Pretty boxes

I re-arranged the furniture in the apartment a few weeks ago, I ended up putting my desk in our extra room along with a lot of other stuff, with the idea to make a sort of craft area for me, since I would like to start sewing. I've made a cat bed that my cats apparently don't like but that's the way it goes with things you make specifically for cats.

I finally got around to arranging and cleaning that room today and I started making a bunch of piles or random things I don't use very often, if ever, but didn't want to get rid of. One pile had things like a pencil sharpener, an OLD pretty little stapler with lady bugs on it, a single hole puncher that punches in the shape of a bunny, some 2 inch colored pencils that use to be full size.

Earlier in the day I emptied another box of tea, I drink A LOT of tea, and put it up on one of the top cabinets in the kitchen. I keep the boxes because the insides are really pretty and I knew I could do something with them. I had often thought of turning them inside out and re-using them as gift boxes or something. Today I finally got to it and instead used them as boxes for storing not often used desk items.

I started with three boxes of Yogi Tea, I have many more in the cabinet.

Aren't the insides pretty, how could I throw these away, well recycle them technically.

I carefully opened up the box, it was only held together at the flap openings on the top and bottom and a tab on the side.

Once opened I made sure to bend the creases in the opposite direction they were in so the box folds together and lays more square when re-folded. I then re-folded the center pieces in opposite direction and secured the one side tab with tape, the only thing I had on hand, will probably need to go back and use some glue too at some point.

REMINDER *Need to remember to pick up some glue.*

Pretty box all put together.

There are little obvious glue tabs left but they can be covered with a ribbon or gift tag if using as a gift box, I just oriented the box so that side is not in view.

My favorite tattoo

People ask me what my favorite tattoo is. I can't pick one, they are all special to me, that's why I got them. The eye of horus on my ankle is special because it was my first (besides the obvious meaning of the symbol itself), the ankh on my left wrist is also special because it was my second and reflamed my addiction (also besides the obvious meaning of the symbol). The scales, as in reptile, on my right leg are just pure awesome and they hurt like hell and my work life is all about reptiles right now. The mermaid on my left upper arm is downright beautiful, it is adapted from a piece by the artist Erte, Bettie Page on my right upper arm is Bettie Page nothing more needs to be said, I love that woman. Finally the black and grey flames on my lower right arm are just awesome, they are flames and I am very fond of flames!

I can't even pick a favorite of my husbands, but I can narrow it down to two. First goes to the interpretation of the cover of the band Unmerciful's Unmercifully Beaten Album, choosen by yours truly. Saw them in concert and love the cover art, fits perfectly on the back of Rich's right arm.

The second is this evil devil thing ripping it's face open, he found the original art on the internet, not sure of its origin.

I like all his tattoos, although sometimes waking up in the morning and seeing one of the above or the viking skeleton warrior that is between these two staring at me is kinda freaky. I know they are kinda dark and evil and probably not for everyone, or most but I love them and perhaps one day I will have something dark and evil on me. That's just the kinda girl I am, I guess.

Carpet stain remover

1 little squirt of dish soap

an ounce or 2 of white vinegar

an ounce or 2 of water, hot if you want (I've used cold and hot and works well both ways)

I use an old toothbrush to mix and apply the mixture. I know everywhere tells you not to scrub, rub, or do anything but blot stains but how many of us really sit there and blot our little hearts out. So I scrub scrub scrub and it works great. I usually just use a clean cloth and blot/wipe dry. Sometimes I use a damp cloth followed by a dry one but either way I get the same results.

My carpets are the typical too light beige that apartments like to use for whatever reason so I don't really need to worry about taking color out but it always a good idea to do a color test before using a spot cleaner.

I am not big on cleaning but I also kinda am. I don't keep my place clean on a daily basis, if you were to just drop by you might find a quite clean and "normal" looking place or you could find a place that looks like a tornado has hit. I get into cleaning moods and EVERYTHING gets cleaned then. Every part gets a good clean every one or two months and it's usually that often that I get to spot cleaning the carpet.

Most of the stains on my carpet are pet related. Spots of cat puke and other gooey bits of cat messes, dropped bits of canned food that get left unseen for a while. There are also some husband food spots, hehe. I had some good photos to go with this post from months ago but when my computer crashed I lost them. At that point I had a lot of big nasty black stains all over my carpet. They were from cat medicine, one of the cat's was having slight hairball blockage issues so she was on a stool softener and it was very sticky liquid and so some would get on the floors. She was on it for about a week and after 2 days I gave up on cleaning the spots right away so a few weeks later when I finally went to clean them all they had attracted A LOT of dirt and grime. There was one spot where she spit the whole dosage back onto the carpet and I did blot it right away with a damp cloth but that stuff is REALLY sticky so it did little. This cleaner worked wonders and my carpet is all bright and shiny now.

