Did I mention I marred my own Dean Martin?

My husband, the darling, has to have background noise in order to fall asleep. Sometimes he’ll switch it up, but mostly he falls asleep to “Rio Bravo”, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson. He’s got the timing down to a science, to the point that he falls asleep right as this scene is happening. It’s become one of my favorite songs to listen to as well as listen to him sing. The husband won’t allow me to record his rendition of this song, so you’ll just have to settle for the original.

Enjoy!

I love the second song also! I think I’ll teach my children both. Of course, I won’t be the one singing. I’ll make the husband do the signing.

Have a great week!

Straight from Instagram to you. Hope you enjoy  the gallery!

As many of you know, I’m on the hunt for a “shampoo” that doesn’t trigger my allergy and that actually leaves my hair clean. I’ve been using Free and Clear for about 7 years, and although it does an okay job, I am not exactly happy with the results. It also strips my hair of everything, but doesn’t clean my scalp very well.

So I tried the “no poo” method, which I chronicled Part One, Part Two and the final update. Needless to say, it was a no go.

Alas, I’m back to Free and Clear and haven’t made any progress. I did add some Moroccan Argon oil, and that seems to be helping keep my hair from frizzing.

I ordered from Sephora in April, because as I’m sure many of you know, you get a birthday gift from Sephora during the month of your birthday. I picked the Fresh Sugar Lip gift, and I’m in love. I’m not a lipstick person, so these cute little sticks are perfect for me. I happened to have a coupon code I found on retailmenot.com for something called DevaCurl Cleanser. I received a sample sized bottle of DevaCurl and I’ve washed my hair three times with it. So far, so good. No itching. No burning. My hair is clean. My scalp is clean. It smells nice, although it’s a bit strong on the smell side. But all in all, this may just be my ticket off of the Free and Clear train.

This is like a conditioner. More of a cream, and less of a gel. The key here is, that it won’t “suds” up, which is what I’m allergic to. The chemicals, subsistence’s, ingredients in most shampoo’s that create the lather we are all used to having in shampoo. The bottle reads that the product is 100% sulfate, paraben and silicone free, which is usually a good thing. However, in place of these, other odd ingredients can be used so I checked the ingredient list against the ingredient list I have that trigger my allergy, and nothing is coming up. That, however, doesn’t mean there couldn’t be something in this that could trigger my allergy, but so far nothing has. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

I looked the prices up on Amazon, and they aren’t “out of this world, over the top” expensive. There is also a DevaCare product as well as low poo options of both and various other styling products.

So far, I’m sold! I’ve also added a few of the Deva Curl products to my Amazon.com widget and you should be able to find the products over in the side bar under “Stuff I Like” and “Stuff to Ponder”. Take a look!

Tell me your thoughts? Have you tried this product? Are you struggling with your own skin allergies and you’ve found some solutions? I’m interested to see what others are using.

I was not compensated for this review; this is based solely on my own use of the product and I’ve formed my own opinion. And opinions can change.

“start rant”

What I’m about to say might be shocking to a few, and to others I might be going against modern baby “guru’s”, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Babies DON’T Care!

These idea of “wearing your baby” and making your own baby food, and cloth diapering aren’t new folks. Women have been doing just this for decades! And yes, I realize, I was born 100 years to late, but I don’t need to be told that using cloth diapers saves money, or that your baby can eat adult foods if you prepare it for them correctly. And wearing your baby, not so new either. Cradle boards carried Native babies, Inuit women used a parka called an amauti to carry babies and toddlers and still others have used a length of woven fabric.

Babies also don’t need fancy cribs and changing tables, or every butt cream known to man. They don’t need fancy clothes or designer shoes, and a $3,000.00 stroller made by Aston Martin certainly isn’t a necessity.

Babies don’t play poker on Friday nights and whine and complain that Mom and Dad didn’t buy them the duck tub and fancy schmancy crib sheet set with matching bumper, quilt, sheets, and dust ruffle.

