Useful Stuff: Recording a Voicemail with Laryngitis, Working Out with ADHD, How to Stop Cringe Attacks, and Cookie Science

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A screenshot from www.naturalreaders.com/online

A screenshot from www.naturalreaders.com/online

  • Recording a Voicemail with Laryngitis: I’ve been dealing with a nasty cold lately and I have little to no voice. If I DO try to talk, I have a coughing fit. I can’t afford to take the entire week off work though, so I wanted to find a way to help out applicants that call me while avoiding taxing my voice or throat.
    A friend suggested I try to an automated voice of some sort, to let people know I couldn’t talk and that they should email me; I thought this was impossible at first, but then I googled around and found www.naturalreaders.com/online. This takes your text and reads it out loud for you, in a variety of different voices and accents. It took a bit of messing with the text to figure out how to get the voice to read out the spelling of my last name for my email address at a reasonable speed, but with a lot of commas, it worked fine. I just turned up the volume on my computer, held up the headset on my work phone to the computer, and recorded it that way. Thus - I essentially have a robot secretary for the week! We live in the future.

  • Working out with ADHD (written mostly in November): I get bored really easily, so working out isn’t always easy for me. I was doing really well for a while with walking/running outside, but I messed up my knee a couple months ago (fortunately, no arthritis, just some sort of pulled muscle!), so that hasn’t been an option lately. Plus it’s cold outside.
    I’ve joined a gym and go to various classes now (which helps a LOT with the ADHD, as the instructor keeps things moving too quickly for me to get bored), but for a long time, my main workout was hooping. It’s like hula hooping, only with weighted hoops that an adult can actually use without a crazy amount of effort. I have a hoop I bought from a friend like, 8 years ago, and it works wonderfully as a low-impact workout; I’ll hoop downstairs in our basement for 20-30 minutes each morning, and it just makes me feel so much more energetic and healthy throughout the day!
    However, my brain did get pretty bored with it. I tried podcasts for a while, and then Netflix, but my monkey brain just kept scampering off, and I found myself checking the clock more often than not.
    Fortunately, I discovered that with my low impact hooping, I can actually hold and use my phone while working out. So I now use the time to catch up on articles I’ve saved, read a kindle book, or even blog! (Yes, I wrote the majority of this blog post while hooping, lol). It’s not by any means a high intensity workout, but it makes the time fly by and it keeps me dedicated to doing it daily. It’s not perfect, but it’s good, and it’s certainly better than skipping a workout entirely.

  • How to Reduce the Sting of Cringe Attacks: So I actually read about this method in this article on The Cut and was so fascinated with it that I checked out the author’s full book from the library, called Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness. It took me ages to actually read it all, due to other books and obligations, but I finally finished it! And it’s such a wonderful, hilarious look at awkwardness - what it is, why we feel it, how to handle it and embrace it. The article and book’s advice on combating “cringe attacks” is really useful as well. I don’t know about y’all, but I definitely find myself remembering past embarrassing memories fairly regularly and getting upset about it; I often end up saying, “you’re okay, you’re okay,” to myself to try to calm down.
    This never works. But you know what does, according to recent neuroscience studies? If a certain memory is bothering you, try to recall other, nonemotional details about it, like all the sensory factors. What did you see? What did you hear? What did you smell? What were you wearing? Who else was there? It won’t necessarily stop the cringe attack entirely, but it can really help you contextualize the memory and be more okay with it.
    Elsewhere, the book suggested talking about your embarrassing memories as if they happened to someone else. By distancing yourself from the situation, it becomes more manageable. And concentrating on self-compassion - seeing yourself the way others see you - and self-indifference - realizing that you are simply not that big of a deal - can help you place it all in perspective.
    I may be rambling here. I don’t know. I have a nasty cold. But I really loved this book and I think y’all should consider reading it too. :)

  • Cookie Science: (this section written in like, November) I engaged in a bit of cookie science! I’ve made raspberry thumbprint cookies twice now for John, but I’ve been unhappy with how hard and crispy they were. In an effort to make them fluffier and lighter, I switched out half the butter for margarine, whipped the butter/margarine/sugar for longer, and chilled the dough. I made the cookies in five batches (represented by one cookie each in the picture, from left to right), each progressively in the fridge for longer before going in the oven. I also lowered the baking time by a minute. My official cookie tester John decreed that batches 3 and 3 were the best.

Throwing a Lecture Salon Party (with Aluminum Chef Cooking Competition!)

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 I just turned 32 on January 11! I actually really love hosting parties and having people over in my home, but I've found in the past that these things often work better with a theme and a plan, rather than just a general "come over to my house and we'll do whatever" invite.

So this year, I decided to throw a salon party and Aluminum Chef competition! John and I were very pleased with how it all turned out and agree that this was our best party yet; we're thinking of making it an annual tradition! Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and even my quieter friends came out of their shell a lot when they were talking about topics they care about!

