Before

I’ve always considered giving my hair to Locks of Love because I thought they were the best place to donate to, until I got this message from a friend on Facebook:

Donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths instead. http://www.squidoo.com/locksoflove

Mon at 9:53pm ·

I suppose after all this reading you want to see exactly what I did to my hair, right?

The choppy NOT "matronly" look...

Happy new haircut (and new brows)!

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Yes! That is Reggie doing his Gene Simmons impression...

Reggie is our crazy Cocker Spaniel.  His nails and fur grow at a ridiculous rate, his tongue is too big for his mouth, and his ears are always the source of some type of trouble.  Those ears bring in seeds in the spring, leaves in the fall, are always getting dirty when he eats and drinks, and they’re just too tempting for Gunner during playtime.  If you have a dog with long, furry ears you know what I’m talking about!

Over time we noticed that Reggie started scratching the side of his head on the carpet.  We then noticed his stinky ears.    Reggie, like many Cocker Spaniels,  had reoccurring earwax buildup. I had some dog/cat ear cleaner, but it was expired and only to be used for routine cleaning.  Worried, I went online to check things out pertaining to Cockers and found Zim Family Cockers web site.   The Zim’s breed Cocker Spaniels and were given an ear cleaning recipe by the former Secretary of the Cocker Spaniel club of San Diego county.  This ear cleaner helps with earwax buildup and ear infections, which can be costly to treat.

Here’s how to make an inexpensive ear cleaner with items you probably have on hand.  This can be used on both dogs and cats.

Ingredients

1. 6 ounces Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol
2. 1/2 tablespoon Powdered boric acid
3. 2 ounces White vinegar
4. 1 teaspoon Povidone-iodine (Betadine) – do NOT get Betadine “Scrub” as it contains a detergent
5. Applicator with a long tip – something you can find at a beauty supply store
6. An old towel for cleaning up

Ask your pharmacist for help if you can’t find this stuff.  Our grocery store pharmacy had all but the boric acid, which we found at a bigger pharmacy.

Directions

First, please be careful, especially with the boric acid.  If the boric acid or iodine get on your skin, wash it off immediately.  Second, follow the directions!  Bad chemical reactions will happen if you don’t do it right!

• Pour the alcohol in the applicator bottle.
• Add in the boric acid.
• SHAKE WELL, until the boric acid has dissolved.
• Pour in the vinegar.
• SHAKE WELL.
• Pour in the iodine.
• SHAKE WELL.
• It should now be a pretty amber color, like beer… or iced tea.

Application Directions

• This is a 2-person job.  If there’s just you, you should either have super grip or use a grooming table and noose.  Wear appropriate clothes and do this outside…
• 1 person is the dog holder and the other person is the ear squirter.
• Fold the ear flap back.
• Clean the ear with a cloth, cotton ball, or Q-tip if there are crusty or gooey bits, like ear wax.  And please don’t go digging for gold deep in the poor dogs ear canal – you could hurt him!
• Squirt the solution in the ear so it completely fills it up the ear canal – you need super grip here as Mr. Doggy is not going to like you at this moment.
• Fold the ear flap back over.
• Smoosh the base of the ear so that the solution gets squished around in there.
• Push your dog to run away from you.  As soon as you let go of his ear, you’re going to get showered (so hopefully you’re wearing old clothes)
• Call doggy back and clean him up with an old towel.  You don’t want this going into his eyes or mouth.
• Repeat with the second ear!

We did this every other day for two weeks and noticed a huge improvement in Reggie’s ears.  The stink and the scratching were pretty much gone!

If you’d like additional information, please visit Zim Family Cockers Ear Cleaning page.  They explain the process in depth and have a list of FAQs regarding the recipe.  They also have a lot of cute puppies on their site!

Do you use any homemade pet remedies?

Does your dog do anything crazy, like stick their tongue out all the time?

