It was a Seussical day

It only took two days from when Mommy and Sissy saw Seussical for Sissy to start singing random bits of the songs.  It was a local production which was, according to both Mommy and Sissy, really quite good.  The performing community group is composed entirely of children, though most of the cast for this show were older than Sissy.  The theatre has birthday party options too, so Sissy is considering that as an option.  Given that she had been asking for a party at that place with the giant mouse and video games, Mommy thinks this is a significant improvement, and the pricing is fairly comparable.

On the hair front, Mommy's Baking Soda & Vinegar (BSV for the lazy) experiment is going well.  Her hair was a bit oily last week, but seems to have settled back into a normal cycle.  Life goes on....

Washing hair with baking soda and vinegar (wash day 2)

So far, so good.  Mommy's hair didn't develop more oil than normal between hair wash days (I should know, I sleep right by her hair), so she went ahead and tried the baking soda and vinegar options again this morning.

There are still some logistics issues to work out.  Like, should she keep some baking soda and the jug of vinegar in the bathroom, rather than having to go to the kitchen for it?  What containers should she use?  Again, avoiding the kitchen first thing in the morning, where there are three cats eating and asking to be tripped over before she's seen her morning coffee, would probably be a good idea.

So the experiment continues....

Washing hair with baking soda and vinegar (day 1)

Mommy's trying a hair experiment, using baking soda as shampoo and vinegar as conditioner.  This is the first day she's tried it, and so far she likes it, though she will use slightly cooler water when mixing the baking soda and vinegar with water (one tablespoon to one cup of water, each mixed separately).

She wavered on trying it this morning after finding a blog entry someone had about how bad it was for your hair (based on its pH level, but lye, which is used in most soaps and a lot of shampoos, has a higher pH level), but there were dozens of entries from different site about how good it is, from people who had tried it.  Besides, she had already bought the apple cider vinegar.

The baking soda, which she mixed with hot water (warm next time) had a soft feel, almost like a light conditioner, when she applied it.  It doesn't get sudsy like shampoo, but it didn't feel bad either. 

The vinegar just felt like pouring on water, but with a strong smell.  It didn't feel like it was detangling anything, but there weren't tangles when she brushed, so it worked.

The next step is to see how long it is until she has to wash her hair again.  Apparently human hair takes time to adjust to the process, anywhere from two to six weeks, because it has to replace less natural oils this way.

Fortunately for me, plush bunnies don't have to worry about any of this.  I just sit around and look cute.

Herding cats

A lot of people refer to the difficulty of organizing a group of people as herding cats... perhaps it's difficult because it's people doing the herding, instead of the cats?  The cats around here are pretty good at herding the people:

Miss J: The kitten of the house is fairly quiet most of the time, except just before breakfast and dinner.  Especially breakfast.  She can't read a clock (Mommy hasn't figured out how to teach telling time to cats), and has a range of about an hour for what she defines as breakfast time.  Mommy and Daddy, on the other hand, have a range of about 15 minutes for waking up, as defined by the alarm clocks.  But once Miss J starts - whether it's an hour before the alarm clock or 5 minutes - she just keeps going.  It's a continuous high-pitched meow-fest, which translates to "Come on, get up, you have to feed me, I'm staaarving.  Now, now, now, you have to get up NOW, I'm really hungry and oh yeah, so are the other cats.  You've got to feed us NOW."  (Translation may be a bit off, as I don't actually speak Cat.)

Mr. M: The old man has his quirks, though not as much near meal time (Miss J has those covered!).  His attempts to herd the people here tend to revolve around shower time and bed time: shower time because he likes drinking the water off the shower floor, and bed time to get his special spot under the covers.  He mwrorws at Mommy to lift the covers, and then stares at them, deciding if he's going to sleep under the blanket.  But heaven forbid Mommy put the covers down before he steps under, making him mrowr again.  And then he has to turn around a couple times under the cover before deciding if he's staying or not.  Some nights, he walks away, and comes back later (minutes or hours... it varies) and mrowrs at Mommy to lift the covers again.

Miss D: This lady is the quiet cat in our house.  She'll meow a bit around meal time, but mostly she uses body language to push the people around.  When she curls up on the bed by Mommy, she's curls up right against her... you know, the "if you shift a millimeter, I'm going to fill that space, try not to fall off the bed" type.  Her time sense is a bit better than Miss J's, so she waits until the last few minutes before the alarm rings to jump up on the bed and rub up against Mommy, to make sure she's awake at feeding time.  This is particularly amusing because Daddy feeds them most mornings.

Back into the swing of things

It should come as no surprise that the holidays were a busy time around here.  School was out, work was intermittent as people took time off, and the karate school was even closed for a few days.

But the busy schedule has continued past the holidays.  After taking several months off for an injury, Mommy's back at karate and getting ready to test for a new belt, along with Sissy.  When you're trying to cram in the knowledge for the next test, it's important to go to the right classes... at too large a class or too easy a class, you're not likely to cover the advanced skills needed, in this case, to test for 5th Gup. 

There are 10 Gups which count down, so white belt is 10th.  Mommy and Sissy will eventually move past the Gups and into the Dans, but that's a long way off still.  (Our belt system doesn't include purple, which Mommy says is a shame, since some forms of karate do.)

Now Mommy has to go write an essay about martial arts.  It's only 75 words, but the words have been slow to come together.  

A great sadness

My little bunny heart broke a bit yesterday when I heard of the attacks on children both in Connecticut and China.  I understand killing to eat, or even in war, but the level of anger needed to attack so many innocent people is well beyond my comprehension, and I suspect beyond the understanding of most of the victims.

Hug your loved ones tightly every day, especially in hard times.

Sissy's Christmas list

I have a confession... Sissy started on her Christmas list more than a month ago.  I know that seems early, but crafts can take a while to make, especially when you have a long list of people you want to give gifts to.

I realize that some people make Christmas lists of what they want, but Mommy may have forgotten to tell Sissy that.  Starting a couple years ago, Sissy has made a list of what she wants to give people.  The first year was really cute... she was giving out lots of hugs and kisses to everybody involved, and some homemade (by Mommy) crafts to her classmates and teachers. 

Well, the list has gotten bigger... she goes to a larger school now, so she has more classmates (who are getting bookmarks) and more teachers (art, music, both P.E. teachers, her primary teacher AND teacher's assistant are all on the list), along with the principal and one of the lunch ladies.  And some friends from outside of school too.

So yeah, she started on the list a while back, and the crafting started in November.  If all goes well, she'll finish the rest of it this weekend.  Mommy's looking forward to that.