what's happening

i've been knitting and crocheting like crazy lately. i finished my husband's socks that were supposed to be his father's day present. they weren't done until july 7. {sheepish grin}

T's new socks

i've also been working on a cotton baby sweater--just for fun--but it's been giving me fits, so i'm ignoring it for the moment. hopefully by the time i come back around to working on it, it will behave so i can finish it without any more trouble.

my husband's rather large, extended family is having a reunion in a couple of weeks. we always have a silent auction to help defray the costs incurred. many items are homemade. last reunion i took a baby blanket i had crocheted. this year i've decided to donate a kimono-style baby sweater that i knitted up last fall. i also just finished a set of two crocheted washcloths and hope to have at least one more set made for the auction as well.

crocheted washcloths

then there are the other projects i intend to make. like a few dishcloths for myself since my old (store-bought) ones are getting really holey.

there just isn't enough time to blog when you're making so much stuff! {smile} and since i haven't blogged in a while, here's just a quick update on what's happening around here.

our Fourth of July was wonderful hanging with family and friends. i didn't take many pics, but a good time was had by all.

parade anticipation

bubba is taking swimming lessons (it's a two week course and this is the second week already). he's learning to tread water and do the front crawl. we'll have to see if he passes or if he'll have to re-do level 3 again next year. next week is our county fair, then the family reunion on the weekend. bubba says he can't wait for all the fair rides. it's funny--i used to just love going on the rides. i'm not sure what happened, but ever since i gave birth to bubba, i've gotten sick from fair rides. so now i just like to look around at the animals and exhibits. and every year i tell myself "next year i'll enter some of my yarn projects." then the next year comes and i still don't have anything i want to enter (or rather, that i've set aside and am not already using!) anyways, we get a week off after the fair week, and the next week is VBS already! {Lifeway's Boomerang Express VBS!} i'm helping with VBS again this year, but i haven't been told yet what i'll be doing. bubba has already started learning the new VBS songs since we've got our t-shirts and cd already. so he's pretty excited and can't wait for VBS either!

heavenly henna part 2

here's my second attempt at henna body art.
this time my feet have a tropical hibiscus flower theme!

all i can say is i'm definitely not a good candidate for "real" or "permanent" tattoos because it wouldn't be long before i'd be wishing i'd have done something different. or didn't have it at all. so i'm glad i never succumbed to the temptation when i considered getting a tat back in my crazy college days. but on the other hand, i wish i HAD learned about henna art a lot sooner! i could have been a professional henna artist, i just didn't know it! well, maybe there's still hope for that...like when i move to hawaii! {yeah, right.} ah well!


and before i sign off, here's a picture of my hair after the color settled. it's a lovely shade of auburn most of the time. sunlight shows the red off even more, of course. but that's what henna does.

see T. see me.
see me with red hair.
me likes T.
me likes red hair!
{and yes, me is silly!}

heavenly henna

i've been slowly gravitating to more natural alternatives. fewer harsh chemicals is good to my way of thinking! i've recently purchased a couple of sulfate and paraben-free shampoos and conditioners to try. they work great, smell good, and my hubby doesn't have any allergic reaction to the natural fragrances (a definite plus!) i'm especially thrilled that wal-mart is selling these more natural products now! i use baking soda instead of bleach to remove stains from my countertops and sink. i prefer organic foods, but find it hard to find good quality organic here at a decent price. our feeble attempts at gardening helps a little too. and so i continue in my quest of learning more ways to reduce my own (& my family's) exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.

for the past few years, i had been occasionally using do-it-yourself 'permanent' hair dyes to change my hair color and/or cover the few white hairs that have invaded my normally medium-brown tresses. however, i've never been 100% comfortable or happy with using chemical-based hair dyes. first of all, they smell awful. they also don't always cover my gray hairs well. and to top it off, it is necessary to use them about every 6 weeks in order to keep my roots from showing. ugh! that's expensive!!!! i'm much too frugal to go to a salon for hair colorings, so i can only imagine how pricey it can be.

anyways, one of my friends from college blogged about henna-ing her hair a few months ago. that was yet another nudge in the chemical-free direction for me! i already knew that henna is a plant that can be ground up and used to color hair a reddish color. i remembered using a henna-based hair color a couple times when i was in college. but where would i get henna now? we live in a relatively small town and there are no large cities nearby where specialty items like this can be easily found, so i'm pretty much forced to look for an online source for anything even remotely unusual. henna definitely falls into the "unusual" category! so i began to research. and boy have i learned a lot! if you're interested, here is a site with a lot of great info--there's even info about the science of how henna works! eventually, i purchased some henna and indigo powders (indigo is another plant used for its dye) that seemed to be good quality from a seller on ebay. i did a couple tests with these, in different combination, on hairs harvested from my hairbrush. (i surely didn't want to end up with green hair!) my test results were good. the henna and indigo seemed to work fine. so it was finally time to use it on my hair!

