Hair

I've been making some changes to my hair routine, and so far they're going well. On Monday, I washed my hair with a baking soda rinse, and followed it up with an apple cider vinegar rinse. Then, I didn't wash my hair for 3 days. It's insane, I know. Usually by the end of the second day my scalp is begging for mercy from the itching, but I didn't have that this time. Today, I get to wash my hair again with the baking soda, but no ACV rinse. I've made a rosemary rinse though, so we'll see how that feels. It's too hot to use it yet, but I'll be doing that in a little bit. I was surprised at the 'rosy' color of the tea though. I simmered a sprig of rosemary in some water for about 15 minutes, and it turned out a really pretty rosy color. I can't wait to use it, it smells so good.

Here are the sites where I got my ideas from:

Babyslime

and

Rosemary

I am hoping that the rosemary will help with my hair strength, since after 6 kids my hair has gone a bit brittle. Wish me luck :)

If I Had A Farm.....

I'd be growing my own food instead of allowing these companies to poison me and my family.

What A Baby

US Airways passengers get $5,000 each; is it enough?

$5000 isn't enough? You land safely in a river, instead of crashing into a horrible death on solid ground, you get a bloody nose and a few bruises, and $5000 and a refunded ticket aren't enough?

Wow. Honestly, with this being an obvious accident, I think the airline is being exceedingly generous. They don't "owe" those passengers anything. There's always an inherent risk when you are on a plane, and instead of being thankful that he survived with pretty minor injuries, this guy is whining about how he's not getting more.

Hmm... Duh?

The 10 Secrets of the Effortlessly Thin

I don't know why people feel the need to keep repeating this over and over again. This has all been true for years, and it's really quite simple. I figured all this out on my own without even trying. I knew that when I skipped meals, I ate worse. When I was constantly snacking on little meals here and there, I stayed on the thinner side. I even took smaller plates at meal times, so that I wouldn't take as much food. At the very least I wouldn't waste it all. I even occasionally induldge in the sympathy eating that is supposedly so horrible, but I still try to work it in between meals, and put a limit on it somewhere. Like instead of taking the whole bag of Cheetos with me, I pour some into a bowl. Yeah, it creates another dish, but it also tells me how much I'm eating.

Is this really all that hard? Is it really difficult to just spread out and reduce the amount of food that is consumed every day? I don't even know that I'd consider myself to be the healthiest eater. I don't eat tons of fruits (it's hard finding decent fruit at the grocery store on any given day, though I'll buy it if I run across it), we eat lots of veggies, but we also eat some prepackaged types of foods. I try to go from scratch, but we do lots of cheeses and milk based things. Yet, our family is still pretty thin for the most part. I just struggle to understand the mindset of people who think starving themselves is a really good idea.

Whatever Happened To Sending Your Kids Outside?

A "new study" suggests that kids and adults need much more Vitamin D, and have doubled the "suggested requirements" for the vitamin. It can be found in milk and some fish, among other things. While it's briefly mentioned in the article that the best source is sunlight unhampered by sunscreen, it's practically tossed out as dangerous because of the risks of sun exposure. I'm sorry, but people have gotten along just fine going into the sun here and there, without serious detriment. Most of the people who have issues are the ones that stay in the sun to get a tan, or are working outside constantly. When you're exposed to it for very long periods of time as with anything else, you're likely to have issues. But sending your kids outside for 15 minutes here and there on days where it's not 98 degrees outside, generally isn't going to be a major issue. This isn't rocket science. Get outside a little bit here and there. It's not going to kill you!

Remember, It's For The Children

I haven't paid much attention to the cigarette tax that's coming up, mostly because I don't smoke. I don't agree with it because it's just another stupid tax to take money away from people who want to make bad decisions in life. As I was reading an article on wisn.com today though, this particular line caught my eye.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids predicts the higher tax will stop nearly 66,000 Wisconsin children from starting smoking. And it will make 33,300 smokers quit.

First of all, I highly doubt that the cost of cigarettes will stop children from smoking. At that age, it's a peer thing. Of course, I suppose that at any age it's a peer thing, as there's no good reason to start smoking. But aside from that, since when has it become the government's right to stop anyone from smoking something that is perfectly legal? Why should it be the government's job to "make" people quit by raising taxes? Is this just another feel-good-ism type of tax that's supposed to "fix" some "problem" that they've come up with? Yes, there are probably people who will finally quit smoking because of the cost. Likely, they wanted to quit before but didn't have a good enough reason. However, I doubt it will affect that much, certainly not the numbers they're predicting anyway.

Somehow, This Doesn't Surprise Me

I read an article today that discussed the efficacy of using anti-bacterial hand soaps,
versus regular hand soaps. The article basically states that the anti-bacterial soaps don't do anything more than regular soaps, and may even cause some resistance to certain bacteria. I'm really not at all surprised by this. I mean, our ancestors did just fine with ash and tallow, why do we need fancy, chemical laden stuff that doesn't work any better than the other?

Read the article for yourself here.