Vegetarian cooking will save the world. Or at least your paycheck...

I have been majorly neglectful of the blog. Mainly because I don't have time to manage one and I really should be writing my Religion midterm right now. But I'll let that wait.

Now that I'm back into mainstream technology for the fall (my home doesn't provide the most conducive setting for connecting to the internet but college does!) I might try to update more often. Or I might fail at that as always.

Living in a dorm has its charms. A few of them, at least. Convenient laundry, internet...ok that's all I can come up with for now. I actually am not a fan of dorm life. At all. One substantial reason is that I love to cook. I'm a vegetarian and dining hall food just doesn't supply enough choices to satiate my cravings for a balanced diet. In fact, I've been fantasizing about having a kitchen to such an extent that I've gathered several blogs and websites to share with you. These are my particularly favorite vegetarian websites.

Check them out:

V e g a n D a d is a blog updated frequently by a father who is raising his children vegan. His recipes are quick and not too involved, although a general know-how of cooking will definitely go a long way. The right-hand side of the page offers an index of ingredients so that you can click on an ingredient and go right to a recipe which utilizes or frames that food. On top of all of that, his photos will lure the most ardent meat eaters!

The Hummus Blog: Who doesn't love hummus? Ok, it can definitely get old, but this blog is a interesting look into the world of hummus. It is created by Israeli brothers who know the best hummus first-hand.

The Toby Show: Organic on a Budget is a specific page from a blog called "The Toby Show." The author is a mom living in the midwest. This page is specifically interesting because, even though you've already thought of some of these ways to save money, she gives some other interesting options as well. Explore the rest of the blog-it's a lot of fun!

The Post Punk Kitchen: Vegetarian cooking & vegan baking with no attitude is a vegan website which gives a bit of edge to traditional cooking shows. It's a lot of fun to check up on occasionally even if I don't follow it regularly.

Have you gotten the hint? Go vegetarian!

Ok, I'll back off a bit. It's a personal choice that everyone has to evaualate, but there are a lot of persuasive reasons. Most importantly to me is the detrimental environmental impact I avoid by eating vegetables and legumes. But another excellent reason to become a vegetarian is to save on groceries! Vegetables, fruits and dairy are significantly cheaper than meat and will give you long-lasting energy. I can't praise the diet enough. But if you're not quite willing to retreat from the meat yet, take it one step at a time. If you refrain from eating meat every night, you'll definitely notice that your budget is not so stretched the next time you go to the grocery store.

Buon appetito!

Happy Lint

I walked into my room and proclaimed, "I have an idea for lint!"

My roommate thought I said, "I have an idea for Lent!"

Neither of these statements makes much sense.

My mother has always saved lint from the dryer and made it into fire starters. She stuffs lint into egg cartons, pours wax over it and you have compact cubes of lint to use in your fire. That's the first thing to learn about lint: it is incredibly flammable.

I knew that my mom was not the average mother; I didn't know anybody else who saved lint but I wasn't really bothered by it. Until this year when I first had to wash my clothes away from home. My room is conveniently located near the laundry room and I really don't mind doing wash.

One thing I do mind is throwing away anything that can be reused or recycled. After months of throwing lint into the trashcan, I decided that there had to be more to life.

There is. I discovered a whole host of ideas about what to use lint for. I'll share my favorite recipe with you:

Make Lint Clay!

• Cover 3 cups of lint with 2 cups of water in a saucepan.
• Slowly stir 1 cup of flour.
• Add a few drops of vegetable oil.
• Stir over low heat until the mixture binds together.
• Pour onto a sheet of wax, parchment, or newspaper to cool.
• After you're done molding it, the clay may take 3-7 days to dry.

You can just as easily make lint papier mache (which is very similar to clay, just use about 2/3 c flour), lint paper (just add lint to your paper pulp, it won't stand well on its own), lint animals (be careful, they're flammable!), and lint firestarters.

Most importantly, lint is compostable. So don't throw it in your trashcan! Put it outside, let it fertilize your garden or just compost in a corner of your garden or behind a bush. Hopefully we'll get the point that we all create more trash than we need to we'll make an effort to reduce unnecessary waste!

