Sometimes Things Just Work Out Perfectly

Today, my childhood best friend had a baby, and I was the designated photographer at the hospital, which was a complete joy, but I am tired - I can't even imagine how exhausted she is!

As a result of that tiredness, I'm grateful that the slip of paper I drew for tonight's blog said "Put your music player on shuffle and write the first three songs that play and what your initial thought is."

Easy breezy lemon squeezy:
Not entirely sure I've ever said that in real life, but I'm going to leave it there anyway.

1. Next to Me - Emeli Sandé - I have a very distinct memory of taking the backroads home from a friend's house in my early years post-college, feeling entirely young and wild and free, with this song playing on the radio - that memory is the reason I bought the song, so that's what I thought of.
2. Movie Loves a Screen - April Smith and the Great Picture Show - This song is just a make-you-happy-no-matter-what song, also, my go-to dance-like-crazy-in-the-kitchen song, so just a general flood of happiness ensued.
3. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae - My ultimate favorite song ever.  If I tell you a different song is my favorite, it's just a temporary thing, and I will eventually return to my first love.  Really - this is the first song I ever fell deeply in love with.

Aaaaaaaand, that's all, folks!

Reality Check

Well, I could tell you about what I'd like to think my morning routine looks like
OR
I could tell you how my morning actually went down today

OR
I could do both:

I've never been super attached to the idea of a set-in-stone routine, and though I've been at the same job for a little over a year and a half now, my schedule has pretty much changed constantly over the course of that time - nothing that could be helped, and quite frankly something I've enjoyed about my job.  As much as I'm really not a fan of change (I like to have a plan), I do tend to get bored with the same thing over and over.  All these schedule changes gave me the opportunity to pursue various new things as different time-frames during the day opened up.

With my most recent schedule change, I ended up not going to work until 11, and I know myself well enough to know that, just because I could, I would sleep away my morning until such time as I had to get up to go to work.

That being so, I designed this morning routine that would make me actually get up at a decent hour, and laid it all out in my journal:

• My alarm goes off at 6:45, and I let myself snooze it until 7ish - I'm working on learning to get up before my alarm goes off if I wake up feeling rested
• I always keep my water bottle by my bed at night, so first thing when I get up, I drink whatever water is left in there
• Make coffee and have a quiet time - write out gratitude/answer Bible Study questions for the week.
• Make a green smoothie (theoretically, every Sunday, I stock the freezer with "smoothie packs" for the week - all the fruit I need for a smoothie in a plastic bag with the amounts of liquid base I'll need and any ingredients that shouldn't freeze listed on the outside of the bag)
• Get dressed + ready for the day + make bed + tidy bedroom and bathroom

Sounds pretty great, right?  And it really is when I actually carry through and make it happen, but some days that just doesn't work out so well for me.  As an example, here's what my morning actually looked like today:

• Dragged myself out of bed at 6:45, drank my water, and discovered that I was out of coffee creamer.  Now, my love for coffee is pretty strong, but rather conditional on the availability of cream and sugar...
• Curled up on the couch, mourning the loss of morning coffee, checked emails, and might have dozed off for a minute or two?
• Looked at the clock to discover that it was 7:41! (Yoga class is at 8...)
• Suddenly realized I was starving, and hadn't made smoothie packs for this week, so raided the cabinet and found graham crackers and almond butter
• Threw on work-out clothes and headed out the door, except no!  The "tidying" part of my routine hasn't been happening this week, and I just tossed my keys somewhere when I got home last night, so I can't find them now
• Found my keys on the bedside table, and looked at my bed, considering whether I should or should not make it - I'm washing linens today and I'm already late, so might as well not.
• Hit the gym

Side note:  I just really wanted to say that... I'm still such a newb at the whole "working out" thing.  This month, I bought my first gym membership, mostly for the fact that there are yoga and ballet exercise classes in the morning, but I have some time between the two classes, so I'm trying to learn how to use at least the basic equipment.  

