Happy Labor day to those readers in the USA!

• Adopting is fashionable
• 10 ways to prove experience…without any – handy list via Marzipan
• Dianne Sylvan’s first fiction book is now available! I’m planning on picking this up ASAP. Perhaps I shall do a review?
• Achieve (almost) anything you want with a pen, paper, and a pot of tea.
• The quiet brilliance of 750 words – I just started writing morning pages at 750 words, right before this post by Gwen Bell. I highly recommend it.
• I just discovered ABCcreativity’s free creativity 101 course, which you can sign up for here. I’m only at lesson one, but it’s great so far – I wanted to share the awesome free goodies with you!
• Monogamy vs. polyamory – an asexual perspective
• Check out Melissa’s awesome promo photos, feature Dita von Teese & circus styling!
• My feral leghair & why I’m going to grow it

I hope everyone’s week is off to a fabulous start! It has FINALLY started to cool off a bit here – it’s gone from over 100 F temperatures to an average of 90-95 F the last few days. Such a relief!

Geddit? Goal post?! Oh, I crack myself up sometimes.

So, my goals for August and how I did on them:

• do more yoga – yes! I did well on this one. Went from almost no yoga to 3ish times a week. I’m still improving on it as well, which is a good thing.
• meditate for ten minutes, 3x a week – ehh. I did it probably once or twice a week, so I made progress, but I didn’t manage 3x a week.
• swim once a week – TOTALLY failed at this one. Barton Springs is close, and it’s cheap, but it’s also always freezing cold – and it’s been so hot outside that I try to stay inside most of the day, only to remember at seven or eight PM that I was planning on going swimming. Whoops.
• sketching regularly – better on this one, but not as good as I could have been.
• make progress on Valkyries – oh man, I totally dropped the ball on this one. I made progress but not near as much as I was supposed to. Must remedy.

Goals for September:

• I think I’ll carry over the meditation & yoga goals, with goals of at least 3x a week for both of them.
• Sketching regularly is something I’d like to keep doing.
• Definitely need to get the first chapter of Valkyries done. Planning this to be done before the 13th, actually.
• I’m submitting an essay to issue #4 of hoax zine that needs to be done before the  31st.

Trying to keep them a little lighter this month, because of the work that needs done on that essay & on Valkyries. I’m pretty confident about being able to get most of these done. I just read Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher (review coming next week!) and there were some nifty scheduling & time management tools suggested in the book that I’m hoping to make good use of.

If you set any monthly goals, I’d love to hear them and how you did on them! Wishing you luck for this month as well.

Like I mentioned on this Monday & last Monday, last week I took an internet break. Or attempted to. My goal was to do internet for only 30 minutes in the morning and 30 at night, which I surpassed by ridiculous amounts. But my overall internet usage was much lower than normal and it made me think about the ways I use the internet, how it affects me, and how I should plan my internet usage from here on out, knowing those things.

My head is kind of a noisy place, most of the time. And the internet only augments that. I think it’s something about having access to so many viewpoints, often opposing, at the same time, combined with multitasking. All I know is that when I’m on the internet too much (I still haven’t figured out what, in hours, “too much” is, but I know it when I’ve hit it), it feels like there’s constant static in my head.

Unlike some people, I think the internet is more good than bad. I generally feel it’s an amazing tool, I just need to figure out how to successfully moderate my usage. Chocolate is awesome, but you’d get sick eating it every meal, every day.

Here’s my new plan:

• At least every other day, only use the internet in the mornings and in the evenings, as far as “social web” is concerned (like, writing or working on the comic is all right, tumblr/twitter/Google reader is not).
• No internet at night before bed! I think I’m going to start trying to get off every night at or before nine or ten o’clock. Matt & I are trying to get up earlier and it’s so easy to while away a few hours at night on the internet – and suddenly it’s one in the morning.
• No getting on the internet very first thing in the morning. Do yoga, if not up for doing yoga that morning, at least sit and meditate for a few minutes, then eat breakfast, then the laptop can be opened.