Soap dish

My liquid hand soap ran out in one of the bathrooms about a week ago and instead of buyinganother bottle of liquid soap in another plastic bottle I decided to actually use one of the many bar soaps I have lying around. I have about half a dozen lying around and have had them for many many years and never used one. The only problem is I don't have a soap dish and whatever end of the soap ended on the edge of the sink would get all soggy.

I own one soap dish that I found lying around, that one has been used for my bar face soap. Earlier in the year I went to bar soap in the shower and my husband uses a shampoo bar, both of those are in little rice bowls, I used them because I had broken one and glued it back together so it couldn't be used for food anymore and I have a pair so when we got the shampoo bar I used the matching one, which I later broke and had to glue back together so now they really match, two broken rice bowls for our soap.

I had seen this Chopstick Soap Dish on UncommonGoods.com and really liked it but I have $0 money to spend, especially after Fridays $300 vet trip for the crazy cats. I went walking around the apartment looking for something to use as a soap dish or to make into a soap dish, I found two pairs of wooden disposable chopsticks and my glue gun. I decided to try and make a chopstick soap dish of my own. Of course it looks nothing like the one on uncommon goods and it definitely isn't as pretty but it was free and functional. I just cut each chopstick in half and then glued them together in a grid pattern. After I made one with the disposable chopsticks I decided to use two pairs of some nicer chopsticks and make another for the other bathroom, I have a lotof chopsticks and these I don't use often because their ends are too pointy to cook with, I like chopsticks with blunter ends.

Here is what I ended up with, lighter one is the disposable and darker is the nicer chopsticks:

More on my hair treatments

Since my last update on my hair on April 10th (read it here) where I was at war with my scalp but loving my hair I have been in love with both amazingly. I think the hot coconut oil treatment I did really helped even everything out and let me basically start fresh. The conditioner/treatment thing we put on our shower seems to help with the soap scum issues I was having with baking soda washes. My routine since then has basically been a once or twice weekly baking soda wash with an apple cider vinegar with rosemary essential oil rinse. (read about my no poo start and recipe I use here) I think the rosemary helped some too with my scalp. Things have been going great and no real issues.

I used up my coconut oil last week and was really not wanting to buy more (for the reasons I discuss in my last post about hair, link is above). I read around and apparently shea butter is pretty good to use on hair too and I have been wanting to get some to use on my skin as well so I decided to go that way. My hair has been really dry recently and the idea of a thicker moisturizer really appealed to me. I bought a glass jar (yay for glass jars I love reusing them for other things) of handcrafted shea butter with lavender and mint essential oils from Alaffia. It is not organic but it is fair trade, the organic option was in a heavy plastic jar so I was leaning towards the glass. Shea butter is a lot thicker than coconut oil and it is a bit harder to work through my hair than oil but it is not difficult, it also seems to moisturize a bit better.

Last week I noticed my head was getting flaky again and yesterday after I showered it was HORRIBLY flaky and it hurt. It felt tight and cracked and sore, not very itchy though. So last night I gave myself another scalp oil treatment, this time I opted for grapeseed oil. After I applied it I tied up my hair and slept on it to let it soak in. I also looked around for some other treatments I could use and made myself a thyme tea to use on my scalp. I used 1 tablespoon of thyme in 1/2 a cup of hot water, it smelt great. I let it cool and covered it and put it in the fridge.

I then thought about making some sort deep conditioner or something for the length of my hair since it has been so dry and the season is changing and it is only going to get worse with the cold dry winter weather. I remembered how much my hair seemed to like the flaxseed wash I tried a couple times (read it about here and here) and decided to make a batch and use it just on the length of my hair since it doesn't do so good with the scalp and I didn't want to end up with a weird greasy patch like before. I made a batch, 1 table spoon of whole flaxseeds in 1 cup of water brought to a boil and then simmered for at least 5 mins. To this I also added a bit of clove and a 1/4 stick of cinnamon. It smelled so good, I strained the mixture into a heat safe container that I had a chamomile tea bag in and another tea bag of lavender. I let them steep for a bit and then took them out, let the mixture cool and covered it and put it in the fridge to be used in the morning.

