Browsing the archives for the personal stories category.

How does Dove conditioner work out in the Talina poof of hair?


For those of you that know me, you also know that my hair is well… INSANE.

It’s thick, corse, curly in areas and typically long (unless I am particularly annoyed with it’s weight at any given time). As a youngon I used to spend over an hour each day straightening or taming the mane when it was worn down.

Now that I have kids it’s mostly tied up in a knot on top of my head. Another reason for my lack of hair doing is the Indiana humidity… Humidity and my hair don’t mix and I’ve yet to find a product that makes my hair manageable and somewhat straight, without the use of a hot iron and lots of time spent.

This is why I was interested in trying the new Dove Damage Therapy Conditioner. Plus, I’ve always enjoyed the Dove advertising approach compaired to other beauty products. I like that they try to keep women more “real” in their ads than other beauty product makers.

So I tried out the “Intensive Repair” conditioner in my mane of tangled insanity. It smelled nice but I wasn’t particullary thrilled about the number of chemicals in the product. I’d much rather have a plain smelling product than an overly scented super chemical one.

I typically use chemical free herbal shampoo and conditioner and am typically pleased with the results I get. I am always willing to test out something more conventional with the hopes that it might calm the locks of hair and make them easier to manage.

I should also mention that I am NOT a daily shampooer when it comes to my locks. I find that less regular washing allows my hair to remain hydrated and appear less frizzy. Of course, I am very aware of oily hair and am careful to never let my hair get that way between washings.

So where the Dove conditioner was concerned, it did make my hair more silky feeling in the shower and also immediately following the shower but it definitely made my hair feel more greasy in the days following, which is a problem I typically don’t have with my more natural hair products.

The product did work well but isn’t likely something I’ll use daily (rather it will be an occasional/ special occasion product) as I found it left a buildup and made my hair more greasy feeling and looking between washings.

What is the most important quality to you in hair care products? Do you wash/ condition each day? If so, do you typically use the same products each shampoo or do you rotate them in and out?
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How does Dove conditioner work out in the Talina poof of hair? was published on September 4th, 2012, under the personal stories, product/ service review, sponsored info category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

To Adalyn on your first birthday

A year ago today our lives changed, we became a family of four in the wee hours of the morning and many witnessed this live here on the blog.

We weren’t sure the day would ever come. From perceived improper positioning to going beyond the arbitrarily determined due date, we were all on pins and needles about how and when you’d arrive. Happily all went well with your arrival out at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee.

I’ll admit, the fact that your birth was so public really has been my excuse for not writing out a birth story. I mean, it can be seen live so it kind of makes writing the story seem silly, one day I’ll do it for you though…

This past year has really blown by! Getting to know you has sure been full of surprises. You are a spunky one we think. :) You act strong willed and pretty set on how you think things will playout, your reactions when things don’t go as expected is the evidence.

Also, you are a pro at expressing emotions (which has made for some great pictures). Laughing, crying, smiling, shouting and clapping are your favorite expressions… even pouting surfaced as early as 6 months old. It’s sort of cute and silly to see you lay your entire head down on the floor in front of you while in a sitting position to pout about something. You’ll be a great actress one day if you choose that path for yourself.

Adalyn, you are playful and strong but also vulnerable and sometimes needy. Writing that makes me think (and I know you’ll hate this cause I hate being put in that box by my own mother but…) you are like me in many ways.

At one year old you have 4 teeth and have mastered the one-legged scoot across the house using your right foot, both hands and left butt cheek. We aren’t sure you will ever crawl “properly” but we aren’t all that “proper” here, so who cares? Did I mention the strong willed part??? Because even in birth you wanted things your way, LOL. You crowned with your head (obviously) and fist/ arm poking out. You basically grabbed Pamela’s, our midwife’s, hand at crowning.

You love to play with your big sister, even in the newborn days there was a strong sisterly bond. Everly can sing you twinkle-twinkle-little-star whenever you are upset and you immediately stop crying, every time.