Although not 100% internet-related, I’m also trying to do less multitasking. I’m a natural multitasker, but there’s a certain point where it gets a little ridiculous and just leads to distraction. I want to purposefully make space for activities not focused around the computer – mostly, reading books. I’ve got a mile-high stack of library + borrowed books right now, all calling my name, and after those, I can get more. In fact, between Amazon and interlibrary loan, I’m pretty sure I could probably disappear reading for years at a time. Mindfulness is another thing I’d like to work on – I tend to be a bit spacey sometimes when it comes to things like eating. I’d like to be a little more grounded and a little less on autopilot.

Is there a particular internet schedule you stick to? How’s that work out for you?

Little late! I was gone most of the day yesterday at the local Freyfaxi celebration (which was awesome, I so enjoyed it) and forgot to write this before passing out last night. You also might notice that I changed up the look around here, let me know what you think – I got a wild hair on Saturday to redo everything, so I did! My “internet diet” is over now, and it didn’t turn out how expected, but not necessarily in a bad way. I’ll be doing a post about that later this week. Anyways here’s the links!

• Because messy is fun.
• How authors really make money – fascinating breakdown of publishing by Mr. Tim Ferriss.
• The fat tax
• Learning to be happy with what you have to be happy with
• Thinking about ageing
• The unrelenting misery of misery policing
• Storms – 5 years
• Mad Props Monday: MoonsLark – Pace & Kyeli have been posting entries to the WCWW scholarship contest every Monday for the last few months, and this is one of my favorite essays so far. (Art is not only the realm of a special few – yes!) (Mine will be up in a week or two! Eep!)

Hope you’re all having a great start to your week! I started mine with cinnamon french toast, topped with strawberry jam and powdered sugar. YUM.

As my hair’s grown out, I’ve had to readjust many parts of my old haircare routine. Case in point: my old shampoo and conditioner were just not cutting it. They worked fine for shorter hair, but with longer hair kept leaving me with greasy roots and dried out ends, for some reason.

I’ve heard so many great things about Lush, I decided to give them a try. In particular, I was curious about their solid shampoos. I ordered Trichomania, which is suggested for curly hair, and Jungle, the only solid conditioner available. The price isn’t bad for the quality, and the shipping was very fast. As soon as I got them, I stuck them in tupperware containers – I would definitely recommend doing so with solid shampoos/conditioners because otherwise you will end up with quite the mess in your bathroom!

Anyways, I received them in July. For reference, I have fine curly/wavy hair that’s easily weighed down. Here’s my thoughts a month on:

Trichomania smells amazing – it’s a light coconut scent, and it’s definitely not drying at all. My hair feels clean but is still soft. It’s almost too conditioning combined with Jungle (more on that in a second). It has almost entirely lost its bar shape by now, so like I said, some kind of container is pretty much a must. One curious thing is that I notice a lot of blue on my hands after I wash my hair, so I figured it would strip the color much faster than the shampoo I had been using, but it doesn’t at all. Go figure.

Jungle took some tweaking to get just right. In its unaltered state, I found it really hard to get enough off to adequately condition my hair – I would have to reach outside the shower and dry my hands off, then try and pinch off a piece of conditioner, emulsify it between my hands, and finger-comb it through my hair. My hair didn’t feel conditioned enough just using it while in the shower, so I started using a tiny bit as a leave in conditioner – but that tended to weigh my hair down a bit more than I liked; my second-day hair looked great (I shampoo my hair every other day and on the off-days just pull my hair back) but my first-day hair, not so much.

