The DIY life.

I had mentioned in an earlier blog that I had made my own Homemade Deodorant. I wasnt comfortable sharing the how-to until i had actually used it. I wouldnt want to tell you all about it and then have it set my arm pits on fire and have to retract all my information. But no fear dear readers, no such thing happened. Now i don't always wear deodorant, its just not something that i was ever religious at. I know you are probably thinking, "this chick is gross, she doesnt shampoo and condition her hair, she rubs coffee grounds all over her legs, plays in the mud." While all of these statements are true to a point, you can ask my friends and family, 90% of the time I do not smell offensive and am relatively clean! While testing out the deodorant I had my huband smell test me often and be honest if i was smelly or not. He said i had no smell so i deem that a success! So if you want to make your own deodorant here it what to do!

1/4 cup baking soda 1/4 cup corn starch 5 tablespoons of coconut oil essential oils (i left out the essential oils when i made mine, only because i dont have any!) throw all these ingrediants into a bowl and mix em together.

It takes a bit of elbow grease to blend it all with the coconut oil but then you should have an almost soild mix. Depending on what you like, and your environment, (it has a tendency to get melty in a hot climate) I have read that you can try to mush it all into an old (empty) stick of deodorant and use it that way. I put mine into an old candle jar because thats what i like.

Well there you have it. Rememeber, this is a deodorant, not anti-persperant. So while you may not be smelly, you may be a bit moist, depending on your body. If you try it let me know in the comments i would love to hear your experience! 

Till next time! 

*kisses*

Dirt And Glitter, Mud, Color and Beer.

I realize that I neglected my blog over the summer/fall. And there were 3 events that I feel need to be chronicled, namely the Warrior Dash, Color Me Rad, and Rugged Maniac.

To tell you about them I have to tell you about last year when we did Color Me Rad for the first time. 

I do not and have not ever claimed to be athletic, a runner, or to enjoy any sort of exercise in my life. Ever. So when a coworker told me about a 5k her children and her were going to do I really didn't give it a second thought. However when she kept bringing it up and showed me a video of what it was, my interest was peaked and I got it into my head to get a group of my friends, some who are big into exercise and health and others who just like me were novice to the whole running 5k thing. 

The premise of the race is for you to wear white, run a little over 3 miles and every kilometer you run though a paint station and get pelted with powdered (corn starch) paint, sprayed with colored water and generally have a great time getting messy with your friends. Sounded just like my kinda thing. And it so happened to be AWESOME. Some of us ran, a few of us "fast walked" the whole thing together, running through, rolling through, doing anything we could to get as colored as possible. After the race there is a big party of people throwing color bombs every 15 minutes or so. It's a big explosion of color and it's just amazing to experience. When we left we went back to our hotel room and destroyed the place trying to get clean. There was color in places I didn't know could get colored. All in all we were all glad at the end that we had done it and were all psyched to do it again.

(My hubby and I after the race. Notice the sea of colorful people behind us.)

Which leads us to this year. 

This year I was determined to get in shape, I wanted to start working out regularly and start feeling better about myself. I figured, if we had some goals it would keep us (my husband and i) motivated and on track. Needless to say, that didn't really work out so well, but that's not part of this story!

I've had a few friends who have done these mud races, where much like CMR, it is a 5k, only instead of getting colorful you get muddy and have to overcome different obsiticals. There was a groupon for the Rugged Maniac, which was scheduled for September, and we also signed up for the Warrior Dash in June, as well as CMR again the same weekend in September as rugged. I had started a personal trainer in March and thought I was well on my way to beasting it though the race. Well race day came and Caleb and I, with bffl Kate tagging along for moral support and to hold our stuff headed out to Barre,Ma to a farm where the race was to take place. The different heats (groups of people runnig the race) had started at 8am, we got there for about 2pm, so by the time we got into the course it was well muddy and trecked through by everyone else. I have to say I thought I was ready for it, but like I mentioned earlier, I do not run. At all. Now add to this, mud. Not just mud. No. MUD. Mud up to your kneecaps, in some places up to your mid thigh. Then imagine this, for a whole mile, in the woods, branches and roots and rocks all surrounded by, you guessed it, mud. About a mile in you a slanted wall that you have to climb up and over, there is no rope or plank to help you, just a mud covered slanted wall. After about 10 or so tries I got up and over it. Next 2 walls up to my chest that you have to jump up and over. Followed by tires to run through, hay to climb over, a 2 story wall with a rope to climb up and over (the only one I couldn't do) trenches to climb in, a cargo net wall to climb sideways, fire to jump over, all with mud to run through in between, another cargo net to climb up and over and lastly a giant mud trench to wade through underneath barbed wire. This is actually a great video of the whole thing if you wanna see it. We made it through, not as well as I had hoped, but we did it! And I am glad that we did. It was defiantly an awesome experience.

Our before and after photo. 

