Monday, December 11, 2017

10 Christmas Gifts For The All Natural Beauty Lover In Your Life

Christmas is almost here! Woohoo if you're anything like me it is crunch time with gifts. Today I have for you some of my favorite organic beauty goodies that are perfect for any person in your life who loves makeup, hair, or anything beauty related. Freight no more I'm here to help! So lets check them out!

1. Dr. Bronner's Organic Hair Creme ($7.99)



I prefer the Lavender Cococunt Hair Creme which is a leave in conditioner. It helps with smoothness and adds moisture back into the hair. It does provide light hold. But be careful this product is made from oils so be cautious when applying it to the top of your hair. Work it into the bottom and whatever is left on lightly apply to the top and you should be fine!

2. 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Eyeshadow Palette ($46)



I'm absolutely obsessed with these! You have 5 different options to choose from and each palette has 5 shades. This is a brand you can trust!

3. Gabriel Cosmetics Lipstick ($17.60)
These super creamy lipsticks are perfect to add a little pop to that pucker. Comes in 30 different shades. These are sure to last you all day! Made with jojoba, sesame oil, and aloe.

4. ZuZu Luxe Trailblazer Gift Set ($50)
Complete with a 4-color eyeshadow palette, mascara, lip and cheek cream, and cosmetic bag. Perfect for getting an all natural makeup collection started.

5. Nature's Gate Shampoo and Conditioner ($8. 36 each)
This is a company I can get behind. They promote wholistic beauty much like we do here at SB. My favorite Shampoo and Conditioner is the Jasmine and Kombucha which promotes shine but they have plenty combos for any of your hair's needs. From revitalizing to replenishing you're bound to find the one for that special someone.

6. 100% Pure Coconut Oil Moisturizing Milk($29)
Milk's are very light on the skin which is good for most days. Smells like vanilla bean. Gently washed away impurities.

7. Smart Ash Organic Teeth Whitening Powder ($30)



This powder is comprised of activated charcoal, which has been shown to whiten teeth, and bentonite clay. It helps whiten, desensitize, and detoxifies teeth.

8. Kiss My Face Eyewitness Eye Repair Creme ($19.99)


It's never too early to start taking care of your skin and combating aging skin. This eye cream helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

9. Physician's Formula Organic Wear BB Cream ($14.95)



Super light on the skin. I love this BB Cream because it provides medium coverage and SPF. Comes in 2 shades which is slightly limited but they can both be bought and you can custom make your shade!

10. Moroccan Organics Hydrating Restorative Treatment ($14.99)
This hair mask is made from 100% organic ingredients. This mask for dry hair helps repair split ends and damage, adds shine, and softens texture. It adds incredible body to the hair without weighing it down.

So as you can see their are plenty gifts for that beauty lover in your life! Merry Christmas!

xoxo, G

Friday, December 8, 2017

Turkey enchiladas



The holidays are here and that means tons of leftovers! Don't get me wrong, I love leftovers but when you're on the third day of eating the same leftovers it gets pretty boring. That's why I love reinventing my leftovers and giving them a little twist. Turkey is such a popular holiday meal so that's why I've come up with Leftover Turkey Enchiladas. They're cheesy, gluten free, and packed full of flavor. And the best part is they're super simple to make. Even the enchilada sauce is homemade (no preservatives here) and takes about 10 minutes. You'all never buy the can again!

Here's what you'll need:
- leftover turkey meat (shredded)
-1/2 cup cheddar cheese
- corn tortillas

Displaying IMG_4707.JPGEnchilada sauce:
- 1 box Pomi tomato sauce
- 1 can chipotle chilis in adobo sauce
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 3/4 cup of organic chicken broth
- 1/2 tsp of chili powder
- 1/2 tsp of cumin
- salt and pepper

Directions:

Sauce- Mix all ingredients together in a pan. Bring to a boil. Summer for 10 min.

Enchiladas-

1. Warm tortillas with a damp towel in microwave until pliable.
2. Stuff tortillas with turkey and a sprinkle of cheese.
3. Toss the enchilada sauce on top and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup of cheese. Bake at 350 degrees until cheese is melted.
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It's that simple! So stop dreading your leftovers and get ready to enjoy!

