Enchantment Learning & Living Blog

Welcome to Enchantment Learning & Living, the inspirational space where I write about the simple pleasures, radical self-care, and everyday magic that make life delicious.

It's My 6th Month Anniversary of Daily Blogging on Simple Pleasures!

July 1, 2014

The first of the year saw me making one of those big fat New Year's resolutions, which for me was to write a daily blog on simple pleasures, everyday magic, and any other meditations about the good life that I could think up. Since then, I've blogged about my passions for gardening, cooking (with tons of recipes!), yoga-ing, and nurturing my introverted personality and my super loud fashion sense. Every. Single. Day. It's been such an adventure and a great learning experience--but more musings on that tomorrow.

And then today came, and I realized six months had gone by since I started this epic act of self-care. Woohoo! I've made it to the halfway point! Just another six-months to go...and don't worry, when this year of daily blogging is up, I'll still be here blogging away on the little things in life that make me happy, whole, and grounded.

So what am I going to do now? Well, clearly, drink some celebratory champagne and generally have a ball like this lady here...

...and keep writing of course! You can look forward to more musing on everyday magic and simple pleasures each day. Some cool additions to my blog have included a recipe index, where you can find all the food, drink, and DIY beauty recipes I've featured on my blog. As of last week, I've officially compiled a blog index, which catalogs all the (non-recipe) reflection blogs I've written so far by general topics. So if you can't remember where that one great recipe was or that one blog that really resonated with you--or if you just want to browse for some life inspiration--you can check out these indexes. And if you want even more inspiration (really, who doesn't?), you can follow ELL on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

I want to thank my readers for your support, your comments, and your engagement on my posts! It has been such a treat to share my reflections and recipes on enjoying the little things in life. I look forward to another six months and beyond of celebrating everyday magic! You can help me celebrate by spreading the word to friends, family, colleagues--anyone who wants a little extra magic in their day--about my blog. You can always subscribe to my blog by typing in your email in the subscription link at the bottom of each post (this will ensure you get my latest post emailed directly to you) or join me on Bloglovin to peruse my posts at your leisure.

In the meantime, always remember that true magic is in everyday living and learning!

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

On Summer

June 30, 2014

It is long days and even longer nights--as if your body knows that you don't have to be up early in the morning, even though you always are. The days stretch out before you as you fill them up with early morning walks before the heat takes over the city, drenching it in sweat and light. It is the quiet afternoons spent reading a book and drinking homemade lemonade under the protective shade of your favorite tree.

You find it in staying up late to stargaze--or read longer, abandoning yourself to the simple pleasure of getting lost in a book as you would when you were younger, snuggled deep into your comforter with only a dim light to help you read the words on the page. And when the monsoons come you indulge in Gothic novels, the wind and the rain and lightning outside echoing the mystery and mayhem between the pages until your eyes close against your will and you awaken to a cool morning, quiet, hushed in the wake of last night's storm.

Time does not matter in the summer. It unwinds itself slowly from the clock of your everyday life, loosening itself from the tick-tock of 1-2-3-4-5... like a ribbon unwinding from its spool, the hands on the clock face no long needing to clip through each second, for during summer the seconds expand, holding you there longer than you ever thought possible.

You can give up real clothes, too, and proper meals. You are allowed to walk around barefoot all day, blades of grass kissing the soles of your feet, your hair loose around your shoulders and faded to a golden-red from the sun's caress. You summer uniform: nothing but a loose dress or yoga pants, anything that won't get in the way of you being you. Makeup is forgotten in favor of naked skin, the sky, the air, the earth touching your bareness. And proper meals: you don't need them. Lunch is an overripe peach eaten in the grass, dinner a slap-dash meal of tomatoes and basil. Who needs anything else?

Summer. It is when you can abandon yourself to your reclusive nature, give yourself over to the bird's song and the chanting of the cicadas at night. You can dance with the moon and twirl under the sun's gaze. You can fill your lungs with the lush rose's sweet perfume and run your fingers through the wildflowers--daisies and dandelion heads mostly--and relish the way the clock's tick-tock tick-tock is replaced by the humming of bees and the rustle of leaves.

