Random Questions

What does your reading list look like? Do you take time out to read? I have a pile of books in queue to read next, but am having a hard time tackling them.
If you could live anywhere, where would you live? What would you do? Who would you be? Would you keep the same company?
What do you think this world needs more of?
What do you think this world needs less of?
Do you have a green thumb, or do you kill anything with roots, with maybe the exception of tiny humans?
What do you regret?
What do you say you regret but don't really regret?
Like as with Greek mythology, what do you feel is your fatal flaw?
What are some personality traits of your own that you are fond of?
What are some personality traits that you really aren't so fond of?
What is your strongest belief?
Do you have any beauty secrets?
What is your favorite animal?
Your favorite song?
Your favorite food?
Your favorite actor/actress?
Your favorite smell?
What makes you uncomfortable?
Do you like crowds?
What can you not live without?
What is your dream car?
If you could anything, for the rest of your life, without incurring any cost or adverse health effects, what would you choose?
What is something everyone likes, but you?
What is something YOU like, that no one else does?
Are you a loner, or a social creature?
What is your most endearing memory?
Do you remember being a little child?
Paper or plastic?
What do you like on your pizza?
Are you a dog person, or a cat person?
Based on your last question, what is your favorite breed?
Fiction, or nonfiction?

Moon Juice's Moon Dusts and Adaptogens

I've been going through the items I received in the Sephora Inner Beauty, and while there has been both hits or misses, I am really surprised to find I REALLY liked the Beauty Dust.- though not really for the beauty results. I found the Beauty Dust mellowed me out and put me in a cheerful mood. I looked into the reviews other people had left, to find that the dusts are, amongst many other things, intent on aiding with stress via adaptogens.  Who knew? I mean, literally, who even knows what adaptogens are? Am I late to the party? It's the first time I've heard of them. So I did what any red bloody American girl would do- Google it. It is now my understanding that adaptogens are herbs that are touted to protect the toxic effect of stress. Adaptogens are intended to promote homeostasis (balance, for the non-scientifically inclined) and to increase resistance to stress. It isn't a newer fad, we can thank the Soviets for creating the term adaptogens in 1947 and it gained popularity rapidly through the late forties into the fifties as they performed increasingly extensive research on the subject.  I have also read they are rooted in Ayurvedic medicine, which is a whole other subject I really don't know enough about to even attempt to touch on.

Now I'm a skeptic. A vain skeptic. Had this been marketed to me as a stress tonic, I would've blown it off. It just doesn't seem like something that I would see many results from- but the Beauty Dust definitely chilled me out. I researched the company, the product, other people's experiences, and decided I was going to by some cans of their other products along with a replacement can of beauty dust, until I found they offered the product in a sort of a variety pack for roughly the same price per volume. 

Sold.

I was originally interested In the Beauty one, and was torn between the Power one and the Spirit one. Now I can try all six that they offer, Brain, Beauty, Sex, Power, Spirit, Dream, and try to convince myself I am saving myself money. 

Add caption

Some teeny tiny letters right here.

So tiny they're blurry.

I added a protein they offer to my order as well- "Blue Beauty Adaptogenic Protein". I'll follow up with my results once I give them the good old college try.

So what do they call it blue? How does it taste? So many questions.

Wait- only fifteen servings? I hope it delivers

So what are your thoughts? Has anyone else heard of adaptogens? Have any of y'all tried them before? How am I just hearing about this? 

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Such a rookie.

So I’m realizing I forgot to update you guys on my zucchini chips experiment, and I feel like maybe I should disclose the end results, since I had a few amateur issues. As I mentioned in the original post, I put garlic infused olive oil in my marinade. I was having the hardest time getting the zucchini to crispen up. I kept the concoction on the dehydrator for days. I checked the moisture levels, as I’m a nerd and a stickler and I have things like dehumidifiers and meters in my house, and nothing was amiss. After a few days of this game I realized that I wasn’t experiencing moisture in my chips, I was experiencing OIL. Oil that I had added. So there’s that. Rookie. They were delicious, for the record.  I really enjoyed the addition of the fresh dill, though I’d added a little too much pepper to the marinade. I would cut back on that, or possibly omit it all together if these are for children.

