Grain-Free birthday cookies

Several people asked me if I was going to eat Birthday Cake on Friday. I thought about it, but really, I'm more of an ice cream girl so I decided not to hurl myself off the gluten-free wagon in the name of tradition or birthday candles.

But I did want something sweet to share around the office, so I turned to my trusty G-Free board on Pinterest for an idea.

I decided to go with Coconut Lemon Meltaways from the Addicted to Veggies blog. I had all the ingredients on hand and I LOVE coconut and lemon. And who doesn't want to try something called a "meltaway"?

These cookies could be labeled and hashtagged with all kinds of non-delicious sounding things like #vegan, #grainfree, #raw, #refinedsugarfree.

But let me tell you, the more descriptive options would be #tasteslikesummer, #whoababythosearegood, and #notexactlyhealthybutslightlymorevirtuousthanaboxofthinmints.

Did I mention that they are embarrassingly easy to make?

Please check out the original post on Addicted to Veggies for the recipe and steps - I don't want to take any credit for her brilliance.

But it basically goes like this:
Mix the dry ingredients (I used Almond Meal rather than Almond Flour because it is cheaper and I had some  on hand. It does change the texture slightly, but probably not the taste).

Bust out your Stand Mixer (hooray!) or any hand mixer and blend the wet ingredients into the dry.

Roll the cookies into balls and set them out on a parchment lined sheet. These little babies are not going to be cooked, so they won't spread or rise. You can put them pretty close together.

The cookies are technically raw (not cooked). Don't worry though, they're also vegan so no angst about eating raw eggs or dairy. Bonus: you can eat as much "dough" as you want!

The original recipe says that you can leave them in a warm oven with the door cracked slightly (I had mine set at 180 for about an hour and a half) or stick em in a food dehydrator. I don't have one of those - yet - so I went with the warm oven option. All this really does is dry out the exterior slightly, which gives the cookies that divine "melt in your mouth" slight crunch on the outside, soft awesomeness on the inside.

My co-workers gobbled these up. I may have had 4 or so myself. The only people who didn't oooh and aaaahh were the handful of non-coconut eaters. I contend that the lemon has a stronger flavor than the coconut, but I guess there's no convincing you if you are anti-coconut.

Bonus #2 - These make your kitchen smell like lemon and coconut. Excellent reason to make them in February.

The Big 3-5: Another year older and a New Year of GGG

Happy Birthday to Me! And Happy Anniversary to the Green, Gray and Grace blog!

Year 2 of the Green Gray and Grace initiative wraps up today, and Year 3 begins. This year has been full of transitions and do-overs and inches and inches of movement towards a greener and more graceful life. The Gray always pretty much takes care of itself. The Green and the Grace and I are duking it out every day, year after year. It's a long but oh so good battle.

I've been feeling a bit sheepish that I don't have so much to "show" for this year. It has been tough to find as much time to write and to try projects and to cook as I would like, and I haven't earned any Gold Stars for discipline and self control. But even if everything didn't exactly go as planned, I have definitely learned a lot. Learned a lot, still a lot of room to grow.

Since last February, I:

• Tried to grow a container garden. Getting started. Getting excited. Crushed by Reality.
• Started to embrace the fact that my quality of life is significantly better when I keep a grain-free diet. 
• Attempted to massively overhaul my eating habits to focus on simplicity and abundance. And failed miserably. 
• Adopted some *slightly* crunchy, but satisfyingly simple Green personal care habits. 
• Wrote the "Why I do not eat meat" post that had been making me unreasonably anxious. 
• Thought I would hate but learned to LOVE keeping a Sabbath on (most) Sundays. 
• Wrote this post about grieving that turned out to be the most viewed and most shared thing I've ever written. 

And I got a fun new bob haircut to show off my gray:

I'm ashamed of how many camera phone self portraits I took to get ONE that I didn't totally hate.

Ok, so what's next?