1. Salon Party

This isn't a salon party as in, do your hair or makeup, but more of a lecture salon where people discuss different ideas and topics. Historically, salons were pretty popular, but they haven't been as big in the past century or so. The word "Salon" derives from the Italian word salone, which refers to sala, a large reception hall found in Italian mansions). These gatherings first started in Italy in the 16th century and were super big in France in the 17th and 18th century. Plenty of great minds of the past were involved in regular salon nights in their friend groups; Gertrude Stein's Saturday evening salons were very popular and drew people like Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzegerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, and Henri Matisse (one of these salons was depicted in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which is an excellent movie made by a horrible human being [I still feel guilty about watching it, but I realllyyyy was curious about the topic and ended up really loving it. I also think it's important to be able to distinguish great art and beautiful creations from the actual quality of a person's character, as society's inability to believe that people who do terrible things can also create great art has resulted in seriously fucked up victim blaming in the past. So there's that. But also, fuck Woody Allen. Questions about why I say that? Read this.). 

Salons have been organized in different ways throughout history, and it is really interesting to read about all of them, but I decided I needed to have a more structured set up for my party.

- First, I set up a facebook event for my party and sent out invitations over a month in advance, so people would have a chance to think over what they wanted to do for it and prepare. I set up a google spreadsheet for sign-ups and just monitored it regularly to gauge interest (I love google drive and its system of document and spreadsheet tools so much. I used them extensively for planning my wedding and even wrote about my use of it as a layout tool here).

I originally said that people would have 9-10 minutes to speak on any topic they wanted, but after like 12 people signed up, ended up shortening that time to 5-6 minutes. At the actual party, I wasn't too strict about this and people's talks generally went about 10 minutes, which was perfect (I was afraid that if I said they could do 10 minutes, people would end up with like 15-20 minutes of content, which would be difficult time-wise). 

Because I invited more people than Husband John wanted me to (he is /much/ more introverted than I am), I let him talk for pretty much as long as he wanted about different types of beer (although I did lovingly heckle him and encouraged him to move quickly). He recruited one of my friends to be his "Beer Czar," and Tony poured out beer samples for anyone who was interested (we handed out plastic shotglasses for this). John ended up going about 40 minutes. 

I was very pleased by how all the timing worked out! The party started at 6 but we didn't end up starting the talks until 6:50, when more people had arrived. John talked about 40 minutes, and then speaker went for around 10 minutes each, with very little time in between talks, just to keep things moving. We ended up having 13 people total talk and finished up the talks before 10 pm. At that point, we then broke for board games and card games and such. 

For administrative ease, speakers went in the order they signed up in, but I made sure to check whether anyone was on a time crunch and needed to go earlier than their original slot. We had such a wonderful variety of topics, from The Booth Brothers (of John Wilkes Booth' infamy), what it's like to be an identical twin, a comparison of the different Biblical gospels and their possible sources, Shakespeare-contemporary playwright Ben Jonson, Golems, a Swedish Christmas tradition involving a giant straw goat which is generally burned down every year, how the Appalachian mountains affected history, why Rotten Tomatoes is dumb, basic self defense moves, and the russian second fleet expedition! I myself spoke about the anatomical aspects of cats that make them totally memeable (I'll post this up as a separate blog post soon - I also think it would make a really wonderful youtube video. I've wanted to get into making videos of some of my blog content for a while and just haven't had a change to sit down and figure it out yet!). 

We had some great audience interaction! Gentle friendly heckling and trolling, questions, etc. Generally, that interaction seemed to add to the presentations rather than take away from them. John got a little irritated by all the non-beer drinkers talking during his presentation, so at that point, I just strongly encouraged them to go hang out in the basement and chat there instead; that helped a lot! 

Administrative aspects: 

- Visual aids - I originally didn't want anyone to try to use a powerpoint presentation because I've been through too many meetings or classes where technology failed us, but friends coaxed me into it. My friend Sarah brought her laptop, hooked it up to our TV with an [hdmi?] cable, and then we had people email their powerpoint presentations to her. This actually worked really well, without any problems! And even people who didn't end up using slideshows benefited from it, as Sarah was able to pull up maps to use as illustrations and such. One speaker also brought some handouts comparing the different gospels he was talking about, which was cool!

- Signs - I'm kind of a nut for signs and put them and various post it notes all around the house, explaining where the talks where taking place and how it was going to work. I also posted the signup sheet so we could refer to it to see who was going next.

- Seating - I moved in chairs and stools from around the house and positioned them in a semi circle facing the TV/speaker. I also had chairs positioned further away, around the kitchen table, so people could listen but be a little away from the crowd if they wanted. This room is also conveniently situated near a staircase, where people could sit if needed. Several people did end up standing, but it always seemed like they had the option of sitting if they so chose.

- Places to escape - Because of my own ADHD and depression issues, I really try to be aware of people's mental/emotional need to escape somewhere quieter at a party. We had both our basement and our upstairs landing set up with chairs, board games, and blankets for anyone who wanted to use them. I'm not certain how much our upstairs setup was used, but at least our set up of it means it got cleaned up!

2. Aluminum Chef contest! (I failed at taking pictures of any of the food or most of the Aluminum Chef set up, besides the signs and sign-up sheet, alas. This is also the only photo I got of the magnificent sparkly spoons I handed out as awards, while I was spray-painting them)

The party also included a cooking contest! I specifically called it Aluminum Chef as an ironic reference to "Iron Chef" (because we're amateurs and just having fun). I looked through the wikipedia article about Iron Chef, made a list of all the secret ingredients that have been used in the shows, and then John and I, taking our friends' allergies and food sensitivites into account, chose the ingredient which had to be present in every dish in the competition - Citrus Fruit! 

