Author Archives: Laura
the makeup cleanse
Having a hard time digging out your favorite lip gloss every morning? Mascara getting clumpy? If cosmetics are starting to feel more like clutter, cleaning out the makeup bag can be an easy way to simplify and treat your skin well.
Makeup doesn’t last forever and over time it can harbor bacteria which causes skin irritation and breakouts as well as other infections such as conjunctivitis (pinkeye). So, how do you know when makeup should be tossed? If it starts to smell funny, definitely toss it. If the consistency or color starts to change or you notice skin irritation when it is applied, its probably time to ditch it as well. Otherwise, here is a general timeline for the healthy life of most products:
Foundation: Water-based: 12 months Oil-based: 18 months
Concealer: 12-18 months
Powder/Blush: 1-3 years
Mascara: 3-6 months
Liquid/Cream Eyeliner or Shadows: 6-12 months
Eyeshadow: 1-3 years
Eye/Lip Pencils: 1-3 years
Lisptick/Lip Gloss: 1-2 years
Nail Polish: 1-5 years
A few extra tips:
Treat Your Makeup Well. There are several things you can you can do to extend the life of your makeup. First of all, store it in a cool and dry location. That makeup sitting in the sunny car or open on the bathroom counter while you shower is going to go bad more quickly than the makeup in a fun bag on your dresser. In addition to storage location, sharpen lip and eye pencils regularly and try not to pump mascara too much. Both of these tricks, along with the next tip, will fight bacteria.
Wash Your Brushes! This is one of the most important things you can do for your makeup and your face. If you have never washed your makeup brushes, prepare to be disgusted. You can purchase a brush cleaner if you like or just use a mild soap of some sort. I prefer to use a natural shampoo because, to me, brushes are more like hair. Wash your brushes in the bathroom sink with water and soap and then lay them out to air dry. This should be done often. I try to do it every month. If you use other applicators, such as sponges, be sure to wash or replace those often as well.
Keep Organized. If you keep your makeup organized and accessible, you will save money, time and sanity. Store makeup you use on an everyday basis in a handy location and in a way that makes it easy to move around. You could use a fun makeup bag or colorful containers such as bowls or baskets. Any excess can be stored in a makeup bag, bin or mini drawers and kept in a drawer or closet so that it is not in the way when you don’t need it.
Have Fun With It! Learn some new makeup tips. Treat yourself to a new color or makeup bag. Have a spa day and use that nail polish. Or go on a girls night out with that glitter blush you’ve been ignoring! 🙂
Enjoy your makeup cleanse!
almonds (almond butters)
I have loved almonds for as long as I can remember. I use them often, grabbing a handful for a quick snack, throwing them slivered into salads and have even used their oil in homemade beauty products. And now, I have (finally) ground them up and made almond butter!
Lucky for me, there are lots of good reasons to eat almonds.
Three reasons almonds are so good for you.
1. Heart Health.
There are many reasons almonds are good for your heart. For one, they are high in healthy fat, which helps maintain good cholesterol levels. They also have lots of potassium and little sodium, both factors that help regulate blood pressure. As if that wasn’t enough, the amount of vitamins and minerals in almonds, such as vitamin E and magnesium have also been found to be key players in heart health.
2. Brain Health
Almonds have good levels of things like omega-3’s and vitamin E that have been linked to healthy brain function. They also contain phenylalanine, which is a chemical linked to cognitive function.
3. Energy
One of the reasons almonds produce energy is because they provide a lot of calories, but there are also high amounts of several vitamins and minerals that play an important role in energy production. The strong presence of riboflavin, copper and manganese help turn those calories into energy.
SIMPLE ALMOND BUTTER
Ingredients:
Raw Almonds
Salt (optional)
HONEY MAPLE ALMOND BUTTER
Ingredients:
2 cups Raw Almonds
1 teaspoon Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil
2 Tablespoons Honey or Maple Syrup (I used 1 T of each)
Sea Salt (optional)
this recipe was inspired bythe post on Alexandra’s Kitchen featuring The Sprouted Kitchen cookbook
CINNAMON FLAX ALMOND BUTTER
Ingredients:
2 cups Raw Almonds
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Flaxseed
Sea Salt (optional)
Directions:
This applies to all of the above 🙂
1. Place almonds in food processor and blend until natural oils begin to come out. This may take a while, up to 10 minutes! (be sure to give your almond blender a break)
2. Add other ingredients. Blend until desired consistency is reached.
Simple, right? And so delicious!
