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.

On Lingering Over a Cup of Coffee at a Cafe

April 12, 2014

It is your favorite cafe and the perfect morning to linger over a cup of rich coffee.

It is still cool out, but the day already hints at the warm afternoon to come. The mountains frame the city in the distance, and the blue sky is streaked with ribbons of cotton. It is a lazy day, meant for lingering over your morning brew and maybe later puttering in the garden. But for now, you are content to nurse that cup and just be.

The coffee is rich and thick--bold cowboy coffee that wakes your sleepy cells up and yet soothes at the same time. You half-heartedly flip through the local newspaper, finding yourself, as always, paying more attention to your weekly horoscope than any of the more in-depth articles.

Eventually, you abandoned your tentative hold on the paper in favor of people watching--the couple holding hands to the right of you, the old friends catching up over breakfast, the late-for-work take-out worker bees. All are part of the gentle hum of the morning, the sweet cacophony of daily living.

You take one last sip of your coffee, now only an almost-cooled puddle at the bottom of your cup. Your thoughts turn toward gardening, maybe even reading a novel on your patio, your plants and the sunshine your quiet companions. Yes, time to rejoin the rest of the world in their steady industry. As you slowly make your way to the exit, you can still taste the rich caramel of the coffee on your lips. You marvel at such a taste and the gentle promise of a slow day ahead of you.

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!

Grape-Lime Gin and Tonic

April 11, 2014

One of my favorite warm weather cocktails is the gin and tonic. It's the perfect blend of sweet and bitter. It's not overly saccharine, and its bubbly quality always makes it feel festive.

Last summer my family and I took a cue from Spain (a country in love with the G&T) and started adding different ingredients to the classic drink to up its yum factor. The hands-down easiest and most delicious flavor combination is limes and mashed fresh grapes (in the summer we use the ones growing in my parent's backyard). The taste is everything the warmer months encapsulate: tart fresh fruit, refreshing bubbly, and a long afternoon sitting in the backyard, enjoying a cool breeze.

For this recipe, I used Moscat grapes, at their peak in the spring, and best known for their role in making sweet Muscato wine. You can also use green grapes--their tartness brings out the crisp zing of the tonic water.

Ingredients:

1 shots (1 1/2 ounces) gin

3 shots (4 1/2 ounces) tonic water

1 tablespoon lime juice

10 muscato grapes

Ice

Combine grapes, lime juice, and gin in your glass. Muddle ingredients until grapes are mashed and combined with liquid ingredients. Add ice. Top with tonic water. Stir. Enjoy!

Serving size: One (so invite a friend over and double the recipe!)

You might be wondering how to fill a glass this tall...easy: add more gin and tonic!

On Dreaming Deeply

April 10, 2014

You are craving it: that deep sleep that makes you forget where and who you are, and yet brings you closer to yourself.

You welcome it with the arms of a lover as you crawl into bed, already claiming it as yours before the lamp light is out. You wait for it to take you, however impatiently, knowing full well that it will take the time it wants to take--at first courting you slowly and then upon you all at once, pulling you deeper into a realm beyond your own.

It is not the sleeping you love, so much as the dreaming. You long for the stories that unfold behind your eyelids and the parts of yourself to awaken that are too often submerged in a hazy half-sleep throughout the day.

Deeper still you go, to places with no names and languages beyond your scope in the here and now, but that are yours nonetheless--yours always, when you sneak beneath your covers and let sleep take you.

Yes, it is the dreaming you look forward to, so much so that it is a wonder your waking life is not its own dream meant to pass the hours, the minutes until you can once again be claimed by that other place, that other embrace.

On Chamomile

April 9, 2014

It is the soft yellow heads you see first, then thin white petals dried into healing slivers. You smell ripe apples and rich earth next, the sweet graininess of the little flower a soothing potion when steeped in hot water.

Gingerly, you gather a small handful of these fragile little flowers and funnel them into your tea strainer which you then nestle into the arms of your favorite fat tea mug.

