Craftsy is taking an additional 20% off their existing clearance prices to give you great deals on their project kits and supplies for only a few days. Be sure to check out the deep discounts on your favorite brands before their Winter Clearance sale is over. Remember, the good stuff goes fast!
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Recently crocheted this dress for my little newborn niece, Miss Violet. This was a super fun project that didn’t take very long once I got going on it. I love Malabrigo worsted weight yarn. It’s so soft and yummy, and the dress holds its shape extremely well. Can’t wait to see it on the little munchkin!
For pattern info: Chevron dress pattern by Andree Tünde
A recent article in The Atlantic pointed to the effects carbonated water has on tooth decay. As people started substituting sparkling water for soda, studies were being conducted on dental effects and it all boils down to pH.
Acidity is measured on a pH scale. The lower the number, the more acidic the substance, and the more detrimental to dental health. Pure water has a pH level of 7. Bottled water, both still and carbonated, can have a pH level of 5-7, while sodas can have a pH level as low as 2.
AQUA Carpatica recently sent me some products to sample. Both sparkling water and still water. I have to say, I love sparkling water, and this water didn’t disappoint. It has a very smooth consistency. Not overly carbonated, but still just as refreshing! And it appears to be healthier for your teeth than most other carbonated waters!
For those who love sparkling water but are concerned about the recent news, consult your pH scale! AQUA Carpatica Naturally Sparkling Water has a nearly neutral pH of 6.5 – the closest pH level to pure water compared to other brands on the market (for comparison, Poland Spring Sparkling has pH of 4.6, Perrier 5.8, and San Pellegrino 5.6 according to recent lab tests with NSF International).
AQUA Carpatica’s Naturally Sparkling Water also contains a very high mineral content, which according to dentists, can actually offset some of the potential damage caused by consuming beverages with a low pH. AQUA Carpatica Naturally Sparkling Water contains 280.00mg/L of Calcium, 24% of an adult’s daily needs. So while there is still some natural CO2 in AQUA Carpatica, the nearly neutral pH level and the mineral content can offset the acidity, making AQUA Carpatica Naturally Sparkling Water the ideal choice for a sparkling refreshment.
This brand has recently been launched in select stores and will be available in national stores in the coming months. I highly recommend grabbing a few bottles and trying them for yourself…refreshing!
To celebrate their 1,000th online class, Craftsy is giving you the chance to get 50% off the most commonly ‘wishlisted’ classes! That class you have had your eye on for a while might just be on sale. Why not see for yourself and browse these before they’re gone? Hurry, it ends tonight! I absolutely love Craftsy!
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Last month I had the extreme pleasure to attend my dear friend, Jaime Rubensteins’s January Cooking Class. Jaime is an art and cooking instructor and holds classes in both mediums once a month. They are fantastic!! I had the best afternoon and met some really beautiful people!
For the January class, Jaime taught us how to make Ratatouille, Hummus, and DIY Pita Chips. I love Mediterranean food and so this class really appealed to my taste buds! Jaime had also just taken an amazing journey through Israel last Fall, so I knew she would have some authentic tips.
We started off by roasting the vegetables for the Ratatouille. The smell in that kitchen was heavenly! I never really thought about roasting vegetables much prior to using in dishes, however Jaime explained to us that this brings out the true flavors. We drizzled with Olive Oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and popped them in the oven for about 20 minutes. After they had cooled they were chopped up and sauted on the stove. The great thing about Ratatouille is there are no really wrong ways to make it. We used squash, eggplant, onions and tomatoes, but you can add and subtract anything. And you can spice it up as much as you want. What Jaime made for us was amazing!
While veggies were roasting for the Ratatouille, we worked on the hummus. Simple and easy!! I have this same Ninja and I have to say it is my favorite kitchen appliance next to my Instant Pot! Everything for the hummus just goes in here and walla! There are so many different things you can put into it too! Delicious and fresh hummus was ready! The pita chips were made with pita bread cut into triangles and drizzled with olive oil and spices. Again, you can spice these up as much as you want! We baked them under the roasting vegetables for about 15 minutes. Delicious!!! I could have eaten the whole bowl by myself!
If you are local to the Austin area, I highly recommend getting on Jaime’s email list and taking one or more of her classes. They are fun, affordable and best of all, delicious!!!! Bon Apetit!!
To celebrate their 1,000th online class, Craftsy is giving you the chance to get 50% off the most commonly ‘wishlisted’ classes! That class you have had their eye on for a while might just be on sale. This sale starts February 9th. Just around the corner.
I had a previous post about this awesome website. Read it here and check out the list now!
I love this site and hope you do too!
A Tribe is defined as:
“A group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest”
“A large family”
These are definitions found on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
Seth Godin in his book “Tribes” says,
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea….A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”
We all have several tribes we belong to; family, work, social. For this post, I am going to focus on a specific tribe of mine. The Mothering Tree Mamas.
We all found ourselves in the same position 11 years ago; we were all pregnant and due in the same month. None of us knew each other prior to when we all joined a due date group on the MotheringDotCommunity forums. I cannot remember the exact number of people in that group at the time, there were quite a few from all over the world, but we all had a common interest in natural parenting.
Within the forum, we all discussed the normal growths and fears that pregnancy brought to us. For some this was their first. For some of us this was our last. We spanned 20 year age gaps (yes, I was close to 40 at this point) and had different plans on where and how we were giving birth. Out of all these women, a few of us began banding together more and more. Our discussions started growing from the obvious pregnancy commiserating to more personal topics. One of these beautiful women, my dear friend Amanda emerged as our leader and started a website forum just for us, a way to communicate. We became known collectively at that point as The Mothering Tree….we were the Tree Mamas!
