Get Rid of Orange Hair: My Shameful Journey

Sometimes, very rarely, I make mistakes (okay, okay, maybe a bit more oftener than that, but I was hoping you might not notice).  Sometimes these mistakes are apparent only to me and God.  Sometimes they are only apparent to my family or friends.  And then sometimes you make a mistake that upon making, everyone in the whole freakin' world notices any time they look at you or in your general direction.

This was me circa the end of May up until two days ago.

I thought it would be a really fanstastic idea to follow my dream of becoming blonde again.  Yes, the organic side of me was saying, "What the crap, yo?  You know better than that!  You know you can't use bleach and all those toxic chemicals, you'll kill yourself, your brains, your liver and you'll be soaking yourself in carcinogens like nobody's beeswax, homegirl!  Hello, ever heard of PPD?  Like, total death sentence, dumbface!!  DUH!!"  

The kind of hair I wanted.

The diva side of me didn't want to listen.  It wanted to find a way around the poison and solve it, being a non-toxic blonde.  I thought I had figured it out.  Oh glory, could it be that there was such a thing as organic color?  I looked it up online and after many hours of reading, there really was something called organic color. And it could make you blonde.  Is this for realies?  Oh baby.  I called the salon and made an appointment.  But first, I asked, "Can this really make me blonde? I have brown hair.  I don't want orange hair.  I don't want strawberry blonde hair.  I don't want golden blonde hair.  I want straight up ash blonde.  Can your product do this?"

I was then repeatedly assured it could and would.

I was so excited I could hardly stand it.

The day finally came and I took a picture of myself and sent it to the hubby with the caption something along the lines of "Sayonara brown hair! SUCKAAAA!!!!"  

It would be the last picture I remember having happy hair.

My visit to the salon was in an extremely upscale town about a half hour away.  These people use their Coach bags as gym bags because they're so common and refer to their Jimmy Choo as "these old things?!"  The people who live in this town have servants, nannies and Porches and Rolls Royce are as common as the F-150's (with the stickers of deer heads on the window and the "I work for Ford, I drive a Ford" plastic around the license plate) are in mine.  I thought I was safe.

I was el-wrongo.

I sat down in the chair and asked to see a hair color wheel.  I showed them the exact color I wanted and pointed out the colors I wanted to avoid like the plague.  I told them that when I used to get bleach highlights, my hair would take about an hour and a half to two hours to come up.  I have freak hair.  Is this going to work?  Are you sure?  Yes, yes, yes.  Do it all the time!

Okay.

This stuff you leave on your hair for 30 minutes and then rinse it out.

Rinse 1: hair slightly lighter, slightly more auburn, but still brown.

Did it again.

Rinse 2: resist swearing, sweating, stabbing and screaming.  My hair is flaming freak orange yellow.  Clown hair.  But fried to a freakin' crisp.  Dead.  Feels like straw.  By bending it sideways it breaks.  Thousands of split ends and shortened hair.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I am Ronald McDonald.  And I have to go to a wedding.  In 48 hours.  Use your tae kwon do for good, use tae kwon do for good, use tae kwon do for good.  It's just hair, right?  

His solution: bleach highlights to blonde up the orange.  He says, "Oh, you wanted  bleachy light blonde color?  Well, of course you cannot achieve that with this product.  That comes only about by bleach!"

Are. You. Freakin'. Kidding. Me.

She is cute, but this is not the color I wanted.  Unfortch, I got it.

So he pulls a 1980 vintage and pulls my long hair through a CAP with a crochet hook and bleaches it.

Thanks.

My hair was destroyed.  My childrenos suggested that I shave my head bald.

Along came my friend.  My sweet, sweet friend.  She rescued me from my desperation, took me to her salon and they toned the orange down significantly.  Then my sweet friend PAID for my fiasco-fix.  She has been with me through the worst times in my life, and she came through in true cape-like fashion.  She is a sister to me and I love her terribly.  God bless that blessing.

Fast forward two weeks.  My hair is getting oranger.  What the heck?!  The combination of swimming for several hours a week and the Trader Joe tea tree shampoo and conditioner are stripping the toner out of my hair with lightning speed.

I make pleas of desperation to make some cash and take it to another salon to have them dye my hair brown.  It works great.  For two weeks.  Then my hair is flaming orange again.

