Autumn Nights

"I heard the wind rustling the leaves on the trees outside, making their newly crunchy brown existence fall to the ground. I felt the cool autumn breeze come through the window lightly brushing my curtains forward into the room revealing the crimson autumn sunset outside. For a moment my warm indoor sanctuary became one with the cool autumn evening outside. I intuitively cuddled closer to him, his body both comforting and warming. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent: fresh apple cider along with a light smell of nature mixed with his natural scent. It's in these moments that I appreciate having all of my senses. In this very moment I am enjoying smell, hearing, vision and physical feeling. All I was missing right now was a sense of taste. I quickly kissed him than took a sip of my warm apple cider. I felt entirely content in this space of time. This moment right here, right now. I may not feel content forever, but right now I'm choosing to fully experience this moment with every one of my senses. This is the essence of bliss." I hope you enjoyed that very tiny short scene above I wrote for you. I am so excited about this recipe that I wanted to post it to my blog right away! But I first wanted to paint a picture for you with my words. It's amazing how using a small amount of creativity can morph into mountains of creativity that you forgot even existed within you. Anyway, onto the important stuff - Spiked (or not spiked) Homemade Apple Cider! I was inspired to make apple cider at home and then spike it with the delightfully cinnamon-y whiskey: Fireball. I surely hope you enjoy this! Also if you want to mix it up you could make the apple cider along with pumpkin puree and have a delicious pumpkin version of the same drink! Recipe is below! I apologize for my terrible photography skills...

-Homemade Spiked Apple Cider-

Ingredients:

5 Cups Fresh Apple Juice

1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1/4 tsp Ground Cloves

1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon (or more to taste)

3 Allspice Berries

9 tbs Fireball Whiskey (optional)

Add all ingredients into a pot and heat till boiling, stirring occasionally. Once juice is simmering set timer for 10 minutes and continue to stir on occasion keeping a close eye on it. If you are omitting the fireball whiskey I recommend adding at least twice as much cinnamon while this simmers.

Once the 10 minutes are up, strain the cider through a cheese cloth. In each mug add 3 tbs of fireball whiskey (add less or more if you'd like - 2 tbs is equal to one shot - we found this to be a good taste ratio). If you want to serve cold then serve over ice. We enjoy this warm on a cool autumn evening.

Again I'm no professional recipe developer, but I was inspired and this turned out great! Have a cup of this cider with some Cinnamon Chocolate Swirl Banana Bread from The Paleo Kitchen. (Both the recipe and the book are linked BTW) Enjoy!

Mysterious Ways

The line currently playing through my head over and over is from the new Ed Sheeran song Thinking Out Loud that says "I'm thinkin bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways, maybe with just the touch of a hand. Well me, I fall in love with you every single day...". There are so many lines in that song that I just LOVE. Plus his gorgeous voice and the melody. I've been listening to it nonstop. You should really go listen to it and watch the video because there are some seriously killer dance moves up in thurr as well. That's where today's title is from. And that's where I am today. It's kinda gloomy and rainy outside, I'm at work, and just loving this song. I really just LOVE it. #swoon When I listen to it I gets chills, and think about how lucky I am to have an amazing man in my life. We're coming up on our 5 YEAR marriage anniversary which is on Tuesday October 14th. Originally we wanted to take a trip at the end of October to celebrate but we put in our passport applications a bit too late so it looks like we'll be going early next year, maybe in January or February, we'll see! Regardless we have a long weekend coming up for Columbus Day and I'm excited to spend it with him doing something or other! I also might go to a winery with some of my work friends. Also it looks like I might be baby sitting my bestie's son. He's so cute, he makes me want a baby of my own. Like now. OH and I'm lucky enough to have been selected as a bridesmaid in my friend Lauren's wedding which is next weekend. So there's a lot of busyness coming up very soon. We are meeting this weekend to hash out some of those final details. I can be so mushy sometimes it blows my mind. Literally while driving in the car yesterday I was thinking about Lauren and David getting married, and just how happy I am for them and started crying a little. Not bad crying by any means. But just little happy tears. I really only get like this when I'm alone. I have trouble showing my softy touchy side when I'm around other people. Dunno why. Maybe a defense mechanism or something, who knows! But hot damn talk about silly girly crying. But I really am so happy for them. For realz.