This morning, I felt like I was handling the treadmill like a boss, then I did the whole fall off the back of it thing, so that was great...

• Ran to the grocery store for creamer, and while I was there, remembered I need toothpaste too.
• Felt like I finally got my life back on track, then got home to realize it was body wash I was out of, not toothpaste...

I guess you win some and you lose some.

Let's discuss the fact that I'm not married.

My topic for today was "Your current relationship; if single, discuss that."
Well, I'm single, and I have a lot of thoughts about that, and I actually already had a draft all about it, so here's a long-winded post for your Tuesday:

*I wrote this a while back, hence the titles of old articles that aren't really floating around any more.  It took me awhile to decide to post it because hurting anyone who loves me is the furthest thing from my intentions. But sometimes people who love us say things with the best of intentions and still end up hurting us, so here I am, hoping that I can be gracious and make my point at the same time.*

Lately there have been a lot of articles and blog entries shared on Facebook about marriage - "5 Reasons I Got Engaged Before 23", "23 Things To Do Instead of Getting Engaged Before You're 23",  "26, unmarried, and childless", and "I Wasn't Ready For Marriage" to name a few.

Apparently 23 is a trendy age at which to get married?  I remember when I was 20, and signed up to work on Sumer Staff at camp, and a well-meaning friend of my Mom's said to me "That is such a great idea!  You could meet a really nice man there!"

I was recently asked "So, are you engaged or married?"

Apparently there wasn't a "single" option.

Once, I off-handedly mentioned to someone that three of my closest friends were married to men they'd met at camp.  She replied "And I'm sure you will be too, one day."
(Not the point of the conversation, in case you were wondering.)

Some time back, at a wedding shower no less, I ran into someone who hadn't seen me in a while, and she innocently said "I can't remember, are you married?"
Before I could even open my mouth to respond, another lady jumped in and said "No. She's still waiting."

This list could go on...

Really, though, I know that none of these women meant any harm by their words.  They were just trying to be friendly and encouraging.  Regardless of the intentions, though, it's hard to hear things like this all of the time.

If I'm honest with you, as I try to be on this blog, I have to admit, sooner or later, that The-Thing-I-Really-Want-To-Do-With-My-Life is to be somebody's wife, and mother to a few somebodies.

That's it.

Yes, I want to write and write, and write.

Yes, I want to get a Master's degree eventually.

And yes, it is a big dream of mine to someday teach college students who hate English to love it and express themselves well through writing it.

These are dreams and goals that I have, and am pursuing.

But the biggest dream is one I can't accomplish on my own.

It's one I may not accomplish.

Did you catch that?  I just said I may not ever get married or have kids.

If you think that was easy for me to say, let me tell you right now, it wasn't.

The fact is, though, that I have no assurance, no firm promise, that I will have those things that I want so much.

Jesus and I have had a lot of conversations about this, and my poor mother has had to answer her fair share of weepy phone calls about it.

And you know what?  I've received a lot of encouragement through those conversations with Jesus, and phone calls with my mother, but assurance that "my turn" will, in fact, come "one day"?  There's none.

Zip, Zero, Nada.

I'm learning that just the fact that I have a desire for something doesn't mean it's going to be a part of my life.

I may end up being the awesome old English teacher who lives in a house full of windows, where the tea kettle is always boiling, with a Cottage Garden in the front, and a yard full of dogs in the back.

(I'm allergic to cats.  Otherwise, I'd probably include "Cat-lady" here...)

Right now, as I write that image, I'm smiling.  I'm learning to be okay happy with it.

Ultimately, friends?  Jesus is enough.

I am, in fact, happy with this point in my life, with the extended (maybe life-long!) chance to invest in the girls that surround me without feeling guilty about taking time away from a family, to speak truth into the lives of many others, and be available 24/7.

I am happy to play "Auntie" to my friends' wonderful children - those who are already here, and those who are coming.