As for mommy and daddy, your favorite calming activities are breastfeeding, massages (head, neck, hands and feet). When bored you love to have the music put on so we can all rock out. Sometimes I hold you and we dance around in circles, other times you sit on your bottom and scoot yourself in quick circles. You love to spin!

You love your daddy and his bouncing or “flying” of you. You love to shout “dada!” or “dada, nana!”  when you hear his voice (even when you should be sleeping). It’s almost like you are instructing him to get you or feed you.

You still don’t say mama when you need something from me, your stand by is just to resort to the generic cry. For teething or tummy pain, the ole standby right now is breastfeeding and co-sleeping which is interesting because, for as independent and strong as you are in some areas you’d think that would surface in other areas, but it doesn’t right now. Daddy explains it as “having a tough exterior but a soft sensitive inner side”.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the NIGHT before your 1st birthday you actually slept through the night! It’s the first time since those sleepy newborn days that you’ve slept all night. What a wonderful thing for mommy and daddy. *tear* our Addie is growing up :(

Seriously, you are this unpredictable little mystery. Each day we pick up on more and more of who you are. The routines are getting clearer and we are all gradually figuring each other out. It’s been a crazy year and you’ve grown so much… Though your eyes are the same, they are deep and wise and familiar.

I am excited to witness all the changes and growth that you’ll undergo in the next year as you become a toddler. Happy birthday my sweet Adalyn!  You are the missing puzzle piece to our family and we love you very much.

To Adalyn on your first birthday was published on August 29th, 2012, with the tags , , under the Open Letters, parenting, personal stories category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Firing the machine back up and CHIGGERS. Gah!

We just returned from a much needed family vacation (aka. break from the homestead hooligans & technology). We went to Slade, Kentucky for some outdoorsy, mountain fun. Nathan planned the whole thing complete with a cozy cabin rental, a sky ride and hike to a natural bridge, some swimming and lazy area exploration took place.

We stopped many times on the way to and from destinations for preschool potty breaks and baby nursing/ changing needs. We also needed to stretch our legs and run some steam off at times so we would pull over, lay out our picnic blanket in a public area, eat and relax before continuing our road trip.

After the first night in the cabin we both awoke to itching and reached for the bite cream. By the second night it was apparent we had chiggers. You see all the bites in normally covered areas like my poor butt cheeks and bikini area were the telltale sign.

After much scratching, hot tub dunking, googling chiggers and itch cream applying we loaded in the car set & out to buy some chigger cream and some wine… The problem we soon encountered was were were in a dry county in kentucky. This means NO ALCOHOL SALE, period. This is another head shaker for us west coast natives out here in the midwest. Sweat tea, dry counties, bible thumping, midwife hating and the list just goes on and on…

Anyway, once we finally got our $9 bottle of Beringer Zinfandel I shared on Facebook that we were…

“hoping an overpriced, cheap bottle of wine from a few counties away will take the edge off the chigger bitten private parts up in here.”

Everyone clearly thought we’d been naked in the forest or something. LOL. What is worse is the rampant misinformation about chiggers that the internet and the local people imparted on us.

“Where did you go to get chiggers?” or “Just put clear nail polish on the bites” or “Pour bleach or gasoline on them”

We learned that chiggers don’t stay in your skin so the nail polish, bleach or gasoline to suffocate them isn’t necessary and the “track marks” people say you’ll have (as a result of their travels under your skin) aren’t reality.

By the time you are already itching them they’ve likely gone. Turns out as soon as they are brushed or scratched they fall off but their saliva and digestive enzymes that were injected in your skin formed a stylostome in your skin that continues to irritate and cause itching. Also, the digestive enzymes and saliva cause itching and will even ooze from the bite spot or blister as the bite heals. This isn’t a chigger bite lesson though, so for more interesting chigger reading material you can read “How Chiggers Work” by Wilson, Tracy V.

