Make Your Own Sunscreen and Bug Repellent with your Favorite Lotion

Marilyn Monroe via Visulize us

Last spring I got badly burned working in the garden in May in the mourning (non peak sun hours).  I never thought I'd need sunscreen in the spring!  Now I know better! I made my own sunscreen yesterday and I plan to wear it everyday (especially when I'm gardening).    I originally bought zinc oxide to make a acne cream (I'll post the recipe for that soon it seems to be helping by the way).  After having bought way more than I needed I realized having a lot of extra zinc oxide is pretty cool because you can just add it to your favourite lotion and make as much natural sunscreen as you want for super cheap.  I had one of those why did I never think of this before moments.   And better yet why not make it a bug repellent too!

Enchanted Forest Garden Series: Best Ideals to Add Wildlife to Your Garden

jeffreyw / Flickr via Earth Share

This is the second post in our enchanted garden series that is my garden inspiration this season. Check out our first post in this series: How to Add Bright Greens and Pops of Color all Season Long Here.

An Enchanted garden just wouldn't be right without lots of wildlife in your garden.  It's a lot more fun to hang out in and to watch your garden too.  I learned about how entertaining wildlife can be when I visited what was my grandparents (have since passed away) favourite restaurant Whiskey River in St Peter, MN.  I was amazed at the beautiful view of their stream from a four seasoned patio that was full of wild life.  Of course their was the usual animals like squirrels, rabbits, and birds but we also saw turkey's, deer, and a wood pecker.  The reason for all the wildlife was that they had various different types of feeders all over as well as having a stream that runs from the river (I.E.the perfect location for wildlife).

Enchanted Forest Series: Best Ideals to add Bright Greens and Colour to Your Garden

My inspiration for colour: Enchanted Forest in the movie Snow White and the Huntsman

After watching the movie Snow White and the Huntsman I started dreaming of turning our yard and garden into an enchanted forest.  I've been working on a post about my ideals inspired by the ideal of an enchanted forest for a long time now and I realized today working on it that I have just too many good ideals to put them all in one post.  I was really trying to write 7 posts into one.  So I'm going to turn this into a series and this post will be the first in the series.   In part two we will look at how to attract wildlife.  Because what's an enchanted forest without life?

Jalapeno Bacon Egg Salad on Grain Free Crackers Made from Scratch (mayo, crackers, and all)

This Jalapeño Bacon Egg Salad is fantastic on my grain free crackers 

Having a lot of eggs from Easter has made me crave Egg salad and in particular bacon jalapeno egg salad.  Yesterday I hard boiled the eggs and posted how to make perfect hard boiled eggs, and today I made my egg salad.  Boy am I glad I made a lot.  It's so good it won't last long!  The best part is that if you use the right ingredients this can actually be a healthy breakfast, lunch, or snack.  The trick is to use good ingredients.  Mayo, bacon, and eggs can all be bad for you if your using your standard super market stuff, but it doesn't have to be!  Wish I knew that a long time ago.  Here's how you can make this recipe and enjoy it as often as you wish because it's healthy. 

How to Boil the Perfect Hard Cooked Easy Peel Egg

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I'm currently reading the Paleo cookbook "Well Fed," by Melissa Joulwan and she gave me some great ideals on cooking more efficiently that has me so excited.  I'll right some more extensive posts on this soon,  but basically she cooks base proteins and freezer friendly veggies for the week and freezes them.  She then uses these already prepped ingredients to through together meals.  One of the things she makes ahead is hard boiled eggs.  Reading that made me start to think of hard boiled eggs and egg salad sandwiches (mainly bacon jalapeño egg salad recipe to come).

Work Out with Celebrity Trainer (and my new exercise crush) Valerie Walters via Free Video

Check out Celebrity Trainer Valerie Walters workout for Women's Health Magazine

I'll admit it, I've fallen off the exercise wagon.  I've never been an excited to go to the gym kind of girl.  I even use to dread PE in school.  But last year my number one goal was to find a realistic routine I would actually do that would get real results (meaning better overall health by increasing activity and building more muscle). 

How to Make Light Fluffy Bread (Even if it's Gluten Free and Low Carb)

  My test loaf for fluffiness.  It's even  low carb (grain) and gluten to boot!  Get the recipe here.

I recently made the worst loaf of bread ever.  I think it was even heavier than a brick!  I should have weighed it.  My poor husband brings a sandwich to work for lunch every day and usually loves my bread and is very appreciative of me baking all of our bread.  But he actually asked me to buy bread after this last disaster.  Luckily I was able to slice it thin and use it like a bready cracker. 

Omega 3's: 8 Ways To Sneak More Into Your Diet

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 The further I get in my own personal journey in learning about healthy living the more I realize it really isn't so complicated.  It's all about balance.  Where there is imbalance there is disease.  Is your body ph (acid to alkaline) out of balance?  Is your good bacteria to bad bacteria and fungi out of balance?  In this article we will look at balance between Omega 3 and Omega 6 and how to find your balance. 

I'm sure you've heard about how great Omega 3's are for your health.  Omega 3 and Omega 6 are both essential fats, meaning our bodies need it to function and can't produce it on their own.  We have to obtain it by diet.  Omega 6 isn't bad we need it, it's just that we have too much of it in our diet compared to Omega 3's.  They typical American diet is believed to be anywhere from 20:1 to 50:1 of Omega 6 to Omega 3.  So what is the ideal ratio?  While opinions on this very I believe it's best to aim for 1:1 ratio because this is what Dr Mercola recommends and I think it's likely that if you aim for equal omega 3 to omega 6 fat you most likely won't get to a 1:1 ratio but hopefully much closer.  This is what I plan to do anyway.