Quick Apricot-Basil Jam

June 29, 2014

Sometimes an afternoon calls for jam on toast--with a cup of tea, of course! I love jam, but too often find that the store-bought kind loses the flavor of the fruit with too much sugar. What's the point of enjoying an apricot jam, for example, if it tastes more like corn syrup than those perfectly tart stone fruits? Naturally, faced with this dilemma (and another heap of apricots I wasn't sure how to finish), I set about figuring out how to make my own jam. I had two caveats: it must taste like the real fruit (so minimal sugar) and it must be easy (the thought of canning, standing over a boiling pot of water sterilizing jam jars felt like too much work in this summer heat).

After searching the interwebs, I found my inspiration in a Blackberry Chia Seed Jam recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod and a How to Make Chia Seed Jam tutorial from Oh My Veggies. The reoccurring theme? Chia seeds! They replace the pectin that helps the jam gel. These little orbs turn translucent and gummy when exposed to heat, giving them a texture similar to tapioca as you might remember from my Easy Vanilla Cinnamon Chia Seed Pudding recipe. I also threw in a handful of basil because I love the combination of tart fruit and earthy herbs. What's great about this recipe is that it is so versatile that you play around with your favorite fruit and herb combinations.

Ingredients:

2 cups diced apricots

1/4 cup chopped basil

1 organic lemon, juiced

2-3 tbsp honey (depending on how sweet you like your jam)

2 tbsp chia seeds

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine fruit, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and honey in a saucepan and cook on medium until fruit begins to break down, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat and stir in basil. Cook for two more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in chia seeds. Allow to cool completely. Store in a mason jar for up to two weeks. Serve on toast, as a compote with age cheddar, or over your morning oatmeal. Enjoy!

On Visiting the Used Bookstore

June 28, 2014

In many ways, they are your closest friends, your ever constant companions, made up of paper, ink, glue--sometimes even held together by needle and thread in much the same way your dress is. Their spines are a familiar weight in your hands; the soft leaves stamped over with words are like parts of a continuously unfolding oracle.

When you walk into your favorite used bookstore, it is as if you can feel these stories reaching out to you, as if you could wrap them around you like a blanket and disappear inside their covers. You have long outgrown the notion that everyone feels this way about bookstores, about books; not everyone wants to nourish the imagination nor indulge in this portable feast for the senses. But for you, that nourishment is life--it is your internal life, often a thousand times louder, more vibrant than your waking one.

The smell of the books--a heady scent reminiscent of lightly smoked tea leaves--is its own soothing perfume. It doesn't matter what it is. A worn sword and sorcery book, the bubbled letters on the cover almost completely worn off, though the epic scene below the title remains surprisingly intact. Or the slim, nondescript volume by Colette almost lost in the crush of the bigger books around it. Then there are the vintage pulp books whose titillating covers alone could keep you occupied for hours. They all promise to lead you where you need to go simply by making you turn one page after the other.

You find the advice you didn't know you were looking for in the folds of a Rilke book and another on women readers by an author whose name escapes you the moment you set the book back on its shelf--the name forgotten, but not the wisdom. For once you cannot find a book that calls to you, ready to find a new home among your other books. It is simply enough to be surrounded by these friends, to walk the narrow aisle and get lost in the piles of stories, so crammed together it is almost as if their contents bleed into one another, create new narratives to fill the shelves. It is enough to fill yourself up with the possibility of these stories even as you turn homeward, already looking forward to an afternoon reading the book you can still picture perched on your nightstand ready for your hands upon it, your eyes caressing the ink of its pages.

On Attempting to Make Veggie Sushi

June 27, 2014

You awoke that morning with the lofty goal of making your own sushi. It would be veggie sushi with some of that chile-crusted tofu you needed to finish. And no rice. Rice is overrated. You would get the supplies today and figure out how to make that perfect little meal at home--cool, refreshing, healthy, just what your body wants during the hot days of summer.

It would be so simple; you'd watched plenty of youtube videos and looked up countless recipes for a good rice-less sushi roll on Pinterest (because really, isn't a good sushi roll all about the fresh slice of avocado, the crisp bite of carrots, the heat of wasabi invading your nose?).

So you got your bamboo sushi mat and even some chopsticks. You roasted some edamame for an appetizer and even mixed a bowl of soy sauce and wasabi for your roll. You prepped your vegetables, thinly slicing avocado, radishes, carrots, and then did the same to your spicy tofu. Now there was nothing left to do but assemble your sushi roll. Gently, you placed a crispy seaweed square onto your bamboo mat. You laid out your fillings atop that, careful to leave room around the edges of the seaweed for easier rolling--a tip you picked up from those how-to videos.

