Thursday, May 29, 2014

THE SIMPLE LIFE: PURGING

The thing about moving (almost) halfway across the world is that I have to decide what does and does not come with me. For the past five months I have been making mental checklists and filtering through my belongings and deciding what I am keeping, storing or selling...in my mind. Now with five weeks before my departure date I realized mental lists are not going to make the task of purging my belongings any easier. 

I have been reading several blogs on minimalismsimple living, and mindful living, initially to adopt some of their principles to make relinquishing my worldly possessions easier but a lot of the ideas expressed by these individuals have really resonated within me. 

My first task was to get rid of the unnecessary, the non-useful and  the just plain ugly. Using this guide, I weeded through my entire wardrobe and at least half of what I owned is now piled in three large garbage bags beside my bed, awaiting pick up for donation. Clothing was the easy part, becoming a mother has necessitated a wardrobe change anyways, my books however were a different story. My once overflowing bookshelf is now more empty than filled, and even though it broke my heart to do so I filled two large cloth shopping bags of books for donation and curated the remaining titles until I had selected the forty-ish books that I had decided I could not bear to part with.     

These are just my first steps in the direction of more simple living, and they have been liberating. I am excited to implement the "less is more" philosophy into all facets of my life but it is definitely going to be a difficult process, but I think this move is the big push that I needed to get started.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

WEEKLY APPRECIATION: 0.2

Bean started solids this week, which was super exciting (well for me) and so far so good. I started him off with sweet potatoes and he seems to like it, he eats up his allotted tablespoon and seems to want more.


Granville island market granville island market
With family visiting we went down to the Granville Island public market to grab some lunch and groceries. I love the market setting, grocery shopping is one of my favourite activities and the market makes it that much better.

This post here.
For the past few weeks I have been reading through Leo Babauta's blog Zen Habits. I have been trying to embrace a more minimal approach in all aspects of my life (expect more posts on this in the near future). This particular post really spoke to me and the direction that I am trying to push myself in.

(Not Pictured)
This week my mother's parents have been in town staying with us and since becoming a mother myself I feel like I see them in a new light. They immigrated to Canada with 3 children back in the 1970's and built their lives here. They learned the Canadian way of living but still kept their Jamaican accents, they never lost sight of where they were from. I hope that when I get to his age I will have at least half the amount of stories to tell as my grandfather. As much I resist admitting it at times, family really is everything.

Friday, May 23, 2014

CHAI CONCENTRATE

I make chai concentrate on the regular, though not as much recently. It is probably my favourite hot and cold drink, and combination of spices is just heavenly. Depending on how I feel I tweak the amount of cardamom, ginger or cinnamon and always add a generous amount of vanilla. So here's goes...
(also my sorta-but-not-really recipe is included below)

First I decide what I'm putting into it today, generally it is some sort of combination of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, star anise, vanilla, nutmeg, orange peel (or zest), black peppercorn and sometimes if I feel like it, allspice (though I didn't use it today). 

Nutmeg is the only spice I use in ground form, mostly because I don't have any whole ones but even if I did I would have to grate it anyways so this is just easier.

pic name pic name
I ended up using some ground cinnamon since I only had 3 cinnamon sticks left, so I just added about 1/4 of a teaspoon. I don't have anything to say about the star anise other than I love just looking at it, it's pretty.

I buy this honey from a little family owned bulk store near my house, it's locally sourced which I like, unpasteurized and delicious. I've gone through 3 containers of this stuff in the last 3 months. As a side note, I also use it as an ingredient in my weekly face-mask and my skin feels super soft afterwards.


Recipe:

8 cups of water
8 black tea bags
3 cinnamon sticks + 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
some cardamom seeds
6-ish whole cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
peel of one orange
grated chunk of ginger
3 star anise
1/2 vanilla bean pod + 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey

Put the water on to boil

Once i'ts boiling add everything except the vanilla extract and the honey and let it steep for however long you feel like (if you are like me then around 20-30 minutes because you are too distracted playing with the baby, otherwise 15 minutes would probably do).

Now that it has steeped, stir in the honey and vanilla extract and begin to strain the concentrate into whatever container it is going to be kept in.

