these every day household items. These chemicals can and do make people sick, and cause skin irritation like there is no tomorrow.

The second part of the answer is this: Throughout history and even still today in various parts of the world where there is not the prevalence and dependence on common place chemicals to get dishes, clothing, and ourselves clean. There are ways that are better for our soil (where our food is grown), our water supply (the stuff that makes up 2/3 of our bodies), and our bodies to keep clean and healthy. Back before Gain, Tide, Downey, and Cheer were in existence women had to do laundry, and have various means of doing so. This includes, yet isn’t limited to Lye soap and an Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, Borax and Fel Naptha mixture. The Latter was developed sometime after the invention of Fels Naptha in 1893.

The Washing Soda, Borax and Fels Naptha mixture was one that I had pinned to my DIY board on Pinterest, because I had wanted to try it, to see if it would really work, and work out to being cheaper than the store bought, chemical laden, skin irritating stuff. Here about a month and a half ago my mom finally caved, and became willing to try it with me. That came after some talking into on my part, and some assistance from my aunt (who didn’t know she was actually aiding me in my quest to try making my own laundry soap at the time), my mom and I made laundry soap. The start up cost for getting the supplies and ingredients ran less than $20, but for the ingredients alone that cost $10.50.

So far (at a month and a half later) we have only used about 1/4 of the mixture, and gotten at least 34 loads out of it. So far so good on it being the cheaper option, with fewer chemicals, yet still cleans. The last time I checked the sale price on the 33 load bottle of All, it was $5. If we could even get 75 loads out of this mixture it would be more cost effective. I like trying new things, and have what I have tried work and be successful. Not everything I have tried has been successful, but this is one of the successful experiments.

Living Dairy Free: An Ongoing Adventure

about a year and nine months ago, I had to start learning how to live without eating dairy and being really careful with what I ate. The first year of that had been the hardest. The last nine months has been a bit easier, though there are still bumps or hiccups along the way. I still have a lot to learn. At times not being able to eat anything and everything can be a challenge, especially when I am away from home. Quite often if I know I am going to be away from home for an extended period of time, I will take my own food with me, so that I can still eat, and know that what I am eating won’t potentially make me sick.

The first few months were the hardest, because I knew nothing about it, and didn’t even know what I needed to be looking for on labels. Over time I have learned what I need to be looking for, and I am doing a lot better. Since I went off dairy products (including lactose free) all together I have had way more issue-free days than days where I have issues. While I was in college (which was a good year and a half to close to three years before I needed to go Dairy Free), I had decided that I was going to switch from milk to rice milk for drinking and for use on cereal. By the time I really needed to give up dairy I was already used to one alternative, which is now my preferred alternative to milk.

In the last six months especially, I have been using Pinterest quite a bit for dairy free food ideas, or foods that look good, that would be easily altered, using dairy free alternatives in place of the dairy products that are called for.