Poo-Free Update

Read the first installment here. It's going great! I'm totally over the transition period now and am very happy! Anyone that's going to try it, my suggestion is to not be afraid to use shampoo in the transition. I got my hair cut after two weeks and so I washed my hair with shampoo that day. (I didn't want to be the one she talked about for the next couple of days- the one that came in with dirty hair.) So then it was go progressively icky-er for about another week. Then, almost miraculously, everything was great. It was kind of weird, actually. It took me a couple of days to realize that it felt clean. And in fact, I'm having to cut back on the percentage of baking soda to water because my hair's a little dry. I'd say I'm pretty happy with the results. I still have to use some smoothing creme when I wear my hair curly (but so much less than when I shampoo'ed), but I'm not noticing any buildup, so whatever works. :) So I'd say the experiment was successful and I'll continue doing this.

Happy Spring - Finally!

It was such a glorious day! And even though it meant dinner was late - actually very late - Anne and I had to celebrate the sun with our first trip to the park. She loved it! This was a new park for us; I found it in January. The benefit of this one is that it is just around the block from our favorite grocery store. Oh, and she didn't make it all the way up the "stairs" that she's standing on. She got to this spot and then looked down - uh-oh! She wanted down right away!

And yes, snow is coming tomorrow night. Crazy! (This is the other reason I was desperate to be outside today!) I hope you were able to take advantage of the wonderful weather today, too.

And work is my liturgy...

Ann at Holy Experience is a poet. And her post last Friday about work is great.

 All work is good work. The work of our hands is always making the world a better place.

And work is my liturgy, motions of worship to Him, who from, and to, and through, are all things....

Simple acts of cleaning are my humble, conquering efforts in the quotidian struggle between chaos and order, creation and disintegration, God and Death. And I frame this cleaning as my monastic beauty, my daily wrestle, to create, in imperfect ways, a world for these loved ones... like You created so perfectly for humanity when the world began....

"To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory,
but a man with a dungfork in his hand,
a woman with a slop pail,
give Him glory
too.

God is so great that all things give Him glory, if you mean that they should."

~St. Ignatius Loyola

If you have ever thought your life is not important (and isn't that all of us?!), you should definitely read it.

Stickers!

Anne loves stickers! She really likes to put stickers on our noses.

First warm day of spring

The first warm day of spring! We were outside for several glorious hours.

First green!

Anne and I found the first bit of rosemary growing in our neighbor's garden. The first green bit always deserves to be photographed. :)

Walking tour of Columbia, Missouri

Monday, Ben and I went to Columbia, Missouri. I got free bus tickets, so we rode a double-decker bus there and then walked around. They have a really cute downtown district. We went in lots of little shops- free trade, handmade, crafty, art galleries. It was definitely a college town- lots of bars! Then we walked to the University of Missouri. It was a nice campus, even if it did make us feel a little old. :) I took more pictures, but my internet (or computer) is going really slowly right now, so there's no time to wait for the pictures to upload. We'd never been there before, so it was a fun day! A little cold, but no snow, so not too bad. It was fun to walk around with no agenda, just seeing what there was to see.