a mime's multicultural wedding

This past weekend my brother got married. That makes three of us!

My brother is a professional mime and dancer. He married a professional mime and architect from Germany.  It was so much fun to learn about the German traditions, which most of the time are quite similar to the American ones, and of course weddings' are always quite the celebration. I've not been home much yet, but here are a few pictures, you can see more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theravenslanding/

His best man had him dress up as Superman to go see Man of Steel for the bachelor party. Dan was totally comfortable in the roll.

Friends made the groom's cake on the terrain for Heroscape, his favorite board game.

the kiss

the church

the bride, her sister, and her mother

put more than one mime in a picture, this is what you get

reception centerpieces

first dance

Style: leopard and chambray

I got a leopard scarf a while back. I really like it.

DIY Deoderant: a review



source

 So, in my quest to not mummify myself before death, I finally took the plunge to homemade deoderant. Sort of. I bought someone else's homemade deoderant because I was feeling lazy and wanted to try it out before I put the effort into find the ingrediants. Also, I realized that I'd been buying antipersperant (quite by accident), which my mother has told me my whole life not to buy. I knew I needed to buy something else, but didn't have time to deal with the exploration and developement. So, I bought my homemade deoderant this time around, but next time I plan to make it. If I ever run out. It's lasting quite well.

Most recipes involve coconut oil and clay or corn starch or baking soda or arrowroot powder (to wisk away sweat) but some people are sensitive to corn starch, so if you're being really high end you buy clay or arrowroot powder. I'd read some stories about the great switch where people's skin freaked out or did weird things as it detoxed from the store bought variety. Or about people having issues with the corn starch or baking soda. Or even the oils staining their clothes. I was braced for impact when I decided to try the diy stuff.

Nothing happened. Life proceeded as usual. My skin took the change quite happily, my clothes have not suffered (in fact, they have been rather better off, because sometimes my Degree would stain them, not nearly so much as the Speed Stick I'd used in the past, but still).

I've now used the deoderant for almost 6 months in cold weather and hot. It actually lasts better than the store bought stuff, and as I said I have had no issues with smells or stains being infused into my clothes.

You can find Crunchy Betty's recipe here: or you can be lazy like me and buy it here. (BTW, no affiliation, I just really like her stuff).

liberty baby steps

Every other week or so, or when footing, weariness, or thrown shoes rule out riding, Midas and I work on "at liberty" stuff.



He follows well, and I've started trying harder on the "stay" and "go" concepts. I hope to be able to direct him around obstacles without leading him by the end of the year. At this point "stay" is the big obstacle--he's relying entirely on my hand signals right now-which is ok, but I wasn't intending the Argonath pose to be the command--and I'm still trying to figure out how exactly to teach him to go where I want, especially if I'm not standing where I want him to go.

I had almost taught my dog the difference between over and under commands before I had to leave for school, I'm going to be really stoked if I can teach Midas fun stuff, too. He's a smart cookie.

Monday, Monday

It's pouring rain today. But that's not why we're missing a Zare episode. She and Quill talked the dragon-lizards into a game of poker and it's gone into overtime due to a few blow ups (I guess dragon-lizards don't take well to being bluffed). I can't get the story moving again until they are done.

(No, the real reason is that we were gone all weekend and understaffed at work and that means the ol' creativity tank is running on fumes a lot, and those fumes have been needed for making presents).

It's been raining for days, it seems. I haven't been to the barn since last Monday--last Monday was a little more exciting than I prefer, Midas was in an electric mood and his one setting was "run full speed toward the gate"--where he props to a stop and only the focused, seat-planted, rider stays on.  I'm tempted to go find a class on reining so that we can at least turn this tendancy into Western dressage or something. He's not trying to lose his rider, but he's not trying very hard to keep his rider, either.

On the up side, my garden is loving the rain. I got a full size strawberry off my tiny plants (first big strawberry!) and my second cutting of romaine and even a few leaves off my basil (I've never had a happy basil plant before). Our yard is speckled with wild strawberries all through the grass. Everywhere you look: tiny red polka dots. I wish I could know that they weren't covered in pesticides (we rent, I think the house is sprayed for bugs...with who knows what) so I could pick them. I guess I'll settle for admiring the yard.

style: April

JC Penney cardi, Target tights, Aerosole boots

Target necklace, handmade bracelet

Hard to believe that not too long ago it was cold. Lately it's been swinging from 70s to 90s, this week it's been abruptly rainy and 60s. Hey, at least it's not rainy and 40s :-)

coffee ice cream experiment

Over Memorial Day weekend I decided to test out two coffee ice cream recipes to see how they were different. I made Jeni's Spendid coffee ice cream (as blogged by Cookie&Kate) and David Lebovitz's recipe (which you can find here)

What's the difference? Well, Jeni's ice cream doesn't require eggs, in fact the recipe was quite interesting because it required corn starch and cream cheese, which I found intriguing. David L's was a much more familiar ice cream with a custard base (IE, you rely on egg yokes to emulsify the ice cream into that thick creaminess we all love). I really wanted to see how the ice cream worked without eggs, because I never know what to do with all those extra egg whites sitting in my frig homeless and lacking telos.

I used the same coffee (Wegmans' decaf) to make both, and really didn't tamper with the recipes (except that I used honey instead of agave or light corn syrup in Jeni's recipe)

Jeni's
The first thing that I find interesting is that it does not freeze quickly. At all. I have made her chocolate and her coffee and neither one is ready to eat same day (anybody want a syrupy milkshake, by all means, eat it a couple hours out of the ice cream maker). Next day, it's like ice cream. This one came out a little icier than the other, but I'm not sure I would have noticed if I wasn't eating them side by side. It also came off as sweeter than the other recipe, which I found curious.

Jeni on the L, DL on the right

David's
The big hole in the picture above is where Zorro stuck his finger for his own amusement (and probably to see me squawk at him). As usual, David delivers a flavorful ice cream of creamy texture and deepening flavor.

Again, Jeni on the left, DL on the right

I think that personally, I'll stick to David's coffee ice cream, though if I ever don't have enough eggs I may mash up the two recipes and see if I can get more of the deepening coffee flavor in the egg-less recipe.