homemade healing hand lotion

When I get a new item of clothing that I love I'll usually wear it to death in the first couple weeks of getting it.  If I really love it, I'll probably want to put it on before I'm even out of the store.  I'm realizing that this effect transfers over to other parts of my life too, because I just can't stop playing around with essential oils right now.   When I first got them I didn't even know you could make your own lotions and stuff, but now it's one of my favorite things to do!  The best part is that it's crazy easy.  This lotion was actually the first one I ever made after I saw a friend complaining about having really dry hands from the winter weather and working as a barista.  I looked up which essential oils would be good for that and found a few recipes for healing hand lotions that looked really simple to make and just dove on in.  Five minutes later: hand lotion.  So awesome.  
Anyway, I'm pretty stoked on essential oils and figuring out all the cool ways to use them, so if you totally couldn't care less feel free to skip past, but I love learning how to make new things that I didn't even know I could make, so I want to share those things with y'all.  I'm still playing around with them and have had some awesome success with them and I'll probably do a blog post about it later after I've had more experience, but for now I created a separate page sharing my current experiences if any of you don't want to wait for a blog post and want to learn more about what I've been using my oils lately!




1/2 cup coconut oil (best to use cold pressed, extra virgin, organic, unrefined) 4 drops YL Frankincense Essential Oil 2 drops YL Lavender Essential Oil 1 drop YL Lemon Essential Oil
Just drop everything in a mixer (or do it by hand) and whip for 5 minutes.  Transfer to a glass jar (citrus oils will eat away plastic containers), and you're done!  I made a second batch for Dan because he does a lot of dishes at work, so his hands are constantly getting wet and dry. Plus, we both rock climb, so we use chalk to keep our hands from getting sweaty and slippery while climbing, but that also dries out the hands too. 
Coconut oil will start to liquify in warmer temperatures so you might want to mix in something else that will keep your lotion from turning into oil, like Shea butter.  Also, depending on the coconut oil you get, you might get the coconut smell in there too.  When I first made lotion I used refined coconut oil and it didn't smell like coconut at all, but I've heard that unrefined is better for your skin, so it's your personal preference.  Some people also find that coconut oil doesn't moisturize as well as other oils, so play around and find out which will work best for your skin!
// With any health or body care routine, make sure to do your own research and consult with any healthcare professionals you feel will help you make a decision on how to best care for your body.  This is just my story, but make sure your story is informed and healthy for you! //

iron pyrite

When I clicked on this dress to get a closer look at it I noticed it had shiny gold threads woven into the fabric.  At first I was disappointed because I liked the plain grey, but the more I sat on it, the gold grew on me.  I figured I could return the dress if it ended up looking weird but I'm so in love with it.   The combination of the sweatshirt fabric with the little flecks of gold reminds me of pyrite, or "fools gold."  When I was a kid, maybe around 6 or 7, my Dad and I flew up to Mount Susitna and landed on top.  We wandered around for while, exploring, and I found a couple iron pyrite stones which I took home. As a kid I'm sure I thought I'd found something valuable.  Fools Gold indeed.  My Dad quickly told me what the specks of "gold" really were, but I still loved the rocks and kept them. I'm sure I still have them, squirreled away in some nook back in Anchorage.  
I've been loving more fitted, slinky maxi dresses these days.  This one is especially comfy as it's pretty much the maxi dress version of a sweatshirt.  In theory that sounds weird, but in practice it's amazing.  A slinky, sexy dress that also feels like you're wearing a hoodie?  Awesome.  I was a little afraid the length would make me look too short, but I actually like it.  Plus, it's a nice change to be able to wear flats with a maxi instead of always needing platform heels.  Short girls take note!  A maxi dress that you don't have to hem!

 

dress/courtesy of modcloth :: shoes(similar)/target :: bag(similar)/courtesy of fossil jacket/modcloth :: necklace/courtesy of moorea seal :: photos by Dan

i didn't marry my husband

I try to avoid calling Dan "my husband."   Not because he's not, or that I don't love being married to him, but because he's so much more than that one word has the ability to communicate. And truly, husband is only one small role that he plays in my life. He is so much more than "my husband" and to refer to him as just "my husband" doesn't do justice to who he is as a human. Dan isn't my husband. He's kindhearted, brilliant, hilarious, brave, adventurous. He's a friend, a son, a lover, a musician, a cook, a brewer, a business man, maybe someday: a father. Dan is not my husband. He is an incredible human being who was carefully crafted by an infinite God, and it does him no justice to call him simply "my husband."  I don't like the ownership that it places over him.  Truly he is my husband, not anyone else's husband, but he's not mine.  I don't own him.  He is a person independent of our relationship.  He has friends, family, interests outside of our marriage.  It is true that we belong to one another in a way that is deep, spiritual, and life altering, but this doesn't give me ownership over his personhood.

