Wight Weirdos

The Gibson Family Blog

A day in the life of Rebekah, on £1 a day (Day 2)

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I thought I would blog a day in my life and how living on £1 affects that. Sorry for awful photo formatting, still cannot get my head round WordPress!

So I started off my day with a bowl of porridge and jam, fairly normal except I would normally have porridge with milk (today I had water) and nice jam (today value)

Then off on my bike to church. It’s been a lovely day, so my cycle ride was beautiful

 
I then arrived at church (4 miles away) feeling slightly hungry! I had some of my lunchtime bread allocation and got on with it. Today’s jobs included cleaning, tidying, baking and generally getting things lovely as we had the community action award people coming to see the church. We had plenty of help getting things lovely, although certain people spent a lot of time lounging in the sun! 😉
 
I made some tasty looking choc chip shortbread which I couldn’t eat and the lovely filter coffee was also out of the question at around 20p per cup

Then the community judges arrived and at 2pm I could finally have my lunch of soup and rice (no pic, sorry!). I then cycled back. I arrived home feeling rather tired but was very pleased to have a lie down, a book to read (Jodi Picoult, Sing Me Home) some 3p flapjack and a cup of tea. Almost as good as shortbread and coffee!
I then had to get back up as Jamie was coming over. We had a nice game of crib (unfortunately he won) and then had dinner. We had rice and curried baked beans with onion and sweetcorn. Jamie brought his own noodles.

I’m now about to go and watch some Lie To Me and eat my biscuit allocation and 2nd cup of tea (Jamie is allowed a biscuit too as I only had one of my two yesterday)

So that’s a day of me!

Going “poo free” (I’m becoming a hippy)

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So I’d been having problems with shampoo, in that when I washed my hair my face went all blotchy and my skin was all hot and itchy = not good (I had no idea why this started happening, but it wasn’t nice!).
I tried using about 6 different shampoos, but the same kept happening. So I started to have a vague look around for an alternative. I came across LOADS of blogs whop used bicarbonate of soda and cider vinegar as shampoo and conditioner.

My first thoughts “yuck” and “that’s never going to work” but I was fed up of hvaing blotchy and itchy skin after showering, so I decided to give it a go. It also has the following pros.

  1. Cheaper than shampoo
  2. Better for the environment
  3. Better for you shampoo = loads of chemicals which do yucky things – check this blog out for more info on that side of things http://simplemom.net/how-to-clean-your-hair-without-shampoo/

The main things I were worried about were

  1. Having a long “transition stage” as my hair got used to being “poo free” I didn’t want gross hair at any stage really!
  2. My hair still being greasy after I washed it
  3. My hair getting greasy really quickly
  4. My hair stinking of vinegar

Here are some pictures of my hair when I used normal shampoo and conditioner. The one on the left is my hair just after it’s been washed and on the right when it hasn’t been washed for a couple of day and is a bit gross!

Despite my many reservations I gave it a go. I mixed 1 1/2 tbsps of bicarb with a cup of water. then 1tbsp of cider vinegar also in a cup of water. I made my hair wet in the shower, then poured the bicarb/water over my hair and rubbed in very hard, then left on my for a while. Don’t worry so much about getting the bottom of your hair. Focus on your scalp as that’s where all the oils come from. It will feel odd as there will be no bubbles. Don’t panic! I then rinsed the bicarb out thoroughly. Then poured the vinegar/water mixtures over my hair. It stinks when you are putting it on but once you’ve rinsed your hair will NOT smell of vinegar, at all! I then blow dried it and this is how it looked

Day 1

I was really pleased with this – it looked very similar to how my hair does when I washed it normally. I was still worried about it looking greasy the next day.

So I was pleasantly surprised when the next day it looked like this

Day 2 

The next day would normally be when my hair would be looking a little greasy and I would maybe wash it. I found that much the same thing happened. So I just shoved it up and it looked alright.

Day 3

Day 4 I went for a run, then I did another bicarb and vinegar wash. This time I made the bicarb into a thicker paste so it was easier to put on my head. I then put it in rollers overnight (I have naturally dead straight hair. This is what it looked like the next morning.

Day 5 

My hair held the curls much better than it normally does. I’m not sure if this is related to being poo free, or if I just did a better job curling it than normal.

Day 6

Still clean and slightly curly = happy me 🙂

Day 7 

Looking frizzy and a bit greasy today, but I’m not going anywhere so it’s just been shoved up, ready for another wash tomorrow.

So I’m pretty happy with how it’s going so far. My hair seems to be following it’s normal patterns and looks and smells fine. I’d definitely recommend anyone to give this a go, if you’re in doubt Google “poo free hair” and you’ll come up with loads of blogs, with people having loads of different experiences.

40acts/Lent challenge blog

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I’m now going to blog my Lent challenge/40acts stuff here. Please have a read 🙂

http://rebekah40acts.wordpress.com/

Lent #Day1

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So today was my first no Facebook/Twitter/sugar day and also my first of the “40 acts” http://www.40acts.org.uk/
The no Facebook/Twitter thing led to me being very productive, I got a lot more college work done than I otherwise would and I spent some time reading  I realised just how much sugar I eat! I couldn’t have biscuits or cake at Foodbank cafe this morning, or a sugary snack at home, even a fruit yoghurt!

Here are all the things I wanted to eat

Here is what I ate for snacks instead

I also did the first of the “40acts”. Today’s was to “create a generosity kit” so you always have stuff to hand to help you to be more generous. My generosity kit contains: pen, hair band,a pound, safety pin and band aids just for general usefulness, a chocolate bar for someone who needs one, some new earrings as a random gift for someone and some gloves for if I find someone who is cold!

Today’s bible verse was: 1Timothy 6:18 “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds,and to be generous and willing to share.”