I’m not even kidding. I really like weeding at this phase of the gardening season. Last year I learned how to properly use a hoe, and weeds are under control. I enjoy going out for 10 or 15 minutes in the evening and plucking away the seedlings I didn’t plant so my little babies will thrive. It’s therapeutic. (Not so later in the summer when my schedule is more full and it’s hotter out…but we’ll deal when we get there.)

2. Open windows

Ahhh, yes. This is what good weather feels like. Fresh air, the smell of freshly mowed grass, and a gentle breeze making my bedroom curtains flutter. This is exactly what I was dreaming of all winter. And it’s happening right now.

3. My annual artichoke

Some things are special because they are few. I don’t make whole artichokes very often, but last spring I decided that I’d make a point to have at least one per year. It’s getting to be that time, when they are in season and plentiful and delicious. I will be buying it this weekend, and am so excited…but how to fix it this year? I just don’t know. All I know is, it’s going to be delicious.

Last year I topped it with parmesan and dipped in a butter sauce.  (If you have any recommendations, kindly leave a note in the comments, please.) Here’s last year’s artichoke:

4. MY NEW EBOOK!

I’m so thrilled to be launching my ebook tomorrow! I’ve worked really hard on it for a really long time, and it feels amazing to finally releasing it into the world….a day that I thought would never come :o)

I’ve already started to think of recipes for a volume two, but I better slow down a little, eh? You can pre-order your copy of I Don’t Buy That here–today is the last day to get it for just $12!

 5. Not just a girl

In honor of her baby girl turning five, photographer Jamie C. Moore did a series of her daughter dressed as five amazing and strong women leaders.

An excerpt from her post: “It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now have everything.”

View the full series (and inspiring quotes) here

The post 5 things I love (May) appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

The release date is May 23! (Ohmigod, am I going to be a real live author? I THINK I AM!)

Click here to learn more and pre-order for just $12
When the book launches, the price will go up to $17 – so order today for a nice lil discount!)

The post I Don’t Buy That launches this Thursday – Pre-order your copy now! appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

I came across a video this morning that discusses an angle on this topic that you know is near and dear to my heart. Fran Drescher is a uterine cancer survivor and now runs the Cancer Schmancer Movement to help fight cancer through prevention and early detection. In the video, Fran Drescher discusses an important point that while 5% of cancer is caused by genetic factors, more than 90% of cancer is stimulated by environmental factors.

If you read this blog regularly, you know that one of my favorite topics of conversation is making our home environment more healthy and toxin-free. It’s also one of the main driving forces behind my ebook, I Don’t Buy That, which launches next week.

Check out the video below to learn more from Fran Drescher:

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear what you have to say the comments!

The post Another angle on Angelina Jolie’s Op-Ed in the New York Times appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

Nom nom nom.

Now, here’s the thing about this recipe. I don’t ever use a real recipe. I add in as much of each ingredient as I like…and I want you to do the same. I’ll provide a guess of how much I added the most recent time, but I eyeball everything and it always turns out great—this is a good recipe to practice with if you want to learn how to cook without a recipe!

Start with hard boiled eggs. How many, you ask? As many as you want. What you’re looking at in the picture below is 6 or 7. Separate the whites from the yolks, and chop the whites into small-ish pieces.

My egg salad is inspired by deviled eggs, which are oh-so-delicious. Therefore, I added a generous heap of homemade mayonnaise, a few teaspoons of ground mustard, some salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Smash all of this with a fork to break the yolks into pieces. Some people like the yolks chunky, some like them pulverized. I like mine somewhere in the middle…I generally just stop stirring whenever I want to. (Are you catching my vibe with this recipe?)

Next, chop up some onions (about a half a small onion for mine). If you have some celery, throw that in too, for some nice crunch. Sometimes I add halved cherry or grape tomatoes, too, if I don’t have big sliced ones to put on top. This time I had neither, so I went tomato-less.

Stir the yolk and mayo mixture with the egg whites and onion/whatever else, and you’ve got yourself some egg salad! Spread a nice thick layer between two slices of wheat bread, and enjoy the deviled-eggy goodness.

