Home Grown

I’m so pleased to share that our little balcony garden (now porch garden) is still growing strong! We actually thought the plants had died off during the winter. We may be in the south but we did have a couple of very cold nights with frost in the morning that we thought might have killed the plants. But, luckily, laziness in throwing them out paid off because it became apparent they were still trying so we let them be. And look at ‘em grow!

Far left is a bell pepper plant, second to the left is a jalapeno plant, and the two on the right are one pepper plant separated to two pots for more room to grow. Although the one on the far right isn’t doing so well.

We had a good size jalapeno recently, I wish I had taken the time to snap a picture. We are hoping to have more soon.

There is a bell pepper on the left plant, it’s hanging at the bottom, left. Here’s a closer look.

It’s so pretty!

I ate this one (below) with my dinner a night ago. It was about twice the size as the one on the plant still and quite smaller than what you get in the store but you just can’t beat home grown!

A small little guy. But tasty.

This is our mystery pepper plant.

The peppers are HOT. Delicious.

Great for spicing up our dishes.

Anyone have any ideas on what kind of pepper it is? They are small like habaneros but different type of fire.

We are hoping the plants will get enough sun in their new location. It’s only sunny on the porch in the later half of the day. As you can see, they are getting some good sun now!

New location you say? Yes. We have moved. To a new apartment. It’s lovely. Our old apartment was lovely too but the new one is a little more economical. So far we are loving it. So much that I’m pretty sure you’ll hear more about it later. :-)

We used to be a nation of farmers, but now it’s less than two percent of the population in the United States. So a lot of us don’t know a lot about what it takes to grow food.
- Judith Redmond, Full Belly Farms

Movie Monday – One For the Money, New Year’s Eve, Battleship

Diablo III came out last week. All you gamers (or partners to gamers) will know what I’m talking about. It was released on Tuesday. While it was downloading, we had a conversation something like this…

Don: Do you want to stop by Redbox and get a movie? 

Jess: I thought you would be playing Diablo. 

Don: I meant, get a movie for you

Jess: Oh, I see. Because you’re going to be gaming. It’s my chance to watch something you don’t want to see? Sure. 

So, I picked up One for the Money. I’ve actually enjoyed a number of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich back in 2003 when I was commuting back and forth from the Seattle area to the Southern Oregon Coast where Don was assigned for his first Coast Guard duty station. At the time I agreed to work a few extra months with my employer in Washington and I drove down almost every weekend, 8 hours, to see Don in Oregon. Audio books kept me from going nutty during that much driving. The Stephanie Plum series is lots of fun; she’s a great quirky, savvy character who essentially works as a bounty hunter. The stories are a mix of mystery, humor, and romance.  I didn’t have high expectations for it to play out amazingly on screen and I was about right. It was the kind of movie I felt ok to get up and move around while watching. I wasn’t worried about missing things or having to pay close attention to anything. Maybe that was partly because I knew the story, but I think it was also because it was just one of those light, not very serious,  not very compelling movies. I’m not saying don’t watch it; it was mildly entertaining and might be more well received by someone unfamiliar with the series.

New Year’s Eve really surprised me! I am shocked by the low rating on IMDb. I LOVED it. Again, I didn’t have high expectations for it. It looked like one of those movies with a ton of familiar faces and a ton of different stories woven into a larger tapestry, which so often just doesn’t work for me. I thought it would be another Valentine’s Day, which I didn’t like. Same Director, same Writer. Two totally different experiences. New Year’s Eve just really worked for me. It was sweet. It was funny. It was sad. It’s totally worth seeing if you haven’t. I actually would like to get a copy to add to my holiday collection. I can totally see watching this over and over.