You began to roll your creation; soon it was a tangle of loose carrot strands and tofu that wouldn't quite stay in place, little cracks on the seaweed as you attempted to make a tighter roll. It was all you could do to finish the process, wrapping that one naked strip of seaweed around your creation, sealing it with water--afraid to let go, lest your grip was the only thing keeping your roll more-or-less together.

There it sits, your first attempt at making sushi. It is not particularly lovely, nor the graceful tight roll you had envisioned that morning. But it is yours. You made it. You tried something new. So with the happy resolve of someone determined to master this new kitchen project--already taking notes on how to better make sushi next time--you slice your roll, not caring that carrots stick out at each end or that the filling doesn't quite want to stay in. It is delicious in its messiness, perfect in its embodiment your fearless kitchen experiments, your constant thirst for new ways of experiencing nourishment.

Are You You-er than You?

June 25, 2014

Do you let yourself outgrow your constant need to apologize for who you are? Do you refuse to tone down your brightly colored wardrobe so as not to offend those who see the world in black and white with your technicolor? Do you happily turn down unwanted social invitations in favor of more time spent with a good book...or feet on the dance floor? Do you, above all else, strive to be the best you, the most you-est you there is? Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Those are your answers, felt deep in your bones, echoed in the beating of blood in your veins. For the first time in a long time, you find yourself feeling you-er than you, the you-est you've ever been. It started slowly, with the satisfaction of saying no--your voice strong and clear--no you will not do that, then onto another small step forward when you admitted to yourself that what you really wanted to do was stay home and tend your garden, and so you did. From there it happened all at once: the you-ness.

You found yourself in mountain pose, gazing at your herb plants, breathing deeply (in and out, in and out) when you realized you were the you that you wanted to be. No more going through the motions or pretending to be a version of yourself more palatable to the rest of the world. No more going through the motions of the you that you wanted to be, keeping the flimsy performance of that persona, a brittle shell without substance or roots. It took time and more patience you thought you had, but, one breath, one act, one thought at a time, you took the hope of being more you and nourished it until it burst from its seed. It reached down into the earth and up into the sky, wild roots planting you firmly to this world, delicate stems and leaves reaching upward, bringing the sun to you.

It is a delicious feeling and an ephemeral one, being you. And yet it gets stronger the more you listen to that voice that would rather walk barefoot all day and gaze at the stars, the one that can go a whole day in happy solitude--or joyfully spin across a dance floor as she does twirl in the moonlight. You want to get to know this you, continue to blossom, allow your roots weaving themselves into the dirt and your stem, leaves, and petals reaching for the sun to represent the fullest expression of yourself each and every day, growing into the you-est you've ever been.

On Sunbathing

June 23, 2014

In this moment, you are like a turtle perched on a log, unwilling to move an inch for fear the sun will not fully coat you in its delicious honeyed kiss. You want every bit of light to cover you, soak into your skin, and fill your body with the warmth of your desert sky. It is pure nourishment, your soul forged anew under that solar gaze like tiny cleansing flames licking your skin.

You would take all your clothes off if you could, let yourself wear nothing but sunlight until your skin returns to its natural bronze color, faded after a winter buried under too many layers of clothes. But you can forget all those layers now under the sun's tender caress. You want to map the sun's passage as it makes its way along your body, tattooing your limbs with its essence. It starts with your closed eyelids--its touch surprisingly gentle across your lashes--then winds its way down to your toes and through your fingertips, luxuriating in the whole length of you.

Later you will still feel the heat of the sun in your body, although it has left the sky and the earth has cooled with the inevitable darkness. Your skin will still be warm and your insides glowing from a day spent daydreaming, drifting, losing track of everything except the way the sunlight burns away impurities and feeds your true essence.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday enchantments, and delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe here.

Want even more inspiration to make your dream life a reality? Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Thanks for following!

Watermelon Cooler

June 22, 2014

When the sizzling temperatures of summer hit, I find myself craving watermelon juice. Perhaps it is because of the great memories I have of drinking this delicately refreshing drink after many a hot yoga practice or because I always find myself with an extra watermelon in my fridge, but in either case, I find this watermelon cooler a go-to drink for the summer. As I've gotten used to "juicing" watermelon, I've played around with this cooler, adding fresh lime juice to compliment the sweetness of the melon and even herbs, like basil or mint, to give the drink an extra kick. This drink is great for overripe melons; while their texture might be grainy and less-than-appetizing, their juices are still plenty sweet and delicious. This recipe also makes a great mocktail (or virgin cocktail) for those times you want a festive, hydrating drink. If you want to make a full-fledged cocktail out of it (as I've been known to do come Friday night), you can simply add a shot of vodka to your drink. Don't have limes on hand? Swap them out with lemons. It's pretty versatile!

