Author Archives: Tanya

Tanya

Hello:-) This is where I'm supposed to share with you a little about myself. Ok, here it goes. Born in NY, moved to Florida when I was 4 and grew up just north of Orlando in Altamonte Springs. I met my husband in 1994, knowing without question we were meant to be together forever, we got hitched in late 1996. We had a short jaunt in Las Vegas, NV, with his radio career and we conceived our first baby. This prompted us to return to Florida, landing in St. Petersburg. We've been back in FL for over 10 years now, kids are 10 & 8. My life can be summed up with family, traveling, life science, photography & fur kids. We currently have eight cats and two dogs and live on over 7 acres in Bradenton, a dream! I've combined my lifelong passion of photography & animals into turned them into my dream job in 2008, it's been wonderful & I Love every minute of it. I have a wonderfully supportive husband and two amazing kiddos and we're having a crazy good time together on this journey of ours! Cool beans.

Thanks so much for following this new segment, Natural Living Tips which you’ll find here on Tuesday’s. My friend Rosemary Nickel (Motivating Other Moms) and I have paired up to bring you these weekly tips on living a more natural life. They will be fun, quirky and informative, just like us, ha. We hope you join us here weekly for a new Natural Living Tip! Enjoy!

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The last few weeks I’ve been researching the benefits of Coconut Oil,  there are many.  I do promise to cover them in the next couple of weeks, but I’ve been distracted by all the yummy things you can make with other coconut products, the milk, water and juice.  These also have many health benefits including they’re loaded with Lauric Acid which is naturally found in mother’s milk. Lauric acid has been shown to have negative effect on many microorganisms in the body including yeast, fungi, and bacteria. It also has anti-carcinogenic and anti-viral properties.  You can read more about the benefits of coconut products and lauric acid at The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Here is a wonderfully refreshing way to add coconut to your diet.  This coconut tonic is also a nice substitute for cows milk if you’re sensitive to lactose or simply trying to reduce cows milk in your diet.

This is so easy peasy! You can purchase Coconut water and/or juice in most grocery stores or health food stores, as well as the coconut milk.  These two products are very different. The water is found in a young coconut, it’s the liquid you hear when you shake it. The milk comes from the white meat of the nut and is so yummy to cook with.

You simply take a can of each, dump them into a blender and blend. Viola!  Store in the fridge and serve over ice.  They may separate a bit, so give a little shake before serving.  Use this tonic to make the following green smoothie I found on Pinterest by Delicious Obsessions.

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado
1 cup Coconut Tonic
1/2 cup coconut water or juice
handful greens (I used spinach)
honey or other sweetener of choice – optional

First pit avocado and scoop out flesh. The easiest way to remove the pit is to whack it with a knife and twist, it pops out.

Add all ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth.

Enjoy!

Warning: If not used to drinking coconut milk smoothies, they are extremely filling, you’ll want to share the love!

Peace!

I’m chomping at the bit to write about a couple of things today, but Fadra’s prompt is, “How do you feel about where you live?”, and I have opinions about this too, so here we go.

My family moved to Florida when I was four. Aside from a short stint, 18 months, in Las Vegas with my husband, I’ve lived here since then. There are a lot of things to love about Florida, the beautiful beaches, flip flops all year, we don’t have to shovel snow or scrape ice off our car windows. For me though, I’ve never gotten used to the humidity at the levels we have. I soooo dread the summers, this one more than others as we’ve had NO winter this year and we hit 86 today, UGH. When we lived in Vegas, even when it was in the 90′s I could handle it because of the low humidity levels, you could go into the shade to escape, you can’t here. There are some who love the warm, wet blanket that wraps their body as they step outside four to six months out of the year, not me.

A couple of years ago we were set on moving to Colorado, the mountains, we love mountains, mountain lakes, streams, etc. That didn’t work out, still here, we found a wonderful house in East Bradenton on seven acres. We’re surrounded by old Florida, lots of beautiful oak tress dripping with moss, they’re lovely when the sun shines through. It’s so quiet out here and our neighbors are organic dairy farmers/ranchers. Such a great addition to our already natural lifestyle. This is our compromise until it’s the right time to say goodbye to Florida.

Ultimately for me, home is where my husband, two children & our furry babies are, on the road, here, anywhere, as long as we’re together.

Times Up!
This has been my Sunday 5 minute Stream of Consciousness.

Want to try it? Here are the rules…

* Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
* Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
* Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
* Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
* Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
* Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

This here is the Perfectly Flawed weekly round-up, so if you missed me on Pinterest & Facebook, this is where I’ll be sharing some of that LOVE on Fridays. Enjoy!

Butter, Uganda & Road Trippin’!