The post Easy egg salad sandwich recipe appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

She said, “You know, I sometimes think we’re soul mates because we like all of the same things.” As soon as she said it, I thought….yeah, me too. I feel more at home and connected with my cousins than almost anyone else in the world. When I thought about writing today’s “Grandmother Power” post, I immediately thought of this connection. And almost as immediately, I knew: this comes from our grandma.

They say that to have a child is to have a piece of your soul walking around outside of your body. What does it look like, then, to have 7 or 8 children, like my two grandmas did, who have their own children…and to see a piece of your soul in all of them? To recognize common interests and tendencies and personality traits and tempers and habits that you know you have, too. To have the power of experience and love to help guide them where you once slipped up, and encourage them when you know they need it…and you know, because you’ve felt it, too. And even more incredibly, to forge this same connection between them, so that someday when you’re gone, they have pieces of you to turn to, because they will still need you.

That is what grandmother power means to me. Quiet but strong, and more immense than I ever realized growing up. The older I get, the more I see the miracle of what an incredible mother and grandmothers I am blessed with, and even more miraculous to me is they didn’t know how to do this all along, like I assumed when I was a kid. They learned as they went, because all of their little souls depended on them. Just below the surface, I can feel the love and immense strength that carries all of us through life.

Happy Mother’s Day!

xo

The post Sharing a soul appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

This year is an entirely different story, but I am no less pumped about my garden plans! A few things I’m doing differently this year, mainly in the realm of taking it all down a notch:

• I’m scaling back on the variety of things I’m planting. Knowing that we also have lots of veggies coming from our CSA share, I’m only planting our favorites in the garden this year
• I’m using a lot of leftover seeds from previous years. In fact, I haven’t bought any new seeds this year, because I have so many left over from last year and the year before.
• I’m planting a lot of my favorite perennial herbs in the ground instead of pots. This is in acknowledgement of the fact that I inevitably get worse about watering daily as the season wears on….maybe some of them will stay alive for more than one year if I plant them in the ground?

In the picture above you can see what I purchased last weekend at Seed Saver’s in Decorah (which, by the way, is an awesome place to go if you’re looking for GMO-free and organic, open pollinated plants and seeds. I love everything about they way they run their business).

There’s a couple different varieties of thyme on the right, a little rosemary, violets in the bottom region, some variegated sage, a few tomato and pepper plants, and the big fat leaves at the top are basil….gotta have basil.

My 2013 Garden

Here’s how it will all shake out, if all goes according to (hastily thrown together) plan. My darling hubby helped me turn over the garden last Sunday, so plants are going in the ground this coming weekend.

* The scallions are growing from seeds I planted last year. Whatever, I’ll take it.

The post Garden planning 2013: The lazy gardener version appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

One recipe stood out to me right away. I’ve been wanting to make homemade mayonnaise for a while now, and that was one of the first cards I pulled out of the deck. I had all the ingredients, so I figured I’d give it a whirl.

Traditional store-bought mayo has always made me nervous. I am not entirely comfortable with an egg-based product using lots of preservatives to allow the mayo in the tub to not spoil after sitting for months on a shelf at room temperature—I’m not a food scientist of any kind, but my gut says the original version is probably better for our bodies and our digestion. The ingredient list on the tub of mayo in my fridge reads:

WATER, SOYBEAN OIL, MODIFIED STARCH (CORN, POTATO)**, EGGS, SUGAR, SALT, VINEGAR, LEMON JUICE, SORBIC ACID** AND CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA (USED TO PROTECT QUALITY), NATURAL FLAVOR, VITAMIN E.
**INGREDIENT NOT IN MAYONNAISE. (What? You just said it was. And also, EDTA is short for ”Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid.” You know me, I don’t like eating foods I can’t pronounce.)

Compare that to the recipe I found which uses just five ingredients: lemon juice, Dijon mustard, salt, egg and olive oil. Ahhh, beautiful simplicity.

The Verdict:

This homemade mayo recipe could not have been easier, and I’m thrilled to have a new recipe to my repertoire of products I don’t have to buy anymore.

Be sure to use farm-fresh or pasteurized eggs, since the eggs won’t be cooked. This will minimize the risk of salmonella, plus fresh eggs will mix with the oil better. My eggs, as you probably know, come from Herbal Turtle Farms in Winona.

