Locks of Love

0 comments on "Patreon; Locks of Love; Regrowing green onions"

I use my Patreon page => http://www.patreon.com/HarperKingsley?ty=c <= like it’s some weird scrapbook. Except I’m that crafter that posts random pictures with text that completely doesn’t match. Like those greeting cards with the picture of a sunset accompanied by beautifully scripted nonsense.

Take my “Nancy, Drew, and Charlie” thing for instance.

Nancy, Drew, and Charlie at www.patreon.com/harperkingsley

For some reason I thought that I would share my picture of where the bugs were munching at my plants. (Those bites are what I blame for my crop failure :P) That picture has nothing to do with the dialogue. But I chose to use it anyway.

So if you want to say you visit my Patreon page just to look at the pictures… I will completely understand.

* * *

I had the Kid cut my hair to donate to Locks of Love. It’s 11-inches of dark brown medium grain straight hair. Hopefully it will make someone a great wig.

For my head, the Kid did a good job. It’s a little lopsided, but I can fix it myself. It makes me feel lighter and more carefree to have shorter hair. It feels more like a giant life change than just a haircut.

I like shorter hair because it feels better, not just physically but spiritually. It’s like my hair gathers up all of the miseries of the year, and when I cut it off a weight is lifted from my shoulders.

I have a round face. I look best with my hair down past my chin, giving the illusion of a longer face, or pulled back to show off my neck and bone structure. Anything else and my face looks like a basketball. I tell people I have a Charlie Brown head because it’s true.

The longer my hair gets, the prettier I become. It’s some kind of weird curse. The best look for me is the one I hate the most. If I ever want to be “beautiful,” I’d have to carry my miseries around like a flowing cape of seal brown locks.

Ugh. I hate how long hair sheds. I’m not someone that takes care of my hair–I let it ride around in a ponytail and my hat is my friend. I grow my hair out just to chop it off.

I hope this feeling of renewal lasts a while.

* * *

I’ve been regrowing green onions. I buy them from the store, chop the green off to use, and stick the white ends with the dangly roots in my grow tray. The aquaponics really make them shoot up fast. I can get two uses out of one bunch of green onions.

Speaking of aquaponics: we’ve planted some lettuce, green onion, and white onion. The zucchini is pretty much a bust–our media is being kept way too moist. I don’t have any say in that though.

The Kid showed me a YouTube video where someone got roots to grow out of a brussels sprout. I’m going to try that and see what happens. I’ll try to get some regular pictures. It just seems so interesting to me–I didn’t know you could regrow brussels sprouts, and I’m really curious whether a new sprouts tree will grow. That would be super cool.

* * *

Mad Max 2014:

I feel that there might be fanfiction in my future. The Mad Max fandom will either stand up on its own, or it will be absorbed by the Nolan-Batman (Blake/Bane/Barsad) or Inception (Arthur/Eames) fandoms. I’m not worried. (And if I’m real lucky, the wonderful brain that spawned the Nolan-Batman/The Collector longfic will fusion me up some Nolan-Batman/The Collector/Mad Max action with Blake and Barsad escaped from the Collector into a Mad Max world.)

0 comments on "Thursday, March 6th: Locks of Love; exercise; Arunachalam Muruganantham"

Locks of Love –

It’s that time of year again. My hair is getting long and once I have 12-inches I will be chopping 10-inches off and sending it away to Locks of Love.

What is Locks of Love?

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

How to donate:

  • 10 inches measured tip to tip is the minimum length needed for a hairpiece.
  • Hair must be in a ponytail or braid before it is cut.
  • Hair must be clean and completely dry before it is mailed in.
  • Place the ponytail or braid inside of a plastic bag, and then inside of a padded envelope.
  • If you wish to receive an acknowledgment for your hair donation, please fill out the hair donation form, or write your name and e-mail address or mailing address on a full size separate sheet of paper and include inside the envelope. We cannot acknowledge donors who do not send their name and address according to these instructions.
  • All hair donations must be mailed to Locks of Love at:
    234 Southern Blvd.
    West Palm Beach, FL 33405-2701
  • **IMPORTANT** When mailing your donation, please make sure that you are sending it with adequate postage. The U.S. Postal Service has notified Locks of Love that many donations are being sent without enough postage, and these packages will be returned to sender! To ensure adequate postage, please take your donation to your local post office.

Go check out Locks of Love: http://www.locksoflove.org.

It’s a great organization that helps kids, and if you’re giving a hair donation it doesn’t cost anything more than postage. So why not help someone out?

Exercise –

I spend a lot of time on my computer, and as everyone knows, that’s a good way to become flabby around the middle and thighs. Type, type, typing for hours at a time doesn’t exactly build the muscles and get your heart pumping.

I run around the yard with my dog and I walk a lot, which goes well with my calorie counting to keep my weight in check. It’s unfortunate, but while my sister was gifted with the body of a sylph, I got a healthy dose of my grandmothers’ genes — both sides of my family had a tendency for heavyset ladies — so I know I have to keep an eye on myself or I could be looking at diabetes and heart problems in the future.

Exercise is something I need to fit into my schedule, but I’m lazy. All the walking and running are great for the legs, but I want to tone my arm muscles. So whenever I make tea I’ve started doing jumping jacks until the water boils, then I do push-ups against the kitchen counter while my tea steeps.

I can see the benefits in my arms already, which are losing the hanging flab, and I’m very pleased with my decision to start working out a little. Not too much (as I’m still very lazy) but enough that I can known I’m doing something beneficial for my health above cutting back on sweets and eating more veggies.

* For jumping jacks I alternate between the regular slap my hands over my head kind, and the kind where my arms go straight out, up, straight out, and back to my sides while my feet go out, back together, out, and back together in four jumps.

* For push-ups I do table presses against the kitchen counter, as I don’t relish my dog jumping on my back when he gets too excited. A table push-up involves pushing away from a table or chair that’s secure against the floor.

Arunachalam Muruganantham –

This guy is an amazing man. Seriously. I heard about him from Dear Author, who gave this link to the BBC article.

A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads.

and …

There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can’t visit temples or public places, they’re not allowed to cook or touch the water supply – essentially they are considered untouchable.

TL;DR, this man loved his wife so much that he wanted to make her life better once he discovered how terrible conditions are for ladies on the rag in India. They’re not allowed in a lot of places and a lot of women have died due to the unhygienic way they have to deal with their periods since sanitary napkins are so expensive.

Being a cool guy, he came up with a framework machine that is being used in over 1300 villages in 23 different states. And instead of using his machines to make a bunch of money for himself, he teaches women how to use the machine and make their own sanitary napkins — which has led to them creating their own businesses and brands.

He keeps to a humble life and doesn’t believe in being wealthy, while at the same time he makes the lives of others better.

This man is a hero. Go read the article: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978

Muruganantham seemed set for fame and fortune, but he was not interested in profit. “Imagine, I got patent rights to the only machine in the world to make low-cost sanitary napkins – a hot-cake product,” he says. “Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty – everything happens because of ignorance.”

He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. “A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it,” he says.

I wish more people dreamed of being butterflies, versus settling on being mosquitoes.