Hubby kaboshes the spending on the hair.  I am stuck.

Crap.

I try to dye my hair with coffee.  It doesn't work.

I try to dye my hair with black walnut hull powder.  It works.  Until I shampoo my head.  Then it is gone.  So much for those two hours.

I consider coloring on my hair with a brown Sharpie marker.

I spend hours looking up hair online.  I wear thick headbandy things to cover up the bulk of it around my face.  

I put Mrs. Stewart's bluing laundry brightner (the pre-bleach solution of 100 years ago to get your yellowed/dulling whites bright white again) into my shampoo and conditioner hoping to tone out the orange.  (I read about purple shampoo, but it was out because of all the chemicals it contained.)  Maybe my hair wasn't fluorescent orange anymore, but it was still orange.

Then I calculated how long it would take, based on the regrowth of hair from late May until now to have a full head of my (changed perception!) wonderful brown hair back again.  Oh.  Three years.

Sigh.

I am being punished for my foolishness.  And I must suffer my punishment for three years of horror every time I look at myself in the mirror.  Every time I meet a new person, they will think I am aiming to be a 17 year old prostitute who went wild in her bathroom with 50 developer and some bleach.  Why did I do it?  WHY?  WHY?!  WHYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

Pause.

Maybe you're asking me, "Hey Ms. Daisy, why the HECK didn't you just go to the store and go get a box dye?  Why didn't you go to Sally's and get something to dye your hair brown again?"  

You should know by now that I don't usually do the traditional things, my dear.  (No, that would be too easy.)

You do know I research those chemicals, right?  Steeping my head in carcinogen tea was not going to be my option.  My diva self was tempted to try it, I can assure you.  How easy it would have been!  I even had a box of dye in my hands at Target.  And then I did what I always do.  I flipped the box to the back and read the ingredients.  ARGH!!!!!!!!  WHY!  WHY!!  WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Knowledge.  Hmph.

Then it happened.  I found a product that contained 100% natural, organic stuff.  And it had a bunch of happy people who had used it.  They were using it to color their grey hair, though.  Would it work on my orange fiasco?  What if I ended up with green hair?  Maybe I'd like that better.  Huh.  Decisions to consider.

What the heck.  It was $11 online, so I ordered it.  I couldn't find it even in my uber-healthy health food store, so I had to wait for it to be shipped to me.  Patience, hurry up!

It contains natural indigo, henna (this is what freaked me out - visions of yet oranger hair kept me in a hyperventilation state of panic), amla and two other herbs to chillax your hair.

Well, what the heck, right?  I did a strand test and made it quite watery.  After 90 minutes it didn't work.  I called the company.  They said, "You did it too thin.  Think cake batter paste."

Good thing that was just a strand test.  The next day I got it all ready.  I sloshed my head with a greenish brown mud that smelled like baby food peas and put a cap on.  I prayed, "Please, God, let this not be a failure like all the rest and have my husband be so furious about spending even $22 (I got 2 boxes just in case) on another failure.  And please let me not have green hair.  Amen."

Yes, it took a little bit of work to get the mudpie out of my hair.  I had to climb into the bathtub, dunk my head into a basin and I let the faucet pour over the back of my head, dump the bucket of blackish sooty water, start over.  Repeat 5 times until clear.  Yes, my hair felt like it was made of sticks, but this was just the in-betweenies.  I put conditioner on it until I could rake my fingers through it again and then it was time for the test.  After spending 90 minutes with my mud hair and now having a sort of aura of baby food peas, I can tell you it was all TOTALLY WORTH IT.

What joy in a box looks like.

I washed and dried it.  Then I heard angels singing in bright sunshine streaming down into my bathroom mirror.  Glory hallelujah!  My brown hair was back.  My tending toward fro-chemically-burnt hair seems to be 90% repaired! And could it be?  Is it possible?  It was a normal brown color (oh wait, that's because it was from a natural source, um, duh)!  It was not orange.  It made me look like a human adult again.  It was not green.  Sayonara orange!  Thank you God!

The product is made by Aubrey Organics.  It is called "Color Me Natural" in dark brown.  It contains things that are all good for your hair: indigo (indigofera tinctoria), lawsonia inermis alba (henna), emblica officinalis, eclipta alba, acacia cathechu.  That's it.  It is 100% herbal.  My hubster said, "Your head smells like plants."  See?  Natural.  I got it here, at iherb.
 And I have a $10 off code if you want it - VNR736.

