aroraborealis

"People are so perplexing. It's like they don't know that pleasure is one of the main reasons to live." -contessagrrl

It's my birthday! Happy birthday to me! But wait! Before you wish me a happy birthday, you have a mission:

I need your help celebrating my birthday. I need you to go into your day with a curious mind, and the intent to do something that gives you pleasure and/or joy, something that makes you laugh, maybe something that scares you a little but makes you happier for having done it. It doesn't have to be big! It could be watching a funny video on youtube, or stopping to smell flowers while you walk around your neighborhood, or taking a bus to a part of town you've never visited. Or it can be huge! It could be telling someone you love them with no expectation of reciprocation, or jumping off the high dive for the first time, or letting yourself love yourself.

Then, once you've done that, you can come back here and wish me a happy birthday, and if you want to tell me about how you treated yourself right today, I'd love to hear that, too.

If I were to start hosting a weekly craft/social night, would you be interested in joining occasionally? If so, what night(s) of the week would be best for you?

What if it were monthly?

Say I wanted to start making music with my computer and my brain. What else do I need?

Do you live in the Boston area and have a large-ish carport that I could borrow to test an art project idea on? I only need the frame structure, not the canopy.

One of my ideas for bman involves getting myself a wedding dress (no, I'm not getting married). But, of course, I'm taking it to the playa, and it's a lark, and in no way do I want to pay wedding dress prices. So: I'm keeping an eye out in goodwill and other spots, but you all can help! If you happen to see wedding dresses on cheap cheap sale somewhere around Boston, please let me know.

Alternatively, if you happen to have a wedding dress that you wouldn't mind going to Black Rock City (read: getting very very dusty and will never be the same), we should talk.

I have some ideas for how to modify slightly too-small dresses to my satisfaction, more so than too-big ones, but that would, you know, involve modifying the dress, so if it's yours, that's another thing, in addition to the dust, that would make it never be the same!

Thanks!

I'm playing around with making lotions. A couple of weeks ago, I made two: one with rosewater, jojoba oil and mango butter, and the other with coconut oil, jojoba and mango butter.

The first, I made in a blender, which I had not properly assembled, so my nice, rose scented lotion mostly ended up all over the counter and floor. Oops. I rescued enough to use after a shower, but I don't really feel like one use is a full test, so I'll have to try again with rosewater at some point. The scent also didn't last all that long, which is actually fine, but sometimes I want the nice smelling part of the lotion to last longer, so I'll have to figure that out.

The second, since I had made a mess of the blender, I made with a stick blender, and though I think the regular blender is a better option, this worked fine, and I'm really pleased with the result. Coconut oil has a coconutty scent, itself, so it's very, very lightly scented, but, as with the rosewater, it doesn't particularly last. It's a great texture, very light and silky, and I'm totally pleased with it.

I have this theory that I might be able to make lotions with scents by adding perfumes, or, probably even better, perfume oils at some point in the process. But I'm very satisfied with my product in this first round!

Unfortunately, it takes a while to go through 10 oz of lotion, so my experimenting is somewhat limited. If you might be willing to be a guinea pig for me, I'd love to hear from a handful of you who would exchange reviews of (unscented) lotions in exchange for small samples of several variations. (Local people get preference, and if lots and lots of you are interested, I'm just gonna pick a few of you, because I'm lazy. If this all works out, I'll happily sell or gift lotion to you once I know what I'm doing a bit better.)