One thing I would probably do differently is make the slices a little thicker as some of the chips pretty much evaporated to nothing. Getting the optimal thickness would probably involve patience or a mandolin slicer, so that’s probably a no. On a loosely related subject, I am currently dehydrating mangoes, pineapples, nectarines, and grapes. No pretty pictures to show yet. 

Mind Your Elders

This whole box is what twelve pounds of Elderberries looks like. Twelve whole pounds of Elderberries- also known as 2,724 servings, according to my math. I’ve been hoarding for the upcoming flu season, though hopefully there will be less demand this year. No one on my good list will be getting sick.

Sephora's Inner Beauty Box

I am a real sucker for supplements- beauty supplements mostly. I diligently take my collagen, biotin, periodically divulging into beauty concoctions that promise luminous skin, as smooth and as wrinkleless as a twenty year old with wealthy parents and a spa budget- so when I discovered Sephora's Inner Beauty box whiles perusing their aisles, it was an easy sell. I'd already been in the market for a new bkr bottle, and always wanted to try the Beauty Dust supplements made by Moon Juice, so why not?

Please disregard my chipped manicure and the greenish tinge, but here is the packaging. 

The box contains one eight ounce bkr bottle. 

I'm trying to drink a glass a hour, so this size is perfect for my goal, though too small for some. 

Also included are three packets of Beauty Dust 

The next item in the box is a three day supply of Hum "Flatter Me" Dietary Supplements. 

The Beauty Chef's "Hydration" Inner Beauty Boost is also included in the box and is at six servings per the label.

Last but not least we have the 30 day supply of Ouai "Thin" supplements.

I have pretty thin hair and am a fan of the Ouai brand, so this is another product I'm looking forward to testing. The box was $35 USD, which is a decent deal.  

I'm going to sample each one of these products on their own to see what brings in the results and what doesn't, so this might take a while. I have tried the Beauty Dust and am really surprised to say that I did actually like the taste. It was almost like a watery lemon-y tea-ish flavor, which I surprised to taste. I expected it to taste foul, quit frankly. I'm going to try the remaining two samples to see if I see any effects, but I would buy the full size based on initial impressions.

In a Real (Dill) Pickle

Since I have an abundance of fresh veggies and fruits as I mentioned a few days ago, I have been on some kind of a crazy food preservation kick- but I’m still lazy. I have an over-abundance of lemon cucumbers, but had a problem with them having a thick skin. After some thought, I decided to make refrigerator pickles with them, choosing the refrigerator options to avoid the extra steps involved in a water bath. I peeled the skins and placed them in a mostly white vinegar brine with dill and garlic, Himalayan salt and cracked pepper.  I made a small jar with apple cider vinegar just because. Easily some of the ugliest pickles I’ve ever made. I hope these little bastards taste better than they look. 

Zucchini Chips Experiments

Zucchini post, margination, sans nooch, pre dehydration.

Part three of "Stuff I Bought Before I Got Sick Therefore I Had to Find A Way To Preserve It" involves some zucchini I picked up at the produce stand. I don't even know why I buy zucchini. I made myself sick of it a long time ago and usually just buy it to let it go bad in the fridge in the next few weeks- but since I had the dehydrator out I decided to get crazy. I found a formal recipe filled with pretty pictures, and immediately decided that I didn't have the energy for that. I took my spiralizer and two zucchini, and got to work using the slicing attachment. After a few seconds I decided to cut a slit down the zucchini, so now I have something slightly resembling a chip. From there a squirted a few drops of greek dressing, and quickly decided that would be way too strong for this, so I poured copious amounts of lemon juice on the zucchini, along with some garlic infused olive oil and plenty of fresh dill I bought for a pickling project I have also dogged off. I let the mixture marinate overnight, and the next day I ground some pepper and himalayan salt over the mixture, and added nutritional yeast (nooch) over half of the mixture for a variation. I gingerly laid the zucchini onto the trays and placed them on my ancient Ronco dehydrator, given to me years ago by my dear Pawpaw, and now we wait. And wait. And wait. Patience is a virtue when you're dehydrating things. I hope all my effort and patience pays off.