I mixed up my sample of henna the night before last, and let it sit mixed with lemon juice until last night. Then I mixed up about the same amount of indigo (to prevent it from being overly red), and added some clove power. I mushed it on and left it on for about 2 hours or so, though it could have been left on longer.

I did the other side where there are also a few minor gray hairs, and it turned them a very deep reddish auburn. My natural brown and even the blonde tips didn’t change much at all except for a few minor reddish highlights.

It does make my hair extremely soft, and covers up the gray nicely. But it’s still very subtle, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’d like to have more auburn, but I don’t think the henna is capable of that with how dark my natural color has become, not that I dislike my natural color. What surprised me the most was the little affect on the chemical blonde tips, I thought for sure it’d do something for them. Perhaps I need the full 5 hours.

I think the final experiment will be all the hair. At least it’s fun and healthy for my hair in the mean time.

I’ve been taking MSM for about two or three weeks now. Generally it takes several weeks for vitamins to kick in, but the last week or so I have seen some -very- significant changes in my body.

My hair has felt a lot softer and less frizzy the last week or so, my skin feels incredibly soft and I haven’t had any breakouts, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, my knee pain from the torn ligament has reduced I’d say 75%. I contribute this to exercise and I’m assuming some help from the MSM.

MSM is an organic sulfur that reduces inflammation (probably a big contributor to the pain), a pain reliever, and is great for your hair, nails and JOINTS. I didn’t know this, but apparently sulfur is the 4th most abundant mineral in the body. And the fact that MSM helps rejuvenate your cells and helps enrich them with oxygen is helpful all around.

When you LACK sulfur, apparently damaged tissue takes a longer time to heal. So this was a big smack in the forehead to me. And I have fallen in love with my MSM.

So, given that my doctor wasn’t exactly helpful in his examination of my Knee a few months ago, I’ve been doing my own research. I wanted to know what the anatomy of the knee was so I could figure out what in particular was hurting. Which at the moment appears to be the top of the medial collateral ligament and part of the anterior cruciate ligament. According to another website, the symptoms are the same for a torn ligament or cartilage, due to the fact that it hurts the worst in the morning after being in bed all night, or after a long period of sitting at work. And I don’t really want to take anti-inflammatories as much as possible, I may save them for any noticable swelling.

I have noticed that while doing some regular exercise lately, or getting up regularly to take a brief walk or stretch around the office, that it is not nearly as sore. I don’t know if this is particularly good for it, or what it really needs in order to heal, but it feels better.

I just want to be able to go up stairs again without excruciating pain.

My aunt is taking my dad on a surprise trip later this month, to Graceland actually. My father is an avid Elvis fan, and hasn’t been there since I was a baby. He doesn’t travel much at all, he’s too rooted to our place and our animals here.

So I’m going to be on my own for about a week, working full-time -and- doing all of my dads chores (feeding the animals, etc) along with mine. Should be interesting, but it’s worth it to have my dad go on a trip. I’ll have to muster together some money for him to take with him to spend.

I imagine I’m going to be exhausted by the end of his trip.

I don’t think I really have much to say about this weekend’s festivities. It wasn’t a -bad- weekend, but the whole trip up to Highland Farms just felt weird. It wasn’t so bad Friday night, but Saturday was just chaotic. I think a lot of people were high-stressed, there was a strong feeling of tension, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I wasn’t the only one that noticed it.

Either way, I had a lot of fun hanging out with my Grovemates, drinking alcohol, and enjoying the absolutely perfect weather under the trees. Mark was nice enough to chauffeur me around in his pimpin SUV because of my knee, though I tried really hard not to need to go anywhere, just follow the pack. And he made us all a great dinner last night, because we wanted to avoid the huge line outside the coffee nook waiting for potluck.

At one point when we were helping Ed get the big altar up the hill for the ritual, my bronco started having some problems. My best guess is transmission fluid which leaked out over the hot engine and created a crapload of smoke like I was overheating. After I let it sit thought it seemed fine, and got me home last night. But I know I need to invest some money into it in order to get it running properly again.

So, wasn’t feeling the Beltane energies at all, but I’ll go camping with these guys any day and have a great time.

I had an appointment after work to have myself poked, prodded, molested, and other such nonsense (sounds fun, right?). Actually it was for my recent request with USAA to get some life insurance. I’m requesting around 150,000 so that I’m sure my father is taken care of should something happen to me.

