Finally feeling better

Well, after a week and a half, I'm finally getting over the cold I've been struggling with - though my husband is starting to get it now, too. :-( I guess it was too much to hope that he'd miss out on it. Hopefully, it won't hit him as hard as it did me.

Being sick and stuck at home did give the girls and I a chance to finally watch all those dvd's we'd borrowed, though we did have to renew them for a second week to do it.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs - this Agatha Christie movie was quite good. We all enjoyed it, and Youngest ended up watching it 3 times.

Castaway - enjoyable, but nothing I'd want to see more than once. They did pretty well with it.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - we'll definitely be looking for more from this series. Very good.

Ring of Fire - I highly recommend this. Episodes 1-4 were filmed in the 70's, following the adventures of a pair of brothers as they explored - and eventually found a home in - the Indonesian islands. Some of the interesting things we learned was the Bogeymen were real. The Bogey were a people who lived on one of the islands, with the men leaving their woman and children behind for about 9 months of the year, trading or pirating. They were such ferocious pirates, European sailors coined the term Bogeymen as objects of fear. Turns out the main reason they left for so long was because the island they lived on couldn't provide enough for for everyone, so by leaving the women, children and a few men behind, they had enough food to provide for themselves, while the sailors lived off corn mush and whatever else they could supplement themselves with. Just one of many interesting things we learned.

The 5th episode takes place some 20 years later, shortly after one of the brothers has died. The remaining brother revisits some of the places they traveled to together, along with a group of other Europeans. We found it a lot less enjoyable than the old videos.

Plan 9 from Outer Space - words fail me. This was so incredibly bad! It was hilarious. Eldest was so inspired by it, she's since grabbed two more horrible old movies - The Thing from Out Space and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

Great entertainment! *L*

I've been tagged...

My first tag! *L* From Travelers Journal, here's the meme.

1.Find the book closest to you and turn to page 123
2.Locate the 5th sentence
3.Post in your blog the following three sentences
4.Then challenge five others to do the same


After digging around all the papers on my desk, I found Critical Choices That Change Lives: How Heroes Turn Tragedy into Triumph by Daniel R. Castro

The 5th sentence happens to be the start of a new paragraph.

When was the last time you made a list of things that truly give you satisfaction in life? How often and with what amount of intensity are you currently persuing these things? Are you currently enduring a less than satisfactory situation when you know in your heart you should be doing something else?

Tag 5 people? Hmmm... let's try...

Inspiderwiht
Polar Bear
TeeBuck
Montessori Journey and
Mommy Salad

I'm back!

Gah - I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted! Things have been pretty busy. I started a part time job, working evenings at a conference centre. Though I only work a few days a week, my shifts generally end at around 1 am. It changes some of the things we do during the days.

One of those is that we're going to have to change our library days away from friday. Even if I have only one shift in a week, that day is always a friday. It doesn't quite work out - especially if I've got a thursday shift, too.

Which means we've missed a few library days, and this week, we went in today, even though it's normally a home day for Eldest. Yesterday ended up being a home day, since she wasn't feeling well.

We had a bunch of stuff to return - most of which we'd already renewed at least once because we couldn't come in regularly. Youngest still has three from the Enchanted Worlds series. The girls had also picked another Great Courses set, part 1 of The Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition. Eldest also hung on to The Moral Intelligence of Children and Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning.

I deliberately stayed away from a few of my usual sections - all the global warming research gets tiresome at times. ;-) Today, I focused on cookbooks and crafting.

The Backyard Barbecue Cookbook - I've borrowed this one before and liked it enough to grab it again. Then promptly used it for supper. :-) One of the things I like about it is the wide range of ethnic recipes.

Barbecue, Biscuits & Beans; Chuck Wagon Cooking - This one looks really neat! The focus is on authentic chuckwagon cookery. A bit of history, some information on what a typical chuckwagon was like, what tools where used (like a good cast iron dutch oven - those can last for generations), and, of course, recipes. I think I'm going to get some good stuff out of this one. :-D

The Rustic Table; Simple Fare from the World's Kitchens - you know, I didn't even look inside this one. I grabbed it based on the title alone!