Last step isn't necessary but you're probably going to drink it right away, hot or cold. So drink away.

To serve pour a 1:1 ratio of concentrate and whatever milk (be it cow's or almond or whatever) and either heat it up or drop a couple ice cubes into it
I wouldn't keep this for much longer than a week in the fridge, but lets be real it won't last that long in there anyways.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

WEEKLY APPRECIATION: 0.1

I want to try to do like a weekly round-up type thing of the good, happy things from my week, whether they be events, pictures, blog posts etc. I see these a lot on other blogs and they are probably one of the posts I look forward to reading the most. This is isn't necessarily the title I will keep, I'm just giving it a go.

My first Mother's Day card, from my grandparents. It's just a surreal feeling still, being a mom.

It was finally sunny enough to spend the afternoon outside, so I brought the exersaucer outside plopped Bean into it a took in the sun (in Batman shorts nonetheless).


The warm weather also meant that it was officially time for the first frozen yogurt outing of the year.

And last but not least, the cookbook for my favourite neighbourhood bakery Butter, and this one is a double whammy as I had ordered it on Amazon at the beginning of the week and it arrived on my doorstep 2 days later! Extra points for super fast delivery without me paying more.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

TEA

I drink tea, like a lot of tea. I would say that drinking tea is one of my defining characteristics, or rather that I drink tea instead of coffee. After each paycheck while I was pregnant I would allot myself enough money to buy myself 50g of a non-caffeinated tea from Davids Tea, so in the 6 months that I was working I built myself quite a little tea collection. Now with less than 8 weeks until my departure I've been upping my tea consumption is order to finish off all my remaining bags of tea, above are the 7 bags I have left.

From left to right
1. The Earls Garden: Early Grey and strawberry
2. Mint Chocolate Rooibos
3. Rooibos de Provence: Rooibos, lavender and black current
4. Vanilla Orchid: Oolong with hints of vanilla
5.Organic Razzmatazz: Raspberry herbal blend
6. Midsummers Night Dream: Citrus and mint herbal blend
7. Organic Sweet Dreams: Chamomile, lemongrass, hibiscus herbal blend

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

JUST THE GOODS

Now that I am essentially a stay-at-home mom, I have had a lot of spare time (you know, between feeding, diaper changes, play-time etc) and I have been using this time to explore different ranges of beauty products. Just like any young hopeful mother I am hoping to reduce my carbon footprint with cloth diapers, and natural baby products but I realized it's pretty hypocritical to stick to those values with my child but not with myself. While I am not entirely convinced that purely natural/vegan skin care is should be the be all and end all of my beauty regimen, I am definitely interested in expanding my horizons and giving some of these products a go.

I came acrossthis post on Vancouver blogger, Emily of This Rawsome Vegan Lifeand I decided I would take the plunge and order the face sample kitfrom "just the goods" based in Manitoba, Canada. I ordered the set for dry skin, as well as 4 body butter/lotion samples and when I received my package a small vial of perfume was included as well. So far everything smells wonderful, the toner and cleanser have a distinct lavender smell whereas the moisturizer is definitely chamomile, and the rest of the other samples are listed below. I'm super excited to give these a go.

face wash, moisturizer, vegan, toner, lip balm, body butter, foot butter, perfume


6. vegan whipped body butter in pink grapefruit & black pepper and vanilla & clove

Friday, May 02, 2014

HELLO

I have been putting off writing my introductory post for this blog for several weeks now, and in the end chose to abandon it all together and go with something different for my first post. Sundays post was me announcing a new chapter in my life, where I am taking responsibility for my own happiness, now I would like to tie that in to why I decided to start a blog. In about 2 months I will be moving overseas to be with the father of my child but leaving everyone else I love behind. It is both a sad and exciting endeavor and I constantly flick back and forth between both emotions as the departure day draws nearer. This blog is for me, to express myself and encourage my creativity while I settle in and begin my new life, and it's for my family and friends to keep up to date with my life, my sons life and to give them piece of mind in regards to me being so far away. I do not know what I will end up writing about, I do not know what direction this blog will take me but I would like to figure it out.