You pour hot water, freshly boiled, into your mug, enjoying the sweet steam that rises to kiss your face; it is the perfume of sweet grass and sun-warmed fruit that laps over your skin.

You watch the flowers bloom anew in your mug, the white petals unfurling and then dissolving into the warm liquid.

When it it is time, you remove the strainer from your mug, leaving behind only a thick healing concoction the color of yellow straw--your own liquid sun cupped between your hands.

You take a sip, letting it wash your throat and course through your body, at once attracting abundance and repelling unwanted energies--if lore is to be believed.

Just one sip of the brew from this apple-scented flower and you are convinced. Inside and out, it has cocooned your body in its warmth, sheltered you from that which you don't need and saving you for that which you do.

She Works Hard for the Money Power Muffins

April 8, 2014

During a busy teaching day, I like to stay fueled with these power muffins--they're tasty, easy to make, and so packed with vitamins and nutrients that they can hold me for a long time. This is especially important for the days I'm teaching back-to-back classes and don't get to my lunch until later in the afternoon. If you, too, find you need a healthy snack between meals, whip up a batch of these She Works Hard for the Money Power Muffins!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

2 tablespoons almond meal

2 tablespoons flaxseed meal

3 tablespoons chia seeds

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon ginger

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup vegetable oil or coconut oil

1/3 cup coconut milk

2 eggs

1 shredded granny smith apple

2 shredded carrots

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

Oil muffin tins. Combine all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix all wet ingredients. Slowly combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients. Fill greased muffin tins about two-thirds full with batter. Bake until lightly browned, about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes. Enjoy!

On Cooking an Onion

April 7, 2014

Ah yes, dinner.

You don't know what you feel like and, at the end of the day, are incapable of making any real decisions. But you know, just as well, that you must eat. So you turn to a kitchen ritual so old you don't remember who you learned it from--your mother, most likely, or perhaps your Florentine sister teaching you yet another Italian custom. In any case, you know what must be done.

You need to cook an onion.

This onion is your culinary oracle. Once gently simmering in your pan it will divine the future of your kitchen table, wake up your palate and reveal that which you most desire--for tonight.

So you deftly move through you conjuring ritual with the ease of someone who has done it often. You pull a sweet onion from your cupboard and lovingly chop it up on your cutting board. You heat up oil and slide your offering into the pan--a gift to the culinary gods.

There is nothing left to do but let that humble kitchen staple begin to caramelize and wait for that moment of inspiration. You feel the pungent scent of these bulbs drift through your home, conjuring up memories of comforting meals like rich soups and ratatouille and roasted root vegetables. But it is dhal you finally settle on--yes dhal, cooked to perfection only once the onions are added to the lentils, along with garlic and cumin. Yes, dhal.

The oracle has spoken.

On Long Naps

April 6, 2014

You hadn't meant to sleep that long, not really.

You just closed your eyes--but only for a moment. You were already comfortably lounging on your bed, a soft knitted blanket wrapped loosely around you. A paperback in your hands. Your eyelids had grown heavy between reading one chapter and the next. Just for a moment, you thought. You'll close your eyes and practice your meditation, focusing on your breathing. Yes, that's exactly what you'll do.

Before you know it, your book had slipped from your hands just as you have slipped from this world. A part of you is vaguely aware of the knitted blanket pressed against you, its little folds and ridges conforming to your body, your head relaxed against your pillow.

And then you go deeper.

Images flit past your mind--the backyard you grew up in, your now kitchen, and other places. Places you've only seen in your dreams but know well--and deeper still you go. Narrative after narrative unfolds, your dreams like layers of an onion, each one peeling back to reveal another.

And as you sleep you feel your body mending, your soul filling up in another world, your mind recharging as your real world concerns melt away, float off like clouds, somehow less important when drifting in another realm.

