I'm going to share more stories behind the jewelry in my shop. I've been having so much fun with gemstones and how the stories they carry become representive of ours. The gemstones are becoming their own Soul Mantras, and this makes me so happy.
One of my favorite simple but profound meditations is this one:
This necklace is your reminder to connect to that meditation - to the peace, compassion, and love within and around you. And to, when it feels right, send that goodness into the world each day.
An amethyst gemstone is used to promote peace, rose quartz is used to support love and compassion, and clear quartz is used to help support you as you give these gifts to yourself and the world.
Because sometimes your five deep breaths have to end with a little shake it out.
Because there are so many stories I want to tell you but when I come to this blank page I get quiet.
Because I'm trying on rest and recharging after the Fill It Up Buttercup Retreat.
Because a few ideas are simmering but the next move hasn't presented itself.
Because silliness is actually a very good companion to stillness.
Yes.
Hope things are full of joy and light in your corner.
(I used Instagram's "embed" feature to share this little video. I think it is so odd that the likes are recorded but alas, I don't know any other way to quickly share it. And it makes me happy. So there you have it. Oh and I made it using the PartyParty app.)
Registration is closed at this time. Thanks for coming along! Another Yes, This round will happen this winter!
Come along and join me for 10 days of saying YES to this moment.
This FREE online adventure begins next Wednesday, September 24. Each day you'll receive an email from me in your inbox that will be a note from my heart to you. The email will include one of the ways I practice being present in my day-to-day life and an invitation for you to practice "saying yes to this moment" with a prompt each day.
My intention is to invite you to open yourself up to the beauty and the realness and the joy that surround you each day.
Note that after our 10 days ends, you'll continue to receive stories about saying "Yes to this moment" through my (almost) weekly newsletter. You can opt out at any time.
You can join Yes, This at any time throughout the 10 days and you'll receive the next day's email. It will come with access to all the practices and previous emails. And if you've joined in and have Gmail and can't find that day's email, try your Promotions folder. Sometimes they hide there.
A little more about Yes, This
Each morning, when I sit with my cup of tea and toast and begin to curate the messages, inspiration, true stories, and good things I'll be sharing over on Pinterest and on my blog that day, I think about you over in your corner beginning your day and I wonder what stories you might need to read to remind you that you're not alone.
Of course, the reality is that some of my mornings look more like me sitting in the middle of my bed with my daughter playing an ABC game on the iPad and toast crumbs everywhere and our dog resting her head against the bed hoping for a snack. The laundry is in a large pile in the hallway waiting and my to-do list seems to grow by the minute.
And even in the midst of the messy reality of the everyday, I try to find that space to take a deep breath and see the beauty of this moment. The beauty of just being right here with the rain tapping on the roof and the smell of Earl Grey tea and the look in my daughter's eyes when she says, "I think it's cuddle time."
But it's taken me a lot of practice to create space to see the beauty of this moment.
So I'm inviting you to come along for a deep dive into noticing that beauty as I share some of my favorite "being present" practices that help me say YES to this moment.
A Community of Yes
More than 3800 people have taken Yes, This since I began offering it a few times a year. And each time, we really do form a community of Yes!
During Yes, This, each day you'll be invited to share your response to that day's prompt through Instagram (and Pinterest) using the hashtag #yestothismoment so we can find one another. We'll also be meeting up on my Facebook page each day.
Instagram (and Twitter) :: If the post inspires you to capture the beauty and joy in your world through your camera lens, especially your cell phone, we’ll be connecting using the hashtag #yestothismoment.
Facebook :: Each day during the course I'll be sharing inspiration over on my Facebook page where you can share your experience with the Yes, This prompts and connect with other like-minded souls.
Pinterest :: You might even want to make a "Yes, This" board with images, quotes, and other good things that are inspiring you. Tag your pins #yestothismoment so they will show up in searches.
Come Along
This is your invitation to come along and begin to trust that you're not alone as you experience the beauty and the hard stuff and the joy that is part of each day. There will be a community of like-minded spirits practicing alongside you. It is going to be so good!
After coffee* and I had to break up this summer, I decided to try green smoothies a few mornings a week to see if they would give me energy while not hurting my belly. I started out with smoothies from a wonderful booth at a local farmers' market and was loving it!