Participants could enter in three categories: appetizers, entrees, or desserts (both John and I made dishes, but we decided beforehand that we couldn't win). I set up a sign up sheet on Google Drive for participants, but also allowed people to bring something to the party even if they didn't sign up. At the party itself, I used physical signup sheets for each category that assigned each dish a number and asked people to tape a label (which I'd already made) to each of their dishes to help with voting. I made voting ballots and throughout the night, encouraged people to try all the dishes and vote. At the very end of the night, during the last lecture, I tallied up all these votes and gave an award in each category! The awards were sparkly blue painted wooden spoons.*

We have a pretty tiny kitchen, so I specified that people really needed to make their dishes at home and bring them along (I allowed one friend to finish up their chicken in the oven and another to heat up their soup on the stovetop, but I didn't mind those minor situations; I just didn't want 10 people trying to cook in our shoebox sized kitchen at once). We also set up a big table downstairs for "overflow" food that didn't fit in the kitchen or on our dining room table; I specified that this food needed to not have any cat attracting meat or liquid milk in it; anything with that in it, really needed to stay near the big group of people in the kitchen so we could guard it.**

- Signs - I'm kind of a nut for signs and put them and various post it notes all around the house, pointing to where everything was. Because of our tiny kitchen size, I often have to get a little creative with storage for parties; the plates, silverware, and napkins lived on our microwave and the cups were situated on john's speaker system. I placed several big soda bottles in the fridge, along with a big water filter dispenser, and had seltzer cans in boxes down the hallway [all of these items had signs or post it notes]. 

I also used this occasion as an opportunity to pull out our beer coaster collection, and positioned those around the main room for peoples use and amusement (since we had some beer nerds in attendance, they seemed to be accepted well). 

I set up a little hot drink station for anyone who wanted some hot cocoa or tea, but no one seemed interested. It was super easy to put together though, and I will totally do it again in the future. I literally just put out a variety of tea bags and a container of hot cocoa mix next to the hot water kettle, along with a mug full of spoons, a bag of marshmallows, and a sign pointing to where the mugs live din our cabinet. 

As I've mentioned before, I really am trying to reduce my environmental impact, so even though I used disposable products for this party, I specifically bought compostable plates and napkins made from recycled paper. Our cleanup from this party wasn't actually too bad, all things considered! We filled up a few bags of recycling and trash, but it was pretty good overall.

And that’s how I put it all together! If you end up planning your own salon party or aluminum chef contest, please let me know! I’d love to hear about it all.

*which were a headache and a half to make just due to Amazon delivery shenanigans [my order was completely lost and they didn't bother to tell me that until like, saturday morning, so I had to go to Target and buy spoons that were much more expensive than I planned to use, but like, I was determined to make this sparkly spoon award thing happen. I bought three cans of blue glitter spray paint on clearance ages ago. Unfortunately, two out of three cans could not be encouraged to spray or work AT ALL, even with copious amounts of mineral spirits. So I had to finish up my spoon painting with a blue glitter marker I fortunately happened to have around (I used a red sparkly marker from this same set to fill in flaked off paint on my flower girls' baskets for my wedding, so these sparkly markers were clearly a good impulse purchase). 

**The cats themselves were very wonderful during the party and seemed very happy to get lots of pets and adoration from my friends. They didn't try to eat any food, my good boys!

Quick and Short Six the Musical Costume Update (AUSTRALIA)

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Cleves: The sleeves look like they're cut differently now; the sleeves of the Australian version stick out at more of an upward angle than the West End costume's sleeves. 

The stripes on the top are positioned differently as well. In the original West End version, the silver beading is positioned close to the bottom of the black fur stripes, while the Australian version has silver beading at the top and bottom of the red stripes It also looks like the red in the Australian costume stripes have some sort of pattern on them, regularly spaced out dots. It's not quite clear in the photos whether these dots are beads, cloth, leather imprint, or what have you, but it's definitely there. 

The original Cleves collar is significantly higher than the Australian version. 

The Cleves shorts still have chains, but they're much more complicated than they used to be. There's now a peplum detail along the top of the shorts under the red stripe/silver beading and red and black stripes are laid out in a chevron pattern on both sides of the shorts. 

The Australia Cleves costume most resembles the teal costume shorts (Cleves variation) worn by Cherelle Jay of the West End cast, but her shorts appear to just have diagonal stripes on the side rather than chevrons.

Howard :UPDATED 01/15/2020: Actually, I just found out about the Bryony Duncan Howard outfit, and that’s obviously the closest ancestor to this updated skirt. The Australia Howard skirt also appears to be more structured and sticks out further, which may be due to the hatched fabric's stiffness and/or the different cuts of the fabrics used on the skirt. It may also be slightly shorter than the West End version; it's hard to tell.

[original musings] It looks like the same black striped mesh fabric is in use all over both the West End and the Australia outfits, but the pink fabric has changed up a bit. In addition to the original sheer pink fabric used on the skirt, there's now a slightly less sheer pink fabric with black hatching on it; the skirt's panels alter between sheer and sheer with hatching and there's now a bottom border of the sheer with hatching fabric. There's also more silver beading throughout the skirt. This fabric with hatching is also incorporated into the alternating style panels on the bodice and on the bodice's top sleeves. It also looks like the hatching fabric may be used on the back of the bodice as well. 