I forgot to mention, it was about 90 degrees that day, if not hotter. You get rewarded at the end with a medal (cool bottle opener on a ribbon) and a free beer, it was only a coors light but let me Tell you after an hour and a half of mud trecking it is the best beer I've ever had. 

After we finished the race I was not feeling very confident in myself when it came to doing Rugged later in the year, but as the summer went on I kept up with my training and tried to incorporate more cardio and running into my workout so I wouldn't totally fail at the race. Well September came, and on the 4th I came down with a extremely bad cold that turned into bronchitis/laryenitis, I lost my voice for 3 full days, and was totally out of commission for 2 full weeks. My respitory system took a huge hit, since whenever I get sick like that I have asthma and have to use an inhaler just when I walk up stairs never mind running 3 miles+. 

Race day one came, it was our 2nd time doing CMR. I was nervous as anything just hoping my lungs wouldn't give out. The race started off with a guy in a bunny costume who had t-shirts, and if you could catch the bunny you got to keep a shirt. Well, my husband ran as fast as he possibly could, and was the first person to catch the bunny and got a shirt for me, but in the process tore his hamstring. I tired running got a bit with my other bffl, Angelica. Well about 10 mintues into this, my lungs, were so unhappy with me, so I waited for Caleb to catch up with me and we walked the rest of the race. The color stations were not as crazy as last year and over all the vibe was different, and although we had a lot of fun, it did not compare to last years race. 

Epic finish line high five.

 So at this point, i was even MORE nervous for Rugged the next day, not only was it running again, but it was littered with obsiticals, where WD only had about 10 or so obsiticals to go over, RM had "more than 18" as the website stated. Check out this guys video of all the obsiticals, it was pretty awesome. I made it throught ALL the obsiticals! The only ones that made me nervous were the trench jumps and the balance beams, mostly because i did not want to fall into the 6 foot trenches. I got my finger ripped open in the tubes because my finger got caught under the rope, and someone crawling behind me yanked on it. Ooooo that hurt. While there was a lot of mud, it was not as much as WD, but believe me, there was plenty! We finished the race in about an hour, which for a bunch of people who had never done this before, a girl with bum lungs, and a guy with a torn quad, i would say we did pretty good! Once again it was one of the best experiences of my life, and we are definately going to do it again next year 100% At the end of the race we were rewareded again with a free beer.

 So if for nothing else, you should run the race for that. Just let me warn you, these events are not for the faint of heart, or anyone who is afraid of getting bruised, bloody, scraped and muddy. I will say though, if I can do it, anybody can, and it is totally worth it all. Till next time! 

Cure for breakfast woes

Do you hate waking up in the morning?

Do you hate making breakfast? 

Do you hate even more when you wake up to late and don't have time to make breakfast and end up starving yourself all day?

Well come one come all I have a solution for your breakfast woes! (Provided that you make it the night before and aren't to lazy for that either)

Here is my recipe for *drum roll* Overnight oats!

This treat can be eaten cold or warmed up it's however you prefer it!

Now mind you this is only the second time I have ever made said oats and I can't promise amazingness every single time but, hey, it can't hurt to try right?

Anycow, here's what you do...

1/3 cup old fashioned oats

1/3 cup Greek yogurt 

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp chia seeds

Mix ins 

What I did this time was used yummy vanilla Greek yogurt, and regular milk, however you can use whatever kind of milk you have at your disposal. I mixed in 3 strawberries and half a banana.

Shake it up to get it all mixed in together, pop it in the fridge, and viola! Delicious breakfast ready to run out the door with you!

Till next time!

<3

It's the little things

I have to admit something to you all. I have a pretty stinking awesome husband.  Does he drive me absolutely crazy everyday of my life? I would be lying to you if I said no. I love him nonetheless. Why this proclamation of love you ask?

Well I had a chuckle to myself today about his reaction to something.  To tell you that story I have to start with this. 

I am a bit of a wild child, extremely flighty and am always coming up with new ideas and plans for our life (like recently I've told him we are going to start listening to country music and raise chickens in the country) and he more often than not goes right along with me even adding his own to whatever it is I've come up with. I can't tell you how many times he's come home and all our furniture is moved around or a room (or my hair) is painted another color and he just goes "wow I like that I wouldn't have thought of that". More recently it's been my DIY of life that he has patiently gone along with and supports. When I said to him "hey babe. I'm gonna stop shampooing my hair" he didn't look at my like I was crazy but listened to me and was all for me trying the no poo life. And when I said to him "I'm gonna make my own deodorant!" He nodded and waited for me to tell him all about how to do this as well. But tonight when I asked him "did you throw out the coffee grounds? I want to use them for a self tanner." His eyes bugged out of his head and he said "what?! That sounds crazy! Show me right now!" So to the bathroom we went and I rubbed coffee all over my legs and all in all he approved and went right on with his night. 

