what you can learn on the internet

it's interesting. i google all sorts of stuff (in fact, i might even be addicted to the google.) from baby soap ingredients, to amino acids for treating depression. i figure, i've learned more in a few years on the internet, than i did in most of my formal schoolin'.

since i had peanut, i've gotten involved in a few 'mommy boards', like babycenter, and mothering. (mostly mothering these days. more hippies, and a much wider selection of information.)

from mothering, i learned about researching vaccinations, not circumcising boys, breastfeeding till they're old enough to tell you it tastes like strawberries, and not beating the shit out of your kid. there, i found a community that gave voice to those things i was thinking, but never seeing put into practice in my social circle (since i was the first to get knocked up, that makes sense.)

anyway, after peanut was about 9 or 10 months old, i finally ventured out beyond the 'baby' forums. i discovered a 'dreadhead' tribe, and lurked there pretty intensely until i decided to lock. (and so now i'm getting to my point.)

today, i did a deep clean on my locks, soaking them in apple cider vinegar and baking soda, tea tree oil and lemon juice. (this gets any shampoo build up out, which is nice, since even 'residue free' shampoo leaves some reside behind.) anyway, i've done this 3 or 4 times over the lifetime of my dreds, but i've never bothered to write that shit down. so i ventured back into the dready tribe, to find the proportions to make the soak.

and here's what i learned on the internet today.

i learned that some significant others are assholes, and won't 'let' their partners have dreadlocks. or, they keep quiet during the locking process, and then make passive agressive snarky remarks about the immature locks.

i learned that even though sometimes, i want to strangle gene for being too nice (esp. when it comes to his job), i am really, truely fortunate, because i get to spend the rest of my life with someone who's biggest 'flaw', is being a sweetheart. because not only does he say nice things about my hair, he helps me maintain it, and he did all the backcombing and stuff to get them started.

so, on the internet, i learned one more reason why i love my babydaddy.

damn hippies.

so, spring has sprung, and all that. we're in the process of pulling our yard together, and raking up all the leaves from over the fall/winter. (and there are a LOT since we have like, 10 oak trees.) rather than taking all these leaves to the dump, and taking up more than our fair share of landfill, we've decided to start a compost heap. we figure, since we've got half an acre, if we do it at the back of our property, it's not a huge project, we can just, literally, make a heap. i learned today, that, in addition to fruits, veggies, and coffee, you can compost paper towels, shredded black and white newspaper, toilet paper tubes, tea bags, leather watch straps, and all sorts of other totally random stuff. which is awesome. i mean, we use a dishcloth, mostly, but for grody bits, like chicken juice, i do revert to the papertowels for wiping stuff up. so, it's nice to know that i can do that, and then compost the paper towel, thus keeping it out of the landfill. woohoo!

and my mom is back to doing some gardening, so today, she and peanut planted 3 new azalea bushes out front. peanut is turning out to have quite the green thumb. i'm sure this makes my mom happy, since it totally skipped a generation. (altho, to that end, my cacti from last mothers day aren't dead yet, and we got some more over the course of the year, plus my aloe is actually, like, bigger, and even needed to be repotted. yay!)

and in the process of learning about compost, i discovered rainbarrels. now, the commercial ones seem absurdley expensive. it seems to me, that if i can find a plastic barrel, like those old batter barrels, with a lid, then we could get a plastic shower drain thingy, drill a hole in the lid, fasten the shower drain to it, and put a spigot down at the bottom of the barrel. we've got left over caulking from the birdbath, so i'm betting we could do the whole thing for less than like, 30 bucks. anyway, the idea, is that you put the bucket under your downspout, and when it rains, the water is caught in the barrel, and then you use that for watering your plants, washing your car, watering the compost heap, washing off outdoor furniture, or whatever. since we're actually, like, using the yard and stuff, i can see the benefit of having some non-hose water to do stuff with. i like my 17 dollar water bill, and i'm all about keeping it that way, right?

plus, this last week, i went through peanuts toys. cuz, really? she had a TON of shit. i seperated out the baby toys that we can reuse with niblette, and then purged THREE giant green garbage bags of toys and books. the salvation army is going to need a whole corner, i think. the interesting thing, is now that she has less stuff, she plays more. aaaaaaand, she's better at cleaning up without step-by-step instructions now. no more 'pick up the elephant. put it in the basket.' now she knows she's got a snuggly toy basket, and a hard toy basket, and a blocks basket. and she puts stuff away where it goes! hurrah! (she does still make me play bananaphone while she cleans, tho. and so i still want to rip my ears off and stick them in a blender. but at least her room is clean.)

and, round of applause, i'm caught up on my laundry! (thanks mom!) i moved the uncomfortable-while-pregnant clothes out of rotation.

oh! and, gene's mom LOVED her flowerpots. which, now that i type that, i don't think i blogged that project. for mothers day, peanut painted some flowerpots (and we decoupaged one, but i'm attached to it, since it was her first decoupage, so i kept that one) and we went to lowes and she picked out the flowers she wanted to send to her gram. we're supposed to be going to visit them in june, so maybe she'll get to help plant them.

all in all, i'm feeling the crunchy love vibes. (and i think i'm nesting. but shh.)

so now, i leave you with a random assortment of pictures, focusing mainly on yard work, and flowerpot creation. but some cuteness has been added for good measure. cuz, who can resist that grin?