HJ Waxing Moon

I'm pretty good about using things as I need them and not just using, say, a nightstand when I need a nightstand. Thinking outside the box, as it were. When I was growing up, I had a loft bed, and the top of my tall dresser was my nightstand. I've used file cabinets, actual nightstands, upside down trash cans, stools, chairs, and most recently: a small bookshelf. Bookshelves are great for nightstands. They don't come too far forward, so you aren't trying to scoot around them getting into bed. They have lots of storage space for the room they take up, and if you want things on them to be hidden you can put them in decorative boxes/baskets. The problem with my bookshelf was, it had to be placed in such a way as to either block the outlet from being usable at all, or else pulled 3-4 inches away from the wall to allow the plugs some room. Of course, pulling it away from the wall presents other problems, namely earrings and pill bottles getting dropped behind it. Not hel...

Saturday I wanted nothing more than to dig in some dirt. After all the snow, wind, rain, and grey of winter, I just needed some sunshine and dirt time. So I spent a little time (only 20 minutes or so) prepping my containers for planting. Surprise surprise, I didn't get any "before" pictures of the cluttered balcony. This is a failing I'm certain we're all going to have to learn to accept.  This is the set-up we're hoping to use for our garden, though the cascading effect of the ones on the left means they may get less sun than if I cascade them out. Unfortunately it also means that would make the herbs less accessible for fast snipping while cooking. I might try working on a shelving mechanism to get maximum light and access.  Once I'd pulled out all the clover, and turned the dirt a bit, some delightful plants came into view. Like these darlings! To the left and right bottom corners you can see tiny springs of oregano that popped in for some reaso...

This is going to get a bit gross. Don't eat while reading this, and feel free to skip it. It's just scalp stuff though so it isn't TOO gross. I've had psoriasis & eczema since I was a kid. High school was horrid, because being a swimmer, the chlorine really irritated my skin. Frankly I didn't know anything else and I liked swimming enough that it didn't bother me too much, I just went through a lot of lotion. After high school, I still have kept the habit of having a bottle of lotion next to the bed for my hands and feet, and my worst spots are my upper arms. And my scalp. Oh, my scalp. My scalp has been the bane of my existence for as long as I can remember. No amount of dandruff shampoo has ever helped. Quite the opposite, it's always made my scalp worse. Since HS I've known that showering more than every 2-3 days irritates my skin horribly, but I can keep the patches on my arms down to splotchy-hive-looking things (not too scaly and gross) if ...

So at my favorite chinese restaurant, they have an amazing delicious vinegar on the table, used as a condiment. I've asked a couple times what it is, and they look at me as if I have three heads and say it's vinegar. When asked what kind, they say, "Vinegar." I haven't gotten up the nerve to ask to see the bottle. And ultimately that's probably going to have to be my next step. But in search of this delightful condiment, I purchased a bottle of Black Vinegar. I was hoping against hope that it would be what I was looking for. While it is delicious, and the right color, it is not the same stuff. The stuff on the table is light, roasty, malty, but much richer than a standard malt vinegar. The stuff in this bottle tastes like worchestershire sauce as a vinegar rather than a salty-sauce. Good, flavorful, and has come in very handy in my stir fry adventures, but ultimately not what I'm looking for. What's unclear is whether Black Vinegar and Black Rice V...

As my asthma has gotten more fickle, and my efforts to reduce costs have resulted in more home-made solutions, I've found myself avoiding artificial fragrances more often. I knew that strong artificial fragrances could be a migraine trigger, but I'm not sure I realized before recently just how much I'd arranged my life to avoid them. My trip back to Michigan highlighted to me just how far I've come in removing excess fragrances from my life, when I discovered that for some reason there were 13!! "air freshener" things in my grandma's guest bedroom. I spent the first two days thinking I was suffering the worst jet lag of my life, until I finally got over the real jet lag and was still miserable. I finally had the energy to do something about the air fresheners, found more tucked away in hidden places than I had originally accounted for, collected them all and put them in another room with the door closed. With the window open, the air became less oppressi...

I'd like to start with a little announcement... Mr. Moon and I are getting married!! He popped the question at my birthday party and of course, I said yes. Now we're in the whirlwind process of wedding planning. Which brought me to finally having a reason to buy the book that started one of my favorite blogs, Offbeat Bride . So the book is $13.30 on Amazon with prime, 2-day free shipping. Or I could get it "used" but really new for $9-10 including shipping, but I'd have to wait longer. But let's check out the local book store? There's one I like a lot in town where they have a restaurant in the bookstore and a pub downstairs. But according to their website, they don't have the book in stock and it says it ships in 1-5 days. Plus I have to pay $17. Plus I have to put on pants, leave my house, talk to people, and I will probably buy a coffee or a beer while I'm there. Financially, for me, it makes sense to buy it online, even if I pay the ext...

After we moved, my health took a sharp downward turn. There were a lot of changes that happened all at once, and so it was difficult to pinpoint any one particular cause. I thought most of it was just pushing myself too hard in the moving process, or maybe the fact that we had been in survival mode for so long and now I was allowed to give myself some more time for self-care. But that wasn't it. Shortly after we moved into our apartment, we noticed that a couple of our food items were freeze burned. We put it down to the old freezer which was not well-maintained, or some abuse during moving, and ignored it. Then we discovered brand-new food items were getting freezer burned. We checked to see if a vent was getting blocked, and checked for excess ice crystals. I checked the seal on the gasket on the door. We adjusted the temperature gauge with no change in temps or results. As time went on, I started noticing a metallic, almost anti-freeze flavor going on in our food. Everything b...