So back to the point I was trying to make, the kids didn’t get any chigger (or any other bug bites). Strange huh? So I am thinking it wasn’t our outdoor picnics and hiking that got us feasted on… but that it was the bed Nathan and I shared at the cabin instead. None of the kids shared our bed so this could explain why Nathan and I are suffering but that girls are not.

For treatment we are really upping our consumption of  pascalite clay to help bind and remove the histamines from our bodies. Also, for me, soaking in epsom salts in a HOT bath while vigorously scrubbing the bites with a nail brush seems to end itching and draw the toxins out nicely. It gives me long lasting relief (longer than the bite creams) and it appears to be drying the bites up nicely too.

Now that we are home and away from chiggers all the clothes and pillowcases are being freed of possible chiggers and we are firing the homestead citchn back up.

After a few days away I’ve got no fermented beverages going, no bone broth simmering, no bread baked and the crap food of vacationing has sure left us feeling less than our best digestively speaking.

To catch up, today I have gluten free bread rising, I am making a sourdough starter, I have water kefir brewing, beans are soaking and bone broth is simmering. It feels like I am slowly firing back up the homesteading machine known as “the living kitchen” and I am curious to see and learn about your kitchens. If I could only take a peek and see how you do things, where your fermented stuff sits, where are your SCOBY’s stored, how you prepare beans or bread or bone broth.

What are you fermenting or making today? Care to post a picture of your fermenting or in progress food items today? Here are mine: 

Firing the machine back up and CHIGGERS. Gah! was published on July 19th, 2012, with the tags , , , , , , , under the parenting, personal stories category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Parenting Dellirium: Laughing at yourself is best in these situations.

This week has been one of unexpected brain fogginess. I really have nothing specific to blame it on. Maybe a lack of Omegas in the diet or something similar? Stress or sleep related? Who knows!

Anyway, it all started with arriving at playdate this week with Adalyn only partly dressed. The thing was I actually had a semi-full nights sleep this time, so there was no excuse. At playdate,  when I lifted her skirt to change her diaper I discovered the still-fastened-inside-the-dress-bloomers hanging from the inside sides of her dress. I discovered this In front of all the other playdate moms, we all had a nice laugh about it.

I have no idea how I managed to get the dress over her head, get her arms in the arm holes and diaper her without noticing the still attached bloomers inside the new dress. At least I managed to remove the price tag from the dress I guess, but still…

Then later in the week another mom and I are searching high and low for a kombucha SCOBY that I’d brought and left for her at the playdate house… we can’t find it anywhere! Eventually we go home and decide it’s gone for good.

Now, normally in my sleep I am known to work magic, like choreographing dance moves or thinking up solutions or finding lost items. At 4 am on Saturday morning it hits me- the SCOBY I brought for Jaqueline on Tuesday that is was determined missing on Friday is actually…

… still in the arm rest console of my HOT car!

“Omg! It is still in the car? How hasn’t it exploded through the sealed glass jar yet? Is it dead?” I think to myself in a groggy semi-sleeping state.

This is a big deal because a kombucha SCOBY is a living organism of bacteria and it makes a carbonated, sweet yet tart beverage out of the sweat tea it is stored in. Kombucha can and does explode for many people when left sealed and forgotten. Just because you’ve forgotten about it doesn’t mean it stops growing.

Turns out I’d tucked it away Tuesday on the way to playgroup so it wouldn’t spill in transport and then totally forgot about it, for 3 days.

Upon retrieving it Saturday it amazingly still looks great and shows no signs of “going south”. Makes sense since kombucha ferments at room temperature anyway. But it’s been 100 degrees each day, the car must have gotten way warmer. I am amazed but figure the heat probably killed it. This bay call for a little kombucha experiment in the future.

Anyway, the point of this post: I am a bumbling idiot parent this week. *waves*

I’d like to blame it on a long week of disrupted schedules and wacky sleep but truthfully  OR I must be losing my mind.

Luckily I can always laugh at myself and all the silliness. Everyone needs a good laugh now and then, right?

Parenting Dellirium: Laughing at yourself is best in these situations. was published on July 11th, 2012, with the tags , , , , under the parenting, personal stories category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Unshackled from my food craving demons, finally!