Moving on...

Right now is that awkward 'in between' season where not ALL of your normal TV shows are back on but they're gradually making their way back into the screen through cable, hulu, netflix and otherwise. I watch a lot of shows so it's pretty exciting to see them all come back and actually have new episodes sitting in my hulu queue. Also over the past month or so I've watched an entire season of Supernatural, Psych, and almost the entire SERIES (season 1-7) of Californication. I'm not quite done with that one yet though, but still... Pretty impressive no? That's what I've been doing instead of blogging and cleaning...

Also  football is in full swing and we've been going out to enjoy happy hour and watching the games a lot. OH and amazing cider discoveries at Total Wine- The Fall Harvest Woodchuck tastes just like Apple Pie! Yay for apple and squash season!

     

The seasons are a changing! The color of the leaves are starting to change, kids are back in school, the future looks bright and gosh I have to wear a jacket outside! I LOVE autumn. I used to hate it... Like really I hated it because it meant that the weather was gonna start getting cold which is just yuck right? But what a pessimistic way of looking at a season. While I must admit that I still loathe the winter time and all the cold sadness it brings, I've learned to love and enjoy the in between time. I now appreciate so much about autumn. Cute autumn decor for my house, nice burgundy and rich orange colors, leather jackets, regular jackets and blazers, cute boots and scarfs… Gosh I mean the weather is beautiful! Lightly chilly but not freezing. We're not at winter hats and mittens yet (THANK GOD). This season reminds me of new beginnings. New and exciting things are to come. Time for change and forward progression. Life goes on. Summer ALWAYS ends and autumn always comes (at least if you live in this area).

Speaking of new beginnings a few personal notes on this topic:

1) I am back on track with my eating! YAY! I'm finally getting back to SUPER clean eating after a small break of not AS clean eating. Woop! I am back on the wagon ladies and gents.

2) I've been thinking a lot about my future... Doing research and contacting people in hopes of taking ballet classes again. I want to perform. I need to perform. In theory I'd like to join a small ballet company but first and foremost I need to get back into the studio for plain ol' class. It's been WAY TOO LONG and I miss it. I'm trying to make this happen but gosh it's so much harder than it sounds. Plus the thought of taking class literally gives me anxiety. I care WAY too much about what other people think.

3) I've been THINKING about partaking in a bikram yoga competition in January... The studio I attend Pure Om Fairfax is starting competition training... And gosh I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to give it a try. I din't expect to place, I know I'm not the best, but I still think it would be a fun and awesome challenge. But I worry SO much about people judging me. I worry about telling the instructors that I'm interested and maybe they will think I'm crazy for wanting to try. Maybe they'll call me out for not attending class often enough or not having a practice that's "regular" enough. I don't know... But it's swirling in my head!

4) I got a new piercing! I got my tragus pierced. My beautiful sister in law Johanna has had her's pierced for years. I wanted to get a cool funky piercing and after weighing my options I decided that I wanted to get it pierced too. And I apologized for copying her now years after the fact. The piercing place gave me $10 off my next piercing. I'm thinking of getting my cartilage re-pierced on the opposite ear (I had it done with a piercing gun last time instead of with a needle-TERRIBLE idea... It was infected nonstop) and getting the third hole on my left ear to match my right ear. You wanted all these details right? ANYWAY it's exciting. I haven't gotten anything pierced since my belly button and that was in 2008. So yeah. The day after I got my tragus pierced (which also in case you were wondering did not hurt very badly at all) it bled kind of a lot. But Google tells me that's normal and I'll be alright... Progression of the pics below from left to right... Minutes after getting it done, the day after, then bleeding the day after, and finally, TODAY...

   

I have been cleaning the piercing twice daily, first with a warm epsom salt soak, than I spray with an organic raw apple cider vinegar and water mixture. 1 part ACV to 2 parts H2O should do. I didn't want to use anything unnatural on my ear and I think it's doing quite well!