Yes, I have learned my lesson.  And in case you were wondering, no, I will not be hoping to have blonde hair ever again.  I will be happy with what the good Lord has given me.  

Peace, love and the natural way is ALWAYS the best way, even if it smells like peas,
Ms. Daisy

Summer Reading

Hey dollface, I don't usually post about my reading club over on the main page, but this book I read is totally amazing and I couldn't bear not to directly share it with you.  

So, head on over to Ms. Daisy's Reading Club and check out Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan (the one and only).

Here is a link to take you swiftly: http://daisyreadspinkglitter.blogspot.com/2014/07/cooked-natural-history-of.html

Peace, love and go get this book,
 Ms. Daisy

The best pretend chocolate pudding ever (it's even GF!)

I am about to give you a recipe that is so delicious but yet sounds so utterly horrifying, I am sure you are going to give me every weird eyeball, nose crinkle, and mouth wrinkle face there is.

Sounds GREAT ALREADY, DOESN'T IT?

Actually, a lot of you won't think it's that crazy, but at first glance it seems like an odd pairing.

I came up with this crazy sauce one day when I had a craving for chocolate but wanted to restrain myself a little bit and not go bonkers on the homemade magic shell (that would be melted coconut oil with chocolate chips - pour it over ice cream and it hardens...consider this as your warning if you plan on trying it - you will eat the entire batch.  In fact, sometimes I just want to eat that hardened magic shell so much that I get this pathetic tiny scoop of ice cream - a 1 tbsp. kind of tiny - and repeatedly pour magic shell on it over and over again to get that wonderous chocolate magicness.), especially since I think it was something like 10:30 in the morning.  

So I thought I'd make myself a smoothie and add some cocoa powder or something into it to see if I could get my fix.  I have to say, it was quite a hit. I struck upon a wonder.  Eureka!  Even the littles begged for more.

Here's the gluten-free, dairy-free, good fat filled, potassium, magnesium and omega-3 rich, healthy amazeballs dealie: with your blender, mix a ripe banana, half of an avocado, golden ground flax seed, a scoop of cocoa powder and some water.  The avocado thing initially sounds weird, but that crazy little avocado makes your smoothie as smooth as pudding.  It is so creamy soft delish, you won't believe it.  Now if your avocado has turned to stink with black spots on it, don't use it.  It will funktify your wonder and make it putrid.

Bonus:  If you want to pretend what you're doing is even more delicious, you can freeze it in a mold (unfortch mine is plastic - yuck) and make yourself some pudding pops.  I just ate one.  It was amazing.  

Only thing that could have made it better would have been to dip it in some magic shell...
  Peace, love and take that, Skinny Cow!
Ms. Daisy

Healthy and homemade summer treats, want s'more?

It seems that the world cannot get enough of sugar, and summertime is no exception.  Just think of the High Fruc Truck as it slings its crack down the street to those nice innocent tunes while all of the little sugar-high babies come running out of their homes, waving their $5 bills, begging to be bestowed with high fructose ADHD brain damage and Red #40 in those rocketship patriotic red, white and blue pops.

Ah, such lovely pictures of summer in America.  It must be Independence Day.

Another thing that all the peeps love to dive into in the summer is s'mores.  You know, the litmus test for cavities or gum recession?  You take one bite of that and you will know if you have a direct opening to your root as you climb the wall and die of pain (may I recommend Standard Process Bio-Dent for that situation?).  If you have no idea what a s'more is, it is a graham cracker sandwiching a toasted marshmallow with a piece of chocolate (it makes the chocolate melt on everything and goo goes everywhere). The name is from people crying out, "some more!"

But if you go on down to your favorite store, you'll see that what is sold in those baking aisles is exactly not food.  In fact, maybe it is more like rocket fuel.  It contains GMO corn syrup (would you like a taste of infertility, little one?), artificial flavors, artificial colors, dextrose (in case you didn't get enough GMO corn in the  corn syrup, you can have more in the dextrose), tetrasodium pyrophosphate, and the mysteriously listed ingredient: "a whipping aid" (what the heck?!  I am totally positive that MUST be good for you.).