I just realized that today I am not feeling like a slave to carb and sugar cravings! It has taken me 4-5 months to kick the cravings and get a handle on my emotional eating and my urges for crap foods. Lots of people have been asking me about my healing journey which is why I am sharing this post with you today.

In March 2012 I dove in to an elimination diet to help out my nursling and her tummy troubles. Turns out I also needed the elimination of many overly abundant food items. I started with eliminating processed sugars (still ate fruits, honey, etc), I also eliminated gluten (aka wheat). At the onset of removing gluten and sugars I was super emotional and generally just feeling wrecked. Not only did my body hurt from the detoxification/ food withdrawal it was naturally undergoing but emotions & aggravations were high and totally incurable since I was eating the sugars and craps to “feel better” in the first place.

I clearly remember anticipating the kids nap times so I could binge on terrible foods. You can’t eat a snickers bar in front of your toddler without having to share it with her right? And the last thing I wanted was for my kid to eat these crap foods… So I’d wait till she was asleep to eat one and it would kind of be my stress relief and moment of calm… much like those stupid Dove chocolate commercials try to make eating a chocolate out to be… except I never really felt better. It just sort of artificially masked things.

At first, the sugars gave me a high that helped me through and the idea of splurging on myself kind of made me feel good for a moment but eventually even eating sugar all day long while the kids were awake didn’t provide any satisfaction or fix things. So what did I do? I just ate more and more like a junky, hoping that with enough consumption I’d start to feel better…

The problem is this type of emotional eating does nothing to help support your body’s health and it actually does quite a bit of damage when it is as excessive as mine was. I was basically hooked on sugar & processed carbs. My body confirmed this with my withdrawal headaches, muscle aches, mood swings and overall frame of mind when these foods were removed.

What myself and Adalyn battle is a combination of emotional eating, candida overgrowth thanks to the abundance sugar and carbs (which likely lead to my leaky gut issues) and then a slew of leaky gut symptoms (aka food sensitivities and digestion issues). My adrenal stress, candida overgrowth and gut imbalances likely inhibited my oxytocin production postpartum and thus impacted my bonding with Adalyn. Furthermore, she’s been exposed via birth to my own imbalanced gut flora & candida. Plus, she’s also having to suffer through my leaky gut and food sensitivities via my breast milk.

Gut health is so important but you just don’t realize it until you don’t have it …

PLUS it is a long and painful journey back to health if you haven’t done permanent damage already.

I feel like the worst of it is over now. My incurable, funky, dry-skin finger rash is mostly gone. My insane food cravings are gone. My overly emotional need for certain foods is gone. My insatiable hunger is gone. My fussy, constipated baby is eliminating WAY more often and more easily. Sleeping has been easier with a happier, better fed baby.

I am still on the healing path though. Anyone that thinks they can just heal overnight is grossly mistaken. It takes time to remove all the built up crap from you system before real results can be observed. I’m handling the very infrequent gluten exposures well, without tummy upset but now I’ve begun to notice a sensitivity to certain dairy products… so the gut is still leaking and will continue to do so (especially with foods I eat daily) until fully healed. Food rotation and variation is really working for me. Even the good for you stuff can’t be eaten daily I am finding. If they are, sensitivities will inevitably pop up.

Furthermore, once the cravings are kicked and you begin to feel better you can’t just go back to how it used to be. Binging on junk food or sugar or gluten again will only bring you right back to where you started, much like a drug junkie. I know, I’ve had many slip ups that I had to learn from and you likely will too.

