Burning Man Gifts & Book Club

Do you ever hear your friend’s talk about an experience and think, “I want to do that too!!” And I had that same reaction when my friends were talking about Book Club, hard pass on going to Burning Man.

TL;DR

Find my friends at burning man, they will have lip/body balms
Book club read: High Achiever by Tiffany Jenkins, a true story about addiction

Burning Man Principles

Assorted lip and body balms — Homemade Balms Flavors: Calm, Peppermint, Orange made by Tanya & Patricia, the metamorphic, butterfly burners

To be a fly on the wall as your friends plan for Burning Man is fascinating. You get to see the practical aspect of packing what they need to survive and the creative side of what they’ll share and wear.

The playa has a gifting economy, to help people stay moisturized, they’ve made 150 tubes of a lip and body balm with “secret messages” in the colored letters. If you are going to Burning Man, I hope you find my friends at the red lampshade creperie camp. They have surprise food gifts and these lovely balms in 3 flavors.

Burning Man (remote)

My ideal Burning Man experience is one I can enjoy from the comfort of home while navigating through the playa via an iPad controlling a drone or GoPro’s live streaming from my friends camelbacks or bikes. I would love to tune into different cameras and be a commentator for the artwork and experiences. To be able to turn on sights and sounds from different neighborhoods like you were flipping channels on TV. I finally understand why kids watch other kids play video games on YouTube or Twitch.

Why Book Club?

Along the lines of living vicariously, I joined my best friend’s Book Club to be exposed to books I wouldn’t ordinary select and to explore topics that make me uncomfortable, to continue learning and growing. The first book, definitely hit my book club goals.

LIGHTWEIGHT BOOK REPORT

The book we read was called High Achiever by Tiffany Jenkins. The book was a difficult read because it dragged you painfully into the main character’s addiction and withdrawal. It brought me to a dark place and sadly, made reading incredibly unpleasant because I tend to experience the main character’s feelings as the story progresses. While it made me uncomfortable, I empathized with the struggles reading from a junkie’s point of view. Even though it wasn’t a fun read, I’m grateful for the chance to discuss such a difficult subject with intelligent women. I was impressed with how open people were with personal experiences which paralleled the book. I loved hearing everyone’s opinions and how the book affected them.

I love reading because it allows you experience life outside your comfort zone; to travel, to be rich or poor, see life through different ethnic lenses, and learn from the journey in the book.

This book taught me empathy and patience because you never know what people are struggling with. You often don’t know the pain they are recovering from or covering up. You never know how your words or actions can uplift or crush the people around you.

Eats

First Course

Assortment of 5 cheeses and 3 crackers
Spicy Fig Jelly
Red Pepper Jelly
Habanero Pork Rinds
Spread (ramen, Szechuan beef, flaming hot cheetos, jalepeño Fritos)

Second Course

Jasmine Brown Rice
Zoodles with Crushed Tomatoes, Corn, & Cilantro
Dry Rubbed Chicken Thighs

Dessert (not pictured)

Berry Trio
Homemade Whipped Cream (heavy cream, vanilla, cinnamon, & coconut palm sugar)

Technology Used

Samsung Galaxy S8
Evernote to write and edit
WordPress app to layout and publish

No excuses, use that little computer in your hand to blog. I wrote and edited this post after book club, while watching stand up comedy on Netflix.

If you must watch TV, create while you consume. ~Cheryl

DIY: Homemade Honey Facial Cleansing Scrub / Mask

The oil cleansing method was my DIY experiment until this morning. I was browsing Pinterest and this honey facial cleanser caught my attention. Honey has great healing properties and it’s moisturizing. It’s especially useful during the winter when the heater dehydrates your skin.

I needed a container for this new cleanser so I dumped out an almond scrub sample from either Sephora or Ulta. Then cleaned out the container, dried it and added baking soda halfway up the container. Next, I heated raw organic honey for about 30 seconds in the microwave, except the honey container melted…grrrr!! Thankfully, I had a brand new container of raw unfiltered honey which was in a pourable state so I squeezed out enough to fill the container with room to mix the honey and baking soda together.

Honey Facial Cleansing Scrub / Mask
2 tbsp baking soda
2 tbsp raw unfiltered honey
2 oz container

Add the baking soda and honey to a clean glass container and mix it all together. This should be enough cleanser to last about a week.

