I think almonds are my favorite nut, but I won’t refuse a handful of cashew, pistachios or macadamia nuts.  Pecans and walnuts make it into many of my meals too.  Almonds though, are my savior.  I always have some in my bag for work.  They are quick and easy energy for those times I can’t get to my lunch in a timely manner. I also love the yummy milk they make.  It’s my milk of choice, for my cereal, smoothies, tea and baking recipes.

I recently read this great post about making your own almond milk.  I had no idea it was so easy.  Very cost effective and more nutritious as well (no weird additives).  Novel Eats has a great break down of cost too.

I only used a half cup of almonds, just to try it out.  It made about 3 1/2 cups of milk.  After straining you are left with the almond meal, which I didn’t want to waste.  So, I decided that it would make a great face scrub.  You can use it on its own by putting a small amount in your hand plain or with a couple of drops of honey and add a bit of water.  Make a paste and scrub up your pretty face.

I made my own yummy smelling scrub instead. Here’s my recipe (modified from Family Herbal):

1/4 cup almond meal (from the almond milk making process or you can use dry by grinding up some raw almonds in a food processor)
1 tablespoon white kaolin clay
1 tablespoon oatmeal
1 heaping teaspoon  dried lavender
1 heaping teaspoon crushed dry rose petals
1/2 tsp poppy seeds

Combine oats, lavender and rose petals in a food processor or coffee grinder and grind up to a fine/course consistency.  Mix with almond meal, poppy seeds and clay until thoroughly combined.  Keep in an airtight  container in your fridge. If using all dry ingredients, refrigeration is not necessary. Use a small amount and add a bit of water to make a paste.  Add a few drops of honey for added moisturizing benefits.

This scrub smells heavenly!  I’ve been using it everyday for the last 4 days and my skins feels soft and nurished.  I will definitely be making more of this.

herbal vinegar, for use as hair rinse and facial astringent

I’ve been making my own shampoo, herbal vinegars and face scrubs.  I feel a little bit like I am making potions. A little Felix Felicis or Pollyjuice potion would be fun to make too, if only I could get the recipes (and a little magic).   Anyway, I’ve had a little bit of help with the basics of natural home and body potions with the following wonderful books.

1. Rosemary Gladstar’s Family Herbal: A guide to living life with energy, health and vitality.  This one is my favorite of the group.  It is truly a classic and Rosemary Gladstar is the mother of herbal body care. I love to just thumb through and read about all of the healthy and natural things you can make and do.

2. Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair by Dina Falconi.  This one is a nice compliment to the Family Herbal.

3. Make Your Place, affordable, sustainable nesting skills by Raleigh Briggs.  a completely wonderful and delightful little book with A LOT of good info on health & first aid,  non-toxic cleaning, body care and  gardening.

4. Clean Body: the humble art of zen-cleansing yourself by Michael Dejong. Learn all of the magical wonders of lemon, baking soda, salt and white vinegar.  It is all categorized by body part, which I think is pretty cool!  I won this one from Jessica at Green Mamma and I love it.  Thanks Jessica!!

This is what’s in my potions cabinet.  I have slowly adding to my collection of essential oils and herbs. I keep everything in a little basket so I can pull everything out when I need it.  Someday I’d love to get little apothecary jars for everything.

Also, I actually used this shampoo recipe (with chamomile and lavender) for me & the boys.  I love it so far. Next I am going to try to make lotion!!

Check out our sweet pototo that we have been growing.  He started budding in our pantry in early June and we popped hime into this cool little thrifted vase and he just took off.

We have never been successful at growing a potato.  S0 we are delighted that this one thrived. He was quite thirsty too.  Needed water almost daily–maybe because of our warm climate. We waited a little too long to get him in a pot.  The roots are crazy thick, started taking the shape of the vase.

While we were potting Mr Potato Plant, I decide to get some of my other new plants in pots as well.  A few of them are in biodegradable bamboo pots.  Kind of anxious/excited to see how those work out for us.

Now, does anyone know what will happen next. Will my potato plant give me a new potato?

mixed media on 8 x 10 canvas board

Let the sun warm you,
Let the wind carry you,
Let the Earth provide the path.

Some cool links:
Ms. Q’s 100 Little Ways to Live Green(er)
EtsyVeg: Fabulous Earth Day Sales
Earth Day finds on Etsy
Free digital issues of Cloth,Paper,Scissors and Quilting arts (for a limited time only)
Brown paper seed packet business card tutorial
Help Plant trees and enter to win a reusable shopping tote
Earth Day Crafting
Free digital issue of Vegetarian Times Magazine.
Grist says, “Screw Earth Day”,  on Threadbanger

***

May you celebrate the earth each and every day!

***

Nope.

Who’da thunk it would really rain.  I mean REALLY rain.  The wind kept getting stronger and stonger that we finally decided to stay home, much to the kids’ dismay.

Instead we set up the tent inside and the kids have been sleeping in it all weekend. We also roasted veggie dogs on our grill outside and ate some smores.

