Magically Mindful Nurturing Mondays

   What are magically mindful nurturing Mondays?  Good question and I'm glad you asked.  Today is Monday.  Mondays are typically the day we have to go back to work.  It is the day we start our diets and decide to get back to exercising again.  Mondays are also the most common day for a heart attack!!  Mondays need a bit of help!  I have this little practice I have been playing with where everyday has meaning. It reminds me to live with a joyful and thankful heart.  Mainly it reminds me to live!!

    Mondays are for TLC!  They are days of nurturing and being kind.  I practice this with a couple of reminder phrases and thoughts that inspire me.  Magically, Mindful Nurturing Mondays is the title of this day.  So often I would fall into bed and realize I was moving all day but was unsure how much of that day I was actually present.

  Mondays are my day to be mindful!  Mondays are also my day to be kind to myself in terms of what I eat.  I eat light and fresh on Mondays and I practice being mindful as I eat.  Mondays are what I would consider a day of nurturing, caring and tenderness.  So on Mondays I clean!  Cleaning refreshes our home and with that comes a refreshed spirit.  Because I am being mindful and kind on Mondays they tend to be magical.  Apparently there is magic in mindfully refreshing the home, mind, body and spirit.

   This morning I have cleaned our home, cleaned our drain pipes (with hot boiling water), cleaned our laundry and have made myself a bit of berry pudding for breakfast (recipe follows).  As I clean, the sun shines, I'm finding great joy in cleaning today and I feel nurtured.  I feel happy as I know I am also nurturing our home and family.  For a clean home is a healthy home.  It is also a good flowing home and a prosperous home.  Cleaning so often is pushed to the back of our lives but in reality it should be up front and center.

   Creating a practice of Monday, a day filled with magical, nurturing and mindful activities makes whatever I do on this day a little more joyful a little more thoughtful. Monday's are wonderful for all nurturing practices such as cleaning your home, caring for family and being kind to yourself and others.  Mondays are a good day to let your body have a little rest from a heavy diet and a little more rest for you.  Mondays are a good day to go to be early, go outside for a walk and keep the TV off for this day- of course until football starts up again:)

   And so I recommend you create a practice of today.  Feel free to use the ideas that Mondays are magically, mindfully and nurturing days.  But if another thought or idea appeals to you then use that instead.
 
    As are many of my ideas- this one is of course a wee bit corny and that is precisely what I love about it.  The practice of a magically, mindful and nurturing Monday makes me smile and play instead of taking the world so seriously all the time!  (Notice I use the word practice instead of chore- doesn't that make cleaning sound a little more appealing?)

   Wishing you a healthy, happy and prosperous life on this magically, mindful and nurturing Monday,
           Denise

Berry Pudding Recipe
   1 cup frozen berries:  Today I used a mix of organic raspberries, strawberries and black berries but usually I use organic blueberries
    1 avocado- slightly soft
    1 banana- slightly soft
    1/4 of a fresh lime

Put your frozen berries over a double boiler or I use a pyrex measuring cup in a pot of warm water.  Warm up your berries until they are slightly juicy.
Chop up your banana and avocado.
Mix the the berries, avocado, banana  and lime juice all together
  You can either do this with a fork or if you have a little blender use that for a creamier pudding.
 
This is a super simple, 4 ingredient dish that tastes like berry pudding.  I created it because I had soft bananas, soft avocados, frozen blueberries and really wanted something smooth and creamy.  Teaching myself once again that the simplest things in life are usually the best!!  Enjoy!
 

      

   

Symphony of the Soil

   A little known fact about me is:  I love a good documentary.  For me, the key to a great documentary is starting with a a movie of quality, with an interesting topic, an inspiring message and a movie that leaves me pondering days after watching.

                     Plus, a great documentary movie provides the perfect reason to have gathering.

   I call it a A Documentary Party

My latest documentary movie favorite is:

A Symphony of the Soil.   

   Of course, I understand not everyone gets into documentaries, dirt, composting and learning as much as I do, but this documentary is worth the risk.  If you love to garden, have a worm bin, compost pile or even just love science, this is the movie for you.  If you have friends with similar interests, share this wonder.  We closet scientists usually flock together!!

    To host a documentary party all you need is an invitation, TV, popcorn and maybe some tea and there you have it:  a documentary party has been created.  Not only are Documentary parties super easy, they are also good mixers.  It doesn't matter if you know a soul before the movie, after the movie, everyone has an instant and common connection.

   I borrowed A Symphony of the Soil from the King Country Library but I could own this one and watch it over an over again.  This documentary was inspiring, beautiful, educational and entertaining.  I give it 4.5 stars out of a possible 5 stars.  A perfect movie to get you into the party and gardening season! Hope you enjoy- let me know if you watch it and what you think!

Click here to go to the Symphony of the Soil Home Page

 
Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous spring!!
      Denise

Babies don't need Fragrance they are sweet enough!

    This morning I was getting a baby box ready for my sister- who by the way is only 3 weeks away from her due date!! She and I decided on getting slightly used baby clothes for her new baby.  It does makes a load of sense.  For one thing, her little baby will probably only wear new born clothes for just a month or two.  Plus, slightly used baby clothes will have already off gassed and should be healthier for her little girl.  Should is the key word here!!
   As I unpacked, my soon to be niece's cute little box of baby clothes, a reality came over me!!  These little infant clothes wreaked of fragrance!!!!  Seriously folks, do not use scented detergents, fabric softeners or dryer sheets on your baby clothes!!!!!
   There are 3 main ways toxins get into our bodies:  absorption, inhalation, and ingestion  With laundry and children all three routes come into play.  Do children chew on their clothes? Yup!  Do their clothes touch their little bodies?- Yup!! Can they smell their clothes?  Yup!!!
   At the moment, I am washing the little baby clothes in hopes of minimizing any residual fragrance or residues that have been left behind.  Of course, this step of washing, I would have done anyway. But fragrances are created to linger- to hold up to life- to stay put.  It is very hard to get fragrance out of clothes once they have permeated the fabrics.  There is one adorable little outfit with tigers and stripes that I wont even attempt to save!  Probably the only way I could get the odor/fragrance out would be to bury it in the dirt and let nature do its wonders and compost it out!!  But that may be a wee bit extreme for one little outfit!  (This is actually an experiment we tried on a bath towel that had an abundance of fragrance lingering after many washings.  It was only after we buried it in dirt did the fragrance let go!)
   The crazy thing with fragrance is our bodies and senses get de synthesized to the smells.  Which means, if you use scented detergents you probably don't even smell the fragrance anymore.  And if you do it is probably only a 10th the actual smell.  Our bodies have a wonderful way of protecting us from ourselves and our environment.  After time, our awareness to the robust fragrances get minimized and we no longer can smell what is right in front of our noses.
    Babies are developing and growing, this is a key time in their life to minimize chemical exposure.  Plus, because they are so small, the exposure an infant gets to chemicals is 100 fold to what a full grown person will get. Their little senses have not yet become de synthesized and there is no reason to exposure your baby to a chemical!  New babies smell heavenly ( when clean and dry )  please do not not cover up the natural scent of a new born with synthetic- freshness!
   O.K,  I will now come down from my soap box.  But please think about what you use for your families laundry.  Not only does your laundry habits impact our health from direct contact but it also can be detrimental to our indoor air quality.  Not to mention the strong fragrances that shoot out our dryer vents can be detrimental to our neighbors, birds and bees!
        Here's to a health, happy and natural family!!
               Denise
        Healthy home specialist and incensed sister!