Entertainment: Ms. Daisy Style

I love to laugh.  If you can make me laugh, you will skyrocket to the top of my favorite people list so fast, it will be nothing short of utterly cray.  I can't imagine people not having the same sense of humor as I do, but it does happen.  (I'm married to one such person.  I've tried to reform him for the last 19 years of my life in this area to no avail.)  If you're wondering, my sense of humor falls along the lines of things like Monty Python, The Office, Rocketman, Portlandia, Homestar Runner, and Miranda Sings.  You know, all the awesome stuff.

So I got this great idea while I was driving today that would provide me entertainment and also include an opportunity to test out my friends and family.  What could be better?!  I was singing along loudly and dancing to "If I Had a Million Dollars" when I got the idea to send my brother a text that said, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you an exotic pet."  My brother will not find this strange at all, because nearly all of our communication is in the form of movie, TV, or song quotes.  

Then, I thought, "OH. MY. GOSH.  I am going to send these random texts to various people in my contacts list and see how they respond!"  Hooray.  What a great idea.  So excited.  Let's do this.

I texted my hubby, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a fur coat."

Response: Nothing.  (FAIL)

I texted my friend Amy from high school, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a green dress."

Response:  "I'd buy you a house."  (WIN)

I texted my female rock star drummer, Heather, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey."
 
Response:  "Could it be an Aye Aye Lemur?"  (WIN)

I texted my sister, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you some art."

Response: "A Picasso or a Garfunkel!"  (YOU WIN SO HARD)

I texted my friend, Deidre, a piano teacher, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a nice Reliant automobile."

Response:  "?????"

Me: "It's from the song..."

D:  "Yes, I know, but random..."

Me:  "This text is from me, you know..."
 
Meanwhile, I am having the time of my life thinking of which lyrics I should send to various people and gut laughing while imagining their face as they receive such special messages from me.

I really recommend it.  You can't just text anyone, though.  You have to find the people with the right sense of humor, or you may get no response, and that will cause you to wonder about them.  (Weirdos!)

In the meantime, here are some things you should laugh at.  Go on, get on it.

Peace, love, and funny funny ha ha,
Ms. Daisy
 

When Life Sucks: The Practical Stuff

We don't have many things guaranteed to us in this life, unless we want to count some trouble, some taxes, and death.  (Woah, that sounds totally discouraging.  Don't take it like a downer, I'm just throwing out the reality.  Chin up.)  Many western thinkers feel that most of life ought to be sunshine and roses (and oh, how I wish it were, wouldn't that be lovely?) with some crap sprinkled in.  I am not sure if the rest of the world thinks that. It seems to me that if you lived with the expectation that life mostly sucks and is mostly a great deal of work with a little play and small trinkets of happiness, you could rejoice in the little joys (not to mention the big ones!) a lot more deeply.

You're probably thinking that sounds really pessimistic, but actually, I am an incorrigible optimist.  I think embracing the fact that most of life might not go the way you want it to allows you to be really happy and appreciative when sunshine pokes through.  Those who figure life better be a herd of happy unicorns dancing on sparkly rainbows are going to get their feelings squashed daily - when someone takes "their" parking spot at Trader Joe's (or at the gym, WHAT THE HECK), when the neighbor's dog takes a dump on their lawn, or when their favorite tea cup breaks (#firstworldproblems).  

But sometimes it just really sucks.  These last two weeks have brought many troubles - people dying too soon, a friend going through a divorce, and an old friend being diagnosed with cancer.  When you have to stand in the middle of that and your world is shutting down and the walls are falling in, you feel the overwhelming sense of being crushed, and the mourning floods in on you.  It presses on your chest, it takes your breath away.  When it hits you, it is gut wrenching, and the sobbing comes from so deep down in your stomach that your brain doesn't think in words anymore, it just rips through feelings, slices your insides and tosses your organs on the table.  You can't imagine doing anything except for curling up wherever you may find yourself (the couch, the bed, the floor, the grass, the glass-shard covered cement), submitting under the weight of the pain, and not getting up (also, someone please, toss a blanket over to cover up my head, no pillow, these shards will do nicely, thankyouverymuch).  