Ingredients:

1 medium sized watermelon, the flesh scooped out, rinds discarded (about 4 cups)

3 limes, juiced (about 2-3 tablespoons)

3 tablespoons basil simple syrup (optional)

To make basil simple syrup, simply follow the instructions in my ginger simple syrup recipe, making sure to swap out the ginger with two cups of fresh basil leaves.

Freshly pureed watermelon being poured into pitcher via a sieve.

Blend watermelon chunks in batches in a blender on medium speed until pureed. Then pour pureed watermelon into a pitcher, using a sieve to separate the pulp from the juice. Once all the juice is in the pitcher, stir in lime juice and taste. If you want more of a lime taste, you can juice and add more. Then, if you would like, add the basil simple syrup. Enjoy! Makes about 4 servings.

On the Summer Solstice

June 21, 2014

Gorgeous summer landscape of New Mexico.

To you this day will always be about collecting flowers and dancing barefoot in the grass, attempting to make daisy chains from dandelion heads and spinning around like a dervish until the sun is the only fixed point of your gaze.

You embrace it, this sun, as it stretches from horizon to horizon, coating the earth in its nourishing energy; for the first time, it is able to linger the longest in the sky, so as better to reach each and every corner of your life, illuminating even the darkest shadows. You feel your skin shedding the weight of winter, casting off unnecessary layers and exposing your now tender skin to the sky, where it cures in the fires of the sun.

But you have not forgotten the moon, your ever constant companion, with you always even as she gives the sky over to the sun each day, even when she appears absent at night. She calls to you, too, on this longest day of the year, when her powers wane in the heat of her other half. She reminds you that the darkness has its virtues, forever calling you deeper into yourself, your thoughts like constellations illuminating your inner landscape.

You will honor this day by tending your herbs and letting them bask in this decadent light. You will honor this day by breathing in new insights and exhaling old ways of being. You will honor this day by walking barefoot in the sun-warmed grass and later gazing at the stars when the sun gifts the sky to the moon; and you will honor this day by filling your body with light and well being.

On Buying a Bouquet of Flowers

June 19, 2014

You couldn't help yourself.

There they were at the front of the store, a riot of colors stuffed into tall tin buckets, each flower vying for your attention like some flirt who can't help herself--it's nothing personal, she does it to everyone who walks by. The sunflowers and daisies call to you with their bright happiness, sunlight springing from their petals. The snapdragons and irises lure you in with their intricacy--the purple irises still tight in their buds, unwilling to blossom quite yet, the snapdragons asking you to play with their delicate mouths that open and close under your gentle touch, less snap and more first-kiss.

You settle, finally, on a mixed bouquet for its compelling arrangement of pink daisies and purple mums (you think--they could be another flower unknown to you, but lovely all the same), shy lilies with all but one yet to fully bloom, and little yellow wildflowers that might not have a name. You don't need these flowers. Not really. They won't feed your belly, nor serve a useful household purpose like the baking soda you later put into your grocery basket. But there is something to their whimsical elegance, something to buying a bouquet of flowers, that puts you in the mood for picnics and long afternoons reading outside.

They add softness to your day and more than a little grace. You can picture them now, nicely trimmed and tucked in one of your small mason jars on the kitchen table, perhaps. Or on your nightstand ready to greet you with the sunrise. Like the ribbons you collect, or the sea glass, your bouquet of flowers brightens your home, lifts your spirits, reminds you that it is okay--necessary even--to indulge your senses; true they will fade and the water they sit in will thicken into a swamp-like goo. But while they are fresh and bright and colorful, they feed your soul and remind you that some of the best pleasures exist in the space between one moment and the next.

On Tasting the First Tomatoes from Your Garden

June 18, 2014

There they are. Two small cherry tomatoes ripening on your potted tomato plant. Sometime between when you left for your short trip and your return, those little globes went from green peas to ripe red fruit. You stare at them for a long time, not quite believing your luck. Two whole tomatoes, there for your enjoyment.

