Enchantment Learning & Living Blog

Welcome to Enchantment Learning & Living, the inspirational space where I write about the simple pleasures, radical self-care, and everyday magic that make life delicious.

Easy Coconut Body Butter

April 29, 2015

One ingredient. Under ten minutes to make. Silky soft skin as a result. Need I say more? I stumbled across this body butter recipe from Living the Nourished Life on Pinterest and immediately had to try it. You know I love making my own body butters already because they are much more nourishing for your skin than traditional lotions (even organic ones that like to sneak in preservatives). Plus, they feel positively luxurious!

As easy as my body butter recipes are, I don't always have the energy to wait for beeswax to melt and then whip up my oils and other ingredients--especially this time of year when I am in an end-of-term-grading crunch. And as much as I look forward to my rich mojito body butter after a day in the sun, I find myself needing a lighter day-to-day moisturizer now that it is warmer out. Enter this decadent and easy to make coconut body butter.

You simply whip up solid coconut oil until it is nice and frothy like whipped cream; this ensures that when you slather the butter on your body, it quickly absorbs into your skin, rather than leaving an oily residue. You can add essential oils to it, but I find I like to preserve the gentle perfume of coconuts--feels so summery and festive!

Ingredients:

1 cup organic coconut oil

Place solid coconut oil in mixing bowl--don't melt the oil or it will not whip. Using a handheld mixer, whip coconut oil for 6-8 minutes, or until oil is frothy like whipped cream. Transfer to a small mason jar or other airtight container and store indefinitely in a cool, dry place. To use, simply apply to skin post-bath in small amounts. Makes about 1 1/2 cup. Enjoy!

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

On Living Your Creed

April 24, 2015

It is not always enough to believe--you must live it every day.

You must find your home in its embrace; however strange it may seem to others, however difficult it may be, you must turn away from other outstretched arms, seductive folds that would gather you into the temporary ease of all-inclusiveness. Yes, this collective energy can momentarily assuage the wear and tear of walking your own path but ultimately stifles you with the price you must pay for this comfort: silence. Only your voice, that seed of sound and breath, the song of who you are, the breeze that allows your wings to unfurl.

But you cannot turn your back on your creed. The one made up of lessons learned the hard way and a future paved by dreams and flashes of inspiration and--sometimes--past lives, those tatters of ghostly tendrils that snake their way through the cracks in the earth beneath your feet. It is yours and yours alone.

If you know each seed you plant will blossom, you must sow wisely. If you know each thought is a thread coloring the tapestry of your life, you must think carefully. If you know that your lungs need fresh air and open space to fill them up, you must find a land without fences in which to breathe deeply. If you know that only you can create your future, you must wake every morning to pave the next row of stones that carve out your path. If you know your life is made up of conversations with the universe, you must speak with the cosmos often, shout out to it, sing to it, and listen to its response even if no one else can understand or hear the exchange. They see only dust, where you see stars.

On Mid-Week Gardening

April 21, 2015

You are able to sneak away for a little bit--just a handful of minutes really--to tend your garden. You tune out everything except the hum of bees and the crackle of things growing. You smell nothing but damp earth and rosemary; feel thick roots twine themselves around your fingers and tender radish leaves kiss your wrists.

You know there are stacks of papers waiting for you on your writing desk along with a fresh pot of tea. But for now, you take a moment to be still, to tune into the thoughts and feelings that have been pushed to the bottom of your spine as you go about your work day. You release each lesser one as you would the weeds you pluck from your garden so that your tomatoes, as with your joy, may be plentiful. And you keep the good ones, planting them alongside your strawberries so they may grow as ripe and lush as those ruby berries.

With your bare feet on the earth, you feel the soul in your soles connecting you to that vast web of roots and minerals, leaves and petals and--soon--fruit. When your hands are blackened by dirt and your shirt splattered with water, you no longer feel the tendril of tiredness in your bones; and though you know you must clean yourself up before returning to your work, you allow your hair to be messy and loose around you, a half-curled nest like the spring onions you tended only moments ago, a reminder that you are earth and roots as much as words and tea.

3 Ways to Use Baking Soda and Vinegar to Clean Your Home

April 17, 2015

In my last post, I gave you a recipe for an all-purpose cleaner to show just how simple and affordable it can be to green your home care routine. Today I'm going to add to this by showing you how you can use baking soda--that miracle pantry staple--and vinegar to take care of some of your bigger your cleaning needs. Like my all-purpose cleaner that only used vinegar and essential oils, these easy recipes only cost you a fraction of what an organic cleaning product would and yet are as gentle on your home as they are on the earth. In fact, using baking soda and vinegar to clean your home is even less expensive than buying those chemical laden commercial products!

1. For Your Toilet: Pour 1 cup vinegar and 1/2 cup baking soda into the bowl. Scrub thoroughly and let sit for 20 minutes.

2. For the Bathtub, Kitchen Sink, or Other Tough to Clean Surface: 1/4 cup baking soda and about 1/8 cup water (enough to make a thin paste). Combine ingredients until they form a thin paste and spread across desired surface. Scrub until surface is clean and rinse off baking soda with warm water. The baking soda will not only remove soap scum and other substances but also deodorize and disinfect.

3. For a Clogged Drain: Pour 1/2 cup baking soda down the drain and 1 cup vinegar. Cover drain so that the foaming action of the two ingredients stays in the pipes. Let sit for half an hour then pour hot water down the drain. This will clean out regular build up.