I don’t usually have “performance anxiety” when you have to pee in the cup, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t take me close to half an hour. I didn’t realize she’d be doing that, so I went when I got home. But she was cool about it, she watched my dads birds and talked to my cat while she waited.

Then she had to poke me twice for the blood, since she couldn’t get any out of one arm. I’ve never had luck with giving blood anyway. Fortunately I have a high pain tolerance so these don’t bother me pain-wise. I just get slighly weirded out watching the needle go in, once it’s there I get amused watching her move it around.

I also had blood pressure (perfectly normal, apparently) pulse, and all that jazz.

They also check for HIV during these tests, which is cool. I’ve never had one of those before, and always wanted to have it done just for peace of mind. I know I’m fine, because my only sexual partner was my ex-husband, and we were both virgins (though he did cheat one me that one time..). But you never can be too sure.

Hopefully I’ll get approved. I don’t have any diseases or problems that I am aware of besides my torn ligament (which is feeling better). At least internally

I’m a little woozy now.

I ordered small samples of henna from Henna for Hair to do some creative testing of colors. I had decided a long time ago I didn’t want to dye my hair anymore, as the chemicals were making me nervous and drying out my hair something awful. My friend Ami suggested I try henna because it’s all natural and REALLY good for your hair, but I wanted to wait until my natural color was more predominant before I tried it.

I mixed this first batch up wrong, only because I was in a hurry before work this morning, but I can still see results. I mixed up 1/2 henna and 1/2 indigo which is the recommended dosage for a “warm brown” color, with some Cassia Obovata for shine. I think because I had mixed it wrong initially that the color isn’t as potent as it could be, in fact it’s barely noticeable unless you really look for it. But I wanted the color to be subtle, I certainly don’t want red hair. I only placed it on a small stripe of hair in the front where I also have a few minor gray hairs.

The few strands of gray have a very deep red to them, but it’s blended in with the rest of the hair that you can’t see them unless you catch them in a certain light, which is great.

I’m amazed at the softness and silkyness of the henna’d portion of the hair. I mean I heard it would make your hair feel great, but I feel like I’m playing with silk, it’s insane. There are definitely more experiments to be had.

TreeHugger posted a rather convincing article on the recent Tainted Pet Food scandal, and how we could be next. In fact, they state:

Melamine, the plastic ingredient that mimics protein in testing, has been found in chicken feed in Indiana, and Tyson Foods has sent 200 hogs to the knacker because they were fed tainted pet food.

It’s become increasingly disturbing at the extremely lower standards on American quality of food. I’ve always advocated buying from local organic farmers rather than mass produced meat of any kind, but the idea doesn’t seem to have taken off completely, and it’s hard to find in some areas.

What I find facinating about Diet for a new America, is the astounding figures of what mass-produced farms are doing to our country. The amount of livestock outweighs the human population by 4 times. The amount of water it takes to feed all of the cattle, the amount of land being mowed to create more farms in order to feed the cattle (Out of 12 pounds of wheat, you could make 12 loaves of bread, which would last you 2 weeks. But 12 pounds of grain only sustains 1 pound of meat. And 80% of the corn we raise is eaten by animals, not humans). Just the sheer amount of our natural resources that are depleting to make sure you can buy 5 pounds of mass-produced ground beef from the grocery store (A pound of beef requires more than 5,000 gallons of water).

This is probably my favorite documentary thus far, because it felt like such an awakening for me, and clearly showed me the potential for what the media can convince of what “should be”.

If you combine that with the Raw for 30 documentary on people who reversed their own diabetes in 30 days from eating a raw food diet, it paints a clear picture on what we -should- be doing, but instead are ignoring.

Regardless of my new found sense of frugality, I think I would be willing to pay a few extra dollars for fresh, organic meat and dairy, and focus on creating my own sustainable home. My dad and I have been giving serious consideration to eatin chickens rather than just laying hens. Would you pay extra money to buy chicken from me that I fed organic feed to and slaughtered/prepared myself?

What I loved about our old farm, is my grandfather would farm his own corn and his own hay. That way he always had fresh organic corn for the chickens (and occasional a treat for the cows), and baled his own hay for the cows. We knew what our meat was being fed, and we knew what was placed in their feed. My dream is to be able to do that again.

Of course it doesn’t take all of that to create a healthy and safe income of food. A small plot for a vegetable garden with your seasonal favorites, maybe the effort to can (or invite friends over to help in exchange for a few jars), or a community market that sells only organic foods. I don’t think we have one here that I’m aware of, it’d be nice if we did.