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They’re big and they’re scary, but are they dangerous? When I first heard of this bee quite a few years ago, a was extremely worried. Killer bees? In our neighborhood? Time to kiss my childhood goodbye and curl up inside for the rest of the summer…

A couple weeks ago, I went to help D with a project and I almost stepped on a huge bug in the grass. It was a newly molted cicada that we made friends with the previous day. He was discolored and had a white belly. I said to D, “Oh no, it looks like one of those killer bees got him.” Of course, D gave me crap for thinking that giant killer bees live in Iowa and we started talking about something else. All of a sudden something went buzzing past my face. And what do you think it was? “Hey. Hey! Look who just showed up. You know those “killer bees” I was just telling you about? Well there’s one right there.”

D freaked out and told me to get some shoes on and take Gunner inside. So what’s the deal with these bees?  I went on an information hunt to find out!

Name: Sphecius speciosus
Nickname: Eastern Cicada killer (and they’re actually a wasp, not a bee)

Size: They look almost like a hummingbird when you first notice notice it.  The North Carolina Extension at Forsyth County has an excellent photo comparing the sizes of a cicada killer, paper wasp, and yellow jacket.  They are around two inches long.  As you can see, they are really are quite large!

Lifestyle and Lifecycle: The females make their nests in the ground under sparse vegetation or bare spots in the sun.  They fly close to the ground trying to find cicadas.  So you should be wearing shoes outside.  The males live for only two weeks while the females live for four weeks.  They are most active for two weeks between July and September.  The cicada-killer season is over in Iowa since it’s been getting cooler.

Do they kill? The adults don’t. The females sting the cicada which paralyzes it. She then drags the “food” back to her nest where the babies finish it off. (So they don’t kill people.)

Do they hurt people? No, if you’re not allergic and not unless you go out of your way to make the females mad. The males are very aggressive and may dive-bomb you, but they can NOT sting you. It takes a lot to get the females mad (getting tangled in clothing, touching or swatting her) but she can sting. I learned that a stinger is actually a modified female organ of some kind… weird, huh?

How bad is the sting? I can’t say because I haven’t gotten stung from one of these. But, I have read that on a scale of 1 to 4, with normal bee stings at a 2, cicada killer’s sting is a 1, in the same category as a sweat bee.

They’re everywhere! What do I do? What you don’t want to do is waste your time and money using “bombs,” yard sprays, or hiring a professional. These methods just don’t work with these wasps.  Your choices are: 1) Kill by squashing/baseball bat/tennis racket them, 2) Go after each one and spray individually, 3) Flood the burrows (nests), or 4) Grow taller denser vegetation so the wasps don’t have the urge to nest in the bare spots of your yard. It’s recommended that you don’t kill them unless you have a bad infestation and it’s affecting your life.

100 female cicada-killers can wipe out 16,000 cicadas during one season.  Cicadas lay their eggs under tree bark leaving the larvae to survive on tree roots until the following spring.  So, try to let the wasps do what nature intended them to do.

Resources:

• The North Carolina Extension at Forsyth County
• Professor Chuck Holiday’s Cicada Killer page – many excellent photos
  
• Wikipedia’s Eastern Cicada Killer page

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In an effort to add a little more personality to the blog, I’d like to start sharing bits and pieces of my non-make-an-attempt-at-everything life.  This is because although I’m usually doing something that results in a very cool end product, I feel the need to show you that I really do get out of the house and do other things… sometimes

So for my first attempt at this, I’d like to share with you one of my favorite places to go: Kalona, Iowa.  After doing some research, I found out that the Kalona area has the largest Amish and Mennonite settlement west of the Mississippi River!  You’ll never visit Kalona without seeing a barn quilt (pictured below) or a few buggies making their way through the town or countryside.