When you wake, hours later, it is slowly, gently. You are disoriented, not sure of the day or time or where, frankly, you are. Then you feel your knitted blanket around you, see the bubbles and shadows of the popcorn wall above you. You see it now. You are home, in your bed, having slept the afternoon away. You close your eyes again, not quite ready to leave your sanctuary. For now, it is enough to linger in your bed, halfway between sleeping and waking.

On Baking

April 5, 2014

Outside it is a calm, cool, almost cloudy spring day. You woke up feeling relaxed, deliciously unfocused. Your body is pleasantly sore from a week of strengthening and healing. It is the kitchen that eventually calls to you between nursing your last cup of coffee and tinkering with words at your writing desk. You want the pure comfort of baking.

You put on the kettle for tea. Your rummage through recipes--both in the books stacked against one wall of your kitchen and in the files of your mind--until you land on another idea entirely: time to play, toy with a new muffin recipe.

Slowly, you gather your supplies. Two kinds of flour and too many seeds to keep track of, shredded carrots and apples, your favorite spices, cinnamon, and ginger. You whisk together eggs and milk, flour and spices. When your mix is ready, you spoon it into your muffin tins, already anticipating the warm treat that awaits you soon, so soon.

You pop your muffin batter into the oven and set the timer. While you putter around the house--washing your baking dishes and flipping through your bookshelf--the rich scent of cinnamon and brown sugar waft through the oven, perfuming your home with a sense of comfort and well being.

It isn't until you pull the muffins out from the oven and bite into the still-too-hot treats that you feel the warmth in your belly, the cozy tingling in your spine that tells you all is well with the world.

You are at peace. You are at home.

On Watching the Robin Build Its Nest

April 4, 2014

It is far too cold out today for it to really feel like spring, certainly too cold to muster the energy for the potted gardening plans you had been only too eager to work on when it was warmer. Your breath streams out in thick white clouds before you as your venture out onto your patio. You feel winter's fingers hugging the earth for one last time, before letting it go--wistfully almost, as if winter knows that as soon as it's gone, nature will turn to another lover, spring, where it will happily settle into the new season's warm embrace.

The robin in the tree, however, feels none of this. For this bird, winter is already good as gone. And so it flits from tree to tree, gathering brittle leaves and other ephemera to build its nest. Spring is here. There is much to do.

You watch this robin swoop down to the ground, gathering dried grass in its beak, hopping over the empty fountain, in search of stray bits of thread and fluff for its new home. In the cold that is almost too much for you to bear, even snuggled in your plush robe, you can't take your eyes off this bird as it takes its treasure. What others might see as debris and nature's castoffs, this bird uses to build itself a shelter nestled in the crook of two gnarled branches high up in the tree outside your window.

This robin builds its home tenderly, tucking dried grass here and there into the folds of its perfectly round nest, fussing over the sticks and leaves that make up the plush foundation of its home. Busy, busy. The home must be built for soon it will be time to settle in and lay those eggs, to care and nurture that new life.

Finally, the cold has got the best of you, and you make your way inside, but not before you cast a glance at your potting soil and seeds in the corner of your patio. Soon, soon, you will tend your home too. You will flit here and there, gathering supplies for your garden. You will fuss over the seeds and the arrangement of pots. You will even leave out bits of dried plants and thin strips of bark for the robin.

On Healing as Art

April 3, 2014

You must take comfort in the journey--the grace and the flow of listening to your body day by day, allowing yourself to truly embrace the task of understanding the pieces that make up who you are. It is its own art form, a daily expression of self-care, devotion to wholeness of mind, body, spirit.

The tightness in the shoulder, the twinge in the hip, the loud mind flitting from one thing to the next--these things are gifts from the natural you that is buried under the debris of the day. Gifts, yes, gifts. They are your body's way of making you pay attention, tune in, listen to your deepest self and nourish that voice to fulfillment. They are the simple melody you can't shake, the one that pulses through your veins, dances in your blood until you're left with a song, if only you pause long enough to listen to that first tentative beat, that first pang of rhythm.

