I Love Tooth Soap!!

I went this past weekend to a wellness fair with my sister and with my new interest in soap making, I naturally gravitated over to a vendor selling homemade soaps. They also offered tooth soap, which is something I had never heard of before. It's made up of a mixture of coconut, olive, peppermint oils and stevia. You place a few drops on a wet toothbrush and brush away as usual. To my surprise, it works wonderfully!! I won't be going back to regular toothpaste.

I could never use tartar control toothpaste. It would chemically burn my gums and even hours after brushing, I would have gum tissue peeling off. Yuck!

I was using regular, no frills paste, but until brushing with the tooth soap, I had no idea how uncomfortable the regular paste was. The gentleman at the soap booth told me people who complain about sensitive teeth often don't realize its the tooth paste that is causing it. I guess I had become accustomed to the discomfort, being used to the pain.

After brushing with the tooth soap, my teeth and gums feel really clean and smooth, without any discomfort. I was surprised how the oil lathered up similar to tooth paste too. With the peppermint oil and stevia, it tastes pleasant as well. I've noticed that even upon waking up in the morning, after brushing with tooth soap the night before, my mouth is cleaner compared to using tooth paste.

*I want to add I have NOT been paid to endorse Soap For Teeth. In fact I paid $15 for the product, but given you only use a few drops each time, I think 4 ounces is going to last me a very long time. If anyone is interested, I do believe you can order online, from Nature Made Heaven Scent Soap.

Sandusky UWG January 2012

Our UWG/Birthday celebration trip January 22- January 26th

Winter Road Trip To The UWG Sandusky

We're back from our winter road trip! I'm so thankful the weather cooperated. We drove out and back in somewhat foggy, wet conditions, but the temperature held and things didn't freeze up.

We arrived at the Kalahari last Sunday for the Unschoolers Waterpark Gathering. We reserved a suite so we had room to stretch out and use of a full kitchen. My favorite park of the room, the gas fireplace! I also realized how much I miss having a dish washer.

The first official night of the unschooling conference, they had a cake meet and greet. We made a pizza cake. The cheese is really shaved white chocolate, the pepperoni, fruit rollup.

Other than attending a few Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments, we didn't participate much in the official UWG "funshops" because DS13 preferred water park fun. We all came home with sore bodies and feet from spending most of our time going down water slides and swimming in the wave pool. My son recorded video of me being flushed down the twister. I'll have to post that later.

My favorite part of the park is the outdoor hot tubs. It must be my Scandinavian blood, but I love that feeling of breathing cold, fresh air, yet still staying toasty warm.

Yes, DS12 is now officially DS13!! We had a great time celebrating his birthday while at the Kalahari. He chose to eat out at "the Lob", our traditional birthday lunch spot, and did consume mass quantities of cheddar biscuits.

DS16 taped short clips of himself dancing all during our trip and has created a hilarious video. I helped him tape some of it, and it was too funny watching people wonder why this kid was dancing around without music. I think this is my favorite souvenir of our trip.

Of course we ate lots of goodies, including enjoying ice cream at Toft's Dairy. I never made it to the fitness center, but with the swimming and stair climbing required to ride the slides, I hope I burned off some of it. G-Ma also used her pedometer and found out the distance from our room to the water park was 1/2 a mile. When you consider we made two round trips a day to the water park, I feel I did get at least 2 miles a day of walking in. Its crazy how big the Kalahari resort is.

Our 5 days away went by so quickly. I didn't do everything I had planned to do while on vacation, but our days were very full. We miss the Kalahari but it feels good to be back home too.

Yesterday I sweated out 3 miles on the dreadmill. Today's exercise was chasing dust bunnies. I can honestly say I prefer the dreadmill.

Tomorrow may bring 7 inches of snow. Today I'm going for an extra long walk outside since it may be awhile before I'll get another chance to do so.

50+ degrees, sunny... I keep looking at the calendar and a map wondering where am I.

Cinnamon Bread

Description:
My husband loves cinnamon bread, but without the raisins. Its not always easy to find good cinnamon bread without raisins in stores and bakeries, so this weekend I decided to make him one from scratch. It came out very yummy!

Ingredients:
1 packet of yeast (I used Bob's Red Mill brand) or 2 t dry yeast
3 1/2 to 4 C of flour
1 C milk
1/4 C butter
1/4 C sugar (white)
1 t salt
1 egg

1/4 C brown sugar
2 t cinnamon

Directions:
Mix the yeast with 1 1/2 C of flour in a large mixing bowl

Place the milk, butter, sugar and salt into a small stove top pan and warm gently, stirring to melt the butter. Heat this mixture to 115-120 degrees.

Mix together the warm milk mixture with the flour/yeast mixture and add in the egg. Allow the mixture to sit and rest for 15 minutes.

