badaboum !

A while ago I shared here my best recipe for home-made shampoo for grey (or dry) hair, a chance encounter in the ether, helped me improve it hundredfold. The blog http://becomebio.over-blog.com is full of useful recipes for home made usefuls (in French). The recipe I would have given here only need a tablespoon of olive oil to be added to it and I now also let the shampoo sit in my hair for about 10 minutes before rinsing (not too hot that rinsing water!)

egg and rum perfect shampoo for grey hair
1 egg (happy if possible)
1 tablespoon of rum
a few drops of essential oil of lemon
a few drops of grapefruit seed extract
a tablespoon of olive oil
a dash of water
mix with a fork and use promptly, let sit in your hair for about 10 minutes, rinse off with lukewarm water finishing with cold water when you feel you are brave enough.

There is also mention of a regenerating mask for your hair made out of a mashed banana, I’m going to try it with a little olive oil added, I may even tell you more when I do.

have you ever seen through a slug ? This is the year !

A lovely picture from L.
Time to listen more and see better, a new year, time to be more imaginative and reflective.

This is the year !
Back to Knockvicar this saturday, with breads and cakes and all. The time off has been good and, I admit, busy. Music and singing and reading aloud, making simple and not-so-simple foods and the loud rejoicing around shared meals.
Starting to draw again, remembering : nothing is ever closed or dead, all doors can be opened again, all ears and eyes and breath. This is a new beginning, like every day, a new continuing, grateful to be alive. Assegwas ameggaz !

sweep out last year’s dust

Breathe in the new year, make it happy.

being around

Sometimes it feels that I must stop and breathe in order to gather all the bits of me that I have let loose. Cleaning or tidying the house are sometimes good activities to aid the mental process, a long walk or a long bath would also do. So today I am ready to accept that I may not do anything creative, that I may not have any exceptional thought, that I will just allow myself to be, and to breathe.
This coming Saturday is Christmas eve, Lo and Behold I will be at Knockvicar with some lovely things I do hope, between 11.30 and 2, there will be mulled apple juice and biscotti for everyone. See you there and then or see you in the New Year and enjoy the festivities if festiving is something you plan to do. As always, in this season, if the weather turns melodramatic between now and Saturday, check here for updates before you set out.

speak your heart out quietly and confidently

A sprinkling of snow, the first snow of the Winter for us. Today I feel very grateful to be alive, I did not venture out, baking all day. In truth I did. As night fell I remembered reading in a book I inherited from my mother by inspiring Austrian herbalist Maria Treben, that she had been advised by her grandmother I think to wash her face every year with the first fallen snow in order to keep a clear and young complexion. I did so I did, as people say around here.

this is the wind that blows dead cats away, blow

Back from latest adventures/wanderings/encounters back to the kitchen and my beloved bread and butter job that is maison djeribi. Baked some family bread but no cakes in my absence from Knockvicar, luckily there was a survival stash in the freezer. What did we decide here : to be warm and safe this nowon, fromnowon.

momentary

Not baking for two weeks, will we not run out of bread ? Will I not get itchy baking muscles ? If I do I can always try something I don’t normally do. Away from Knockvicar for a little while, busy in a myriad of other interesting ways, next week, for instance I’ll be wearing my mermaid turbulence hat at The Dublin Art Book Fair and Magazine Archive at TBG&S on Friday 2 and Saturday 3 from 11 to 6 (on Sunday as well but I will not physically be there, I will physically be back in Leitrim by then, having left some books behind).
Back in Knockvicar on 10 December and, dare I add, weather permitting, 17 December and even 24 December.

sundaying on sunday

So we bid goodbye to courgettes reluctantly a couple of weeks ago and I so look forward to their return next year. I will never tire of courgettes, I have loved them since the beginning of my memory, any which way. Outside the ground is sodden, time to bring in plants that may not survive the winter, our garlic has already been planted, the tulips, not ; there is still time, there is always time. Time to remember, time to enjoy, time to look forward.

These days the pizza gets topped with pumpkin and cumin, leeks and chili or black olives. I hated the taste of cumin as child [and I simply abhorred caraway], today I would not like to try living without it. Time to remember, time to enjoy, time to look forward.

A perfect sunday of mending school uniforms, watching a good film, a lot of singing, eating a great big family meal and winning a basketball match (E, not I personally, of course). Lovely light throughout the day. Time to think of others who need to be thought about.

today must be lucky

In the numerical system in use here, today is 11.11.11, and at 11.11 we took a deep breath.

A once-in-a-lifetime-occurrence, today must be a good day to reflect on what to let go of, unnecessary baggage, physical or otherwise and to continue on the journey, lighter, happier, aware and alive.

Good luck to all (P says we make our own luck, I think he is right).

something I remember, something I read

The window in the bathroom of  a house that I will never visit again, where a lady lived that I cared for but will never see again. My lovely memories are with me everyday.

From Gardening the Soul (A spiritual daybook) by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy lent to me by P. and enjoyed here by all for the last ten days. This is for 21 October, today.

Almost every day we have to face situations and people we  fear are more than we can handle. Often our way of coping is to try to pass the task off to somebody else or to leave it undone. When we feel like this, it helps to remember that all that is expected of us is our best. This is our time. It is not a matter of saying and doing great things. It is a matter of saying and doing small things with responsibility and courage. Nobody can do my growing for me and I should not pass to others what is my responsibility or what I need to experience as part of my growth process.