- Giuliana



Monday, December 4, 2017

Keep It Simple, Sweetheart: Thoughts from the front line in the battle against entropy Listen to Yourself Complain (KISS #2)



Keep It Simple, Sweetheart: Thoughts from the front line in the battle against entropy

Listen to Yourself Complain (KISS #2)

As a young mom and a pretty freshly minted keeper of my own home, I did the best I knew how. But there are things about keeping house beyond the chores that I wish I had understood. In writing this article and any future articles, I will keep my younger self in my mind's eye and try to think of what I might say to her. These are the shoes I walked in.
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Oh Dear Me,
You are so overwhelmed. Like Martha you complain to Jesus. Why doesn't Mary help me? She is doing the better thing, he tells you. Martha, do you even hear yourself? Nikki, do you even hear what you are saying?

Listen to your own words. More often than not, the answers lie in the problems themselves. You just have to be still and listen and give these cares to God. That sounds all well and good you say, and I know that's what you would say because that's exactly what you wrote in your blog, younger me. Some dear soul told you God would meet your needs and your sleep deprived self said it would be awfully nice if God would change diapers. I doubt He was hurt so don't feel badly. He understood your struggle and your weakness.

Often you are just complaining not even just to hear yourself, but to make yourself heard by others. If you would complain purposely to hear yourself, you would not, as you fear, feel ashamed that you aren't enough. Because you will never be enough, and that's just the human condition. But if you listen to yourself with compassion, like you would hear your friend, you might see through the problem. You will either find inroads to a solution or make peace with the situation as it is.


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 What do I mean by purposely hear yourself complain? Maybe you say things like:

"It's as if the dishes never end! I work at this sink for hours and hours and the pile is just as high!"

"Every time I need to get my bread machine down, it's too high for me, the counter is not clear, and I can't find my machine recipes anyway."

"I can never make it to the post office before it closes so I'm always failing to mail stuff before the deadline."

"I can't find anything to wear! How can I have armloads of clothing to shuffle and feel like it's impossible to wrap my flesh in something that looks even half decent and I don't hate wearing?"

"My desk is always covered in piles of paper and I can't see what needs done. It's been so bad for so long I don't even see it any more, really. It's like visual background noise that's driving me insane! I can't tell what's important from what isn't!"

"The bathroom is always disgusting and i'm the only person who cares or knows what to do about it and I can't keep up with it."

"I HATE folding socks."

"People are just dumping their clean laundry all over the floor and walking on it and I'm rewashing things that were never actually worn on a person! Again and again!"

"I feel like I can never get anywhere on time. Having somewhere to go fills me with dread, just because of what's involved getting everyone in the car."

"My space is so tight, I can barely move through it. I hate my house/ apartment. I need a bigger one for all this stuff."

"I never have any time for the things I want to do. I can't even meet anyone's basic needs. I disappoint people everyday."

"There's little junk everywhere. I don't even know where it comes from."

"I can never find what I'm looking for. Half of our school morning is just looking for a book or a pencil."

And on and on and on. LISTEN. Don't deny these complaints. They are pure gold. They are the keys themselves.

One of your first memorable victories against these seemingly impossible problems will involve postage stamps. I kid you not. Here's what you will do. Month after month, your brilliant and amazing husband who doesn't want to do the bills paperless (and you don't want to do the bills at all so you're not really complaining about his choice) will want stamps. He will run out of them. You will not have any, he will be kind of frantic about it and the landlady will get a bit grouchy because he couldn't get to the post office in a timely manner when the check was remembered at the last minute. All for the want of a nail.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.


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And then one day as you are buying the stamps, it will strike you, this ah-ha moment. You will spring for a second book of stamps that one time. You will secret it away in your checkbook, and give the other to your dashing husband.
And next time the stamps run out you will say, "Oh no, they're not gone. Here you are." and you will reach into your pocketbook and hand him those stamps and he will stand there, that brilliant engineer, amazed by your forethought, and a little light will come on inside of your own grey matter and you will realize that instead of waiting for catastrophe, you can replenish the second book of stamps in your checkbook at your leisure next time you're about in the world during business hours (or at the grocery checkout line in your PJs running in for diapers. Oh wait, this will apply to the diaper panic too!)

The answer was there all along. All you had to do was hear yourself. We're late with the bills. Why? One reason is because we run out of stamps. Why? Because I can't get them the moment we run out. We have little kids and I can't leave the house easily.... Get them before you run out- How? Create a small buffer.
Ask yourself questions and let your panicked self be heard by your rational self. Trust me, there is a rational you in there.
The day you solve the problem with the stamps, you will look around at all of your problems in a new light. You've just become a Project Manager of your home. You will start to get an inkling of things as a string of preconditions, possible outcomes, costs and risks and benefits. And it's actually not as dry as it sounds. It's actually kind of like you just gained a psychic super power. You can tell the future and you can change it.