Some notes:
~I tried five different pieces of equipment on my journey to making yummy almond butter from a grinder to a small bullet style blender and normal blender to both a small and larger sized food processor. The conclusion? Bigger blade and motor equals easier to make almond butter. I did not get the consistency I wanted from my small (loyal smoothie making) blender. I did with a normal monster blender, but it was a huge pain to get out and clean out. The larger food processor worked the best!
~I have seen a lot of recipes where the almonds were toasted first. I did not do this, but plan to try at some point.
~Refrigeration. Technically, nut butters are supposed be refrigerated, but it’s frustrating because it does change the texture. If you plan to use it within the week, however, I say cover it and leave it out.
Yum! Enjoy!
the first time
Yesterday, I stumbled into a poem
New to me that I love. Love.
Hours pass and I then discover that April is the month.
How fitting, I thought.
This will be the first time I celebrate national poetry month.
With in my heart and on the page
so many words
The poem I read:
THE FIRST TIME
by Mindy Nettifee
I.
The first time your heart was torn from your chest,
You thought you were dying.
You knew you could not live with the empty space.
So you replaced your heart with metaphors
And set out to create a world where the metaphor was unbreakable.
Now look what you’ve done—
You can’t breathe so you write.
You can’t hurt so you drink rum and pour our pirate chanties.
You can’t want revenge so you leave.
II.
When I see you I have two thoughts:
You are the reason The Smith’s wrote songs,
And my god, you are beautiful.
You are so beautiful
Blinking stars go blind.
But I can see this is going to get ugly.
The metaphors don’t make you feel whole anymore.
You sell out your deepest insecurities for a handful of laughs.
This life has you wound so tight you make grandfather clocks look relaxed.
You hold your body like banks hold money—all locked up.
Your shoulders are glass rocks waiting for the next attack.
But you’ve got it all wrong.
You don’t survive history.
History survives you.
There is no breakthrough without breakdown.
III.
If you’re going to break, shatter.
No explanations.
No limp-legged dog excuses.
No messing with this bullet proof vest fury
So popular with the cops and the presidents.
You’ve got to break like Texas.
You’ve got to take the pain from the safety valve of your heart
And return it to your fists.
Fight your better judgment ‘till you’re sinister again,
‘till your body remembers what it already knows how to do—
bend back
and manifest grief.
Scream torches ‘till you embarrass the enlightened.
Please. No more polite conversations with your death wish.
Give it something useful to do.
Change your life.
Cause I can’t stand to see you like this.
So blue, my eyes turn green in your presence.
Listen—you are so beautiful,
Grass pushes through sidewalk cracks just to kiss your feet.
IV.
Maybe no one ever told you,
But the heart IS a metaphor.
Yours is growing so strong
You’ll have your rhythm back any day now—
Loving like rumours spread.
Dreaming like lunatic spacemen jump from their suits.
Living like you never forgot how.
30 ways to celebrate national poetry month
someone like you
Sometimes, when I probably should be sleeping, incredible things are discovered.
I was distracting myself from my own mind and from sleep when I saw this girl on The Voice. She sang “One of Us” and I loved it. So, naturally, I took to YouTube to hear more.
And that would be when I found this.
My experience listening to this was:
0:00-0:07 Love this song. Loved what I heard of her voice before. Excited…please be awesome…
0:08-2:00 Wow. Is it really possible that someone else could sing this so beautifully?
2:00-3:30 Stunning. So legit.
3:31-4:08 Holy wha…?! Goosebumps.
4:08 There it is
4:24… Love.
4:40… Yes!
5:30 No..please don’t end.
5:57 Replay.
Sarah Simmons, people. I imagine we may hear more from her.
homemade redness reducers
I’ve been noticing some redness on my face lately (well, ok, for the last 20 years), so I took to researching natural home remedies to help calm my sensitive skin. After reading up in a few books and magazines and on dozens of websites, there were a handful of ingredients that clearly stood out as redness reducers, many of them because of their natural anti-inflammatory properties.