One moment your are on the mend, the song of your essence thrumming deep inside you, filling you up and giving you wings; then just as suddenly you forget to listen to that simple melody, that quiet beat of your body as louder noises, bigger demands call to you--distractions from your art. It is then that your body must get louder, then that it cries out, feeling neglected, for you have tuned out the rhythm, the song of your body.

Healing is the poetry of the self, every tendon mended is a loving word inscribe on your body. It is a continuous journey, the deepest expression of self--a ritualized performance art that you cannot stop doing, or the very fabric of your essence unravels like a thread from a sweater until you are nothing but a pile of string, no form, no shape, no essence, no song.

You must be the healing art to live, to thrive, to sing.

On Getting Sh** Done

April 2, 2014

You feel like a boss.

Your week started with more than you knew how to handle, carry-overs from last week: tasks put off in order to deal with unexpected bumps in the road, piles of essays to grade taller than yourself--even in heels. Procrastination was not in your vocabulary. It was, in truth, the stuff of anxiety dreams. You knew there would be no relaxation until that mountain of work was reduced to a small speck of dust. No evening glass of wine enjoyed, no yoga fully given over to.

There was only one thing to do: get shit done.

The hours before you unrolled like one long 80s montage dubbed to a Spanish pop soundtrack: clipping through papers and answering emails and cranking out those lesson plans. Onward! Watch as the pile of ungraded essays is reduced to one final late paper. Bob your head to the beat of Belanova as you see the last of that online training.

Between one day and the next, you found yourself with a to-do list whose entries had been crossed through one after another, until you were left with nothing but horizontal black lines, proof of your progress.

This, this is getting shit done. And the post-yoga glass of wine? That's enjoying your boss status.

Coconut Water-Kiwi-Lime Cocktail

April 1, 2014

That's right, I said it. All us hippies can feel free to have our coconut water and drink it too--in cocktail form! It makes drinking cocktails feel almost healthy, because, hey, there are tons of good-for-you vitamins and electrolytes in your glass, thanks to the coconut water. If you're feeling extra virtuous or pregnant, feel free to leave out the vodka--the drink is equally delicious sans alcohol.

Ingredients:

1.5 oz vodka (1 shot)

3 oz coconut water (2 shots)

1 squeeze of lime (about half a teaspoon)

One skinned chopped kiwi

Ice

Pour vodka, lime, and kiwi in a glass and muddle ingredients until kiwi mixes with liquids. Add ice. Top with coconut water. Stir. Enjoy! Makes one serving (so you should probably double it and share with a friend).

On Drinking A Glass of Wine on My Patio

March 31, 2014

The day is at an end. You have turned your teacher clothes over for yoga pants and a comfy top. Your hair is loose around you. Your bare feet enjoy the feel of the earth kissing their naked pads. All thoughts of school are fading quickly under the magic of the evening's cool air, the soft cooing of doves, and the chilled glass of white wine in your hand.

You sip from your glass, savoring the dry flavors of grapefruit and basil. The cool liquid rolls over your tongue and down your throat, just as the sun sets a little lower in the sky. You know you should probably turn your attention to the news soon but for now your relish the simple quiet after a day of noise and bustle.

The city itself seems to be winding down for the night, relinquishing its fast pace for calmer hours as if it were a person, undoing its neck-tie before unlocking the front door. You take another sip of wine, relishing how the herbaceous flavor warms your belly and loosens your limbs. For a moment, you are nothing more than you--a quiet soul, enjoying a quiet night.

You take another sip and close your eyes; underneath the mellow birdsong, you hear the gentle murmur of traffic as people head home, looking forward to a hot meal and a couple of hours doing nothing. Nothing--nothing more than gazing out at the world from the humble perch of your patio, mind blissfully focused on nothing in particular, nothing but the gentle grace of a day coming to a close.