How to Use Honey Facial Cleansing Scrub/Mask
Scoop some of the honey mixture into your hands, spread it over your face before jumping into the shower. Do your shower routine, then lightly rub the honey mixture into your skin, focusing on areas you normally get blackheads, then rinse off.

The steam from the shower will let the honey sink into your skin to help moisturize and heal. Then the baking soda will help decongest your pores as your rub it into problem areas.

What’s your favorite winter skincare routine?

DIY Toilet Fizzies

Large toilet fizzies, you should store them in a glass container with a lid

I’m not the crafty mom, who makes everything perfect the first time. The first attempt at making toilet fizzies “BOMBED” badly, I dropped the fizzie in the toilet and it sunk to the bottom, no fizzing at all. I had good smelling baking soda rocks that I should have kept as room deodorizers except I was mad and threw them out.

The original recipe probably didn’t work because I had too much liquid from the soap coloring. I wanted to use soap coloring so they weren’t boring white disks sitting on top of the toilet.

The recipe below is the one I had success with and it definitely fizzes once you drop them into the toilet. Links to the original recipes are in the sources below. I made 2 sizes a tablespoon size and 1/2 cupcake size for bigger deodorizing and cleaning jobs.

For the essential oil, I ordered a pink grapefruit oil on Amazon which was on backorder and being impatient, I went to Michael’s the next day to buy a tropical passion essential oil. The picture shows the fizzies in a glass bowl, you really want to get a glass container with a lid. I was wondering why that was necessary, then I realized when people shower, the bathroom gets moist and you don’t want the fizzies to get wet because they stick together and the citric acid will start fizzing away. So use a glass container with a lid or a sandwich bag if you don’t care how it looks.

Items Needed

Bowl
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Parchment Paper
Cookie/Baking Sheet
Cupcake or brownie pan (optional)
Silicone Molds (optional)

Store the bombs in a container with a lid. Include a note so your guests don’t end up eating them. “Dropped a bomb? After you flush drop in a toilet fizzie to deodorize. :)”

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Sources:
Toilet Fizzies from Marisself
Toilet Fizzies recipe from Savvysugar — this recipe did NOT work for me, it’s the first one I tried to make.

How to Make Cold Brew Iced Coffee

This morning, I had a craving for cold brew coffee except I didn’t feel like getting a babysitter for Bull (our very large pitbull) to make a trip to Trader Joe’s. After searching the web, there were two main recipes which sounded doable. The only bad thing about this plan was waiting at least 12 hours for coffee. Either way, I was pot committed, poker term meaning, you’ve already invested too much to turn back.

You might ask, if you have a coffee maker which can make hot coffee in 5 minutes, why wait 12 hours and spend all this energy for cold brew. The reasoning is the flavor of cold brew is smoother since it is less acidic than coffee fewer with hot water and because I love coffee. It also stays fresh for 5 days in the fridge if I don’t drink it all on day 1.

Meal preppers:
You can make a batch of cold brew on Sunday while you are prepping everything else. Portion the cold brew with almond or coconut milk and honey into individual mason jars so you can grab and go during the week.

COLD BREW COFFEE
2/3 cup coarse ground coffee*
2 water bottles (16.9 oz)
Pitcher or Mason Jar
*Coffee filter
*Mesh Strainer

Add 2/3 cup of coffee and two 16.9 oz water bottles to a pitcher or mason jar. It’s best if you freshly grind the coffee, it’s not a big deal if you don’t. Mix coffee grounds into water until it’s all wet. Cover and let sit on the counter for 12 – 18 hours. Put coffee filter in strainer over a bowl and slowly pour coffee through. Clean pitcher and pour strained coffee back into the pitcher.

Chill for ~1 hour.
Store in refrigerator for up to 5 days.

*Original ratio from the Noshon.it was 1/3 cup coarse ground coffee to 1.5 cups water, you can multiply based on the size of the container.

PALEO COFFEE
1 cup cold brew coffee
1/2 cup almond milk or coconut milk
Add honey to taste

BULLETPROOF COFFEE
1 cup cold brew coffee
1 cup almond milk or coconut milk
1 tbsp coconut oil or MCT oil (contains medium chain triglycerides which help with fat burning)
1 tbsp grass fed butter or ghee (Kerrygold butter can be found at Trader Joe’s or Costco, Trader Joe’s has ghee)
1 tbsp raw, unfiltered honey (I found mine at Costco)

Put everything in your favorite kickass mug, microwave for about 1 minute or so depending on how hot you like your coffee. Then use a blender or frother to mix, this makes it like a super creamy, frothy latte.

http://instagram.com/p/jwg3T1ryrG/

UPDATE:
I’m the laziest cook EVER so of course I found a couple shortcuts.

