Earth day activities

As well, many of you should know this past Friday April 22nd was Earth Day, not only do I believe it should be celebrated every day I do try to make the day special for myself and kids.

Not only was this activity less than $5, when bought at my local Dollar Tree, it was super fun for everyone including us adults.


We started off by planting some lavender and marigold seeds which I had previously bought, so it might end up costing around $8-$10. The lavender we will eventually use to make our own essential oils with and possibly soaps or candles. The marigolds will be used outside to help deter mosquitos and keep critters from eating our garden. Both of course, will help to feed and fuel the bees which is one of our number ones when planting.

If you didn't know, bees are having a terrible time right now, with people killing them with pesticides and getting rid of a lot of their foods please look it up.. Here are a few links.

Greenpeace
BeeRaw
SaveBees

Please do not depend solely on these few links I have provided you, look into yourself and do your own research! While you're at it check into global warming and how we can change our effects on the Earth itself. We are killing our mother with no regard to her.  We must change as a whole. Share your thoughts and help people see and be the change!


Next, we made some super cool paper mache globes equipped with tiny holes to show light through with a battery operated tea light candle or a small flashlight. This was started with the use of old papers, newspapers, and magazines which we no longer needed and wanted to find a new use for. We let this dry for two days well, it could've been shorter but we had a fun filled weekend. Then we layered blue tissue paper allowed it to dry around 30 minutes and then layered on green to form our land masses. This was then allowed to dry for around 2 hours to be super sure it was ready to have holes poked in to it. Once the holes are in your ready to a super cool handmade lamp of the earth!

To make these yourself here is what you need:
Balloons
Newspaper torn into strips
Tissue paper in blue and green torn into random shapes.
"Mache Glue" (check below)
Skewer for poking holes

So, start off by blowing the balloon up to the size you would like to have, round is better though to portray the earth.  When the balloons are tied off start by dipping the newspaper into the mache glue, (I used and old butter bowl so that all the tiny hands and mine included could fit without making a super huge mess, but the mess was fun too) and laying it across the balloon. Makre sure you are learving room at the tie for popping the balloon later. Continiue to layer the news paper on, in any kind of pattern until its covered. Allow the paper to dry completely, we left ours a couple of days, but it should only take a few hours. Onces its dry take the tissue paper in blue and cover the newspaper. Do not dp the tissure paper and be a bit easier when smoothing it out as its very delicate. What we did here was dab some glue onto the news paper and then stick the tissue paper to it and then easily rub the mache with glue until the was stuck down. We let the blue dry for around 30 minutes, in the sun. Then we started adding on the green in various land mass shapes, though none were perfect to our earth, in the same fashion as adding the blue by dabbings glue until it stuck. Then we let the globes dry for around 2 hours just to be sure they were ready. Next I took a metal skewer and held the end of the balloon where the tie was so it didnt get lost inside and poked a hole so the balloon would deflate. Once the air was out I gently pulled the balloon out of the paper. Last, if you children are old enough allowing them to poke their own holes is fine, but I had to poke them for my youngest two, just take the skewer and make holes in the green land masses for adding in a battery operated tea cup candle, please do not use real candles as these are paper and are sure to catch fire. If you do not have these candles using a small flashlight should work as well.


My kids have absolutely fallen in love with theirs and the mess it took to make them.

I almost forgot we used a nontoxic edible (if you want) mache glue, which ended up making the waters on our globe look very realistic, such as waves and movements of the oceans.


The "glue" is a mixture of one part flour with two parts water since we made three balloons I used 1/4 cup of flour to 1/2 cup of water and it was enough and a little extra to complete our balloons.



This was something my kids are still talking about and wanting to make more of, now its wanting to make a paper mache pinata, which who wouldn't want to make one of those. I had an amazing time and felt so much like a kid again, it was also a good time to teach my kids about reusing and also what we can do to help the earth and the bees. Simple lessons taught with awesome crafts <3

So, I know I'm all over the place...

But, please tell me one adult who has three children who doesn't go from something to the next and if you can I am gonna tell you that they are not a human being.

But anyway, in the past couple of weeks I went from dreadlocks to death and today, I'm going to be letting you guys know that I am gonna go into blogging about homeschooling my three children this fall.

What fun right?! Well, I mean it will be, not only will my children spend more time with me but they will all three get one-on-one time with teaching and will be taught at their own pace. Unlike public schools. Now, I'm not putting anyone who has children in public schools, or public schools themselves down, but homeschool for us is the best decision right now.

And, with my new found blogging item, I hope to help someone who is on the fence about whether or not they want to homeschool.

So, with that being said what I am hoping to cover when I start are; time management, balancing school and house work, cheap or free curriculums, making your own curriculums, science projects that are cheap and fun, and helpful pages.