So sad.  How are you going to enjoy delicious s'mores with that kind of poison list?  You aren't.  Well, I won't.  But all this to say there is a solution to all of this.

You can make your own marshmallows.

Totally.

And I don't mean some ridiculous 3 hour process with complicated ingredients, either.

Do you have a Kitchen Aid mixer?  If you do, it is going to be crazy easy for you.  If you don't, well, neither do I, and I make it work with a hand blender anyway.

Ready to do this?

Ya Need:
a candy thermometer
a large stainless steel pot (not like giant, just like regular large)
an 8x8 or so glass dish
3 packets of gelatin, or the equivalent in Great Lakes Gelatin out of your container
2/3-1ish cup of water (maybe a little more)
1.5 cups of organic sugar
a pinch of salt
a splash of vanilla
coconut oil (for your pan and your hands)
organic confectioners sugar (a cup would be enough)

and...either a hand blender or a Kitchen Aid mixer.

Get It Started:
1.  Pour 1/3 cup of water into either the bowl of your Kitchen Aid or into a large bowl.

2.  Sprinkle the gelatin on top of the water.  It will ooze in after a few minutes.  Don't touch it, just let it be.  Unless it is making you totally crazy, then poke it with a fork to mix.

3.  Slather your 8x8 glass dish with coconut oil everywhere.  No.  Everywhere.  (On the inside at least.)  If you miss one centimeter, you will lament it.  Dump some confectioners sugar in and bang it around to cover all of the coconut oil.  This step is vital for you not poking your eyes out with blowtorches later.

4.  In your stainless steel pot, pour the 1.5 cups of sugar.  Pour 1/3 cup of water over the top.  If it doesn't cover the sugar, add just a little more water until you get it just over.  You're going to be making a goo here, so don't worry that it looks like you have not a plethora of water.  Clip your candy thermometer into the pot so you can watch the temp.

5.  Add a pinch of salt into your cauldron.

6.  Turn that heat on to about medium (you are using a gas stove, right? Oh I love gas stoves.).  Watch that puppy bubble.

7.  The very second it hits 240 degrees (soft ball temp), turn the heat off and carefully pour your boiling sugar into the bowl where you have the gelatin/water goo.  If you are using the Kitchen Aid, start to mix VERY slowly.  Can you imagine the pain of that splash?  Yeah.  If you're using a hand mixer, I'd put it down in the sink.  Start it on low and increase speed.  While it is on low, you can add the vanilla.

8.  Stand there and dream about your dream kitchen.  Or farm.  Or picture what workout you're going to do next.  Plan your week.  You're going to stand there for about 8 minutes whipping this goo up.  You'll know 100% when your goo is ready because it will look like a giant thing of marshmallow fluff.

9.  Slather your hands in coconut oil and dig the goo out into your 8x8 glass dish.  Press it down flat-ish.  Cover the top with confectioners sugar lightly.

10.  In a very few minutes, you will see that you have a gigantic whole marshie square.  You can pop it out if it is room temp.  Cut whatever shape you'd like (usually people do square-ish things) and dip each blob into confectioners sugar so it doesn't stick to every single thing in your entire life.  If you want to roast them, I suggest making them slightly larger to make sure they fit on your pokey stick.

You can store them in a large jar or a gallon resealable bag.  They're sugar, they keep well for a couple weeks.

Get yourself some dark soy-free, fair trade chocolate and some organic soy-free graham crackers and go to town.

Yes, these are not what I would consider a health food by any stretch of the imagination, but at least they aren't filled with infertility and poison.  (It just contains the narcotic of sugar.)

Peace, love and fluffy puff marshmallows, they're dot com!
Ms. Daisy

    

Randoms, Vol. VII

Question: What will happen if you do any of the following things -
 a) wash your car (by hand)
 b) hang out your laundry (esp. if you have extra huge loads)
 c) water your grass for an hour

If you've guessed that IT WILL RAIN, you are 100% correct. 

I wonder about people in drought-filled areas - doing all of these things in the same morning will not only cause it to rain, but cause it to have torrential downpour flooding.

I only did two of those things, so I'm guessing we might only have an hour or seven of rain in about ten minutes.

Yay.