This flaxseed wash is AMAZING as a once in a while wash for you hair. It makes my hair dry so quickly and it makes my natural waves come out in full force. It also seems to brighten up my hair a bit too, clove is suppose to highlight red so that could be a factor too but I didn't use cloves last time and it looked bright then too. The grapeseed oil and thyme tea rinse also seemed to help my scalp a lot. When I showered in the morning I massaged my scalp thoroughly then continued massaging while I used my normal baking soda wash. Followed that with the thyme tea rinse and more massaging and rinsing. That was followed by using the flaxseed wash on the length of my hair and a thorough rinse. As it was drying I worked in some shea butter to the length and then just left it alone.

The color and texture and look and EVERYTHING of my hair is amazing today.

Just look at it:

It took very little effort, the only effort was making the mixtures, which was not difficult at all.

I am definitely going to add a flaxseed wash back into my routine, maybe once or twice a month, I am also thinking of buying some shikakai and trying that as a wash instead of baking soda. The baking soda works but I would like to try and find something different. I read about shikakai on the no poo livejournal page I always fall back on for loads of information on no pooing. Apparently it is used just like baking soda to make a wash, it is also rather cheap like baking soda is, I found it available on amazon. Hopefully I can keep the love going and have trouble free scalp and hair.

My brain knows things I do not

I grew up a baseball fan, went to games quite regularly, the family even had season tickets for a few years in the 90's. I understand and appreciate the game and can hold my own while viewing and enjoying a game. I don't pay all the much attention to baseball anymore and most of the guys I grew up loving are no longer in the game or *shudders* are coaches, boy does that make me feel old. I stopped paying as much attention to baseball a few years back, the whole steroids and bullshit just got too much for me and I just don't see the game the same anymore, but that's not the point of this post. I should also say that I am in no way a fan of basketball of football, both of them I have never really watched and am the typical girl about them, I know practically nothing about the sports and find them stupid and dumb, again just the typical girl.

There are things you can ask me about and I would go um um um I don't know but when watching a baseball game I understand what is going on. Basically there is information I know but can't willingly recall. One such fact is who wears the light and who wears the dark uniforms. I can't for the life of me tell you till earlier this year.

While watching the hockey playoffs I was getting so confused, I knew where the games were being held and I would keep getting excited for a goal and then realize that it was the wrong team. Watching hockey today I found myself doing the same thing, it happens more in the regular season when I watch hockey just for the joy of the game and don't pay as much attention to it because I mainly only get Kings hockey in my area and I have never been a Kings fan. Although since the Ducks were in the playoffs this year I didn't get to watch much of them because once the Kings were eliminated I was apparently in Ducks market and got a lot of blacked out games, pissed me off so bad, I also am not a Ducks fan AT ALL (is it wrong that when I wrote out I said it in my head like a Canadian because we are talking about (also said in my head like a Canadian)hockey).

Back to the hockey playoffs earlier this year, my husband enlightened me to the fact that I was getting confused because in hockey the dark/light home/away colors are the opposite of what they are in baseball. So apparently I know which team wears which uniform, I just can't actually recall this information, and my brain just automatically thought the same way. So I then mention this to my dad when we were watching a hockey playoff game and he tells me why baseball has the dark/light home/away uniforms. The away teams wear the dark because the traveling teams didn't have the facilities to wash their jerseys on away games, this of course is way back in the day. So to make it easier on the away teams they would wear darker uniforms that showed less dirt. Hey I can now remember that fact because that makes sense. Why hockey is the opposite I don't know. Hockey isn't as dirty of a sport, unless you count blood but that has nothing to do for the most part with home or away.

So that is the story of my brain knowing things I didn't know it knew, wonder what else it is hiding from me.

You haven't seen what?

When I was growing up we didn't watch a lot of movies or even tv either. We didn't have cable tv until I was a senior in high school. MTV really mean nothing to me, I never really knew it showed actual music videos, by the time I had access to it I was more into metal which got next to no play on MTV so I never watched it. That may sound all well and good but I have disgusted a few people with the fact that I haven't seen a lot of movies from the late 80's and the 90's and before and beyond, but mostly from that time. My husband has dealt with this and I have watched a few of the movies but he was having a conversation with his cousin the other day and they started listing all these great movies and asking if I had seen them. Usually I would just hang my head and not answer. I am not oblivious to these movies and I know I would like them and a lot of them I have seen most parts but I have never actually watched them from start to finish. So here is a list of movies I have not seen that they can't believe:

Caddyshack

The Burbs

Three Amigos

The Jerk

Airplane

Space Balls

Spy's Like Us

Police Academy

Karate Kid

Godfather (all of them)

