Morning Tea Time

Before the day blooms into another hot day.
Before the boys are up and ready for any and everything.
Before all the wonderful craziness, I make time for morning tea.

Outside, on my wee front patio, I sit.  With Harry Connick, Jr. crooning from my phone, I look out at the day.  By my side. a book to peruse and oolong tea from a great friend to sip.  I watch my neighbors walk their dogs and wave as they pass by.

Too quickly, Em and Ro are up and wanting first breakfast.  I better get out there now before they wake!
Happy Wednesday, Hettie

Avocado Face Mask

I spent this past weekend at Camp Blogaway in the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains connecting with some pretty fabulous bloggers (which I will highlight in the coming weeks), and left Camp with some amazing new food knowledge and many new food-loving friends.  It was great!!  But, and of course it's a small but, my skin was not great.  The dusty trails and higher elevation left my skin dry and in need of moisture.  Since I have sensitive skin to begin with, I am loathe to try chemical-laden products and prefer looking to mother nature instead.

California Avocados to the rescue!!  Did you know that California Avocados are rich in vitamin E, a vitamin that does wonders for your skin?  Instead of heading to a local drugstore for a moisturizing mask, I went to my kitchen instead and grabbed an avocado.  Here's the fast way to make an avocado face mask to perk your skin up! 

Grab a ripe avocado from the fridge and bring to room temperature.
While the avocado is warming up, warm up your face by placing a warm, wet washcloth on your face for a few minutes.  Take care not to scrub your skin-- we just want to open up the pores.
Cut avocado in half.  Peel half and place in a bowl, preserving other half for later.  Mash for a few minutes.  Optionally, at this point you may add 1 tablespoon of ground oatmeal for more of an exfoliant effect (see Calming Bath Soak for more info).
Smooth avocado on face (and neck and upper chest if you want) avoiding the skin surrounding your eyes.  The mashed avocado is also great for the tops of dry hands.

Sit and relax, trying not to lick your face for 10 minutes while the avocado does its' magic.
Gently wipe clean with a warm, wet washcloth and you're set!!

The whole time I've been typing this post, I keep touching my skin to feel how soft and smooth it is-- mother nature magic!

Celebrate your rejuvenated skin with the other half of the avocado and slice for your favorite sandwich, salad or omelet.

What are resolutions anyway?

Happy New Year Everyone!

In catching up on so many wonderful blogs these past few days after a two week hiatus, I've noticed that many people do not like to make resolutions. I do. And I keep them... well, most of them anyway. And I think it might be the kinds of resolutions that I make that help me to keep them. So this year, I'm sharing some of them with you-- my 2008 promises to myself and the why's behind them.

#1- This pic is of me yesterday. Note my tiara-- a leftover from treating myself like a Queen at Camp GetAway. In my hand is a giant cup of my favorite mint tea. And on my feet are softening socks and warm booties. The babies are playing in their rooms for a bit and I'm giving myself a mask and listening to music. I never put myself first. I do everything for everyone else (lovingly!) and never take time for me. So this year, I am!

#2- Stop buying magazines. This is a resolution I made many years ago and I actually did not buy a single magazine throughout the entire year. That time, it was for clutter sake that I stopped. This year, it's for the environment. Besides, anything I'd get from a magazine I can find online anyway.

#3- Start a crafting business. In making gifts for everyone this year (over 40 gifts), I realized how much I like sewing, crocheting, painting, photographing and just creating in general. And, with each project, I get better and better. So, sometime in the first 6 months of this year, I'll be up on Etsy or some other site with my own little shop. My mom has her own shop, and makes these amazing works of art, so I am going to try to follow in her footsteps. I already craft every day with my children... so why not give it a go?!?!

#4- Read, read-to and be read-to more! Both munchkins are finding their love of books and I want that love to flourish. There are books all over this house... in every room (including bathtime reading!) except the closet, and I want to promote this lifelong learning and enjoying activity. It's as simple as that.

#5- Two new recipes a week. This is another old resolution that I'm bringing back. As a self-proclaimed intermediate chef and baker, I once racked up a collection of about 350 cookbooks. While I could happily say I've made something from every single one, I knew I didn't need them all. The first time I made this resolution, I either gave to friends, donated and/or sold half my collection! Some were just not my kind of book... some I had a better version of a recipe, some I knew I would never use past that one recipe. And, they went to good places and I don't miss them. But, after becoming a mommy and not having time to research recipes, I've become a little dolldrummish in my cooking. I make the same 20 or so things... and I'm bored, so this will spice things up for me and us at the dinner table.

#6- The last but most certainly not the least is cleaning up. Not in the way you're most-likely thinking though. Cleaning up to me means:

• Taking a bag to the park and picking up trash while I'm there.
• Freecycling and donating away the things I no longer "must have" for the sake of having. (And promoting this concept to receptive others.)
• Watching my water and energy and waste so that the earth gets a little recovery from our family. (All the Xmas wrapping you see in that pic above is recycled = less footprint)
• Stopping every awful piece of unwanted mail I can! Catalog stoppage, Direct Marketing Junk, Val-Paks I'll never use...

There's more, but I think you get the idea.
Sure, I also want to lose weight and all that... but these 6 are pretty good for me. They're on pretty pieces of paper in a few places throughout the house so I see them daily. By February, they'll become habit and easier to just keep and not resolve to do like a chore.
Do you have resolutions? What are they??