Peace, love and I love you, Murphy's Law!
Ms. Daisy

Sen. McCaskill is funded by big pharma and Monsatan - are you surprised?

Yesterday I wrote a letter to Senator Claire McCaskill.

I was very concerned about what her problem was for going off on a TV doctor (Dr. Oz) about recommending green coffee beans for weight loss while the world falls to pieces (Iraq, our baz-gillion dollar debt, the destruction of the middle class, health care, etc., etc, etc.).  I was bewildered why this would be her platform when in the whole scope of things this makes her look like candidate numero uno for the insane asylum.

Today I found out what her deal was.  

You'll be shocked (and awed). 

Homegirl McCask has homeboys in big pharma!  Whuuuuuuuuuuut!

Oh yeah, baby.  And not only that, but homegirl is sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g with everyone's favorite, most ethical, most popular, most murderous (oh wait) companies in the history of the whole freakin' world: Monsatan!

This girl is hopping up on her platform to protect her poor wittle fwiends who would just be out in the cold with nowhere to go, no place to lay their sweet little heads at night.  She is practically Mother Stinkin' Teresa.  

Dang.  I AM SO GLAD WE HAVE PEOPLE LIKE THIS IN OFFICE.  WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE LIKE WITHOUT THEIR EXCELLENT SERVICE TO HUMANITY?!

Maybe we should find out.

McCaskill has received $146,000 from a combination of Express Scripts (one of the biggest peddlers of every pharmaceutical company's whimsical wares anywhere) and Monsatan. 

 Check it out: McCaskill gets phat dough from homeboys Monsanto and Big Pharma

 Do I hear a "recall" out there?

But what is beyond me is wondering what it would be like to be her. 

Can you imagine pillowing your head at night, knowing you're a puppet and mouthpiece for the destruction of the world?  You are on the wrong side of good.  You are on the bad guy's team, and you sold out your soul for some money and what you think is your ounce of power, when all you really are is a pusher for the sickos.  They own you. 

Betcha that's what she said when someone asked her as a little girl, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

 We've got news for ya, sista.  There ain't no future in yo' frontin'.

Peace, love and let's buy green coffee beans,
Ms. Daisy

Letter To Senator McCaskill: going after Dr. Oz for liking green coffee beans

Dear Senator McCaskill,

I've read recently about your confrontation with Dr. Oz regarding green coffee beans and I am very concerned, and I believe you should be, too.

I am not what I would call a "fan" of Dr. Oz (I've seen his show once), but for you, as a senator, to call him to a trial for suggesting that green coffee beans might help weight loss is alarming to me.  There are a few reasons why this is so.

First of all, it seems to me that there are about fifty (billion) other more pressing and dangerous issues at hand and you have chosen to waste my money (and that of others) to call out a TV doctor about a weight loss claim.  Are you aware of what is going on in Iraq?  Do you know that we are in a crippling state of debt and that foreign countries who back the dollar are feeling that we're probably not worth it anymore?  It seems to me that if these are important to you, perhaps you would be spending your energy doing something that matters instead of hunting down a quasi-celebrity for suggesting that a supplement might help some fatties.

Second of all, besides making you look very foolish for pursuing such things, it makes people question who backs you and your campaign.  Are you bff's with the drug companies that you have to climb onto your podium and defend them from a couple of fat people trying green coffee beans instead of their product?  Besides my first thought of thinking you have obviously nothing more important to do than chase Dr. Oz, my second was that you are either funded by Merck or GlaxoSmithKline or some other big drug conglomerate and you don't want anyone thinking that they could live without them.  Were you put up to this by them?  Or are you terrified that relatively cheap green coffee beans with no major side effects (blindness, liver failure, blood clots, etc.) might take away profit sharing from GSK?  It makes you look bad, to be perfectly honest.

Please stop wasting everyone's time and money and please use your time in office for important things.  Go fight for things that matter.  Even if the media are on your side, I can tell you that the public is raising their eyebrows at you - at the very least thinking your pursuit unimportant and at most, thinking you are engaged in total buffoonery and ought to be relieved of your office to make way for someone who will pursue things that actually matter.

If you're so concerned about obesity, perhaps you should call Jamie Oliver to revamp the school food systems.  Or maybe you could make a motion to stop subsidizing genetically modified corn (that is used to make high fructose corn syrup, which encourages weight gain).  Perhaps you could support people growing their own fresh food instead of gobbling up Big Macs.