Coming to America

Mostly comedies which I love so it is a crime that I haven't seen them apparently. I completely agree with some of them, I know I would love Caddyshack and I have seen most of it but in bits here and there, same with The Burbs. I have also never seen most horror movies from the 80's and 90's, Nightmare on Elm street, Halloween, and even things like Alien and Terminator. I am quite a fragile girl and scare very easily. I deal with it a lot better now that I am older and I do want to watch some of those movies but just like the comedies I just haven't gotten to them. I love B horror movies, the discovery of the SciFi (now SyFy) channel when I was in college was one I was happy to find. I love those B monster movies new and old and ones with lots of camp even if they aren't trying to be campy. There really is no excuse for the lack of movies I have seen and I plan on remedying that, The Burbs should be waiting for me in my mailbox right now from Netflix.

Slacking and computer crash

So I have obviously been slacking on posting, which is something I always do but wanted to change. I have been dealing with some unusual headaches. I have never been plagued by headaches until a few months ago. Now I get them pretty regularly and it is a pain in the, well head actually. It starts as a sore neck for usually a few days and if I can remember to I can keep it at just an annoying sore neck for a few days with occasionally applying an ice pack to the back of my neck base of my skull area. Sometimes I feel it creep up into the back of my head and those headaches aren't debilitating just annoying. Last month though that did NOTHING and it quickly developed into a real headache, pounding front of head/whole head type of headache. Every day I would wake up with a sore neck and by the time early evening rolled around the head would start aching, days I worked, days I didn't work, days I kept busy, and days I spent curled up on the couch, nothing would change the progression. That lasted about a week and then poof all gone. They started again mid last week. This time with a sore back and then sore back and neck and yesterday came the headache. I feel the neck right now and I can feel it starting in my head.

This headache however could be totally caused by stress because my computer crashed on Friday. Vista just crashed for no reason at all and so I had to re-install it and all my drivers and basically start with a fresh new computer, not physically but I lost everything that was on my computer. It is just a personal computer and when my last laptop crashed we bought a VERY large external hard drive and I pretty regularly back up my files onto it so I didn't lose all that much. I have most of my bookmarks, which in reality I don't use that much, but they are a great reference for when I am looking for gifts since I have a million and one eco-friendly sites bookmarked and they have some REALLY cool stuff. I also have a TON of articles and other sites I never got around to reading.

I did lose some photos, nothing too important or anything that makes me that sad but I did lose pictures that I had been meaning to use in a blog post or two, I don't even remember what some of them were and that is why I take pictures, so I can have something to at least remind me of what I wanted to blog about. Gee you think I am a visual learner.

So here is to hoping I can be headache free and that I can get into a mood to post more on my blog, even if it is just non-sense, it feels good to write ones feelings and thoughts and ideas down in a semi-lucid way and just have it there for you to read. (By you I mean myself, I really could careless if someone reads this but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate those who might actually be reading this, it just isn't really the reason I do it. If other enjoy then great, if they don't that's fine too.)

Aw how sweet

I come home from work and small talk between myself and my husband leads to him telling me about a conversation he had with his friend/coworker who we hang out with more than anyone else, but we are home bodies so we don't actually spend that much time with him. His friend is determined to get him out of the house without me because we always go everywhere together and that is no exaggeration. My husband responds, Why do I need to go out without her? His friend, I don't know you are just always together. Husband, because I like being with her. That's kinda why I married her.

Aw isn't that just the sweetest thing. He finds himself in conversations like that a lot, he is the only married guy so his friends just totally don't get the lifestyle, most of them don't even have girlfriends. I find it funny that they can't even comprehend being in a relationship and how we actually want and like to spend all our time together. It's not like I stop him from going places or an a drag when we do go places, although I have been guilty of that before sometimes a girl just feels crappy and needs to go home. Just a little something I thought I'd share.

Jean Insulation

In my inbox today is Low Impact Livings newsletter. In it they discuss greening your jeans. The one part I'd like to share specifically is about denim insulation. It is suppose to be great stuff, better rated than fiberglass, no nasty chemicals, and reuse perhaps at its best. If I ever have the opportunity to build a house or re-model or things of that nature I will definitely look into denim insulation, but I live in an apartment right now and am living the wonderful life style of pay check to pay check and barely making it by so that is something that is not in the foreseeable future.

I always wondered where they got the denim for denim insulation and figured a lot of it was probably virgin denim, which I am sure it is, I have not done any research or read much on what it is actually made from in that regards. I have a lot of pairs of old jeans that no longer fit or are just busted, mostly because I am still the same size I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL and actually wear some of the same exact clothes I was then.