Next add in the rest of the flour and knead to make a soft dough, adding flour as needed, just to make the dough not sticky. When I use my kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook, I add flour until I see the dough pull away from the sides of the bowl and ball up around the dough hook. Knead for about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic.

Move the dough to a lightly greased bowl and loosely cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise for one hour or until doubled.

Punch down the down and allow it to rest for 10 minutes.

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Press out the dough to 15 X 7 inch rectangle. Brush the dough lightly with water. Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon over the dough.

Roll up the dough, jelly roll style and pinch the end seam closed. Place the dough into a greased loaf pan and allow to rise for 35-45 minutes in a warm place, loosely covered.

Preheat oven to 375

Sprinkle the top of the bread with more cinnamon sugar if you like and bake for 35-40 minutes, covering the top of the bread with foil the last 15 minutes of baking.

If you like, ice the bread after it cools a bit. Mix together 1/2 C powdered sugar with 1/4 t vanilla, 2 T milk. Drizzle over the warm bread.

Eggies

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Other

I normally don't fall prey to "as seen on TV" items, but I had a Walmart gift card, and I do hate peeling eggs. I thought I give these a try.

My husband likes hard boiled eggs and rarely has time for breakfast. I thought a supply of ready to go hard boiled eggs would be a good option for him, but I hate peeling. The egg always comes off with the shell. I've tried the different tricks, using salt water, cracking and running under cold water after they are cooked, etc. but I always end up with sticky shells.

As you can see, Eggies did hard boil the egg successfully without me having to peel any shell off. I'm happy about that, but here are my cons.

1. There are several pieces. Each Eggie has at least 4 parts that have to be assembled together, not including the tiny rubber gasket.

2. You have to oil lightly each Eggie or your egg will stick. You can't spray non-stick spray directly into the Eggie. I used a paper towel dipped in olive oil and oiled up each one.

3. Its not a quick process. You are trading the time you would have spent peeling, assembling your Eggies and greasing them up. For hard boiled large eggs you have to boil them for 15-18 minutes.

Lastly, this isn't really a con, but your egg does not come out egg shaped due to gravity. It ends up looking more like half an egg. So visually, you feel like you are not getting an entire hard boiled egg.

Overall, I like this product. I would rather assemble and oil up the Eggies than peel shells. Plus if I'm careful, I can make a small hole in the shell, pour the egg into the Eggies and keep the mostly intact shell for an Easter craft project.

I think a better product would be to make these out of silicon so you wouldn't have to grease up the cups.

I Can't Label This

Next time someone asks, I'm very tempted to say we "out" school. Most people don't understand what unschooling really means because the "un" leads them to believe its negative. They probably haven't read anything by John Holt either.

Our educational pursuits often take us away from home so "home" schooling isn't entirely accurate.

I could tell people we are autodidacts, but you'd be surprised how many people have no idea what that means. "What is an autodidact?" I enjoy suggesting they look it up on their own, knowing they become one executing that task.

I've heard the term "Life Learner", thrown around in unschooling circles, but that sounds too obvious to me. Isn't everyone always learning from their life experiences?

"Interest based" -again, so obvious to me.

"Free learning" - It has a hippie vibe I could love, but at the same time it alienates anyone outside our lifestyle.

The more I ponder this, I don't like using the word "school" at all, but that word is the bridge between my world and theirs. Anyone educated traditionally equates "school" to education.

So what about "Alternative schooling"? - I could warm up to this label, but that's probably because it reminds me of "alternative music". (Am I letting my Generation X show?) Plus I admit, I'd like a little more oomph.

I'm inspired by other "Outs"; Outside, Out And About, Out Of The Closet, Out Of The Box, Out Sourced, Out Wit - Out Play - Out Last, (Thank you Survivor). Out Schooling creates a message we are educating ourselves away from the mainstream, but does it have an air of superiority?

Its my intent to express we're more about being unconfined. (There's "un" sneaking in there again.) We want to express we feel its important and more meaningful to us if we choose our own paths.

Choosing a label to allow for a good first impression is very difficult. Can't I just invite you to hang out with us and maybe then you'll understand?

Hey, did you catch that? How about Hang Out Schooling? Hmmm... no, that sounds like we're doing nothing important.

Maybe I should simply find it entertaining watching jaws drop when I say, "My children don't attend school."

Out is not In. Out feels better to me than In because I'm not looking for inclusion, but rather the chance to go anywhere we want to. I'm not trying to get In because there is so much more to go Out and play with! In may feel safe, but its really not.

The people who truly want to understand, will seek a more clear definition. The people who only want to judge won't. I've reached the point where I know our lifestyle works very well for us and is exactly how we were meant to live.

How will I decide to define it after all of this contemplation? I think it will depend on how I'm asked. 



 

My Multiply home page appears to be messed up but not the other pages. Hmmm...???