No?  Or just go after Dr. Oz.  

Yeah, that makes sense.  

Have a great day.

Ms. Daisy



 

Ginger Beer: Explosively Good

Hello and welcome to the kitchen of Ms. Daisy.  Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to get drenched in a liter of your own homemade exploding ginger beer?  Have you ever had a desperate longing to dodge glass shrapnel in your own house?  Did you miss out on the era of Drano bombs and you have deep regrets?  Have you ever wanted to scrub every surface, every crack, corner, nook and cranny of your basement?  Well, have a seat, and you can vicariously live through my fun afternoon. Follow these simple steps and you, too, can have the fantastically sticky and memorable experience you've always dreamed of.

It all started about ten days ago when I got the itch to brew up some homemade ginger beer.  I have done this before (but not with such explosive results) and the taste of ginger beer on a hot, summer day is the stuff dreams are made of.  So I got out my trusty Nourishing Traditions cookbook and flipped to the back of the book where lies many fabulous beverage concoctions.  (Kombucha included.)  

Some people do it differently, but with NT, you make a ginger bug by adding 2 teaspoons of ginger (dried) and 2 teaspoons of sugar (organic) daily to 1.5 cups of filtered water for 7 days.  On the 7th day, you pour off the liquid of the bubbly bug and add water, sugar and lemon juice and then bottle that baby up for 14 days.

I bottled on June 9 (today is the 12th).  I filled up each one so carefully not to spill a single drop (as this whole process takes at least 3 weeks - and it is so good, you don't want to miss any - and you know you're going to want to drink every single bottle on day 1 and have to start right over again and wait another 3 weeks for another sip).  I placed them in a row in the dungeon basement.  Weren't they so cute?  Yes, they were.

Until today.

We went out to Costco for some organic spring mix and bananas (but epic fail, this Costco is ghetto and doesn't carry organic ones) and then over to the favorite health food store to stock up on vitamins.

Upon returning home, I instructed one of the littles to whip up a batch of dog food (this entails soaking her $50 dog food in pancreatic enzymes that are crushed with a mortar and pestle in tepid water for an hour).  This little is a dramatic little.  Upon approaching the area where the dog food is prepared, screaming ensued.  "Emergency!  Emergency!  Help, Mom, help!!!"  

Now if any of you have dramatic littles, you know that this could mean any number of things.  It could mean that there is a spider on the ground; it could mean that laundry is on the floor in the wrong spot (this little is very particular, I might add); it could mean that the computer is smoking and shooting out laser rays into onlooker's eyeballs, blinding them for life; or it could mean there is broken glass.  I skipped through the others and flat out asked, "What?  Is it broken glass?"

Which bottle would you like to drink out of?

If you have a house filled with females, perhaps this is not the first thing that you think of.  If you have a house filled with boys, you know that you will bag up one broken item of glass at an average of twice a month and it is somewhat of a standard issue.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner - broken glass it is.

With a twist.

"And, Mom!  There's ginger beer all over everything!  Everything is all wet!"

Oh goodie.

One of my ginger beers has exploded.  This means two things - I need to clean that up and second, what is the likelihood that several more are waiting to explode this very minute?  Let's go find out.

I want you to imagine that you love ginger beer.  And it is a good thing you do, because your basement will never NOT smell like it again.  

"Little, bring me the paper towels!" Little comes back with ONE paper towel.  Yeap, that's gonna do it.

After three towels and flamboyant use of paper towels, the place was cleaned up.  There is a sink there and I thought it would be a good idea to test out the other bottles inside of the sink and let off some pressure if they were also about to blast the basement to smithereens.

Let me ask you.  Have you ever wished you could be one of those baseball players who wins something or the NASCAR guys when they shake up a bottle of champagne and spray it all over your face?  If you always wondered what that was like, I can tell you.  It is sticky.

I EVER so slowly opened the cap to one of those bottles and Mt. Vesuvius erupted straight upward, all over the ceiling, all over the walls, all over the everything.  Do you know what happens when you try to use your hand to contain it?  That would be called your own Personal Ginger Beer Shower.  Great.  There are three inches of liquid left.  Good thing I was so freakin careful not to spill a drop three days ago, eh?

