I took a few notes along the way and these are the things I want to remember for later.
Highlights: Yellowstone Cliff & Windy Gap, Emerald Ridge, swimming at Golden Lake and St Andrews Lake, the ‘fairy hall’ like quality of lower Ipsut Pass in the fog, the Silver Forest south of Golden Lakes, the entire stretch from just north of Nickel Creek through Indian Bar to Summerland.
Should have brought: A dedicated bottle for the bidet – one that I don’t like very much. A sit pad (got left behind by accident), waterproof pants/lighter rain gear, more socks for S, neosporin, a safety pin in my med kit, more alleve, warmer PJs for S, ramen flavor packets to add to our food, miso soup, spices in general, more TP (N saved us), soap! (which somehow got left behind), a faster water purifier, and the pesto & parmesan noodles I’ve brought kayaking before but left out this time.
This was a great idea: bandana, pickles, snickers bars, dehydrated risotto, dehydrated panang curry, mashed potatoes, clothes that quick dry
Leave behind: extra fuel cannisters, my heavier raincoat (replace with something lighter). We never used the playing cards – so maybe?
I have it in mind that I want to oil paint, that that is my primary medium and that I don’t want to get too invested in watercolor or acrylic because I should focus on one thing at a time. I’ve also realized that I have some trouble with value and composition and I should probably work out those problems in sketches BEFORE I start investing weeks to months of time working on an oil painting. As a result I started doing a lot in my sketchbook. Then I realized that sometimes I need to add color to the sketches to see how the colors will work. This is how I learned that I’m not really a fan of pencil because I don’t feel like I can get a rich enough color without spending too much time on it and I don’t like graphite pencil because it smudges too easily.
Result: I’ve started adding watercolor to my ink sketches to the point where I seem to be making tiny watercolor paintings now. What I like about them is that because I still consider them ‘sketches’ or ‘studies’ I don’t get too hung up about them having flaws. I also don’t really consider them ‘paintings’ in my own head because that would imply that I was studying watercolor technique, which I haven’t really done yet but it may happen by accident. In any case, these feel low stress and I don’t mind sharing them even when they have flaws or are unfinished.
Ian’s houseIan’s favorite treean otterMy friend’s dog
This first one of these is of Ian-from-Canada’s house and we sent it to him along with a gift package as a ‘thank you’ for his hospitality.
This is on the heels of our dinner conversation where my son asked if there was any health reasons to avoid cannibalism and my family responded that 1) humans are full of human diseases and 2) apex predators accumulate toxins. So my daughter helpfully suggested it’d be okay to eat vegetarians. That’s not alarming at all, right?
As for today. She relayed the story about getting a phone call when she was alone at the ice rink so she vaulted over a gate that she never bothered to open when no one could see her. It was security. They could see her on camera and made the call to prank her. Then she talked about hopping over a 7 foot fence so she could weed a (closed) public garden for hours, but the security guard who caught her doing so was the former landscaper for the garden and thought she was an official volunteer until she confessed otherwise.
Then a quick story about the time she almost got a grown man to throw himself face first into the ground because pretending to fall and catching herself in a plank is a trick she’d been practicing.
But the real kicker was just an off comment. She talked about skipping in public and being asked why she was so happy? No real reason, she said she’d just gotten off work. And they said, “wow, work must be awful if you’re so happy to leave.” And her casual, imaginary, reply was “Oh, it’s not bad, but I have to stop eating out of the trash.” This was said in such a deadpan manner. As if ‘stop eating out the trash’ was one of those personal goals she had set for herself in a performance review. Like ‘eating out of the trash’ was just too tempting and while her supervisor had spoken to her about it, she just couldn’t quite resist the temptation yet. I lost it. Her attempts to explain why it was really okay just made it worse.
My experimental musing have turned toward shampoo bars and I’d like to share some of my experiences with using a ‘hair soap’ or ‘solid shampoo bar’ or whatever you’d like to call it.
Advantages: The main advantage for me, is that a solid bar doesn’t have to be stored in a bottle. It can’t leak, I can take it on the airplane and I’m not generating more plastic waste that will wind up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I have complete control over the ingredients so I can test out the advantages of avoiding silicones or detergents. And in my case there is also a bit of “what kind of sucker am I, buying shampoo when I have ALL THE SOAP MAKING OILS right here in my house??”
Thus, I took the plunge. For my first recipe I made one that was designated for ‘normal to dry hair’, the fatty acid profile looked like it would have lather, high conditioning and contained a high proportion of shea butter, avocado oil and sweet almond oil. It looks fantastic. I made that one, and at the same time I saw a positive review of a soap made with 100% coconut oil and a slightly higher-than-normal superfat*. I tried that one too, tossing in a mix of essential oils and fragrance oils that were leftover from a previous soap batch.
