This is my morning view for the first 30 days of 2018. We’ve moved to a small eco community in Costa Rica for the month of January. It’s a really exciting adventure that we undertook very mindfully. We wanted to travel as a family and really spend quality time together, we wanted to escape the freezing January temperatures and we wanted to have some space for reflection and intention setting before we both head back to work….
Accessing Your Self Care
This is what real, uncensored motherhood looks like. I was about a week post partum here. I was sore & tired & underslept. Breastfeeding was totally kicking my ass. My labour had been an empowering experience but it was peppered with it’s own traumas that I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with. I was in pure survival mode.
Despite the desperation in early post partum to give your baby everything you can, I also knew I had to take care of me. But self care can be such a nebulous concept can’t it? How does one actually do it?…
Owning Your Holidays
Hey you, do you find the holidays a bit stressful? Yeah. Me too. With all the gift buying, juggling all the ideas for DIY projects I get (homemade chai tea mix! Homemade lotion bars! Cookie tins!), card writing, cookie making and trying to balance giving to others while simultaneously taking care of myself, I find it all wonderful and also mega overwhelming.
I know there are a lot of tips out there for elaborately wrapping your gifts while whipping up a homemade peppermint mocha and making homemade cards adorned with tiny pompoms you’ve made yourself. But alas, we are not a Hallmark family around here. Things around here are a little more casual and a hell of a lot more messy.
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Full Over Busy
The holidays are coming & with them come the typical busy holiday schedule. We will likely feel tired & overwhelmed; overworked & underslept; overfed & undernourished. All because we’re so busy.
I’m challenging myself this season to avoid being busy & instead try to be very full. Bear with me here, this isn’t just a matter of changing my language (although that act alone is very powerful), this is about radically reframing the holidays and how I choose to schedule myself….
Thanksgiving Round Up
WHOA…Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year. October 7th and here we are. For us, Thanksgiving always includes turkey. When I make turkey, it’s usually flavourful and tender, never dry. Why? BRINE people, BRINE. If you can, get your bird soaking for about 1 hour per pound in a water-salt solution. This infuses extra water into the turkey and allow it to plump up. Exposure to many hours of cooking won’t dry it out this way. My simple, put-it-together in 2 minutes brine recipe is at the bottom of this post.
I wanted to share a round up of other Thanksgiving favourites of mine to build your own menu:
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Thoughts on Breastfeeding…
This is a bag of breast milk. This is not a bag of my breast milk. My body chose to never produce this much milk. I never responded to pumping. Breastfeeding totally kicked my ass.
It’s world breastfeeding week and I have a few things to say.
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My Veggie Eating Hacks
I have a mantra in life. Ya wanna hear it? Okay here goes…
Eat your veggies
I can see how you might find this to be a bit superficial. I mean how can this be my life’s mantra; isn’t there a more profound philosophy to live by? But obviously, since I run a food blog, I think food is very important. And vegetables are definitely the most important food of all. …
Diner Greek Salad
This was a total pregnancy craving. For some reason throughout pregnancy I really wanted to eat Greek salad, but it had to be that cheap, inauthentic diner salad that is usually served with chicken souvlaki. You know those kinds of diners right? The ones that serve all day breakfast and mac and cheese, always have free coffee refills and feature some “international” dishes like lasagna and Mexican omelettes? …
Marilene’s Buttered Coffee
So it’s January and it’s drab and all anyone is talking about is how they’re revamping themselves. The gyms are crowded and all everyone is ever eating is salad. Many have embarked on the January Whole 30 (including us). Maybe some people are trying to give up coffee or at least reduce the amount of caffeine in their lives.
Enter this: my buttered coffee alternative. Because here’s the thing, I’m married to a coffee afficionado and…well…um…errr I don’t really like coffee. It’s a little too bitter for me even when it’s prepared perfectly….
Chocolate Cookies, 2 Ways
Having had a baby 8 short weeks ago, Christmas looks a little bit different for us this year. Usually I would have made dozens and dozens of cookies and delivered them to my dearest friends and family. I would have prepared marshmallows from scratch for hot chocolate on Christmas Eve and I would have made homemade cinnamon buns for Christmas morning’s breakfast. This year, there simply wasn’t time for any of this between feeding and changing diapers and getting to know our little daughter. In fact, the Christmas season has mostly snuck up on us and I still don’t feel like I’ve caught up yet. Oh well, there’s always next year….