I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.
When I was a kid my brother and I were really into the television shows, “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman” (I’m probably showing my age here). There were dolls that went along with these shows and we owned them and loved them. The dolls were nothing short of awesome. I can’t quite remember all of the details of their awesomeness but I remember that with one of them you could roll the “skin” on the arm up and see the secret robotics hiding underneath.
One day my dad came home from work and he was grouchy, as adults generally are when they come home from work (being a middle aged adult I know from experience). My brother had his Six Million Dollar Man doll laying the floor. My dad got kind of twitchy when us kids left stuff laying around. He liked things picked up. So when he walked in the door and tripped on Six Million Dollar Man he got pissed and threw the doll down the stairs (toward my brother’s room). I was totally devastated, and my brother was too. Poor Six Million Dollar Man’s robotic arm broke off, rendering him lame and ordinary.
My first job was counter girl at Baskin Robbins. It was actually a pretty great job. I was a Sophomore at Rogers High when I started there and worked there off and on during high school. My friends would visit me at work and I would give them free ice cream.
The memory that sticks out most clearly from that experience was when a pregnant lady came in for a hot fudge sundae. We were all out of hot fudge and the poor lady was very upset. She yelled at me and made me feel bad.
“Remember then that there is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one your are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side. For these, my dear boy, are the answers to what is most important in this world.”
I’ve been making my own lotion for more than a year and I love it. It’s very inexpensive and easy to make and the best quality lotion I’ve ever used. It occurs to me that I’ve never talked about how I make it on my blog. Well then. That changes right now.
I found the recipe that I use on A Sonoma Garden‘s blog. I’ve used her basic recipe a number of times and it always turns out well. The only thing I do differently is I put my lotion in bottles so that I can squeeze it out through the cap (a means to prevent bacteria from invading your lotion). You can buy the bottles at Mountain Rose Herbs. In fact, most of the ingredients I use for this I bought from Mountain Rose Herbs.
The basic recipe only requires 4 ingredients and literally takes minutes to make. The ingredients are:
1. water
2. emulsifying wax
3. oil
4. essential oil
So if I were going to make a basic olive oil lotion this would be my recipe:
Combine the wax and oil in a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup and melt in the microwave for 1 minute.
Take it out and then heat the water up for 1 minute (I like to use a pyrex measuring cup to heat the water up because it is easier and safer to pour). While water is heating up stir the essential oil into the wax and olive oil. When the water is done very carefully and slowly pour it into the oil and wax mixture, stirring it in. The mixture will turn into the consistency of milk. Pour the mixture into plastic bottles and let them cool overnight with the lids off. My recipe will fill one and a half 16 oz. bottles.
That’s it! In the morning you will have lovely lotion that you made yourself. Store it in the refrigerator because it contains no preservatives.
I tried something a little bit differently yesterday. Instead of using olive oil I thought I would try coconut oil and cocoa butter.
Ingredients:
1. 1 1/4 cup water
2. 1/8 cup coconut oil
3. 1/8 cup cocoa butter 4. 1/4 cup emulsifying wax
5. 30 (or so) drops of essential oil of your choice. I like to use lemongrass or lavender.
Same instructions, essentially. Combine the emulsifying wax, coconut oil, and cocoa butter together and melt for one minute in the microwave.
Heat up the water for 1 minute. While the water is heating up add 30 drops of lemongrass oil to the wax and oil mixture. When the water is heated, very carefully pour it into the oil and wax mixture. Watch it turn milky (I love that part).
Put in plastic bottles and let cool.
This is the first time I’ve tried cocoa butter and I suspect it will be a lot creamier than the olive oil lotion I’m used to.
I’ve been on Google+ now for a week and have some opinions about it. I will refrain from posting anything about Google+ on Facebook and Twitter anymore because I kind of feel like there is lukewarm reception to it. However, I do have some opinions and since this is my little corner of the intertubes I thought I’d post them here in case anyone was interested in my opinion.
So far I really like it. I am liking it a billion times more than Facebook. I am not sure if I like it better than Twitter yet.
I will come clean and say that I hate Facebook. I hate it with a fiery passion and I’ve hated it for a very long time. I hate it’s CEO. He is everything I can’t stand in a human being and when I look at his picture I, seriously, want to punch him in the nose. But that’s kind of beside the point. I really have always very much disliked the lack of privacy on Facebook. And Facebook’s attitude is something like, “Privacy doesn’t exist. Deal with it.” I have always disliked that when you post something on Facebook everyone on your friends’ list sees it. Maybe I don’t want my Christian friends seeing my posts about Zen Buddhism, you know? Maybe I don’t want my conservative friends seeing my liberal rants. Maybe I just don’t feel like fighting that battle. Because of this I tend to censor myself on Facebook. And, I don’t know. Maybe that’s o.k. But it’s also kind of boring. I like to let it all hang out sometimes. I like to speak my mind. But I also don’t want to offend other people. So there’s always been that weird dichotomy over there.
There is also this weird “worlds colliding” feature of the Facebook social experiment that has always made me VERY uncomfortable. I don’t know why. But I’ve just never liked it at all. I like having my professional life separate from my personal life. Call my crazy. I have set the privacy levels so that certain people can’t see my wall, but that isn’t ideal at all. First of all, it excludes people. I don’t like excluding people. Also there are times when I do want those that I’ve excluded to see what I post but there is no easy way to allow them to.
I’ve stayed on Facebook, and will continue to stay on Facebook, because my friends are there. My friends are what make it tolerable and I would really miss them if I jumped ship. (most of)The people on Facebook are awesome. Facebook as a company and social networking site sucks.
So now Google+ has come along and guess what? They address these issues! And it is awesome. It is a breath of fresh air for me. Seriously. I saw the initial video where they introduced the “circles” feature and I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. This is what I’ve wanted from Facebook all along. For awhile I thought FB was going to do this because there is the ability to sort your friends into lists. But the process is so clunky and useless and unusable.
Circles are awesome. Very easy to use. Friends can belong to more than one circle, which is nice. For example, I have a “knitting” circle and a “library world” circle and a few of my friends belong to both as they are both knitters and librarians. I have a “friends” circle where I can post personal stuff that the rest of the world could care less about. I can post photos and updates about my knitting projects to my knitting circle and none of my other circles will see the updates. I can also filter my stream so that I see only the circles I choose which makes the reading experience so much better. I don’t feel like I have to censor myself anymore because I get to choose who reads what updates. AND I get to choose what I read at any given time.
The one complaint that I have with circles is that I wish people would use them more effectively. I have quite a few connections on Google+ now and most of them are people I don’t know. I got hooked into the children’s literature world which I’m very exicted about as a children’s librarian. It will be a good way to keep up with stuff going on in that industry. However, it is a very tight-knit online community and they are very freindly with each other (kind of like the online knitting community is). Some of my connections post personal things to all of their circles, thinking that everyone that follows them would be interested. However these personal posts really need be relegated to thier “friends” circle to keep from cluttering up the streams of those who are more interested in professional development.
This is a long post. And I kind of have more to say about it. I think I’ll cut it short for now and continue this on another day. There is lots more to say!
Steve Austin vs. Inspector Gadget (338/365). Photo by JD Hancock.
