Ditching the shampoo

Care for these bodies we've given should be simple and uncomplicated. As a part of my belief in this, I've stopped shampooing my hair. Roll your eyes if you must, but once you've done that, read on.

I blame Trish at Little Eco Footprints for this one. She mentioned that she no longer shampoos or conditions her hair, along with a bunch of other cosmetic free practices that she has in a post called How to detox and simplify your personal care. It piqued my interest and I clicked around internet-land learning what I could about a shampoo free lifestyle.

Check these good links.

New Urban Habitat - Are you still using shampoo?

One Green Generation

ABC- Is shampoo a rip-off? 

So basically the idea with this one is that you don't need to use shampoo to have clean hair. I have very oily hair that looks like BP have busted an oil well by the end of the day and can smell a bit funky when it isn't washed. Funnily enough when I had dreads and didn't use commercial shampoo my scalp wasn't flaky or itchy or smelly, but with mainstream hair and commercial shampoo it is. I haven't been a shampoo fan for a long time so not using it sounds good for me.

There are a few 'no shampoo' methods, and the way I do it it this. Dump some dry bicarb soda on my hair and rub it in. Get in the shower and straight away quickly wet the hair. Massage the bicarb in and let it sit for a minute while you soap up your body or whatever you do. Rinse. Then I splash some diluted vinegar [1-2 tablespoons in a cup of water] from an old popper that Addie once drank out of, just on the ends of my hair. Leave for a minute and rinse for a couple of seconds, done!

At the end of the day & not even gross! 

I like that you don't need to try very hard to make sure all the product is washed out the hair because its nt sticky, it just comes right out. Doing this is really quick and easy and uses less time than needed for regular commercial products. I love that my fine straight hair is bouncy, shiny and soft [yes I have all three!!] and that my scalp feels fine. I am hooked by the fact that it is cheap, fast and that I'm not using added colours and fragrances where they are just not needed.

I've found that I only need to wash every couple of days - though depending on weather conditions it can sometimes get a little oily in between. If I don't have time to wash it [or want to give it another day] I can just pop a bit of bicarb on the roots under the top layer of my hair [so I don't look like I'm greying!] and it soaks up the oil slick and gives back some bounce to my hair until I get up to washing it next.

So, yep, I'm sold. I'm using this for the girl's hair too - why should they have shampoo dumped on their sensitive baby skin? Andrew isn't jumping at the idea, but he's a bit more conservative than me and doesn't think too hard about what goes on his hair at the best of times. Maybe we'll get him onside one of these days, especially if I stop buying shampoo! At the moment he thinks that I'm just a looney who has an addiction to bicarb and vinegar. I do, but thats because they are so awesome.

If you want to know more, google "no shampoo bi carb" or "no poo hair" and stuff like that. Tons of people have blogged about their shampoo-free experiences - both positive and negative.

Made it to 30!

Tabitha April Bird,1981

Thanks Mum and Dad for kicking things off and raising me, and thanks to everyone who has been in my life til now and helped make me who I am. 30 years down and hopefully a few more to go yet!

More crazy.

If you know me, you know that I don't like taking a long time to put my plans into action. Usually I get an idea and then set off madcapped to fulfil it - at least until I get bored, or distracted with something else.  You'll be pleased then to know that nothing has changed.

A couple of days ago, Andrew made the comment that if I'm keen to homeschool our kids, then it would be advantageous for me to study towards a teaching degree. Today I'm enrolled in my first subject in a Bachelor of Education [Primary]. I'm thinking that unlike the past 3 degrees that I've enrolled in, I may just finish this one. Maybe.

Here's the low-down. I'm studying through Open Universities Australia, a Bachelor of Education [Primary] delivered by Curtain University. It is all delivered online with the exception of the teaching pracs that I will have to do. I'm planning on completing a minimum of 4 subjects per year, which would see the degree finished in about 8 years. If I get more done in a year, then that would be even better.

There is some irony [as I understand irony] in being reticent to send my kids to school, yet at the same time training to teach in such a school. I figure that you've got to know the enemy [joke!]. I think that if I'm going to home educate, then the more that I understand about education, numeracy and literacy the better. I also think that it is smart to have qualifications that can be used in case of emergency - for example, if Andrew for some unknown reason was unable to work, or if we were in a difficult financial situation. Also, once our kids have grown, I'll have a good amount of working years left in me anyway and some training would be advantageous. In addition to this, teaching goes well with my previous study in Disability Services. The two qualifications will give me many possible areas of paid or volunteer work.

The guy on the phone at OU said that many SAHMs* are choosing to study this way.I think its a great example to set to my kids that I value learning and that if you don't know what to do with your life at 18, not all is lost. There is still plenty of opportunity, even for a serial drop-out like me.

*SAHM = Stay-At-Home-Mum

Tiny is 3 months!

I've been remiss in posting about Tiny. Its not because I don't like her, or don't want to share its just that I've been busy enjoying her little-babyness and to be quite honest she doesn't do anything that remarkable yet.

Clementine is a lovely baby to have. She has her quirks, like Addie she only goes 2 hours at the longest between feeds, likes short naps and mostly sleeps fairly well at night if she's cuddled beside me.