On Pulling Out Your Warm Weather Clothes

March 30, 2014

It is one of those chores that inevitably follows after the days get longer and warmer. Suddenly, your wool sweaters are too thick, your winter coats too cumbersome to wear. You find yourself looking for this thin sweater or that breezy tunic--both tucked in storage.

Then the day comes when your closet is a mess of half-open boxes holding summer clothes and almost abandoned winter things hanging limply from your hangers. It is time--time to say goodbye to the long, dark days of winter and greet the spring that is already at your doorstep.

One by one, your heavy clothes go into your storage, just as each polka-dot dress and floral skirt tumbles out of its box. You shake them out as if waking them from a long nap, even as you tuck your winter clothes in for their seasonal sleep. As you pull each item out of its box--a forgotten yellow sundress, bought late in the season, or a favorite pair of ladybug pajama shorts--you marvel at how these clothes are a reflection of you.

Each brightly colored scarf and vivid A-line skirt is a drop of your essence expressed to the world. You hang these concrete tokens of that ephemeral thing that are you, already looking forward to when you can don these summer feathers and swan into the world full of light and playful bounce.

On Saturday Night at the Movies

March 29, 2014

You know for most people it is a simple jeans and t-shirt affair, just another night watching another big screen movie.

But for you, Saturday night at the movies will always conjure up visions of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby or Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve--the whole screen filled top to bottom with black-and-white glamorous hijinks. It is the layered history of a new form of storytelling; the theater, a continuous work of art made up of the imprints of each story whose reels have played upon that big, blank screen.

There is even a part of you that wants to don a mink coat and long evening gown for the event, your hair worn in the stylish waves popular among those the silver-screen vixens. You know, of course, that you would be as terribly out of place as you were stylish, but it wouldn't matter--you would be paying tribute to those old gods of the new narrative.

You ponder this as you prepare for your evening out, wearing a mix of old movie glamor staples and new movie-night-uniform jeans, happily anticipating the night's feature. You realize as you apply your last swipe of mascara, that each time we prepare ourselves for a movie--in jeans or jewels--it is part of the celebratory ritual of entering our modern day kiva to listen, to watch, to fill ourselves up with narratives--to heal.

On Self-Care

March 28, 2014

You use to consider it an indulgence--the thing you got to after everything on your seemingly never-ending to-do list was crossed off. You even prided yourself on this fact.

And then the long hours at the computer, staring at your word document hoping to pile on more words upon your other words in an effort to be a good student caught up with you, as did the too-often ignored yoga mat. Your body cried out; it resisted your anxious busyness, your insistence on committing to just one more daily professional task to prove your worth. You now had no choice but to take care of that shoulder misaligned from too much time in front of the computer, or that hip ache from gluing yourself to your seat.

You no longer felt the need to brag about not taking care of yourself. It was no badge of honor to be working round the clock. Only self-harm.

It was many months after that--years even--that you slowly began to learn the necessity of self-care. It was a hard lesson. One that taught you the patience only daily care to mend your body can teach you. When it seemed as if you would forget, your body was there to remind you with little aches and pains, old injuries flaring up like ghosts stirred to life.

Now you look back at that part of you stretched beyond your limit as if it were another lifetime. Now you no longer consider self-care an indulgence. That to-do list is no longer never-ending, but a contained list of tasks that are never, ever quite as important as time in the day to heal yourself, care for yourself so that your body sings with light and your heart beats strong. No longer are you afraid to commit to caring for yourself.

Apple Cider Vinegar Detox Bubble Bath

March 27, 2014

Apple cider vinegar, like baking soda, is one of those all-purpose miracle kitchen staples, good for everything from salad dressings to facial toners. For it to really work, though, you need to make sure that you buy only the raw organic kind, like Bragg, because of the natural minerals, vitamins, and enzymes in it. Apple cider not only reduces inflammation in the body and draws out toxins, but also soothes and moisturizes the skin. It is likewise the all natural secret to brighter, clearer skin--it has long been purported to cure acne and fade sunspots. What most people don't know about apple cider vinegar is that it also absorbs and neutralizes odor, making it one of the best forms natural deodorant, right up there with baking soda.