I decided to buy a Ninja blender when they were on sale on Zulily**, and while I was waiting for it to arrive, I tried store bought versions from Odwalla and Naked Juice. And this was when I learned that a lot of green smoothies you purchase have garlic in them. What? Who would have ever thought that juice and garlic went together? I'm allergic to garlic, so my tummy and I were not so much happy and I wondered why I'd ever started this green smoothie adventure. Then I realized the garlic issue and found one without from Odwalla and I was happy again.
Ellie has been on this adventure with me and LOVES green juice and green smoothies. We have a new morning ritual where she cuddles with me for a few minutes and then we both get up and head to the kitchen. We drink our green smoothies, and she has a little breakfast while we chat and I make her lunch. It is usually pretty awesome with little whining or arguing and mostly chatting and giggling. And she knows what's going in her lunch, which makes her more likely to eat it. And I'm getting a green smoothie into her to give her energy for the day!
Last week the Ninja arrived and we started making our own smoothies. I follow Simple Green Smoothies on Instagram after seeing Jadah's talk at WDS this summer, so I already had a few ideas about what I'd be putting in the smoothies. And I knew to use their suggestion of putting the greens in with the liquid you're using to get the leaves juiced before adding anything else + adding in some frozen fruit if you want the smoothie to be cold.
We are having a lot of fun coming up with concoctions! So far we've done:
1 cup spinach + 1 cup water. Blend. Then 1 cup frozen strawberries + 2 pears + 1 apple. Blend. :: Pictured at the top of this post. A happy green color! And very yummy. Ellie loved it BUT wouldn't drink the whole glass because I kept the skin on the apples. Good to learn!
1 cup spinach + 1 cup water. Blend. Then 1 cup(ish) pineapple + 1 cup(ish) frozen strawberries. Blend. :: So this was not quite right for EJ and me. It went into the fridge to "rest." As I wrote on Instagram, "If it were a soup, I'd say it needed more flavor." After some awesome Instagram suggestions, later in the day I added: a banana, frozen blueberries, and a bit of agave. I probably didn't need the agave with the blueberries. And I actually think agave alone would have been enough to sweeten up the first attempt. But now I had this gorgeous purple! color shown below to drink up while in the carpool line at Ellie's school. She took over my glass as soon as she saw the purple and drank up the rest while on the drive home.
Yesterday for lunch I had this one: 2 big leaves kale (off the stem) + 1c water. Blend. Then 1 purple carrot + 1 banana + small handful frozen blueberries and strawberries. Blend. :: This one was so good and of course purple! (My protein was a side of sharp white cheddar. Almost like wine and cheese. Almost.) I had enough to save to drink this morning but it was super pulpy and the carrot taste was very strong. To save it, I'll probably add some of Ellie's apple juice just to even out the taste a bit.
Next up is getting some protein added in to our smoothies. One thing I love about FB and Instagram is when you start something new like this, people are full of suggestions. Thank you! So I've added protein powder, almond butter, and a few different types of seeds to our lists of things to try when I get back from Fill It Up Buttercup (my retreat that starts Wednesday).
And I'm going to keep sharing my #greensmoothieadventure over on Instagram. Love sharing and learning from you.
What are your favorite green smoothie concoctions?
*When we were at Harbor Greens shopping for our smoothie ingredients, I spotted cold brew coffee in the refrigerated section. I'd heard it was quite a bit less acidic then regular coffee. So I tried it. And oh my gosh it didn't hurt my stomach. I'm looking forward to trying it again + brewing my own to bring coffee back into my life from time to time. I've even read that you can add it to hot water to drink it hot. I'll report back about those adventures too.
**This Zulily link is an affiliate link. If you sign up for Zulily through it, I get a small credit when you purchase your first item. Zulily is one of my favorite companies because their customer service is over-the-top fantastic. If you want to be notified the next time Ninja blenders are on sale, sign up, then search for Ninja, and then favorite it. They will send you a heads up the day before they go on sale. Mine was $50 less than the Amazon price. I know I sound like a commercial here, but I really do love this darn blender + a sale is a very good thing for something you'll use all the time.
I'm so excited to share the new Fall Collection with you! It's filled with talismans to support you as you make your way in this beautiful, messy world we live in. There are more gemstones and new pendant designs and a new bracelet design that has become my daily piece over here.