Where were those towels again?

The next bottles were opened out of doors.  I think the ants are happy.

Well, gotta go scrub off.  I'm sure ginger is good for your skin somehow.  After that, maybe I'll have a sip of ginger beer.  Or I could skip washing a cup and just start licking my arms.  Whatever.

Peace, love and bottoms up,
Ms. Daisy

Fire cider

Have you ever heard of fire cider?  Neither had I until something like last night.

I read the ingredients and thought, "Oh wow, that totally sounds like it tastes like dog butt!" (Pardon my French.)  And then my second thought was, "I am pretty sure that is the most powerful combination of germ killers in the entire natural world all in one place.  I am going to make it in case anyone gets sick."

So here I am.  I bought the horseradish root today along with some whole turmeric root, but besides that I had the rest of the ingredients.  I began my experimentation just an hour or so ago.

I had to step away from my culinary processes because my eyes were burning out and tears were involuntarily pouring from my face.  Am I making you want to try this?  I bet!

I think you probably have to have some serious uh...cojones...to try this thing.  I don't think I actually fall into that category, but since I want to, well, ain't no stoppin' me, baby.

So what the heck is in this stuff, you sit by and wonder in bewilderment?  Let me tell you what my version contained and then I'll link you over to the original (and perhaps traditional) recipe. Mountain Rose Herb's fire cider recipe.

I chopped up the following like a wild, sassy, sous chef:

1 insanely wild ginger root the size of my hand
1 long crazy turmeric root that looked like a smallish carrot
8 cloves of garlic (I minced these to near squoosh)
1.5 organic onions (I had a half of one left over, hey, why not toss it in?)
1 piece of horseradish root about 7 inches long and 1" in diameter on its wider side
2 lemons, juiced and then their rinds ripped apart like I was a T-Rex
several shakes of organic dried rosemary (I think of rosemary and instantly the words "woody stalk" come to mind.  Why? Probably the hair dye.)

That totally insane pile of anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-biotic, anti-fungal, anti-bad germ anything all went into a glass jar.  Actually, two.  The jars were not so huge, so I thought it would be more appropriate to split them up.

Then, and only then, did I pour so much organic Braggs apple cider vinegar all over that stink pile that it came to the top.  I put a piece of parchment paper in between the liquid and the jar lid as I'm pretty sure that stuff could eat a hole in your sidewalk if left for enough time.  I shook it up and then took a picture of it.  I think this step is optional, but I bet most people do it.

Now, according to the directions, I'm supposed to shake it daily but keep it in a cool, dry place for a month.  At that point, you strain out the stuff (since the lady at Mountain Rose Herbs said it will start disintegrating) and keep the liquid.  You then pour a whole hot mess of local organic honey into it so that you don't die when you taste it.  Well, she didn't say that part, that was me.

And then, if anyone threatens illness around you, you just grab a teaspoon and your handy dandy fire cider jar and follow after them and they will miraculously get better (either because they are terrified that you will make them sip it or because it will work on them).

So, what do you think?  Totally crazy?  I guess people swear by it.  I'll try anything...once.  Maybe more if it is good.  Check it out below, a famous herbalist who lives in the mountains is going to show you her version of it, if you'd like to see what your eyes couldn't believe someone would concoct in print - here it is on video.

On that note, gonna go shake my fire cider.

Peace, love and are you feeling well today?
Ms. Daisy

Oh my gosh, I got a Twitter account.

Horrifying, right?

I totally agree.

Okay, let me explain.  As you likely know, I left facebook quite a while ago and it was nearly the most liberating things I have done in my entire life.  So why am I picking up another stupid social media vice?

Honestly?  To argue with idiots, I think.

I know.  That's the same thing as facebook.  (But facebook has more pictures of people's breakfasts.)

Well, whatever.  Maybe in like two hours I'll decide it was too stupid to pursue.  Maybe the orange hair chemicals have seeped into my brain and have made my previously clean brain tainted beyond recognition.  Either way, it is what it is.

If you're on there and want to peek, you'll find me @daisyglitters.  If you don't have a Twitter account, I suppose I ought to say by all means, and for heaven's sake, don't start now.  

Peace, love and submit this as evidence not to dye your hair,
Ms. Daisy