The results were pretty good! It's nothing drastic but you can see a slight tint to my skin that wasn't there before, and it's an awesome exfoliant so my legs and arms are so soft! And there may or may bot be just the slightest hint of coffee smell to my skin which I am a big fan of as well! 

I also made my homemade deodorant tonight, but I have not used it yet. When I do I'll give you a blog with the how to and all! 

Xoxo

Pumpkins everywhere!

I know I know, it's fall. There are pumpkins everywhere. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin pumpkins. Ok maybe not the last one.

If you are anything like me, when you see the bright colors of fall you get very excited to well, to eat.

Up until about 2 years ago I wanted nothing to do with pumpkin thinking it was not for me, that was until I started drinking pumpkin beer. That yummy treat changed my mind to the whole pumpkin experience. Was it the cinnamon sugar on the rim of my glass?

Maybe. Whatever it was I was hooked and now couldn't wait till the next pumpkin season. So two weeks ago when I went grocery shopping and saw pumpkins everywhere I took it upon myself to try to bake pumpkin goodies from scratch!

Most of my friends and family will tell you I am a fantastic baker. I always feel a twinge of guilt when I make something from a box and people rave about it, but I always tell myself a lot of people can't even get that right! But nevertheless I always strive to try to make things from scratch instead. I feel far more accomplished about the whole thing, and love to watch as people eat what I've made and tweak my recipes. My bffl Kate and I want to start up a business someday in the near future.

Check out our blog here ourfrostedcupkates.tumblr.com She too inspires me to try new baking adventures and get creative.

On our blog your can find all of our gluten free, vegan, and just plain yummy baking adventures. But, I digress, this blog today is about my lastest pumpkin baking adventures, and it all begins here... First things first when it comes to baking from scratch with pumpkins is well, baking the pumpkin itself! Being a complete novice to the whole thing, I searched around the internet and pinterest and found the easiest way to do it for me personally. Firstly, preheat your oven to 350. I washed the outside of the pumpkins to get rid of whatever gross is hanging out on there.

Then cut open the pumpkin, I tried my best to cut through evenly but I just ended up ripping it open by hand.

Scoop out all the guts, ie. the stringy insides and seeds. I seperated all the seeds and saved them for later (i'm still looking for a good pumpkin seed recepie).

Take your pumpkin halves, slices, whatever, and place them in casserole dishes or baking sheets whatever you prefer.

The article i had looked at told me to put them in casserole dishes and put lids on them. This I did not do, and nothing went wrong so I leave that up to your digression . Anyhow, put your pumpkins in the oven and bake them for 40-90 mins. It really depends on your oven/pumpkins etc how long you will have to have them in there, just remember to check them and see if the guts are squishy and then go from there. This whole process is much like cooking spaghetti squash, so if you are a pro at that then you are pretty much good to go. When your pumpkins are all nice and cooked on the inside, just use a spoon to scrape out the insides into a bowl and then puree them.

I used my Kitchen Aid and mixed it till i had a nice squash looking puree and i was good to go!


 From there I was ready to start making my Pumpkin Pie!

I used this recipe that I found on pinterest. I have to admit, I did not have the evaporated milk that it called for, even though i thought I did. As i had already opened the can and was pouring it in i realized that i was condensed milk, and my thought process was oh crap its ruined. This was not the case, it was delicious! Crisis averted! I also have to admit that I did not make my own crust from scratch, I was to lazy at this point and just made a boxed JIF crust, but i did add a bunch of cinnamon to the dough and it made it taste very homemade-y.

Cinnamon is always my secret ingredient. Next I made Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, also found on pinterest at this blog These were amazing.

And the frosting was to die for.

Definitely going to be making these again and again. Also going to look into making a gluten free version I think.

 This weekend I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. These, we stupidly easy to make, and VERY lazy. 1box of yellow (or spice) cake mix 2cups of pureed pumpkin 1cup chocolate chips oven at 350 and bake for 15min. These were just amazingly delicious, I brought them to a friends house later that day and they were gone in about half and hour, I wasn't able to get any pictures since they were devoured! Well there you have it, my recent baking adventures!

Let me know if you have any requests for any yummy treats I can concoct! au revoir!  

Purple hair don't care

So no poo has been going well so far! Saturday was my second wash day and my hair has not revolted yet! My friends all did smell tests on me and no one was disgusted by my hair so ill say all is well! Even have a little purple going on for the weekend. 

Thinking of blogging tomorrow about my pumpkin baking adventures the past two weekends. More on that tomorrow!

Day four

Day three of no poo arrived. All in all everything is normal. My hair feels much like it would normally 3 days after washing it! Tonight I went out so I did a little styling and hair spray it all held well! 

Yes I am writing this from bed where I an overly sleepy, but my hair looks good! 

I plan on doing my next wash tomorrow before I visit my bffls, one of whom is going to go no poo as well! Very exciting!!

More later!

~*ginge