I am happy, so happy, that I have the freedom to travel whenever I like, and visit my friends who have gotten married and thus been scattered to the 4 Winds.

That has not been an easy road.  I didn't willingly rush into the arms of this new kind of happiness.

I have drug my feet, and this road has even been made a little harder by all the well-meaning women in my life who tell me things like "Don't worry.  Your turn will come."

Simply put, I'm happy here now.  I'm not worrying.

But if you tell me not to worry, I'm going to start worrying, and I'm going to fix my eyes on things other than Jesus and where He's leading me.  If you tell me my turn will come, I'm going to start clinging to a false assurance that is not from Him. 

The hard thing about all of this is that these people who love me may be fully convinced their words are true, but the fact is, at this point in my life, those words are not true for me, and are not what I need to be focusing on.

My family and my friends have never pushed me into matrimony.  They've never told me that it was my only choice, or even that it was the best choice, but, regardless, we live in a world where marriage is such a huge focus.

It's such a huge focus, that we're choosing sides about whether we should be engaged before we're 23.
It's such a huge focus, that we assume everyone who wants to be married is going to be married eventually, and we talk in those terms.

When I say "we," I'm talking to myself too.  I'm just as guilty of dishing out these platitudes as anyone else.  It's almost an automatic response in our society.

But, I want to suggest a better way.  Let's not discuss the fact that I'm not married yet.

Let's just discuss the fact that I'm not married.

Let's discuss the fact that there are lots of good things about this time.

"But that's the discussion we've always had," you may say to me.

Yes that's true, but these discussions almost always end with "And when you are married..."

Let's not do that.

Also?  Please tell me funny stories about your kids and grandkids.

Tell me about that hilarious moment you had with your husband last week.

And, if you're really ready to trust me, tell me about that argument you're in the middle of.

I have friends who are married, and who have children, and I've managed to keep up these friendships through receiving and giving this type of transparency.  It may seem weird to talk to a single, childless woman about your marriage or children.  But really, think about how boring life would be if we only talked about things we both fully understood or were comfortable with.

A dear friend of mine put it perfectly the other day when she said "Sometimes I feel like a non-person."

We're not Moms, or wives, but neither are we just waiting around or in between.
We are people, fully formed adult people with intelligence, and self-control, and understanding, and empathy.

Even though our lives now look very different, there's no reason we can't relate.  We're both human, and, ultimately, have the same struggles, just in different environments.

And when I trust you enough to bring my heart to you, handle it with care, knowing that you (and I) have no idea how my life will turn out.

I will try to give you that same respect, because, honestly, we could have this discussion about any number of life stages.

Let's Talk About Social Media

For my first topic in this November challenge, I ended up drawing the slip of paper that corresponded to the first day of the challenge - what are the odds of that?

Seriously, somebody *cough* mathematician-brother-in-law *cough* figure that out and tell me, because I actually kinda want to know.

I'm supposed to write about "Five Problems with Social Media" and it shouldn't be too hard for me to come up with those, but really?  Could we not start this out on a more positive note?

Let's just see what I can do with this:

• We're constantly competing with our friends' phone screens/social media accounts for their attention.  I personally don't watch movies for entertainment.  I could count on one hand the amount of times I have sat in my house by myself and thought "I really want to watch a movie."  This is something I do with friends as a way of spending time with them, but lately I've noticed every time a friend suggests movie night, we're not sitting around looking at a glowing screen and talking about what's happening 10 feet in front of us.  We're really just each individually absorbed in the glowing screen one foot in front of us instead.  Same goes for dinner out - this was once a time reserved for spending face-to-face time with people, but no more - we're constantly checking our instagram, twitter, facebook, blog, etc.

What is the deal here?  Are we afraid they're going to disappear if we don't connect with them every 5 minutes?  What about the actual friends in front of us?  What'll happen if they really do disappear because we ceased connecting with them in significant ways?

• Social media is a great vehicle for jealousy.  We're all putting our best foot forward, so to speak, and we're all afraid to put our mess out there for everybody to look at.  Consequently, we think we're the only ones in the world that have a mess, because we don't see anybody else's mess on social media.