I was glad to see in this article a link to donate your jeans to be made into denim insulation, I don't think I have ever seen that before, mystery solved on where they do get some of the old jeans for insulation. Oh wait what's that I literally just now visited and read the page and they are NO LONGER TAKING DONATIONS! Ok well guess I can't turn my old jeans into insulation just yet. They will have to sit in a pile in the closet for a few more years maybe. Maybe I should just hang them as faux art on my poorly insulated bedroom walls and maybe they will do a bit of insulating that way.

Oh well I guess I could just go and delete this post since I was all excited about actually finding a place to donate my jeans for use in insulation but still check out the Greening Your Jeans post, it has some other info, although as I did look through that earlier, it says Gap has organic cotton jeans and I haven't been able to actually find them anywhere, maybe they made one pair once and so they get put on the list. Well this post is ending in a bit of a downer, coffee is ready time to drink it out of my nice and shiny mug.

Cleaning stainless steel coffee mug

Dirty coffee stained stainless steel mug

Add a bit of automatic dishwasher powder detergent (I currently have Planet brand so even your green detergents should work) and fill, all the way to the top, with hot water, water straight from the tap will work too but it may need to sit a little longer.

Let sit overnight or for a few hours depending on severity of stains, covered might help a bit too. A little light scrubbing, sometimes just a bit of swishing of water gets it all off, and you have a bright and shiny coffee mug again.

I've also had success cleaning ceramics mugs this way but can't find any other way to easily clean my stainless steel mug.

I get creative sometimes

Thursday I took a dozen old t-shirts that I never wear because they are a bit too big and I grabbed a pair of scissors and made a few halter tops and racerback tanks with the rest. They all look pretty good too if you ask me. They definitely aren't "tailored" but they work for me and my often relaxed style, I say often because every once in a while I do dress up but only so I can wear a pair of killer shoes. I LOVE SHOES!

To turn a t-shirt into a racerback tank check out this video.

To turn a t-shirt into a halter check out this how to guide.

The how to guide on the halter was a bit confusing to me but I figured it out, it helped that I have a halter that is exactly like the one I made. Basically it ties at the neck and lower back. The racerbacks turned out just like the ones in the video for the most part. Here is a pic of one of the halters I made:

Today, well actually tonight I got a bit bored and decided to re-decorate my bedroom. I moved around a lot of the pictures in the apartment the other day, basically re did the pictures hanging in the living room and hadn't put anything back up in the bedroom yet so I got the urge and this is what happened.

I used an old piece of cloth I had as a mock headboard, centered an Erte poster that use to be my granddad's, hung the shell lei's we got on our honeymoon in Maui, and made the bed all pretty, which wasn't so easy because Harley Quinn thinks she is helping but she is really hindering. If only that god awful heater wasn't there. It is useless, if you aren't within six inches of it you feel no heat at all. Worthless piece of crap and so so so ugly.

I can't stand bare walls, the other walls in the bedroom still need to have stuff re-hung, all my Bettie Page art is going up on one wall and then there is still one more wall that I can't figure out what to do with.

Recyling batteries and cfl's

I got this in March, it takes me that long to get things posted, heck my last post was about something I did at Christmas time, hehe.

I come home from work one day and there is a flyer thing hanging on my door knob. As I was walking up the stairs I was thinking great more Domino's or some other pizza joint, or some stupid warning letter from management.

Real quickly must rant on this, I had to have a maintenance guy come and NOT fix my lock the other day, that's a whole different issue. On our personal patio, not shared with anyone else or in view unless you are on it, we have 2 decorative milk carton type boxes that we put our recyclables in and when they are near full we then take those down to the curbside bins when they aren't full. So when he comes to NOT fix my lock he says I need to take the stuff out it can't be on the patio. I say yeah they are full I can't, he looks at me and says yeah take them out. Again I say I CAN'T. He just looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language and says they need to be emptied, again I say I can't empty them the bins are full there is no where to put them. He pauses looking at me for a few minutes doing nothing and I just stare back waiting for the synapses in his brain to finally start working and he finally says oh you mean the dumpster. At that point I just roll my eyes and turn and walk farther into the apartment waiting for him to NOT fix my lock. I'm not sure if he ever really got it but I was so tempted to go and toss the recycles onto the street. I'm just waiting for management to tell me I can't leave the recycles on my patio. They tell me so many things that are so out of left field I can't even mount a defense against it and try and educate them.