Results
Avocado-almond-shea (square) from the original batch and a later, round batch. I think this looks like a lego face with big hair.
Avocado-Almond: I’d never used a ‘hair soap’ before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I used the Almond-avocado bar first, working up a lather in my hand first and then rubbing it on my head. I knew not to expect the same ‘squeaky’ feel that I get from regular shampoo. It generated a reasonable lather, and I used it twice, leaving behind a feel that I’d call ‘moderately grippy’. I didn’t feel like I could leave it at that, so I used some conditioner as usual. And… I liked it. My hair felt soft, everything seemed clean. Except for the feel in the shower it seemed identical to using any random shampoo. I used it about 3-4 times. After the first wash, the grippy feel lessened.
Coconut shampoo bar with accidental “froot loops” scent. I will never be able to duplicate this.
All Coconut: I admit – I expected this to be too drying. I make 100% coconut bars with a 20% superfat and they lather like crazy, but I find them a bit drying on my skin in the winter. This bar, with a lower superfat percentage, I was sure would be drying. I was wrong! I was so wrong. It was amazing – it lather felt just like my favorite shampoo, it rinsed out cleaner, and while I still needed conditioner, my hair felt soft and amazing.
After two weeks of use my hair felt a bit ‘stiff’ for want of a better word, and on the next wash, I used a cider vinegar rinse. That cleared everything up and gave a much ‘slicker’ feel in the shower when I was rinsing off. (It can also make the shower floor slick, so be careful).
I’ve been using nothing else except these two shampoo bars for months now and I’m very pleased with the results. My hair is very straight and fine, neither dry nor oily (I think) but starting to turn gray. Now that it’s getting gray I’ve noticed it’s been less ‘sleek’ for some time now. My shampoo didn’t fix that, nor did it make it worse.
80-20 unscented coconut that was sitting on my kitchen sink
80/20 Coconut Today I thought – I wonder if that roughness I’ve noticed is because it’s too dry. I considered trying a deep oil treatment (did I mention I have all the oils?), but I’m lazy and instead I decided to try one of my regular 20% coconut bars and a vinegar rinse and see what happens.
!!!!!!!
It was FANTASTIC! Why have I not tried this before? It lathered just as much as the lower superfat, that ‘grippy’ feeling in my hair was more noticeable, but after the vinegar rinse and just a bit of conditioner there’s a noticeable improvement/reduction in ‘flyaway’ factor.
Other experiences: I handed out samples of both shampoo bars to friends. Most preferred the coconut bar to the avocado-almond. The exception was someone who has very fine, dry hair, who is happy with the avocado-almond. I am still getting more feedback from testers with different hair types.
Final thoughts: I wonder now if I was too quick to dismiss the Avocado bar. The grippy feeling that I didn’t like so much might be retained oils and could be contributing to what I liked so much about the 80/20 bar. Clearly more research is needed.
Cider Vinegar Rinse: 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1 cup hot/warm water. Optional – instead of using plain water, make a peppermint & nettle tea (or use the herbs of your choice)
*A typical superfat is 5%, and the number represents how much ‘extra’ oils are added to the recipe over what is needed to fully react with the lye (and convert all the oils to soap).
What makes a great holiday? For me it’s friends, food and low-key social interaction. Thus this new holiday was born. Sometime after the frantic pace of the winter holidays have passed but before you’re ready for outdoor BBQ it’s time for Hobbit Fest.
The plan: watch all 3 LoTR movies (or all 3 Hobbit Movies, your choice) back to back in a single day while enjoying all 6 hobbit meals: Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Lunch, Tea, Dinner, Supper.
The first year we tried to make authentic meals mentioned in the books (think rabbit) but that turned out to be too much work, and this holiday is about food and hanging around.
This year we are doing a potluck and my contributions will be coffee, eggs, bacon, tiny pancakes with strawberries and cream, hard cider, fresh-baked bread with jam and butter and, during a lull in the movies, potato latkes with sour cream and applesauce.
My daughter found a website that will read blocks of text to you. She’s composing an essay and letting various actors read it back to her like a live audition. But I knew that I needed a Scottish accent! A bit of searching and I found one that we can’t use for longer blocks, but there is a quick demo.
I’m trying to decide if there is some creative way to use this for our next RPG session.
We need to get one of the voice actors from ‘Honest Trailers’ to do a voice bank.
Update: it has been pointed out that my computer can download various accents for its own text to voice
