Locks of Wha...?

"Oh, you have such long pretty hair, you should donate it to Locks of Love!"
"I'm growing my hair to donate."
"I love my long hair, and I can imagine how hard it would be to have to lose it, so I'm going to donate mine to a kid with cancer..."
Sound familiar? I've heard them all...in fact, that last one was me up until a couple of years ago. I planned to donate, and actually felt a little guilty that I wanted to wait until after my wedding (because I wanted to have long hair in my wedding pictures). How selfish of me, eh?
Then I learned that Locks of Love ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Some basic facts: the hair does NOT go to kids with cancer. It goes to people with permanent hair loss, such as alopacia (sp?) or scalp burns. Granted, these are good causes...but it's false advertising. Even if it did go to kids with cancer, human hair wigs are hard to care for, and actually wouldn't be good for kids anyway...they're better for adults. (Now, as someone who has worked with wigs in the theatre, I will vouch for human hair being superior to synthetic wigs...it's just much harder to take good care of it.)
LoL cannot use any hair that is damaged, has been color-treated in any way, or even that has been conditioned with silicone-based conditioner (ie, the majority of hair in the USA). They will sell it to get cone-free hair from other countries. Most of the hair ends up either thrown away (because it's damaged or otherwise unusable) or else it is sold. NOT donated. The hair that is sold is used for things like extensions, or theatrical wigs (think Hollywood).

Here are some numbers which really opened my eyes:
A little math using information from LoL's own website and the BBB:
LoL receives about 2000 donations per week, by mail.
That's 104,000 per year.
Let's say that only half of that is usable for wigs.
That's 52,000 per year.
It takes 6-10 ponytails to make a wig.
Ok, let's say each one takes 10.
That's potentially 5200 wigs per year.
Now, in fiscal year 2002, how many wigs did LoL provide?
113

So, given those facts, I realized that it didn't make sense to donate my hair--it wasn't going to do the good I had been led to believe it would. (I also realized that my hair wasn't terribly healthy and wouldn't make a good donation anyway).

If you want to cut your hair anyway, and it's long enough to do something with, then sure, donate to LoL. They are making SOME wigs for bald people, after all.
There are also a lot of other places where you could donate hair.
Or these guys use donated hair (in any condition) to make mats to clean up oil spills. (That is so cool!)
Alternatively, many theatre groups would love to have some hair for making their wigs.
Also you can sell the hair yourself, and use the money to keep or donate. (A long thick ponytail can bring in hundreds of dollars.)

However, if you love your long hair (which, I might add, you grew yourself, and have a right to keep) then hey, keep it. After all, it's yours. The New Testament says a woman's hair is her glory and is given to her for a covering...I don't think it's selfish or vanity to like your own hair. Some folks may not have to give it much attention, but if you're like me then you have to baby your hair to have it long and pretty, and hey, you're entitled to the fruits of your labors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are some more reference sites:
The Better Business Bureau reports that LoL does not comply with all of the standards of being a non-profit organization. For one thing, they have documentation of LoL earning money... uhhhh...
This blog post is well laid out and has lots of reference links.
The New York Times wrote an article about this.
Even the Wikipedia article has mention of it.
LiveJournal threads from longhairs about LoL.
LongHairCommunity thread. Another LHC thread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And next time someone says "Oh, you have such long pretty hair, you should donate it to Locks of Love!" I will retort "Oh, you have such nice blood, you should donate it to people who are dying!" And then I'll fill them in on the truth about Locks of Love.

The Lens of Eternity

Some of you sisters may feel inadequate because you can’t seem to do all you want to do. Motherhood and parenting are most challenging roles. . . In general you noble sisters are doing a much better job of holding it all together and making it work than you realize. May I suggest that you take your challenges one day at a time. Do the best you can. Look at everything through the lens of eternity. If you will do this, life will take on a different perspective.
I fear you sisters do not realize in the smallest part the extent of your influence for good in your families, in the Church, and in society. Your influence for good is incalculable and indescribable.

James E Faust
2005
"Instruments in the Hands of God"

Let's Party!

A friend recently posted about her daughter's birthday party, leading me to reminisce over the many birthday parties of my childhood.
My mother threw some awesome birthday parties. Apparently her mother had started the trend--hosting themed parties throughout the years for her children. But my mother has always known how to take a good idea and run with it.
I am the oldest of 9 children, so there were a lot of birthdays. In order to keep things sane, we alternated friends-parties with family-only parties. We had friends parties when we turned 5, 7, 9. 11, and 13. If we wanted them older than that we were welcome to co-ordinate/pay for them ourselves. My sister and I each held a slumber party or two in our teens, but otherwise we were old enough that we were ok with not having parties anymore.

