Live and learn; why joining may not be such a great idea after all.

But was it worth it going through all the stress of joining my local Y? Actually I’m still very undecided on that.
I’m trying to find ways to pinch every penny and joining any place to be a member comes with balancing one’s budget to see if its feasible. However, this was my first time joining a health center of any kind. And after I presented them the money, I began to have second thoughts shortly after I paid.
I get indecisive at times and I suppose this was one of those moments. But on the bright side I wasn’t required to give out any personal account information. Regardless what the person claimed with all sincerity that, “You’re information is very safe,” sounded like a familiar line I’ve heard many times before, usually from pre-approved credit card scammers.

I’m not saying that the health center is a rip-off because there’s plenty to do there and that would be a wrong assumption to make right off the bat. What I didn’t like was their high-pressure approach, “We’ll get you set up with a personal trainer, but only if you want to.”

No thank you.

Not that I don’t trust them I thought the Y would be a place where anybody could exercise at their leisure on their own terms without a personal fitness trainer planning your exercise routine based on your height/ weight (I used those as examples) or forcing you to take on more than you know you can physically handle.
And the only other two things I disagreed with was having my picture taken. I know this is for (______) fill in the blank. I’ve heard everything from preventing identity theft to making sure its truly ‘you’ coming in to exercise. I knew I couldn’t evade that, but I absolutely didn’t agree to be filmed, photographed or uploaded to the internet and I pointed this out since I firmly believe everyone should have some right to privacy. They agreed to waive that part of the sign-up agreement for me. But until I signed my name on the line, they admitted nobody ever had a concern over that before. Here again, my little voice of reason is telling me, this might not be such a good idea after all. Some folks don’t want to be publicly shared, viewed or “tagged” by the world wide web. To me that’s beyond intrusive and rude. And it did prove to me that there’s no such thing being private… maybe it was like that some twenty or thirty years prior, but not in today’s times where everything is expected to be out in the open and accessible to everybody.

With a heavy heart, I trekked back to my vehicle and contemplated if I really wanted to work out in the gym or simply return home and do something more productive. But why did I have the nagging pressing feeling that I made a three month commitment mistake? “Well, it’s just three months,” I tell myself and then it expires. Whether I choose to renew or let the membership lapse is up to me.

I forced myself to go in and try out the exercise equipment. Most of the men I saw at the Y were very much into body building and muscles and very little else. Another man was totally absorbed in a touch-screen flat phone giving off a “don’t bother me” vibe. Another man scowled in my direction the entire time he was weight-lifting.
Technology… we are lulled by it so much that we can’t seem to exist a single minute without it or we drive ourselves bonkers.
And me? I zoned out everyone else and tried the stair master, ab roller, exercise bike and that was it.

No swimming for me since after my last go around really made my hair look like a limp, thin, stringy nutrient-deprived mess. That and being restricted to the shallow end when the water slide is in use in the family pool (lap lanes weren’t open, yet) was kind of irritating on me the last time I went as a guest.
I look at it like this… one, they were paid in cash and I got a receipt even though I realize membership fees are non-refundable. Secondly, they didn’t get a whopping amount out of me, either. Call me extremely tight-fisted when it comes to such things like this, but every little bit could be saved for a rainy day if ever needed.

Sure, nothing beats exercise. And I know there will come days when I won’t feel like socializing just to get in some time on a stair master or exercise bike.
I just get a sinking feeling in the pit of stomach, the kind a person gets when they have ‘buyer’s remorse’. I guess in my case it was ‘membership fee remorse’. I also didn’t agree that they’d watch your beverage bottle for you if you wanted to go work out in the gym.

As a good rule of thumb, if I ever set down a drink, then I don’t consume it afterwards. And I can’t afford to keep replacing water bottles right and left and don’t trust that the only vending machine they will allow is just purified water. It could be fluoride city water from some other city.

I won’t guzzle just any brand of bottled water anymore since I’ve switched to distilled. I make tea from distilled water and pack distilled water on my person wherever I go. I know….

Rules, rules—we all must abide by them. I realize this.

But I don’t agree with the front desk babysitting my water bottle of distilled tea just so I can work out for an hour or so and then the ice is all melted and the tea tastes like stump water. So, it was back home after about an hour. I seem to have either lost my enthusiasm or perhaps its just my sense kicking in, letting me know there’s free forms of exercise I just have to find.

Thanks for reading, commenting, re-blogging, sharing, tweeting, etc. I truly appreciate it. 🙂

Rosemary and Basil: my new best herbs for hair care:

It’s been known that using Rosemary in your home made hair shampoo will help your hair retain its natural color longer and prevent noticeable gray hairs. I sincerely believe this is true because I’ve made my own Rosemary-scented hair wash going way back to 2005. Now I haven’t used it religiously like I should have all that time simply because I was buying Rosemary in its dried form from the health food store and it became costly. Little was I aware back then though Rosemary is also an herb used in cooking and could be found at my local supermarket for a lot less. Live and learn as the saying goes.

Now Basil, other than it’s an herb used in cooking what other uses does it have, especially for the hair wash? It helps to strengthen the hair roots and shaft. Plus it gives off a nice, pleasant scent when steeping. I recently bought the last Basil plant my local supermarket had and planted it out in my garden. I did try adding it to my hair wash and used it last night with amazing results. Oh, and I have officially kicked the city water to the curb since the difference between that and using distilled are vastly different.

