Oh yeah, and keep your eyeballs open for my post containing pictures of all the stuff I’m going to donate or give away!

The backpack

Shirts

pants, shoes, jammies, belt and sweater

towel and toiletries

all ready to be packed up

The full backpack

Condition: Still light and fluffy. It feels a little heavier than usual but no grease or itch or yicky smell

My method: I’m using conditioner at the roots and pulling it through to the ends of my hair.  It seems to break up the sebum (natural scalp oil) and distribute it evenly.  My hair feels like it has more moisture, even at the ends which is VUNDERFUEL! I have curly hairs so usually the ends frizz out and get really dry.

So here’s the proof, my hair 5 days without shampoop!

So yeah.  As it stands I owe $8900 total: $4700 on my car and I owe my dad $4200.  After I sell my car, I’m going to take the payment that I was making to the bank, and pay it to my dad.  I’ll be debt free in just shy of 2 years! How exciting is that?

I wear mascara. If I don’t, my eyes look like two pea holes in the snow. I love my mascara and it is the one unneccessary item that I can’t bring myself to part with.  It defines my eyes and makes the sparkle stand out.  I’ve had a minimalist beauty regimin for many years now. However, I don’t really like the chemicals that are in my mascara. Or the fact that the tubes and wands aren’t recyclable and every time I need a new tube, the old one has to go in the garbage.  So I’ve decided to try making my own

This recipe is for plain ol’ black mascara. I’m sure there are ways to make different colors but I’m comfortable with black.

Ingredients:

• Sterilized mascara tube and wand
• Pigment. You could use activated charcoal (available at healthfood stores). WARNING: Do NOT use regular charcoal. It WILL irritate your eyes. Activated charcoal has been buffered and broken down so that it’s not so caustic.
• A base for the mascara. You could use: vegetable oil, vegetable glycerine, or water.  I personally would use the vegetable glycerine.  It works as a humectant and will moisturize your lashes. Also, if you would like you mascara to be a little more solid, you could add a little beeswax to the mixture.
• A preservative. You could use vitamin E, liquid grapefruit seed extract, sugar, or colloidal silver.  I would use the liquid grapefruit seed extract, but I’m a little biased

In a small container, mix your ingredients. For the preservative, you only need a little. For example; one drop of grapefruit seed extract should take care of 1 tube of mascary. Add your pigment a little at a time until you reach the desired color. Pour your mixture into your sterilized mascara tube. Voila! You have your home made mascary! 

This book is total awesomeness all wrapped up in 80 pages.  She covered everything from facing your fears about going car-free to picking out a bicycle.  And she included these little micro-actions to help you figure out for yourself if going car-free is for you.  AND she also covered going car-lite for those who decide that getting rid of their car isn’t for them.  If ever you complained about your car payment or worried about your impact on this planet, or if you just hate driving a speeding metal coffin, Simply Car-Free will help you make the decision to whip out your bicycle.

So with that here are my Micro-Actions.  Let me give you a little backstory before we jump in though.  I live in Idaho Falls.  It’s not exactly rural but it’s not exactly a thriving metropolis either.  This city was built for cars, not bikes and walking, and it snows here.  Not just snow, mind you, but slush, ice, sub-zero temperatures and 1J drivers (really bad drivers).  So here we go:

What are my fears about going car free? biking in winter, no public transit, traveling long distances would mean taking the bus (menacing music)

Why am I afraid? I HATE the cold and the snow, I’ve heard horror stories about taking the bus

Can I get along without a car? definitely

Cost Analysis: Per Month   Total: $361

Payment: 206

Insurance: 80

Gas: 40

Maintenance: 35

Reasons to keep my car: ease of travel, can haul my friends/family, warm in winter, its super cute and I love it

Reasons to go car-free: save $361/month=$4332/year (not counting major maintenance and registration/fees), get fit by riding my bicycle or quadricycle,  slow my life down, easier on the planet, reducing my dependency on oil by a smidge, make new friends, see my community, less temptation to acquire clutter

What do I need from a bike? sturdy but not heavy, can handle the weight of groceries and/or travel gear, can accommodate winter tires and fenders, I would love a recumbent!

I also made a journal entry about it after I did all my little micro actions.

Dear Me,

I’m going to go car-free. I spend a little over $300/month on my car and I just think that is way too much to spend on something that is depreciating in value. Bicycles are relatively cheap and they generally hold their value.

Plus by getting rid of my car I am choosing to be a drain on the big auto and banking industries. And the auto insurance industry, whaddya know!  I am choosing to make myself healthier by exercising more.  It’s just an all around better choice.

The only issue is that I really REALLY don’t like the cold.  Perhaps when I learn how to make passive income I can become a snowbird or just move somewhere where it’s always warm.

Another reason I want to go car free is this, I don’t plan on living in the middle of nowhere.  I’m not a huge fan of city living but I feel better when I don’t have to drive.