1. Cucumber
2. Aloe
3. Green (or White) Tea
4. Mint
5. Licorice
Honorable Mention: Oats, Witch Hazel, Turmeric, Vitamin C and Milk
A few ideas for homemade treatments:
-Cucumber, aloe and mint got mixed in the blender today to create a soothing mask. I also added a little honey to make it more thick and “maskish”. I spread the mask on, plopped some cucumber slices on my eyes and relaxed for 15 minutes. Honestly, I noticed a reduction in redness as soon as I took off the mask.
–Licorice powder and aloe combined could make a great mask as well.
-The cucumber oatmeal mask I have used and written about before fits the redness bill.
-I plan to try using white or green tea extract and licorice root extract as a toner of sorts.
There are lots of possibilities available between all of these ingredients and I’m very interested in any recipes others may have!
I read some things about a few of the ingredients mentioned that I wanted to share.
Witch hazel apparently has all kind of natural benefits, but some (rarely) do react to it and often it is sold at the store as a toner mixed with alcohol. So, try a little bit first and make sure you buy it natural.
Turmeric is apparently amazing for treating redness, acne, pigmentation, etc., but it may temporarily stain the skin, so be aware of this!
As I treat my body with more natural ingredients, I continue to notice positive changes and hope you do too!
food in jars
Deciding to put more food in jars started simply as an effort to organize my shelf space, but has resulted in several positive benefits.
I was feeling frustrated by the stuff hiding in the back, the amount of plastic and the overall cluttered feeling. Around the time I did my closet cleanse, I also sorted through my storage bins in the garage (yes, I was in full declutter mode) and found a couple jars that had belonged to my grandma. I had always loved the jars and thought, “I should be using these”. And thus began my shelf full of jars.
I started (and my roomies helped) saving used jars and filling them with items formerly stored in plastic bags and containers in a rather jumbled fashion. Soon enough, most of one shelf was full of jars and the other shelf easily holds other items, such as boxed granola bars, oils, pasta and canned goods.
So, what am I storing in the jars? Right now, I have 18 of them and they hold pancake mix, brown rice, quinoa, wheat berries, oats, black beans, cashews, peanuts, slivered almonds, sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chocolate chips, chocolate covered ginger, raisins, dried cranberries, dried mangoes and goji berries.
For me, here have been several benefits to having food in jars:
It feels more simple and clean. And that was my original intent, after all. Being able to simply shuffle some jars around and clearly see what is in them all feels like a breath of fresh air compared to my old shelf. It also enhances my effort to cut down on plastics.
Reuse makes me happy.
There is something about being able to reuse that just feels good. I smile when I see my grandmas jars and wonder where they originally came from. 🙂 Also, did you know that glass takes a loooooonnnggg time (I’m talking a million years here) to break down? Being able to reuse or recycle it helps the environment!
I am eating more healthy.
You can see from the list of things being stored in the jars that they are mostly healthy grains, nuts, seeds and dried fruits. (non-processed foods) When I open my cupboard and see these things, I brainstorm meal ideas with them in mind. When I feel like snacking, I often end up reaching for nuts and fruits. I have been making efforts to eat more clean and this has only helped. And…
I am saving money.
Most of what I buy for the jars comes from the bulk container/pay by the pound section of the store and I have absolutely concluded that it is cheaper to buy this way.
The other thing I love about my jars is the variety. For me, there is something about having organization with a twist of randomness that puts my creative self at ease. I look at my shelf of jars and take a deep breath because it is easy to see everything and retrieve anything. And then I smile because the jars are different shapes and sizes and the lids are different colors.
Having a shelf of food in jars might not be for everyone, but for me it has been fabulous and I highly recommend it!
awakening
“In a way it feels foolish and selfish to be dissatisfied with my life because I have so much…for which the gratefulness overwhelms. But in the midst of the wealth of my life, I find that I am craving more. More connection. More love. More sincerity. More art. More nakedness. More life. More growth. In a way, I am actually desiring less. My cravings have a simplicity to them. I want to breathe. I want to exist in a new place…a place where I am stripped down. Where I shed manufactured adornment and my heart becomes exposed enough to wake up. My whole heart.”