With city water (and ours tends to be heavily laden with chemicals, chlorine, fluoride)… yuck! And on a related note, our town voted to keep adding fluoride a few months back as well and who knows what else. All I know from drinking the city water is that it has a very faint sweet taste to it plus the chlorine will make you gag when they flush the lines. And the water is discolored and filthy on those line flushing days every so often. So not only is doing laundry out of the question, but so is consuming the city water even though the circular they send in the mail states it’s “safe to drink”… yeah, right. I don’t want anything resembling a kidney infection in my glass. That’s nasty!

And here again, irritation drove me to find a better solution. I also noticed that drinking the city water will cause pressure on the bladder (and no, I don’t have a bladder infection). I know from past experience what those are like. I suspected what I kept feeling was coming from the city water’s supply, but couldn’t be certain about it until I switched over to drinking strictly distilled water. And now I won’t even rinse my fruits or veggies without distilled water. I won’t cook without it either. I found relief at long last when I switched over to distilled and never looked back. Also, whatever is in the city water will make you get up and heed nature five times a night, so you know even when you haven’t guzzled a ten gallon oil drum of water before bedtime, and you really gotta go like a race horse, then you start questioning, “What do they put into the city tap water?”

I also noticed that my hair is healthier since washing it with distilled water instead of washing it under the tap, and ta-da! I might have answered my own question as to why my hair constantly felt brittle like all the nutrients had been sucked out of the roots and hair shaft even after spending a boat load of money on vegan hair care products with very little results. Plus I noticed a decrease of stray hairs winding up in the drain, too.

Ah-hah!
What else is alarming about the link between fluoride and city water other than conspiracy theorists will debate that it dumbs us down it can be a key to hair loss in women and not just when the elderly, but young women are experiencing this more and more. And it’s very creepy! Now I know how men must feel and balding isn’t just a gender-specific issue nowadays.

And city officials agree to keep adding fluoride to the water supply? Then again, they likely don’t consume the city water. They’re probably better off financially to have purified water trucked into their homes or have access to untreated well water. It appears this goes way back to as early as 1965 when they began adding fluoride to the city water because of its ‘anti-cavity’ properties that don’t do a thing to prevent cavities from what I’ve read and heard about on the radio.

Perhaps I’ve become heavy metal sensitive—and I mean to the extreme where if it doesn’t cause me a rash or some break out, then it will sicken me in one form or another.

Do I still want to take a leisurely swim at my local Y? They use city water and from what I’ve noticed the two times I did go there was that my beautiful hair had again turned thin, limp, brittle and a few strands wound up on my swimming suit.

The Y also requires you to shower before and after you swim which makes sense. I just wish they’d find alternatives for a water supply that doesn’t have anything less other than chlorine in the water and that’ll never happen. I might go for the exercise equipment, but I don’t know if I want to subject my hair to anymore fluoride treatments. I do care about my hair and strive to find ways to keep it naturally clean. And I never ever brush it when wet. This will cause it to tangle and break

Well, it’s a long a** cross-country hitch-hike to get to Arkansas where they supposedly have hot spring pools and the other closer location would be in Colorado. However, whether or not they pump their water full of fluoride remains unknown. I have heard health benefits of soaking in hot springs (naturally fed from spring water in the earth) and have experienced therapeutic relief in my sense of being and spirit since I’m light years away from developing arthritis at my age when I did live in Colorado.

Yes, I went way off topic, some how the fluoride, city water and my home made hair wash do correlate, I suppose.

I use fresh Rosemary picked from my garden and I also dried it when the actual plant is on the verge of dying for the winter. Then I grind it up and sometimes I’ll leave it attached to the branches. From there I keep it in glass jars with secure lids. I use mason canning jars and label what’s in it and when I harvested the plant. I also do this same thing for my Lavender and peppermint as well.

To make the Rosemary hair wash:

Bring a large pan of distilled water to a boil. Place in your dried herbs (or fresh) and keep an eye on it. As it begins to boil, the water will become dark like steeped tea. You can then add in Castile soap shavings, or omit these entirely. I have long since not relied on the soap shavings because a suspicious ingredient, “fragrance” is now added and that could mean anything toxic.

Then I turn off the burner, allow the Rosemary hair wash to cool down entirely, then using a strip of white t-shirt cloth, I stick that over the mouth of the container (held taut with a rubber band) and use a funnel to pour the contents into the container (a milk jug works) going very slow to prevent an overflow. The t-shirt material will act as a strainer if you don’t have a tiny inset sink strainer on hand. Remember to label the container and keep it in the fridge.

When you’re ready to use this hair wash just take it out of the fridge. I’ve used ice cold water (no ice cubes) on my hair to keep it soft before and it does work, but it gives me an equivalent to an ice cream headache if poured over my head too fast. Therefore, I take it slow.

I don’t know if this would work for any color-treated (dyed hair) or anybody that might have light-colored hair. For example, I have no idea if this would change the color of the hair or not. I don’t notice a difference for myself personally, but everyone’s different.

Also, just about any spice/ herbs can be used when making Rosemary hair wash. I’ve also tried adding in some Herbs de Province which have Rosemary, Sage, Lavender and other spices. Again, this mixture will need to be strained out after steeping for five minutes or so. I don’t know if there’s any added health benefit to using Herbs de Province, but it was something I used on a whim.

Oh, and I seldom follow instructions when cooking, baking, or doing anything kitchen-culinary-related and have recipes that do turn out good. And those are usually the ones I write down later and they don’t turn out as spectacular the second time around or even the third. I call them “whim” or ‘winging it’ cooking which seems to work for me.
I know I likely covered this in my first hair tutorial. I don’t remember Bernarr Macfadden ever covering using Basil or Rosemary in the hair washes he mentions in his hair care guides, so those two ingredients are likely far removed from his own hair wash recipe. Thanks for reading, liking, re-blogging, tweeting, etc. I sincerely appreciate it.