5) I want to start this one off by saying that my husband Ernest pretty much hates tattoos. However, when our precious puppy Lulu was hit by a car at the young age of 2 and died a few years ago (it'll be 3 years on Jan 26th) he agreed that I could get a small one to commemorate her. There were other conditions to this as well, but I won't go into those! Long story short, I planned out a tiny paw print outline for my wrist but never went through with it. I have recently picked back up with the tattoo planning for my wrist but I'm thinking of going in a different direction. I loved my dog, and I will love the rest of the dogs I own (at least I sure as hell think I will) but I worry that a paw print tattoo- however meaningful- can be cheesy. Now if you have a paw print tattoo, please take no offense, I am just speaking for myself and my body. Because of this I have a lot of pressure to make this one tiny tattoo encompass all the meaning I need it to. Including love for my husband, my pets, my future children, myself, and this life... So I've been doodling and pinning. We'll see where it all goes! New beginnings right!

6) My coworker (and friend) and I were looking into possible career growth plans and we are both sort of interested in contracts. I already do some work with contracts and she and I looked up a certificate program which got us both super excited! However, the excitement quickly dwindled for reasons I can't speak of in a public setting... But why do life and career choices have to be so damn hard sometimes? Blahh

7) Another of my friends and coworker's had pretty major surgery last week on the chest area and I (and many of her other close friends and family) was helping her with the recovery. It's pretty cool to help someone make their life better. Not that I really did ANYTHING but making the tough decision to make a big change to make yourself happier (wow I just said "make" way too many times). Inspiring no? It can be so hard to know what we want and to just get over our fears and go for it. She's super happy now and damn I think she was brave as hell. I hope to have the same bravery in different ways for myself...! Like the whole ballet and bikram thing I mentioned above...

8) My car was rear ended in July (see below) and I've been going to the chiropractor 3 times a week pretty much since then. I am so happy to say that today was my last day of therapy on my neck and shoulders! This feels like an accomplishment at this point. Lame I know, but it's something. Also my car is finally back in tip top shape. YAY! :)

I suppose that's it for now really. I have some recipes to post for you my readers, and at some point and I promise I will get around to doing it.... At least eventually...! OH I should have my first Stitchfix waiting for me when I get home! I post about that more in detail later! If you actually take the time to read my ramblings, just know that I do in fact appreciate it...! I do! So thank you.

MUAH! Until we meet again.... Harmony

Third Time's the Charm

Third times supposed to be the charm right? Well I can’t say that’s true for everything since sometimes the first times perfect and who knows maybe the third is your worst attempt yet! That may indeed be the case with this post as I feel a strong lack of direction already. But hey… Here’s to hoping *raises cup of tea towards screen* Last week must've been a rather eventful week for me because I’ve found myself wanting to write a new blog post daily… But I’m trying to space them out a bit and leave at least a day or two between posts!! No one wants to read this much stuff coming out of my brain and I’m okay with that. I’m not sure if I mentioned in earlier posts but a few weekends ago I was out of town in NC with some of my lady friends and we participated in a fun bachelorette party with sunburns, ocean water, hot tubs, drinking -lots of it- some good ol ‘never have I ever’ and skinny dipping. All in all it was a great weekend despite the fact that I was actually not really looking forward to it beforehand. Sometimes my brain gets in a funk and I just have to deal with it and move on.

Moving on… Before leaving for the trip I had the bottoms of my hair highlighted a lighter blonde to create an ombre effect. I love how it turned out! This is one of the few ways I still use chemicals… (plus perfume and eye makeup) I get my hair professionally colored. Typically this is all dandy but with being at the beach and having all sorts of sun and waters drying out my hair I wanted to add some moisture back into it. So I put coconut oil in my hair. If you ‘no poo’ let me just say DON’T PUT OILS IN YOUR HAIR. I have yet to have a good experience with putting oils in my hair while no pooing because it doesn’t freaking wash out. You’ll have oily ass hair for days. DAYS I SAY! I promise I have a point behind this… I was walking around with hair that looked almost wet yet dry at the same time and gosh my hair felt gross…. At least to me. I didn’t exactly ask other people to touch it so who knows what they would think. ANYWAY I whipped out my hand dandy laptop and googled some oil free hair masks that are compatible with no pooing. And this blog is what I found: ALMOST EXACTLY.