I'm not entirely sure. I'm hopeful that I'll have more time to do the things that I love this year than I had last year, so hopefully more cooking, crafting, making, writing. And HOPEFULLY I'll actually take a photography class so that my blog photos can actually resemble something artful rather than embarrassing snapshots in our poorly-lit kitchen.

God and I will keep wrestling with the ways in which my desires to live more simply and graciously and abundantly only get as far as my head. 

My hair will just keep getting more awesome. 

All-Natural Lotion Bars

Sometimes I fret that my skin is noticeably drier these days than it was when I was younger. I know, I know... losing moisture and elasticity and all that jazz. Awesome. Well, now that winter is upon us and the heaters are toasting 'round the clock, I'm a hot mess of itchy, crunchy skin.

I've been happy with my Coconut Oil moisturizing regimen. Out of the shower, and slather on some coconut oil right out of the jar. Good stuff. But I would be totally lying to your face if I claimed that coconut oil works as well or lasts as long as the chemically commercial stuff.

I needed something a bit more portable than a jar of coconut oil. I do some weird things at work (like pack salads in mason jars, sport a gloriously sticky jar of honey on my desk for tea, etc), and I keep some weird things in my purse (reusable bamboo utensils, anyone?), but there's no way I'm going to start scooping coconut oil out of my purse/desk drawer.

Pinterest, for the win!

The instructions below are snagged directly from The Coconut Mama, with my own small variations.

First, you need equal parts beeswax and coconut oil.

You can buy little chunks of beeswax online, or at Whole Foods.  I took the suggestion from The Coconut Mama's comment section and grated the beeswax with a box grater for even melting.

Here's a snap of a half-grated chunk of beeswax:

Grating it up. 

Throw the grated beeswax into a small saucepan with an equal amount of coconut oil:

For this first go, I used roughly 4 tablespoons of grated wax and 4 tablespoons of coconut oil. The original instructions say you can use a few drops of essential oils. I wanted my lotion bars to smell vanilla-y, but Holy Buckets! Vanilla Essential Oil is $22 for a tiny bottle. Scrap that. I tried adding a few drops of vanilla extract.

I DO NOT recommend swapping vanilla for vanilla essential oil, sadly. It didn't really incorporate into the oils, and basically just separated out to he bottom of the pan. 

But when it was all nice and melty, it poured elegantly into these little mini muffin pans:

I got a little impatient and decided to scoop one of the little bars out before it had fully set. Also a bad idea, but it did give me a preview of the lotiony awesomeness I had just made. Soft, but not too soft, with a pleasant coconutty-and-vaguely-honey scent. I rubbed it all over my arms and elbows. Soft, chemical-free skin!

Win!

If I had had some of those silicone bendy muffin pans, that would be a better choice for getting the bars out and keep them looking cute. But I'm thinking I might actually smash these little babies into Altoids tins or something similar to make them more purse-safe. 

Even in a tin, though, I would recommend you consider giving them one extra layer of protection from your stuff. I love love love homemade skin care, but it can be unpredictable in terms of melting and separating. If I put mine into a tin, I think I'll make the tin a little oilcloth zipper case. I once left my bag on top of a heating vent on the floor (didn't see it!) and all my lip balm melted into a gooey mess all over my bag! Fun times.

And Heaven and Nature Sing

That's a little clip-on bird ornament, in case you're scratching your head.

I'm gonna be honest here. Christmas is not all candy canes and mistletoe for me. It is hard. I miss my mom in every carol, every cookie we don't bake together, every mint M&M that I will never dig greedily from the candy dish on the sofa table when I come into her cider-scented house. In fact, this is the first Christmas in the four without her that I have even bothered to decorate beyond a tiny table-top tree.

But we're staying in Raleigh this Christmas, and I decided I was ready to make our own family traditions. When we returned to NC after Thanksgiving, we packed up the car with the ornaments and stockings and lights and tree stand that we had packed away at Les's parents' house. So I had the loot. There was just one problem: No space for a tree.