Then, barefoot and holding your watering can in one hand and dead plant leaves in the other, you consider your options. You are hesitant to eat them all at once but can't think of any recipe that would call for just two cherry tomatoes. Even worse, you would hate for them to get lost in a salad, where the lettuce, vinegar, and oil might overwhelm them completely. As you weigh your options, you know you've already made up your mind: you lack the self-control to do anything but eat them straight from the vine. You set your watering can down and toss out your weeds and debris--the rest can wait.

As you pick those little tomatoes, you can feel their sun-warmed skins, the smooth, soft flesh wrapped tautly around their juicy core. You take the first one in your mouth, allowing it to roll around your tongue, almost afraid to break the surface of its skin with your teeth--but you do it anyway. You can't resist the taste of a real tomato.

You feel the skin break, spilling out soft seeds and flooding your mouth with the sweet taste of summer: sun, soil, savory red fruit. You are left with the tart taste on your lips and soil on your hands. It is over too fast; you promise to make the second one last longer but you know it, too, will be gone sooner than you would like. Already your tongue is missing the bright taste of this homegrown magic.

You pop the last one into your mouth determined to savor every last inch of it. You roll it around your tongue remembering why your garden tomatoes have turned you against their mealy store bought cousins. Then this second one, too, is gone in a flood of seeds and juice. You gaze longing at your tomato plants, searching for signs of yellow flowers or little green bulbs that will one day ripen into edible euphoria. Until then you can only wait, water, tend. So you pick up your watering can once more and go about the business of tending your garden, the tang of the first tomatoes of the season still fresh on your lips.

On Reasons I Love My Home

June 16, 2014

First, it's the way you don't have to wear real clothes--or any clothes at all if you don't want to. You can let your hair down and not bother to comb it. You can walk around with bare feet, relishing the feel of the ground beneath your soles.

Second, it is where you surround yourself with the things you love--and keep out the things you don't. All your books are loving piled on your bookshelves, a riot of multicolored spines, some rigid and sitting up straight like good little hardbacks, other cracked at the seams, their thin paper covers wearing the memory of the countless times you've read them. Your knitting--that turquoise blue blanket you started forever ago and will continue working on until forever--is always right where you left it, on the couch, ready for another knitting session. Your writing desk is an open invitation to sit and dream or gaze out at your patio garden. Even your kitchen is exactly how you want it to be: ready at a moment's notice for cooking, baking, conjuring up tea blends. It is as if it knows the pleasure of being always fully stocked for anything from a simple lunch to an impromptu visit from your sister just as you do.

Third, you don't have to answer the door if you don't want to. You can lose track of time, let the hours unravel before you in the safety of your sanctuary without bother or worry. You feel no obligation to join the rest of the world when they come knocking, only a sweet satisfaction that you can linger in your space just a little longer.

Fourth...the list can go on and on. You will content yourself, then, with saying just this: the reasons you love your home are varied and unending, just as the stash of flouncy dresses and colorful skirts in your closet seemingly are. You love your home because it molds itself around you, always a reflection of your energy, your constant nurturing of simple pleasures, quiet moments of bliss, a life rich in nourishing enjoyment.

On Ruidoso

June 14, 2014

It is more mountain than town, more sky than buildings. The sun is closer here, practically coating your skin in its hot embrace before it has even reached its highest point in the sky. The air is fresh and dry, sweeping away any serious thoughts or unnecessary tasks as you gaze out at the lake.

View of the lake at Inn of the Mountain Gods.

Time, too, seems to slip away here as you forget what day it is, what hour, during long morning nature walks and afternoon naps. The roads are home to trucks and deer--those graceful animals seen foraging along the roadside, loping back into the woods--and you find your mind wandering, drifting past those roads into the wilderness, as surely as your car wound deeper into the mountains only a day or two before.

Deer getting ready to cross hiking path.

During one of your morning hikes, you stumble upon a family of deer. They stand in a grove by the street, almost ten in all, their long ears leaning forward to take in the sounds of the woods, to figured out who you are. They are no more than a few yards away. As if deciding you are no real threat--yet still wary--they slowly take off across your hiking path, long legs taking them deeper into the woods, far away from the presence of humans. You marvel at their grace, grateful for this sighting.

You marvel, too, at the resiliency of the land, scarred over by fires that consumed so much forest, charred and blackened trees standing like ghostly sentries guarding the town, memories of a too-hot summer, a too-hungry fire. Yet you see it, once you look past the blackened branches: new growth, little flares of green making their way up out of the blackened soil, ready to heal those wounds. The earth knows no other way but to keep moving forward, to keep planting and tending its seeds.