I wrote those words six months ago. It was my birthday. And now it is today. This is me:
I don’t really know how to map the journey in words from that day I reflected in the mountains to this day. And if I did share every divine detail, I am not certain that anyone would even believe me. It has been a beautiful and chaotic whirlwind full of awakenings, serendipitous moments, dreams, real connection, harsh realities and vulnerability.
So anyway, about this portrait.
The words are drawn from the things I wrote on my birthday retreat and from what I wrote down during Holiday Council when asked, “How do I want to feel? What am I craving?” Then, a couple weeks ago, I sat down with some markers and wrote them all down.
Vulnerable is in the center because that word has become like a fire in my heart, dangerous yet able to ignite every other craving. Why I wrote down that I wanted to feel vulnerable is beyond me. I didn’t even grasp the fullness of what that meant and I didn’t remember writing it. But vulnerability decided to come knocking at the door of my heart whether I remembered inviting it or not. And I let it in. Ever since, I have been either wrestling with or embracing it.
The picture is just me.
I decided to collage these words with an image of myself and immediately knew I wanted the photo to be simple and stripped down.
No makeup.
No hair styles.
No color.
And I decided to only take three pictures. I didn’t need this to turn into some crazy photo shoot.
The exposure and contrast of the photos was created more by me with the camera than in editing because I wanted it that way.
I also wanted the expression to be simple and without too much of any one specific emotion.
After looking at the three shots, I almost took more because I was slightly uncomfortable with them.
But that was perfect because sharing these imperfect photos and these words and this collage and everything about it makes me feel vulnerable.
And that is what I want.
To be exposed enough to find my real heart.
To breathe in my own skin.
To be awake and authentic and alive.
Sincerely and wholeheartedly.
To draw from the opening pages of Daring Greatly by Brene Brown (read the book, watch the TED talks), which seemed to providentially find its way into my hands in January (which, by the way, I just today discovered that the book came out on my birthday last year and almost had a cow), I want to be in the arena of my own life. I want to move forward with courage and passion and whether I win or lose wont matter as much as the reality that I fought with my whole heart.
I have to admit that I am right now fighting the urge to completely rewrite this entire post. I feel like I’m saying too much or too little or not saying it eloquently enough or with enough humor. And that is why it needs to stay exactly as it is…
If I wait until I am “perfect” to share myself and my heart, I will wait forever. This is who I am and where I am right now. And it is beautiful.
girl rising
Suma from Nepal
Ruksana from India
Azmera from Ethiopia
Sokha from Cambodia
Wadley from Haiti
Yasmin from Egypt
Senna from Peru
Mariama from Sierra Leone
Amina from Afghanistan.
I watched the trailer at least 25 times. And then, I went to see the film so that I could hear and see more of their stories.
The statistics and lives shared on the screen were both troubling and inspiring. These girls faced (and still do in some cases) everything from slavery, loss and abandonment to rape, abuse and arranged marriages, but the spirit that rises from these depths illuminates a hope for positive change. And education fosters that spirit. Though their lives and stories are diverse, they are bound together by the injustices they face and by the reality that educating these girls is changing and will continue to change their lives, their communities and the world.
I could say so much more about the film and the way different writers with connections to the countries took on different stories. Or how beautiful the cinematography was. Or drop the names of the well known who came on board to narrate. I think, though, that my most important response is to ask myself how I can help fight ignorance and fuel positive change. Yes, the film was disturbing and inspiring. Now what? What can I do?
Well, for starters, I can share my thoughts and encourage others to see this film or support this cause. So here I am. To find out more about 10×10 or Girl Rising, how to get involved or where to see the film, visit their websites. Also, check out a preview of the film below:
Another step I have taken is to give financially to this cause, which helps girls education initiatives throughout the world.
In addition to financial support, I was challenged by others and within myself to find ways to support this cause on a local level. Within my own day to day world, I have the opportunity to educate and because of this movement, I will be more proactive about pursuing that. I have also discovered a couple local programs that align with empowering girls and women through education and am getting involved with at least one of them (more details on this as it develops).