Thank you so much for your support as I keep growing. So grateful for you.
Yes.
Thank you.
Blessings and love,
Liz
PS And isn't my model gorgeous? That's my studio assistant Bonnie. She helps me in the studio (read this as listens to my neverending rambling ideas) and is the one who gets your packages into your hands so quickly.
Sometimes you read the words of someone else and they are the light you were waiting for as you walked on your dimly lit path.
These words are that for me when I feel the overwhelm tap me on the shoulder.
One step at a time. One move. One breath.
And suddenly there is a lightness and a deep knowing that all that I need is right here inside me.
I hope you too remember this truth.
All you need for the next step is right there inside you.
(I really believe this.)
If you let yourself get quiet and listen, you will hear that deep knowing.
Yes.
(Here's the full quote from Anne Lamott: "E.L. Doctorow once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.")
Note from Liz: Doña is back with a mouth-watering Pinned it. Did it. post. As in I wish I was her neighbor so I could eat some of these kind of mouth-watering post. I heart Pinterest and all the good things we find over there. Read on!
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My Pinterest research this week was all about donuts.
Donuts are one of those things that I *could* make at home but would rather not. I just don’t like to make fried food. It is hot and messy and time consuming and then you have all that oil left over. And so unhealthy!
But I found a 6-donut baking pan recently and I knew I’d seen some baked donuts go by in my Pinterest stream. When my daughter asked me this week if we could go get donuts this weekend I decided it was time to tackle the problem of how to make a healthier, less messy, donut at home.
These donuts might even be considered healthy - not much oil or sugar, because they use banana for moisture. The glaze is pretty much a sugar-butter riot, but it is also so incredibly good. The browned butter elevated them from a kid treat to something special for the grownups, too. The best part about this recipe is that it is really fast. Just about 20 minutes, start to finish. Make the glaze while the donuts are baking and it will be ready to go by the time they are out and cooled. Make sure to let them cool in the pan for a while - these are so moist that they want to fall apart.
The second recipe I tried was this French Breakfast Donut. I don’t remember eating donuts for breakfast either of the times I travelled in France, but I’m happy to adopt this “breakfast tradition” the same way I’ve adopted the questionably French eggy pancakes that are my Saturday morning specialty.
These had a longer baking time, but no glaze to make. I was intrigued that the texture of the dough was completely different than the first recipe. Although they both contain similar ingredients, they are in very different proportions. The batter for the banana donuts was very soft, almost like pancake batter. The batter for the french donuts was thicker but the additional baking powder made it light and full of bubbles before I even spooned it into the pan.
I made two adjustments to this recipe. First, I used soured milk instead of regular by adding a teaspoon of vinegar to the milk, which is basically like using buttermilk. The vinegar may have been why my batter was so bubbly! Also, instead of dipping the cooked donuts in butter before dipping in the cinnamon sugar, I sprayed them with coconut oil (I find this at Trader Joe’s and use it in place of non-stick baking spray). That allowed the sugar mixture to stick, but without quite so much fat.
The French donuts were my favorite, but my small taster liked the glazed ones best. Of course, she added sprinkles, because what is a donut without sprinkles?
I’ll definitely make these again. I generally have all the ingredients on hand and they were fast and satisfying. They are also healthy enough that I feel pretty good about feeding them to my kid. Though I might up my game a bit with these Caramel Cider Donuts once the weather cools off...
Sorry donut shop down the street. It doesn’t look like we’re going to be visiting any time soon!
Disclosure from Doña: Some links are affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you purchase from the links.
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Doña Bumgarner is a writer, artist, mama and a craft project-collector from way back. She loves Pinterest and uses it to help solve a household dilemma at least once a week (see her “pinned and done” board here. She lives in Santa Cruz with her partner, their little one and his almost grown one, and a collection of cats and chickens. She blogs at Nurtured Mama. If you are needing extra support to round out your summer while the kids are home, find her Welcome To Summer resources and printables pack here.
Note from Liz: Over here in my corner, I'm focusing on how to "use Pinterest for good." I really see it as a community of people trying to see the beauty and possibility in their lives. I'm continuing to add a few new features here on my blog inspired by or directly about Pinterest as a way to invite others to look for this beauty within a social media community. Connect with me on Pinterest here. Read other "Pinned it. Did it." columns here.