And even as you know you have only experienced the surface of the town--a local nail salon and a steak house--you admire its long line of shops down main street and the way nature seems to take even those building over, as if the heart of the town lies at its outskirts where the hints of urbanity fade under the caress of nature. Yes, this is a place more mountain than town.

On a Night Spent in Your Hotel Room

June 13, 2014

You know one of the greatest luxuries of staying in a hotel (other than room service) is spending the night in your room, perfectly wrapped in a hotel robe and enjoying take out, TV, and long, sometimes nonsensical conversations with your sister.

You spent the afternoon goofing off--pedal boating and walking around the lake after she finished her last conference day--and now all you both want to do is hang out in your hotel robes and chill. You drank club soda and lemon--the drink cool and refreshing on your lips after being in the heat--while you wait for your take out (take out because evening room service menu was a meat-lovers delight, but less attractive to your veggie sensibilities). Then it's a short walk back to the hotel room where you immediately cast off your clothes, shower with those delicious orange- scented hotel soaps and get comfy.

You even splurged on an overpriced 1/2 bottle of wine from the hotel gift shop. You enjoy some of it while overlooking the hotel grounds on your patio. It is your last night there, and you relish an early evening in, lingering over the beauty of your natural surroundings while you wait for your sister to finish showering.

Then you spread out on the floor--a whole swath of carpet left conveniently unadorned, perfect for your indoor picnic. You giggle over bad TV shows and movies as you eat your taco salads and makeshift desert (chocolate tokens left over from the previous night's dinner). Then, the best part of staying in really, you are ready to tuck yourself under the plush covers of the hotel bed knowing that the next night you will once again be sleeping in your own.

On Pedicures

June 12, 2014

Your life can be explained in toes. It can be mapped on the soles of your feet, the thick pads tattooed with wrinkles and lifelines that mirror the riverbeds in your hands. Each footstep is another groove worn into your life-path, another print outlining how you got to the here and now. Your toes, your feet carry the weight of that map, the tread of your day-to-day life.

It is pure enjoyment, naturally, to put those feet up once in a while, to pamper those graceful soles that both ground and elevate you. To this day you have only ever had one manicure and two pedicures, including the one you are enjoying right now, your feet propped up on the ledge of your fancy chair as the nail artist paints your toenails a soft lilac color (you never were one for the more traditional colors).

The door of the nail shop opens out onto the small town of Ruidoso; the main street is lined with shops and restaurants. The fans blow in the direction of you and the desert women you are with, cooling the hot temperature of the foot bath and drying your nails. Outside you can feel the sun begin to lower, the trees in the nearby mountains settling in for the night.

Your feet have been cleaned and scrubbed and pampered, worn smooth as if any heaviness in your past year has been buffed away from your soles and your feet now feel naked, new, just like your trip to this mountain town seems to have breathed new life into your soul and reminded you why New Mexico will always be your home.

On a Road Trip through New Mexico

June 10, 2014

Your car is newly washed, polished, and shined. Your tank is full. You have your stash of tunes and another of snacks. Your bags are packed. You have the perfect company: your sister.

Now there is nothing but the open road before you, hours of cruising and giggling and singing along too loudly and out of key to country music. You only have one stop--Ruidoso--but you have summer in your soul and miles of open space spread out before you, making it the perfect little road trip.

The desert has graced you with a cool morning and the promise of a sunny day. Let no one tell you your desert is nothing but dust and an almost colorless brown blanketing the earth. As you cruise you see the mountains glow their purple glow in the distance; the dry sierra brush surrounded by little wildflowers of yellow, pink, and white; and scattered short trees--forest and silvery greens--fanning out on either side of the road, reminders of how much you love your desert. Further still, you know you will see the plateaus and hills wearing their red and brown and yellow stripes, their bellies full of clay and history. The sky itself kisses the hood of your car with its turquoise lips.

Deeper still you go, stopping only to fill up the tank and empty your bladders, climbing higher into cooler temperatures and greener lands. After time away, it is good once again to feel the road under your wheels, the expanse of this glorious desert in your heart.