Preaching to the choir, but seriously.  What kind of messed up logic is this that we assume we're the only ones masking our life here.

• Social media inhibits our ability to acknowledge each other's basic humanity in a major way - it's so easy to shoot off a quick, maybe cruel, comment or message when all you're looking at is a perfect smiling face on a 4.7-inch screen.

Let's all just agree to take a breath and re-read before sending anything that could be even slightly hurtful. Just consider for a minute how we, in all of our tender thin skin, would feel if somebody said exactly that to us.

• People find you.  Creepy people can find you, and you can even engage with them thinking that they're harmless.  This is a reality a lot of us become numbed to, because social media is so easily logged out of or locked, but it's also super easy to unwisely put too much out there and get into trouble for it.

Sometimes even, as sad as this might sound, you just need separation from a person in your past - maybe a past relationship that will keep holding you back unless you cut ties, or just someone who has hurt you emotionally.  These ties to our past are So. Much. Harder. to cut than they were before the advent of facebook, etc.

• Social Media is MURDERING good grammar.  Maybe I punctuated that last sentence in the above paragraph the way I did because I wanted to make a point here, or maybe I did it just because it somehow seems appropriate since everybody else does it.

I'm as guilty of this as the next person, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make me sad that "proper grammar" may be a thing of the past by the time my children are old enough to learn about it.

People, what if a sentence someday becomes just an old-fashioned convention nobody uses anymore?!

Somebody please stop me before I really become a drama queen about this.

Whew!  I just wrote a list of five negative things about social media!  Where's my award?

But really, I couldn't close this post without saying a few good things too:

Social media keeps me in touch with people I would have lost contact with by now if I'd lived a generation ago.

In my past, I was blessed to work with people from all over the world (I'd like to think I'd have housing, or at least connections, if I wanted to travel almost anywhere on this big planet).  My mom at my age would never have been able to keep up with as many people in as many different places as I have.

I can make friends with people anywhere - I'm not restricted to meeting people in person.

Before I say anything else about this, let me be perfectly clear - no one should ever have only online friends - there is no substitute for an actual make-eye-contact, touch-your-hand, buy-you-ice-cream friend in your real world, but I am learning that online friends are fun too.

Remember pen pals from when we were little?  I have one of those that I met on Instagram, and I am so happy we're in each other's life "for real" now.  Maybe I'll actually get to buy her ice cream someday.

Also, no one should just throw personal information out there willy-nilly because they think they made a friend - always always be careful and wise in your actions and words.

And finally, networking! Most of us could theoretically get a job anywhere on this green earth through just putting out feelers to our friends on social media. 

In more personal aspects of life, even - tonight, I sent an email to a random blogger, just to tell her she'd sprinkled a little inspiration onto my life, and she actually replied, expressing interest in supporting me along the way.  How wonderful is that?

Social media is truly amazing if used wisely.

Wow. It has been a little while.

And I have seriously missed blogging, but obviously not enough to take a stab at creating more than one measly draft in the time since my last post...

I think I miss blogging in a weird way - I don't necessarily think about it when I'm not working on it, but I know my life is just a little happier when I'm taking advantage of this great creative outlet.

I recently happily discovered this blog where a fellow alum of my University is chronicling one year of her life.  I don't know what she'll do on her next birthday, but I seriously hope she'll continue.  Everything I've read so far is delightful, and she has inspired me to do the same with my 28th year.  I've heard that each decade's -9 year is the most difficult, but I have a sneaking suspicion that 28 may not be my favorite, just because of the fact that my worst years have generally been the even ones.

All that to say, making a point to write once a day will only make it better, no matter how it turns out.

I'd been tossing this adea around in my head, and looking forward to starting on December 8th, when I saw that another friend was starting a November writing challenge - not NaNoWriMo, which I have never tried to conquer - just a simple topic each day, all except one of which looked like they would be fun to write about.  Since I'm starting on November 2nd, I figured I'd just leave out the one that seemed less-than-pleasant to me...

