Menu Plan Monday

Monday - Spaghetti

Tuesday - Sausage and Potato Roast

Wednesday - Pizza Spahgetti

Thursday - Tuna Salad 

Friday - Mexican Casserole 

Saturday - BBQ

Sunday - Roast in the Crock Pot

First 5K of the Season

This girls had their first 5K this morning. They did great!

Last year, their 5K times were 43m 16s (Brianna) and 44m 20s (Tanya). This year their times were 41m 2s (Brianna) and 39m 58s (Tanya) (all with the staggered start times adjusted) , knocking more than 2 minutes and more than 4 minutes off their times!

Waiting to start

And they're off!

Brianna

Tanya

Tanya's finish time (including staggered start time)

Brianna's finish time (including staggered start time)

Their next 5K is June 13th, hopefully their times will be even faster!

"No Poo" Challenge

A friend of mine posted as her Facebook status that she was trying "No Poo" for 30 days. Being that she will not use shampoo and/or conditioner. Now most people would automatically think "Ewwwwwwwwwwwww". But really, it's getting pretty mainstream. Many bloggers are writing about it, heck even msnbc.com wrote abut it!

Shampooing/conditioning your hair is a vicious cycle. As one blogger wrote:
You wash your hair with shampoo.
It strips out the natural oils and creates a barrier.
Your hair over reacts and produces more oils to compensate for what is lost and hair becomes greasy.
You are frustrated with your oily hair so you wash it almost daily.
You keep stripping your hair of the oil it needs and the ends become frizzy, brittle and damaged.
Now you have to use a conditioner.
The top of your head is oily again. The bottom is dry and frizzy.  
And to top it off, you now need a full arsenal of hair care products just to get it to keep a style.

So I though, what the hell, we'll give it a try! The blogger I linked to above has hair very similar to mine, longish and curlyish. My hair is frizzy, dry at the ends and oily at the scalp. I also have a dandruff problem that peaks in the winter.

This is my old stuff. Curl defining shampoo and conditioner. Harsh anti-dandruff shampoo for once a week. Infusium leave in spray. Moouse for curly hair. Anti-frizz creme.

Yet my hair is STILL frizzy. Curls are still undefined. Scalp is still full of dandruff. My hair looks good for about 4 hours after my shower. Then it starts looking crappy.

Here's my new hair stuff! Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) and Baking Soda (well, and a container to mix lol). I will admit to still using the anti-frizz creme (purple bottle in the top pic), but none of the other stuff.

The general mixture is 1 tsp baking soda with a cup of warm/hot water (I just use the temperature water that I'm showering in). That's your "shampoo". It doesn't lather of course, but massage it into your scalp and rinse. Then, your "conditioner" is 1 tsp of ACV and a cup of warm/hot water. Again, massage it in, then rinse. Some people choose to leave it in as a leave-in treatment but right now I'm still rinsing it out. These are just starting measurements. Use more or less of either depending on your hair.

Day 1: The first day I just rinsed with water. I wanted to get the excess crap out. Now, I don't know why I did that lol My hair was nasty gross and greasy (to me at least)!

Day 2: First day washing with baking soda and ACV. When I rinsed out the baking soda my hair felt gross still. But I plugged along and rinsed with the ACV. While it wasn't the silky (slimyish) feel of conditioner, it was certainly better! Below are pics after my hair dried on day 2.

Day 3: After my shower today my hair felt even less greasy, even though by now (5 days with out shampoo) I'd assume it would be super greasy. I think I may need more baking soda since I have normally pretty greasy hair.

Day 4: Normally I wouldn't wash my hair so many days in a row... I used to only wash it every 2-3 days. But we've been putting the garden in this weekend so I'm a dirt monster by the end of the day lol However, I made the fatal mistake of not putting in any anti-frizz creme and then brushing my hair once it was almost completely dry. OMG! FLUFFBALL! LOL!

Day 5: I didn't wash my hair today and it feels surprisingly fine. 

Day 6: Washed my hair today but brushed it before it dried lol. MUCH less fluffy and really soft! I would still like to use the anti-frizz creme, but wasn't going anywhere so didn't bother. I know this no-poo thing really works since so many people have started doing it, but I'm still so amazed at how nice my hair feels! And it looks healthy and clean! Below is a pic after my hair dried on day 6.

Day 7: Tried my old routine of not washing my hair more than every 2nd day... again, my hair is still "fine". Looks like this will be a success! I'll post an update and a picture each Thursday and let you know if I've spazzed out due to "dirtiness"!

I'm linking up with Frugally Sustainable 

Crayfish

The girls were over the moon to find a crayfish exoskeleton in the river while searching for rocks for my garden.

Even Hubby said it's the biggest one he every saw

The girls were quite fascinated by this crayfish and school that day morphed from worksheets to taking notes and magnifying glasses (I love homeschooling!)

What?! Doesn't everyone have a dead crayfish preserved in alcohol on their dining room table?

We've been to several field trips with the River Institute, so the girls knew it would need to be preserved. Now granted, we don't have special fluids or containers, but a glass jar from the dollar store and rubbing alcohol does the job in a pinch!

Taking notes was their choice. Other than looking up what books the library had, I haven't done nor "assigned" anything. Child-led learning at it's finest!

