Crunchy Betty

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… And That’s the Story of That

I noticed that the world would go on without me. It would change despite my input; it’s always changing, it doesn’t need me as much as I thought it did. I realized that all of my worries – every single one of them – was unfounded. I watched a worry come up, I tracked its progress, until it disappeared forever a day later. There was never any reason to believe my worries, not a single reason at all.

Now – RIGHT NOW – became the only thing to live for. All the secrets whispered in the present moment, all of the salves to heal the wounds were there.

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New News and pH Balancing Your Old Homemade Deodorant Problems

Hello, strangers!

So, I have some good news and I have some bad news. Which news do you want first?

The good news? Yes. That is what you want.

Crunchy Betty is getting a makeover! I’ve been diligently working with a lovely site designer over the past few weeks, and we should (hopefully) be ready to roll it out on August 1st. Better news? With the new design will come a new format, a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at our lives RIGHT NOW AS THEY ARE through what we do.

(I’ll fill you in more about the superb details later, but for now, let’s just say the new concept for Crunchy Betty is “Go Deeper.” Yeah, baby. Go deeper.)

Now for the bad news …

The bad news is, I can’t think of any bad news to tell you. Sorry I got your hopes up.

Until August 1st, I’m going to try to share a few little things I’ve learned over the last few years, to kind of tidy up the “old” Crunchy Betty and make sure you have all the information you need to solve a few little problems you may be having.

Today, I want to talk about a problem that’s pervasive – one I hear about occasionally, one I’ve solved one-on-one with several people, but I think it may help you with your baking-soda-based homemade deodorant – now or in the future.

(And here I was hoping I could never talk about deodorant ever again.)

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And Then the Fires Happen

I have to admit, I’m in a bit of a quandary.

Two days ago, I was all excited for the Three Days of Silence. I had lists and ideas, thoughts and plans.

And then the fires happened.

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3 Days of Silence

So, well, um … if you haven’t heard, there’s quite a bit of buzz going around about our privacy (and not just the privacy of American’s, but that of the world).

It’s a slight bit unsettling, truthfully, but more importantly it has a tendency to make a person feel outraged, paranoid, and a little bit like you’re not in complete control of your life.

(P.S. You are.)

Not just a little off-handedly, I suggested on the Crunchy Betty Facebook page that we should all take three days AWAY from our phones, computers, televisions, gaming consoles, and anything that could collect data on us, perhaps a little out of protest, but a lot out of reconnecting with everything we could be enjoying and appreciating instead. The response was fantastic, but more than that, a deep, burning, integral human need became apparent.

We don’t know how to live without our electronics anymore.

Not just, like, for forever. But just for three solitary days.

When the comments of “I could never survive!” came rolling in, I couldn’t help but envision a gaggle of dark-suited, vulture-like X-Files-Smoking-Man-esque men hunched around a table, their long, crooked fingers in an upside-down V over their mouths, crooning, “Yes, yes. That’s it, little ones. We have you where we want you.”

And what began as a half-joking social statement became what we’re going to accomplish on the blog over the next two weeks.

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We Are Delicious

It’s dark-thirty, midnight, the house is silent.

And I just had a conversation with a lump of sourdough.

It may not have been as much me conversing with the dough, but the dough working magic – some alchemy of yeast and flour – pulling thoughts from my brain, through my fingers, and soaking them up with each push and turn. Its pale beige innards becoming outards with a twist.

My innards becoming outards in synch.

“Why,” I asked the sourdough, or the sourdough made me think I asked, “do I do this? Why am I up at 11:30 at night, pushing you around, when I could be tucked in bed, asleep with an empty cup of tea and a half-read novel?”

The sourdough said fshhh, fshhh, fshhh, as I mushed it into the granite. Because, you see, sourdough, like a lumpy Zen master pulling the truth from within you in silence, doesn’t talk.

Why, I thought again, and not in a consternated, unhappy way. More like cracking a door into a room in your house that you’ve never been in.

Why do I do any of this?

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MANhand Salve – The Perfect DIY Father’s Day Gift

My father. Bless his heart, but for as much as he tries, he’s so predictably underwhelmed when he receives gifts.

If you give him a tie, with a crooked smile, he’ll say, “Oh. Wow. Okay. This is great. Thanks.”

If you give him a spice rack, with a raised eyebrow, he’ll go, “Oh. Wow. Okay. This is great. Thanks.”

If you give him a new car, he’ll go … well, okay, I don’t know how he’ll go. I’ve never given him a new car. But I’m pretty sure he’d go, “Oh. Wow. This is great. Was the store out of ties?”

The only time I’ve ever seen him excited about a gift is when my sister or I would give him a handmade gift as a kid. It’s that innate father’s pride, y’know? And as you get older, it becomes more difficult to make your dad a gift. No longer will popsicle sticks held together by glue and gummy worm residue cut it.

Well, if your father (or your husband or your brother or your mailman) is anything like my dad, here’s the solution. MANhand salve (sure to bring back that daddy’s-little-girl-pride):

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12 Things You Should Know About (and Do With) Your Eggs

A long time ago, in a land far, far away I had a friend who hated chickens. She loathed them. Every time we’d go out to eat, she’d say to the waitress, “Don’t bring me anything with chicken. Chickens are disgusting, vile animals.”

