Natural beauty

I want to share two "recipes" for natural beauty products that I've made recently. The first comes from "Herb Quarterly" and is a facial mask. Using a coffee grinder on the expresso setting, grind enough coffee beans to make a quarter cup of powdery beans (they have to be finely ground or the recipe won't work). Add one-fourth cup powdered cocoa and one-half cup whole milk. Stir together till it forms a creamy paste. Apply to face and leave on for fifteen minutes, then rinse off. This leaves my skin feeling toned and soothed at the same time.
     The other recipe comes from a fashion blog I follow. It's for a dry shampoo and works well when your hair is oily but you don't want to wash it everyday cause it's too drying. Take a half-cup of cornstarch, one tablespoon of baking soda, one tablespoon cocoa powder and one teaspoon of cinnamon. Mix together well and put in a shaker jar (I used a vintage sugar shaker). Apply to dry hair and use a large make-up brush to distribute throughout hair. This keeps your hair looking good and smelling good.
     I finally got the book "Wildly Affordable Organic" and am preparing to change the way I buy and cook food. My garden is doing well at present, peas,beans, and tomatoes are doing well. Still waiting to transplant peppers and eggplants. My herb garden is in the front yard and so far I have sage, rosemary, cilantro, and I just planted basil and fenugreek today.  I have basil and parsley indoors.  Everything is coming up green.

Feels like summer

Well, today the temperature officially reached 90 degrees so it feels like a taste of summer to come. It feels so good to be able to BREATHE normally again--I had pneumonia back in March and with the crappy weather we had--first hot, then cold, then colder--it took quite a while to recover.  My yard finally looks decent. Since I never was able to find a battery (and didn't want to pay $150.00 for one) I decided to let go of my electric mower. It didn't work well on my yard anyway--the grass is so thick in spots that it put an incredible strain on the battery.  I hired a guy to mow the yard and I bought a trimmer (really nice, I like it) so hopefully we can keep the yard looking OK. I say OK cause it'll never look good--due to flocks of starlings roosting in my oak tree, the backyard is half grass and half who-knows what. Those darn birds pooped everywhere and deposited all kinds of unwanted seeds.  The trimmer is lightweight and uses a lithium battery. I actually enjoy using it. My old one had a cord and was heavy and unwieldy.
     I'm planning to attend a writer's conference in June.   Haven't felt much like writing this past winter, now that I've recovered from being ill and the weather is good, maybe it'll put me in the mood to write. I have done a lot of reading over the winter--mostly organic living magazines and some good non-fiction books.  The last fiction book I read was "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle".  I liked it but it took a little too long to get started.  I'm sort of a minimalist writer--I like to keep the reader's interest so I don't elaborate on things and try to keep the story moving along. My favorite movies have always been action-adventure movies and my fiction reflects it. 
     Spring is here and the Earth breathes a sigh of relief.

Wandering but not lost

It's been a long time since I've updated my blog--Boxer passed on back in November of 2012 and his last months were hard for me. It's hard to watch the animal you've loved for fourteen years deteriorate in body and mind. I do believe he had some form of dementia towards the end. I have a new dog, Jaxon, whom I rescued in April of last year. He's a Plotthound-German shepherd mix (I think). He's such a sweet, happy dog. He loves everyone, rarely barks, and has become quite the couch potato. 
     I was involved in an auto accident (no fault of mine) at the beginning of January when a guy rear-ended me driving a Ford F-150. My car was totaled. I recently got a 2004 Grand Am and it's a good car. I was very stressed out for the first two months of this year; last night was the first time I'd driven in heavy (interstate) traffic since the accident. It went pretty smoothly so I must be back to "normal" whatever that is.
      I've lost about 14 pounds since last August and I've been working out at Nautilus so I can lose more and shape up. I feel stronger since I've been working out and I don't have near as much pain in my shoulders.
     I wonder where my life is headed. I've reached that age where I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do and nobody is going to stop me. I've spent way too much of my life being what other people thought I should be--trouble is, it wasn't me. Over the last few years, I've noticed that people have developed strong opinions about me--they either love me or hate me, but I'm not :"invisible" like I was in the past. I'm starting to realize that I have a mysterious soul, and that scares some people.   There's no need to be afraid--I'm just more spiritually inclined than a lot of people.
     Now that my life has recovered from losing Boxer, I'll try to write more often.

My poor garden

Well, I haven't written anything about my gardening efforts this year because I have no garden to speak of. Extremely high temperatures, combined with severe drought = no garden. My blackberry brambles are doing OK due to a soaker hose. Very few blackberries, but this was its first year so I didn't expect much. This weather has been awful. Climate change has come to the United States. I was doing some activities with llamas and alpacas but I gave it a break cause it's been so hot. Very stressful for the animals. Boxer is really showing signs of age, has some neurological issues with his back legs, weakness and loss of sensation. He still wants to go for walks, but I keep them short and slow. My oak tree will probably have to come down, a huge branch fell from it and smashed the fence. The branch showed signs of rotting within that can't be seen from the outside. I'm worried a storm may blow the tree over onto the house. So I've been feeling pretty stressed out, keep forgetting things and very distracted a lot of the time. I hope you're doing well in your neck of the woods. Pray for rain.

Globe lamp

Here is my lamp made from a vintage globe--an idea I got from my favorite magazine, MaryJane's Farm. I got the globe for one dollar at a yard sale; the lamp was seven dollars and the trim was a yard for two dollars. So the total cost of my lamp was ten dollars--not bad at all. It now graces my living room.

This is winter?

It doesn't feel like January today--I took Boxer for a walk and actually felt a little warm by the time we were done. The other day it was freezing. Weird weather. Makes me wonder what the spring will bring. I've already planned what seeds to order--I'm not going to try growing so many different things this year--just going to grow those things I know will do well. I've been doing yoga almost every day now for the past few weeks and feel a lot better. I helped count eagles a few weeks ago and we counted 42. Not bad, but we probably would have seen a lot more had it been colder. We saw a great blue heron catch a fish--he just plunged his bill into the water and came up with a fish. They are beautiful birds. I hope we don't have a too-wet spring like last year. I'm looking forward to harvesting some blackberries.

Whew!!! It's been a long time since I last checked in. I was very sick with asthma/bronchitis a while back and just wasn't feeling very well for several months. But now I'm back up to speed. My garden didn't do very well this year due to an excessively wet spring and a hot, dry summer. I'm almost finished painting my living room and I need to get started on Christmas gifts. I got a new computer (a storm killed the Apple computer that my brother gave me after my original bit the dust). Boxer turned thirteen in May and Koko is eighteen. I don't even want to think about my birthday in January. I don't even want to think about winter--that means snow! I like the snow, but I'm in no hurry for it. Today was a mild day, rather windy, and I saw a sundog this evening so I know the weather is going to change. I hope you're having good weather, wherever you are.