About a year ago, Louie suddenly started having (shh, don't tell her I told) body odor! I had heard about there being aluminum in deodorant, but I had about a 20 year supply of ArridXX that I got for a steal of a deal, so I was going to just keep using it until it ran out (or I died from too many metals in my body). But when my baby suddenly seemed to be sometimes in need of deodorant; well, there was NO WAY that I was going to let her be exposed to all that junk! So I chucked (well, donated - other people are going to buy it anyway. I may as well save them some money. Right?) my 20 year supply and bought some natural deodorants from the health food store.
Now, I'm not the stinkiest person in the world, (like, you can't smell me unless you stick your nose too close), but I definitely DO have body odor. With my Arrid, by the end of the day I kinda stunk, and with my natural deodorants, by the end of the day I kinda stunk (and really stunk by the time I got to my shower next day). Unless a shirt had a lower armpit, I couldn't wear it more than once due to the musty smell.
So, I was reading through Lady Susan's blog a few days ago and came across her recipe for deodorant. (I think it could possibly have uses on babies bums too. I wonder...) I had all the ingredients already, so I thought I would make a trial batch (since it is a 1:1:1 ratio, my trial batch included 1/2 tsp. of each ingredient.). I have a ton of arrowroot (a lot more than I have of cornstarch), baking soda and coconut oil that I had purchased through Azure Standard. I decided to go unscented for my trial batch. Why waste the essential oils?
Day 1: Yesterday. As you may have noticed from my previous blog, it was a crazy day. That being the case, I didn't get out of my shower until 2:00 (naptime!). I applied the natural deodorant mixture with my fingers (I also was too lazy to melt the oil first, so it was more "cut in" than completely mixed. I just had to mush it well to get it stick together better.) It kind of had the feel of my old ArridXX. I kept thinking I had to wash the deodorant off my hands, and then had to remind myself that I could eat this stuff if I wanted to, and I didn't have to wash it off. I could just rub it in! I smelled myself before bed. Nada. Not even the faintest musty smell.
Day 2: Today. So, I normally take a shower every day (cause I'm too stinky not to), but today I had to be somewhere early, and didn't have time to. But I wasn't stinky when I woke up, so I thought I would be okay. I didn't even wash my armpits, but I did reapply some more of my natural deodorant, to be safe. I smelled my pits throughout the day (I did perspire some, but I'm okay with that). No smell. And I just smelled myself about 1 minute ago. Nothing. I smell like me! Without any stench! I am so stinkin' excited!
Now I just need to find a deodorant container to put my homemade stuff into. Anyone have some extra Arrid containers they want to get rid of?
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
My family
I am a wife to a wonderful man "Hubby" who I will have been married to for 13 years next Monday. I am the mother of a fluctuating number of children. I have a 9-year-old daughter "Louie" and a 4-year-old son "Chuckles". I have also been blessed to be able to be a foster parent to 11 different children over the last five years. I currently have two amazingly gorgeous foster daughters, 2.5-year-old "Jack" and 18-month-old "Pie." (And those are really our nicknames for them!).
I love being a wife, and I love being a mom. However, loving it doesn't always make it easy. Today, for example, was crazy. My house looks like a tornado went through it. I was after Louie all day to do her chores (some left over from yesterday). Chuckles bit Louie. Chuckles hit Jack and then said that Jack hit him (not that the reason he had hit her was because she had hit him, but that she had been the only one doing the hitting. He has been blaming the babies quite a bit lately for things he has done.) Louie informed me (while crying because I told her to work on her chores) about how embarrassed she is that I am "natural, not normal!" (Why can't you be like everyone else's mom?!!!) Chuckles dumped Jack's sippy cup all over the bathroom floor. I raised my voice with Louie and our neighbor boys heard. (It's hard when you live in a duplex!) Jack soaked through at least 5 diapers and pants (She can go from dry to overflowing in less than 1 hour! She drinks a lot of water.) Pie kept climbing up on the table. NO ONE was listening to me! Everyone was crying for no good reason! I called my husband (who is currently about 26 hours away) and told him what a hard day I was having. A lady from my church called and asked how I was doing and I lied through my teeth. I was having a rotten day. It was about the closest I've ever been to breaking down and crying right in front of my kids!
