The Herbal D-Tox: Tips!

 

Here are a few tips from my first detox: Wild Rose Herbal B-Tox.

• The creator, Dr. Terry Willard, has a blog where he answers a whole bunch of questions from detoxers. The Q&A is pretty long, but it's worth the read.
• According to a few blogs/forums, the D-Tox cookbook is a really good resource for the detox. Apparently it includes a statement that you should eat only one serving of fruits a day. (This isn't included on the main website or in the instruction booklet that comes with the kit.)
• Coconut milk is allowed! For the purposes of the detox, you can consider it a nut.
• Stevia: Even though it's a natural sweetener, it's not allowed. Remember, part of the purpose of the detox to give your body a break from sugary-tasting flavours. (This is why fruits should be limited to some extent, because they're FULL of natural sugars.) 
• No fruit juices! (Even if they're not from concentrate.)
• Surprisingly, chocolate is allowed! Well, pure cocoa or carob powder is allowed. I added it to a smoothie with strawberries, blueberries and coconut milk. It was delicious.
• One key reminder that someone pointed out in a forum is that there's no real 'winner' if you try to find loopholes and skirt the rules with the detox. Ultimately, you're doing the detox for yourself, so if you find some crazy loophole and take advantage of it, you're not 'winning'. You're just making it harder for your body to benefit from the detox.

 Happy detoxing!!

My new Tattly tattoos

My Tattly tattoos arrived today!

...and they're as delightful as I had hoped!

First, the envelope they came in was adorned with super cute stamps:

I love those little personal details.

Here's my collection:

So far, I'm wearing three of them. Including this scribbly!

Sitting here with the pile of Tattlys, the question became: "How can I store them so that it's easy to find a specific tattoo when I want it?"

My solution... A Tattly Moleskine!

I took an old Moleskine calendar and taped the tattlys onto the pages, comme ca:

(check out the small scribble Tattly on my hand!)

Tattly: The best temporary tattoos ever!

I just (JUST) found out about Tattly!
Designy Temporary tattoos.
Check it: 

My only question right now is around if they will be identifiable on my dark skin, or if they'll just look like weird discolourations.

...only one way to find out!!
(AND they're having a sale right now to commemorate their 1st yr in business!!)

The best 'Call Me Maybe' cover

1:00am
I'm lying in bed
reading an article on my iPad
from Mashable
about covers of the song Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen

My favourite (by far) is by Ben Howard:

Summer Playlist - Track 2: Half Moon Run

I'm obsessed with Half Moon Run!

Basically their whole album is on my summer playlist, but if I have to choose two tracks, they are:
1. Full Circle
I love this acoustic version - check out the ukelele!



2. She Wants to Know
My fav song of the album

Garden of your mind

"You can grow ideas in the garden of your mind. It's good to be curious about many things. You can think about things and make-believe. All you have to do is think, and they'll grow." -  Mister Rogers


I love this video.

Summer Playlist

I'm starting to build my playlist for this summer.

The first group on the list is The Cinema.
(I discovered them through the Risk! podcast)

My top two songs are:
Picasso:


Kill It:



There are a bunch of other groups on rotation in my earbuds right now, but they don't represent the sound of summer, as much as The Cinema does.

How to choose a font for a tattoo

I'm in love with literary tattoos.

(I recommend Contrariwise as a great place for literary tattoo eye candy and inspiration!)

I'd say there are two different ways to go approach choosing a font/typeface for your tattoo:

1. If you don't know your quote/words yet, or if you know you want an ampersand, for example, but aren't sure what you want it to look like:

• A good place to start in this scenario would be to investigate the six or so different type categories, and then choose maybe one or two of them that appeal to you.

2. If you have already chosen your words, then perhaps it already lends itself to a certain category already. Or, if not a specific category, then maybe a certain feel (informal vs formal, business-y vs casual, serif vs sans-serif.)

Here's an example:

I've been drawn to the word 'Selah' lately.
It's a term used in the Bible, mostly in Psalms, and from what I understand, the meaning is around taking a moment to pause and reflect on what's just been said.
It's used after statements like:

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.   Selah

and

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.   Selah

So in this case, I would picture the word 'Selah' to be used in a script. But fairly formal, as in calligraphy, and not an informal handwriting.