So there you have it.  A piece of my crazy laid out for you to soak in

Live (car) Free!

a) he’d never heard the term before I caught a full blown case of the crazies and decided to downsize to a backpack and

b) I’m the only example of a minimalist that he knows.

But I digress.  We were talking about minimalism because he had seen a documentary about our capitalist society and how these big corporations screw families out of life insurance money  by putting the corp. down as the beneficiary.  And it pissed him off.  He said to me, “I just don’t know what I could do about it besides either sit and bitch about it or go on a rampage and kill them off!”

And I said, “You know Brütti, you can’t go on a killing spree and bitching about it won’t help.  But you can choose to not support that type of crap by not buying their crap.  That’s why I’m downsizing to a backpack.  I might not be an army or a whole movement of people who is going to bring the corporations to their knees, but by being a drain on their wallets, I can at least feel good about my own actions.”

He said, “How are you a drain on their wallets?”

I said, “Because our economy is set up so that in order to prosper our people need to consume more and more and more.  And every time I don’t buy something, I am costing them money.”

So, I told you that story to tell you this one.  I want to stop buying as much stuff as I can.  In order to do that, I need to figure out how to get along without that stuff.  And when I do need to buy stuff, I want to make those purchases from small businesses.

So if y’all don’t mind, I think I’m going to post recipes and alternative methods whenever I find ones that I like. Like today is an alternative to lye based soap. Instead of buying soap, or buying the ingredients to make soap, you could grow plants that have natural soap built in!  These plants are awesome for gardeners and the chemically sensitive alike!

• Soap Nuts: these fruits grow on trees in warm temperate to tropical regions

• Soapwort: a soap is made from its leaves and roots for cleaning delicate fabrics and it also makes a fine shampoo. Just put it in water and swish it around!

I’m talking about adopting the shampoo free lifestyle.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still wash my hair every day, I just wont use shampoop, which strips hair of it’s natural oils and causes all sorts of nastiness.  Since my hair is curly and prone to being dry anyway, I kinda need my oils.  Plus, have you looked at the ingredients on the back of your shampoop bottle?  I’m looking at my shampoop right now and even though I probably shouldn’t tell you which brand I’m using, I sure can list the ingredients for you:

water, sodium laureth sulfate (a known carcinogen), glycerin, sodium sulfate, laureth-4, sodium lauryl sulfate (another carcinogen), laureth-16, lauramidopropyl betaine, benzophenone-4, ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, ppg-9, lauric acid, polyquaternium-10, tocopheryl acetate, retinyl palmitate, magnesium ascorbyl phospate, tourmaline, citrine, hydrolyzed vegetable protein pg-propyl silanetriol, tea-cocoyl, hydrolyzed soy protein, punica granatum extract, prunus domestica fruit, disodium phosphate, propylene glycol (apparently not toxic to humans according to wikipedia, but toxic to poor little furry creatures), sodium phospate, polyvinyl alcohol, lecithin, alcohol, disodium edta, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, fragrance, caramel, blue 1, red 4, red 33

How many of those can you pronounce correctly?  I want to institute a rule that I may NEVER use products that have ingredients that I can’t pronounce.  We’ll see how well that works out for me.

Anyway, I think a major contribution to the fact that I haven’t begun my “no poo” adventure is because it takes about a month for the scalp to normalize after a person stops using shampoop.  I just don’t know if I could handle nasty hair for that long. But I guess after the adjustment period is up:

By week four I almost gave up. But then it was almost like a fever breaking. I took a conditioner-only shower after another frizzy, oily day, went to bed that night … and when I woke up next morning, my hair looked fine.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=837208&TextPage=2#ixzz0h8IcGkZl

I read that story a long time ago (when my hair was still pretty darn short), and I’ve been saying ever since that as soon as my hair is long enough to ponytail, I’d go for it.  Well that time has arrived.  I’m not quite sure if I’m ready for it but I’m going to commit to 30 days.  Plus it makes me excited that there is one more item I don’t have to purchase or add to the landfill and our water supply.

If after 30 days I hate it, I suppose I can either try a different way of shampooping my hair or I can always go back to my chemicals.

Today = day 1 of my no poo lifestyle.  Condition: still light and fluffy even at the roots. Need to go get a boar bristle brush for distributing the sebum evenly through my hairs.

Live (shampoop) Free!

Since going car-free is on my to do list, I’m going to be purchasing Simply Car-Free so I can take advantage of all of Tammy’s advice!  I’ll have a review up just as soon as I’m done reading it

Live (car) Free peeps!

I have almost everything that I have listed. There are just a couple of items that I need to purchase and then I’ll be complete. Of course I won’t be purchasing anything too costly for a bit but hey, at least I know what I need and that’s a start!