I want to share two other organizations that I have been a part of in some way already that align well with supporting girls education and happen to help two of the countries focused on in the film, Peruvian Hearts and The Anyway Foundation.
My passion lies in creating positive change in this world on an individual, local and global level. For me, it anchors in the arts and I want to use my creative voice to fuel this change and give others the opportunity to do the same. This film has inspired me to continue to pursue my passion.
There is a quote from the film that I want to end with here, but I cannot track it down or remember it in detail, but I will find it soon and it will be here. 🙂
photo from the 10×10 media resources page
shells and sunlight
exposed
broken pieces tossed where
earth meets foggy sky
reflecting
heavy hearts dwell
as the symphony of waves plays on
tossing
broken pieces of air
breathing light
hope
exposed
gnocchi
A couple days ago, I was browsing through one of my cookbooks (Homemade) and was inspired to try my hand at gnocchi. I am in love with homemade noodles and also love gnocchi, so I was pretty excited to give it a whirl. I found the process to be simple and fun and was really pleased with the results.
Ingredients:
Potatoes
Bread Flour
Egg
Salt
For every 2 pounds of potatoes (which I found to be two large russets), use about 2 cups of bread flour and 1 egg.
*this made about twice what I needed for one meal for a few people
Directions:
1. Peel, boil and mash the potatoes. (The cookbook recommended boiling before peeling. Boiling with skins supposedly gives them a little more flavor and makes them easier to peel, but I have never tried this. I peeled and then boiled.)
2. Add some flour and some egg to the potatoes and work into a dough. If needed, add more flour and/or egg until the dough is smooth. (I had no idea what exactly the dough was supposed to be like, so I just went with what felt right.) Add a little salt too.
3. Now use your hands to roll the dough out into ropes. Basically, I started with the whole ball of dough and rolled it out until it didn’t fit on my board, cut it in half, rolled that section out, cut that in half and just kept doing this until I felt I had gnocchi thickness sized ropes.
4. Cut the small ropes into individual noodles.
5. Cover with a dish towel until used or cook immediately. To cook, just add noodles to boiling water and they will rise to the top when they are ready, which only takes a few minutes.
6. Enjoy!
I served my gnocchi with pesto and tomatoes, sausage and a spinach salad, which made for a lovely meal. There was a consensus that this gnocchi felt a little lighter than usual, which I think was preferred (it can be soooo dense sometimes). Now I am excited to experiment with other sauces or stuffings. Chalk up another noodle that I will probably stop buying. 🙂
And again, I got this recipe from Homemade by Yvette van Boven, one of the most beautiful and inspiring cookbooks I have ever seen.
unplugging
Updated:
March 1, 2013 through March 2, 2013, I joined a group of people in unplugging for 24 hours. My computer and cell phone were OFF. Instead of texting, tweeting and zoning out in front of a screen, I worked on a creative project and connected with what has been going on in my world and with those around me!
I didn’t think this full day of being unplugged would be that challenging for me and in a lot of ways it wasn’t. However, it did open my eyes to the amount of time and focus that gets sucked up in my world by things like my phone and computer. I began to realize that once I am in front of a screen, I tend to lose clarity. The other thing was that I basically had no idea what time it was all day long. Like many, I use my cell phone as my clock and I wanted to reach for it dozens of times to find the time. I didn’t really have a schedule on my unplugged day, so I finally chose to just let the time go and focus on what was in front of me. That was insanely refreshing and freeing.
So, on a day of being unplugged, I found clarity, connected, created and felt refreshed even though I had no idea what time it was. The day was good and all the things that happened in the day were good and as a result, I am choosing to unplug once a week. Yep. One full day each week to find some focus without the help of the technology we are in relationships with today. A friend of mine asked me if I really thought this was a good idea. The alarm in their voice only affirmed the way I already felt…YES, I think this is a fabulous idea.
hearty fruit kabobs
How fabulous are these?!?
I knew I had to make these the first time I saw the idea. Valentines dinner gave me the perfect excuse, though they would obviously be lovely any day. 🙂
This was super simple and a lot of fun. It did take a tiny bit of a time commitment to cut the fruit and assemble, but it was worth it.