For the sake of helping us all along the healing path… Since gut healing is on my mind and the minds of many of my readers, friends & family let’s do a little sharing of information and routines:

The things we are doing here to keep the gut healthy and on the path to healing are:

  1. Make fermented foods at home. The idea is to recolonize the gut with good bacteria so that healing may occur. Note: store-bought yogurt, probiotics and such typically aren’t enough to help. If you do the fermented foods right you’ll be recolonizing the gut and also aiding in the body’s detox. Our favorites to make are sauerkraut, kombucha & kefir. We are always trying out new stuff though. The book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is one I’d highly recommend for learning how to make your own fermented foods, it has tons of idea in there!
  2. Remove the troublesome foods from your diet and replace them with other food variations. For most it is sugar, gluten & dairy but that doesn’t mean you only get to chew on grass and twigs all day. Learn about ancient grains like Quinoa, Millet and so on (they are gluten-free!). Try out and make your own kefir dairy stuff. Kefir can be made almost completely lactose free and you can make ice cream, yogurts, dressings and such with it. Getting the chemical sugars out of my diet was sufficient and I didn’t have to go as far as removing all sugar containing foods (like apples and other fruits) to kick the cravings and issues.
  3. Replace the lacking nutrients and minerals. I don’t mean with supplements either. Raw sea salts are full of minerals as are various healing clays (pascalite clay) that you take internally. The healing clays can also be a great thing for removing those toxins from your body or to use while undergoing food withdrawal/ detoxing. Learn about Chia Seeds for health. Also, homemade bone broth (also vegetable broth) is important to make and consume for general health and mineral replenishment. Eat your greens and try to consume a ton of raw foods (smoothies!), as much as you can.
  4. Support the body’s natural healing processes. Besides eating a more whole foods diet and striving to really buy organic when appropriate I bought Slippery Elm Bark Powder, ginger root, pascalite clay and raw bee pollen to help support healing. Other things I’ve been thinking about are Natural Calm and I really wish I had bought Bach Flower Remedies while I was having food withdrawals.
What are you doing for gut health right now? Why/ how does it work for you? What advice would you give to those preparing to take on gut healing?

Unshackled from my food craving demons, finally! was published on July 3rd, 2012, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the Featured, personal stories category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Nuts: To soak or not? Infographic

This is another one that isn’t mine but saw it on Facebook I appreciated it and wanted to share it with my readers. Enjoy!

Nuts: To soak or not? Infographic was published on July 2nd, 2012, under the personal stories, pictures say 1000 words category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Everly, My Love: Pausing to reflect before her special day tomorrow…

Three years ago today I was just setting in for the hard work ahead. I was just getting back from my walk.

I’d had a big breakfast of pancakes and hashbrowns with my mother in our cabin out at The Farm after my water broke at 7 am that morning. Nathan had been called and was making his way to us from 2 states away…

Three years later, I’ve just laid Everly down for her afternoon nap when I realize where I was 3 years ago. Adalyn just woke up from her nap and is playing next to me on the living room floor as I type this. She’s scooting her way over to the laptop to help me write.

There are party preparations to be made for tomorrow (Everly’s actual birthday), the house is a total mess that needs cleaning, the animals and garden need attention but for this moment I briefly reflect…

Newborn Everly Everly is almost 3 years old!

Three years ago I was becoming a first time mother. The journey has been amazing.

Everly, My Love: Pausing to reflect before her special day tomorrow… was published on June 22nd, 2012, under the parenting, personal stories category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

The task of pond upkeep & encounters with it’s residents

We have this pond out behind our back fence. When we bought the house we understood the pond wasn’t our property, rather it was owned and maintained by the homeowners association. Shortly after becoming home owners we were curious and pulled our own property card to learn exactly how far out we owned since we were planning to expand our gardening space and perhaps our back fence.

The property card showed us as being shared owners of the pond, all the way across the water and backing up to the other community’s back yards. This was good news in terms of extra land but bad news in terms of responsibility for the quickly deteriorating state of the pond area. Some of our fellow pond owners refuse to mow the grass behind their back fences that was always part of their home’s lot, getting them to step up and take responsibility for the pond upkeep is destined for failure.

The pond has algae and is also overrun with pond reeds, to the point that last year and also this year you can’t even see the pond water anymore. So, between us and our next-door neighbors we bought the stuff to kill of the pond reeds and have been in the process of removing them this week.

We made some good progress the first day then we noticed these nests in the reeds with eggs.