Then, the kids got ready for bed. We read our scriptures (with the kids actually listening and keeping fairly quiet). The kids took turns saying their prayers and we had our family prayer. Louie and Chuckles went into their room. I put Pie down in her bed, and then stood quietly in the dark room swaying and holding Jack while she snuggled into me. There's nothing better than that. What a great day.
I love being a wife, and I love being a mom. However, loving it doesn't always make it easy. Today, for example, was crazy. My house looks like a tornado went through it. I was after Louie all day to do her chores (some left over from yesterday). Chuckles bit Louie. Chuckles hit Jack and then said that Jack hit him (not that the reason he had hit her was because she had hit him, but that she had been the only one doing the hitting. He has been blaming the babies quite a bit lately for things he has done.) Louie informed me (while crying because I told her to work on her chores) about how embarrassed she is that I am "natural, not normal!" (Why can't you be like everyone else's mom?!!!) Chuckles dumped Jack's sippy cup all over the bathroom floor. I raised my voice with Louie and our neighbor boys heard. (It's hard when you live in a duplex!) Jack soaked through at least 5 diapers and pants (She can go from dry to overflowing in less than 1 hour! She drinks a lot of water.) Pie kept climbing up on the table. NO ONE was listening to me! Everyone was crying for no good reason! I called my husband (who is currently about 26 hours away) and told him what a hard day I was having. A lady from my church called and asked how I was doing and I lied through my teeth. I was having a rotten day. It was about the closest I've ever been to breaking down and crying right in front of my kids!
Then, the kids got ready for bed. We read our scriptures (with the kids actually listening and keeping fairly quiet). The kids took turns saying their prayers and we had our family prayer. Louie and Chuckles went into their room. I put Pie down in her bed, and then stood quietly in the dark room swaying and holding Jack while she snuggled into me. There's nothing better than that. What a great day.
I have been inspired.
Having newly come to the world of blogging, I happened across this blog. Having been thoroughly entertained by Lady Susan, I decided to set off on my own writing adventure. I do not expect to be nearly as entertaining or as witty as Lady Susan, however, this adventure will give me the chance to write about many things which I want to share. I currently have another blog which is available for my family, close friends, and my children's birth families to see. However, there are certain things which I don't necessarily want to share with all of them (for example, my sometimes use of "family cloth". Of course, it is the first thing I mention here, so you can know right away what you may be getting into. I'd rather share that with complete strangers.) In this blog, I expect to write about whatever random thing I want to share at the time.
First ramble of the blog: I do not generally consider myself a writer. I actually commonly say, and feel, that I hate to write. I think that the reason for that starts back in 6th grade when I heard some girls making fun of my friend's poetry. I had been writing what I considered to be pretty good poetry, but I started to feel like maybe I couldn't write for my own enjoyment. I might be mocked! What if I used the wrong word? What if it sounded babyish? What if someone thought less of me after reading my writing?
The next time period I remember really having an impact on my like of writing (I don't know how much I ever really loved it) was during 8th grade in my English class. We had to write all sorts of stories. First, we had to do a rough draft...AND THEN HAVE OUR PEERS CRITIQUE AND PROOFREAD IT! Then a second draft...AND HAVE OUR PEERS CRITIQUE AND PROOFREAD IT! (There may have been yet another round of this humiliation.) Then a final draft, which we could turn in. Being something of a perfectionist, I would critique and correct as I wrote. There was no way that I was willing to consciously leave in misspellings or improper punctuation, etc. The final result of my refusal to let anyone see anything but my best in the first place, was a lack of the proper amount of drafts (since once I finally showed any of my writing to any of my peers, I rarely, if ever, got any corrections; how can you make more than one draft without any changes?), and therefore, a poor grade in the class. If this was what writing was, I didn't like it.
My dislike of writing caused me, at times, to make some poor choices in school. In 9th grade, I got a D- in a class because I refused to turn in the two main projects which involved writing reports (I believe they also involved other scary things like interviewing people, but that may have been a different class). I dropped out of a class mid-course during college because I was overwhelmed by the amount of writing I would have to do. It was a really interesting course too.