Ok back to what I actually had on my door. A flyer for recycling batteries and clf light bulbs. It included a bit of info and had a little pocket on the back side with a sealable bag for you to drop off or send in batteries to be recycled. It had info on recycling bulbs and a web address to where you can properly do that. I was presently surprised. I know management had nothing to do with it because I have seen them put blown tube fluorescent bulbs in the recycle bins. Here are a few pics of the flyer and bag:

This was before the tighter regulations were imposed on batteries being sent in the mail. Read about that HERE. I haven't read anything more on it and not sure what is going on with it. I think it may have stopped my husbands work from recycling batteries because they had a bin at his work and he says they don't have it anymore and I would assume it was because of this regulation, but that is just a complete guess. He works in an area known as business park and there is a company there, E-World Recycler, that is an e-recycler and they have drop off events quite often. Of course I have not participated in any of them, I just have a corner of the apartment stacked with boxes full of old cfl's, batteries, old computer parts, old cd's, old floppy disks, you name it I probably have it in they boxes, teehee, I'm such a hoarder. I really should get off my ass and take the stuff in, it is so close to where we live I can just put all the stuff in my car and if they don't take some of the things I have I can just take it back home and do more research on what to do with it or perhaps they can point me in the right direction.

Quick useless facts about me, I can't spell maintenance correctly for the life of me, I have to correct it with spell checker every time. I also write me instead of my A LOT, I read my post before posting it and I had to change me to my a few times, as I was reading it I was thinking, what am I a pirate! Haha. That is me booty there hands off, argh! I entertain me self so much.

Magazine Christmas Tree

I know it isn't the season for this but while cleaning up my spare closet I came across my magazine Christmas trees. It is beyond simple and if I can do it so can you. I don't remember how I came across the instructions I found but here they are, Magazine Christmas Tree at Just Like Martha.

Only thing I'd like to add is that magazines without a large spine work best for getting an all around Christmas tree, I used an old Interview magazine and two old Reptiles magazine. Here are the two I still have, my mom liked them so much she took one home with her after Christmas at my place.

As for the ball on top you will have to find someone who does origami as good as my mom. I found this ball lying around and un-curled a paper clip and stuck it in the top of the tree and then stuck the ball on top of that.

Confession I took a 26 min shower

Yes I confess I took a 26 minute shower. It is not a daily thing, I washed my hair and shaved and exfoliated my face. I only wash my hair once maybe twice a week depending on how my scalp is feeling. On top of that there are more days I don't shower at all than I do. I don't go by mudnessa just because it's cute. Thankfully I'm not a stinky person and I generally don't look dirty either. I am not an assault on ones senses, well except for maybe taste, I probably don't taste so good if you were to lick me and I guess if you have a 6th sense that probably isn't something you would want to use around me....but that's not for this post.

I have a low flow shower head and it also has a shut off valve that I use when I am lathering or not in need of water on me. It doesn't actually shut off the water it reduces it to a trickle to keep the temperature of the water constant. I love it, makes me feel better about taking the occasional long shower. I also collect my warm up water and use it to water my plants. I wish I could take shorter showers but having hair almost past my butt now it just takes quite a while to even get it wet not to mention rinse it out.

Phone Books and general recycling issues

Oh great look what landed on my doorstop and on the doorstop of all my neighbors!

Not only is it a phone book, it's two phone books in a plastic bag! Ugh there is nothing redeemable about this at all. I have even signed up at YellowPageGoesGreen.org to take myself off the distribution list but of course they still deliver them because they could care less. Especially since I live in an apartment complex, the person that gets paid to deliver them isn't going to try and figure out which apartment may or may not want them. The problem starts way before that though the company isn't going to take the time to make a list in the first place or even bother to listen to an organization that wants to stop unsolicited books. They are just going to keep giving them.

If everyone who doesn't actually want the phone book was to come home and find them and then promptly put them in the recycle bin the bins would be overflowing by days end just with phone books. There are three large bins curbside next to the dumpster and they are always over flowing. We have our own boxes on our patio to put our stuff in because you never know when you are going to be able to actually get stuff in the curbside bins. Most people take their recycles out and if the bins are full they just trash the stuff. The bins are usually pretty much all recyclable stuff but every once in a while you will find bags of trash in the recycle bins. I guess some people are just too lazy to try and figure out what goes where.

It is not so bad here, the first apartment I lived in was horrible. The dumpster and recycle bins were right next to each other and the dumpster was wide open, no lid on it, you could just toss your bag into the open dumpster. For some reason people would still put their trash bags in the COVERED recycle bins. I don't understand that at all, you can just toss your trash in the open dumpster or take the time to open the lid of a dirty recycle bin and put trash in it, how does that make any sense. I am so baffled by the things people do.