The Howard changes look like they incorporate a lot of the styles found [in the opalescent pink alternate costume skirt currently worn by Zara MacIntosh in the west end cast, the black alternate costume skirt worn by Colette Guitart in the West End Cast (which has more of the sheer alternating fabric panels look), and the teal alternate costume skirt worn by Jennifer Caldwell on the UK Tour.]

Useful Stuff: Waking Up with ADHD, Usable Soap from Tiny Pieces, and Cast Iron Pan Storage

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I actually LIKE writing about little projects I do at home and little objects I’ve found that make life easier. I usually post about them on Facebook, but that’s so ephemeral and hard to find later, that I’m going to start doing a weekly roundup of these things as well. :)

  • Waking Up with ADHD: So I’ve been having a LOT of trouble getting up in the morning for weeks/months now and only just realized it might be related to my #ADHD. This linked article helped me pinpoint the issue and the solution.

    So i’ve been putting my ADHD meds and some water by my bed for the last few nights and now take my pill (Concerta/methylphenidate) the moment i /first/ wake up. Then when i ACTUALLY want to wake up, i can! And it doesn’t feel like an impossible force is keeping me in bed! I feel so much more useful and adult-ish now! :)

  • Usable Soap from Tiny Bits: You know those tiny little bits of bar soap you end up collecting that are super useless on their own but you feel guilty about throwing them out? Turns out it’s actually pretty easy to combine them all together to make usable soap again!

    Basically, gather all the tiny bits together in a pot you don’t care that much about. I have one i got for cheap at Target a while back that’s specifically designated for craft projects and sterilization type activities; things you don’t want to do in the pots you cook food in, ya know? Add some water (I filled the pot about half full, which was honestly probably too much) and then turn it on high heat. The goal isn’t to have the mixture boil, but to melt the soap in it. Because of the soap surfactant molecules, you have to keep a close eye on the pot for bubbles and foam building up, but I found that just taking the pot off the heat briefly calmed down the bubbles enough that I could get it back together.

Tiny soap bits in my crafting pot!

Tiny soap bits in my crafting pot!

The not very pretty mixture cooling n a greased bowl.

The not very pretty mixture cooling n a greased bowl.

The final result in a little soap dish! (Yes, I use mini souvenir plates as soap dishes - this one commemorates the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday). #Anglophile :D

The final result in a little soap dish! (Yes, I use mini souvenir plates as soap dishes - this one commemorates the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday). #Anglophile :D

Once the soap is all melted, pour it over a sink into a strainer, and then dump it in a pre-greased small bowl or container of some sort. Once it cools, voila! Usable soap! It’s not the prettiest (although I’m sure someone with more patience could probably form the soap into a more regular shape while it was still slightly warm), but it works perfectly for non-guest bathrooms like the one I prepare the cats’ food in (I mix in salmon oil and probiotics, as i mentioned in this post, and use the door to keep them from hassling me while I’m doing it).

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  • Cast Iron Pan Storage: We have a ton of cast iron and steel pans that John requested on our wedding registry without thinking about where we’d store them in our tiny kitchen. They’ve either been living on the stove or piled up in a corner, making a huge visual clutter and generally driving me crazy, ever since. I was inspired though, by the spic and span kitchen of one of my rover clients, to get our own act together, and bought a shelf designed to hold heavy cast iron pans. And LOOK, it’s so much prettier now and it’s so much easier to take them out and put them away.

I've Learned SO MUCH from the By the Book Podcast!

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I listen to numerous podcasts but one of my current favorites is the By the Book podcast! I discovered it earlier this year through an ad on the Freakanomics podcast (which my husband listens to obsessively) and was instantly HOOKED. I’ve listened to every episode since then (which is saying something since they have several seasons!

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The premise of this podcast: The brilliant and hilarious Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer read through a self-help book for every episode and try to live by it for two weeks straight. They chronicle their adventures with wit and thoughtfulness and I’m pretty obsessed. I’ve learned so much from so many episodes! It’s also helped me to be a lot more careful about my own self-help reading and encouraged me to take a closer look at the authors and what they’re really saying.

For example: The Miracle Morning book has personally really helped me in the past. After getting my depression under control (FISHER-WALLACE STIMULATOR, SERIOUSLY Y’ALL), The Miracle Morning has changed my life more in the past year than anything else! Going through the SAVERS approach regularly (silence/meditation, affirmations, visualizations, exercise, reading, and scribing/journaling) helped me remember that I have ALWAYS wanted to be a writer and got me on track toward pursuing that path really seriously. However, the By the Book episode on Miracle Morning pointed out a lot of issues with the book and its author and helped me realize that I had been doing a lot of “take what I want and throw away the bad” in my own approach to it. Which is totally fine. I still use it sometimes. But a lot of the advice in the book is kind of victim-blamey and makes me uneasy when you actually look at closely. So now I’m more careful about how I suggest that book to friends; I include a lot more disclaimers and points about how I actually use it.

By the Book has also made some really significant changes to my life in the past year! It’s inspired me to make numerous changes.

