No-poo Day one -- (You were expecting a naked picture weren't you? NOT happening. There's enough scary stuff on the Internet.)

Totally motivated to DO THIS THING, I collected the (open, in use) bottles of hair product I have laying around and counted $275.00 worth of products. $275.00! In the last year! That doesn't include whatever I have purchased, used all of and tossed. I'm blown away. So I hop in the shower, humming to myself about the money I'll save and how beautiful my hair will be, and how my life will be perfect; I'll probably get elected to public office, I'll become a millionaire and a movie star and will have stylists on hand with the newest, most expensive, synthetic, hair products on the market...oh wait...right...

....DO THIS THING. I lather up with special clarifying shampoo I purchased a whole bottle of for the occasion (ridiculous -- since the plan is to not use shampoo any longer) and snap a photo. You're welcome for that by the way. Shower photo. HOT. I wash and try to wrangle a comb through the nest. Not happening...I try a brush...nope. I try a serious brush. Not even close.  I'm screaming in my head now. Tangles, you can't even imagine...tangles (tangles!) make me angry so quickly. If I give up on this thing it will be tangles that put the nail in. Seriously, my tangles probably could get up, find a hammer, run to Home Depot, buy a nail and hammer it in my coffin. This is how bad they are.

So naked, dripping water everywhere (cause I just jumped out of the shower- imagine a naked, dripping, Megan Fox if its more appetizing...or whatever gets your goat. If you're imagining a naked, dripping, goat I don't wan't to know)  I run to the kitchen and grab anegg -- stay with me here -- I read this somewhere online about the eggs.  I think to myself -- i might need two eggs, sooooo..I try to crack them on a bowl - slip on the water that is pooling everywhere and actually crack them mostly on the counter. But the counter is clean. Okay, cleanish.......OKAY....mostly cleanish.  I'm washing it out of my hair anyway. Sheesh. So I scrape it into a bowl, mix in some peppermint essential oil for good measure and I'm off to the shower. Evidently -- and this is the God's truth...Evidently, eggs can scramble in your hair. This. Happened. And now my hair smells like weird eggy mint and I'm picking little bits out but OH! Oh my holy head-gasm the tingle feels like when I used to steal my boyfriends American Crew shampoo (when I had a boyfriend with hair, and therefore shampoo.) And whatever this head tingle, happy thing is this is happening again. I will definitely be finding a way for peppermint oil to happen in this new routine.  Over and over and over...sorry, losing track...(Hindsight says you're only supposed to use the yolks. Thanks Google. Thanks for the specifics.)

 And as I'm picking and picking, I realize my hair smells really weird. It's probably a mixture of the clarifying shampoo (which wasn't roses) and the SCRAMBLED EGG in my hair (scrambled egg.) The peppermint is a nice overtone. Kind of a summery mint quiche kind of thing. I don't know who would eat that. Gross. 

I rinse with vinegar and water really, really hoping my long, luxurious, eggy, locks would be rid of the smell-- and they are. Now I smell like deviled eggs. Seriously. A little mustard and I would eat my hair. Maybe a little paprika too.  I love deviled eggs. Not so much in my hair. But the little bits are gone and I'm counting on my hair smelling better when it dries. On the upside, I can get a brush through it. 

The last shampoo. Who knows how I come up with these hair brained ideas (you see what I did there? HAIR brained...) Pinterest... probably, Facebook definitely. One of the most valuable skills I have learned in the last year has not been in the dirt at all, but online. I have learned to make the internet work for me, instead of the other way around. Follow the right pinners, like the right pages, friend the right blogs and suddenly there is a wealth of information related to your goals and ideas, reinforcing your philosophies, working to target exactly what you want to know, before you even knew you wanted to know it...EXACTLY!. But I digress...

So over the course of the last year, I have become...decidedly more crunchy.

crunch·y

ˈkrənCHē/

adjective

1. 1.

   making a sharp noise when bitten or crushed and (of food) pleasantly crisp.

   "bake until the topping is crunchy"
2. 2.

   informal

   politically and environmentally liberal.

   "a song that incorporates whale-singing seems pretty crunchy"

Okay, well per the definition, I started that way. I make a very sharp noise when bitten. Its true. And I have hidden socialist tendencies. But if you read back through former posts my family and I have been moving to a more whole, sustainable way of living, slowly and not without bumps. It was only a matter of time before this made its way to my beauty routine as well. My boyfriend assures me that his understanding does not go as far as if I stop shaving my legs and start singing in circles...or tie-dyeing anything. But the opportunity to save (a boat load) of money, to use more natural products, and to have better hair? There was really no question. Besides, its winter, who shaves above the knee anyway?

So begins what I understand will be a very grungy few weeks, followed by the best hair of my life. Follow along as hilarity ensures (there is always plenty) and if you're brave play along with me. The routine is as follows:

• 1 tbsp baking soda dissolved in 1 cup of distilled water -- "wash" 2-3 times a week
• rinse with 1 part apple cider vinegar mixed with 1 part distilled water to condition hair
• deep condition with eggs, yogurt, avacado, honey or a mixture of these once a week
• brush daily (often) with a boar bristle brush to distribute sebum throughout 
• learn to tie a cute headscarf or make a hat work

Stay tuned! The "final shampoo" was an interesting ordeal and i'm pretty sure I smell like minty dog. More on this tomorrow. 

Real Good Real Food

In the last few years on the farm, I've been slowly moving my family toward the consumption of "real food." During the daytime hours (and pre-dawn hours, and after dark hours, and sometimes at ungodly times of the night...I work full-time) I slave over homemade breads, soups, salsa, relishes and yogurt from scratch. I purchase organic milk, grow most of my veggies in a great big garden, and I am looking seriously into goats and hogs in the spring. I have even started to make my own cleaning supplies...I am on a real soapbox regarding the consumption of chemicals/processed foods in my home.