Here there isn't that much trash in the recycle bin all that often but the items that people put in the recycle bins are quite often not recyclable. Like a kids plastic toy ride on bike, yes it is plastic but not recyclable plastic, hey at least they are trying. What bugs me the most is what the employees of the complex put in there and do with the recycle bins. When the bins are overflowing and the lids don't close all the way quite often a maintenance guy will go over take out stuff until it does close and put that stuff in the trash. He won't even see if one of the other bins has room or pick out the stuff that isn't actually recyclable first he just takes it all right over to the dumpster. When a kitchen light blows, the long fluorescent tube lights, the maintenance guys put them in the recycle bin. That makes even less sense than the plastic kids bike. I get so angry at what I see in the recycle bins that I have stopped taking our stuff out and make my husband do it and tell him not to tell me what he saw. That doesn't keep me blissfully unaware because the dumpster and recycle bins are right below our apartment so if I look out our bedroom window I can see them and our parking spot is right in front of that area so every time I get into my car and I back out I see the bins spewing with non recyclables.

We have single stream recycling so all items go in the same bins. A few years ago it use to be one bin for plastic and aluminum, one for paper, and one for glass. When they switched to single stream single households got new large blue cans the same size as the large grey trash cans, previously they had three small different colored boxes one for each type. Apartments and condos at the time had three large different colored bins one for each type of recyclable. They didn't replace those with blue bins for apartments and condos until the ones they had needed replacing due to wear and tear. The trash area we use has two blue bins and one red, red was for glass. People don't understand that and still put everything in the blue, including glass, but very few put anything, even glass, in the red so there are basically only two bins being used regularly. I understand the confusion but it really shouldn't be that hard to figure out and why do they pay attention to only glass in that one but continue to fill the others with non recyclables and even straight trash sometimes.

Direction

I am posting this so I will feel more need to actually do it than just think about it.

I want to post more and perhaps take a bit of a different direction with some of the posts.

First I have a bunch of reuse projects I have done that I want to post about. I never realized how much I actually did until I was cleaning up my "animal room" the other day and I kept coming across different things I have done and seeing them again made me think, "Hey those things are pretty cool I should share them with more than just my animals." Who in reality probably can't even see across the room clear enough to really see them.

That thought right there brings me to the other direction I will go with some posts. Basically it will be me blabbing away, and possibly quite often not making sense, about the odd things I contemplate. I often have these thoughts over dinner, apparently the only time my mind lets go of everything else and I think about the most random things. Well then and sometimes when I am trying to fall asleep. When they happen while I'm in bed I don't say them out loud so my mind tends to let go of them, eventually, and I don't remember them as clearly . When I do think of them at dinner, I share these odd thoughts, realizations, and/or questions that are often quite scientific with my husband and when I finally finish my rambling my food is cold and he shakes his head at me and usually says one of these things, "You are such a nerd", or "You think too much", and sometimes when they make absolutely no sense and just turn into complete gibberish as I try and put my thoughts into actual words other people can understand he says "It's a good think you are hot!"

So if you read a post that is crazy ramblings, kinda like the paragraph above, and you are totally confused, feel free to not read it or you may hurt your brain trying to understand how my mind works. I get told quite often by friends that I make no sense and usually my family can understand my ramblings, because they HAD to learn to be able to communicate with me, even they sometimes are lost, confused, and pained trying to understand me. I don't quite know what it is that I do that confuses people so much but it is part of me and instead of trying to fix it I just let it be and friends and family just live with it as well.

Ha that makes me sound like such a freak, but alas I am so I am just trying to warn anyone who does read any future postings. You have been warned! Read at your own risk!

A bit about me

Well since Cruchy posted it (who stole it from Ruchi, who stole it from Beany who stole it fromMeadowlark...) and I love doing things like this and I have not done one in quite a while because doing something like this everyday or multiple times a day is annoying to other and because I have never done one here I thought I would, oh and also because I am postponing doing important things....

A - Age: 29, until Monday that is

B - Bed size: Queen

C - Chore you hate: dishes and laundry, only laundry because we don't have one in apartment so it takes on a whole aspect of having to carry heavy clothes a lot farther than I am comfortable with.

D - Dog's name: we had a dog named silhouette, we called her silly, she was epileptic and had many head issues, we found her a better home.

E - Essential start your day item: coffee

F - Favorite color: purple

G - Gold or Silver or Platinum: silver

H - Height: 5' even

I - Instruments you play: nada

J - Job title: i don't really have a title, i guess i'm an assistant or keeper. basically i'm a animal shit cleaner upper, that's what HAS to get done everyday, also feeding, if i'm lucky i do some fun stuff, some playing, even some cuddling of cute furry things if the opportunity presents itself. all in the name of work though.