I know that could be considered a lot to some and small to others, but with my starting a homeschool and also trying to blog about it, for now, I want to keep it at those and as I go along add or take away them as I see fit. It's all a learning process right, pun intended.

I must admit, my kids and I are all very excited to start this new journey. They've begged me to take this out before ending this school year at their public school, but I've asked them to finish this one out since they have major field trips that are non-refundable and there are only two more months left.

I am, of course, going to try taking the frugal way out of this and start our first year by making our curriculums or finding the cheapest one possible. Though I am not making our school religious keep in mind that if you were to start you could make yours that way.

As of right now, I'm guessing my first homeschool post other than this one will be about curriculums,  and if I do end up buying them I will review the various ones that I try out so that will also help you guys if you were to decide on doing it yourselves.

I had a small epiphany

A few days ago my daughter found, who has been scared of anyone getting sick since my mother passed, found out what was actually going on with my grandmother... As far as she knew before this, she thought my grandmother was just getting old and we were hanging out extra times just to be together. As much as I would have loved for this to continue until the end, my grandmother wanted her to know the truth and told her.

It did make me a little upset as I know how sensitive she is about sickness and thinking everyone around her is going to get sick and leave her as well, but I got over it quickly as she seemed to understand this more than what had been happening with my mom, which was two years ago so shes had time to think and come to terms. So, now she knows.


But also with her knowing shes been on this whole, what is death kick. These are questions I've asked myself and I've always been "well, its like sleeping" But, the other day she asked me and it made me start questioning it again. What I somewhat quickly let her know, what that its the next journey for your soul, its the next part of life but no one is sure what it is because its your own journey. (How's that for some cool sounding stuff?!) But really.. What is death?

It made me think, I meditated the next morning in silence before the pitter-patter of tiny feet and I kept coming to different conclusions and thinking about what happens when you pass in this life. Do you end up on an alien planet and not remember where you were before that, do you just, as I said before, sleep and dream happy things -- but if you brain activity stops, how then do you dream? Do you float around in a mystical realm where you are invisible to human eyes but continue to live on earth, does your light and soul just die out leaving you with nothing but blackness until you yourself and just gone?

All these things kept coming up and after reading Proof of Heaven I really hope what is next is as he described it. Though as I said it may be very different than someone else and I definitely need to look into this more, but these are my thoughts from the other day and what I hope to see.

But anyway as I'm thinking about death, I'm also thinking what is when we do pass we are then reincarnated into another human being but if we are conscious enough in this life once we get there we can remember what went on in this one so that the mistakes if any were made aren't made with the new one. What if that's how all of the awesome and super outgoing people are how and why they are like they are, I mean, if you were conscious enough to let yourself know in the "in-between" and the next life wouldn't you not make mistakes or not keep quiet when inside you wanted to scream? That's not me saying well, if you are outgoing then its only because of your previous life because, honestly I don't know how it works, these are just some of the thoughts I had and have no been able to digest only spewing out what I thought, in hopes that I'm not the only one thinking about death or about what comes next.

But what if, you aren't as conscious in this life, and you go into the next one as a newborn human and you grow up, and these decisions come up and you keep thinking to yourself no I need to change it to this and you make all these amazing decisions while feeling inside that you "just knew" what if its your consciousness that deep down remembers and doesn't want you to repeat your previous life and is pushing you to choose the way you are..

I know that we are all conscious beings, just some do not think in the way of this, but we all just beings walking around as humans, we are all just souls who are portrayed as beings. But what if even if we don't remember, our "conscious" mind doesn't but our "subconscious" does and it is what drives us to make the decisions that really affect our lives.



I've really got to stop here though, I'm starting to go into this whole other context and I feel I need to think and sit on this before starting to ramble on this post.

I'll make the new post about my findings. Keep up <3

Dreads..

Completely thought I had touched base with this subject when I first started this blog, but obviously I had left it only on my tumblr. So, I found the other post and now I am posting it here for you guys!




While I, have only tried a couple of ways mixed there are a few out there.

---

• Neglect - Which is basically just not brushing your hair and allowing the dreads to manifest on their own, which is perfectly fine for some, but they are not as tidy as other methods.
• Crochet - Which is sectioning off the hair in as big or as small of sections as you want and taking a tiny crochet hook usually .75 millimeter and matting the hair up while crocheting “hooking” hair from a downward angle / kind of like this slant.. This gives you the best dread look as soon as your done, but be careful because those hooks really hurt if you poke yourself. ( I have applied this to my hair but a little differently, as I do a direct side - to side angle as this dash, because I do not want to lose length or get them too tight I want them to lock on their own )
• Back-combing - Which as you can guess you section the hair off and you start close to your head and back comb your way down the length of your hair. This method if helpful to someone who wants tidy dreads that form on their own after helping them get started. ( This is my method, I used this so I could choose the girth of my dreads and go ahead and have them as before I started this journey I was very impatient. )
• Twist and Rip - Which as you again can guess, you twist them and then rip them apart. Start by back combing about two inches of your hair from your scalp, then you divide the hair into two halves twist once, let go grab it again and pull from opposite holding positions so that the hair entangles each other. Which is another method of getting the dread feel and allowing them to mature on their own.

