It is currently 11 degrees with a wind chill of 0.
During our walk to school this morning, we stayed warm by playing follow the leader and dancing our way through the streets.
And now I’m listening to jazz composer Jun Miyake’s Lillies Of The Valley and dancing along with the people in this video. I may not get a lot done today, but I’m going to be warm and happy, damn it.
Homemade vitamin C pills!
Well, we’re back from Hawaii. And if the 15 hour multiple airplane journey home wasn’t enough to do us in, perhaps the current blustery 24 degree day is.
But I refuse to fall, especially so early in the new year. I may be superstitious, but I feel like the way one begins a year affects the entire rest of the journey. So we need to get off on a good foot.
Nothing says fight-off-cold-and-flu season like some good old vitamin C, but this time, instead of heading out (into the cold!) to buy a bottle, I decided to make our own little chewable tablets. Or pills. Or little round-ish balls, as the case may be. I’m beginning to delve a bit deeper into the world of herbal remedies (my husband thinks I’m turning into some kind of hippie witch doctor) and have discovered some really great sources for helping to bolster our immune systems.
This recipe comes from Rosalie De La Foret at Learning Herbs.com, a veritable treasure trove of information for the layperson who is looking to reconnect with the kind of herbal wisdom our grandparents took for granted. These herbs are all whole foods, which are undisputedly the best source of nutrients for our bodies. They are also all known to be bursting with vitamin C, along with other minerals and antioxidants that we might find helpful this time of year. It’s super simple… you’re just mixing together 3 powdered herbs and then using a bit of honey to bind them together into little balls. It’s a perfect activity for kids (playdough anyone?) plus the little ones are much more motivated to try one if they helped to make it.
Here are the details:
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon rose hip powder
1 tablespoon amla powder
1 tablespoon acerola powder
Honey
Orange peel powder
Mix together the first 3 powders, making sure to break up any clumps.
Pour a bit of slightly warmed honey into the mix and keep adding more, little by little, till the powder just holds together. You don’t want it to be too moist or sticky.
Then shape the mixture into little pea shaped pills and roll them in the orange peel powder till they are completely coated. This helps to keep them from sticking together.
Keep them in an airtight container and they should last a very long time. I store mine in the fridge, which keeps the individual pills from sticking together. Then when I’m ready to eat one, I just hold it in my mouth for a couple of seconds and it softens up and becomes nice and chewy and surprisingly delicious.
For more detailed information about the individual herbs used, check out the original version of the recipe. Also, if you are wondering where one might happen upon some Rose Hips and Amla powder, you need look no further than Mountain Rose Herbals. They have pretty much everything.
Photo by fellow whale watcher Tim Kohsman.
I spent the last days of 2014 and the first of this new year on the island of Maui, with my husband, daughter, my husband’s parents, his sister, her husband and their two girls. Extended multi-generational vacations can be perilous, but this particular one was set in paradise, and we had the wisdom to spend a few hours on a boat with the naturalists of the Pacific Whale Foundation, experiencing first hand the wonder of the humpback whale.
I didn’t take the picture above, because I was too busy gasping for air and being blown away by just how incredibly huge and powerful and graceful and majestic these creatures are- this one breached about 10 feet away from our boat- but luckily a fellow passenger had the presence of mind to capture it on film (or disc as the case may be).
We also listened to their ethereal songs when a crew member lowered a mic into the sea (you can listen to some here) and felt suddenly like a very small and largely ignorant part of a large and mysterious world. Like we were somewhat-tolerated guests in somebody else’s home.
That feeling of wonder is part of what I am hoping to nurture as this year matures, because it is that openness that allows us all to really be a part of the world we live in and motivates us to find ways to make it a better place.
So here’s to keeping our eyes open, to checking out the uncharted territories, both in our backyards and on the other side of the globe, and to remembering what an incredible magical place we all get to inhabit.
Happy New Year everybody!