Ok, actually, there were 2 problems. No space for a tree, AND I felt conflicted about the eternal "Real vs. Fake" Christmas Tree Debate.  A live tree may be greener overall, but I still cringed a bit at the thought (and expense, and mess, and the hassle of having to bolt our loveseat to the ceiling to make room) of squeezing a tree into our little apartment.

So I'm finally ready to be festive, but couldn't quite go so far as to buy a tree.

What's a girl to do?

Well, a crafty girl marches out into the back yard (We live in NC! We have a yard!) and drags a fallen branch over to her deck, slaps down some scrap cardboard, and spray paints that sucker white. So now I have a Big White Stick! Perfect. The Christmas Stick gets plunked into a tall white ceramic vase with some white tissue paper crammed in to keep it upright and Auggie-proof. Then it gets wrapped with white lights and adorned with all the bird ornaments I had stashed away.

You see, 5 years ago, Mom and I decided to pillage Target on the Day After Christmas. I pushed her around in her wheelchair as she clutched a basket in her lap. I had decided I needed some of my own ornaments, and I had a vision. A theme, if you will. "Let Heaven and Nature Sing!". Only animal and bird ornaments, with red and gold do-dads mixed in. Some order to my Christmas Chaos. So, I loaded her up with a couple dozen clip-on birds, red and gold glass spheres, and faux-berry garlands.  And that Christmas, I convinced my then-roommate to get a ridiculously big tree and I festooned it with birds, berries, and balls. It was glorious.

And so this year, Les and I have The Christmas Stick. I love it. And it inspired me to just rock on with the bird theme.  Birds and Words:

Our mantel birds (who perch there all year) were joined by a tiny poinsettia and a canvas wrapped with burlap and some stick-on letters.

Some hand-felted "snow birds" that I bought on etsy a couple of years ago hang out with a little penguin figurine that Mom gave me in a stocking a zillion years ago. Chillin' with the NOEL letters.

Ok, I know this is crazy, but for some reason I thought that because it never really got cold in North Carolina, there wouldn't be any cardinals here. That made me really sad when we first moved, but guess what? They are everywhere. I love them. They are just harder to see when there is no snow!

Our Christmas mantel. A little crowded, but totally awesome. 

There's even a funny little bird in our Nativity: check out the silly chicken on Joseph's back! I can't imagine a creche without some animals. Les and I bought this one in Portugal right after we got engaged. I love it. It is made out of this sandy clay stuff. And the calf and the donkey look like they are singing.

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her king
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and Nature Sing

Let my mom, in heaven, sing
Let all the animals and birds, and trees and stars, all of God's creation, sing His praise

They do a better job of it than we do sometimes, don't they?

Gratitude Lessons

It's November, so that means I'm happily jumping on the 30 Days of Thanks on Facebook. The very simple premise is that you post one thing each day for which you are thankful. I love it. I LOVE IT. I love to read other people's posts. I love to be able to scroll through my page and others' pages at the end of the month and read a list of blessings and God's provision and common grace.

It is one thing to have a month of thankful Facebook posts, and quite another to cultivate a heart of gratitude. I've been working on that one for a while now.

Take this beautiful white KitchenAid stand mixer, for example.

When I was in my early and mid-twenties, I had some SERIOUS envy issues. Why? Because every summer I found myself shelling out money I did not have to purchase things for my friends' weddings that I wanted myself, and I despaired of ever having matching plates that did not come from a thrift store, or ceramic nesting mixing bowls to sit cheerily on the counter instead of ugly plastic ones. But the Mother Of All Covetousness was the elusive, expensive, Bridal-Registry-Golden-Ticket, the KitchenAid Stand Mixer.