Theoretically, there's a topic for each day of November, but I decided, rather than following the pattern (because really, when have I ever done that well), I'll just write each topic on a slip of paper and draw one topic a day.

So I've got that going for November, but then I have 7 intervening days before my birthday.

What to do, what to do?

Friends, I have 10 drafts sitting in this entire blog, three of which were never really intended for publication anyway.  What's 10 minus three?

*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*

It's SEVEN!

So, you can now look forward to hearing from me every day until New Year's Eve, 2016.

Bah!  We all know that's a lie - I'll fail and skip days in there somewhere, but if there's one thing I've learned from past resolutions, it's how to dust myself off and pick up where I left off instead of just sweeping the whole idea under a rug.

Here's hoping you'll join me on this little adventure!

The One About Motives

There's a pretty strong theme in the scriptures, and in the Christian faith in general, of checking your motives.  The Bible talks frequently about how God searches the heart, and judges by that, rather than the outer appearance.

There's a pretty strong theme in my life too - checking my motives too much.  Many times, I just don't make a decision I should make, for fear of making it based on the wrong motives, regardless of what might be considered right or wrong.

Should I be friends with this person I just met? Well, what are my motives?  Am I selfishly seeking a friendship for proximity to others, or social standing, or solid style advice?  Or am I selflessly seeking a friendship to be an encouragement to others, or to help somebody learn helpful life skills (knitting and efficient dishwasher-loading seem to be my areas of expertise, in case you were wondering), or to share this love that has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit?

Should I post this picture?  Well, what are my motives?  Am I selfishly posting this picture to get people to notice how cool my life is?  Or am I selflessly posting it to spread a little more love and light (and coffee, if we're honest here) in the world?

Well, Es.  How about you stop questioning so much, and just DO THE THING.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether you're doing it for the "right" reasons or not, befriending someone is always the right thing to do.
And, as far as pictures go, I can't think of a reason to ever not spread beauty in this world.  We always need more light.

Should I pick up this hitch-hiker?

Bet you didn't think this post would go there, did you?

The fact is, more often than not, what stops me from picking up random people on the road is not the fact that my responsible safety-conscious parents drilled it into my head that I should not pick up strangers on the road when I was first learning to drive.  It really usually just ends up being a question of motives, and, by the time I've finished questioning my motives, I'm five miles past the hitch-hiker, and it's not really a question at all anymore, unless I'm not late to anything (which is never, in case you were wondering)...

This past weekend, on my way to Austin for a lunch date that I was barely going to be on time for, I saw a man on the side of the road, standing in the rain, holding out his thumb.  He was an older black man with a short thick mop of graying curly hair.  He smiled, looking open and friendly as we drove past, the whole train of us stuck behind that one 18-wheeler going 10 miles below the speed limit.

I was the caboose of that train, and I felt an overwhelming urge to stop when I noticed the hope in his eyes, even as I, the very last car, drove past.  He looked like such a kind man, I thought.  But did I stop?

No. I didn't.  I began questioning my motives, because, evidently, that's what I do best.

I looked in my rear-view mirror and watched him slowly put his arm down by his side and drop his shoulders in what looked like utter defeat.  But did I turn around?  No.

Instead, I questioned myself further.

Y'all.  The man needed a ride, and I didn't give him one, because I was busy trying to decide if I was going to do it for the right reasons.  I'm pretty sure it didn't ultimately matter what my reasons were. I ignored the urging of the Holy Spirit, choosing instead to have a fruitless conversation with myself.

Then, on my way home from work tonight, I saw this lady huffing and puffing up one of the biggest hills in town, and thought to myself, as I really often do, "I should give her a ride."

And you know what I did?

I questioned my motives - am I only thinking of offering her a ride in some confused effort at redeeming myself from a bad decision made this weekend?