Saturday we decided to treat ourselves to a theater movie – we watched Battleship. It was GOOD. If you like that sort of thing: aliens, action, sci-fi stuff. We do. The music was great, the story, eh, it had a few arguable moments or holes (but almost every movie does), and the characters were likeable/believable. It was a little slow in the beginning for me, but Don thought it was appropriate character development. I did not know it was “based on the Hasbro game” until the credits rolled but once I did, it made complete sense and I recognized some of the parallel elements. For example, the missiles from the alien ships are shaped like the game piece pegs and they land embedded in the ship before blowing up. The creators also went to great lengths to be authentic in their portrayal of the military and we felt like they did a decent job. Again, we could criticize a few things but, I’d rather just say it was good effort and let it go. Don served on a destroyer when he was in the Navy so I think that made it more real to both of us and it can be hard to watch and imagine the many deaths that can and do take place in the line of duty. We both squirmed in our seats more than once; the action is intense. All in all, good entertainment and a nice nod to the military, and to veterans who also play a role and are recognized through the course of the film. And to top it off, our theater-goers clapped when it was over. I say that says something about it’s quality.

Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales: Let’s give the world one more day.
BIP Scientist: Who talks like that?
~ Battleship


Make Your Own Natural Deodorant

I have stepped deeper into the rabbit hole of crunchy living.

I have been wanting for some time now to make my own, natural deodorant, free from aluminum and other toxic chemicals and substances that are common in traditional deodorants. But for one reason (lame excuse?) or another it’s taken me too long to get it done. And yet when I finally did it, it only took me, maybe 10 minutes, tops. It was probably more like 5.

The biggest challenge was getting my hands on arrowroot powder which isn’t in great supply here in Lake Charles. I had considered ordering it on Amazon but, again, for whatever reason I just didn’t. Thankfully when I made a trip to the one health foods store in town to see if I could buy essential oils locally, I was able to buy both.

It still took me another week or two to finally set myself to the task of making my deodorant. Why? I don’t know. We’ve been busy packing, then unpacking, cleaning, sorting, donating, selling, organizing…I guess I just felt too overwhelmed to try something new. Silly, silly me.

I have read numerous blogs and articles with recipes for making your own deodorant but I hadn’t bookmarked any specific one. When I finally made time to do this earlier this week, I quickly looked up this recipe and it looked like what I had seen before, so I gave it a whirl.

Ingredients: 

  • ¼ cup baking soda
  • ¼ cup arrowroot powder
  • 8 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 4 drops of tea tree oil
  • an empty deodorant stick

In a mixing bowl, I combined the baking soda and arrowroot powder, then added the coconut oil gradually so I could monitor the thickness.

It’s pretty warm here which keeps our coconut oil in a fairly semi-soft state. I was able to add it right in and as I mixed, the oil softened even further making it easy to combine. (Don’t be fooled by it’s deceptive frosting-like appearance. It is not frosting.)

Once I was happy with the texture/thickness, I added about 4 drops of the tea tree oil.

A side note about tea tree oil: I was not sure about the scent because it is sometimes described as a “spicy, woodsy scent” which doesn’t really jump out as something I would be attracted to. It’s also described as having a “fresh, camphor-like scent.” Again, not sure about that on paper. But it can be useful around the house in many ways so I thought I’d give it a chance and if I didn’t like it on me, then hopefully I could still use it for a variety of other things. As it turns out, it’s not very fragrant and doesn’t bother me at all.

After mixing in the tea tree oil, I spooned the mixture into my empty deodorant stick.

As it turns out, this particular recipe makes about twice as much as my stick can hold.
Note to self: next time, cut recipe in half.

No real harm. I put the extra in a tupperware and it’s on reserve to refill my stick when it runs out.

Since trying to ditch traditional deodorant a few months ago, I’ve been using a crystal, or deodorant stone, which is ok, but there’s something about it that irritates my skin and I’ve had to take breaks from it every couple of weeks and give in to using the last little bit of traditional deodorant I hadn’t completely used up. Until about two weeks ago.

I’m on day 3 of this crunchy experiment and…I like it. So far nothing seems to be irritating my skin. Hopefully I’m not premature in declaring it a success. :-)

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
~ Confucius