Should I Freeze My Cheese?

If you've never experienced Dr. Bronner's Castile Soaps, I highly recommend giving it a try! You can use any type of castile soap for this body wash recipe, but I am a fan of Dr. Bronner's. They are fair trade, a B Corp, fair wage certified, and so much more! The formula is highly concentrated, so your bottle goes a long way: dilution is the solution! My favorite scents are lavender and almond, but I came across a jasmine sandalwood travel-sized bottle once that was so divine...bring it back please Bronner's? I started making my own body wash because I was tired of synthetic fragrances. My go-to had been tropical coconut scented soaps, but I wanted to try something new. It's been fun to experiment and customize a personal scent! Here's the base recipe: 3/4 cup Castile Soap 1/2 cup Carrier Oil 1/2 cup Honey ***optional: 15-20 drops essential oil My method is to add the first three ingredients to a bullet style blender to really emulsify everyth

I've been brainstorming lots of things to write about and prepped some posts, but struggled with carrying these out. I just rushed to take a quick picture, but this post will be less visual for now. Today's tip: break in a t-shirt and gently dry your hair. I'm looking at curly heads in particular! There are various methods to break in t-shirts, from (wash and wear)repeat to salt water baths, but if you couldn't already tell...I'm a multitasker! This isn't an overnight process, but in the meantime it's a great way to dry your hair and not spend extra $$$ on a hair turban.  The method: open your t-shirt from the bottom and wrap up your head post-shower. Even better: use your t-shirt to gently squeeze water from your hair. Don't rub! Go easy on your hair, and rubbing will lead to frizz.  The t-shirt will get worked in as you use it, getting a lot more wear and use than sitting in your wardrobe all stiff and uncomfortable. You'll notice it get

Since I'm staying home, it's a great time to do a little product testing! Especially if that product is deodorant. I'd hate to be mid-shift lifting my arm to pull a tap handle and find out my deodorant isn't doing it's job! Here is the line up... (I did not feature the popular Native brand here because, although I've tried it, I personally wouldn't recommend it. The formula was too harsh for my skin.) **I will link all the brands to their websites if anyone wants to deep-dive into ingredients and brand info!  First up: Lavanila : "the healthy deodorant" This is one of my favorite brands, tried and true! I find it at TJ Maxx, so it's easy on the wallet too! Full price is $12-$14, but I've found it from $6-$8. My favorite scent so far is Coconut Vanilla. Lately I've only been able to find Vanilla Blackberry, but they all smell nice. There are a variety of smells (I would love to try the elements collection!), but they all

Hey y'all! This'll be a quick tip this week, but I'd like to keep doing these twofers. This one uses a near-empty honey jar. Honey is something I use pretty much every day, so much that I have a couple of posts lined up involving honey! Local honey is best, so nowadays I buy Asheville Honey Company raw honey. Once you have used most of the honey and you are at the point of scraping the sides, make yourself some tea. Once your tea has cooled a bit, pour it into the jar. Use caution, because glass can crack if the liquid is too hot! Close the jar and give it a good shake. You'll use all of the honey, have a sweet delicious tea you can drink hot or ice it up, and then your jar will be ready to rinse out and reuse!  via GIPHY Good to the last drop! Thank you bees!

Today's hairstyle was actually the original inspiration for my faux hawk braid . It started as just an upside-down dutch braid into a ponytail, and then the ponytail became a braid, and I figured out how to add another one in and BAM! Three braids, one style! I'll walk you through it in the video: I can't wait til the honeysuckle bloom and the fireflies come back and my porch will reach it's peak magic. Until then...

Maybe it's from growing up in the 90's watching Hook and idolizing Rufio, but I love a bold hairstyle! I never thought I could pull off a faux-hawk, but one day I just did it and walked out the door owning it!  I explain in the video that this style uses a dutch braid, aka an inside-out braid. This means you create a french braid, but instead of weaving your hair on top of the middle strand, you pull it under. And for some reason, for me this is easier to do upside-down. I have been using this technique for a while now taking the braid up the back, stopping, and gathering my hair into a ponytail. Instead of stopping here, I just kept going until I had braided all of my hair. You then fold the tail under and pin it into the braid.  If your braid looks a little weak and not too full, you can gently pull the braid and fluff it a bit. This is called "pancaking". And there ya go! Happy braiding!