We snatched up the only 2 books the library had on crayfish and the girls poured over them and examined their specimen some more. Their educated guess is that this crayfish is a White Clawed Crayfish

Wilderness Wednesday

Please join our linky! Be sure to read the guidelines page if it's your first time linking up!  


This first set of pics are courtesy of Tanya, who stole the camera during breaks while her and Brianna were doing their running training.

Cornwall Island

Add caption

The Mallards are very populous and friendly around here 

Even though we're not technically by the sea, we have a lot of seagulls

We've also been very busy with our garden this past week!

Our garden was severely under-nourished (still is IMO!) so we added 20 bags of top soil, 5 bags of sheep manure and 2 bags of peat moss. I can't wait til the fall and next spring to add homemade compost!

Putting Brianna to work

Hubby found a pair of mating worms. I must say I never put much thought into how worms reproduce but Lee was so proud of the picture he took "for my blog" lol

Hubby, my muscles ;)

Now putting Tanya to work

Each girl have planted their own garden box this year

They are completely responsible for them... weeding, watering, ect...

More of my muscles... with Olivia supervising :)

5 Question Friday

Linking up with My Little Life

1. What advice would you give a couple getting married? He/she is going to do stupid things that annoy the crap outta you. Unless it's truly important to you, ignore it. Chances are, they aren't doing it BECAUSE it annoys you. On the other hand, if you do something that isn't truly important to you that you KNOW annoys the crap outta your spouse, stop it!


2. If you could tell your 16 year old self ONE thing, what would it be? Move in with your mother before the sh*t hits the fan!


3. What do you do to keep cool in the summer? (AC, windows, fans, swimming, etc.) We have 3 smallish air conditioners, though we're looking to replace the 2 small ones upstairs with one larger one) and we go to the beach as often as possible


4. What did you crave most while pregnant? 1st pregnancy - McD's cheese burgers. 2nd pregnancy - DQ Blizzards. 3rd pregnancy - Subway. (I have a fast food problem when I'm pregnant LOL!)


5. Who is your favorite TV mom? Why? Roseanne! She's laid back for the most part but her kids still respect her. The family is silly but can be serious when needed.

Wilderness Wednesday

Please join our linky! Be sure to read the guidelines page if it's your first time linking up! 


We missed the last Wilderness Wednesday, so sorry about that! And then I was so tardy about this week's post, that I forgot to post it til Thursday! Very sorry about that too!


Nature is happening more and more! Things are growing, animals are coming back or expanding their families. I just love spring!

Hubby was getting impatient with the lack of color in our garden so far, so we bought a flat of pansies to brighten the place up!

The rose bush should be budding soon!

I love the curly leaves on this variety of hosta

We have some very friendly Chickadees in our neighbourhood that love our bird feeder

Brianna was thrilled to get this close to the butterfly

So far unidentified butterfly that seemed to know we wanted to study it

Menu Plan Monday

I'm linking up with I'm an Organizing Junkie

I had a horrible menu planning week last week and cooked almost nothing on my list, so there's a lot of repeats here!

Monday - Mexican Casserole (from last week)

Tuesday - Sloppy Joes Grilled Cheese (just the idea from this link. I'll be using my own sloppy joe recipe!)

Wednesday - Enchiladas (from last week)

Thursday - Spicy Sausage Pasta

Friday - Ham Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, Mixed Veggies (from last week)

Saturday - BBQ at my sister's 

Sunday - Daddy cooks (from last week)

Tot School - Letter H

Linking up with 1+1+1=1

Olivia is 34.5 mths

She loves free hand drawing and will tap her chin with the pencil/crayon saying "what to draw? what to draw?" 

While she's still not terribly interested in worksheets lately, she loved the H one and had to "paint the fingernails"

Learning that you can't drag the ferrets for their walk

Very intently coloring her hippo

She also seems bored with the pre-writing pages (but also has no interest in tracing actual letters/numbers) 

She loves squishing Play Doh, but when it comes to making stuff, that's still all up to Mommy.

5 Question Friday

I'm linking up with My Little Life

1. What did you wear to prom? Include a picture if possible. I've never been to a prom.


2. Would you rather be on the biggest loser or a food eating challenge? Biggest Loser for sure! I can't eat that fast to be in an eating challenge lol


3. Done fave sonic drink? Refreshing summer drink? We don't have Sonic here. I live on coffee year round, but for a cool drink in the summer I love frozen smoothies.


4. What was your first car, and what did you call it? I don't drive so I've never owned a car myself. Hubby's was an '87 Ford Ranger and he rolls his eyes at calling cars names lol


5. What's one thing your child or spouse does that sends you over the edge? I'm OCD so there's several things that drive me over the edge lol Non-OCD would be the way that hubby and Brianna nit-pick at each other. I swear they love arguing!

New Running Distance

Today the girls started a new running route. Previously they were running .3 mile (almost .5km). Their records for that distance are 2m 28s (B) and 2m 25s (T).

Now they're running just over 1 mile (almost 1.75km). They didn't do too badly seeing as this is the longest distance they've run in one shot. Brianna's current best time is 10m 41s and Tanya's best time is 9m 52s.