Earlier this week I stumbled upon this perfectly funny blog post. Do you, would you, could you? Hee hee!

After the very dramatic day of posting the Kony 2012 video, I found a very beautiful way to help support the women of Uganda in a much less political way!

Oh yes! White butter:-)

I made butter with my kitchen aid. Beginning with fresh cream from the Dam Ranch, our neighbor. It’s whipped until it collapses, pour off the buttermilk (use it in home-made pancakes:-) then add ice cold water and re-whip until the liquid pours off clear. Look it’s WHITE!!

A goal in life is to have a pantry like this, NO plastic!

My friend Rosemary and I launched our new blog segment Natural Living Tips this week. We even made videos, check out our debut on how to make a home-made coconut oil body scrub, then try it yourself! What essential oil combinations do you love? (See her blog here)

Have been continuing the planning of the kids and I’s Summer 2012 road trip, 8000 miles, 60 days. It’s starting to come together. Here’s a peek, it’s not complete. Makes me want to have one of these or these someday, well I’ve wanted one for a long time actually, ha.

Summer 2012

I’d love some must see’s, if you’ve done this before, tips, etc. Thanks!

And since I’m thinking of travel, I’ll leave you with this!

Happy Weekend,
Peace!

Thanks so much for following this new segment, Natural Living Tips which you’ll find here on Tuesday’s. My friend Rosemary Nickel (Motivating Other Moms) and I have paired up to bring you these weekly tips on living a more natural life. They will be fun, quirky and informative, just like us, ha. We hope you join us here weekly for a new Natural Living Tip! Enjoy!

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Coconut Oil Body Scrub

In my never ending quest to be as plastic-free as possible, I’ve been taking a closer look at the products our family uses on a daily basis. Which of these, if not all, can we DIY to eliminate the need to purchase yet another plastic container? Well, while researching the endless amounts of things that one can do with coconut oil, I came across this recipe on Pinterest for a Body Scrub. I decided to tweak it a bit and go for it!

Ingredients:

1 cup organic raw brown Turbinado sugar
1/3 cup dead sea salts or other sea salt
1/2 cup organic coconut oil
2 tablespoons almond oil
1/2 tablespoon Vitamin E Oil
1/2 cup crushed Lavender Flowers (optional)
5-7 drops Lavender Essential Oil

Combine sugar and salt, then add in oils one at a time checking for consistency. If too dry at the end, add a bit more coconut oil. Then mix in any dried flowers and essential oils. I also love to combine Sweet Orange essential oil with Lavender or for a pick me up scrub use a combination of Peppermint and Rosemary!

This scrub is wonderful in the bath or shower, use it on all your edges and rough parts. Or by the sink as a nice hand softener. Just rinse with warm water and you’ll have yummy soft skin.

Watch Rosemary and I make the scrub:-).

Have fun!

I’ll start by saying this is not a typical Stream of Consciousness. I’m breaking the rules by adding this video link, and many others, to something I came across yesterday. It’s called the Invisible Children, you may know it as Kony 2012 or you may not know it at all. If you haven’t seen it yet, you may want to watch the video first. Yes, it’s almost 30 minutes long, but I believe it’s well worth those minutes for several reasons.

Here a link to the video:

Ok, now that you’ve watched the video, maybe you’ve already heard of the campaign, have an opinion, maybe you’re saying “Yes, old news, this has been going on for years”? Maybe this is completely new to you and you’re currently bubbling up with frustration over what you just watched and asking “how can I help”? Either way I’m glad I was able to bring it to your attention because old news, new news, it needed to be seen again.

There is much criticism out there over this particular campaign and I’ve done my research and have my own opinions. You should do your own research too. I can help by providing you with some links:

Here’s Invisible Children’s rating and information on Charity Navigator. They currently hold a 3/4 overall, and here you can read the conversation on Reddit between Noelle at Invisible Children & members of the public with strong opinions. IC defends off concerns. I’ve read it all. More articles here, here and Africom is here. And please go to Invisible Children’s blog and read the director’s response to this article in the Washington Post and IC’s response to the criticism.

After all my reading, a lot of it, I’ve come to my own conclusions. Is this charity, Invisible Children, sensationalist? Yes, maybe, but that’s the goal here! This film was produced very well. They had to make it understandable to the masses to get a movement heading forward and quickly. The LRA and men like Joseph Kony, things like this have been going on for decades, longer even, this IS old news. I remember being fired up over these topics over 20 years ago. Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Darfur, the list goes on both then and now.