Strong people have gone through some stuff.  They've wrestled this beast before.  You won't be strong if you let it win, though.  

You get to have that time.  You get to eat cake for dinner or skip eating entirely.  You get to lay sideways and wish that you could dissolve into the carpet.  When you have gone through a jarring experience, a wild perspective and life change, I suggest that you take that horrible ride.  But that ride has an end.  You can't spend the rest of your life on that ride.  Yeah, it seems like it won't ever end, and you'll never get off.  That comes with the territory.  It's inherent to swan diving out of your expected reality.  And for a long time out (maybe even ~58.5 years, +/- 10-40), you'll have times when you get hit in the head and the heart and you'll feel yourself falling down again.  It's not weak.  It's a fight.  The weak give up when they're pushed over.  Stand up again and fight.

But how?  What does that look like?

I can't answer that for everyone.  I can only tell you what is helpful to me.  If it helps you, I am glad for it.  

If you've made it off of the floor, get yourself up.  Go exhaust yourself.  Demand extreme physical fatigue of yourself until you have no strength left.  Push your body as hard and as far as it will go until it silences your insides.  Sobbing is optional.  Praying is recommended.

When your body is debilitated, burn through your brain.  Challenge yourself so hard that you can't think straight.  Read crazy stuff, take a class (in a secondary language on a subject you're weak in), write, study, paint, create, bake, work.

And now, when the river floods you, pull out the good.  Bring up the sunshine.  When your brother or child dies, remember their life.  Remember their smile.  Be thankful for the time you were together.  Their memory won't ever go away, and in that they are still with you.  When you walk through a divorce, be thankful that you got to experience a relationship, a marriage.  Remember the good and the sweet from those wonderful times, and be thankful that you shared a life with someone and walked through things together, even though it didn't turn out the way you thought or hoped it would.  Pack them up in a box and tuck them in your soul.  When you stand there and hear that you have cancer, take a deep breath and love on all of the people in your life and be thankful that everything around you has become exponentially more precious.

It sounds disgustingly cliche, but things happen for a reason.  This life is orchestrated.  There is hope.  It's not how you wanted it, but that's not to say life will always be a crapper.  Let it mold you into a person who can be more compassionate because you have walked through the fire.  Let it fuel you to show more love to everyone around you.  Don't waste your pain.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

Peace, love, and a crazy gigantic super long squitchy hug,
Ms. Daisy
 

Was my spleen exploding? Or did I just eat too many seeds...

I'm sure that title is something you've likely pondered time and time again in your life, but if it isn't, let me just allow you in for the experience that I'm sure you have always wondered about, but seemed just a little out of touch.

A week or two ago I went on a nut and seed eating rampage.  I think I created more ways to get chia seeds into my body than should even be imagined, and then for good measure, I added in flax, hemp and who even knows what else.  Mmmm, taste the power of seeds.  Oh, I tasted them all right.  I put those suckers in peanut butter (because who doesn't want to do that!) with raw honey, in my kombucha, in shakes, heck, I probably just ate them like candy with the frenzied pace I was on.

Question: How long until I die?

Then, all of a sudden, I started experiencing some strange stabbing pains.  They would come infrequently at first (did I connect this with ridiculous volumes of seed eating?  No.  I just kept it up like a boss.), and then more frequently, with or without movement.  The pain was stabbing and took my breath away, under the rib cage, left side, left of heart.  I did what people usually do (or maybe it's just me), and looked up detailed anatomy diagrams to try to pinpoint what on earth in there was festering and exploding, and then, follow the natural thought progression, try to guess how many minutes left I had of life.

I was quite sure it was my spleen.  This is concerning because those little spleeny things in there seem important and my paternal grandmother died of acute pancreatitis at a very early age, and I am fairly certain that those two organs are bros, thus (logically) I was also likely on my way out.  Write up the will.  Tess gets the white and silver daisy tea cup from Lacko Slott.