So pick a little problem, something that really is a trouble maker, something that's really a thorn in your life. Ask your self a few "why" questions about it and pray about it. Hear your own panic or your own defeated voice and honor it, give it some respect. Your problem is real, and when you hear it, you will see through it to the missing piece.
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Sometimes, there is no solution. And with prayer, you can make peace with most of these things too. We do not have a garage. So anything that I ask myself a series of whys about and come to the conclusion that having a garage would solve that problem, I know that's not an affordable solution at this time in my life. It makes more sense to pay for car repairs than to try to facilitate them ourselves. You can't save money on car repairs if you have no place for the tools required. It makes more sense to just borrow a ladder to clean the gutters (much of a hassle as it is to ask and to transport it) than to have the cost of tens of thousands just to make a place to keep one. Sometimes the solution is to accept the situation and not have something the ideal way. And that's just fine too. Once you accept it you can move on. It won't niggle at your brain anymore and you can be free of it.
Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus and Martha, you can join her there too. You can rest your weary soul. Just give him your cares and your troubles and be still. Either the answer will come in the considering, or you will be free to accept what is your portion for this season.
We'll talk again soon.
KISS ~n<3

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Book Review: The Mouth <> Body Connection by Gerald P. Curatola, D.D.S.


The Mouth <> Body Connection
by Gerald P. Curatola, D.D.S.

The  28-Day Program to Create a Healthy Mouth, Reduce Inflammation, & Prevent Disease Throughout The Body

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/512P-RaP5xL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgLast month my mother recommended this book, she enjoyed it and throught it would benefit my family and I. While reading it my eyes were opened to tons of truths about my body that I never new. When beginning this book I figured I wouldn't understand a bunch of doctor talk and figured either it would be totally over my head or the opposite, that he would end up dumbing things down for us normal folk, and make me feel stupid. Well, I am pleased to say that neither of those situations happened! I was pleasantly suprised at how informative the book was while through the eligance of his writing I could not only understand but relate to everything he was saying, as if he was speaking directly to me.He has very precise charts, relate-able patient stories and great sources for his proof/thoughts.
 This book touches upon everything that my close and extended families are going through. My Mother-In-Law is struggling with diabetes (and multiple other complications), my Grandfather is living with Alzheimers disease and my own father is trying to heal his ulcerative colitis. Mean while my husband and I are dealing with bad eating habits, stress and sleep deprivation.
 Some times we don't realize just how often what we put into our mouths really does effect our bodies. Eating right is not a diet, it is a life style choice.
 This book talks about signs in your mouth to look for that correlate with types of possible diseases in your body. It looks at dental heath and talks about the basics in dental cleanings with easy to read diagrams. After all of the extremely well researched evidence, towards the end of the the book you will find exercise plans, suggested meditation methods and schedules, meal plans and recipes. He does recommend a list of great tooth pastes but on top of that he sells his own!

I would rate this book about health a 10 out of 10 and highly recommend it. Even though I sucked up all of the information I still will be going back through it multiple times adding to my notes.  This is definitely one to keep out in a handy spot!

Grab this book HERE!

-Rachel

Monday, November 20, 2017

An Easy Way To Eat Your Greens

Hey ladies! 

So Ive been trying to get more greens into my son. He is pretty good, he will munch on cucumbers and loves his sautéed veggies but if the lettuce isn’t crunchy he doesn’t really want it. So I am gonna talk about first the benefits of dark green veggies (spinach, kale collard greens and so on) why we need them and how much of them we need daily. Also, how to get our little munchkins to eat them with out complaints but actually get them begging for more. You’ll get my full resources and even some cute pics! 


Dark Greens:
You have your lettuces which include Romain, green leaf, butterhead, arugula. Then we go into Kale, Mustard greens, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, collard greens, Swiss chard and edible green leaves.
 At this link you will find a quick view on how these vegetables are usually prepared http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/list-dark-green-leafy-vegetables-1647.html 

Dark green vegetables contain tons of vitamins such as: A, C, E, K and B. In dark greens you’ll get benefits of antioxidants that can protect your cells. And they also contain high levels of fiber, iron, magnesium, potassium and calcium. 
 If you would like to continue your study follow this link https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/gfnd/gfhnrc/docs/news-2013/dark-green-leafy-vegetables/

Now, like I said my son won’t just sit there and munch on some spinach (and usually my husband complains if I only put that on his salad 🙄 men 🤦‍♀️ smh) so I had to get creative. Jr lovvvvves fruit smoothies. So I decided to just blend the stuff up! He will drink two to three sippie cups full and his tummy will be happy, And I will be happy because he will be in taking his greens and not just having apple juice all day. See the problem with just juice from the store is that you get that sugar content with out any fiber and when there is no fiber it only take moments for the sugar to get sucked up. Where as the fiber will help your body slowly process sugars. So even though in the smoothie it’s still all liquified you still get all that great fiber! So real mom talk here... your child will not have a sugar high and he will have super awesome poops 💩!! 