I watched friend after friend tear into the big heavy box at the wedding shower, after being reminded that "this one is too heavy for your lap, why don't you come over to the gift table and open in!" winkwinknudgenudge. And there before our eyes, the glowing bride would unveil a beautiful KitchenAid, often in a dazzling bright color to match the thoughtful "accent colors of her kitchen". You know, a mixer painted to match the colors of all her new dish towels and spatulas.

And every time this happened, my heart clenched up a bit. Not only was I NOT GETTING MARRIED, I was also never going to get a stand mixer. Because they are like $300 and I certainly did not have that kind of money. And neither did my mom, should she ever be inclined to buy me such a gift.

Let's get to the specifics, here. I wanted a fire-engine red Kitchen Aid mixer. I had this dream of a red and white kitchen, primarily because I had scored a cute little red Kitchen Aid mini-food chopper on clearance at Kohls one day, so now naturally I needed the Stand Mixer to be red. Because obviously now I was going to have a red-and-white kitchen filled with Fancy, Matching Kitchen Stuff someday. This red kitchen dream grew and grew. I started trying to figure out a way to sock away some cash for a mixer. I asked my mom to be on the lookout for sales at department stores. I asked for money for my birthday for the Mixer Fund.

And then something incredible happened.

I sat in my mother's house on Christmas morning, geared up for a very modest Christmas gift giving season. We were all scraping that year. I was hoping for an envelope with a little boost to my Fund. But then as my siblings start unwrapping their gifts, I hear my dear mom say "Jill, your gift is too heavy for your lap, why don't you come over here and open it right under the tree!". I could hear the glint of glee in her voice. I trembled. I walked over to the tree and saw the big rectangular box wrapped in plain paper. And I tore into it to discover!!!!!!!......... A white Kitchen Aid standmixer.

Has there ever been a more ungrateful, undeserving, horrible daughter in the history of daughters? I didn't see a KitchenAid. I didn't see the object of years of envy. I saw the wrong color. My eyes gave me away.

"What's wrong? You've wanted that for SO long!"

"I love it mom. I do. I was saving up for the red one, though."

"Well, I'm sorry, honey, but that was the only one I could afford. The Marshall Fields is going out of business, you know, so they had really big sales back in October. I bought this one as an open box for less than half the price it would usually be. I couldn't have afforded it otherwise. It's your Christmas and birthday present. I'm sorry it's not the color you wanted. It can't be returned."

Have you ever hated me more than you hate me right now? I hate me right now. I hate even recounting that story. I hate the ungrateful freak that I was then. I hate that there was even ONE Christmas that I made my mom feel sad about a gift that she had worked and scrimped to give to me (Unfortunately, there is at least one other story like this, but cut my some slack - I was 8 then). I wish I could get EVERY Christmas with my awesome mom back. I would trade every KitchenAid in the world for more Christmases with my mom. And I whined because I didn't get the red one.

And you know what else?

Sitting here about 8 years later, I have a white-on-white kitchen and I love it. I love my white mixer. It doesn't sit on the counter and scream APPLIANCE! It blends in with the white. It sits demurely waiting for me to bake something or whip up some cream. And I think of my mom every time I see it. She didn't even have one of these in her own kitchen. Maybe she even wished that she had had one. But she searched high and low to get one for me one year, and now I hug the mixer sometimes and thank it for its years of dutiful service.

I did kind of make up for my terrible showing that Christmas morning, and call my mom just about every time I used the mixer from that day forward and thank her for it, and apologize for being a brat. She must have heard me say "I'm actually SO glad I have a white one!" at least 50 times. So hopefully that helped. But that whole rotten display of Stuff Over People continues to convict me about my heart and getting "my heart set" on things. I never ever EVER want to do that again.

What about you? Have you ever let a thing mess with your brain and heart? Do you wish you could go back in time and Scream for Joy over a white stand mixer?