The big secret is to start with a theme, and then connect everything back to that theme: the invitations, the cake, the decorations, the games, the party favors... and it's not as hard as it might seem! We always had homemade parties, so when I say there was a theme I don't mean that we went out and bought Tinkerbell plates, napkins, and banners. Far from it. Rather we made invitations from construction paper, made our own cakes, used regular plates/cups/napkins, and decorated with regular old balloons. We didn't do large or elaborate favor bags either--just something small like a pencil, some stickers, or a tiny toy (think $1 maximum per kid). If there was a pinata then they'd have some candy too, but that was it. Birthday parties were about fun, not about stuff.
Here are a few themes we had over the years: dinosaurs, outer space, cars (the brother who is now in mechanical engineering), ponies, hidden treasure (pirates), The Hobbit (that's my little Wolf!), wild animals/jungle, medieval times (yes, that one was me), dolls, Lord of the Rings (my 13yo brother right after the movies came out) and Water Play.

We had a variety of standard games that we would just adapt to each theme. The most popular was the treasure hunt--with the treasure either being the cake or a little selection of inexpensive favors. We did pinatas sometimes. Sometimes we had themed cakes ("Family Fun" magazine is full of great ideas) or often we'd just make cupcakes and then set out 3-4 colors of frosting along with a variety of sprinkles, chocolate chips, red hots, etc for decorating...left to their own devices, children will do some remarkable things with frosting! ☺ We also did the game 'going on a lion hunt' but adapted it to whatever the theme was... I'll list more about specific games (directions, etc) in the comments...

Here are a few classic examples of adaptations:
For the dinosaur party, we used little 'candy rocks' on the cake, along with a few small toy dinos. The favors were more little dinosaur toys (just the tiny plastic ones).
At the cars party, the favors were (what else?!) hotwheels cars. The cake was a racetrack.
At the doll party we each brought a favorite doll, and one of the activities involved using moms fabric scraps to design gowns for the dolls, and then holding a fashion show.
For Wolf's Hobbit party (age 5), I titled each invitation with "A long expected party," and Hubby dressed up as Gandalf to meet each child at the door. We gave each child a dwarf hat to wear. I made a spider pinata (since in the book the dwarves/hobbit fight spiders). On our "Lion Hunt" we hunted Smaug, the dragon!
For the LOTR treasure hunt, mom played Galadriel and gave each party goer a gift--a code key, a pencil, paper, etc--and then each of the clues required one or more of them to utilize their gift. At the time we had an exchange student, and he was told that he already had his gift and would know it when the time came...sure enough one clue was in Spanish, and he was the only one who could interpret it for the group!
Wolf has a summer birthday, and when he turned 7 he wanted a Water-Play party, but we couldn't afford a waterpark or renting a pool. So we told everyone to wear sunscreen and plan to get wet, and held the party at the park. I bought cheap waterguns and a package of water balloons. First we let everyone play on the playground for a while, and then we played waterballoon volleyball (tossing the balloons back and forth on beach towels). Then I sent them on a treasure hunt (which ranged all over the park) and once they opened the treasure (a watergun for each child) then they had a watergun war. The watergun war lasted at least 20 minutes, and then we had cake and opened presents. Seriously, it was one of the easiest parties I've ever hosted!

How long can you grow YOUR hair?

This is just for fun, but hey, I had fun there!
How long can you potentially grow your hair?
You'll need to give it an estimate of how many hairs you lose each day, as well as an estimate of how much your hair grows each month. (FYI, the average person's hair grows about 1/2 inch per month.) You'll also need to give an estimate of how many hairs are on your head--but it has some guidelines for helping you figure that out. ☺ (Make sure you read the directions about how to enter the numbers--if you use a comma it will mess up the equasion!)
I adjusted the numbers a few times since of course they're all estimations...it gave me numbers from 23 inches to 46 inches...with most of them between 35-39inches. Since my hair is currently about 29 inches, and my goal length is 36 inches, it sounds like that's probably realistic!

First Snow has Come

I took these this afternoon.