There are a lot of unique stores, a quilt museum, and bakeries, but our favorite places to go are Stringtown Grocery and Twin County Dairy Factory.  Stringtown Grocery sells stuff in bulk and you can find some unique ingredients there too.  On our most recent trip we purchased burdock root, licorice root, sassafras bark, and fennel seeds to make homemade rootbeer-type drinks.  They also sell canning supplies, cookbooks, and seed.  We usually try to squeeze in a trip to the cheese factory because they sell excellent “squeaky cheese” – cheese curds that have not been refrigerated yet, as well as specialty cheeses, jams, and a few gifts.  We visited the discount store this past weekend for the first time.  This store sells scratch and dent items as well as just expired items at a very steep discount.  All three of these stores are located on the same road.

And if you go about 10 miles to the east, you’ll find good ‘ole Riverside, Iowa.  Any self-respecting Trekkie nerd will know that as the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.  I’ve even got a photo of that as well as some Enterprise-esque “statues”.  Every June, Riverside holds Trek Fest and some of the celebrities show up too!

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Our daylilies have started blooming, even a stray that ended up in the would-be compost heap.  The yellow cultivar is ‘Going Bananas’, which from what I understood from the tag is the improved version of ‘Happy Returns’.  It has bigger blooms and sets flowers for a longer period of time.

The pink/mauve one are ‘Always Afternoon’.  To save money on plants for our retaining wall, I purchased 3 pots of daylilies and one pot of iris.  I was able to split them before planting and covered almost the entire area with them.  They looked pretty bad last fall after they were planted, but they came back and are doing wonderful!  D is especially happy since he saw how small and chlorotic they looked last fall.

We also have a small rhubarb, garlic, and then the iris’s that haven’t started blooming yet.  Can’t wait for my lavender to get bigger next year!  It’s so puny right now…

First time growing garlic.  We love garlic and can’t wait to try our homegrown bulbs!

I will definitely need to divide that hosta next spring!

I just bought this little rhubarb this year at the annual Master Gardener’s spring sale.  So far with the garlic right there and the occasional cat living under our deck, I haven’t had any pest damage!  I did recess a tuna can in case I needed to flip it over and fill it with beer to get rid of the slugs, but amazingly haven’t had to do so yet.  Wondering if it has anything to do with it being a slightly raised bed.

Cute, stray daylily.  Probably ‘Happy Returns’.  And my terribly weedy “garden” I keep putting off cleaning.  May always comes and goes so fast!

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It’s important to take good care of your skin because the skin helps your body keep infectious viruses and bacteria from entering your body.  For centuries, people have used natural methods to clean their faces. Yes, cleaning your face can be done without a trip to the synthetic chemical-ridden beauty department.

Facial masks are an excellent way to clean your pores.  When you slather on the mask (clay, gel, fruit), the material gets smooshed into your crevices and pores, attaching to the dirt particles.  As the mask dries, it pulls away from the skin and pulls all of the bad particles (dirt and dead skin cells) with it.  When you wash the mask off, you also wash away all those bad particles, leaving you with fresh and clean skin.

Masks usually have a high water content in them, so as they dry, your skin is hydrated.  Now that your pores are clean and hydrated, they can close up, giving your skin a smoother appearance.  With a warm mask, your blood vessels open up, allowing for better absorption of nutrients into your skin.

1 – Before masking your face, wash it and pat it dry.

2 – Put some of the mask into your hand.  Apply it with soft circular motions to help it get smooshed into all crevices of the face.  You want it to be thick enough that it gets into all the crevices and pores, but thin enough that it will dry and lift away the grime in your pores and on your skin.  A good rule of thumb is that you want to put on just enough so that you can’t see the skin.

3 – Let the mask dry. Each mask is different and will take from 10 to 30 minutes to dry.  When the mask is dry, use warm water and a washcloth to wash away the mask.  This keeps the pores open so that any remaining mask material is cleaned out of them, and the washcloth helps to get the mask off your face.

4 – When you’re done, you can follow up with a rinse of cold water (or an ice cube). The cold water will close the pores back up again, helping them keep future grime from entering!