Here’s what comes to mind now (I may add to this later as I remember things or add more!):

Things I do now or have done because of the By the Book podcast: (links go to the episode on Stitcher’s website)

Look! Plants I’ve somehow kept half alive, plus an old soda bottle I now use to water indoor and outdoor plants, and our compost pail!

Look! Plants I’ve somehow kept half alive, plus an old soda bottle I now use to water indoor and outdoor plants, and our compost pail!

  • We now plan out our family meals ahead of time and try to do all the grocery shopping once a week. John and I pick and make the recipes together and have found it makes our life WAY simpler when we actually know what we’re eating at night. (From the “America’s Cheapest Family” episode) 

  • I published a short story as an ebook on amazon. I had already written this story and submitted it to an anthology. When it was rejected, I thought - YOLO and decided to put it on Amazon as an experiment. It’s been fun! I’ve earned about $40 from it, which is cool. (From the “how to write an ebook that makes you money forever in 7-14 days” episode)

  • I’ve invited friends over to work at our house whenever they like. Not many people have taken me up on this, but I do love that as someone who teleworks full time and has a pretty big house, I can provide an escape for my student friends or other friends who work from home. (From “a girl’s guide to joining the resistance”)

  • I reuse and recycle more things, have started composting (blog post coming about this soon!), and make my own reusable wet wipes for cleaning. (“zero waste home”)

  • I focus on only saying nice and supportive things to myself. (“What to say when you talk to yourself”)

  • I try to use my phone less when I’m out and about (“bored and brilliant”)

  • I try to only check my email and social media twice a day. Honestly, I’m pretty bad about this, but just knowing it’s an option for days when I REALLY need to focus is good. I also now outsource time-consuming tasks i hate to people on Fiverr . I’ve found a cool personal assistant guy and have had him do some cost-comparison research tasks which have been really helpful! (“4 hour work week”)

  • So Kristen and Jolenta have only done one “diet” book and it had such a bad effect on Kristen that they don’t plan to do another one. This episode and a lot of their conversations in later episodes helped me come to grips with a lot of my disordered eating habits (I tend to either over-eat or under-eat, and neither is healthy) and develop a more healthy approach to my body. I don’t weigh myself any more and I don’t really plan to again; it’s highly triggering for me. Instead, I eat healthy most of the time, avoid too many processed foods, practice delaying my first meal until 12 pm or 1 pm (which effectively means I usually am intermittent fasting for 14 hours), and exercise regularly. And that’s enough for me. As long as I’m feeling healthy and happy with how I look, I don’t need to know my weight; it’s just not important. Thanks K&J for helping me realize that! (“French Women Don’t Get Fat”)

  • I’ve worked to define what types of clothing and accessories are and aren’t my style and have been donating or selling things that aren’t my style. If I go shopping now, I’m much less likely to impulse buy anything, as I know exactly what I like and what looks good on me and I’m not willing to spend money on things that don’t fit in those categories. (“curated closet”) 

A snippet of the pinterest board I made for the Curated Closet.

A snippet of the pinterest board I made for the Curated Closet.

Look at these plants I’ve managed not to kill yet!

Look at these plants I’ve managed not to kill yet!

  • I actually let myself actually watch TV without doing work sometimes. I mean, not all the time, I usually am working on some craft or blog post or something if I watch TV, but sometimes! (“Pantsdrunk”)

  • I’ve really tried to walk outdoors more and keep my house plants alive more consistently. I re-planted our dead herb garden and have managed to keep 4/5 plants alive for the last few months! (“nature fix”) 

  • I’ve let go of some project ideas that were GOOD but just not for me. This book specifically talks about letting go of the ideas that aren’t a match for you so they can go “find someone else” they’re better suited for. This was how I finally let go of the idea of writing a non-fiction book about marital surnames. It still fascinates me and I think it needs to be written about, but I just don’t have the passion to pursue that myself. I prefer my fiction writing. (“Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear”)

  • I had actually already “konmari-ed” several parts of our house but this episode has helped me retain some of the ideas - specifically, does this item give me joy? If not, I should donate it and let someone else enjoy it. (“The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”)

Easy No Heat Hair Styling For Fine-Haired Girls

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Half dry hair in low buns at top, lower left shows the hair immediately after several hours drying in the low buns. lower right shows the final look after it’s all dried post-makeup.

Half dry hair in low buns at top, lower left shows the hair immediately after several hours drying in the low buns. lower right shows the final look after it’s all dried post-makeup.

Since I bleach my hair before i dye it all the colors of the wind, I try to really baby it at other times.

I rarely use heat styling on my hair- maybe once a month I’ll use a curling iron and a blowdryer maybe once every two months. But my hair tends to lie rather flat if I don’t do /anything/ with it, so I use a lot of no heat styling tricks. Usually, I just style it by waiting until it’s half dry after a shower, and then putting it into one of a few hair styles so it can gain some shape and texture as it dries the rest of the way. This doesn’t work on everyone, but if you have naturally straight hair with a similar medium-fine hair diameter like I do, it works great! (If you’re not certain what type of hair you have, this article on Headcurve can be really helpful! I have a 1b hair type, meaning it’s fine and generally straight, but not so fine that you would see a lot of scalp showing through.)

My current favorite no heat style is two low buns in the back. I specifically also twist the hair as I’m putting it into the bun. I then either sleep on it or chill for a few hours while I’m working.

