War Paint? Nah, Ingenious Beauty Ritual

I have been on a mission for the last few years to "clean up" my family's lifestyle and get rid of chemicals as much as I can.  I will never be a candidate for for a completely all-natural lifestyle because I still like junk food and fancy schmancy cosmetics, but we have drastically changed our regular eating habits, switched out the vast majority of our cleaning products for natural (and often better functioning) counterparts, and kicked the full-time use of disposable diapers to the curb.  After reading articles like the one from ChemicalBodyBurden.org about how many toxins we taken in and carry, I was even more convinced that I needed to make some changes.

My beauty routine is another area of my life that has gotten the revamp.  Buying natural, organic products are holy-cow expensive, but I'm almost always up for the challenge of DIY.  That route is unbelievably affordable, often much more so than buying pre-packaged options, even the ones chocked full of good smelling chemicals (okay, I'm still a little in love with my fancy schmancy stuff).  In a further bid to get rid of toxins, I have been examining the benefits of using activated charcoal in my every-day life.

After drooling over Lush's Coal Face facial cleanser, I came across this DIY post for pretty much the same,darn thing, just much cheaper.  I took the plunge and made a batch for myself.  The in-progress results can be seen above.  The biggest take away, it really works!  I'm past the week of suggested adjustment by the original post's author and still having minor breakouts, but they are different from my typical issues.  They come to a head, only last mere hours, and don't leave marks behind.  This makes me think I may just have a lot of toxins to pump out.

My skin looks amazing!  On top of the suggested cleansing method I also do the added step of massaging my face in a circular motion for a minute before rinsing the mix off.  That gives my face some regular exfoliation.  Just ask Christy Brinkly how important daily exfoliation can be.  The dark red marks from past breakouts are rapidly fading, and I use significantly less of the CC cream I use to see daily glowing results.  I have big hopes for the continued benefits of this cleansing method.  I have high standards, but, so far, activated charcoal is standing up to the test.

Invigorated

I absolutely love it when I come across something that inspires me so much that I want to run out and create something right away.  It doesn't matter what I create, I just know that the my world cannot go one more minute without my having given birth to something beautiful (hopefully) that didn't exist before.  I've been inspired to such a magnitude quite a few times this week.

If you haven't seen Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud video, it's worth the five minutes.  If you are like me, it's worth a lot of five minutes.

I never really paid much attention to Sheeran, but I came across this video and changed my practices.  He learned to dance for this video, and the transformation in him is amazing.  Not only is he dancing, but he is performing lifts and keeping time for five minutes of serious dancing.  I realize his partner is doing the lion's share of work, but what Sheeran is doing is still quite incredible.  The whole thing is beautiful.

Obviously, I have a soft spot for books and writing.  Some of my best writing has occurred after reading something amazing from a fellow writer.  That happened to me when reading Night Broken by Patricia Briggs.

"I curled up around Medea and prayed as fervently as I ever had.  I had faith that it would help.  But death isn't a tragedy to God, only to those left behind."

For those of you reading after I dropped the "G" word, I'm looking at this from a philosophical perspective, not a theological one, and it's mind blowing.  A creator of the universe, ruler of before, during, and after wouldn't really think death was a tragedy, would he? I mean, if he loved the people left behind he would care that we hurt, but as far as death itself and someone no long being on this earth, it wouldn't look the same to him as it would to us.  Anyway, it's these kind of thoughts that make my brain work and makes me want to make someone else's brain work.  What better way to influence the world than to challenge it's view of itself?  Religion is a huge foundation of any society,  and death is an unknown that we are constantly trying to understand and qualify.

Another book that I drew inspiration from this last week was Valerie Plame Wilson's Fair Game.  I got quite a few things out of this book, but the biggest thing likely wasn't what she had intended.  I loved the vocabulary she used.  She used big, impregnated words.  I feel like so many authors these days avoid such words.  Keep it at the fifth grade reading level, you know?  That may be reflective of the books I choose to read, but nevertheless, I was inspired.  She used the word "cogent" casually in a sentence.  I challenge anyone to try that this week.

I would love to hear what inspires everyone else.  I'm constantly on the look-out.

Ready to Leave My Mark

While going through the notebook I use to hand-write the material for my book, I found a short journal entry, if you will, that I must have jotted down to purge my mind of some of the thoughts, extraneous to the point of my book's material, that were likely floating through my mind at the time.  It's not unusual for this to happen, and likely as not, these thoughts are later useful as pertinent material anyway.

Typically, I would keep these notes to myself as they are usually either personal or future material that I hope you and all your friends see when the hordes fall all over themselves to read the published copy of my book.  At least that is the fantasy I comfort myself with when I'm feelings a writer's block coming on.  In this particular case of mental purge, I am choosing to share my thoughts here and now in the spirit of follow-up from my previous post, Flashback.

This is what I wrote:

Everyday I find myself struggling to stay in the place I've put myself.  Something inside me keeps trying to jump out, a sudden and overwhelming urge to conquer the world.  I know that I'm made for more than I am right now, but I'm healing.  It's always hard for the doers of the world to tame their wanderlust long enough to complete their bed rest.  I could jump up and forge ahead full throttle.  And I would succeed.  But only at the cost of building deep, impenetrable scars.  Once made, they only ever go away by way of a miracle.  I'm trying to control myself long enough to heal naturally.  Then, I'll shake off the cobwebs and finish leaving my mark on the world.

This is in response to the way I felt after coming back from Iraq.  It was extremely difficult to spend time at home with my family, focusing on readjusting to my world rather than rushing back out for another adventure.  It was the right thing for me, and it was the right thing for my family.  I don't know who I would be had I not listened to my instincts, but I am ready to leave my mark.