So what materials are good as masks?

Apples – For acne prone skin.  Mix 1 grated apple with 5 tbsp warm honey.

Aspirin and Honey – Aspirin has astringent properties and is good for oily skin.  It can do bad things if you use it too frequently, so please use it no more than 2 times per week.  Mix a little water with aspirin tablets (not gel caps) until the tablets dissolve, then add in a little honey.  Use like any other mask.  This is a very cost effective mask – a bottle of 100 aspirin tabs at my local grocer is only 99 cents!

Avocado – For softer skin.  It is very nourishing and works great on mature, wrinkled, and dry skin.

Bananas – Help slough off dead skin, energize the face, and is a good anti-wrinkle treatment.  Can also be mixed with avocado, oatmeal, yogurt, honey, and/or vitamin E.

Clay with aloe – Clay is rich in minerals, deep cleans, and tightens pores.  Aloe soothes your skin. A cheap and readily available way to get clay is by the chunky clay kitty litter. Don’t get the powdery stuff, the stuff with blue crystals, or scented.  And please don’t put used kitty litter on your face!  As always, Michelle does an excellent job of explaining this!

Cucumber – Revives skin.  Can be mixed with yogurt.  Also great sliced over the eyes – helps reduce bagginess and dark circles.

Eggs – Egg whites leave normal to oily skin feeling tight and refined.  Mix egg whites with lemon juice to help get rid of blackheads.  Egg yolks contain vitamin A and are great for dry skin.  Egg yolks also help heal blemishes.

Honey and Almond – Moisturizes.  Best for mature, sensitive, or dry skin.  Honey has antibacterial properties.  Mix 1tsp warm honey, 1tbsp ground almonds, and enough water to make a nice paste.  Apply to face; in 10-15 minutes rinse off.

Milk – Moisturizes.  Mix with other ingredients before using.

Papaya – Contains an enzyme, papain, which dissolves oil and dead skin cells.

Strawberries – The seeds exfoliate the skin and the fruit is an astringent.  Mix with a little yogurt to sooth.

Tomato – For oily skin.  Scoop/compost seeds,  puree tomato meat with 1 tsp each lemon juice and oatmeal.

Yogurt – Cleanses and nourishes, has been used for centuries due to its healthy properties. Mix 1 tsp with juice from 1/4 orange for a refreshing mask.  For a great all-purpose deep cleaning mask for all skin types, mix 1tbsp finely ground oatmeal, 1tsp warm honey, and 1tbsp yogurt together.  Apply to face; in 10-15 minutes rinse off.

A couple notes:

• Many fruits and vegetables can also be used effectively. Anything acidic (lemon, strawberries, grapefruit, etc.) will tend to whiten and refresh your skin, but you need to be careful if your skin is dry.
• For OILY skin – bananas, strawberries, lemon, clay
• For DRY skin – avocados, honey, olive oil
• In general, don’t apply masks more often than about twice a week, and try to vary the ingredients.

For More Information:

• Witty Living’s Facial Mask Recipes
• The Dollar Stretcher’s Facial Mask Recipes
• About.com Facial Mask Recipes
• Fat Free Kitchen’s Facial Mask Recipes
• Health Recipes Homemade Facial Recipes

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Disclaimer:  I’m not a doctor or anything remotely close to a doctor.  I took a chance to try an alternative method to curing an infection and this is my opinion of what worked for me.  You are responsible for anything you try.

I get frequent urinary tract infections.  I got my first one when I was in middle school and starting in college, I got them more frequently.  They’re terrible and nobody understands the whole situation unless they’ve experienced it themselves.