  
Red winged blackbird eggs to be specific. So, in light of the eggs and nests we decided to just work around them and remove as much as we could. By that time there were already a few casualties, the nests that came down before we noticed them. About 6 eggs from two separate nests that we didn’t know what to do with.

The next day while working Nathan noticed actual newly hatched baby birds in a nest so we opted to halt the reed removal for a week or two. The nest with babies was kind of close to the bank so I was able to get a few pictures of them. I was also able to dump the orphaned nests of eggs in to a surrogate nest near the bank in an effort to save the poor things.

Now, we are all for the circle of life and all but the last thing we want to do is destroy the breeding process of the resident birds in the reeds. Sure they’ll need to find new homes once the reeds are removed but we draw the line at killing live babies. So we’ve taken a break from our pond cleanup, pending the hatching and growing of the baby birds.

The displaced eggs I put in the shore side nest are being cared for too! I’ve seen the female red winged blackbird sitting on them in the mornings. So, things are looking improved though. We just need to dispose of the clipped and dead pond reeds now.

The task of pond upkeep & encounters with it’s residents was published on June 18th, 2012, under the personal stories category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

My favorite personal organization helpers that anyone can benefit from. #PGLWL

Keeping organized and staying on the ball when it comes to tasks is mandatory in a place with 9 chickens, 2 rabbits, one dog, 5 cats, a full home garden and 2 young girls to look after plus the responsibilities of being a virtual assistant. That is why I was excited to participate in the blogher.com Life Well Lived blogging prompt this week covering the topic:

What are your favorite resources (Products, Apps, Books, Websites, etc.) to help you get organized?

Keeping shopping lists straight, family appointments, client needs and to-dos, staying on top of e-mail, blogging, keeping track of garden planting dates and harvest times, keeping up with feeding watering and cleaning up after all the  homesteading animals  is only possible when I make the best use of my time which is why being organized is so important. It’s no secret that I have many organizational helpers in my back pocket. Here are a few of my favorites, then you an tell me yours:

  • Cozi.com is a great family planning website (and smart phone/tablet app) that helps you and the other members of your family keep track of grocery shopping lists, appointments, meal planning, recipe and even family journaling.

I use Cozi for mine and hubby’s to-do lists and grocery lists. The great thing is you can update your lists journals and calendar via any of your devices or by computer at any time and anyone else accessing your Cozi family site will automatically see your additions updates and changes. This is especially great when you send your husband to the grocery store after work and you have a long list of items he needs to pick up, instead of telling him over the phone what he needs to get & hoping the he remembers everything, he can simply login to your family site pull up the shopping list and see everything that you added.

  • Evernote.com is a great resource for online task management and generally just a nice Internet-based notebook. “The Evernote family of products help you remember and act upon ideas, projects and experiences across all the computers, phones and tablets you use.”

I use evernote to keep track of my class list for the dance class I teach, I also make note of blog posts and online articles that I’d like to read. Anywhere I go I can pull up my notes, class lists and more via my Kindle or my iPhone through evernote.com  and it’s great.

  • Google documents (now known as Google Drive or just Drive) Google Drive is a file storage and sync service by Google that was released on April 24, 2012. It is an extension of Google Docs, allowing users to store all types of files on the Google servers.

I use google drive for task lists, document sharing between my clients and I and to log my hours worked for billing and active purposes. I’ve also used drive for my own personal document storage along with Picasa, Google’s online photo storage/ syncing service.

What are your favorite resources for leading a more organized life? Tell us in the comments below. Also, you can enter the current Life Well Lived Sweepstakes here if you’d like.



About Talina

Just an unconventional gal trying to make her way in the world. I wear many hats, I am a writer, virtual assistant, webmistress, mother of two & homesteading lady. A Homebirth & breastfeeding advocate (psst, I had both my babies at The Farm. If that means something to you then you are in the right place!), gardener and a future organic farmer. Featured on BlogHer.com

What more could you want? Don't worry I am sure there is more to come ;)

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