I bet you thought I gave her a ride immediately, huh?  No.  I'm not that great.  But I did catch myself - I thought, you know what?  I can keep doing this all day, or I can just listen to the Spirit in me, waiting to speak.  So I stopped, literally at a stop sign, and figuratively in my heart, and I listened.  A second later, I was rolling down the window and asking her if she needed a ride.  She did, and she hustled over to my passenger side.

You know, I really wish, for my sake, more than anything, that I could say it was the best experience ever - that I got to share Jesus, and help her feel better about life, and any number of other good things.

But, really, she just sat there, listening to Andy Grammer on my radio and enjoying my air conditioning, and we chatted a little bit about the weather, and how cute her little neighborhood was.  Then she got out, and I noticed that my car smelled like cigarette smoke, which invariably gives me a headache.  So, no, it definitely wasn't a glowing experience, but at least I finally just took action when it needed to be taken, instead of trying to figure out what my motives were for said action.

This is by no means a call to pick up every random person on the side of the road, or a call to start making rash decisions, but rather an invitation to believers to embrace the freedom of listening to the Holy Spirit inside of you rather than drowning Him out with your own arguments and opinions.

Sometimes you just need to do the thing, regardless of why you're doing it.

The Crunchy Chronicles Continue

Evidently, despite my supposed problem with making resolutions, February has become my "big hygiene changes" month.

Last year, it was starting oil cleansing, and trying no-poo again.

The oil cleansing is still showing incredible results, and I could not be more thrilled with it, a little over a year later. I don't think I'll ever buy another bottle of face wash again.

The no-poo, however? Not so much.  I LOVED it for quite a while, but was never able to find a satisfactory way to deep condition my ends, and I knew they needed more than just apple cider vinegar to be healthy.  By August, I'd really begun to feel like my hair was in trouble - the ends were incredibly dry, despite the fact that I had even caved and begun using a commercial deep conditioner.  The rest of it was beginning to feel rather dry and brittle as well.  I eventually just decided to return to regular shampoo and conditioner.  My hair began to feel stronger, and I went to the salon to get the ends cut off.  I told the girl to cut off whatever was needed to make it healthy again, and she held up about three and a half inches and asked if I was okay with that much coming off.  I reiterated that I wanted her to take whatever was needed, and she said if I really meant that, she'd like to take off about five inches.

Yikes!  But I said yes, because I wanted my hair healthy.  Then and there, I decided no-poo was not for me.

Whew!  Maybe I'll never have to say "poo" on my blog again!

Shortly thereafter, a friend posted this link on facebook and tagged me.  If you've done your research, you know that I was thoroughly convinced that the science behind the original no-poo (Whoops.  There it is.) article I read was legitimate, and, really, who knows, maybe it was, and that girl is still thrilled with her hair.  If so, more power to her, but the science in this latest article seemed pretty legitimate too, and also happened to be corroborated by my own experience.  If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that we all have very different needs for our skin and hair care. (Seriously, why else are there sooooooo many different options in that department at Target?)

So, I began to get stir-crazy for a different way to take care of my hair without a ton of chemicals.  Then, Baby Sister suddenly announced that she was going to go a month without using any shampoo, so she did, with lots of dry-shampoo, baby powder, and corn starch usage.  I tried it along with her, and decided I really didn't want to do that, because I still felt like I was putting a bunch of unnecessary junk in my hair.

But then I did my research, and found a whole community of people who have stopped using shampoo, and have started using... Nothing!  That's right. No shampoo, and no replacement either.  This caught my attention.
It seemed that most of these folks would use apple cider vinegar every once in a while if they "needed" it.  But none of them explained exactly what constituted that need.  Many of them also conditioned with coconut oil, and quite a few of them washed with an egg every once in a while.

Yep.  They washed their hair with eggs.  Weirdos.

But hey, I'm a weirdo too, so I decided to try it.  Y'all.  My hair is amazing.  As you know, I'm not into selfies, but I posted this picture on instagram recently because, seriously, look at that fantastic un-washed hair!