For the most part she is quite easy going. She used to be a bit wonky, and curled in a C shape to the right, but since we visited Kiro Kids she's straightened quite a lot and can now support her own head most of the time, smiles more and seems to be very happy.

Addie and Tiny share a very special relationship. Tiny has a plethora of smiles and giggles for her sister. Addie loves to give her lots of kisses and put her dummy in - even if Tiny doesn't want it she still opens her mouth for Addie to put it in. Addie also very kindly tries to feed Tiny bits of biscuit saying "ahhhh" to encourage her to open her mouth. As their parents, we discourage that. We also discourage Addie from sitting on Tiny but it can be quite a challenge at times protecting our little baby from a beautiful boofhead of a toddler.

Tiny is in love with her dummy and has recently discovered that she has hands that move. Its an exciting time to be alive!!

Just putting this out 'there'.

I need to apologise. To all the people who I said were fruitloops for homeschooling their kids, [note: I did not call ALL homeschoolers fruitloops, just a couple]. To all those who heard me say "I'll never do that to my kids". Um, what can I say, I'm sorry and I shouldn't be such a Judge Judy.

At this point home education is high on my list of things I'm thinking about for the future of our family. Noted that Addie is only 19 months old, and Tiny is 3 months so its quite early in the piece but I'm thinking none the less.

You can rest assured that I'll have more to say about this in the future, regardless of what we decide. What I'd like from you is your thoughts, experiences and mostly your questions to help me think and see it from all different angles. While I wait for those [over the next few years I guess] I'm reading about it, what people have done, what is legally required and how people have experienced it. As a home schooled kid myself I hope that I'd be able to avoid the pitfalls that me and my parents experienced, and along the way create a whole new set of issues I'm sure.

A website I'm finding useful is Home Education Association Inc. It covers the legal requirements, different styles of schooling and has a ton of useful links.

I've borrowed some public library books too, one of them cracks me up...

Cos we want Dummies educating kids... right?

I thought it was pretty funny anyway, but so far a useful book.

30th Birthday Swap Party.

Despite what one invitee first thought a Swap Party is NOT like a swingers party. Glad we got that sorted.

Most people that I invited hadn't heard of a swap party before, and I'd never been to one so it was a new experience for most. One or two had been and they did it a little differently, so here I'm going to share what we did. I'd love to also share lovely pictures, but I was too busy and forgot to take any. Oops.

The Invite

So thats the invite I made. Its redundant to copy the info from the invite, but just in case it isn't viewable for any reason, here is what it said.

**How the Swap Works**

A swap is a fantastic way to exchange things that you don’t want or use for things that you DO want and would use!

1. Bring items that are in good condition [see the list opposite for suggestions] but that you no longer need or use or want.

2. Look at what else others have brought, and decide what you might like.

3.For each item you bring, take home something else that will hopefully be more useful to you!

4. To make the swap work well, bring between 2 and 5 items, or a couple of groups of small items to swap together.

Some ideas:

Kitchen gear, books, Homemade items, potplants, handbags, Kids toys, Clothes, DVDs, CDs, and so on. If you could ebay it you can swap it!

Look in your wardrobe, at the back of your linen cupboard, in the bottom of your kitchen cabinets and the corner of your shed. You never know what has been lurking!!

********************

**The Nitty Gritty**

I had a friend who is great at this stuff be in charge of receiving all the swap goods.  She gave each participant pegs for the items they brought, and labelled them with the labels I had made. These served to clearly distinguish what was for swapping and what was a part of the landscape, and helped if any information needed to be shared about the item, and gave a reference so we knew who the original owner was.

Swap Label

It took much longer than I expected to do this initial part, but once it was done everyone got a couple of minutes to look around and then on my word the 1st pegging round began. Participants could peg as many items as they had pegs. If more than one person pegged an item by the end of the round, the pegs were put into a raffle and whoever's peg was drawn out won the item. The remaining pegs were returned to their owner. If you REALLY wanted an item you could put more pegs on it to have a greater chance of winning it.

After the first pegging round,  we gave the items with one peg to their new owners, raffled the things with more than one peg and returned the remaining pegs to their owners. Then round two began, with the people who had pegs and the unclaimed items, and so on until almost all the items were gone. 

At the end there were a couple of books and random things left. The original owners either took them home or left them for me to keep or donate to Lifeline. 

*********************

And thats how you do a swap! I have heard from almost everyone that they felt like they "really scored". I ended up with a handbag, some non-slip matting, a cocktail shaker, a bunch of necklaces and a sweater, vest and longsleeved shirt, plus a couple of novels to read. 

Make your cake and eat it too.

For a number of reasons I had my birthday party a little early this year. I really wanted a party because this year I'm turning 30, but I wasn't inspired to make a cake until I flipped through my Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book. The sewing machine looked cute, so I thought I could give it a shot. 

My 30th Birthday Cake

The cake in the book.

Swirly!

The cake itself was a buttercake that I divided into 3 and added a LOT of food colouring. You need a lot of dye to get the brilliant result. I swirled it in the pan to get a marbled effect.

Inside. Pretty.

Here is the cake before icing. I built up the front, top of the right top corner and bottom with extra pieces to give the same look as a 201k Singer machine. It looks pretty psychedelic without the icing on.

Now the cake is more respectably clothed, and with a few bits of fondant and cooking twine we have a yummy cake sewing machine.