i finally decided to go with a combination of henna and indigo. indigo is used to create anywhere from deep auburn to black colored hair depending on how much you use and how you apply it. for my hair i used 3 parts henna and 1 part indigo. next time i will probably try 2 parts henna and 1 part indigo for a little more brown/less red color. i added some cinnamon powder to help with the smell. it really didn't help though!

the smell of henna is very different from the nasty nose-burning ammonia and peroxide fumes of chemical dyes. it's earthy. very earthy. but it still has a pretty strong odor. and since you leave it in your hair for a few hours, it can get kind of annoying. the above-mentioned friend of mine says it smells like caterpillar poop. with the indigo added, i think it smells even worse than that! but it's a natural dead plant kind of stink, not a chemical one. so i can deal with it. also, my hubby, who has an extremely sensitive sense of smell said {after i had rinsed it out} that it's not as bad as the hair dyes i've used in the past!

here are my before and after pics!

BEFORE:

as you can see, i already have a lot of red 'highlights' from using chemical hair dyes.

roots are quite a bit darker with a few white hairs hiding in there.

AFTER:

the lighting isn't the best for these pics, but you can see

the red is deeper now and my roots are blended in nicely.
i understand that the color will darken/deepen over the next few days.

my hair is more of an auburn in real life. the pictures aren't the best for showing it off. in a couple days when the color has 'settled' i'll try taking some more pics.

the other thing henna is used for is body art. i suppose it was inevitable with all the pretty pictures i saw of gorgeous hennaed hands and feet that i would have to try it myself. :-)

not too bad for a first try!

i practiced henna design elements for a few days with pen and paper. it was such a good feeling drawing again! i can't believe how long it has been since i've done anything like this. and i'm so glad to have found a new artistic outlet! it was interesting watching the henna stain change. as you can see in the pics, it was really orange-ish at first, but darkened within a day to brown. now it's a lovely dark brazil nut brown. i expect it to last at least a week, maybe longer. it's not nearly as intricate in design as most of what i saw pictured on henna artists' webpages, but i like how it turned out and that's what matters to me!

the funniest part of having this henna body art is seeing what kinds of reactions i get. *wicked grin* i do enjoy shocking people once in a while! and for those folks who don't know about henna, it's fun to enlighten them a little about this wonderful plant God created that can be used to enhance one's beauty in so many ways!

computer cleaning

i spent time this weekend making backups of some of my photos. it helps that i have an external hard drive. it's so easy to make a backup of all my files, and i can access those files with relative ease, but i went ahead and made CD backups of all my pics from 2008 as well. they will go in a fire safe box--just in case the unthinkable ever happens.

i still have to check and see what pics i haven't backed up on CD yet and do so. i'm pretty sure there are some on my external hard drive that i haven't put on CD yet. but it was a good start at least.

it's nice knowing my laptop's hard drive isn't nearly full for the moment. i really can't remember the last time i had this much free space on here! i was down to about 5G free and now i've got about 25G! yay!

i just had to share! lol!


oh yeah. i should mention that i got to see Star Trek on friday night with a friend (my hubby got to go see it with his b.i.l. too!) and then we went again on saturday night for date night! so that's 3x we've seen the new Star Trek movie so far!

brrr.

it's june 6. summertime. at least one might think so. so could someone please tell me why it's so COLD outside? (57 degrees F at 3:45 pm.)

it's days like this that i dream of living someplace that's warm year-round. {hawaii is nice!} i know some folks, like my cousin who lives down in florida, would call weather like this WINTER.

remind me. why do i live here? oh yeah. it's my husband's fault. he's the one that likes living up here. something to do with living here most of his life, i guess. that, and the fact that hot weather makes him sick. literally. which has something to do with the way he sweats. or rather, doesn't. i think.

11+ years and i'm still not completely acclimated to this climate. and i grew up in wisconsin. you wouldn't think it'd be much different. funny what a few hundred miles farther north can do to one's weather.

well, this sun-lovin' mama just wants to go outside and soak up a little sunshine! and i'd prefer it if i didn't have to wear a sweatshirt in june. that's all. nothing much.