But...

At night I sometimes hide out with highly processed boxes of movie theater candy that I stash way up high and to the back of my spice cabinet. I like to sort them into brightly colored groups of purples and red #40 and blue raspberry blue and order the pairs in an obsessive compulsive frenzy. I like the sound they make when I shake the box.

I will NEVER give up the sugar filled store bought orange juice I fell in love with at the same time I fell in love with my boyfriend even though its unbelievably expensive. The promise of a cold glass of it beside my farm fresh eggs is sometimes the push I need to stumble out of bed in the morning. Most mornings I could not even begin to create my overly pretentious real-food breakfasts without it.

When I travel for work I eat more fast food than any "real- good real-food mama" would publicly claim, and I travel for work fairly often.

BEER. Self-explanatory.

There are others too...dark chemical secrets hiding in my closet.

Craving white sugar crystals the way an addict craves meth, trying in vain to find a 5 minute dinner when we have football and girl scouts and I wasn't home from work until 6:30 so we run into town to get convenience store pizza, plus basically anything unhealthy I can get my hands on during that time of month.

It's a process...to de-process; and sometimes a difficult one. Yet it is where I find myself, on a mostly upward and sometimes dangerously grumpy downward spiral, constantly improving, constantly learning, constantly experimenting to find a balance between health, convenience, budget, and happiness.  I've been fast tracked recently; after my blood sugar was tested. Words like pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome and A1C levels were spelled out with warning glares from my doctor and I am going to have to work harder to find foods that are not only whole, but healthy.

So bear with me, and read with me. I will share successes, and failures, and great recipes along the way. I'll share some of the farm with you too. So keep posted, friend me, follow me, join in and comment, and watch our little farm grow into a self-sufficient modern homestead, making healthy food and lifestyle choices, and friends along the way.

Until next time,
Cassie

 "It just feels right, to be closer to the food we eat, to the goods we consume at an absolutely frenzied pace and to utilize this beautiful setting we have to do so.  So things will change, finally, slowly, for us."

Directly quoted from my last post ladies and gentleman. A little idealistic don't you think? SLOWLY. Slowly was supposed to be the operative word. Dreaming of getting a little garden in, building a little chicken pen out of our unused barn, an hour here or there on the weekends. The plan was to  build a life that would eventually self-perpetuate; that would layer new experience on new experience as we gained knowledge, and SLOWLY tame an out of use farm back into a semblance of self-sufficient homestead. 

Fast forward two months (and I mean FAST forward) I have planted an orchard...no, not a few trees, sixteen. Sixteen trees and three grape vines. We have broken land, forged paths, and extensively hand worked a still bare 2000 ft garden. With shovels.  I am trying to nurse along about 100 totally overgrown tomato and pepper plants, through a few weeks until they can be planted outside, having lost about 1/2 of the original number. Thank you Kansas for snow in May.  Last night, we picked up all but the Cornish X meat chickens. I'm thrilled. 20 pullets and 2 cockerels, and somehow I was talked into 3 ducks. They are hilarious little things; sitting in the kitchen at the moment, in the spot where my oven should be (had we not decided to remodel in a week while evidently LEAPING into small farming.)  I'm not sure where they will live tomorrow, when my appliances take their space. Its still much too cold to move them into the coop. 

We spend nearly every hour we are not working professionally working on our little homestead, we are exhausted, muscles in our bodies hurt that haven't been used for years sitting in front of a television, and I'm not sure when we actually had some real down time last. But we love it (well, I love it, I cant speak for everyone.) Being together in an organic way. Enjoying each others company, learning together and creating a life for our family of 6 that is healthier, happier, and more natural is an exhausted sort of bliss. So, slowly didn't happen. Not even close. But I've never been much to move forward in a rational way with things I am passionate about. I just go for it, when something feels right, and this still does.

A couple of years ago, I pulled my kids out of school in the city, left a job I loved, and moved to the old family farm. After the failure of my marriage I was ready for a MAJOR change of pace, and something different, something tangible, a different kind of raising for my kids.

I was torn. I love the city... I love the feel and the pace of the city. I love fashion, and dark sushi bars with red leather booths, jagged skylines lit up at night, small apartments, kitschy art galleries and coffee shops on every corner, but the city I loved just wasn't the right fit for us as a new family of three - we needed the stability of a small town and a sense of community, so we packed up and moved on.

There wasn't a lot of immediate change in our lives. My heels get stuck in the mud trying to get to my car in the morning (I'm still working on a solution for that), the old farmhouse closets don't have a lot of room for the haul I accidentally bring home when I hit a really good sale at Macy's, and it only took the first year to realize propane heat is really, REALLY expensive during a hard Kansas winter. I still go into the city every other week at the very least to drop the kids off for their weekends with their Dad. We eat out a lot, and still live very much in suburbia, on a few hundred acres.

We've yet to embrace the life we came to live, and for a few years that was really okay, but small things have been nagging at me for awhile, over the years I've come across this article or that on sustainability, self-reliability, or homesteading.  It just feels right, to be closer to the food we eat, to the goods we consume at an absolutely frenzied pace and to utilize this beautiful setting we have to do so.  So things will change, finally, slowly, for us. The time is right, the kids are old enough to be a help around the farm, I have a big handsome boyfriend who can drive a tractor :) and I have finally convinced myself that there have got to be some cute chore boots for sale somewhere.

I intend this blog to be a chronicle of this giant life experiment. We are starting from scratch. I don't intend to turn into a cowgirl, a hippy, or a vegetarian, and you will have to pry my four inch snake skin heels and my Michael Kors handbag out of my dirty, calloused fingers. I just want more...of what's real...in life.