20 days with no shampoo!

Alright, so I'm sure you want to know the actual routine.  Caveat:  I didn't go into this specifically trying to simplify my routine or save money, or anything like that.  I just wanted to get unnecessary chemicals out of my life as much as I can.  So this isn't the kind of thing that is going to make life easier because you suddenly just never have to wash your hair.  I still spend basically the same amount of time in the shower.  I just don't use shampoo.  Instead, I give myself a serious scalp massage under hot water - like I probably "scrub" more than I did when I was using shampoo.  And that's it!

I tried to use apple cider vinegar, I really did, because I felt like it was necessary since so many other people said they used it when "needed."  But every time I used it, it just made my hair oily really quickly.  I do like what it does for my ends, though, so I think I may try just putting it on them.

This is really just one big experiment, and I'll hopefully be putting more updates up here about what works for me.

One thing I've discovered is really essential to make this work is a boar-bristle brush.  I brush my hair with mine every day, and it helps distribute the natural oils through my hair so they can help it stay healthy.  And I'm talking a real brush-through every evening.  This takes time!
One bonus about a boar-bristle brush is that it works really well for pulling your hair back into a tight ponytail or bun, if that's something you like to do.  It just makes my hair lay so smoothly against my head!

I've also discovered a good way to deep condition with Coconut Oil!  Every 10 days or so, or whenever my ends begin to feel a bit dry, I take a tiny tiny bit, and massage it into the ends of my hair in the evening, then bundle it all up on top of my head in a high bun, and sleep on it, then I wash my hair with an egg yolk the next morning, and it washes the coconut oil right out. Crazy, right?

The really crazy thing is that I really don't see much difference in how the roots of my hair look after just scrubbing them, and actually washing with an egg - they're equally clean both ways!

A note about washing your hair with eggs:  You certainly can wash your hair with both the yolk and white, but I've heard that this can actually leave cooked bits of egg white in your hair if you use really hot water, so I'm not about to do it.

If you're at all like me, though, and really hate the idea of wasting anything, have no fear!  You don't need to throw out that egg white.  Just put it in an air tight container, and use it as a face mask.  Seriously, just smear that plain egg white all over your face, and leave it for 10-20 minutes.  (You will feel your skin getting tight!)  Then just rinse it off with water and a rag.  Your skin will feel so soft and moisturized afterwards!  You do need to store it in the fridge, and use it pretty shortly after cracking it, because it will start to smell truly rotten if you don't watch out.  I usually can get 2 or 3 masks from a single egg yolk.

While we're on the subject of faces and not wasting things, let's also go ahead and talk about exfoliating with coffee grounds.  Y'all.  It's seriously the best thing.  I sort of forgot about it because I had a semi-traumatic experience:
The fact is, I drink way more coffee than I will ever be able to use to exfoliate my face, but when I began this particular regimen, I got really excited about the prospect of not throwing out coffee grounds, and saved all of them!  They collected in a container in my fridge, and began GROWING MOLD.  If there's anything I hate worse than not wasting things, it's mold, so out they went, and I decided this just wasn't a good idea at all.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, my life is basically a series of dramatic ups and downs...

Eventually, I realized I just had to resign myself to not using all of them, but just keeping them on-hand in small batches, and using up each small batch before I replenish them.

I've just had to learn the hard way that, when I'm using mostly natural things in my hair and body care, they're going to behave as natural things do without any preservatives - they're going to get stinky and gross if I don't use them quickly.

So, I'm sure now you're naturally wondering if, in reality, I'm stinky and gross.  Don't worry - I've wondered that myself quite frequently, because I've always heard that you don't really notice your own smell.

So, today, I did all of us a favor, and asked one of Baby Sister's friends to smell my hair.

She said it smelled like hair - not like shampoo, just like hair - but not bad either, so there!

Maybe I'll come back sometime soon and tell you about my homemade deodorant...