I posted this campaign on Facebook yesterday, because though I know about things like this happening, I hadn’t seen THIS video yet, THIS campaign, Kony 2012. My husband works in the media and he hadn’t seen it either. Apparently over three million people have, but we hadn’t and it moved us to remember that this is going on. While we’ve been self-absorbed with our own lives, our own agendas here, this kind of thing is still happening in Africa. It was a harsh reminder and you know what, I don’t care what campaign reminded me of that, reminds us all, the important thing is that we were reminded. The important thing is the MOVEMENT! The movement to make things like this stop.

This campaign by Invisible Children, if this works, goes viral and this man is brought to justice, it’s a great thing whether you believe in Kony 2012 or not. It means that this new thing called social media worked in powerful, positive ways, it means I can have hope that people when joined together for a common cause can move mountains.

I like this quote from a poster on Reddit “I’m behind this organization for the simple fact that it empowers youth unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Imagine what this will do to people if it becomes successful and makes millions feel like they did something to help”.

I support the Movement, I believe it’s never too late, you have to start somewhere!
Peace!

Times Up!
This has been my Sunday 5 minute Stream of Consciousness.  – Only today I made an exception!

Want to try it? Here are the normal rules…

* Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
* Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
* Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
* Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
* Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
* Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

This is the first of many a weekly round-up, so if you missed me on Pinterest & Facebook, this is where I’ll be sharing some of that LOVE on Fridays. Enjoy!

Kombucha, GMO’s & Jamie Oliver, OH MY!

I’ve been on kinda an Asian cooking kick lately so find some of those recipes here & here.

This week our reusable straws from Strawsome and my Shampoo bars from Chagrin Valley Soaps arrived. All in the name of eliminating plastic. We’re on our way!

I finally began my windowsill sprouts!  I’m on day two, so no sprouts yet but I’m documenting the growth daily. I’m sure it’ll be a future blog post, ha.

A few things on my to make/learn list are 1) butter, home-made using the cream from my neighbor, The Dam Ranch. 2) this amazing looking coconut/vanilla frozen yogurt and how to brew my own Kombucha Tea, buying this stuff is getting pricey!

I called my local senators and representatives for the first time this week. I asked them to please put their name on a letter that was drafted to the FDA to support the labeling of GMO’s. Don’t know what those are or why you should know? Click here & here.

Have you ever checked out Jamie Oliver’s Recipe Yearbooks?  I guess it’s a recap of recipes from throughout the year. I have the 2011/2012 yearbook and love it! (I found it a local Fresh Market Grocery, but can’t seem to locate the new one on-line, only previous years. Feeling lucky to have it at this point!

To wrap it up a new blog I’ve spent more time on this week are 1) Delicious Obsessions (which led me to make this yummy coconut/avocado smoothie) and 2) Cheeseslave.

Carmello wanted to make an apperance:-), my ham!

Peace!

Coconut Oil Body Scrub

I have a friend, Rosemary Nickel founder of Motivating Other Moms. We met many years ago, once upon a time when I was a Pampered Chef Consultant. Yep, I was. We’ve paired up to bring you weekly Natural Living Tips or Tips on how to live a more natural life. Beginning next Tuesday I will be sharing with you tips Rosemary and I have learned on a particular topic.  Our first topic, which we’re very excited about, is Coconut Oil and other coconut products. There will be beautiful photographs and video too. So please check in next Tuesday, I’ll be showing you how to make this Coconut Oil Body Scrub, I know you all want in on that action!!

Peace!

I haven’t yet used any Fadra’s optional topics of the day, but this one I can’t pass up: Where are you lacking trust in your life? (examples: church, government, work, family, etc.)

This past week I’ve been very emotional, mostly due to the rollar coaster ride of feeling of my cat Matilda disappearing for six days and my old man kitty having to be put down on on Wednesday. It would be an understatement to say I was a basket case.  Well, in this emotional state I talked to a couple friends and my hubby about the state of the country, mostly the state of our food supply because it at time enrages me.  I’ve educated myself for years about our food, it’s a really long story that I will only touch on, but it began with my passion for animals almost 20 years ago and I wanted to learn exactly how our food got from farm to table.  That was bad news….  A lots happened since then (the part I won’t get into here) but now there is so much more I know about food as  a whole and it sickens me what our government (FDA, USDA, etc.) allows in our food system.  I absolutely have NO trust in them AT ALL to feed us healthy food.  Right now heads of Monsanto are running the FDA and USDA, this is very sad and scary and we the people are going to have to take matters into our own hands by seeking out locally grown fruits and vegetables, finding our local farmers and ranchers for our grass-fed, free roaming meats and dairy products to ensure they are nutrient rich and not laden with chemicals, pesticides and hormones.  Many other countries have banned these things from their food, yet the US will not. I don’t know what the reasons are, we can speculate a number of things from lobbyists to big business to not wanting to change due to layoffs. Whatever.  I just feel that EVERYONE in this country should have the ability to walk into any grocery store and not have to worry about what’s in their milk, on their oranges. To me it’s very sad.