Have yourself a haircut!

I'm all about not spending money unless it's entirely necessary. I rarely go out to dinner/spend money on food unless it's a social engagement. I head straight to the clearance section of stores and usually check out with some awesome deals. And who would stay in a hotel when you could tent camp for less and for more fun?!

In keeping with this philosophy, I have probably had my hair professionally cut only 5 times in my life. Luckily, I grew up in a family who instilled in me such frugality and as a result, my mom cut my hair when I was younger. When I actually did go to professional hair appointments, the results were always nice, but no better than my mom's.

For the past two years, I have cut my own hair. It started one night when I had about 30 minutes before a required assembly, so that ended up being a pretty hasty job. Some of the girls from the dorm helped with the back and the bangs and together we had a fun time chopping it all off.

With that said, I haven't had any radical haircuts since then. I trim and shape whenever I have a bad hair day, which is more often than not. Today, however, I was really whining about my bangs, or lack thereof. I see them all the time on other people, and they look so cute, stylish and fun! After a bit of research, I found this site which gave me suggestions, as well as nice pictures for stylish bangs:

www.style-hair-magazine.com/short-bangs.html

I also wanted to take into consideration my face shape before going with a radical cut that might now complement my face shape. I found help on a Stylish Haircuts blog, which you should investigate before you take the scissors in hand.

After I had loosely decided on this style, I wanted a couple tips about cutting bangs because I didn't want to end up having to get them fixed professionally. Wikihow offered these tips:

1. Select area to be cut. Push hair on sides behind your ears, or pin back.
2. Decide how much of a bang you want to cut.
3. Use the outer edge of the eyebrows to determine where to stop.
4. Comb the desired amount of hair down.
5. Comb the desired amount of hair down.
6. Gather the desired bang hair to a point in the center of your face. (According to how long you want your bangs.) Example: If you want your bang length to be below your eyebrows, hold the hair at the bridge of the nose.
7. Hold hair securely with your non-dominant hand and cut using one snip at the desired length. (The twisting will allow for extra length that is being stretched while you are holding it, and also will give the ends a "wispy" look, with little effort.)
8. After cutting, the bangs will fall to the desired length, with the sides being slightly longer than the center.

Always remember to use a comb instead of just pinching hair between your fingers-it will allow for a more consistent cut! Other than that, a mirror might be helpful too. Take your time when snipping!

Sweet Relief

I was worried! The blog server, Blogger, was giving me a lot of trouble with my account, telling me that it didn't exist, etc. So we can all rest assured that I will indeed be able to continue blogging, as far as I'm concerned.

After my two month hiatus, one would think that I have scores of experiences to share. If I do, I've forgotten most. But not all!

I was recently reading about new uses for Nalgene bottles on another blog. As you may know, old Nalgene bottles were exposed as leaching carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) into the contents of the bottle(the new ones are made differently so this is no longer an issue). One solution was to convert your old bottle into a lantern by purchasing a small solar device made especially for that. I won't go into all of the details now, but I'd be happy to answer any questions about them since I just bought one of these awesome devices!

Anyway, I followed a link on the blog and after a couple more clicks found a page which interested me. The page was dedicated to the uses of baking soda as an exfoliant. Many users who commented gave rave reviews about just scrubbing with baking soda once or twice a day in place of or as a supplement to the traditional face wash products.

I was intrigued! Finally a new idea which is incredibly good for the environment, so cheap, and so ironically similar to my green toothpaste... In fact, I have since read suggestions of using olive oil as a moisturizer after you scrub with the baking soda. Baking soda + olive oil? Sound familiar?

Anyway, I happened to be out of face wash at that moment so I couldn't think of a more perfect time to test out this new experiment. To date, I've been using baking soda for about three weeks. I'm very happy with it. I wouldn't say that it's solved all of my skin's troubles, but it certainly has done more than St. Ives or Neutrogena ever has!

I still get some stares in the bathroom, though...