When A Good Deal isn't a Great Buy - Choosing Stuff That Will Last

It's Boot Season again - Hooray! That means I get to bust out my mom's circa 1975 Frye Boots. Believe it or not, boots are hard to photograph in an interesting way. But these boots ROCK. And I get complements on them every time I wear them. They are creeping up on 40 years old, and they still look awesome. Mom actually had TWO pairs of Frye boots in her closet, which seemed Way Way Over the Top for my mom. My Mom didn't spend lots (any) cash on herself by the time she was my mom. So knowing what I know about how much Frye boots cost now, I'm sure these were a save-up purchase. And judging by the re-soled wear, she wore them a lot. And here they are, on my feet, rocking my jeggings and Dress Over Pants concoction in 2012. So an excellent cost-per-wear investment. Plus, I get to wear my mom's boots. The best hand-me-down ever.


Most of my clothes are cheap. Seriously cheap. Not just "Bought on J Crew clearance", although there are some of those. Cheap like "bought from Target/Old Navy/TJ Maxx and barely make it through one or two seasons before I start eyeing them with scissors to repurpose their raggy fabric". I own maybe 3 or 4 items that I could consider "investment" purchases. Clothes that I love and wear regularly, cost a bit more, and are holding up really well. Most of my stuff, however, has little to commend it into the "Excellent Stewardship of Resources!" category. Most are items that I just thought were cute and within my budget and ended up in the cart.

I'm starting to see improvements in this area. Maybe it's getting older. It's much easier to stick my fingers in my ears and sing LALALALALALAAAA over the siren song of trendy clothes. I also have a job where jeans and a t-shirt are just about requisite 3 out of 5 days a week.

Obviously we all need clothes to wear, and I'm not advocating for sackcloth and ashes. I also do not think that it is an ethical affront to look cute. I could actually use some more lovely in my life. I am usually loathe to spend big money on clothes, but I'm beginning to realize that disposable trends aren't as much fun as they used to be. The standard fashion mag refrain is to buy "the essential 10" (or 15, or 20) items in classic, flattering cuts and then care for them meticulously so they last for years. I'm down with that, but how do I start? Buy one piece per year for the next ten years? That's not a terrible idea, actually. As least I can be classically fashionable by the time I'm 45.

So what do I do with all the other stuff? And how many items of clothes do I really need? "Purge the Closet and Dresser" has been on my To-Do list for several weeks now. I was dreading it at first, but then I read this post  from Jamie The Very Worst Missionary and I got some mojo going for PURGE THE JUNK! I'm interested to see what is left after I donate anything that doesn't fit, doesn't flatter, or is just plain ready to be demoted to "fabric".

Ok, really this whole post has been my round-about way of trying to process whether or not I should consider doing something I swore several years ago that I would NEVER do: Should I FINALLY buy a classic, well-made leather  bag that I will just use and use and use and use rather then the "please please make it one more season" pleather or canvas bags that I keep burning through like birthday candles? I love me some purses. I used to have a lot more energy for wearing them like accessories, but the reality is that I pretty much use the same bag every day. Until it crumbles and shreds into sad little vinyl chunks. I'm researching recycled leather bag companies, which I feel sort of OK about, but I just cannot bring myself to purchase new, fresh-off-the-cow leather. Even though those Frye boots are a testament to the longevity of a well-made and virtually timeless slab of hide.

I have leather shoes, even other leather boots. And I do own a couple of small leather purses that have been gifted to me over the years. But now I struggle to put my cash into leather, or to wear it as if to say "Yeah! I'm totally cool with this!".

So if you have a vintage leather bag that you never use, or a suggestion for a great place to get some repurposed leather goods, or can help me with this clash of values (animal-free vs. durability and fewer disposable faux-leather accessories), shoot me a note. I'm gonna head over to Etsy and Ebay and see what I can find.