This is just a snippet of how I feel on this topic but you can clearly see that I don’t listen to the government about what’s good for us in the food department. Better re-think those Got Milk ads!

Times Up!
This has been my Sunday 5 minute Stream of Consciousness.

Want to try it? Here are the rules…

* Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
* Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
* Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
* Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
* Link up your post at all.things.fadra.
* Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Murdock and Amelia - The lovebirds:-)

Matilda

Warning…. This is a rant, a rage and will be negative in tone at times as well as endearing!

It may just be the phases of grief, I’m in denial, deeply upset, emotional and have an incredible amount of anger built up over the probable loss of our kitty Matilda. This is where some reading this will stop and say “Oh good grief about a cat again?”  YES it is. See, I’m one of those that has deep feelings towards my pets, and though I’ve always known that not all people share these feelings, living out here in the country I’m surrounded by more people now who see animals as a means to an end, a way of life, as working animals, not as creatures that can give and receive real love. It’s not hard for me to understand how they come to feel this way but I wish some understanding was allowed for the way I feel about them too. Matilda has been gone for six nights now, living out here with the coyotes (of which I haven’t seen or heard yet, but I’m told are here), the bald eagles (which DO on a regular basis swoop in and take whole chickens from our farm neighbors yard), and other predators, the likeliness of her coming home is slim. This compounded with just having put down our Amelia, of 13 years, only five weeks ago, and then our Murdock (16, our first kitten together before we were married and mama’s boy) lost his battle with cancer yesterday, I’m at my limit, to say the least!  This has been an incredibly difficult week for the family. Matilda is three, she was the kids first kitten.   Addy picked her out at Pet Pal Animal Shelter. Then her name was Heather,  she would let Addy carry her around endlessly and would lick Addy’s hands and face.  Her hair like a bunnies, so soft and this dark black chin strap marking that reminded me of the penguin. She was our kitty with Catittude, was really good at giving the”F-you” or “WTF do you want?” glare and then at night she’d curl up in whichever lap was available and fall into a deep sleep, totally content, peaceful.  But she was a free spirit and craved the outdoors, she started missing a meal hear and there to prolong her time outside. We were gifted with a squirrel, a bird and a lizard in just the short time we’ve been living here.  Always so proud of herself.  We fought over what to do with the cats when we moved, knowing the possible consequences of allowing them to go outside, knowing about the dangers that linger just pass the fence line and some within.  We decided it wasn’t right to keep them locked up if they so badly wanted to be free,  that  we’d have to be ok with our choice.  But I can’t scream loudly enough that even though we made that decision it absolutely DOES NOT make this any easier, in fact, with a personality like mine, I just go through the guilt of not doing my job of protecting her. Oh yes I do. I will at times blame myself for this, so I don’t need anyone judging me for letting her explore, though they will, have, and in lack of knowing what to say have judged out loud.  I know they meant no harm, but seriously, I’ll beat myself up enough.  I  stare out the windows see her in the shadows, I hope to see her just walk up suddenly, see her head staring at me to let her in, like she did.  God how I miss her face!! I’m not sleeping, I cry all the time, I’m literally sick about it! The sadness of missing her is hanging over the family like a thick fog.  If she’s not home by Sunday we’ve decided to have a small family service for her by the fire pit just to bring some closure, to begin the healing process.  We can think positive and say maybe another family took her in, I’d like the kids to think so anyway.  I know, like our neighbor said so bluntly “Oh, you’ll never see that cat again”.  Only I’ll keep hoping we will.

I just want those that don’t share mine and so many others deep love and emotion for our beloved pets to know that there are those who do have these feelings and to us losses like this are tremendous, can be debilitating, are not funny or easily dismissed. We take it like a loss of a family member because that’s what they are to us, I know, silly?  Not to people like me. Please, please try to respect our grief as we respect what animals are to you.

I’m just terribly missing my kitties!

Since moving here to East Bradenton, we have really been enjoying the many local farms and ranches. One we’ve been to several times is Hunsader Farm which is only 10 minutes away from our home. We’ve gone to pick strawberries and tomatoes a few times now, once the kids and I picked 22 pounds of strawberries for our housewarming party. We freeze them for smoothies, eat them whole, make sweet treats. I took great pleasure making home-made tomato sauce twice now, blanching, peeling, squooshing, cooking… So many dinners to eat up the fresh sauce. Love it!

Thought I’d share some of the love!

If you want to find local U-pick’s or Farmer’s markets in your area, just click HERE and HERE!