Mojito Body Scrub

June 9, 2014

Nothing says summer like a nice, tall mojito--the mint and citrus cool you down after a day in the sun like nothing else. Just the smell of mint and citrus evokes fantasies of sipping this perfect drink poolside while sunning myself! But all the sunbathing leaves us with another important part of summer: self-care, especially for the skin. I concocted this scrub in honor of both these things (self-care and mojitos), so my skin feels tingly fresh and ready for a day at the beach--or more realistically, my patio. Use this with my mojito body butter and you've got a recipe for perfect skin all summer long!

Ingredients:

2 cups Epsom or sea salts or sugar (I used whatever I have on hand)

Mojito body scrub freshly packaged in a green mason jar--makes a great gift!

1 cup olive oil

20+ drops peppermint essential oil

20+ drops lemon essential oil

Mix ingredients in a bowl and transfer to a mason jar or other airtight container. You can add more of the essential oils to get a more pungent smell. Store in a cool, dry place for up to a month. To use, scrub liberally over body after soaping down. Avoid face. Rinse.

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Mojito Body Butter

June 8, 2014

Recently, I ran out of my stash of homemade body butter and made do for a few weeks with store-bought lotion--what a waste! My skin was dryer than dry and lost that luscious softness that can only be achieved with my own body butters. Even when I switched to plain old coconut oil in favor of the lotion, my skin felt greasy more than hydrated. So it was with great relief when I finished school that I could set aside an afternoon for making this moisturizer. Then, feeling the summer spirit, I decided to whip up a stash of mojito body butter, which would pair well with my mojito body scrub. I adapted my recipe from the book Organic Body Care Recipes--an amazing trove of great DIY self-care treats. After a week back using my butter, my skin feels minty fresh and supple!

While making your own body butter might seem complicated or like it takes a lot of steps, it's really pretty easy. The trick is to go slow; the hardest part (really not that hard), is waiting for the beeswax to melt. I like to melt it separately from my other ingredients because it takes the longest to melt. Once melted, you can slowly add other ingredients. Don't be alarmed if the beeswax seems to harden with the introduction of oils--just add the oils a little at a time, and it will slowly melt down again.

Special Tools:

Clean tin can

Old saucepan

Ingredients from left to right: essential oils, coconut oil, olive oil, distilled water, and beeswax.

Blender

Spatula

Ingredients:

3/4 cup olive oil

1/3 cup coconut oil

4 tablespoons beeswax, roughly chopped into small pieces

1 cup distilled water

30 drops peppermint oil

30 drops lemon oil

Tin can in sauce pan with some beeswax in it.  I prefer to use an old saucepan that I don't cook with anymore--I use it strictly for beauty treats. — Tin can in sauce pan with some beeswax in it. I prefer to use an old saucepan that I don't cook with anymore--I use it strictly for beauty treats.

1. Place the saucepan on low heat and fill halfway with water. Then place the clean tin can in the center of the saucepan. Put the beeswax in the tin can and let melt slowly. When beeswax is melted, remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature (but not to solidify) about 5-10 minutes.

2. While beeswax is cooling, mix together olive oil and coconut oil in a small bowl. Heat for two minutes in microwave and let cool about 5 minutes.

3. Heat the distilled water (still in a microwave safe measuring cup) for two minutes in the microwave and let cool about five minutes.

Pouring the last of the melted beeswax into the blender while it mixes ingredients on medium speed.

4. Blend your ingredients in a blender. First add half of the oil mixture and begin to mix it on medium. Once the oils begin to thicken, add half the water, then half the beeswax. Blend for another 10-15 seconds or until first half of your ingredient are blended and being to thicken. Using a spatula, scrape down the sides of the blender and then begin blending on medium again. Add remaining ingredients (oils, water, beeswax) one at a time until fully incorporated together. Scrape down the sides one last time and blend for another 10-15 seconds. The mixture should be thick.

5. Turn off blender and add essential oils, stirring them in manually with your spatula, then blend completely on medium for another 10 seconds.

Freshly jarred homemade body butter, cooling.

6. Pour body butter into containers (I use mason jars) and let cool for at least half an hour before capping. If you find your water separating from your oils, don't worry, that's normal. It just means that the water temp and the oil temp weren't the same when you blended them. I've noticed the more I make this recipe (or variations of it!), the less that happens, so just keep practicing. Store in a cool, dry place for up to one month or in the fridge for six months--that is the advice the book I adapted the recipe from gave. Personally, I have stored this body butter in my bathroom sink for a couple months and it has been fine sans fridge.