Here’s how it usually goes:

• Wake up on Saturday morning – “Oh crap, I think I have a UTI.”
• Only choice now is to go to the emergency room where I’ll be chilling with sick kids for an hour before I’m seen.  There’s also a higher deductible/cost for using the ER.  Decide to wait until Monday – UTI starts getting worse.
• Pop a couple Azo to dull the pain.  Drink lots of water and feel like a bloated cow.
• Wake up on Monday morning.  Call to make an appointment with the doctor.  “Oh, well she can maybe squeeze you in on Thursday afternoon.  Would you like me to try to double book you?”  Oh, I don’t get bumped up because I know for sure that I have an infection?

At this point I’m fed up with this crap.  It’s embarrassing to go into the doctor because they want to see if you’re pregnant, then they want you to pee in a cup under pressure, then they give you a nice embarrassing lecture.  Hm, I’ve been getting them two to three times per year for the past decade.  Do you think I purposely bring them on so I can come waste two hours of my time listening to you lecture me every few months?!

So, here’s what worked the first time:

• Loads of cranberry juice.  The real stuff – not the “cocktail” because it has other stuff in it.  If you hate drinking cranberry juice like I do, get some cranberry pills.
• Azo definitly helps with the discomfort, but the disadvantage is that it turns urine a dark orangy color.
• Cystex has some antibacterial properties.  You’re not supposed to take it longer than three days and is only meant to “help inhibit the progression of infection until you see a doctor.  It is not intended to replace a doctor’s care.”  I did take it longer than the three days and nothing bad happened – in fact, the infection went away in about one week.

Doing some research, I found some alternative method of treating the UTI.  Arctostophyllos uva-ursi is a bush that has been used for centuries as a urinary antiseptic.  “Its leaves were officially a drug for urinary antiseptic in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia and the National Formulary from 1820 until 1950.”  You can purchase “uva ursi” at your local health food store in caplets or a tea.  I tried the caplets from Nature’s Way.  A couple things about uva ursi:  acids can hinder its effectiveness, meaning you shouldn’t be taking acidifying cranberry products and you shouldn’t take it longer than two weeks.  In addition to the uva ursi, I also took effervescents which help make your urinary tract basic due to the sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in it.  It also has a pain killer in it.  If you don’t want to go out and purchase the effervescent, you can try one teaspoon baking soda per glass of water.

This is what worked for me.  I was impressed by the effectiveness of the uva ursi and have been suggesting it to friends and family.  And although it’s really hard to do, you need to keep pushing fluids until the infection is cured.  Feel free to let me know what has or has not worked for you.

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How many times have you gone to take off your caked on eye makeup only to realize that you used the last of it yesterday?  Well fret no more… there’s a fantastic (and much cheaper) substitute!

• It removes eye makeup
• It conditions your hair
• It moisturizes your delicate eyelids as well as tough skin
• It’s all natural and available organically
• You can eat it, too!

So where can you get this miracle remover?  Look no further than your kitchen cupboards!  Extra Virgin Olive Oil, also known as EVOO, is not just good for your body, it’s good for your eyelids too.  Michelle, aka RiceBunny, shows us her experiment in real time on YouTube to show you that it totally works!  No chemicals… yay!

Olive Oil has been used for thousands of years for many different reasons.  Most famously, olive oil is used as an ingredient in gourmet foods due to its delicious taste and healthy nature.  Olive oil is available in many grades, including the infamous EVOO, which is made from olives pressed only once.  Before you go have so much fun today trying all these techniques out, remember…

1. Be careful around your eye area by using your ring finger
2. Do not put your mixes in the fridge or they will harden like butter
3. Use within a couple days after mixing so it doesn’t go rancid
4. When you do the bath treatments be careful! Both you and the tub will be very slippery!

There are also many other different ways to pamper yourself with olive oil:

Bath

• Shave with olive oil – it’s a natural lubricant and allows for a close shave.
• Scrub your body with an olive oil-salt or olive oil-sugar paste to make it soft and glowing.  Essential oils can be added to this mix for an extra pampering treatment.
• A variation on the above would be: Mix together 3 tablespoons EVOO, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and 2 tablespoons honey or aloe.  Leave on for 2 minutes and then rinse off.  This treatment is good for acne and is gentle enough to be used on your body and face everyday.  For more specific details, visit Michelle’s page.
• Olive bath – add a few tablespoons to your bath water.

