by Krista | Dec 5, 2012 | Bits 'n' Bobs
It is well and truly summer now in Australia and how I love it!!! Yes, it’s been outrageously hot the last few days, but it always cools off beautifully in the evening, and mornings are absolute sunshiny perfection.
Yesterday I spent a wonderful afternoon in my veggie garden, basking in sunshine and gathering my first harvest of baby heirloom beets, radishes and swedes.
I was never much of a gardener, but now it seems part of me, awakening that earthy side that loves going barefoot and wearing sundresses whenever possible.
After a slow start my tomatoes are producing and I’m so happy!!! To me nothing quite says summer like ripe tomatoes still warm from the sun. I’ve been eating them like mad in salads with eggs and of course with big chunks of buffalo mozzarella.
As I prepare for Christmas I’ve been having fun altering beloved recipes to suit the piping hot climate I live in now.
Instead of fresh from the oven pies I make white chocolate cranberry tarts. Instead of lovely roasts and stews, I’m sticking to splendid sandwiches layered with delicious meats and slathered with caramelized onion spread. Rather than steaming cups of hot apple cider, I’ve been making apple cider popsicles spiced with cinnamon, cloves and star anise. They are so good!!
Have you ever spent Christmas in a hot place? What cold foods would make you feel holiday-ish?
Spiced Apple Cider Popsicles
Ingredients:
8 cups apple juice (fresh is best, but bottled works fine too)
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
4-6 cloves
Directions:
- Combine all ingredients in crockpot or in saucepan over low heat.
- Simmer on low for 1-2 hours until juice has absorbed the taste of the spices and the house smells heavenly.
- Remove from heat and cool.
- When cool, pour into popsicle (ice block) molds and freeze 3-4 hours until solid.
- Remove from molds and bite, suck and lick your way through the appley goodness.
by Krista | Dec 3, 2012 | Bits 'n' Bobs
I love Mondays. I think they may be my favorite day of the week. After the fun and rest and project-accomplishing of the weekend, it’s my day to hunker down, cozy in and plan my week.
I especially love Mondays on the farm. The animals seem to know I need some downtime and they oblige by snoozing contentedly in the morning sunshine. I turn off everything – music, TV, noisy kettle – and bask in the silence.
Since I’ve been learning to live slowly, I’ve embraced these quiet Monday mornings as time to reflect and write, think and dream. I let the laundry and dishes wait until after lunch. I move back my writing deadlines until mid-afternoon. And I quiet my restless heart and whirring thoughts.
On such mornings I like to have something special for breakfast. Something a little beyond eggs and toast or a bowl of cereal.
Currently my favorite comforting breakfast is wholemeal pancakes topped with Greek yogurt and Rhubarb Ginger Sauce.
The sauce idea came to me as I examined (with chagrin!) a couple of scrawny rhubarb stalks that had prematurely wilted in the searing heat. With the ends dried out only the middle was worth anything. There wasn’t enough for jam or crisp or pie, but I thought a sauce of some sort would be perfect.
I thought a bit more and somehow ginger seemed like the right addition. So I chopped rhubarb and fresh ginger, covered them with water and simmered them until the rhubarb disintegrated into feathery little wisps. Then I added raw sugar and honey (use whatever sweetener you like), tasting to make sure it was just right. I simmered it until the sugar dissolved then set everything aside to cool. Once cooled I whizzed it up in the blender until it was smooth and pink with no ginger chunks to make your lips pucker when you bite into one.
I poured it over the aforementioned pancakes and Greek yogurt and both Bear and I were so smitten that we nearly ate the entire jar in one day. Mmm. 🙂 Since then I’ve been making it weekly, buying up bunches of rhubarb at the market and cheering on my one little rhubarb plant that survived the animal raids. 🙂
What is your favorite thing to put on pancakes?
PS – the winner of the Brave Girls Club Giveaway is Bethany Miller from the blog Good Global Citizen. Congratulations, Bethany!! 🙂
by Krista | Dec 1, 2012 | Bits 'n' Bobs
I love getting new body products. The luscious lotions, soaps, and scrubs smell so good and always make me feel spoiled and special.
What I do not like are the toxic chemicals and perfumes they often contain. It’s rather dreadful to have saved up for a special jar of something, only to discover it burns, itches, or stings.
Recently I’ve been studying how to make my own and it has been so much fun. 🙂 I feel like a little girl in kindergarten mixing and brewing, stirring and sniffing as I experiment.
My recent favorite bit of pampering is a Peppermint Sugar Body Scrub.
Essential oils are wonderful, healing, soothing, restoring, and all manner of good things. Although I’ve chosen peppermint for this one, you can choose any essential oil you like, from lavender or eucalyptus to rose or bergamot.
I like peppermint because it feels Christmasy and cool and is an excellent oil for easing sore muscles, clearing sinuses, and taking away headaches.
You can use any pure extra virgin oil for this recipe, but I prefer apricot oil because it is so wonderful for the skin and is easily absorbed.
The nice thing about this scrub is that it can be made in less than five minutes and looks like snow in the jar, a perfect Christmas project.
Do you ever make your own body products? What is your favorite scent?
Peppermint Sugar Body Scrub
Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1/4-1/2 cup extra virgin apricot oil
10-15 drops peppermint essential oil
Directions:
- Pour sugar into medium-sized bowl.