I looked at some of the reviews on the Lush website and saw that other people  had had similar problems, with both application and the quality of conditioning; so I tinkered with it a bit. I cut the bar into chunks as suggested by one reviewer and poured water over them, just enough water to cover the chunks. I didn’t want to just water it down, so I put a tiny bit of jojoba oil (probably 1/4 tsp) and olive oil (3-4 drops) in the mix as well; then stuck it in the microwave until it was melted. I stirred it well and then let it solidify again – the result is much more buttery and easier to handle in the shower. And instead of applying it twice, I just put a small amount in my hair as a leave in conditioner right before I get out of the shower. It works fabulously this way; my hair is soft and shiny but not weighed down at all!

The smell might be off-putting to some. I think Lush may have changed the scent at some point, because several of the reviews comment on a “fruit loop” smell, but the bar I got smells like freshly cut grass and evergreen trees, not fruity at all. It’s pretty strongly scented in the shower but it doesn’t linger on my hair much, or at least not that I can tell.

Overall, I had a really positive experience with Lush & the products I ordered; I would definitely recommend checking out their haircare products!

When I worked at a coffee shop, my favorite drink was Italian cream soda, hands down. I love sugary coffee drinks but they are rather unkind to my stomach (and my nerves). Ever since being able to make the sodas to my specifications, I haven’t quite been satisfied with most shop-bought sodas. Club soda and half and half are easily obtained, but the syrups used in coffee shops are generally rather expensive. Imagine my excitement (seriously, I squealed out loud) when I discovered that you can, in fact, very easily make flavored syrups at home! Even if you don’t want to use them on sodas, they can also be used in teas and alcohol drinks as well, and made in a huge variety of flavors. Here’s the three versions I’ve used:

Basic recipe taken from here and modified.

Raspberry syrup:

• 6 oz (a little over a cup) of raspberries, either fresh or thawed frozen ones will work
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups water

Put sugar and water in pot; heat until sugar is dissolved and the syrup is clear. Add raspberries and turn down to very low heat; let simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off heat, let cool to room temperature, and strain out raspberries – I like to use a straining spoon because I don’t want to lose syrup and I’m not picky about a few berry bits left behind in the syrup. Put in a bottle & keep in the fridge.

Plum syrup:

• 2 plums
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups water

Directions are the same as for the raspberry syrup, but you’ll need to chop up the plums ahead of time. I cut it to try and maximize the surface area; the end result was a bunch of chunks about a half an inch square. I wasn’t 100% for sure this would work when I tried it, but it worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Vanilla syrup:

• 2-3 teaspoons of vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups water

Add sugar and water, heat until syrup is clear and sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat and stir in vanilla. Let cool, bottle, and refrigerate.

Basic Italian cream soda – for every 8 ounces (1 cup) of club soda, add one shot half and half, and one and a half shots of syrup. I do one shot vanilla and a half a shot raspberry for a sweet but not too sweet cream soda. Obviously, you can adjust the amounts to taste. Or leave out the cream entirely for a plain Italian soda. Add a shot of vanilla vodka if you like! It’s even better topped with whipped cream, but I don’t usually have that on hand.

Alternately, in case there are any Sweet Leaf tea fans in the house, I’ve discovered a fair alternative to their delicious (but not sold in large bottles & too expensive to buy constantly in small bottles) raspberry tea. 2 tea bags of Celestial Seasonings cool brew raspberry black tea and half a shot raspberry syrup for every cup of cold water.

I imagine that using this basic set-up you could probably make flavored syrup with just about anything – for mint, steep mint leaves, other berries would be easy enough, although you might want to chop up strawberries. I haven’t tried different fruits other than the plum, but I’d think the technique would work on most fruits. The sky’s the limit!

Enjoy!

I’m starting another internet break this week! I’ve scheduled posts for today, Wednesday, and Friday ahead of time, but as I’ll only be on 30 minutes in the morning and evening (mostly to keep my email inbox in check) , I might be a bit slow to reply in comments. I’m greatly looking forward to it though! Planning lots of yoga, meditation, reading, writing, and drawing. Mmmm. Anyways, here’s your links!

