hippy-happy

Last night as I was brushing my teeth, I realized with a start that I have become a hippy.  Unaware of the gradual transformation, I've neglected to let my hair grow long and accumulate a wardrobe of long swirly skirts, so I don't look like a hippy yet, but give me time . . .

I guess it all started back when I first met my Farmer, in 1993.

He had some earthy interests – in-ground houses being one of the more literal (and novel) ones. Academic pursuits aside, most of what he liked to do would have been well-suited to a commune. In fact, after he graduated college, we spent a summer on one in northern Georgia. We read the Moosewood cookbook and made falafel and lentils. He taught me to chop wood. We double-dug garden beds and made paper (fun) and mead (yum) and banana wine (yuck). I learned to manage a woodlot (sort of) and fish and gather eggs. For a very yucky couple of weeks, I copied some of the crunchier folk around me and let my leg hair grow. **shudder**  Not for me, that one.

Time passed. We went our separate ways, him to Japan to teach at a junior college, me to finish my last two years at college, then to get my own job teaching English in Japan, 20 train hours south of him. Some of the other ex-pats near me tended toward hippy-dom, but I didn't know any of them well enough for it to rub off much.

A few years later found my Farmer and me, married, visiting “our” commune again after a road trip 'round the country. We planted figs and elderberries and reminisced, and went home to garden and dream of a round house built on a meadow.

But so far the hippy influence had been pretty mild.  It cranked up another notch when, visiting a friend home from the mission field, we were introduced to “missionary medicine” - a wicked-tasting concoction of garlic, onion, jalepeno, ginger, horseradish & vinegar, reputed to cure anything.  The idea of curing garden-variety illnesses with, well, garden ingredients, appealed to us, and we made some.  We tried it out on our sore throats shortly afterward and were impressed at the results.  Then, as our babies began to arrive, we started learning about and using food-based remedies  rather than bottles from the pharmacy shelves:  ginger for nausea, garlic oil for earaches, elderberry for colds and flu, herbs for allergies, honey-lemon for coughs.

A few years further down the road, a friend who made her own laundry detergent inspired the DIY streak in me to give it a try (three tries, actually, till I found a recipe that works in our hard water). An article connecting breast cancer (which has shown up in my family tree more than once) with the use of anti-perspirant and a certain feminine undergarment prompted me to search out deodorant alternatives and go (discreetly) without either, for a time.

And then a year or two ago, tooth problems and the potential bill for a root canal had us searching out other possible solutions to dental assumptions, and ended with an infection healed, and me (& eventually the rest of us) trading toothpaste for baking soda.

But the real clincher, the straw that broke the yuppie's back so to speak, was the “no-shampoo” movement, as championed by my sister. She posted teasers on facebook and soon had me looking up links where people raved about how gorgeous their hair became (after a greasy month or so) using only baking soda to wash it and vinegar to condition.

I was dubious. My hair, surely, was the exception. Oily at the roots, notoriously dry at the tips, and too short to put up in the proverbial ponytail – no way would this work.

But … baking soda & vinegar instead of xeno-hormone- and chemical-laden shampoo … ? I had just spent a month reading up on perimenopause and its exacerbators (xeno-hormones is one of them), and I was too intrigued to not try it.

And so the last frontier has been crossed.

It has been just over five weeks since I last used shampoo: I am officially a “dirty hippy.”

But you know what?  It's fun!  I am happy. Making my own “shampoo” and “deodorant” and laundry “detergent” gives me a sort of mudpie-making, thumbing-your-nose-at-the-rules pleasure.  It feels good to use products whose ingredients I understand on myself and my family.  I won't go back.

You should try it!

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You might like it.

a curious rest

Today it is quiet in my house.

After my Farmer laced up his work boots and drove off in the Box (our Scion xB), I sat a bit and thought about my day.

I could run errands.

I could lie on the hammock.

I could read.

Or, I could give that door to the garage another coat of paint.

Which I did, my paintbrush stilling my mind to give ear to a sermon on renewing the mind by Bill Johnson.  I wanted to hear more (and don't listen well without activity), so I painted the doorposts around another door, listening to the next sermon in the series.

I scrubbed the sink mats and the kitchen sink while listening to part three.  I washed the dishes to part four.

I drove out for more paint - red, this time, working up my courage for bold color.

Home, I contemplated.  Red - really?  What if I was wrong?  What if it was too much?

[what would my Farmer say?  I asked myself.  He would say - you can always paint over it.]

I dipped my brush into the red ("Wow, that's a lot of red!" the man at the hardware store had said, admiringly, as he added pigment to the can) and ran it along the window frame.  Bright!  I brushed down the side to the sound of Bill Johnson's voice:  part five.

I finished the frame and moved on to paint a door red.  Then doorposts to another door (we have a LOT of doors in our kitchen - nine, if you count empty doorways, too).  Part six.

I took a break to grill a sandwich.  I scraped a screen door (but need outdoor paint for that one) and looked at a new-to-me budget website.  Retired to the hammock to call my Farmer about supper plans.

My day is nearly over, now.