With all of this time being home, I'm surprised that my house isn't sparkling clean by now... via GIPHY Did anyone else assume staying at home would lead to a thorough Spring cleaning? I've definitely done a lot of tidying, but since I'm staying in place I am constantly creating new messes.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Fortunately, I have some tips on making the most of day-to-day tasks! Let's kick it off with.... Coffee! Because it gives us the kick we need to be productive! It's a good idea to occasionally clean your coffee maker for many reasons: for starters, the machine can be a breeding ground for mold and other nasties; then there are probably stray grounds and mineral build-up affecting flavor and how well your machine is working. So let's take care of it! First: give the whole thing a nice wipe-down on the outside! Wipe down the burner, make it all shine! Second: Get some White Vinegar. You can also buy cleaner that's made especially for your

If you missed Part I, start here ! So I am in my house, feeling gratitude for my surroundings and safety at this time. This is the first step, and recognizing gratitude can feel like a big steaming pile of BS when you are too busy spiraling over lack of control. At least, that has been my experience as a person with anxiety! Here's a handy visual that's gone around with examples of things we can and cannot control: Things I can control from r/nyc It seems a little contradictory to me that I'm agreeing to limit social media when I've just decided to share a blog, but I'm going to focus on the fact that I want to share positive, helpful things here. Focusing on things where we get to decide the outcome for ourselves can remind us to be present and intentional. Another helpful tool has been yoga! I really enjoy Cole Chance 's channel on Youtube, but I am open to any of my friends sharing their practices too! I also like doing Tai Chi, or just turning on so

One of my #1 #hairgoals was inspired by the movie Practical Magic.  Watch the movie and tell me Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock aren't, well...magical! When they aren't looking effortlessly cool and tousled, they also wear simple braids like in this iconic scene: via GIPHY (By the way, if anyone wants to Zoom meet and do midnight margaritas, I'm totally down!!) Pretty much I let my hair grow out to channel some bewitching/mermaid style, so I'm having fun with it until I'm ready to go back to short and lower maintenance! I'll start with a video of how I like to combine a twist and a side braid. I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that I'll save for another day...

A lot of people are pointing out how cushy this isolation period is: stay home, watch TV, read, start a fun hobby or project, eat snacks... boy, sure is rough! What some people might be forgetting is how privileged that mindset is. So many are struggling finding a balance as they work from home and homeschool their kids, and some are having to cope with being laid-off. That's a lot of stress and fear. I've gone through periods where I wasn't sure if I'd make the next month's rent...and that was without an invisible virus lurking over my shoulder! It takes a toll on mental health when you don't have that security of knowing you have a place to live in the future because you can't help but worry. I'm incredibly fortunate that I still have a job and income to pay my bills right now. It hasn't always been easy, but right now I do feel valued by New Belgium and have so much gratitude that I am not burdened with added stress right now. And if I were to

It wasn't that long ago I was at work, keeping busy and setting goals, and wishing I had more time to get to other projects... Careful what you wish for, right? I'm not sure how long this will last, but I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of my ideas and document these strange days! It's that or rewatch Broad City and Scrubs, which I may or may not be doing anyway while I am writing this... A little backstory: the name for this blog came to me when I bought a huge block of Cabot cheddar at Sam's Club on one of my final errand days, only for my husband to come home with various sliced lunch cheeses (unbeknownst to me). I try to practically problem solve things with a positive spin, so I start thinking of ways to make this bounty of dairy last. And since I also like to share my ideas and bounce them off other people, here we are on Blogger! This marks the beginning of a new adventure, a new era, and a time where everyone might finally start washing the