Once I take it out- voila! Fun curls and texture. As you can see in the picture, it’s still just a little damp when I take it out, so I finger comb it and zhush it a little. By the time I’m done with my makeup, it’s all dry and looks great! It’s really simple and I quite like it. :)

I personally don’t tend to use a lot of product on my hair unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t even usually use frizz free serum on my hair, as it can look greasy really quickly. I’ll often just put a little lotion on my hands at the end of my prep, rub it in, and any small amount that’s left, i’l just lightly finger comb through my hair - ends first, than just a very light hand on my roots.

I'm a ChildFree MomFriend and That's Just Fine With Me.

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I used to think I really wanted kids, but over time, as I grew up and realized that I didn’t have to want the same things as everyone else, I determined that it was a lot more complicated than that.

Now, I’m not anti-kids at all.My nieces are one of the best parts of my life and I really enjoy talking to children. They’re hilarious. But I also really enjoy handing them back to the parents at the end of the day and going home with my husband to a quiet house. I totally support any of my friends who want to have kids and will cheer them on and give their kids stuffed animals and personalized onesies galore, but it’s just not for me. And John agrees as well!

Me as a kid, with my dad. I was a handful, can you tell? And let’s just be honest, if John and I procreated, our child would be way too smart and mischievous for anyone’s good.

Me as a kid, with my dad. I was a handful, can you tell? And let’s just be honest, if John and I procreated, our child would be way too smart and mischievous for anyone’s good.

I DO have some very maternal qualities, and I really enjoy taking care of other people. A friend labeled me “a momfriend” not too long ago, and I loved it. I want to check in on my friends and make sure they’re doing okay; I definitely worry about them and try to help them whenever I can. I love having a house that my friends feel comfortable in and I hope they realize that they can always come over if they need to get away from their parents or roommates or boyfriends or whatever. I like feeding people! I also adore my cats and mother them ferociously. But just because I have those qualities doesn’t mean I want to be an actual parent.

First, I have lots of medical issues, y’all. Chronic neck pain from osteoarthritis, clinical depression (which is controlled and generally stable now, but still exists and is a real concern in my life), ADHD, the New Fun Unnamed Chronic Pain is still rearing its ugly head pretty regularly, bad allergies, plantar fascitis (so my feet hurt all the time, yay), occasional tendinitis in my wrists, and now I have this deviated septum thing that needs to be fixed. Have I mentioned I also have a bicuspid aortic heart valve? I literally have a valve in my heart that’s SUPPOSED to be 3-sided but is actually 2-sided. This doesn’t generally cause a problem, but it does make me more prone to infections and such. And I’m 31! Like - who knows what else is wrong with me that I just haven’t discovered yet? I may develop something new tomorrow. And pregnancy and a baby would literally make all of those issues worse. It wouldn’t improve /any/ of them.

Second, partly because of said medical issues, partly because of…just my own personal feelings, pregnancy is like one of the most terrifying things in the world to me. My body does PLENTY of things on its own already that I don’t want it to do; the thought of actually losing it to another being is really unpleasant. Every time I hear about someone’s pregnancy or what it does to them, I just….ugh, no. It sounds awful. No, thank you. I’ve already firmly decided that if I ever DO change my mind and want a child (not likely), adoption is the way we’re going. I know it’s expensive and not easy, but pregnancy is just not a thing I’m ever willing to go through. My feelings might rise to the level of an actual phobia of pregnancy, honestly; it’s called tokophobia! It sounds like it’s hellish for people who WANT kids but are terrified of pregnancy/childbirth; I feel lucky that that’s not my situation.

I did almost buy this father’s day card for John and sign it from the cats, but I just sent him a picture to save $5 instead, lol. (He HATES the entire concept of calling pets your children, hah).

I did almost buy this father’s day card for John and sign it from the cats, but I just sent him a picture to save $5 instead, lol. (He HATES the entire concept of calling pets your children, hah).

Third, from a purely practical standpoint, life is expensive and my husband and I are often struggling even just with us two. And we’re lawyers! We’re better paid than many! But our house has lots of issues that still need to be fixed and my body persists in developing new problems that require lots of money, so money is still a serious concern. I can’t even comprehend the idea of trying to fit a kid into our budget.

Finally, I just really like my life the way it is. I enjoy having time to spend with my husband and with my friends. I like being able to participate in community theater. I love that my day job is flexible enough that I can also fit in writing on this blog and creative writing! I want to travel the world and see everything out there. These things are all certainly possible with children, but they are certainly much more difficult. And it should be! I value children enough to know that having them shouldn’t be a default or an afterthought. I don’t want to have kids unless I KNOW I really want them and am wiling to put in the time and money and effort needed to being the best parent I can be for that kid (not in a pinterest perfect way but in a “I need to help this tiny human become a decent person” way). And I’m not willing to do that, so - nope! No thanks. I’ll spoil my family’s kids and friends’ kids instead. :)

DIY Traction for Cowboy Boots!

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I’ve had these pink cowboy boots for years now; they were somewhat of an impulse buy shortly after I started my first full time job post college. I had very few bills then and lots of savings (ah, what a time), so I splurged on ridiculous boots. I don’t wear them too often these days, but sometimes they’re just exactly what I need to spice up an outfit .