I decided to go with the one containing ingredients I already had on hand… That’s avocado, ripe banana,  raw honey, and ACV. I drew a bath with Epsom salts (I do this almost every night before bed to get a dose of magnesium and relax) while putting the goop in my hair. It smelled pretty gross and looked quite yucky as well… As you can see below...

But hey I want nice hair so I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Get ready to see a lot of pictures of my face… And hair. Since I documented my step by step process in pictures! Get excited.

I sat in the bath watching The League for about 20mins than proceeded to RINSE the mask out of my hair per the instructions. I repeat: rinse. I rinsed for about 15mins or so just to make sure I got all of the goop out. I towel dried my hair and went to bed. When I woke up I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to wear my hair down until I no pooed again so I just put it in a nifty little fishtail braid. I can post later on how to do these but there are a bunch of great YouTube tutorials like this one you can watch to learn! That’s what I did a few years ago! Regardless, in my opinion I THINK this might have worked better if I had no pooed afterwards which I obviously didn't realize. But my hair could just be defective too. Totally possible.

And finally after doing bikram three times, Rinsing my hair twice and no pooing twice, these are my results… My hair does feel softer which is nice. I just wish the softness had come sooner like right after I performed this (kinda yucky) hair treatment… But hey now I know for the next time!

My coworkers took me out to a late birthday lunch at coastal flats on Tuesday (9/9/14) so it’s too bad my hair didn’t look ballin then. But I’ll survive I think. The food was delicious- I got a goat cheese and pecan salad and added rare tuna steak to it. SO YUM! I didn’t catch a picture because the lighting was terrible, my bad guys. I think there have been enough pictures in this post anyway. Lastly, Addy cakes got a bath:

And guess what? Addy no poo’s ALSO! That’s right… I use baking soda and ACV to clean my dog and her coat is freaking fantastic. Helps with itchiness and is a flea repellant also. That’s a win, win, win, win I think. No chemicals for me, no chemicals for my dog…. At least as much as I can…

Okie too much rambles here, I hope you found this post somewhat entertaining and/or helpful! Now on to greener pastures…. Speaking of green pastures and fermented cod-liver oil (the two things are synonymous in my mind) I think I might write about supplements next…! We’ll see where my brain takes us! But don't hold me to it!

Xo Harmony!

It takes two baybayy

Hello there again! I hope you enjoyed my first post, from here on out I’ll try to mix things up a little bit. I’m going to give you the past few days in review and try not to get too long winded! Who knows I might throw in some more tid bits here and there but I’m still new to this blogging thing and trying to figure out where I fit into this blogosphere and where I want things to go. Okay well I worked from home on Monday and the hubs and I went to Glory Days for a post birthday Happy Hour to watch the Monday night football game. It was Giants Vs Lions (I’m a patriots fan so you can stop reading right now if that offends you). Full disclosure here: I’m in a fantasy football league with my husband and some of our friends. I’m the only female in the league and last year I did HORRIBLY despite honestly having a pretty good lineup. We just finished week one with the games last night in which I had two players (Victor Cruz on the Giants and Larry Fitzgerald on the Cardinals) in play. They’re normally awesome players mind you best yesterday? They each only get me TWO POINTS! Needless to say I lost my game this week. My team is where good player’s careers come to die.

Another important note, while blogging and working from home yesterday (Monday) I had the show “The League” on all day in the background. That show makes me want to be amazing at fantasy football and gosh just makes me want to learn more about all the individual players. Super crude show. Also super funny if you like that sort of thing. But I’ll say it’s not for the sensitive type as it’s a bit… UH let’s say ‘out there’. But I love it! This is what I get for growing up with only brothers… Some guy like tendencies and sense of humor.

                                                                           

Okay enough about that… SO back to Happy Hour… I was not a very good healthy example at Happy Hour! I had two tall Angry Orchards (Gluten Free Apple Cider) on tap (they were only $3.99! Too good to pass up!) and I decided to splurge since it was my birthday and on my birthday the craziest thing I ate was freaking SUSHI. Which yeah, not so crazy besides the rice and sugar they put in the rice mixture. But I digress…. At happy hour we went with some boneless grilled wings (I’m sure the sauce had some sugar and crap in it) off the gluten free menu and I got a USDA Prime Beef and Bacon Burger on a Gluten Free bun with a side of steamed veggies. No condiments and no cheese. Now normally I’m SO good about being grain free. But again back to the whole wanting a birthday splurge thing, so I got a GF bun damn it! Now here’s where it really gets bad… We got a Gluten Free Chocolate Torte for dessert. Yes I know haters gonna hate, but it was quite yummy! You know what the funny thing is though?