2am

Yes, it's almost 2, and yes, I'm up. It's because the little Bear is up too. He's been feeling sick today (feverish and, well, let's just say the diaper situation is more like a newborn than a nearly-two-year-old). I gave him some infant ibuprofen to lower his temperature so he could sleep tonight, and it definitely helped...but around 11 he woke up (first dose wore off) and he is only just now going back down... At first I was hoping he would just nod back off without additional ibuprofen (I try to avoid medicating my children whenever possible, but both my kids have a penchant for fevers that keep them awake, and being able to sleep seems helpful for recovery, so I will dose them up just to sleep). Anyway, he was clearly miserable--and was NOT sleeping--so I gave him a second dose around 12:30 or 1... I left the bottle out on the counter in case I should need it again (yes I put the child-proof cap back on, but I left the bottle out). 30 minutes later Bear was yet again climbing out of bed and running down the hall, and I rounded the corner behind him just in time to see him pushing a chair over to the counter, climbing up, and grabbing the bottle and dosing syringe...yes, it seems that our second son likes bubble gum flavor as much as our first son. (Bear was very much upset that I would not let him have more of it...poor sweet kid!)

Anyway, it's finally kicked in, his head has cooled and he's gone to sleep. So now I'm finally going to sleep too.


By the way, our internet finally seems to work properly, but our computer imploded. So Hubby is bringing home his laptop from work a couple of nights a week plus weekends, but otherwise I'm sans computer...I'm scheduling blog posts so that won't be much different, but if I take a few days to post your comments or reply to you, well, that's why.

Hair Washing Routines

In a previous post I spoke about how over-washing (or washing too often) actually hurts hair health more than helps it. (Wow, that was a lot of H-words all together)

Since we're clear on the fact that less-often is generally healthier, now I want to talk a bit about the actual washing routine.
Each person's hair is different, and will need to be handled differently, including different lengths of time between washings, and different shampoos/conditioners as well as methods for washing. So my goal here is to share a few that I have tried or learned about which might be helpful for you. With each method I've listed what hair types it is probably best suited for.

A few basic guidelines:

• Don't pile your hair on top of your head or flip your head over and wash it upside-down. Remember how it's bad to rub hair the wrong way, especially when wet? Well, this would be a classic case of that. Just keep it down, work with it from top to bottom, and spray the water in from top to bottom. Remember your hair is like fine antique lace! Treat it like you love it, and it will love you back!
• If you comb your hair when wet, use only a wide toothed comb--never a brush, and not too narrow a comb as either can stretch or break hairs.
• Remember that there is no 'one method fits all' way to wash hair. Your climate, hair length, and personal body chemistry will all affect what your hair needs. But hopefully these suggestions will help you see some of the alternatives you can utilize to improve your routine!
• The fewer products (sprays, gels, etc) you use in your hair, the less often and less harshly you'll need to wash it. Oh, and the less often you wash it--stripping all it's natural oils--the more healthy it will look and the more soft and manageable it will feel. At least, that has been my experience! Using product was a vicious cycle...I'm so glad I ditched all that stuff!
• Be wary of 'cones' or silicone products in conditioners. Essentially they coat your hair with silicone, which does give lovely shine and reduces tangling, but then requires harsher shampoos to get the goop back off. It can make damaged hair look great, but the subsequently harsher shampooings may cause more damage than there was to begin with. Most of the top-shelf conditioners contain cones. Cones are not inherently evil, and I recommend reading the article I linked there to help you understand them and make your own decision about whether you want them around or not. (The article also has a list of 'cone' ingredients, since the ingredient list on most conditioners looks like latin!)

Condition-Shampoo-Condition
good for dry ends and oily scalp, or for any hair that is dry/damaged at the ends
Get all your hair wet, then put in conditioner from about the ears down to the ends. Next, shampoo just the scalp--the conditioner on the rest of the hair will prevent the shampoo from getting into it and stripping it. Massage the shampoo on the scalp and roots. Fully rinse hair. Condition full head as normal.

"CO" or Conditioner-Only see details here
can be nice for dry hair, but won't work if your hair is very oily or you use a lot of product
If you go this route, you definitely need a cone-free conditioner. Basically you just only use conditioner. No shampooing. The benefit here is that you never fully strip the natural oils from your hair...