K - Kid(s): just my pets

L - Living arrangements: 2 bed 2 bath apartment

M - Mom's name: leslie or Spanish Bandanna is her nickname now, it's a inside joke basically calling her a 4 letter word, all in good fun though, that spanish bandanna

N - Nicknames: mudnessa, nessa, all sorts of adjectives that can describe me are put in front of nessa, actual name is Vanessa if you didn't know

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: None

P - Pet Peeve: selfishness, ignorance, and closed mindedness

Q - Quote from a movie: "Why don't you just light your tampon, and blow your box apart? Because it's the only bang you're ever gonna get, sweetheart!" -Bernadette (Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert)

R - Right handed or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: younger brother

T - Time you wake up: this week its been about 8, usually its 10, I love sleep and hate mornings.

U- Underwear: Yes

V - Vegetable you dislike: Eggplant and peas

W - Ways you run late: every way possible, i usually blame the cats or the husband

X - X-rays you've had: Dental only, I think

Y - Yummy food you make: mac and cheese, tortilla soup, chili, mostly dinner foods, not good at baking

Z - Zoo favorite: hmmm, at an actual zoo as a "tourist" i like looking at the dogs/cats the most oh and the ring tailed lemurs, which i actually got to work with, a childhood dream of mine, but then he got feisty and I couldn't sit and cuddle with him anymore :( working wise i've loved working with a few specific binturongs, coati mundis, and monitor lizards. least favorite to work with definitely kinkajous in general, but just because they all hate/fear me and honestly i'm scared of them. I think it's because my hair is similar in color to their coats and they must think I'm a big funny smelling kink out to get them. i also don't love working with monkeys all that much just cause they are too damn smart test you and make you really think all the time and I have (controllable) fears of parrots and rodents, those beaks and teeth scare the crap out of me. been bitten by both too, not fun.

Cooking with Chopsticks

My preferred cooking utensil is a pair of chopsticks. In recent years I have started using a silicone spatula more than chopsticks because I have been making more one pot meals and the spatula is better at getting things moving around. I have found another use for my chopsticks while cooking, to keep the lid off the pot so it doesn't boil over as easily but still holds a lot of the heat in. When I cook I like to keep the lid on as much as I can to conserve all the heat I can but I quickly learned somethings just can't be cooked covered because they will boil over too easily. Pasta, quinoa, couscous, those types of things. I can't tell you how many messes I made before I gave up and just cooked those things uncovered, as you are instructed to, gee I guess I should listen to what "real" cooks have to say. With some other things I want to half cover the pot or leave it just a bit off so heat and steam can escape but also hold in a bit of the heat still. This is where the chopsticks come in, I lay them across the pot and the edges and then put the lid on top of them, it works great. Here are some pictures of this at work.

Plastic Packaging

Here is an item that is just totally over done in plastic and there is no alternative.

The story:

The product is basically a gift card. It is a pre-paid 60 day game card for the video game World of Warcraft. The game requires a monthly subscription to play. The game card is available at stores and instead of a gift card it come in a dvd case, a rather large dvd case, it is thicker than normal cases, not thicker plastic but it has a wider spine. So here is the breakdown of all the plastic for this little card. Shrink wrap, dvd case, and then the actual credit card sized card. A bit much, I don't see why they can't just sell cards that need to be activated like so many other services.

This game has a lot of things like this associated with it. When a new expansion come out if you want to be able to play the expansion right away you HAVE to buy a "real world product" full of multiple discs, play books, many inserts, a big dvd case, all wrapped in plastic of course. After the expansion has been out for a while you can just download the necessary files for the same price from the website. Also for each account you have to purchase separate expansion packs. Me and my husband play and we each have an account and we had to go to the store and buy two separate expansion packs. We contacted them about it and they said that there had to be a "real world product" blah blah blah.

Why the NEED for a "real world product" only though. The game would not be any less successful if us nerds who play got to sit down at our computer and NEVER have to get up or leave. When a new expansion is coming out so many people struggle with how to buy it, do I pre-order it online and possibly have to wait a week before I have the actual product arrive in the mail or do I go and stand in line all night so I get get the actual product and get home and play as soon as possible. If they could pre-order it online in digital format and have it at midnight believe me they would, so many of them would.

I'm not saying they need to get rid of the real world product because there would be those that want the booklets that come with the game and there would be those who would wander across the game at the store and purchase it there. But why do they really need a "real world product" only that is what I do not understand.