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.
Here are some photos I took a week ago today when Raf and I went for a walk in our Neighborhood. We were having a snow day and still trying to dig out from under the 24 inches of snow that was dumped on us the day before. This is an intersection. Yeah, the side streets were pretty bad. Still are not the best but better than they were.
Still, when the sun is out, like it is at this moment as I type this, it is pretty. Very pretty, actually.
Since the “Big Dump” last week on Wednesday and Thursday we have gotten more snow. We had pretty significant snowstorms on Sunday and Christmas Eve, each bringing at least 5 inches. Things are supposed to warm up tomorrow and it’s is supposedly supposed to rain or be a really heavy, wet snow. This brings worries about the roof. We have A LOT of snow on our roof. Raf is going out today to buy a special device that you can use to rake snow off the roof.
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Mine was surprisingly good, despite the horrific weather. I enjoyed my family time immensely.
Um. Yeah. We got DUMPED ON. In the past 24 hours 2 feet of snow accumulated. Apparently this is a record. I had to shovel the driveway 4 times yesterday. I went out every 2-3 hours until the snow stopped and each time I went out there had to be at least an inch of snow. Everything closed down yesterday including the library, where I work. The library is closed today, too. I’m kind of relieved because I would have been in charge today and I was worried that I would be the only staff person there! Many of our staff live below the “South Hill” and getting up the hill in this weather is literally impossible. I feel lucky because I don’t have to drive down any side streets to get around. My driveway is right off of a major road that is usually one of the first streets to get plowed in this weather. I just wanted to be sure I could get out of my driveway so that’s why I kept up with the shoveling yesterday.
yep. That pretty much sums it all up. We’ve had this fog that has hovered over us for a few weeks, it seems. There was a sunny day earlier this week but for the most part, dreary. Right now it’s snowing and we can expect it to continue through Sunday. So that’s fun. And then on Sunday the high is supposed to be 9 degrees. You read that right. 9. Degrees. I’m always shocked, every winter, when I see the temperatures get down that low.
Guess I will tuck myself in with a project and some movies!
I’ve been reading Allie’s Answer’s blog for about a month now and was especially inspired by a couple of posts that talked about natural skincare. I was especially interested in the guest post by Julie Gabriel in which she talks about the benefits of using oil to cleanse the skin. After reading that post I immediately put her book, The Green Beauty Guide on hold at the library. Wow. What an excellent book.
There is lots about this subject of natural skincare that I want to talk to you about! So I think I will blog about the things I’m learning about once a week. I kind of feel like I’ve stumbled on something really cool here and I want to share this journey with you.
Today I’m going to share my experience with making my own lip gloss. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages and a few weeks ago I finally just did it. It was so easy and it took maybe 10 minutes. The recipe I used made enough for one batch, which is just fine for me since I’m the only one using it at the moment. I read a bunch of different recipes and came up with something that worked for me, mostly because I had the ingredients readily available at the time. My lip gloss is based on this article in the New York Times.
1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut oil
1 tablespoon of soy wax (I had some that I got from Michaels for candle making)
1 1/2 tablespoons of Cocoa Butter
1 drop of Vitamin E
3 drops of Peppermint Oil
Colored mineral makeup (that you would use for blush)
Put the coconut oil, soy wax, and cocoa butter in a glass Pyrex measuring cup (with a pouring spout) and place in a small saucepan filled a quarter of the way with water (or you can use a double boiler if you have one. I don’t). Melt the oils and wax until they are liquid. Take the Pyrex measuring cup out of the pan and add the Vitamin E, Peppermint Oil and mineral makeup. Pour into container and let cool.
I’m still experimenting with the amount of mineral makeup to use. For the first batch I used a pinch but it wasn’t enough color. The second batch I added more and it still wasn’t enough color for me. You will have to play around with that until you get the right amount for you. Or don’t use any if you don’t want colored lip gloss.
That’s it! It took me longer to write this up than it did to actually do this. It makes a really delicious lip gloss that really softens your lips. Plus it’s all natural and no chemicals.