"No-Poo" (no shampoo) or washing with baking soda
this is an excellent deep clean, and certainly cheaper than standard shampoo!
Get some baking powder, put it in a cup, mix in some hot water until you have a paste...then goomp it in your wet hair and massage your scalp thoroughly with the pads of your fingers--not your nails. Spend several minutes on the massaging part, as baking soda is gentler than mainstream shampoos and needs longer to work.. The baking soda will absorb oils and pick up dirt, so you are left with very clean hair and scalp.. The one downside of this is that it affects the ph balance of your hair, so especially if you do it regularly you will need to replace the natural acidity of your body/hair by doing a vinegar rinse afterwards--mix a couple Tbs of vinegar with warm water and rinse through. I'm told this leaves remarkably shiny and clean-feeling hair.
Please note that I have had people tell me that they fried their hair doing this long term...my own experience is limited to the occasional deep-cleansing wash this way, and I still use regular conditioner afterwards

Deep Condition with Mayo
this is nice for dry hair, or just to pamper your hair if you live in a dry climate
Both oil and egg can be beneficial to hair. Get your hair damp with warm water. Goomp in mayonnaise that has been blended with some water to thin it out--focus the mayo on whatever areas need the moisture, and don't put it on oily places. Wrap it all up in a warm towel, and let it sit for 20+ minutes. Then take a good shower, washing well... I did a double shampooing to get it out, I've heard others say they have a hard time getting it out but I think the secret is to get your hair damp before putting the mayo in.

Oiling Your Hair
a lot like doing the mayo, only vegan, and a little classier☺
This helps keep hair moist all the way to the ends, as well as being a detangler. It won't do much good on its own, but is supposed to be excellent as part of a healthy-hair-care routine. I've never done this, but here is an article explaining the how and why of it, as well as discussing different types of oil and where to get them.

Oh, and did you want to know what *I* do? I do plain old shampoo at the scalp and then condition (cone-free) from the middle down and comb it through (distributing the conditioner). I finish up with a cold rinse. Occasionally I deep-clean with a no-poo treatment. If my hair seems on the drier side I do a condition-shampoo-condition routine for a couple of weeks. I also use henna from time to time. Of course, when I lived in Utah I did things totally differently.

I have mentioned before about doing a cold rinse at the end of your wash cycle to stimulate growth? Well, here is an article which explains how that works--and it seems that this cold-rinse thing helps with hair strength as well as growth, because it's stimulating the muscles that hold the hair shaft (basically giving yourself 'goosebumps' on your head).

Here is a link to several articles with additional details/recommendations for healthy hair care.

By the way, I'm currently only washing my hair every 8 or 9 days...up from 6 or 7. It just doesn't seem to need it sooner than that...it's lovely! I know that keeping it up or braided does help because I'm not playing with my hair (getting dirt in or stirring up scalp oils). Even if I do leave it loose though I can easily go a week without it looking greasy or gross. Is that cool or what?! Nice for a busy mommy who has a hard time finding time for anything!

Mothers who know Do Less

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord’s kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power.

Julie B Beck
2007
"Mothers Who Know"

Politics meets Religion

I'm registered as 'undeclared' in political party. If you've read any of my other political posts you know I have some pretty strong feelings about people who vote party line just because it's the party line (brainless idiots). Well, I have the same problem with people who get all hung up on one issue--like abortion, or gay marriage, or healthcare, or the environment. I'm not saying that these are not important issues, just that I don't think that any one issue can trump all the others, and it's pretty rediculous to vote like it can. I have spoken with some very intelligent people who feel that one certain issue (such as abortion) is important enough that they will look at a candidate's stance on that issue over any other. All other things being equal, ok, but what if all other things are NOT equal? No, I don't want babies to die, BUT there are children and adults dying every day because of the pathetic state of healthcare in this country, and there are soldiers dying in a war that is dragging on and on and on...so if I'm truly pro-LIFE then that should include ALL lives, not just the unborn ones...and that means I've got a foot in each of the major camps because nobody out there is commited to protecting ALL life. (I could go on about this but the more I talk about it the more upset I get so I'm going to shift gears now...)
I grew up in a liberal state and thought I was conservative. Then I moved to a conservative state and discovered I was liberal. I concluded that I must be a moderate, but of course even that is not true: I simply refuse to be bound by labels such as 'liberal' 'conservative' 'democrat' or 'republican.' Instead, I try to look at things through scripture-colored glasses. On any issue, I consider the word of God...what has He said about this? Does scripture give a stance on abortion? Yup. Does it give a stance on homosexuality? Definitely. Does it give a stance on caring for the environment? Yes. Does it give a stance on welfare? war? fiscal responsibility? Oh yes it does.
Do all these stances fall within one political party? Nope. And that is why I cannot, in good conscience, declare alignment with any existing political party.

(Darn, what if there was such a party? Could we call it the "More Right" party?!)

Banff National Park (June)

Lake Louise

My boys (and dog) playing on the ice on the lake

The Canadian Rockies

overlooking Peyto Lake