...which is my long way of saying that it makes a great detox bath--bubbles optional (but really, what bath is complete without bubbles?). If you are worried about smelling like you spent the day in a pickle jar post-bath, don't be! The vinegar smell doesn't stick to you like most people think. You can always add some essential oils to your bath to balance out the vinegary smell as well.

Ingredients:

1 cup apple cider vinegar

essential oils of your choice (optional)

favorite bubble bath (optional)

Simply add one cup of apple cider vinegar to your bath, along with your essential oils and bubbles if desired. Plant to soak for at least half an hour to get maximum benefits. Enjoy!

On the First Bird to My Bird Feeder

March 26, 2014

I would like to thank you, brave soul, the first to venture into my homemade bird feeder.

Built from a small blue colander, fishing wire, and more gumption than crafting know-how, it was my ode to spring, my gesture of goodwill to you lovely birds that fill my mornings with sweet songs and my nights with quiet lullabies.

How long I have been courting you, dear birds! How long have I been scattering seeds around the perimeter of my little patio--advertising the new restaurant in town. Yet still my feeder sat, filled with too much birdseed, forlorn and untouched by anything but this brash March wind.

I know the perils you face dear birds--the cats living above me make no secret of their desire to have you visit their patio. I spied them one night, sipping wine after a long day at work. I looked up to find their little heads peeking over their patio awning to peer into mine.

Aha! I told myself. It is the cats that have scared you birds away. I will give you a safer place to feed. So I put my bird feeder safely inside my patio, away from the prying eyes of cats. I scattered more seed. I waited. I hoped. Eventually, I began to reconcile myself to the fact that none of you would visit.

It was in that frame of mind that I once again went out to my patio to enjoy a glass of wine. And there you were--my brave little friend! My one lone adventurer who risked the cats and dove into my bird feeder and gobbled up seeds. I thank you. What's more, I'll put out more bird seed for you. For you and your friends. Please come again--soon!

On Limits

March 25, 2014

It has taken you some time to realize that you don't have to do everything--that you shouldn't. You knew your heart would sing at the thought of doing less and yet, when you cleared your time, you found yourself filling it back up again, like adding bricks to a wall you had just been trying to take down. Before you knew it, you were walled in again, your life a series of activities at break-neck speed. You were moving so fast you didn't even know it.

Then one moment you stopped and looked around and realized that even in your attempts to do less, you had cluttered your days with things to do, business things and recreational things and healing things, but nowhere did you leave room to breathe.

And so began your task: to set limits. You could let go of this and that event, that one extra little task or the squeezed in errand. You watched each of these unnecessary activities fade away until you were left--blissfully left--with only blocks of unstructured time to breathe, to let your mind wander, to leisurely complete one task.

In finding these limits, you found your expansiveness, your memories of a life that is more than just one thing after another. It is a series of delicious experiences and wild musing, rich lessons and always, always pockets of pleasure that can only be plundered when there is unfilled space--time to simply be.

Check Out My New Recipe Index!

March 24, 2014

Now that I am finishing up month three of my daily blogging on simple pleasures and life lessons, I've decided to put together a recipe index to help readers (and me, to be perfectly honest) keep track of the DIY beauty recipes, tea blends, and healthy treats I post on my blog.

So if you've wanted to try that body scrub or tea blend, but don't remember what day I posted it, you can check out my new Recipe Index here, rather that sift through past blogs. Woohoo! Of course, this also encourages me to keep cooking up fun in my kitchen--from more DIY beauty treats and teas, to fun summer cocktails (and mocktails!) and simple, healthy meals.

As always, thanks to everyone for your support!

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.

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