Hair

• Control hair frizz by combing a small amount of olive oil through dry hair.
• Use olive oil as a hair tonic.  Comb a small amount through for the look of pomade without the build-up, or add a bit to wet hair for tousled look.
• Massage a small amount of olive oil through hair and comb through.  Leave on for 1-2 hours then wash hair as normal.  This treatment gives your hair a healthful shine.

Extra Moisturization

• Use a tiny amount of olive oil to moisturize your cuticles.
• Manicure time!  Soak your hands in an olive oil-water mix before manicuring.
• Mmmmmoisturizer… mix a few drops of olive oil and a few drops of fresh lemon juice in the palm of your hand.  This an be applied on damp skin or used as a hair conditioner!

Front page image courtesy of Olives101.com.

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Background

I have a terrible time leaving things in my pant pockets when they go down the laundry shoot. Money, candy, pens, pencils. Just about anything I can stuff in my pockets at work have been discovered in my pockets in the final inspection before the washing machine. Fortunately, my wife remembers to always check my clothes before she washes them. I am not usually very good at checking – I am more of a scoop and dump person when it comes to laundry; scoop up the clothes and dump them in the washing machine.

XX

So last week, when my wife called me into the laundry room and pointed to the open dryer hatch with a scowl on her face, I knew something was wrong. I peered inside and this is what I saw.

XX

I had left an ink pen in my pant pocket and it exploded all over the drying machine. Neither clothes nor machine were spared. After getting over my initial frustrations, I thought it would be a good opportunity to evaluate different stain cleaners and see how each one performed. I ventured onto the internet and looked at different recommendations for removing ink stains and picked 5 different methods to try.

The Test

The following products were tested following the manufactures directions or directions found on other websites:

• Goo-Gone (1 pint)
• Hair Spray (AquaNet and Suave)
• Ink Stain Remover  (8 fl oz)
• Baking Soda
• Bleach (96 fl oz)

See the next page for the specific results, or click here for the winner.

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One article that caught my eye was an article on Jamu.  Jamu is a way of taking care of your body by using specific herbs both inside and outside of your body through the use of special drinks and topical treatments

One of the “recipes” mentioned was rice rinse, which is an easy way to pamper your skin.  The vitamins in the rinse promote healthy skin and soften it, creating a cheap and easy at-home spa treatment.

All that you need for this treatment is rice!  How much easier could it get?  The “rinse” is just rice water, also known as the water used to wash raw rice before it’s cooked.  You’ll see on the package of rice a warning that says, “To retain vitamins and minerals, do not rinse rice before or after cooking.”  When you wash the rice, the good stuff gets washed off into the water.

Pour the water off into another bowl and let it stand long enough that the water separates from the mineral-type stuff.  Pour off some of the water – just enough that there’s a small amount of water in with the minerals in the bowl.  Use it after cleansing your face.

You can also clean your hair with the rice rinse.  Akiko at the Long Hair Community discussion boards says that:

For oilier hair you’ll need 1 1/4 cup of rice rinse, 2 teaspoons of shikakai powder, and 1 teaspoon of amla powder…

• Add shikakai and amla to rice rinse water
• Bring to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes over low heat. Let it cool.
• Strain with tea strainer.
• Use half of it per hair wash. I pour the liquid in a Rubbermaid dressing bottle with small tip. Pour over my scalp and rub. Put on a shower cap. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
• Rinse.

If you’re interested in learning more about “jamu” check out these resources.

• Jamu: The Ancient Indonesian Art of Herbal Healing by Susan Jane Beers
• The Tropical Spa by Sophie Benge
• The Jamu Shop

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