Steady Progress Towards Major Change

On August 1, I announced to myself that I was going to stick to a "More with Less" vegetarian gluten-free diet. A few days later, I upped the ante and decided that I was going to purge my diet of all eggs and dairy as well. That would have made me some kind of grain-free vegan locavore or something. I was convinced that Sweeping Change was the way to go. Cold Tofu-Turkey, total elimination.

But guess what?

It did not work. Not even a little bit. I didn't really know what I was doing, and 3 days into spinach salad for every meal I revolted and went right back to cheese and polenta and sordid affairs with buttermilk biscuits. If I had been a little more self-aware, maybe I would have remembered that GRADUAL progress has served me pretty well, whether in training for and running a marathon injury-free, or waking up every morning, gazing at my painfully gray haired reflection and deciding to stick with my decision to NOT color my hair. Success from small decisions and small disciplines made over and over and over.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I thought maybe some of you are feeling like I sometimes do when I think of all the BIG changes I want to make in my diet, my consumption, and my life. I feel overwhelmed. I start to despair and think that if I can't change everything, why bother changing anything? Not true, my friends. Don't listen to the haters in your head.

Just choose something, make the change, and then keep at it. You don't have to start with food. Here are some things that I have changed in my daily routine that have made small but hopefully appreciable dents in my chemical exposure, for example:

1. Home Made Mouth Wash

Which consists of a tongue scraper coupled with a gargle-and-swish of warm water with sea salt and a few drops of peppermint oil. I was skeptical, but this works for me! Just a little freshening boost. Husband approved, BTW.

2. Coconut Oil for dry skin

I thought this would be kind of gross too, but I LOVE IT. I smell faintly of Almond Joy all day, and it makes my skin feel smooth and soft. It is a little oily when you first slather it on (right out of the shower seems to work well for me so far), but it dries really nicely. No more nasty lotions. You're rubbing that stuff into your skin, people! eeeek. I may experiment with a few drops of essential oil mixed in to the coconut for a different scent. It makes me hungry to smell a little like candy.

3. Mechanical rather than chemical exfoliation

I confess that I don't use my dry brush every day. I should, though, because I really like that I can see the dry skin flailing off me in every direction. You use this stiff-bristled brush before you get in the shower. My English friends say that it is also excellent for reducing the appearance of cellulite, but I don't think I've used it often enough to see a difference. Doesn't hurt to try though, right?

4. Salad Dressing As  Oil Method Face Wash

Castor Oil + Extra Virgin Olive Oil makes a surprisingly effective face wash. Yes, it feels a bit like rubbing salad dressing on your face. And yes, I was scared about it because of my persistent adult acne, but I think it works as well if not better than any of the commercial face soaps I have tried. Our current apartment's bathroom sink does not get quite hot enough to make the requisite steamy washcloth used to steam up your pores and wipe off the oil, so I do sometimes use commercial face soap when I'm in a hurry in the morning. I can make the steamcloth work in the shower, but prefer a leisurely night time routine where I can wipe the grime of the day off with something ultra natural and not at all drying. Check out my whole post about the glories of the Oil Method.

5. Mason Jars for Everything!

We wanted to get away from storing stuff in plastic right around the same time that I started buying things in bulk whenever possible. We had repurposed some salsa jars and pasta sauce jars and love them very much in the cabinets. But if you have things out in the open, or need to freeze something, Mason Jars are the way to go. Plus, they only cost about $12 for a box of 12. Way cheaper than Pyrex. And unlike most glassware, many sizes of mason jars can be used to freeze stuff as long as you leave an inch or so of room at the top when you fill it up. I LOVE jars. I use them to take food to work for lunch, to store stuff, and even as portable mugs. Vessel + secure lid = endless possibilities with NO plastic.

Next up, hopefully, will be to permanently switch to natural toothpaste, home-made deodorant, Dr. Bronner's soap in the shower, and only replacing cosmetics with totally natural versions. I keep saying I'm gonna do that, but I keep not doing it.

Here's to baby steps! What are some of your small changes that have added up to big differences in your home, habits or budget?