Somehow, despite the work I did, despite the listening, and listening, and listening ... I had a day of rest.  I am still inside - "I have stilled & quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me."  Psalm 131:2

Curious.  My mind feels renewed ...

maple cream update!

My friends!  I have good news for you:  I have (finally - I can't believe it took me so long to tinker!!) simplified the procedure for my beloved Frozen Maple Cream.  Actually, "simplified" doesn't begin to properly express how easy this former labor of love now is.  It's just ridiculous.

First, go out and buy an ice cream maker (or unearth the one that's been lurking in some back closet for years).  I use a Sunbeam (only mine is not cool & red like the one in the link, just plain white) that I bought new in the box at Goodwill.  It seemed like a splurge at the time, but the thrill I get over eating Our Own Ice Cream is worth it every time!  Plus - where could you ever find ice cream available commercially to compare with this?!

I hereby give you ...

Maple Ice Cream

2/3 cup maple syrup
2 cup cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt

Stir.  Activate ice cream maker.  Pour in.  WAIT (I know, I know - this is the hard part!) - my machine says about 40 minutes (but this may vary depending on the ambient temperature & how quickly the gel canister thaws).  Enjoy immediately (very soft), or for even better ice cream, spoon into a bowl with a lid and set it in the freezer for another hour.  Scoop.  Bliss.

There - isn't that simple?!

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[Now, I must admit that I'm not done tinkering.  I think this could be just a smidge less sweet, so next time I'll only use a 1/2 cup maple syrup.  Also, the first time I made this, I was going strictly by the book ... sort of ... and didn't want to exceed the recommended 2 cups total of liquid, so I started with only 1 1/3 cup cream.  However, this recipe does not expand the way some others did, and I ended up refreezing it with the additional cream.  So next time:  1/2 cup maple syrup, 2 cups cream, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, and 1/8 tsp. salt.  I'll let you know how it goes.]

today

The rain poured down, this morning.  I rescued a bucket of brand-new sidewalk chalk from the driveway after pondering the "natural consequences" theory of discipline and rejecting it in favor of not having wasted the five bucks I paid ... and because I like to use the chalk, too.

My tiny kitchen "sideboard" overflows with fruit from the grocery store and my Farmer's fields - peaches, asian pears, yellow & purple plums:  evidence of abundance.

A bouquet that Spice picked for me last night graces the table:  a handful of foxtails, and a spike of fiery red gladiola blossoms - her signature careless beauty.

Caterpillars in a glass gallon jar change slowly, unknowingly, into winged creatures.

A boy demands, insists, and learns to say "May I please?"  His hands know how to be gentle even as his feet clomp about in big sister's sneakers, his current preferred footwear.

Sugar french-knots her doll's name into fleece, making a pillow, proud of her artistry, her skill.

Paint-with-water pages litter the table, the counter, the fridge, like rabbits overbreeding.

The lights are on; the sky outside still dim.

Chores are done - schoolwork, too - early this time.  A new dry-erase board makes it mysteriously more fun.

The task in front of me, making out a list of food to buy, scatters with interruptions from children and from facebook.  I am permanently halfway done.  My own to-do list cowers by the fridge, intimidated by my lethargy.  Bake bread, it exhorts.  Make ice cream cake for Spice's birthday.  (I write a blog post instead.)

To be disciplined & do what needs to be done .... to know how to rest ... what is the agenda for today?

I try to listen.

a beautiful mess

Life is messy.

This morning, in anticipation of a visit from a friend and her children, we (that is, I and the children under my command) scurried about making ready.

Sweep the floor.  Wash and cut vegetables for lunch.  Clean the sink.  Sweep the porch.  Take out trash.  Tidy up.  Shut the laundry room door!  Get out new chalk for the driveway, and bubbles.  Change Lil' Snip's shorts when he spilled bubbles on them, and wash off his legs.

Is it time yet?

Nice, who is just learning to tell time, informed me regularly of the clock's progress.  She was the one who noticed when the minute hand drifted significantly past the twelve.  (She was also the one - surprise, surprise - who invited Lil' Snip into the wading pool without my or anyone else's knowledge, as a result of which he fell down in the water and needed yet another pair of clean shorts, and a shirt to boot.)

They were late.  Hmmm, I tried to remember, does she often run a bit behind?  We only see them about once a year, so I gave her another fifteen minutes before I called.

"Hi!" she answered cheerily, "How are you?"

Somehow we had each chosen a different Monday to write down this reunion.  She felt badly:  she had been on the receiving end of just such a scheduling snafu the previous week, so she knew how disappointed we were.

Deflated, we put away our expectations for the morning.  I was, frankly, at a loss.  It seemed best to redeem the time by going ahead with the abandoned schoolwork, but I didn't have the heart.  The children wandered about aimlessly while I pondered our wasted efforts:  clean house, lunch prepared in advance, and no one to share it with!

"When life gives you lemons ....."

I called a good friend, who I didn't think would mind being plan B, and who just might be willing to toss out her own plans for the day to make room for an impromptu play date.

She didn't, she was, and over they came.  We had a ball:  they shared our lunch, and the clean house was soon full of toys again.  The mommies talked and the children played, and we'll see our other friends next week, after all.

The lemonade was sweet.  I'm so glad I knew the recipe.