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I’m acting in a community theater production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale this weekend. I’m in a line dance in one sheep shearing festival scene! It’s super fun, although I’ve been pretty nervous about it throughout the rehearsal process because I haven’t danced in a show since....2012? But overall it’s delightful. And i get to wear my pink cowboy boots for it!

I discovered during our first dress rehearsal that my boots are quite slippery! It was bad enough that it made me quite nervous that I’d fall over onstage in front of everyone. I needed a solution! Fortunately, the internet, as always, provided. 

This was a super easy fix and relatively cheap! I got one strip of traction tape for about $6.50 at Home Depot; part of it was reflective, but I didn’t need to use that bit.  I ended up with some left over as well, which I can use for other super slippery shoes!

Materials: 

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  • One strip of traction tape. This is the type of thing you use on ladder steps for safety reasons! 

  • Pen or pencil

  • Scissors

  • Boots! 

    1. Position boots on the paper side of the traction tape.

    2. Trace around the boots.

    3. Cut around the trace lines with the scissors. If the boots have heels, cut the tape portions in two so you can put them flat on each portion. 

    4. Stick the traction tape to the bottom of the boots and press it firmly onto it. 

    5. Check for any parts that are lifting away from the sole and trim them away. I found that I had to trim my tape back away from the thread outlining the sole for it to lay completely flat (pictured below).

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And there you go! This has worked well and has prevented me from slipping or falling since I added it. It should work for other shoes as well!

One quick caution, courtesy of my wood obsessed husband (seriously, our backyard is full of firewood and his workshop is full of lumber for building stuff?): this is NOT a good idea if you plan on walking or dancing in the boots on nice hardwood floors. The traction tape is quite rough and could easily scratch up wood. 

And a FINAL word of caution from me: Traction tape is rough enough that it can rub your thumb down just a little while you’re manipulating it. I haven’t been able to use the thumbprint capture feature on my iPhone since I added this tape to my boots! I’m sure my skin will renew quickly and I’ll have my easily readable print back soon, but it is slightly annoying. 

Feeding the Kitties + DIY Reusable Wet Wipes for Cleaning Up After Them

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I currently have three cats residing in my house. Two are mine (Schrodinger and Ziggy Stardust) and one is a long term guest who’s hanging with us until his owners find a place to live where they can have him back (Martok).

Every morning, I feed them two cans of wet food (generally Friskies). One or more of them had some diarrhea issues earlier this year, so I now mix a scoop of probiotics into each can (I do all this prep work in the basement bathroom with the door closed so they don’t try to eat it while I’m serving it out!).

I then divide this food up into an automatic feeder (linked below) which goes off numerous times throughout the day and one extra bowl (so that they all don’t just scramble at one serving). I’ve been using this automatic feeder system for a few years now; it ensures they get some of their favorite food throughout the day at various times and also keeps them from associating me /too/ much with food. This has really helped reduce early morning wake up meows. I also take care not to feed them /immediately/ after I wake up.

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I should note that they literally always have some dry food so it’s not like they’re starving. I put a cup of dry food into their food tree every morning. The food tree (linked below) works really well for slowing down their eating and reducing “scarf and barf.” It also provides a bit of a challenge for them so they’re not just mindlessly eating all day.

Right after putting their wet food out, I put one of Schrody’s pill-pocket-and-capsule-covered-Prozac pills into whatever container he’s scarfing that day. I also put a squirt of salmon oil over his food, to help him with his senior cat joint pain.

As an ADHD cat owner, I’m not always the GREATEST at remembering to do things like, clean the cat bowls (they’re nowhere near the kitchen and I use them daily so it’s a little inconvenient to figure out when to do it). It’s much easier for me to remember chores when I make it super convenient and simple for me though, so for quite a while now, I’ve kept some wet wipes down stairs in the cat room to wipe out all the cat bowls and containers on a regular basis.

Recently though, I’ve been really trying to reduce the amount of waste in our house (thanks to the By the Book podcast episode on “Zero-Waste Home”), so I decided it was time to stop buying wet wipes. They’re really not good for the environment. Adam Ruins Everything did a segment at one point on why these “flushable” wet wipes are actually TOTALLY NOT flushable and how they wreck havoc on our plumbing systems. They also aren’t biodegradable.

So I made my own reusable wet wipes! It was super simple and they’ve worked really well as a replacement. In addition, the vinegar in it disinfects the bowls and helps keep the kitties healthy.

DIY Reusable Disinfecting Wet Wipes

Materials:

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Bambooee towels (we’ve actually used these for years now; they’re a great replacement for paper towels. John still insists on keeping power towels in the house for SUPER big messes, but we rarely use them at this point; our use has gone WAY down). OR Extra cloth rags
White vinegar
A container with a lid to keep them in.

  1. Use scissors to cut the bamboo towels/rags in half, so you have a nice little pile that’s approximately the size of your usual wet wipe.

  2. Stack the rags all in a Tupperware container.

  3. Pour white vinegar over them all. Ensure all the towels/rags are completely soaked. If there’s a bit of excess vinegar in the bottom of the container, it’s not a problem.

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And that’s it! I’ve been using them for weeks. When they’re dirty, I just throw them in the laundry and then stack them up for the next time I need to make new ones. The cat bowls and containers do need to be properly cleaned in the dishwasher or with dish soap regularly, but this definitely helps reduce the mess in the meantime.