Picnic; 125 Recipes with 29 Seasonal Menus - just 'cause I like picnics, even though we hardly ever have them.

World Crafts - showcasing an amazing variety of crafts practiced around the world.

Japanese Temari; A Colorful Spin on an Ancient Craft - more lovely patterns and ideas for me to try out! This book also seems to have a more substantial section on the history of temari, as well as other interesting little stories throughout the book.

Plus Size Crochet; Fashions that Fit and Flatter - I've seen knitting versions of this book. I don't knit, so finding a crochet version is a good thing. :-D

Crochet Bags; 15 Hip Projects for Carrying Your Stuff - In a fabric and yarn exchange, I grabbed this fabulous cotton yarn that I ended up using to make a small bag. Then I made a pop can insulator. Then I made another bag, which I'm just finishing up now. I'm having so much fun making these, I wanted more ideas. Some of these are... uhm... not my type, but that's ok. :-D

Start and Run a Profitable Craft Business - Who knows? I might just do that.

Pride and Prescience; A Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery - this was my one dive into fiction today. I loved Pride and Prejudice - and have refused to see any of the tv or movie versions because I don't want to ruin it for myself. *L* The idea of a book that continues on with the characters interested me. I *really* hope is doesn't accomplish what I've managed to avoid by not seeing any of the screen versions.

Eldest snagged the following books today...

The Demon Drink; The Victorian Inebriates Guide to the Evils of Alchohol and How to Escape Them - A satire that my daughter couldn't resist. It's a tiny book, and she's already finished it. She found it funny. :-D

Terminating Life - on the subject of euthanasia.

Collected Works; Jung - a bit of light reading??

The Concise Book of Lying - an examination of why humans lie, and its implications and impacts.

Here Be Dragons; The Scientific Quest for Extraterrestrial Life - well, that title's pretty self explanatory. *L*

Fractals Everywhere; Second Edition - another rather self explanatory title.

The Costume Book for Parties and Plays - I've actually been eyeballing this one myself. It's got quite a variety of ethnic and historical dress. Not a pattern book, but one of descriptions and illustrated examples.

The Complete History of Costume & Fashion from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day - Well, almost. It was published in 2000. Glancing through the illustrations and photos, I can only say one thing. Modern fashion is exceptionally weird.

Finally, from the audio/visual section...

By the Pricking of my Thumbs; Miss Marple, Vol. 2 - When we first started watching Miss Marple movies, we liked them, but found Miss Marple herself to be very irritating. Then I put on hold a movie we'd seen before, only to discover we hadn't. It turns out that there are two very different series of movies based on the Miss Marple character. The actor that plays Miss Marple in this other series is Geraldine McEwan, and we really love how she interprets the character. The stories themselves are very different and much more interesting - I'll have to borrow some of the books to see which of the movies are the more accurate interpretation, but I suspect they're the ones with Geraldine McEwan.

Castaway - Yes, it's true. We still haven't seen this Tom Hanks movie. Just never got around to it.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 4 - I've never seen these before. They were made in the 80's. If we like this one, I'll make a point of putting other volumes on hold.

Ring of Fire; An Indonesian Odyssey - this is a 5 film, 2 dvd set, including Spice Island Saga, Dance of the Warriors, East of Krakatoa, Dream Wanderers of Borneo and Beyond the Ring of Fire. I do hope we have time to see all of these.

Plan 9 from Outer Space - I showed this one to Eldest and she had to take it out. Considered one of the worse movies ever made - so bad, it's good! It uses footage of an unfinished Bela Lugosi movie - unfinished because he died. It should be delightfully horrible! *L

Eldest picked a couple music cd's, too - Prinzehorn Dance School and Projet Orange megaphobe (no, that's not a typo in Projet - I double checked. *L*)

I grabbed a few myself.