What I need to purchase: Coleman fold and go propane campstove,

hand pumped water filter,

collapsible jug,

Vibram Sprints,

Vibram Performa,

traveler’s wallet (the kind with a strap that you can wear under your shirt),

sunshower, netbook & charger & zipdrive, E-book & charger,

Ipod & charger,

rechargeable batteries

I work at a health food store, right? So I get to help people solve their problems all the time using natural remedies that alot of times can be found in their back yards!  It’s a bummer that the ability to care for ourselves has been bred out of us.  At one point most people knew the herbal basics.  They didn’t know how they worked. Just that they did.

I know what you’re going to say… “You’re full of hot air.  Those natural remedies don’t work. People have used them for centuries and people still died. Nobody knows what they do anyway!”

I imagine the same can be said of big pharma.  I’m going to tell you a secret. Big pharma is NOT in business to help you get well.  They are in business to make money.

The fact of the matter is that people die. It’s the human condition. Some people die because synthetic drugs can’t help them, and some people die because natural remedies can’t help them.  Either way, I think I’d rather take my chances on my own and only turn to big pharma when it gets really bad.  And even then there are alot of natural remedies that a person could use right along with the synthetic medications the doctors prescribe!

There has been alot of scientific research done on herbs, vitamins and minerals.  Make sure when you’re doing your research that you read the third party scientific studies.  Those are the ones that will give you the most honest answers.

Ok coming off of my soap box.  Preventative medicine is super simple. My natural home pharmacy basics are Elderberry and Grapefruit Seed Extract.  Whenever cold and flu season comes I take a little of each every day and usually I stay well.  Unless I’m in super close contact with someone who is sick.

Elderberry

(1)According to Terry Willard, CIH, Ph.D, ‘Alive’ Magazine, “current research shows a stimulation of antibody protection and a reduction of flu symptoms in three days or less. Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu of the Hadassah-Hebrew University in Israel found that the elderberry herb disarmed the neuraminidase enzyme, which flu viruses use to penetrate healthy organism cells. Twenty percent of her flu study subjects reported significant improvement within 24 hours, 70 percent within 48 hours, and 90 percent were completely cured within three days. The subjects consuming Elderberry syrup also had higher levels of antibodies against the virus. In contrast, subjects receiving the placebo required six days to recover.”

(2)Elderberry herb has been proven to be resistant to over eight strains of influenza, which is a stronger percentage than any antiviral vaccine. The way it works is: flu viruses are covered by tiny protein spikes, which are used to attach to and infect healthy human cells. The key active substances within black elderberry herb disarm these spikes and stop the first step of viral infection.

• A warning about elderberry:

(3)Do not try to ingest the raw leaves and stems of the elderberry, as they have been known to be lightly toxic. Since there are no other known drug interactions, the elderberry makes a great addition to your daily regiment during cold and flu season.

Grapefruit Seed Extract

(4)Grapefruit seed extract is not like pharmaceutical antibiotics where a set number of days treatment is specified. You can safely take GSE over a long period, if needed, without any worry of toxicity. We have reports of people taking GSE every day for years(as a preventative) without side-effects of any kind. Also, a long-standing parasite infection could take quite some time to overcome. Don’t give up!

(5)There is no evidence that any type of micro-organism has ever developed a resistance to Citricidal or Nutribiotic grapefruit seed extracts. In fact it is believed that such resistance is not possible because of GSE’s mode of activity. Because GSE actually disrupts the cytoplasmic membrane, changes in genetic make-up in the pathogenic organism would be irrelevant. What is still not known is how GSE can be effective against viruses, inasmuch as a virus has no cell membrane of its own.

(6)Grapefruit seed extract (GSE) is truly a broad-spectrum natural antibiotic, capable of killing a wide variety of pathogens. Highly active against protozoa, bacteria, yeast and some viruses, it has been used for quite some time in the treatment of parasitic infections. It is nontoxic, generally hypoallergenic and can be administered for up to several months, which may be required to eliminate stubborn infections.

(7)Grapefruit seed extract has been shown to be effective in treating hundreds of different organisms including: Shigella,Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Giardia lamblia, Diplococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Mycobacterium species, Campylobacter, Candida albicans, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus, Salmonella, Klebsiella, Proteus, Cholera, Chlamydia trachomatis, Trichomonas vaginalis, Legionella pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, Herpes simplex 1, Influenza A2, and measles virus. GSE has been shown to kill both gram-negative and gram-positive strains of bacteria.

(8)Grapefruit seed extract may be helpful in alkalizing the blood. Alkalizing the body fluids (raising pH) is one of the single most important health regeneration benefits available as disease causing microforms (fungi, bacteria, virus etc.) cannot survive in an alkaline oxygenated environment. Though lemons, limes, and grapefruits are chemically acid, tests show that when they are metabolized in the body they actually have an alkalizing effect. They have very little sugar and they contain an abundance of oxygen. This is a plus for anyone fighting candida or any other disease. Conclusion: Eat more fresh vegetables and less processed foods as most all vegetables are alkaline forming in the body.

The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.