The vinegar wipes work great for wiping down general cat room messes, cat bowls, their food mats, and the floor around them, when they’re being particularly messy eaters. I have found that they’re not a good replacement for wet wipes for litter box or poop mess (I completely clean out the litter boxes once a week or more, but it can be useful to have these on hand for in-between time messes) so I still use paper towels for those occasionally, but I’ve /way/ cut down on my waste for this.

Catit Senses 2.0 Food Tree
Rolf C. Hagen (USA) Corp.

How I Get My Cranky Anxiety-Ridden Old Man Cat to Take His Damn Prozac

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This is an older photo of us. My hair hasn’t looked like that in a while!

This is an older photo of us. My hair hasn’t looked like that in a while!

I’m starting to experiment with Amazon affiliate links, friends, so you’ll start to see links to products I personally use and love now. :)

Schrodinger Beethoven Dickson-Lorenzen is my first and most favorite kittyface. He purrs when he sees me, naps on my lap for hours while I’m working, and meows at me to turn on the bathroom faucet for him every night.

However, dude’s got some issues. He is pretty terrified of people and has a lot of anxiety. Now, some cats are shy naturally, but I don’t think that’s the case with Schrodes. He really loves people and loves being cuddled and pet, but he seems to be held back by his fears. He also still hisses at my husband John on a regular basis, although they’ve lived together for over two years now.

Based on my knowledge of his backstory before he was given up to PAWS (out in Chicago, they’re amazing) and his current emotional and physical health, here’s what I think probably happened. His previous owners got him declawed in his front legs. This resulted in his feet being really hurt by the cat litter, so he developed cat litter issues and ended up peeing basically everywhere else (the surrender papers were pretty awful to read). I’m guessing his previous owners got very frustrated by this and abused him in an effort to train him to stop doing it. He’s got one kidney that’s larger than the other, which probably means he was kicked at some point.

He stopped eating when he was at the main PAWS facility in Chicago, so they put him in a foster home with my bestie Holly. I met him through her and fell in love with him. For a long time, we had to put puppy pads in the litter box for him so he had a soft place to put his paws when he used the box. He hasn’t needed that in a couple years now, but it really helped him at the beginning when he was still recovering from the declawing and his previous owners’ abuse.

He was a pretty anxious cat who seemed lonely when I wasn’t around, so I adopted Ziggy Stardust pretty soon afterward so he’d have a friend. They’ve been great bros since and get along really well. He’s much happier now, but he’s definitely still got anxiety issues.So finally, last August, I went to the vet, explained the whole situation, and asked if we could get him on some anxiety meds. He’s been on daily Prozac ever since. He’s been on these meds for the past year now, but it took a LONG time to get him to take the meds regularly and consistently.

My Initial Attempts:

First, I just gave him the pills in his food. He quickly caught on within a week or so and refused to touch them.

Second, I put the pills in pill pockets, which i then hid in his food. I got a few weeks out of that before he refused to touch it anymore. :/ (I later discovered that he greatly prefers the tuna and cheese pill pockets to the salmon ones! Picky animal.).

Third, I got fancy tuna-flavored liquid meds for him and tried putting it in his food, then just squirting it into his mouth. Each time, he caught on and struggled and fought against it even more.

I resorted to getting some flavorless gelatin capsules online to put his pills in (I bought a pack of 1,000 capsules on Amazon, which should last me a couple of years!). I do have to cut these down to a more cat friendly size, but it doesn’t take too long if i just do a whole bunch of them at once. I had to experiment with the best ways to use these capsules - for a while I actually was putting the capsules into a pill pocket and THEN covering it with tuna to get him to eat it, but I FINALLY FINALLY found a method that works. I’ve been getting him to take his medicine consistently in this way since April! HALLELUJAH.

It only took me NINE MONTHS to figure out a system that consistently works!

So. What I do.

My Foolproof Method of Getting Schrodinger to take his damn pills:

  1. Cut a flavorless gelatin capsule down to a cat friendly size.

  2. Put his pill into the capsule.

  3. Put the capsule into a tuna and cheese pill pocket, Schrody’s favorite.

    [I actually work in batches and put a ton of pill/capsule/pill pockets together at a time. I store them all together in a bag so the pill pockets don’t dry out. The capsules soften up a little within the pill pocket, but Schrody doesn’t seem to notice or care.]

  4. Once Schrodinger starts eating his morning wet food, I put the pill pocket into the food immediately next to where he’s scarfing, so he eats it up without even really noticing it. It works every time!

Just look how pleased he looks with himself.

Just look how pleased he looks with himself.

I’ve also started squirting a little salmon oil on the pill pocket lately, as he’s been walking stiffly lately and I’ve read that it can help relieve joint pain in senior cats (he hasn’t been taking it long enough for me to really tell if it’s working, but he does lap up EVERY BIT OF IT, so clearly it tastes good).

The pills combined with more exposure to friendly people on a regular basis (because of the theater troupe that’s been rehearsing in our basement all summer) have REALLY helped him. He’ll actually come out to greet my friends now! He seems much more relaxed and happier.

He still hates my husband John, but that seems to be pretty mutual. Not sure there’s anything I can do about that at this point! But