- Add apricot oil a spoonful at a time, mixing well after each addition, until mixture resembles wet sand or slushy snow. You should be able to form it into shapes that hold together.
- Add peppermint essential oil and mix well.
- Scoop mixture into clean glass jar, tamping it down so there aren’t any large gaps.
- Top with 1-2 spoonfuls of oil to keep moist.
- Seal and store until ready to use.
by Krista | Nov 30, 2012 | Bits 'n' Bobs
“It is important from time to time to slow down,
to go away by yourself, and simply be.”
Eileen Caddy
I love a rainy afternoon.
Especially when I have time to sit on the back porch with my dog Luna and hear the drops plummeting onto the tin roof, watch them build into glossy puddles in the yard, and feel them spray my face when the wind gusts a little too hard in my direction.
I had that sort of day yesterday and it was such a gift.
As you know I’ve been very ill for several months. Initial tests revealed, among other things, that I am immunocompromised and my body is not absorbing nutrients. At all. Yipes! 🙂 Thankfully I have an amazing team alongside me – doctors, counselor, Reiki practitioner, nutritionists, kindred spirits – who are doing wonders in helping me get healthy again.
But some days it’s hard.
It’s difficult to build a beautiful life when each day is marked by severe exhaustion, intense pain, and a host of other unpleasant symptoms. It’s hard to be yourself when your new self functions so differently than the one you’re used to. And it’s hard to pursue good health and thriving relationships when just making it through each day is cause for celebration.
But I’m determined to keep trying. 🙂
One word has helped me above all others:
slow
Although I’m not a healthy lass yet, I can still live a good and soul-affirming life if I do things slowly.
I can’t run or lift weights or any of the other things that keep a body fit and strong. But I can walk slowly and steadily and say, “You go girl!” each time I add five minutes to my regimen.
I can’t do all the work around the house and farm that I’d love to, but I can sit on the back porch in a rain storm and dream of the things I WILL do when I’m better. And in the meantime I can do the dishes or a load of laundry and cheer loudly for each project that gets crossed off the list.
I can’t rush around cooking up a storm, doing crafts and filling my freezer with freshly baked cookies. But I can do little things like one jar of pickled beans, one small batch of rhubarb ginger sauce, or one bowl of peppermint sugar body scrub.
That makes me happy.
What is one small thing you’d like to do this weekend to make your life a bit more beautiful?
“Always remember to slow down in life;
live, breathe, and learn;
take a look around you whenever you have time
and never forget everything and every person that has the least place within your heart.”
xo
by Krista | Nov 26, 2012 | Bits 'n' Bobs
Hello dear ones. 🙂
It is my birthday today (38 years!!! :-)) and I’m so happy to celebrate by hosting a giveaway for the gorgeous new Daily Truths art book from the Brave Girls Club: “A Little Bird Told Me (30 days of beautiful words and beautiful art for your beautiful soul)” written and illustrated by Melody Ross.
all images copyright The Brave Girls Club
If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you know how much the daily emails from the Brave Girls Club have meant to me on my own journey of healing and restoration. (Click here for one such occasion) So I was thrilled to bits when The Brave Girls Club gave me two copies of this beautifully bound volume filled with messages of hope and truth – one for me and the other to share with one of you.
I love Melody’s forward in the book:
“Dear beautiful, phenomenal girl,
There was a time in my life when I was very very very broken…a time when I truly believed that I would always be broken. So many lies ran through my head and my heart, breaking me even more.
One day I closed my eyes and asked…”What is the truth about who I am?” and “What is the truth about the painful life situations I keep finding myself in? What do they mean about me?”
Inside of this book are the answers I received as I spent many days in solitude asking those questions over and over again.
I wrote these messages down because I knew they were not just for me, but for every single girl alive.
These are messages from ‘a little bird’…an all-loving little bird who really knows a thing or two about the truth…and about you…and about me.
My biggest hope is that you will really let yourself believe all of the words in this book…because I know that they are true about you…I know it without a single doubt.
You are so very very very loved.
xoxo
melody ross
To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment here, on Facebook, or send me an email (ramblingtart at gmail dot com) with two things:
- The name of a brave woman who inspires you.
- One brave thing you’ve done this year.
I can’t wait to hear about the courageous women and choices in your life. 🙂
The Brave Girls Club Giveaway will run from November 27th to December 3rd. All names will be placed in Bear’s baseball cap and swirled around and he will choose one winner. Please make sure you include your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you win. The winner will be announced on December 3, 2012.
(If you’d like to purchase your own copy, click here to place your order)
Wishing you a beautiful week as I leave you with a few words from Melody Ross:
“You know so much more now than you used to know. You have gained so much more strength than you used to have. You are so much more courageous than you used to be. You are so much wiser than you used to be.
How did you get there? Well…probably by making some mistakes and learning from them, falling on your face and getting back up, enduring unfair and painful circumstances that you were not expecting, and by deciding to make a horrible situation into a positive one.
Because you see, dear friend, that is how we learn. That is how we grow, and that is how we become who we are meant to become. So if this is one of those days when you are wondering “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?” and “HOW DID I GET HERE?”, just know for sure that you are going to get through it all just fine, because you have felt this way before, you have done hard things before, and you have MADE IT through it all before.
And you came out stronger, better, wiser, braver, and smarter than you were before it all happened, just like you will this time.
You are doing a WONDERFUL JOB at living your life and being you. Keep up the great work.
You are so very loved. xoxo”
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