All babies care about is that they are fed, they are dry/clean/warm and they are getting love and attention.

The rest of that crap is just that. CRAP!

“end of rant”

Babies Don’t Care

I can’t contain my excitement any longer. I’ve been lusting after these Rustic X End tables built by this lady, that I found on this website.

I also used the vinegar/steel wool stain solution that is mentioned here, but I neglected to follow the directions because I didn’t print them out. I do this a lot. Just fly by the seat of my pants. So I didn’t prep the table first with the tea solution. I’m planning on following the directions on the next piece we are building which just so happens to be the Rustic X Coffee Table. But enough about all that, here is the reveal.

End Table

And I love it!

I have to blow it off, because I sanded it quite a bit in order to get the “worn” areas on the edges. And it’s pretty apparent which pieces took to the vinegar/steel wool stain and which pieces should have had the initial tea prepping done. It’s also not perfect. We had some issues with the angles on the “X”, and so there are a few gaps. This was definitely good practice before we started working on the “Rustic X Coffee Table”, as we were able to adjust the angles to fit.

All-in-all…I’m delighted with the results and can’t wait to start using it. It will be a definite upgrade from the horrid looking tables we are currently using…

“Cringe!”

Enjoy your weekend!

Meatloaf, the quintessential American family meal, full of memories, and accompanied by mashed potatoes, and green beans. Although, I’ve seen the green beans switched out for corn, asparagus, or peas.

What follows is my take on this homey meal. I like to serve mine with creamed potatoes, or sliced potatoes drizzled with butter and steamed green beans, or sweet corn.

This recipe requires some planning, as you need to have two separate meats thawed out. This is on my monthly rotation of evening meals. I always have all the ingredients on hand, because I make meals according to what is in my pantry. We usually eat it for one meal, have Meatloaf Sandwiches during the week, and I’ll freeze the rest for sandwiches at a later date. Although, this sometimes doesn’t work if my husband is extremely hungry and eats more than one portion for supper.

Meatloaf – the In A Mini Skirt Way

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Serves	8-10
Preperation Time	30 minutes
Cooking/Baking Time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 30 minutes
Allergy	Egg, Wheat
Meal	Main Dish
Misc	Serve Hot

Meatloaf, brimming with ground beef, sausage, bacon and brimming with down home taste.

Ingredients

• 1lb Ground Beef
• 1/2lb Sausage
• 1/2 cup Crushed Crackers (approx.)
• 2 Eggs (Beaten)
• 1/2 tablespoon Parsley (approx.)
• 1 teaspoon Beu Monde Seasoning (approx.)
• 1 teaspoon Granulated Garlic (approx.)
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt (approx.)
• 1/2 teaspoon Pepper (approx.)
• 1/4 cup Ketchup (I use Hunt's - approx.)
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar (approx.)
• 4 medium slices Bacon (Cut in half)
• 3 tablespoons Ketchup (Used to spread across the top of the meatloaf)
• 1/4 cup Onion (Use more or less according to your taste.)

Thoughts

Please excuse my photograph - I'm out of a camera at the moment, and trying to use my iPhone.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine ground beef, sausage, eggs, crackers, Beau Monde seasoning, granulated garlic, garlic salt, pepper, brown sugar, onions and ketchup in a large bowl. Don't over "combine", as you don't want to loose the texture of the beef and sausage.

Line a loaf pan with parchment paper. Place 5 strips of bacon along the bottom of the pan. Spoon the beef mixture into the loaf pan and pat down. Place last three strips of bacon on top, evenly spaced apart. Spread ketchup across the top of the meatloaf.

Place in preheated oven and bake for roughly 1 hour.

Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Check to make sure the center is cooked through. I like to cover my meatloaf with tin foil during this step.

Have a joy filled day!

Straight from Instagram to you. Hope you the gallery!