Lacko Slott, sorry Swedes, I have no double dots for you.

 Bloody genetics!  

What's worse is that everyone is going to make fun of me for dying!  Right?  No, I know this doesn't make sense to you, but it really does.  Here's Ms. Daisy, all healthy, swimming every minute she can, doing organic triathlons, promoting organic tampons, drinking organic kombucha, eating all her organic bananas and rubbing organic chia seeds into her organic natural peanut butter with hemp and flax, and she dies before she's the ripe old age of 40.  See?  What good is eating that organic crap anyway, look how it worked out for the busted spleen lady!  I'm just going to sit here and suck down a bunch of Coke Zero and McDonald's and live until I'm at least twice her pathetic dead age.  Then they'll taunt my dead soul with, "YOU DIDN'T EVEN WIN AT MAKING IT TO 100."  

This will not be tolerated.  I will haunt you.

And then they'll do my makeup all horrible in my casket so I'll have to come back as a ghost and shut it so you can't look.  Do not even try.  I will spill your stupid Coke Zero so fast your head will spin.

Meanwhile, back on a different level of reality, I got to thinking that perhaps it had something to do with my ridiculously excessive consumption of every kind of nut and seed I could find in the house and maybe I should try just backing that bus up for a minute.  Huh, that's a novel idea.  I had to figure something out as people were starting to threaten me with the idea of actually going to the doctor (no).

The following day after my epiphany, I would say the frequency of my spleen explosions cut in half.  It decreased steadily after that and by the weekend, I forgot I even had a spleen.

Sigh of relief!  Who wants to think about those organs anyway!  Not me!  Back to the organic triathlons!

The moral of the story?  I am pretty sure there isn't one.  Wait, yes there is: Don't drink Coke Zero.

Peace, love, and bananas,
Ms. Daisy

The best ideas for a facial ever. Not.

If there is a chance for me to do something weird, I'm probably going to do it, unless it involves drastic danger or non-organic foods (let's get real here).  Last night I came upon such a chance and jumped in both feet.  Since this is my life, things did not go exactly as anticipated.

(Case in point:  One time, I bludgeoned my toe INSIDE A SPINNING VACUUM HEAD.  How?  Oh, you know.  I was trying to get that sucker into the other room up on to the carpet, lifted it, and gave it a shove with my foot - and at that second, the 90 degree angle of the vacuum head dropped and that whirling tornado of decapitating death coincided with the swing of my foot and in went the toes.  The yells of torture resonated throughout the house.  The family approached slowly.  "What...did...you...do?"  They seem to have been anticipating a fountain of blood spewing out of my severed toes based on the instantaneous drop to the floor, fetal position, and howling that accompanied this drastic scene.  I'm good.  It's all good.  Just back up.  Or bring me some ice wine.  Whatever.)
 
Well, last night I was on pinterest, the land of great ideas that you should try (or just pin and never actually do).  I probably have subscribed to natural or homemade beauty and this pin popped up advertising the creation of those Biore rip-your-skin-off strips.  You know those, right?  I used to use them quite a bit, but now I read their ingredients.  They have some horrible thing in there - either a paraben or a polysorbate, so I dumped them when I read that and haven't used one of those for a long time.  They are kind of fun, however, which made me slightly sad to see them go.

Well, I had to see how you could possibly make a Biore strip.  That just seemed so strange!  Her recipe and instructions were simple enough, and I had the ingredients on hand, so I figured I'd try it.  Your skin will be glowing, they said.  You'll love it, they said.  Just try it, they said.

here is a girl looking radiant
and happy after using her
homemade biore strip

Simply mix a couple tablespoons of milk with a couple tablespoons of gelatin and warm it up, then put it on your face.  Ohhhkaaay.  Her instructions included using a microwave (psh, no, don't have one of those), so I just heated it up on a pot.  It smelled so gross.  Warm milk, ew.  But she promised nice smooth skin, so the torture of stench seemed worth it at the time.

