Yard Sales

I have been spending my week preparing my junk for the 3 day garage sale I plan to have this weekend. I am getting rid of a lot of stuff, including quite a few nice antiques. When I price my items I make sure to research each one in order to sell them for a reasonable and realistic price. Despite this, I know that I will get some of "those" customers. What are those customers? "Those" customers are the type that freak out if anything is priced over $1. They are never convinced of the worth of something and they will do anything to bargain you into bankruptcy. My true feelings about these types are accurately portrayed in this rage comic I have put together:

In essence, buy it or gtfo.

The All Natural Lifestyle: No more shampoo!

Sometimes I feel bad for my parents. Every time I tell my parents about my decisions to change my lifestyle to be a little more "green," I can see the look on their face as they think "Oh good lord, we have raised a hippy."
For example, when I told my parents I wanted to go to school in Oregon, they saw this:

Then, when I told them I had gone vegetarian, they saw this:

Now, when I told them I'm going to stop using shampoo and conditioner in search for a more natural alternative, I saw the grimace on their faces as they saw this:

Notice the slow progression into a person that my city-raised father and Christian-raised mother deem a figment of their past, reincarnated in their own daughter. Now, I never force any of my personal choices on my family and in return my parents have been amazingly supportive. They do everything possible to keep me at my school as long as I get the grades and do my best to help. I cook meat for them a few times a week and they don't complain about the meatless nights (usually). But, I may have just thrown them over the edge with my Shampoo-less decision; like most people, they don't see the need. But for me, it makes complete sense.
1. It's cheap and simple. All you need is water, baking soda, and apple cider vinegar- items that will last years.
2. It's natural. Shampoos contain detergents and toxins that my doctor sighted as the cause of the sores that I occasionally get on my scalp.
3. You need the oils that shampoos strip away and conditioners replace (synthetically). Going without shampoo allows your hair and scalp's oil production to regulate itself without need of any sort of hair product.

I have read multiple blogs and articles about the no-shampoo movement, and after finding some simple replacements for shampoo and conditioner, I decided it was my turn. I started the transition last Wednesday, and I am already happy with the results (most of the time).

My hair is not the oily type or dry type, but it is pretty thin and long.

This picture was taken a year ago, but it is a typical day for my hair during the summer. Megan (my bff sittin next to me) has the longest hair I have ever seen, and it is beautifully golden. Point of this picture is that I think that I have pretty normal hair that would easily transition into my new regimen which consists of a baking soda "shampoo" and an apple cider vinegar "conditioner." All you need a is a tablespoon of each combined with a cup of water in separate squirt bottles. You put the baking soda just on the scalp and let it sit for a few minutes before you rinse. Then, you use the vinegar mixture on the ends of your hair and let it sit as well. Super easy!

On the first day of my shampoo rejection, I let my hair air-dry and did not use any type of frizz-control product (like usual).

Pretty Normal, a little dryer and frizzier than normal, but it is to be expected. I usually wash my hair every other day and I have to say that my hair was much nicer looking the next day, but it was hot and I wore it up anyways. On the third day, I washed my hair again, but as I was off to LA that day I used my frizz-ease and called it a day. The day after, my hair was pretty oily

I think I've started the 2-week period of unruly hair that most blogs have mentioned as the hardship of this lifestyle. Keep in mind that this hair is after a full day at the beach in Venice, so it was also salty. All in all, my hair is not going too crazy from the lack of the sudsy stuff, and I can feel it getting thicker and it definitely has more body. So, win for now! Let's see how the rest of the week goes

Bonding over Faulty Technology

Years ago, my dad decided to enter the 21st century by putting remote controlled overhead light/fans into my bedroom, my parents' bedroom, and our living room. It was fine for a while until recently when "ghosts" seemed to enjoy turning our lights and fans on and off without our control. If I didn't manually turn my wall switch off before I went to bed, my light or fan would randomly go on in the middle of the night, inevitably waking me up. This happened to my parents as well and we were all confused.

Finally, my parents discovered that all three remotes worked for all three fans, meaning that when one person tried to turn on or off their light, the other lights would turn on or off. Now, this affect is really quite annoying, especially when my brother would come home at 4 am and turn on the living room light. But, there is always some humor in these events.

For example, the other day, my dad turned on his light, which turned mine off. In trying to correct my light, I turned his off. We began yelling back and forth as we fought to put our light at the setting that we wanted. After about 5 minutes of our battle royal, we just sat there laughing from our separate rooms. Eventually, my dad walked into my room and we continued to laugh for another 5 minutes. In reality, this event explains my relationship with my dad. He and I have these random inside jokes that we could bring up years and years after their conception. For example, there is a store near our house called "Tokyo Video." When we drove by the sign for the first time, we both said the name in our most stereotypical asian accent, and then laughed forever. Ever since then, my dad and I will randomly say it and we always seem to say it when the other is thinking it.

My dad and I are extremely different people, but when it comes to find stupid humor in everyday events, we couldn't be more compatible.