7. To use, apply after bathing or showering. Use only a little at a time--a little goes a long way!

On Restocking Your Refrigerator

June 7, 2014

At last! You finally get the chance to restock your fridge. The week was a study in making some hastily bought lettuce, eggs, beets, last until you could go grocery shopping properly. Your fridge has stood forlornly in the corner of your kitchen, almost empty except for a stray bread end and your meager staples. This simply will not do.

It is sweet relief to enter the store, to fill your cart with fresh basil and wine and aged Gouda cheese--the essentials. Your heart is light as you pile on the berries that have suddenly come in-season while you were away, yes they will fill your shelves nicely. And you cannot live without radishes. Or organic lemons. Or, frankly, dates. So in your cart they go.

Then there is the question of dinner for the next few days. You already know your weekend breakfasts will be omelet filled (you select heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms, sweet onions). The heat makes you crave nothing but crisp salads, light fish, fresh fruit. You feel a menu forming in your head: salt and pepper calamari with beet and radish salad. Then pesto pizza with those heirloom tomatoes the next night. You even eye the apricots--not quite ripe yet, and wonder if you can turn them into a 5-minute refrigerator jam. Your mind cannot stop forming recipes, meals, kitchen experiments.

At home again, you unload your bounty into your now happy refrigerator, marveling at its shelves, almost bursting with whole foods. You must celebrate. You take the freshly-made sparkling water and mix it with grapefruit juice and basil simple syrup (newly made with the basil only just purchased) for a festive mocktail; happy to once again have an arsenal of goodies at your disposal, ready for anything from a simple meal to an impromptu get-together with family. You try to enjoy your drink on the patio, but it doesn't last. You find yourself in front of the fridge, enjoying your modern day cornucopia, sipping your drink. It is good to be home.

On Saying Goodbye Old Lives in New Cities

June 6, 2014

It started in Versailles. There you were looking at centuries old rooms coated in luxury, stained by the violence of excess. You found an older version of yourself--the one who once would have eaten up every little decorative touch in the royal bedrooms and every morsel about Marie Antoinette--tucked into a corner by the window, staring out at the Hall of Mirrors. There was your reflection of someone long gone, that you who used to make your living memorizing these facts of another age, another culture, a ghost not completely sure she had passed on to another realm.

You saw her again roaming the ground of this palace, lost in the excess. You watched as she searched for Marie Antoinette's cottage, the place the queen played peasant, desperate for a glimpse of something real after the painful glitter of the palace. Yet she was also painfully eager to put her stamp on the place as if to legitimize her past studies after viewing what she'd only read about in books. But you reign her in. You are weary of this empty place, this soulless husk of a time long gone. You let this old remnant go over escargot in the Rue Cler, happy once again to be who you are, where you are.

Yet this old life crosses your path again, this time in London as if a walk through Covent Garden has triggered her appearance. (You begin to wonder if you will ever be fully rid of her.) Here, too, she is disoriented, only half-aware that her time has passed. Like the old pleasure grounds of Covent Garden taken over by luxury shops and tourist traps, she no longer exists except in name. You mourn this loss, feeling history erode beneath your feet and yet are grateful for the firm grounding of the here and now--family, present enjoyment of a good fish and chips dinner, things you would have forsaken in the past to prove your knowledge, your mastery of something outside yourself.

She appears only once more, this past life, the path you could have taken had you chosen to remain a scholar-nun, wed only to your books, your research, your grip on dead things long past. You find her in Bath; here she is only a wisp of smoke, already faded under your appreciation of the path you now walk. She whispers to you on the Circus, the circle lined with Georgian Buildings, the hub of gossip, home to many an Austen novel (a fact, among others, she is proud to remember), yet her voice is only a rustle of leaves. Here too, the city is overtaken with over-priced shops and sad imitations of a life that once was. Here too, you say goodbye to the dust and memories that used to occupy your life so completely. Here too, you turn from her.

You have left the Circus, your old self disappearing like a puff of smoke, that path you could have taken paved over with yellow bricks such as those that Bath was built with. You watch it happen from the safety of your new path, carved from the desert stone, cured by the desert sun, nourished by everyday life. This is your path. As if to sweep away the last of your old life as you return home, you receive a message from your sister, a bright light clearing through the rubbish of the past: she is having a baby girl. You will be tia, you will be autie, to a little niece. All at once, you see what is before you now: new life, warm as the desert heat you are missing, real as your native soil beneath your feet. Family. The desert. The enchantment of daily life. This is your life.