Saturday it rained so much that we did our own version of rainwater harvesting.  The kids ran around madly collecting the largest containers they could find. We also put up two other very large containers and collected  about 20 gallons total.  Water in Arizona is precious.

I hope you had a Happy Easter,

Hi,

I’m back from an unexpected little blogging break.  My mom was here last week and we spent some good quality time together with the kids.  I even pulled Super-E out of school one day so we could all have a little fun together.

We had a wonderful time and even did a little planting and terrarium making.  I have been really wanting to incorporate more plants into my home.  I had 5 plants, but dreamt of a magical, lush, green home environment. Plus, they are so good for your health! Unfortunately my cat loves to eat plants, which is one of the reasons I had so few.

Terrariums seem to be the perfect solution for a plant-eating, leaf-puking cat.  After getting THIS great book, I was inspired to start some terrariums of my own.  A little trip to the nursery and to the thrift store for cheap glass containers and we were in business.

I also replanted a few of my house plants into bigger pots and added some chocolate mint and a fern to my home collection. The mini cactus and succulents caught my eye as well. I have been swooning over this amazing succulent collection and I especially like this herb/succulent combo.

Maybe eventually, I can hang some plants from the ceiling to prevent that cat problem.

Now I don’t refer to myself as a hippie, though I think others might. Oh no,no,no!  I am clean, use deodorant, shave my legs and enjoy clean hair on a daily basis.  I do, however, really love this earth I live on and want to do all I can to protect and preserve if for my little guys. So, when planing our trip, we tried our best to tread lightly as we drove across 3 states to get from Arizona to Colorado.

We are extremely pleased with our efforts.

1.  We rented a Ford Focus instead of driving our own car.  Our veggie car probably wouldn’t have made it that far, plus we would have had to bring our own oil.  Our Subaru only gets 25 miles per gallon on a very good day so it made sense to rent a car with high mpg.  We averaged 40 mpg on this trip with the Focus.  The amount of money we saved on gas, nearly paid for the car rental.  It also saved our cars the wear & tear of 2000 miles.

2.  We stayed at a “green” hotel.  The Boulder Outlook was perfect for us and our eco-efforts. This hotel features a Zero-Waste system with available compost bags for food waste, recycle paper bins and co-mingle containers for glass and plastic.  They also use recycled paper products (toilet paper, cups, tissue, towels), biodegradable plastic forks and spoons and offer the option to not have linens and towels washed on a daily basis. Did I mention the pool?  It’s chlorine free!

3.  Since Boulder, CO is a bike & walking friendly community, it was easy to walk instead of drive.  We did so whenever we could.  We enjoyed the nice 80 degree weather and got some great exercise!

Now, if you would like to win one of my pillowcase totes, please head on over to GreenMamma.org.  The very wonderful Jessica has featured me as a Green Friend.  Her website is loaded with extremely useful advise on green living, especially if you have little ones in your life.  I learned so much through her website from baby safe products and gardening to attachment parenting and pet care and there is SO much more.  Go check her website out and don’t forget to leave a comment on her Green Friend of the Week post to get a chance to win!

First:  Thank you for all the kitchen love!!

Second:  Happy Earth Day!!! One of my favorite days of the year and I had to work.  Ah well, as my Super-E says, “it’s earth day every day!”  My little earth guys are so smart!

Right now, the weather here in Southern AZ has been incredible. We’ve been trying to spend as much time outside as possible, before it gets too hot.    Hiking, bird watching & desert exploring has been on the top of the list.

Ocotillo plants are hands down my most favorite desert plant.  They are in full bloom this time of year and the Sonoran desert is spotted throughout with bright bursts of orange.

 You can see where much of my color inspiration for my home decor comes from.

I hope you had a beautiful Earth Day!!!

It keeps getting better and better every week.  Week two was almost the same as week one, but with added spinach and bok choy.  This week we got some spinach, kale, bok choy, braising greens, spring mix, fava beans and baby purple onions.  We’ve been doing really well with eating everything we get.  We still have some arugula from last week, but it still looks fresh and yummy.

Now, I’ve never had fava beans before.  We’ve been munching on them right out of the pod, but have no clue what else to do with them.  Any ideas?  I’ve got 2 lbs of them!

Today was our first pick up from our local CSA. We got ourselves some arugula, kale, spring mix, braising greens, petite lettuce head, garlic tops and radishes.

I am so pleased to be able to participate in this wonderful experience.  We are buying organic, fresh and beautiful produce from a farm only 4o minutes away. We met the founder of our local csa and the farm owner of Agua Linda Farms.  I just can’t express how good it feels to support these wonderful people.

What is even better, is that our kids get to experience this too.  It was so exciting for them (we built it up quite a bit) that when we got home with our produce, they were very eager to try it all.  It made my heart swell to see my little guys munch on radishes(!!) and fresh lettuce leaves.

We had an excellent dinner too.  Potatoes with kale, harvest grains (from Trader Joe’s) and mixed greens with balsamic vinegar/oil dressing.  It was delicious! Everything tastes better when you know exactly where it comes from. We will be visiting the Aqua Linda Farm on Saturday to see farming in action.