What’s Needed:
Fruit. Be creative! (I used watermelon, kiwi, cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries and blueberries)
Heart Shaped Cookie Cutter
Kabob Sticks (or whatever they are called…they have them at most grocery stores)
I bought halves of the pineapple and melons and cut slices of desired thickness to cut the hearts. The kiwi and strawberries were easy to quickly slice and heart up. One thing I would say is to make sure the hearts are thick enough so that they stay intact on the stick. I made mine about half an inch thick.
I then put one of each fruit on each stick with blueberries in between. A lot of fun could be had with less fruit or more fruit or fun color arrangements!
I thought about making a yogurt dip with a little bit of cinnamon for these, but just kinda forgot to…
I went for the breakfast for dinner thing with these and served with eggs, bacon and heart-shaped pancakes, of course!
Enjoy!
This beautiful idea was inspired by mint in the middle
the heart…
Totally in love with this collage I just created with my photos. I am going to print this onto canvas without the text and paint my own handwriting on it…one of my favorite quotes ever!
xoxo
a little self-love…box
Coming into this new year, I spent several weeks defining goals, dreams and cravings and mapping out a road to success in achieving them (much thanks to my wonderful friend and founder of Stratejoy and her program, The Holiday Council…check it out!) There is sooooo much awesomeness I could share about all of this, but one of the most important moments of clarity I gained from the experience was this:
I need to be LOVING MYSELF.
This might seem an obvious thing to do as a human, but somewhere along my journey, I completely missed that turn. Now don’t misinterpret my feelings. I don’t dislike myself. In fact, I am a positive person with what I consider a fairly strong self-awareness and sincerity and I take pride in my strengths and accomplishments. However, I have struggled to truly focus on myself in a way that nurtures my soul and instead focus on others with unbalanced abundance or walk straight into selfishness in an unhealthy way and then wonder why I still feel unfulfilled and even guilty. My heart has been awakened to the reality that there is a distinction between selfishness and self-love and that I should be pursuing healthy self-love.
And so, I made loving myself one of my main goals for this year. Figuring out how to do this took some time and brainstorming and is still developing, but one tool that I have created is what I call my self-love box.
I started by making a list of ways that I could love myself. Then, I cut out a bunch of little hearts and wrote the items from my list on them.
Some of the thin
gs from my list?
buy yourself a special treat
reach out to an encouraging person
get dressed up
take a nap
do something that inspires you
forgive yourself
dream, plan and go on a personal retreat
stop. breathe deep.
write yourself a love note
get a massage
be grateful. make a list of things you are thankful for.
Next, I found an inexpensive heart shaped box at a craft store and plastered it with some meaningful and inspiring pictures. The little self-love list hearts went inside and I am challenging myself to use the box several times a month.
Creating this simple little box and using it has been a rewarding and wonderful experience thus far and I recommend doing something like this to absolutely anyone. Whether you create a box or a list or not, though, please remember to LOVE YOURSELF! You are worth it!
xoxo
vulnerability
Early last week (after an interesting handful of days), I typed the word ‘vulnerable’ into the search tool at a local bookstore. Five minutes later, I had Daring Greatly by Brene Brown in my hands. Fifteen minutes later, I was spilling chai all over the book. (I was already sold, but that sealed it) Two hours later, I was watching her TED talk…
getting it together
Ok, so one month is long enough for my “yes, please winter wonder” (see previous post) retreat. I spent much of this time writing, walking/skiing/hiking in the crisp air, focusing on defining my priorities, cravings and action steps for this year (thanks Holiday Council), writing, experiencing a lot of serendipitous moments, going on a mostly spontaneous New Years day venture where I came face to face with myself and my demons, listening to my heart and writing. Did I mention that my journal was open a lot? One important and wonderful thing that I discovered during this time is that this blog is aligned perfectly with what is important to me right now. I crave moxie. And three of my top priorities for the year are health, creativity and balance. And so I am back in blogland and ready to pursue my passion and to do more, share more and grow more here.
About a week ago, I was staring at an emotionally filled journal page when this song popped up on pandora. I was dumbfounded. Many of the words that fill this song were the same as the exact words filling my page. It feels like this song was made just for me at this very moment of my life. It will be hard to convince me otherwise as I get it together, heal my heart and learn to fly…
my morning moxie 