Next, I'd consider the size of the tattoo. A large size can allow for more detail in the font, whereas as smaller one would need less detail.

I like the site dafont.com for font exploration.
Here are some options I'd consider for a small Selah tattoo:

#1:

Font: Chopin Script

#2:

Font: Mutlu Ornamental

 This one is too detailed for a small version.

But I couldn't resist including it anyway.

#3:

Font: Selfish

 Interestingly, the more I look at this, the more

I realize it's probably too detailed for a small tattoo as well.

(i.e.the lines in the S requires you to be able to see the 

differences in the thickness of the stroke.)

#4:

Font: Some Weatz

 ps- I love capital S's!!

#5:

Font: Wedding Nightmares

Unless something jumps out at you right away, I'd say it'd be good to have a least 10 options to choose from.
Then maybe stare at them for a while to decide which one you want permanently inked on your body.

If I was choosing one of the above, I think it'd be between #1 & #4.
I also love #2 for something bigger.

Android vs iPhone... which to choose?

Answer: Both.

Haha. Well, I'm trying to make it be both.

Here's the deal, last year I had an iPhone for work, and so I purchased an Android for my personal use. And then eventually I had to give back the iPhone and the Android became my sole phone.

I love the Android concept. Opensource, accessibility, collaboration, etc.
But, I'm actually fairly attached to Apple these days.
With a MacBook and an iPad, it's was getting to be a hassle to have my phone on a different operating system.

So here's how it broke down:

My Android:

Pros:
Admirable concept (opensource etc)
Plethora of free apps
Cons:

My handset was slow, buggy, and clunky
Required drag/drop syncing with my iTunes library

iPhone

Pros:
Wireless syncing with my iTunes library
iTunes on-the-go

Linking with apps from my other Apple devices

Fun interface

The newest apps

Variety of fun cases and skins
Cons:
Do I really want to have another Apple device?

Expense (spending more money on apps and impulse buying music from iTunes)

The Verdict:

iPhone wins. (We all saw that coming!!) 

 

One of the biggest pros for the iPhone was having iTunes with me wherever I go. I listen to at least two hours of podcasts each day, and it was annoying me to have to login to my computer and keep track of new releases and then drag/drop them onto my droid.

I have a pretty good handle on which day of the week my favourites are released, but it gets tricky with the bi-weekly editions. 

I sometimes used the Stitcher app whenever I forgot to copy over a new episode, but streaming is dangerous because I don't have a unlimited data with my cellphone plan.

With my iPhone I can simply go to the podcast and click 'Get More Episodes'. And, given the amount of time that I already spend in Starbucks, I don't have to go out of my way to find a wireless connection for the longer casts.

So these past few weeks I've been enjoying downloading apps and playing around to see what's new since last year. 

As for my droid, I'm keeping it around just in case I ever want it for something that my iPhone can't help me with. (So far I haven't used it.)

Fun listening... Kimbra!!

Okay, I'm ready to admit it.
I have a cold.

I went about my new normal routine this morning (design class and then dogwalking!) and then came home and crashed.
On the bright side though, I don't feel guilty for spending the rest of my Saturday napping and then getting up to surf the net, drink tea, and listen to music!

During my explorations I came across Sarah's blog and music by Kimbra!

There's no resisting the clapping.




Also, men dancing in suits is one of my favourite things.


Speaking of which....

Discovering musical talent via CBC's As it Happens

I just 'discovered' Charlie Winston.

I hopped in the car and the radio was set to CBC Radio 1. As it happens, "As it Happens" was playing!
So I listened to the ending of a segment, and then they played a fun song.

I waited in the car until the announcer said the name of the singer.
(I didn't have Shazam on my phone yet.)
It was David Myles singing I'll Never Know.

Later that night when I was downloading Myles' album Into the Sun, iTunes identified a few other albums that listeners also liked.
One of the them was Charlie Winston's album Hobo.

As soon as I heard the baseline in the song 'In your Hands', I was hooked.



Thanks CBC!
...and iTunes