Our group spoke almost everyday at some point or another. We all exchanged gifts to each other (we had a monthly exchange for awhile recycling items we no longer used but wanted to gift to the next mama), listened to our problems together, we fought, we cried and we cheered each other on. We had become a family…a sisterhood. We had never met each other in person at this point, but we knew we could rely on each other. When one member was sick or in a dire situation, we all banded together sending care packages, financial help when we could, even phone calls of support. We had a bead exchange and all made nursing necklaces for our babies, knowing we were all using the same beads. We all knew each others secrets and fears, and still do. We had a commonality of all wanting the most natural births and lives possible. We never judged each other on our decisions. I remember a particular phone call the day my dear friend Michelle gave birth to her super huge baby boy by c-section. I cried with happiness that he was healthy and she was fine! We cried together about miscarriages, last babies, fertility problems and relationship issues. We laughed about our own short comings, our children’s antics, our own private jokes. And in all those 11 years, not a day has gone by that one or more of us hasn’t checked in with someone in the group.
Over the years we have had the privilege to meet several of each other in person. And many of us speak on the phone regularly. The beautiful thing about meeting is it’s like this enormous gift because we finally get to hug each other in real life. I nearly broke down the hotel room door when Jill showed up to the convention we were both attending for our oils business. Our other team mates just laughed and laughed at our sheer joy of finally getting that hug! And spending several days at a knitting retreat with Michelle will still be one of my most favorite journeys. I can’t imagine my life without these strong, beautiful mamas walking beside me.
Mothering magazine started back in 1976. Peggy O’Mara became editor in 1980. The magazine’s web forum, MotheringDotCommunity or “MDC” began in the 90’s and has 160,000 registered members as of February 2011. Peggy’s goal was to bring a natural, alternative and beautiful rhythm of ideas and support to mothers and fathers within the pages of the magazine. The forums provided a place where people could discuss these ideas, for many it was the only place to do this. The magazine’s last print issue was the November-December 2010 edition. The magazine announced it would end online publication with it’s March-April 2011 edition and become solely the Mothering website. By this time Peggy had moved on but her legacy remains within the tone and strings of lives brought together during her years with the magazine. The forums are still the meeting place for women looking for their tribe and support. I don’t know if Peggy realized she was creating amazing, life long sisterhoods when she first sanctioned having an online presence, but this is the most beautiful part to come out of Mothering, in my opinion anyway. I gained a whole new group of sisters.
All of us Tree Mamas are getting older, and I am so looking forward to one day all of us getting together and dancing in unison that we have each other. We may be super old ladies by then, but it won’t matter. We are strong! We are loved! We are a tribe! We are the Tree Mamas! And I love them all!
The mamas, well a few of them anyway:
Between the busy holiday season and the first flowers of spring lies the perfect time for creativity. Celebrate with BIG savings on supplies at Craftsy, at up to 50% off! Get great deals on art supplies, fabric, yarn, baking tools and more. Sale ends tonight, so browse the sale prices now before the best products are gone! I am definitely taking advantage of this! Ends tonight at midnight…
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This is just a brief list of some of my favorite sites. There is no particular order of favorites, just beautiful blogs and sites that I love to read and wanted to share with you all. And this is by no means a complete list. Some of them I am sure you know about already as they have been around for years. Some of them will be new to you! I hope you find something you love in each of them. So take a break and enjoy just a few beautiful blogs…
I want to believe.
By now you have heard that The X Files has rebooted for a 6 episode mini series, bringing back Mulder and Scully along with a new batch of paranormal supporting characters to glue us to our TV’s. Back in 1993 when Chris Carter introduced us to our favorite FBI special agents, The X Files was something completely different than anything we had seen in a series. We all had heard of Roswell, UFO’s, and secret military bases. We read about abductions, sightings, some of us even listened to Art Bell! Yes, I was one of them, athough I can say I was never experimented on…LOL But like many, it was a fun and fascinating topic of “what if”. So along comes this show that fed us all of this and it took off and became an entity all it’s own. My son and I watched every Friday night religiously. And when Mark Snow, the music composer for the series, showed up at the local comic store, we showed up too with soundtrack in hand for him to sign. Yes, you could say we were big fans.
So when Mr. Carter announced a continuation arc, I was thrilled. Mulder, Scully and Skinner were coming back! What strange things had happened to them since we last saw them in 2008 “The X Files; I Want To Believe“? Excited to find out, I watched the new episode (Hulu) and I have to say I appreciate the fact that they allowed these characters to change and age. The movies answered several questions about their personal lives and if you watched the series you know these 3 had been through the ringer. So now we have older and more jaded characters, which is to be expected. There is a lot of fear in their actions, which punctuated their new lives well. It was as if they still want to believe but after everything they have been through in the past, they also are also terrified of believing again. Long gone is the wide eyed Mulder chasing after that dream of aliens, now he is almost hermit like and bitter. Scully seems bored and unsettled in her career as a surgeon. Only Skinner seems ready to find the truth. 5 more episodes for us to experience. Is it really out there? I want to believe…..
(all photo credits Twentieth Century Fox Television, also some interesting trivia for other geeky types on why the original “I want to believe” poster changed during the run of the show)