Little Buddha Cafe by D.J. Sam Popat - I have no idea what to expect of this one.
Kiva, Pulse - this one was under vocal/female - pop. From the titles, I think their definition of pop is a bit loose. We'll see when I listen to it. :-D
Hollywood Goes Wild - I couldn't resist this one. Jeff Goldblum? Brad Pitt? Johnny Depp with Iggy Pop!?!?!
The Bhangra Dimension featuring Dindusri D.C.S. Sasha; A Bhangra and Ragga Fusion - also from the pop section, but... I don't know. I got it for the funky cover art. ;-)
Ray Charles; Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again - because it occurred to me that, while I was familiar with Ray Charles' music, I've never actually listened to an album of his.

And that's it! Now, time to join the girls and watch Miss Marple. :-D

Henna - decorated

After giving the henna paste several hours to set, the girls and I went at it. I started off by rigging a cone out of the corner of a thick plastic shopping bag (reduce, reuse, recycle...), then practiced on my own arm.



You know, it's really hard to work on your own arm. *L* Unfortunately, part way through, Eldest pointed out that I'd bent my wrist back while adding some details higher up, and smudged the band. You can actually see it a bit in this picture, I just noticed now. I ended up having to fill in the section with dots, so it'll be just solid henna stain.

I shaved my arms before I started, because the paste can get hung up on the hairs.





Eldest had drawn out on paper what designs she wanted. After Dh freshly shaved the sides of her head, I copied her designs onto her scalp.

I like this side's design.










Eldest likes this side better.











Later on, I let Eldest go nuts on one of my legs, so I've got a design on my foot, ankle and lower leg. We didn't get a good picture of it, though. Maybe later.


Then Youngest got her turn. She wanted me to go up her arms, too, but we'll have to shave her arms to do that.

So we're all sitting around with henna paste drying and setting on our skin. We're looking at ways to cover them so that they can be left overnight before we wash off the paste, so the designs will be nice and dark. :-D

Henna - getting started

We haven't done anything with henna since before we moved away from Manitoba. It took me a while to find some again. The hard part is finding pure, powdered henna leaves. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that are often adulterated. I did have a Canadian supplier highly recommended to me. Eldest had something mind, though, so we wanted some faster than ordering online would allow for. After much searching and recommendations from people we've got to know since our move, we ended up getting some at Superstore, of all places. I have no idea as to the quality of what we found, but we'll give it a go.

In the past, I've simply mixed henna power with warm water. It works fine, in general. The henna tends to flake off a lot when it dries, though, and sometimes the stain isn't very good. So this time, I used instructions and advice from here, and used lemon juice and sugar.


All set up and ready to mix. I made sure to use a ceramic bowl and plastic spoon. Glass bowls work fine, too, and I could probably have used both a metal bowl (if I had one) or a metal spoon, but the site mentioned that henna sometimes reacts with metal. I also made sure to cover the counter area with paper towels and got out some latex gloves.






I didn't bother sifting the powder first - I didn't feel like doing it twice. You'll see why, later. Here, I've got about 1 spoonful of sugar and 5 rounded spoonfuls of henna powder mixed together. This is a *lot* of henna for personal use.







It took a lot more lemon juice than I expected to get it to the consistency I wanted. Note that you can see a few lumps in the paste.








Here, I've got Eldest helping me out. For a sieve, I used an old knee high stocking with a run in it (see... being a packrat does come in handy sometimes... right, Dh? *ahem*). I just cut it open and had Eldest hold it taught across the bowl. If I'd had one, I could have used a "carrot bag" to scoop the paste into an uncut stocking.

Things got interesting at this point. The cat, seeing us in the kitchen, decided to come over and start talking to us. As I was trying to take this picture, she jumped up onto my hip and stayed there a few seconds, then climbed up to my shoulder, crossed over to Eldest's shoulder, and started heading for the top of the fridge. Several ruined photos later, Eldest was able to take her to where she was really wanting to go - the top shelf of the hall closet. She's still there as I write this.

The scratches on my hip and shoulder should be interesting.



The finished paste. Now, it just needs to sit for a few hours for the dye to activate. I've covered it with plastic so it won't dry out.

Now I have to figure out what to use for a cone. I've got a few options to decide from.