When the blobby mixture was nice and warm, I took it over to the bathroom to minimize my mess that I knew would ensue.  I used a tiny itty bitty spoon to pour the concoction on my face and the back of the spoon to smear it on.  This was kind of weird to say the least.  I had drippy milky gelatin pouring down my cheeks and I was patting my face with a spoon.  Oh well!  Not to be deterred by stench or spoons on my face, I persisted in such weirdness.

All I had to do after was just simply to wait for it to dry a bit, then start peeling.  

So, it's not really drying.  Did I put too much on?  Or does this have too much milk and not enough gelatin?  It's collecting at my chin in a river of grossness.  I have a beard of milk jello.  This is going to be great, I can already tell.  Stay hopeful, it's not over yet.

After several minutes, I supposed some parts of it were dry.  I started peeling the jello beard and it was like I was in elementary school again and had poured Elmers on my hands.  Sort of fun, but not really feeling like it's cleaning pores or anything, it's just a strange science experiment at this point.

And then.

I got to the parts up higher on my face that had a much thinner layer of milk jello (so sick).  These parts were my very sensitive cheeks.  This, of course, dried to a crisp.  It was glued onto my face with vigor.  If I didn't know better, I would have supposed it had fused into my face and become part of it.  I found a corner to start pulling, and the stabbing pain of the pinchy, rippy, torture made my eyes involuntarily water a fountain of tears.  This is great.  My face is turning red from what feels like violently using a dry razor on my cheek.  Or a wolverine slashing my skin off.  Or boiling my face in hot peppers.  Something along those lines.

Now I may not have mentioned it, but just prior to doing this experiment, I saw another great idea on pinterest about using turmeric and rose water on your face to improve complexion and so much more...so I did that right before the skin removal party.  Have you cooked with turmeric?  Touch it ever?  Are your fingers still orange?  Good, because my face was.

So let's see here.  If you follow these good instructions for a special facial treatment, you can end up with:

- an orange face
- ripped off skin
- milk smell/beard
- red skin where you ripped it off

I mean, really - what do you have to lose!

I hope to do it again really soon.

Peace, love, and if you rub turmeric on your face in just the right pattern, you can kind of make an orange beard (and who wouldn't want that),
Ms. Daisy

Amused at Kombucha Class

What up, peeps?  I was teaching a kombucha class tonight along side of my dear friend, sidekick, promoter, and I'm just gonna say it - agent (you so are, you know it).  

We were talking about the benefits of probiotics and kombucha when one of the ladies asked about the differences between home brewed kombucha and what you can buy in the store.  My personal kombucha is less fizzy than store-bought stuff, I don't know why or how, or if it's better or worse, it just is.  She mentioned how many of the kombucha sold in stores has chia seeds in it (which are a great source of omega 3's).  I said that you could surely put chia seeds in your kombucha (although some people don't like to chew their drinks).

At this, a sweet lady (who is cool - she has chickens.  Enough said.) said, "Chia seeds!  For lunch I had a donut with ice cream, but I put chia seeds on it!"  

I laughed so hard.  

I love this.  

I love this for the humor.

I love this for the irony.

I love this for the thought behind it.

This is a picture of knowing enough about eating well, but eating what you crave, and then maybe feeling a smidge guilty, so toss on some chia seeds.  

That meal is a picture of the United States.

Enjoy the little bits of life.  Be amused where you may.

Peace, love, and chia seeds on everything,
Ms. Daisy

Your food addiction, solved.

Are you addicted to food?  Or maybe you've just got a habit that you are having trouble breaking?  Some people need to cut out sugar, some want to give up pop (especially if it is diet, a.k.a. toxic death poison), others want to scale back carbs.

I would love to see you rehabbed.  It is worth it.

Here is inspiration for you.

After you take a look at this one, you'll need to see how to solve it here, in food rehab.

  

Well.  Or something like that.

Happy Friday!

Peace, love, and pasta,

Ms. Daisy