SHORTCUT 1 — FRENCH PRESS
If you have a French Press, you can use that to steep your coffee on the counter, DON’T PUSH THE PLUNGER DOWN until you are ready to strain the coffee into the pitcher you are storing in the fridge.

SHORTCUT 2 — NUT MILK BAG
If you have a nut milk bag, you can put the coffee grounds into the bag, place that into your pitcher or mason jar and then pour your water over. Eleven hours or so later, you can pull the nut milk bag out and then set the pitcher in the fridge.

Put the coffee grounds into the nut milk bag, then place in the pitcher or mason jar.

Add water to the pitcher and let it steep on the counter for about 11 hours.

Let me know which of these methods you’ve used to make your own cold brew, enjoy!

Sources:
Noshon.it Best Cold Brew Iced Coffee
Chow.com’s Basic Cold Brew Coffee

No Excuses Workout

Why are there days where I am just glued to the couch, watching TV or reading? It seems all the fall shows and stacks of books I want to consume are conspiring to make me a couch potato. Well, not this year, I’ve got all my fitness stuff scattered behind the couch to get my bootie in gear.

We have about 90 days before the year ends and for some reason, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to lead a fitness challenge to get in the best shape EVER before the the year ends. Some days, I kick ass and other days I want to kick myself. Anyway, one of the goals for the fitness challenge is to exercise for at least 30 minutes, 6 days a week, totally doable, right? Not so much on colder days, when comfy sweats and my favorite blanket are much more inviting than getting all sweaty. On days I don’t want to workout, I set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes and head out the door for a walk/jog or do body weight workouts like burpees, push-ups, scissor kicks, planks, squats, tricep dips and jumping jacks. I moved the stepper, exercise ball and bands to the living room to workout while watching TV.

So last night I had the PERFECT excuse to skip my workout, I was making dinner and while cutting a baguette for garlic bread, the knife slipped and cut my finger. I had to ask Mark to wrap my finger because blood was dripping all over the bathroom sink. It’s crazy how a little cut could produce so much blood! Part of me said, “you should probably skip the workout so you don’t bleed to death” while the other said, “don’t be a wimp, nobody ever died from a kitchen cut.” Anyone else have this constant battle inside your head where part of you wants to workout except your body doesn’t want to move?

Anyway, after he wrapped my finger, I finished making a paleo version our meal. Then about an hour after dinner, I put on my heart rate monitor and went to the park to go jogging. This time, I managed to jog 2 miles nonstop and came home 30 seconds faster than the last time. The best part was I felt like I could breathe like a normal person instead of like a crazed zombie.

No Excuses Workout
Cardio: 30 minute walk or walk/jog around the neighborhood
OR
BEGINNER: REPEAT 2x, take breaks as needed
INTERMEDIATE: REPEAT 3x
75 jumping jacks
25 squats
50 leg levers (beginners: do this with knees bent)
75 jumping jacks
50 sit-ups
25 burpees

The body weight exercises usually take about 30 minutes to do 3 rounds, a little longer depending on how many breaks you take. That’s it, don’t forget to drink 64 oz to a gallon for water a day!

It’s not too take to join the fitness challenge, email, FB, tweet or leave your email in a comment.

4 Minute Paleo Chicken & Kale Sauté

Eating good doesn’t need hours in the kitchen, here’s a 4 minute chicken and kale sauté. During meal prep, I shredded a rotisserie chicken, chopped tomatoes and other veggies and put them in containers. When I need to make a quick breakfast or lunch, I just heat up a pan, add a good fat and sauté meat and veggies.

Ingrdients
1 rotisserie chicken – shredded
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 handfuls of kale or your favorite vegetable
Cracked black pepper
Sea salt
Chopped tomatoes
Green salsa – I use the green salsa from Trader Joe’s

Heat the coconut oil until it’s melted, toss in a couple handfuls of kale, add cracked black pepper, sea salt and minced garlic and saute for about 2 minutes. Next add the shredded chicken and saute for another 2 minutes to heat the chicken.

You can replace the chicken with leftover meat you have on hand and swap out the kale for your fav veggie. Enjoy!