• Getting back on top of life – the sequel post to when overwhelm hits hard, which I also linked to a week or two back.
• This is why I resisted medication (and could have died from it)
• Who defines (and controls) normal?
• your permission slip from the universe – something we all need reminded of sometimes. I actually used to be really bad about continuing to read books or watch movies, even if I hated them, but not any more! If I’m halfway through the book and it sucks, or 30 minutes into a movie and I’m bored out of my skull, I have no qualms about doing something else instead. Life’s too short to read crappy books.
• A letter to medical students

A bit short this week, so I’ll stick in this super catchy tune from Balkan Beat Box (found via Audi) to brighten up your Monday:

Hope your week is getting started off right!

I’ve never owned Rieker shoes before, although several of their pairs have good reviews on Zappos. Several of their shoes are pretty dowdy, but I think these are a lovely blend of quirkiness and practicality. The scalloped edging on the strap and the detailed silver snap is the icing on the cake!

Except that…

• in many parts of the country, riding a bicycle everywhere puts you at risk of a heat stroke for a good chunk of the year.
• many people don’t have bicycles. They can be obtained fairly cheaply, to be sure; although one article I saw that suggested this commented on how an inexpensive bike could be obtained for $150 or less, acting like that was a minimal investment. Suffice to say, I don’t think it is for many people in the current economic times. And that also leaves out basic essentials like lights (which are required by law in Austin when riding at night), a helmet (a good one can run $50+ new), and a lock; even if you manage to get a bike for $50 used off Craigslist, you’re still probably looking at a good $200 investment when all is said and done.
• lots of people live in places where cycling is just not an acceptable form of alternative transportation. In rural areas or suburban sprawl, it doesn’t work nearly as well as it does if you live in the center of a city.
• are you ready for this? I know it’s a total shocker. But. NOT EVERYONE CAN RIDE A BIKE. A wheelchair or cane user would have a hell of a time on your average bike. People with chronic pain or fatigue conditions, or temperature or light sensitivities, probably wouldn’t find riding a bike worth the amount of energy (aka spoons) it would take.

Usually when these suggestions – ride a bike, get rid of your car, buy fair trade, ask your boss to let you work at home – get thrown about, it’s from someone who seems to either not know or care that there are others out there who have different circumstances than they do. It is really not that hard to think of situations other than your own before assuming everyone else has the same options you do.

I don’t have anything against any of these groups in particular, but I think it’s incredibly disingenuous to claim “anyone can do it!” and then spout off a list of things that not everyone can do. It’s just plain silly to claim your advice applies to everyone when it clearly doesn’t, and what’s more, to act like people who don’t implement your advice are merely lazy, mindless consumers (switch out as needed for environment haters, omnivores, cubicle wage slaves, etc.), instead of people who have valid reasons for not wanting to. That doesn’t always happen, but I’ve certainly seen that straw-person get bandied about before and I’m sure I will again.

I felt the need to write a post about this because it seems like it’s been everywhere lately and it drives me up the wall!

created by wladek100 on DeviantArt

• Rogue or Broke: An Interview with Firestarter Danielle LaPorte
• On Centering Caregivers in Disability Discourse
• This is a prime example of why Alicia is awesome: Oh, Slate.
• Regimen Building: Go Ayurvedic, pt 1
• Love this editorial posted at Haute Macabre: Fetching Femme
• I giggle EVERY TIME I look at this. (Linking to it instead of embedding because I’m not sure how safe for work owl macros with the f-word are…)
• Making Space for Creative Credo
• Assistive tech and pop culture: “Miss Smith, without your glasses, you’re beautiful!” as a glasses-wearing pop culture geek, I loved this post.
• Explaining pain
• I loved this poem: I Am

I am the rays of the radiant sun,
the willow tree and its shade;
I am the giant mouth of the ocean,
the fossil that never decayed…

I hope you’re all getting your week off to the right start! I’ve managed to get Matt hooked on the Harry Potter films over the weekend. Mua ha ha.