Side note: store bought juice is also all heated up so you’re getting straight sugar and no benefits from the juice. If you still want to give your child juice I suggest to water it down. They will barely know the difference if at all. 
If you juice at home try to do less apples and sweet fruits and more veg like carrots, beets and greens. 

So my secret to getting jr to intake good greens is to make a smoothie pretty much every day. I’ve gotten to the point where I just leave the blender on my counter (which has freed up some much needed cabinet space) and when I am done blending all I do is rinse the blender real quick. If you don’t let it sit in the sink all day it is crazy easy to rinse or give a light washing and it’s clean for the next use. 
His smoothie contains: 
Frozen fruit
As much spinach that I can stuff into the blender
Small handful of arugula (this does have a strong taste)
Two or three spoonfuls of whole milk yogurt
Chia seeds 
Children vitamins added (this is completely optional) 
Spirulina powder
You could add in more veg too or different powder blends that meet your own family’s needs. 

“According to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, you should consume between five and 13 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. This is equivalent to about 2 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups daily, depending on the amount of calories you need to consume for your weight and level of activity.”

Now, I know a lot of moms that are like, “if the smoothie doesn’t look pink or beautiful my family won’t touch it!” Well, I get that, and trust me these smoothies will either look brown or green. But if you can get them past the color the taste is amazing they won’t care about the looks. Just don’t put it in a clear glass and they won’t even care! Or for my son I call it his green goblin smoothie  or the hulks juice and I make it into a silly thing and he thinks it’s fun and hilarious. 

- Rachel 

Monday, November 13, 2017

DIY Makeup Remover Wipes


You come home from work, or school, or a night out and what's the last thing you want to do? Sit there and wash your face to get all your makeup off. How do I know? Cause I'm with you. Sure you can buy a pack of makeup wipes but lets face it who knows what's in them and they aren't cheap! Let's think of it this way, say you buy a pack once every month (typically there's 25 in a pack). It's about $6.00 for the Neutrogena makeup removing wipes, that's an extra $72.00 a year you're spending on a wipe.
 For me that puts a lot of things in perspective, especially when makeup removing wipes are so easy to make with things you may have at home, and if you don't already have them at home the products used have lots of other household uses. Today I'm gonna show you how I make my own makeup removing wipes!

Here's what you'll need:

- a jar ( I used an old tea tree wipe container)
- Cotton Rounds
- 1 tsp of Castille Soap
- 1 1/2 to 2 Tbsp of Jojoba or Coconut Oil
- Water
- Essential Oils ( I forwent the oils because I used scented castille soap.)

Directions:

1. Mix up the castille soap and either coconut or jojoba oil.

2. Place cotton rounds in jar. Pour soap and oil mixture over top making sure to press down so the rounds absorb the mixture.

3. Pour in just enough water to dampen the rounds. Give a good shake.

That's it! Takes all of about 10 min. Your total investment if you don't have the supplies? It's about $23.00. If only using these products for the wipes thats $23.00 a year vs $72.00 a year. However, the castille soap makes for a great household cleaner and you can check out our article on Coconut oil here to see its many uses as well.

So if you want a great makeup remover thats easy, affordable, and you know what's in it; try this out and let us know what you think in the comments below.

- G


Friday, November 10, 2017

Mexican Chickpea Wrap



I get bored very easily. As much as I love a good salad, I can only eat so many before I never want to see another salad again. I feel the same way about chicken and beef. I'm also an extremely busy woman. I'm a student, I work, and I also try to make time for my significant other, my family, and friends. Therefore, I don't have time to sit and really think about what I'm gonna make behold my quick, easy, and HEALTHY Mexican Chickpea Wrap!

So here's what you'll need:
- Gluten free wraps
- 1/4 cup Organic Chickpeas
- 1 Tbsp of Taco Seasoning
- Organic Salsa
- Pepper Jack Cheese
- Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Jalapenos

Directions:

1. Toss chickpeas in taco seasoning and salsa. Microwave for 3 minutes until warm.

2. Put chickpeas, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and jalapenos in wrap and roll it up.

DONE! It's that easy and quick!

Enjoy,

Giuliana