Project Updates

Natural Hair Care Update

As many of you know, I haven’t been using shampoo or conditioner on my hair for the last two months. You can read about my plan here.

I feel it necessary to offer a quick update of my hair care because some things have changed:

1) I have gone back to the apple cider vinegar hair clarifier. The honey didn’t seem to make much of a difference on my hair, and honey is more expensive. Plus, for a reason that I still have not figured out, my bottle of honey conditioner began to smell absolutely terrible after about two weeks of sitting in the shower. Honey doesn’t go bad in my cupboard; so why in my shower? I still don’t know. But in any case, that was enough. I’m using vinegar again.

2) I have started conditioning with coconut oil occasionally. My hair continued to be pretty frizzy most days, to the point where I was almost ready to give up on the whole business and go back to traditional conditioners. However, I’m glad that I did give coconut oil a try because it has worked wonderfully. A very little bit goes a very long way, which leads me to believe the large jar I bought is going to last me probably for the rest of my life. I had been using coconut oil after every wash (so, every four days), but now I’m using it every other wash or every three washes, depending on how my hair is feeling.

Facial Cleaning Method Update

As you may know, I don’t use a traditional face wash. I clean my face with oil.

In general, I’m not sure anymore what I think of this method of washing my face. I love how I only have to wash my face once a day with this method. And in general, my face is much less oily than it was with traditional face washes. And I still love that this is better for my body and better for the environment. Those are the trump cards. I do, however, have a few concerns and/or complaints:

1) Some nasty breakouts in the last month, more so than I’ve seen since junior high. Face-wash-induced? Hormone-induced? Hard to say. I’m going to give it another month and see what happens. I have read that adding essential tea tree oil can be helpful for acne-prone skin. However, I haven’t wanted to spend the money on that yet. Adding tea tree oil might push this face wash method out of the realm of economical.

2) I have to wash more washcloths now because I didn’t use to use washcloths to wash my face.

3) This method is more time consuming than a traditional face wash, so when I’m especially tired or in a hurry, I get a little impatient with the time this takes.

Book-Reading Challenge Update

Two months ago, I decided that I wanted to read through all of the books on our bookshelves. We have a lot of books and, embarrassingly, I haven’t read nearly all of them. I decided that it was high time I remedied that.

I challenged myself to read all of those books, and to refresh your memories and mine, these are the guidelines I’m following:

1) I may not check out any library books or read any library books while completing the challenge.*

2) I will update with my progress every two months.

3) I may, however,  read book our book club selected each month.

*Exceptions will be made if a friend or family members wishes to loan me a book. I may, in that situation, except the book and read it.

My progress has been so dismal over the last two months that I didn’t even want to report. And I certainly felt no need to update the pictures of my bookcases.

This is my progress. Besides one book club book, I have read two books. Two. That’s it. I normally consider myself an avid reader (and I’m a librarian, for crying out loud), but this just goes to show how incredibly busy the last two months have been for Husband and me.

From my bookshelves, I have read:

Closing the Achievement Gap: How to Reach Limited Formal-Schooling and Long-Term English Learners, by Yvonne Freeman and David E. Freeman

I bought this book a while back because of the adult ESL class Husband and I teach. Although this was an interesting read, it was actually geared toward teachers who teach school-age English Language Learners.

This Present Darkness, by Frank Peretti

This really was an excellent read. I didn’t think it was necessarily well-written, but the subject matter was just what I needed (more on that another time, perhaps). In the U.S. we’re pretty quick to shrug off the possibility of spiritual warfare in our lives. After all, there has to be some natural and logical reason for everything, right? Although Peretti’s story is fictionalized and imaginative, the theme rings true: there is spiritual warfare, and prayer does make a difference.

I am also in the middle of two other books: One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp and Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder. Both of these are very, very good books, but I’ll withhold any reviews or opinions until I’ve finished them.