Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Super-Charged "Rogue Rice Bowl Scrub"

Here are some ways to make yor scrub a little more personable.

Use essential oils to add scent and different elements to your scrub:

Rose: Normal or older skin
Chamomile: Sensitive skin
Tea Tree: Oily skin
Lavendar: Relaxing and anti-inflammatory
Patchouli: Balancing and relaxing great earthy smell
Sandalwood: Soothing scent, mildly anti-inflammatory, good for dry or winter skin

I also reccomend using different types of WATER in your scrubs when placing them on the face.

I have tried mineral water, distilled water, warm filtered water, cold filtered water.

My favorite is Cold mineral water for face scrubs and warm peppermint tea/water for my body

Here is my typical:

"Soothing Scrub for a rough rough world"
1/2 c. dry scrub mix (see recipe) INSTEAD of regular sugar I place a whole open vanilla bean in a cup of sugar and let it sit overnight.
2 tablespoons warm red/black tea
1 drop sandalwood essential oil
1 drop patchouli essential oil
1 drop glycerin

This scrub makes me smell like a "heavenly cookie" according to my Partner.

It sticks around in the bathroom for a while too. So its a deoderizer!

Tell me how you like it!

joy

A facial scrub miracle? or cheap MacGyver Spa treat

I set out to make a scrub that was simple, inexspensive,moderately mousturizing and "natural" without being gritty rough or just plain gross.

After all. Sugar strained through bones is "natural" but that is just gross.

I wanted something that could be dressed up or paired down. This concoction is simple to prepare,store, and use.

So attatched is the following recipe for a spa treat for everone and every budget:

"Rogue Rice Bowl Scrub"

For enough scrub to do your ENTIRE body use the following measurements:

"Rogue Rice Bowl Scrub"-total body recipe

1/2 cup dry rice (any kind) ground
3 tablespoons Sugar (I prefer raw/organic) For dry skin ~or~ Salt for oily skin
Enough floral water to make a paste: Floral water: 1 drop essential oil + 1 Tablespoon water
1 drop of glycerin (optional: for dry skin)

For enough for just hands and face:
Mix above dry ingredients together in sealable container

3 TBSP Dry mix (above)
1 TBSP floral water (glycerin already added)

TIPS:

I make the dry ingredients and wet ingredients and keep them in prett sealed jars. When its time to make my scrub I keep a bottle of floral water near the shower take a handful of dry stuff out and spray it with the floral water.

Another thing I have found my partner Chris doing (leave it to a man to be Macguyver) is taking a handful of dry mixing it with CONDITIONER (yes I said conditioner) and using it to shave.

I tried it, and it works like a dream.

So do something nice for yourself! Treat yourself to a Rogue Rice Bowl Scrub!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The burdens of being sentient: an opinion on vegetarianism

I am not a lifelong vegetarian. I had much trouble not succumbing to peer pressure when it came to eating meat.

My family were cattle farmers, my uncle a pork farmer, and my own family largely into hunting and fishing.

It was on a trip to one of those farms ( a pig farm) that I saw a pig with a broken leg being dragged off to a corner of a field by a tractor to be killed. I could see the pigs eyes, it was scared, it was hurt and it was screaming.

I will take that image with me to the grave.

I stopped eating pork that day.

Another visit to a farm I saw calves being kept in dog "igloo's" in the hot sun. Everytime I went to them they tried to suckle my fingers. I asked what they were in the igloo's for and the farmer told me "They are there for veal, best meat in the world!" I told him I didn't understand and he explained in detail how they would be kept in the huts until they were almost 6 months old and then killed for meat.

I asked why they would not be allowed to run around and get older and the farmer told me "Then the meat wouldn't be WHITE"

I never ate Veal, and I still never have.

It is stories such as these that I have string together over a series of years in my life that make it so much more important to become educated. Further I also must be an advocate and a responsible citizen in this world.

For me that means I cannot eat meat that is manufactured in unethical and sometimes in cruel ways. I am a citizen that wishes to become and help others to become enlightened regarding the sociological, economical and ethical repurcussions of supporting "feed-lot" mentailties, and unethical cruel practices against sentient beings.

I find that often, as I was, people are not ignorant by choice on issues such as Fois Gras and Veal but often are told white lies by people who wish to indulge in a meal without caring for the ramifications of that meal.

I think of this as mindless eating, people placing truth in logic that is at best fuzzy.

I am not saying that I would never eat meat. There are animals that eat meat that REQUIRE it. I for one believe that my body does not require meat on the level that certain meat agencies have led me to believe I need it. Conversly I will not force my cat or dog to eat vegetarian, I would be just as much as a sociopath as those who force feed a duck through a tube for foi gras.

Instead I am saying that I cannot eat it without being willing to do the dirty work. At the very least understand the circumstances in which your food comes from. Upon inspection of the process, one may find you may not "truly" be able to enjoy it. Ignorance or inability to listen to factmay result in unwillingly supporting a n industry that thrives on the mistreatment not only of its sentient animals but the sentient human animals who eat it.

The good things in life are not free. Great things come at great costs and great sacrifices. But it is when we make truly educated descisions that take into consideration such costs and sacrafices that we become truly involved and responsible citizens in this world.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Frozen sunny day

Waking up it felt like something in me had either scabbed over enough not to bother me anymore, or maybe it was gone completely?
The sun streamed into the window, I felt rested, I felt like smiling, in other words I felt like everything would work out maybe today.

I went to go get my disconnection notice taken care of, exspecting a line out the door. I was the second in line. I filled out my paperwork, found that I was already in the computer and was assured that they would not turn off my heat until after January and by that time they would help me pay my bills in the future.

I went to sit down feeling pretty happy. Accross from me a woman was swearing into her phone. She was raging and carrying on about having been there for over and hour. She complained she didn't have any meat to eat, ahe yelled accross the room that she was going to jump the woman in charge of helping her with her HEAP application.

I sat near her listening to her rant. Suddenly I became overwhelmed with the feeling of needing to laugh. I started to chuckle and then to all out laugh.

The woman looked at me like I was out of my mind and asked me what I could possibly be laughing at. I told her "I remember my nana telling me that is is only through discomfort and challenges that we can reaffirm our deep faith in a benevolent force that wants the best for us."

Of course the woman wanted to know WHY this was so funny. I continued that every single person in the office was in the same boat, every person behind the desk was trying to help all of them. We could ALL sympathize with her wanting service, and I am sure they wanted her to be on her way out as well. She squinted at me and I almost cracked up again.
Leaning forward to her I said; "If you were over there are you saw a woman saying she couldn't wait to speak with you privately so she could ream you out and kick your butt, would that make YOU want to help her quickly or slowly?"

The woman opened her mouth, looked around at the secretaries looking at her with their eyebrows raised and settled down immediately.

They called her next. She flounced over and slammed the door, then seeing the look on everyone's face staring at her she appologized and re-opened the door and shut it softly. The woman walking her back said quietly; "Thank you for your patience, the reason you had to wait a while is that HEAP denied your claim and I resubmitted it under a disconnect rush and got you an extention and temporary assistance.

Everyone in the room stared at me. I closed my eyes and thanked whatever force was out there for blessing this woman with tranquility and peace. Seems like with all the holiday hubbub, people forget the REAL point of holidays.

Celebrate Peace, Love and Tranquility These are things we take for granted all year and then during the season that they are most important we throw them out the window.

Happy Holistic Peace Day