Good Stuff : Clean Beauty

Today’s post aims to continue our good habits series that we started in January. And if you like mixing up potions, check out our favorite green cleaning resource.

In this month’s welcome post, Sarah mentioned that we’re focusing on taking care of ourselves this month. For us, one of the best ways that we can keep our spirits high is to make sure we’re checking all of the boxes > eating nutritious foods, exercising, stimulating our brains, strengthening our friendships, and pampering ourselves with a bit of DIY skin-care.

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Good Stuff : Green Cleaning

In addition to sharing our resolutions this month, we’re also going to share some of the good habits that we’ve picked up over the years. We try many things, but these are the ones that stuck.

A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to cut back on chemical-based cleaning supplies. One of the main resources I’ve turned to is this book. While spring cleaning gets all the glory, for me, the post-holiday clean-up and start of the new year is when I’m really inspired to give our house a good cleaning.

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Happy MLK Jr. Day – Let’s Volunteer

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I hope you’re having a happy Monday whether you’re at work or enjoying a day off. Apparently, you’re more likely to be working, I know I am.

A favorite quote of King Jr.’s:

“Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”

—from a speech before a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, October 26, 1967

After reading dozens of Martin Luther King Jr. quotes last night, I started doing some volunteer research. I quickly came across this informative website – below are a couple charts depicting our nation’s volunteering trends for 2018. You can also search by city or state and see just how much your area helps out. Continue reading

Summer Books Round-up

Even with my bedside pile of books overflowing, at the start of summer I’m always on the hunt for a few good reads.

Check out these lists for a few of our favorites. We’re giving you a touch of everything from cookbooks and nature reads to actual beach reads for the kiddos.

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Find Sarah’s favorite nature reads here.

Find Katie’s favorite summer cookbooks here.

Check out some beach reads for kids here. That link includes a few of our favorite books by Chesapeake writers and illustrators. Really there’s nothing better than reading a book on vacation about the places and people you’re visiting!

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These are the books that we go back to again and again when summer arrives. But we’re always looking for more – what are your favorite summer reads?

 

Take a Stand

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Guys, this has gone on long enough and we have to take a stand. We are heartbroken, frustrated, and unbelievably angry about the current practice of separating children from the parents at the border.

So much has already been written about this issue, and honestly we don’t have anything constructive to add to the conversation.

A couple of bloggers that we respect wrote great posts about the issue. Please read their words to learn more about what’s going on and what you can do to voice your outrage and encourage your representations to take action.

And you still want to blame this on previous administrations? Or use a false “history” of separation to justify current actions?  Please get your facts straight.

… what else can we say? xo

Seasoned View Vol. 31

Each month we share our Seasoned View.  Snapshots of nature taken by the Seasoned sisters and shared with you for use as desktop or cellphone screen savers.

You can upload one or all of these photos to use as your desktop background or even as phone and tablet wallpapers.  These images were all shot near the tiny coastal town of Tofino in British Columbia on Vancouver Island this past month. To use the images, simply right-click on the photo, save it, and set it as your background.  Enjoy!

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Two Bits

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Happy Friday from the road! We’re both headed off on adventures today and I can tell by our exclamation laden texts that we’re feeling full, happy, and content with how our days are being spent lately.

Kate’s off to the Lake Tahoe area and I’m headed to Bend, Oregon for the first time. I’m amped to explore a new city, but also terrified of falling in love with yet another place. Oh the struggle.

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Two Bits

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Sarah here :

Happy Friday! It’s the freakin’ weekend baby I’m about to have me some fun. How is it possible that a hit song from 2003 runs through my head every single Friday? Do you have a Friday song? Maybe share it with me. I need a new one. Believe me I *never* actually play R. Kelly’s Ignition, but you better believe it’s on repeat in my rumination brain every weekend. Eeek!

I digress. What is all this fun I’m about to have? I’m headed to Vancouver today! It’s my first time ever and I’m still in disbelief that it’s going to happen. My bf presented the idea a month ago and at the time I was so stressed at the thought of it, a vacation during a vacation?! How could I afford that? Then I realized the true question was how could I justify that? Isn’t that what we spend so much of our precious time and energy doing? Justifying.

We justify our spending whether it’s time, attention, or money. We justify our words and our actions. We justify our decisions. What if we all just strived to come from a place of truth that felt right and good and just to us? Then could we chill out with all the justifying? I’m trying it on for size. After the intitial, ‘OMG, I can’t afford that and I don’t deserve that!’ conversation, I called back and we planned the trip. We’ll be camping and hiking and surfing our holiday weekend away and it’s going to be swell.

Have a good one friends!

photo by my bestie Saleem Ahmed

Gnocchi with Stinging Nettle Pesto

Potatoes are our ingredient of the season. You can find our full archive of potato posts here. And if you like pesto, give our Arugula Walnut Pesto a spin.

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Potatoes may be our ingredient of the season, but in this post, nettles are definitely stealing the show.

Read on to see my simple tips for involving kids in your gnocchi making… or you could just teach them how to spell gnocchi and send them on a scavenger hunt in the pasta aisle.  Continue reading