The only other tool you need is a blender; if you don’t have one, I suspect a food processor, stick blender, or the whisk attachment on your mixer would also work (although none of these methods have been tested–leave a note in the comments if you use something other than a blender, to let us know how it works!)

Stay tuned, next week I’ll be sharing my favorite recipe for egg salad sandwiches using this mayo!

Mayonnaise Chez Vous
(Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe)

• 1-1/2 T. lemon juice
• 1 t. Dijon-style mustard
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 fresh, organic or pasteurized egg
• 1 cup olive oil

Combine lemon juice, mustard, salt and egg in a blender with 1/3 cup of olive oil. Cover and blend on low for 30 seconds. Remove the cover (or center section of the cover). Turn the blender to high and pour the rest of the olive oil in the blender in a continuous stream. Makes 1-1/2 cups.

If you liked this post, you will love my upcoming ebook: I Don’t Buy That: 12 simple recipes for DIY household basics. This lovely and practical ebook will give you the strategies and recipes you need to incorporate 12 healthier food, body care and cleaning products into your household in place of the traditional store-bought versions. Time is running out to sign up for the pre-sale with an early bird discount! To get on the list for this announcement (which will not be made publicly) just sign up with your email address below.

The post Homemade mayonnaise: Easier than I expected appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

I may not have gotten the entire factoid 100% verbatim, but that’s not really the point of this post. Whether it’s technically true or not, I want to talk rant about why I hate that statistic.

Maybe I have a perspective bias, but I don’t know too many people that are overly bored. The prevailing issue around me is people who have way too much on their calendars. In fact, I’ve crossed paths with a lot of people who are spread much, much too thin. Hurrying from one thing to another, with a never ending todo list, always late, always frazzled, always working under pressure. I’m guilty of it myself, sometimes, too–taking on too much and finding myself in the midst of stressful deadlines feeling overwhelmed and chaotic and exhausted.

What I hate worst about the statistic mentioned above, and the cult of productivity** mindset in general, is the underlying implication that it’s a good thing to be busy all the time, which is simply not sustainable. I’m all about getting things done, and consider myself to be a very productive person, but the suggestion that we should reaffirm an unhealthy tendency to run ourselves ragged in the name of living longer is completely missing the point. Of life.

Image found on Pinterest. Original source unknown–if you know where this came from, please leave a note in the comments!

I call shenanigans on the false ideal that we need to be busy and overextended all the time in order to be doing a good job. In order to live longer, or be socially accepted, or whatever it is that is pushing us to strive more and work harder to no end.

To me, the opposite of “busy, busy, busy!” is not bored. It’s intentional, it’s cyclical, it’s humane and it’s realistic. I’d argue that it’s even more productive, in fact, than our false ideal of constant busy-ness. But it’s focused and planned and energizing and not busy all the time.

If I’m sitting in a chair, doing nothing more than breathing, that’s a really good thing. We can all use a little more of that, and a little less go-go-go all the time.

Level of activity should ebb and flow naturally so that we’re busy sometimes, but the busy-ness is counteracted with periods of real rest. Todo lists should not be perpetually too long–they should be severely purged, with space remaining for new priorities that emerge, too. Even if that priority is to sit in a chair and breathe. Especially then.

It’s a crazy-busy, cluttered and overwhelming world, and I think our most-needed skill is the ability to look at something and feel out it’s actual value, then act accordingly. This applies to the stuff in our homes, the habits we cultivate, the media we consume and the activities with which we fill our time.

Thank you for reading. Rant over.

* It was on Jon Tesh’s radio show, which I don’t actually like listening to. But it was on, and I heard the factoid, and it made me mad, thus the roots of this blog post are exposed.

** Is that a thing? I may have made it up, but I think it exists.

The post Life’s too short to be busy all the time appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

Even though spring officially “started” a month ago, here in Minnesota the weather hasn’t caught on. Grumpy Cat summed up my feelings best:

Go home winter, you’re drunk.

— Grumpy Cat(@ItsTheGrumpyCat) April 11, 2013

I tried privately declaring winter to be over last week, which involved resolving to not shovel anymore, buying a new skirt and sending happy thoughts into the universe to bring spring. It didn’t work (in fact, it snowed twice after that) but finally, FINALLY things are looking up. AND the best weather is going to be over the weekend!