Straight from Instagram to you. Hope you the gallery!

I stumbled onto something called Bountiful Baskets.

Basically, it’s a Co-Op, that pools all of the contributors monies together from a distribution site, distributes it evenly amongst the contributors and then you pick your basket up.

Pretty slick.

The site lists that you should receive a basket that is 50% vegetable and 50% fruit. The conventional basket is $15.00 and the organic basket is $25.00. There is a $3.00 first time contributor fee (which they mention is for the laundry baskets that are used to sort each contributors produce into), and $1.50 processing fee.

So all in all, I paid $19.50 for my first basket.

Now, be aware, you don’t know what you’ll be getting so I was a bit leery that I would end up with a basket full of odd produce that I wouldn’t know how to cook. I was pleasantly surprised.

Bountiful Basket – assortment of vegetables and fruits.

I received:
4 large potatoes (guessing they are russet)
1 large English cucumber
2 bunches of broccoli
1 head of cabbage
1 pineapple
4 onions
4 bananas or plantains (I’m not sure yet)
2 bunches of asparagus
1 head of butter lettuce
3 tangelos
2 grapefruits

I’ve never bought butter lettuce because it’s to expensive. Nor pineapple? And 2 whole bundles of asparagus! YUM! I’ll be able to try a new asparagus recipe. Anyone have any recipes for asparagus? Looks like I’ll be supplementing my frozen produce with some lovely fresh produce.

Enjoy your weekend!

Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid or compensated in any way for this post or the information herein. I just liked the product, and thought I’d write about it. Also, we aren’t vegetarian or vegan. We eat meat. I like to balance our meals, and eat fruits as we can afford them.

I’m a terrible blogger.

I’m not sure I can even classify myself as a blogger. I blog once a month, if that!

Pathetic.

I read quite a few blogs, and I think part of the reason I don’t blog regularly is because I’m not sure I have anything of any real substance to add to the world.

Anyway, here’s the “No Poo” update.
I used the baking soda and apple cider vinegar for four months. I was happy with the initial results, but after about a month my hair started to feel “strawish”, so I altered the ratio of baking soda and vinegar. Still no change. At about the two month mark I didn’t have any changes in the amount of oil my scalp was producing, and frankly my hair smelled like vinegar. Not very attractive, and somewhat embarrassing since my husband mentioned it. It wasn’t as bad when I blew my hair dry, but I don’t like blowing it dry all the time as it seems to cause breakage and drying. And to any one who says “you need to use a heat product”, obviously doesn’t understand what a skin allergy is.

At about month three, (shortly after Christmas) I started to think of a solution for our upcoming vacation in February. I wasn’t going to be able to fly around with boxes of baking soda and jugs of vinegar, and frankly I was getting tired of smelling “odd”. It’s hard to explain the baking soda smell that was going on. It wasn’t offensive or anything, but it did smell “odd”. Mix it with the vinegar, and lets just say – I was starting to smell like a hippie/yuppie/granola.

So I found a solution, or so I had thought, in KenetMD shampoo and conditioner. But alas, no go. I sometimes wonder how something can be dermatologist approved, but cause me to have an allergic reaction, not unlike what happened prior to being diagnosed with the skin allergy.

So I’m back to Free and Clear shampoo. I am able to use Burt’s Bee’s about every third shampoo rotation, and I comb a conditioner into just the length of my hair, so as to keep it from touching my scalp. As least my hair smells clean, and I don’t have the urge to scratch my skin off.

Here’s a thought. One of many I have, but something I’ve been thinking of more regularly as I gain in older.

What effects are all these chemicals having on our bodies, our children, our lives, our world? I’m not saying that there aren’t things that I find necessary, but at the same time do we really need $250.00 skin cremes, or 10 different hair products just so we can attain societies “image”? What’s wrong with a few wrinkles? or patina?

There’s nothing wrong with a little patina…

Enjoy your weekend!