These are all the methods that I have personally kept up with and have the most knowledge about. Please feel free to leave any questions about starting dreads if you would like. I will most certainly answer them to the best of my knowledge or point you in the right direction.

You know what I haven't talked about lately?

Dreadlocks..

I mean I do have them and I use it as a basis of my blog life, but I haven't mentioned them for some time now. I think its time. My journey since first starting them in 2014 had ended and began again, so I feel I have learned quite a few tricks for dreading hair, although the locks that I am currenly wearing have no tricks and barely any organization. Though my first set of locks which had 70+ were handmade and hand measured. My new set was started off as such, but when I really started to think about it I knew I wanted them to do their own thing so as of right now I am around 30 with only 1/3 of my hair being locked which is the under part at my neck and some on the sides. Some of these dreadlings are quite tiny while others are around 4mm which is roughly the size most of mine were with my first set.

Though I would love to tell you some cute styles or easy up-dos for dreadlocks I am a very simple person and a bun works just fine for me. I mean I know some people have to figure out elegant types of looks for working but I am very lucky to say that I get to stay home and usually don't have to worry about how I look. Other than when I want to look nice for my husband. But simple styles is my go to no matter where I am going and I must say I am almost pro material for messy buns but I can pull them off so well now.

Along with letting my hair lock up neglect style I rarely do any maintenance, other than helping a few straggles of loose hair lock up with my crochet hook I haven't locked up any of my roots that have grown out since starting my locks. I also have wispy ends, which means I left around 3 inches unlocked at the ends to have a little extra length and I like it that way. My first set I tried the whole blunt tipped locks and really ended up hating them, so much so that I started brushing them out and realized halfway through I was only doing it because I hated the ends.

Cleaning and Maintenance
I'm sure if you have heard of dreadlocks then you've heard the whole "dirty hippy" nonsense that you either can't wash your hair or you don't. Well, it all rests on how you want to wear your own hair but I was my dreads at least twice a week, but that's my preference. Some people wash every other day and some wash only once a week, while others may only wash once a month. I have naturally dry hair always have and before dreads I would wash my hair only twice in one week so my washing habits did not change when going for this hairstyle, so yours don't have to either.
As far as shampoos, well you are going to have to research and figure out which shampoo is going to work with your hair instead of causing buildup. Buildup isn't something you want in your hair. But, if you do happen to get some I'll share with you my deep cleaning recipe. I usually deep clean every other month from spring to fall, well because of being outside doing yard work, sweating, vacations with sand, just more outside and dirtier kinds of things to be done. During the winter I might deep clean twice if I feel I need it, maybe even just once.

Now, like I stated earlier maintenance really is a personal preference and you don't have to do it. A lot of people don't and it is what suits them and their personal choice. I do light maintenance, such as helping new dreads starting out lock up and not look so fuzzy and huge. However, I do not to root maintenance which is that I just let my roots grow as normal without locking them as they grow. I may change and start locking them once they get a certain length but I also might just let my hair grow doing its own things, its just something that you grow with and figure out as you go. Were I to do maintenance on my dreads I usually take a .75mm crochet needle (here) and just push it through horizontally since I am just getting in loose hairs, and pull it half way through and kind of move it out a tiny bit as to make it let go of the hair and continue this way until all the loose hairs are inside. I know this may sound confusing, but there are a lot of youtubers who can walk you through with this kind of maintenance, I however do not have a channel and would not want to record myself. Once you see it and get the hand actions, its very simple to do.


Deep Cleaning Recipe

You will need a large bowl, or one of those inflatable bed shampoo pillows.
As hot of water as you can stand
Juice from half a lemon
1 Tablespoon of baking soda
4-6 drops lavender essential oil
3-4 drops peppermint essential oil
3-4 drops tea tree essential oil

apple cider vinegar in a pouring bottle

stools

Okay, so start off by filling the bowl with enough water to dip your hair into and it be fully submersed. Mix in the baking soda, lemon, and essential oils -- although I stated to use this aount in your water it all depends upon your nose and how much of these smells together you can handle, peppermint is a very strong essential oil and sometimes even I only use one to two drops in my water. Swirl it around, it may bubble but thats just the baking soda and lemon mixing and perfectly normal. Get your stools set up to hold your body and you lie with your head dipping into the bowl. Soak for at least 15 minutes to as long as you want. Once you've finished soaking, squeeze the excess out of your hair into your bowl and then rinse with ACV. After that you can either use a shampoo to "wash" your hair or just rinse the ACV out with water and go about your bath or shower.



Hope these help, I'll definitely try to make more dreadlock posts!