These are just a few ways to use such simple products on those hard-to-tackle places in our home that often need more elbow grease to get sparkly clean. You can also use vinegar to deodorize your refrigerator (simply put an open cup of vinegar in your fridge for two days to absorb odors); placing an open box of baking soda near your trashcan will likewise get rid of any funky smells. Between my all-purpose cleaner and these recipes, you can safely and cost-effectively clean your home!

All-Purpose Cleaning Spray

April 15, 2015

With Earth Day around the corner, I find myself thinking of all the super easy ways we can be eco-friendlier in our day to day routine, especially when it comes to cleaning our homes. We often think that if we want to green our cleaning routines that we need to shell out a fortune on organic cleansers and other goods. In reality, we can be good to our environment and our wallet by going back to basics.

This all-purpose cleaner does just that, using the anti-bacterial properties of vinegar to clean your home--a recipe I learned from my mom. It can be used on everything from windows and bathroom sinks to the kitchen counter and floors. I like to throw in essential oils into this mix, usually peppermint or lavender to soften the smell of vinegar. What you're left with is a nice smelling all natural antibacterial cleaner that costs you under $1 a bottle.

Ingredients:

1 cup vinegar

1 cup water

30 drops essential oil (optional)

Mix all ingredients in a spray bottle and shake until combined. Enjoy!

5 Cocktails to Cure Spring Fever

April 10, 2015

If you're anything like me and my fellow teachers (and our students!), you're feeling a little spring fever creeping into your day to day. It's so lovely outside--something the tall glittery-green aspen trees outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in one of my classrooms remind me. Then there is the sunlight, that ephemeral gentle kiss of golden splendor that just begs for you to pause a moment under its touch. Who needs to grade papers when your garden is calling to you? (Answer: me, but if I get my papers done soon enough, I can ease the throbbing in my green thumb.) Can't those lesson plans wait in lieu of frolicking outside? (Answer: no, class is in twenty minutes.)

Fortunately, there is an antidote to the spring fever that clouds your brain with carefree longings in the midst of the end-of-semester grind--several in fact. And yes, they come in the form of cocktails, those perfectly crafted restorative liquors that were once, in truth, used for healing minor ailments from ill-humor to stomach aches. So why not use them to cure a little spring fever? These cocktails whipped up in my own kitchen are for anyone who needs a little fun after the work-week, not just teachers.

The prescription is easy: Take one of the below cocktails and mix with a cloudless evening, great company, and good conversation. Also pairs well with a well-groomed backyard or garden nook. Repeat as necessary. Caution: Extreme relaxation and enjoyment may occur.

1. 3 Citrus-Ginger Gin Fizz

2. Spritz Cocktail

3. Coconut Water-Kiwi-Lime Cocktail

4. Lavender Gimlet

5. Grape & Lime Gin Tonic

Gardening, I Love You

April 8, 2015

This post is a day late, in part because I got carried away in my patio garden yesterday--watering thirsty plants, trimming dead leaves, watching those little radish sprouts grow, and clipping fresh herbs for my dinner. I couldn't help it. I was seduced outdoors by the intoxicating fresh air, redolent with the perfume of blooming lilacs and greening grass; by the way the sunlight seemed to pull my beets upward until their leaves doubled in size under its loving gaze; and in the way my breathing just seemed to slow down when I took a moment to brush my hands against the dirt near my strawberries and onions.

Such is the glory of gardening. It grounds you. It connects you to this world, this earth. It sweeps away the cobwebs of the day and reminds you that there is blood pumping in your veins. It is all the possibilities you plant in your life made tangible, even as the more ephemeral seeds--hopes and dreams--take a little more time to manifest.

In honor of these glorious feelings, and the necessity abandoning the writing desk for time in the garden, I leave you with three posts on the delicious, delicious pleasures and revelations found among plants:

1. On Grounding and Gardening

2. On Watching Your Garden Grow

3. On Tasting the First Tomato from Your Garden

On Celebrating Spring

April 3, 2015

The romantic in you wants to wear flowers in her hair and walk barefoot through the newly greening grass; the lover of fine clothes is eager to don her first flouncy pastel dress of the season, and the earth woman wants nothing more than to plant the seeds heavy in her open hands.

But it's more than that. You want to celebrate the seeds you've sown in the past year and the ones you hope to plant now. They are promises, these pods cradled in the palm of your hand, of a prolific year, an abundance of whatever you choose to give to the soil. You are intoxicated by this delicious itch to create new life, bringing dreams into your waking life.

Soon you will reap your first crop of radishes--full of earth and pepper--and those little tender lettuce leaves, the product of your love and care. But what about your other seeds? The wish floating on the cottony dandelion wisp? Or the fertile black disks of a hollyhock, shameless in their pursuit of life? What of the hollow bulb empty of everything save for a few fragments of a past life?

You must be careful which seeds you choose to plant for now, under the light of the blood moon or the gaze of the spring sun; whatever you plant will surely take and grow strong in this receptive soil. The seeds weigh down your palm--the dandelion heaviest of all. You do not need more ghosts haunting your waking life, no memories of what was walking by your side. You crumble the all-but-dead bulb, consigning it to the compost where its remnants will feed your garden. You take that thick hollyhock seed and shove it deep into the earth, knowing it will reach to the sky and bring her sisters with it.

Lastly, you take that dandelion wisp, full of your own wishing, and cast it into the sky. Let it find its own resting ground, its own soil to make its home and grow full and strong in its own time. It will find its way back to you, as all wishes do when you are ready for it.