This isn't to say that I never call him my husband.  We are married and it's a clarifying adjective to explain our relationship.  But he is "Dan, my husband" not, "my husband, Dan.  Husband is an adjective, not a noun.  Dan is who he is, not "husband."  I don't love my husband.  I love Dan.  Perhaps this distinction feels unnecessary or that I'm getting caught up in the details of semantics too much.  But I feel that by constantly reminding myself that I'm married to a human being, not the role of husband, I am forced to approach our marriage honestly.  Husband has so much tied to it.  What a husband should do, what society's idea of husband is, what other husbands are like, what other husbands do.  By taking my focus away from all that by eliminating the word entirely, I'm forced to be married to only Dan, not any of those other ideas of husbands.


I should clarify that this usually doesn't bother me in regular "IRL" conversations, it seems like people typically refer to their significant others by their given name, not their title.  I have no problem using "husband" to describe Dan's relation to me in my daily conversations with people I meet.  I had initially written some of that first paragraph on Facebook and a friend responded, "Maybe 'Husband' is meant to mean all that."  And I think she's right.  I realized I'm more referring to seeing this word in online contexts (facebook, blogs, etc.) It doesn't really bother me when I hear it in person, but online I quite often see people constantly referring to "my husband" (or wife) but never even say what that person's name is. There's no sense that the writer acknowledges their husband/wife's existence outside of their relationship as a spouse (Though I suspect that in some cases this is to protect their spouse's privacy, or perhaps the newlywed excitement of getting used to the new title).

Personally, I'm not one for pet names and generally avoid gratuitous PDA, so I'm just not the kind of girl who enjoys using descriptors like "hubby" or "wifey" in the first place.  This isn't to say that people who do get enjoyment out of that or feel loved when those terms of endearment/titles are used are wrong or terrible people or anything.  When it comes to sharing life online, though, I want to be intentional about words.  I want to communicate first that Dan is an amazing person, completely separate of his relationship to me.  It's because he's so incredible that I don't want to relegate him to the cookie cutter mold of "husband."

It's a shame that sometimes words lose their deep meaning in lieu of knee jerk instant associations.  I think about words like "liberal" "conservative" "Christian" "religion" and more, which have lost much of their true depth to stereotypes and easy definitions.  Husband and wife often have that same problem, maybe not so much in our daily conversations, but definitely on blogs and social media.  It's easy to write people as two dimensional, even yourself.  But I love Daniel.  He's not on the blog a ton, but when he is I hope I can communicate to the best of my ability that he is so much more than my husband.

Photos by Arrow & Apple

remix archives // striped cardigan

This long cardigan has become a staple in my wardrobe.  In fact, as I'm typing this I'm wearing it.  Appropriate.  It's one of the only cardigans I have at this longer length and it makes me want more.  The length is so perfect and the draping is just right.  Winters in Tacoma mean I'm constantly wearing cardigans to layer up for warmth, so I love having a cardigan that is stylish and interesting. Plus, it's light enough to wear during spring and summer, which makes it seasonally versatile as well.  It's one of those pieces that makes me feel totally myself, and it's easy to throw on and punch up a regular ol' outfit into something with a bit more flair.

the doldrums

I'm sitting at our kitchen table, with a cup of french press warming my palm and a fuzzy pup at my feet this morning feeling very full of encouragement and excitement. Life is so strange in its ebbs and flows, waxing and waning. I'll be stuck in the doldrums, caught swirling in an eddy, and then some current will come in and propel me back into the flow. It's important to remember that there's not always anything you can do to avoid getting stuck. Sometimes life just slows its pace around you and there's nothing you can do to change that. The only thing you have control of is your own response, but sometimes even that can feel uncontrollable. As a controlling person, it's hard to let life just have it's ups and downs without feeling like I've failed in some way during the down times. It's easy to think that I'm just not working hard enough, or doing enough, or being enough, and that's why things are so slow and I feel uninspired. Slow happens. It's okay.

I'm excited to work on a few new projects and do more with local creatives. Working alone for so long can make it easy to get stuck in uninspired ruts, but being around other creative people with their juices flowing helps reignite my own hibernating creativity. I'm also thinking of painting my living room and just going bold and drastic rather than mellow. Working from home means that being in the same space day in and day out can get boring and repetitive. Even just rearranging a room can breathe new life into routine. Once things start to warm up I'm going to begin transforming our front yard into a food garden, too! I'm ready for spring to hit with all it's transformative energy!

 

dress/courtesy of modcloth :: shoes(similar)/courtesy of blowfish :: cardigan(similar)/thrifted long necklace/courtesy of adorn by sarah lewis :: short necklace/local craft fair head chain/converted necklace (gift) :: photos by Dan