               

I had so convinced myself that I was missing out on these things that I wasn’t eating that I thought having moderately SAFER or healthier versions of them would make me happy. In reality while eating them I realized that I would’ve been just as happy if not happier with a damn lettuce wrap. I also would’ve been totally happy not having the dessert. I’m not taking back the drinks though, those I enjoyed the hell out of to the last drop.

But I ended up feeling gross. My body physically felt gross because I ate lord only knows how many shitty things for me in those dishes, but then there came the guilt. The ‘why the hell did I do that to myself?’ I know feeling guilt about food is wrong, but my relationship with food is oh so complicated. I currently have an amazing relationship and control over my healthy food. My paleo/primal/ REAL FOOD lifestyle is awesome. I’m super happy with it honestly, despite the occasional frustrations and the fact that I’m still getting to know my body and working out the kinks it does make me happy living this way.

That being said I’m not over feeling guilt when I “cheat” on my ‘diet’ (I hate calling it a diet). For me “cheating” can even mean having something sweeter than a green apple or a green tipped banana (from 21DSD). I have hormone problems that I THINK are related to insulin, and my thyroid, therefore I try to avoid sugar in every way shape and form. I also take some supplements but I'll go into that another time. I feel good when eat this way. Sometimes I honestly don’t know the difference. But I know when I eat something sugary I feel bad which tells me something.

Then of course there are the breakouts. Possibly for me the MOST frustrating part of my “cheats”. It’s frustrating to see people being extremely unhealthy but having perfect skin. That’s literally 99% of the people I encounter in life. I love those people (at least the ones I know) but man! How annoying is that!? What I wouldn’t give to just have clear skin WHILE being healthy and making good choices. Sometimes the bodies we’re given feel like a freaking curse. But in other ways I know that I’m super blessed with my body. Who knows, if it wasn’t acne than maybe I would struggle with something else? Who’s to say really…?

Regardless this went in a direction I didn’t initially intend! One last note on my complicated relationship with food and why I like to describe it as complicated. If you remember from my previous post, I’m a ballet dancer on the inside. I may not dance regularly currently but there’s no getting that out of your system. I had YEARS of constant dieting in unhealthy ways and still never feeling good enough. I had years that I just knew I was huge (I wasn’t actually) but I couldn’t get over that. I’m glad to be in a better, healthy place now but there’s still a little person inside who’s terrified of getting fat. These things take time to heal and I’ll get there.

Sheesh I wanted a lighthearted post talking about just how much fun I genuinely had with my husband at happy hour (and boy did I have fun) but this took a different turn. Eating what I did was a liberating experience because realized that I’m NOT missing out. I’m making the decisions I want to make and they’re good ones. I’m doing what’s best for me and I don’t need to justify this to people, nor do I need their approval to eat what I know is best for me. I don’t need the crap in general. Period.

So my fictional readers, today appreciate your diet. Whether it be healthy or maybe not so healthy. Embrace the fact that we’re here on this earth and we can CHOOSE what we freaking eat. We are privileged as hell to even have information available to us to make good decisions. Don’t be ignorant, do your research. Care enough to think about what you’re putting into your life machine-your body. And just because you “can’t” eat things that others “can” doesn’t always mean you’re deprived. You may surprise yourself and realize that the things you keep wishing you could go back to eating and fanaticizing about… *Hold on make sure you’re sitting down for this one* aren’t actually as magical as you remember them to be. Sometimes, you might not even like them anymore because you KNOW BETTER, and so do your taste buds. And you like better. Hell, you LOVE better. And honestly that’s all we can ever strive to be: better than we were before. Don’t strive for perfection, perfection is in an opinion. Strive for your personal better, strive for forward progress or upward progress, or sideways progress but strive for progress. Live for your happiness, not a happiness defined by anyone OR anything else. Strive for YOU.

Rant over *drops mic and walks off stage*

Xo! Harmony