2. Never running out of farm fresh eggs

About two weeks ago, Jon and I ran out of eggs and had to run to the store for more. Which reminded me that it’s been almost a year since the last time we ran out of farm-fresh eggs. Thanks to our egg share from Herbal Turtle Farms, our eggs are lovingly gathered by my wonderful cousin Kate (and sometimes the super awesome Bryan). I’m pretty sure Kate gives me extra blue eggs because she knows I think they’re pretty.

(Also, it’s CSA registration time! If you live in the Winona area and you want delicious naturally grown veggies every week, look these farmers up. You won’t be sorry.)

3. Wit & Whistle Mother’s Day cards

I have never ordered cards this early for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I must say, it feels fabulous to be so well prepared this year! I highly recommend it, if you can swing it. I had tons of fun last week picking out cards from Wit & Whistle. The cards arrived today; I would show you a picture of Amanda’s adorable packaging, but I don’t want to give away the surprise of which cards I got for my dear parents. But if you like stylish and quirky cards, go look here. (Except you, mom. You need to wait until after mother’s day.)

Don’t tell dad.

4. Vintage fabric!

This one is nothing new, of course, but I had two Rosy Blu shows this month and ample opportunity to show off the highlights of my collection of vintage fabrics. I love when people walk up to my table, a fabric catches their eye, and they say, “That looks just like the fabric my grandma/mom/aunt had when I was growing up!” You’d be shocked (and delighted!) how often that happens.

I have a really fun blog feature coming up related to my fabrics, AND (listen up, crafters!) I need to lighten my load of sheets, and will be adding lots to the Rosy Blu Vintage shop in the near future. Keep an eye out!

5. Essential oils

I took a fantastic class about essential oils at our co-op, and now I’m addicted to the two new blends I made in the class—one to relax and fall asleep at night, and one to help me wake up in the morning. Those of you who are on my subscriber list heard one of the nuggets of wisdom I learned already last Wednesday in the weekly hints & tips email…but don’t worry, I have plenty of new tricks up my sleeve for the rest of you!

P.S. And also…this was totally written about my cats. Charlie is the one in the box, Ninja Bob wants to get in too.

The post 5 things I love (April) appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.

Are you curious about why it was so interesting? Because my darling mother is one of the community collectors being featured!

Here’s me and my lovely mom at my booth on Saturday. If you came a bit later in the morning, you may have met her. (She was kind enough to bring me lunch, keep me company and watch my table so I could get away for a minute to go visit the other vendors.)

Mom collected coffee mugs since before I can remember. She and Dad would pick them up as souvenirs to remember where they had gone on vacations and trips, and after amassing a few she decided she wanted one from each of the 50 states. Lots of family and friends ended up pitching in to bring her mugs from the states she hadn’t been to herself. Dad built her a rack in the kitchen to display them all, and for years the collection hung on our wall.

My personal favorite was always the one you see in the upper left of the photo below, the one that looks like it’s bent out of shape. It says “I got smashed in Boston.” (I didn’t even understand the double meaning until I grew up; I liked it because it was goofy.)

Mom’s mug exhibit has some really fabulous neighbors.

Just for fun, I did a quick search to find a close-up of my other favorite mug from my mom’s collection. It happens to be for sale on Etsy for just $5! Somebody snatch it up, quick. I can tell you from experience, this mug is good for some laughs when you have company.

Via BCVintageTreasures on Etsy

After Mom collected mugs from all 50 states, which took about 25 years, she turned her attention to postcards. (I think she was going for a collection that would take up a little less space this time!) She has about two hundred postcards of all different kinds–from different states and countries, some are cute, some are funny, some are vintage, some are just unique. My oldest brother Shaun is a pilot, I’m pretty sure he gets the award for sending Mom postcards from the most locations.

It is so cool to see my very own Mom’s treasures on display at the museum! If you live in the Winona area, be sure to stop in at the Winona History Center to see all the fabulous community collections! You can get more info here. 

Tell me, friends, do YOU have any curious collections? Leave a note in the comments!

The post My mom makes history! appeared first on Rosy Blu Handmade.