My fear of writing has been the main cause of my not completing my degree. Why torture myself? And forget even thinking about doing a Master's...a THESIS???!!!! Never in a million years!
Now, lest you think that my angst about writing has caused a permanent writer's block until this moment, let me put your worries to rest. I actually have written a fair amount of papers that have been required of me for various reasons. I have also semi-faithfully kept a journal. But to purposely set out to do something like, say, write a book sounds about as fun to me as walking on a bed of nails.
I give you this information, dear readers, in the hopes that you will be easy on me. Try not to make fun of me. Overlook any improper punctuation, poor grammar, misspellings, overuse of parentheses and ... (whatever those dotdotdot things are called), annoying repetition, annoying repetition, annoying repetition, um...or any other flaws in my ramblings. I say this hypocritically, because I often notice these things in other people's writings (but not on purpose!). I try really hard to see past it, though.
Having written all that, I look up and see that I can't find a spellcheck button! Also, no right-clicking on a word to see synonyms. What if I used the wrong word (is angst even the right word to put in? Is is spelled correctly?)? -(Is that where the question mark even belongs?!!!) Stress is starting to build up. I could check my dictionary and my writing guide to make sure, but do I really want to stop this before it gets off the ground? That could make this whole adventure too overwhelming. I take a deep breath and decide. I'll just write.
First ramble of the blog: I do not generally consider myself a writer. I actually commonly say, and feel, that I hate to write. I think that the reason for that starts back in 6th grade when I heard some girls making fun of my friend's poetry. I had been writing what I considered to be pretty good poetry, but I started to feel like maybe I couldn't write for my own enjoyment. I might be mocked! What if I used the wrong word? What if it sounded babyish? What if someone thought less of me after reading my writing?
The next time period I remember really having an impact on my like of writing (I don't know how much I ever really loved it) was during 8th grade in my English class. We had to write all sorts of stories. First, we had to do a rough draft...AND THEN HAVE OUR PEERS CRITIQUE AND PROOFREAD IT! Then a second draft...AND HAVE OUR PEERS CRITIQUE AND PROOFREAD IT! (There may have been yet another round of this humiliation.) Then a final draft, which we could turn in. Being something of a perfectionist, I would critique and correct as I wrote. There was no way that I was willing to consciously leave in misspellings or improper punctuation, etc. The final result of my refusal to let anyone see anything but my best in the first place, was a lack of the proper amount of drafts (since once I finally showed any of my writing to any of my peers, I rarely, if ever, got any corrections; how can you make more than one draft without any changes?), and therefore, a poor grade in the class. If this was what writing was, I didn't like it.
My dislike of writing caused me, at times, to make some poor choices in school. In 9th grade, I got a D- in a class because I refused to turn in the two main projects which involved writing reports (I believe they also involved other scary things like interviewing people, but that may have been a different class). I dropped out of a class mid-course during college because I was overwhelmed by the amount of writing I would have to do. It was a really interesting course too.
My fear of writing has been the main cause of my not completing my degree. Why torture myself? And forget even thinking about doing a Master's...a THESIS???!!!! Never in a million years!
Now, lest you think that my angst about writing has caused a permanent writer's block until this moment, let me put your worries to rest. I actually have written a fair amount of papers that have been required of me for various reasons. I have also semi-faithfully kept a journal. But to purposely set out to do something like, say, write a book sounds about as fun to me as walking on a bed of nails.
I give you this information, dear readers, in the hopes that you will be easy on me. Try not to make fun of me. Overlook any improper punctuation, poor grammar, misspellings, overuse of parentheses and ... (whatever those dotdotdot things are called), annoying repetition, annoying repetition, annoying repetition, um...or any other flaws in my ramblings. I say this hypocritically, because I often notice these things in other people's writings (but not on purpose!). I try really hard to see past it, though.
Having written all that, I look up and see that I can't find a spellcheck button! Also, no right-clicking on a word to see synonyms. What if I used the wrong word (is angst even the right word to put in? Is is spelled correctly?)? -(Is that where the question mark even belongs?!!!) Stress is starting to build up. I could check my dictionary and my writing guide to make sure, but do I really want to stop this before it gets off the ground? That could make this whole adventure too overwhelming. I take a deep breath and decide. I'll just write.
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