And then she’d tell a story about her uncle, who was a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation – so, a factory farm) chicken “farmer,” and how when he was upset with her, he’d send her into the chicken “camps” and make her touch them. They would peck at her and squawk, and they were generally miserable poor things.

So, for a very long time, I believed chickens were disgusting, vile animals, based on her story. And no, no, no. That couldn’t be more of a misrepresentation! After spending some time around the squawkers over the last few years, I’ve come to adore the humble, slightly screwy chicken. If kept with love and respect, they aren’t much different than my cats.

Except I can’t eat anything that comes out of my cat.

The way they express their individual personalities is mesmerizing. I love chickens. I love pastured chickens.

And, most of all, I love the creamy, fluffy, bright yellow-orange yolked eggs they give us.

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The Roofarm and Recipes for Not-Just-For-Gardeners Salve

Until about five days ago, if you’d have said “have some gardener’s salve,” I would have been all “Pssht, what do I need gardener’s salve for? For when I fall in the dirt after tripping on my shoelaces?” (Who am I kidding? I don’t have shoes with shoelaces. I just trip. On cracks or curbs or air. Mostly air.)

But, see, there’s really not much of a difference between “gardener’s salve” and, say, just about any other kind of salve out there. Put the word “healing” in front of it instead of “gardener’s,” and I’m all over it.

Nonetheless, because I received the initial recipe here from Diana at Lil’ Bit Farms and she called it her very favorite Gardener’s Salve, and because I actually made some because my hands were dry and cracked from working in my very own garden (otherwise known as the roofarm), we’re going to stick with the term “gardener’s salve.”

But you can think of this as an ultra-moisturizing, uber-healing salve of all sorts. So it’s great to use after you’ve been cleaning the bathrooms, working on the cars, baking a bunch of bread, or walking barefoot on the beach in Portugal with a blue umbrella’ed hurricane in one hand and the golden, glistening, muscled arm of Fausto in the other. Fausto is your summer fling.

You go, girl. Get yo’ groove back.

(Yes, it’s good for your hands and feet. Any part of your body that needs muito moisturizing. Muito means “much” in Portuguese. Ask Fausto. He’ll tell you.)

There are actually two recipes in this post: The original one from Diana, and my adapted frou-frou girly version that takes literally 10 minutes to make. Here. Whet your whistle on this photo, and then I’ll show you the roofarm right quick:

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Stop Procrastinating and Easily Remove Candle Wax From Your Carpet

Procrastination is a little like candle wax, when you think about it.

One day, you’re sitting on the couch and something you need to take care of comes to mind. You think, “I’ll do it tomorrow” and the fuse on the candle is lit.

The longer you put off your thing, the more the need to do it melts into your brain. And then there’s another thing, and another thing, and another thing – and all the things gloop together in a very immovable blob. Sooner or later, you have procrastination melted all in and around your gray matter, seeping and hardening between the synapses, melding you ever more firmly to the floor. Or the couch. Or the bed.

You look again at the first thing you put off – perhaps it’s setting an appointment, or calling a friend, or cleaning the bathroom – and it seems huge and fixed. Impossible to take care of. A monumental stain that, just yesterday, was nothing but a tiny drip you could have wiped up immediately. But now it has an entire day’s worth of other things you put off all piled on top of it.

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What’s All This Crunchy Betty Stuff, Anyway?

The very first entry in Crunchy Betty’s Food On Your Face category was written on May 9, 2010. It was called “Five Good Reasons To Put Food On Your Face.”

At the time, I was fumbling around in the world of blogs. I was dipping my proverbial toes in the metaphorical pineapple juice, often for the first time right before I blogged it. Some of you were there with me then. A few of you remember the first header Crunchy Betty ever had.

I can’t believe you’re still with me …

I’ve changed a lot in the last three years. My beliefs have changed. My reasons for doing things have changed.

This hasn’t always been easy for me, and I know it hasn’t ever been easy for those of you who read the blog. But you’re still here (or you’re here for the first time, and that’s awesome, too).

On August 1, 2010, I asked all 20 of my readers what they thought a Crunchy Betty was.

After I share with you some of my thoughts on what Crunchy Betty is now, where it’s been and where it’s going, I’m going to ask you similar questions. Your answers – your answers will become PART of what I share tomorrow in Boston.

In the original post, in which we talked about the defining aspects of being a “Crunchy Betty,” I said this:

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(Semi) Thoughtless Thursday

Quick. Think fast. What does Priceline, partially digested foam rubber, a goat’s beard, 8001 boxes, sore knees, and an industrial-size bottle of vinegar have in common?

They all …

Umm …

Me.

That is what they all have in common. Me, over the last week and a half.

You know how some blogs do Wordless Wednesday? Well, here’s my Thoughtless Thursday, because frankly, my dears, if there’s a brain left in my head after the last week and a half, I don’t know about it.

In the last 10 days, I have:

Spent the afternoon at a farm (this was luxury)

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