Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is just so darn cool that he has my kids shooting for the stars. I love it because it gives me an excuse to remind them to study hard in their maths and sciences if they want to be an astronaut.
p.s. Is it just me or are you secretly developing a crush on him too?
So far, my “cosmetics quest” (an effort to minimize the number of toxins I willingly apply onto my hair and skin each morning) has been a combination of hits and misses. The two most challenging items I’ve been trying to source to date are deodorant and hair dye.
As you can see in my blog photo, I like to keep my hair red. But not long ago, I liked to keep my hair blonde. And before that … well, you get the picture. I’ve liked changing up my hair colour since I was a teenager. I’ve had pretty much every colour under the sun. Twice. What can I say? I just find my natural hair colour boring and want to add a little oompf to it.
For most women my age, colouring hair becomes a “must do” because they don’t like the look of their grey hair. So it’s a topic worth digging into a bit. The first time I had ever heard of hair dye as a health concern was when one of my book club friends said that research was starting to tie brown hair dye to cancer, so she was going to bite the bullet and go “au naturel.” Personally, I think it’s a great choice — grey hair has a real flair to it, I think.
But for those who insist on “needing” to colour our hair, Gillian Deacon, author of There’s Lead in Your Lipstick has some bad news for us:
“Permanent dyes last the longest and contain the most serious toxins. The semi- and demi-permanent colour rinses often avoid some of the troublesome chemicals, though not all. No matter what, if you’re going to hide your age with hair dye, you’re signing on for a chemical bath.”
First things first, I don’t enjoy games. I think it’s because I’m too impatient … I don’t like the time involved in reading through all the rules, nor do I like it when a game drags on and never ends (I’ve been known to lose on purpose just so a game would end!).
My daughter, who is almost 11 years old now, has a mild interest in games. And since this interest is mild, I only feel mildly like a bad mother for not engaging her more in them.
However, my four-year-old son seems to have developed a very strong interest in games. He wants to play and learn new games all the time. In fact, he was feeling so game-deprived, that he added “a game” on his Christmas list this year. Needless to say, I feel obliged to at least play some games with him.
So, in the interest of helping any other parents like myself who would rather pluck their eye lashes out one by one than play a long family board game, I thought I would share three games which both my son and I find to be fun.
This is crazy. But apparently Britney Spears and I have something in common.
Unfortunately, it’s not her insane wealth, nor her bikini-worthy body. (Although fortunately it’s not her bad taste in men or suppliers of hair extensions.)
What I’ve noticed lately is that when it comes to Britney, what people are talking about is this:
That she makes funny faces.
I never thought that much of them. But if you google “Britney Spears + funny faces” (why yes, I do spend my spare time in productive ways … what’s it to ya?), there are more than 28 million results! That is a whole lot of people that think Britney makes amusing faces when she’s on the X-factor panel.
Okay, back to me.
I was on a panel at WordCamp last weekend. I asked my friend Andrea to take a few photos for me on her phone. And low and behold, I don’t have a single normal face in any of them!
I think me and Brit Brit could be good friends. She really should ring me up sometime.
This week, France legalized gay marriage. Last week, it was New Zealand. The week before that, it was Uruguay.
Marriage equality. It’s Time.
Julie xo
Welcome to my coffee break!
Here’s where I chat about whatever is percolating in my brain on a given day … silly family anecdotes, travel tips, a new movie or book, or just life in general.
