Women Talking about Change

Recipe Shared by Member: Annique Cree

2012-11-13T10:20:00.000-05:00

I have this wonderful group on Facebook called: Women Talking about Change. This group of women are beyond wonderful. We all try to share mouth watering recipes and this is one from one of our members Annique Cree.

This recipe does make a lot so you may want to cut it in half.

Nut Roll

Nut Filling Ingredients

1 pound Walnuts Chopped
1 pound Pecans Chopped
2 1/2 cups of sugar
2 sticks of melted butter
2 eggs
1 large apple grated
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

First combine all ingredients together except for the butter. Add the melted butter and mix well. Heat mixture in a large saucepan until the ingredients blend well and thicken slightly. Set a side and allow to cool and make the dough mixture.

Dough Ingredients

6 to 6 1/2 cups of sifted flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons sugar
2 packages yeast
1/2 cup warm milk
1 cup sour cream
2 sticks butter melted or softened
3 eggs beaten

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and add a teaspoon of sugar. Stir and set it aside for a couple of minutes. Mix the remaining ingredients together then add the yeast mixture. Blend well. Divide the dough into 4-6 parts depending on what size you want the rolls. Roll one part out at a time until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Spread some of the nut mixture over the dough and roll up like a jelly roll. Continue to do the same thing to each of the dough parts. Cover and let them rise for 1 hour. ** A good tip about rising bread and dough made with yeast is: to cover the dough and place in your oven to rise. Make sure your oven is not on.** After an hour or until the dough has doubled in size, place in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes.

Icing (optional)

2 cups confectioners' sugar
2-3 Tablespoons Milk
1-2 Tablespoons butter

Combine everything together and drizzle over cooked nut rolls.

Empowerment

2012-11-01T06:27:00.000-04:00

Empowerment

In today's world one of the most common statements you hear is how busy everyone is. Everyone is working hard to support their families, to achieve goals, to make their business successful and simply put to make ends meet. We are currently in a situation that is driving us very hard to network with people both online and offline. We are all; in one form or another pursuing a very firm action to self-empowerment. When obstacles appear on our path, we begin to weaken and that causes us to lose a lot of our power.

However, what does being empowered mean? Does it mean independence? Does it mean having pride in yourself and the work you do? Does it mean believing in yourself and your abilities? YES, to all of the above. In order to make positive things happen in your life, you MUST believe in yourself, you MUST take pride in whatever you are doing and you MUST keep a hold of that speck of independence you carry within yourself. It is as important to remember to stay as grounded as possible when obstacles appear on our path.

How do we stay empowered? Many people will use tools such as oils, meditations, affirmations, we will burn candles during the different moon cycles, we will read books and we will pray. Regardless if we do things consciously or subconsciously, we do many things to empower ourselves. Yet it only takes one comment from one person to bring everything you have worked so hard for- to crumble. That brick wall appears and you walk straight into it! Why do you think that happens? I believe it is because it is easier to doubt ourselves instead of believing in our self. Of course, this is not true for everyone, hell some people could care a less about what others think!

Not everyone will like the things I like, and I will not always like what others do. That does not mean either are positive or negative, it just means it is a personal opinion. We are all here in this life to learn what we need too. Everyone of us has a different destiny, that is not always easy to remember but it is very true. We walk our own path alone because it is what we must do. Oh, we meet others for a while, but in the end, each of us walk alone.

A long time ago, a friend sent me this book, "The Science of Getting Rich" by: Wallace D. Wattles. This book was written about a hundred years ago. There is one phrase in the book that feels like it has embedded itself in my mind: "You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want, you cannot transmit an idea unless you have it yourself." Other words, if you do not know exactly what you want, how are you going to get it? Many of us want many things... and soon everything begins to jumble together thus creating a mess! If you want a successful business, you must clear every thought from your mind and ONLY focus on the success of your business. Plans on how to make your business a success comes so much easier if you allow yourself, to begin with a solid firm start-which is: the thought of your business being successful. No, I am not going off track with this article, all of this has to do with empowerment.

The thought of my business being successful, empowers my goals, my determination and gives me the strength to work hard at making things happen. For me personally, doing my photography, writing and artwork, is not like working a job at all. I enjoy these things so much. However, let's face one thing right off of the top, everyone-no matter who you are or what you do will have off days! During the days when you feel your business is at a stand-still, or you feel is all of this worth it, trust me it is. When one door closes another one will open. DO NOT ALLOW yourself to be taken down because of a bad day use it to your advantage. We are given these days to learn from-As hard as is this to believe, it is very true. You create the empowerment in your mind, but you must focus and believe it will happen. I believe in you!

Witches Brew

2012-10-19T10:30:00.000-04:00

WhiteOak's Witches Brew

Now what is a day without a good cup of witches brew? I want to share some of my favorite herbal combination tea's. I created these recipes years ago. Are they true witches brew? Do they have magical, mystical powers? I will leave that up to you.

One thing is for sure, I cannot get started in the mornings with my brew. Before I started drinking coffee, tea was my main source of beverages. Many people drink tea just plain so they can get the full flavor of the herbs, I personally like a little sweetener in mine, so I have been making a lot of different simple syrups lately. All a simple syrup is sugar and water heated up until the sugar is completely melted. Here is how I do it:

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

(add whatever flavor you want-I love adding fresh mint, strawberries, rose petals, jasmine, lemon balm to name a few)

Add everything in a small pot and bring to a gentle boil. Take off of heat, cover and allow it to completely cool. Strain and enjoy!!

For all of my recipes I use "parts" as measurements.

1 part herb = I teaspoon, tablespoon or cup of herb.

Potion #1

4 parts Green Tea

(you can use 4 tea bags if you do not the loose tea)

2 parts Lemon Balm

2 parts Spearmint

1 part Lemon Peel

1/2 part Rose

1/2 part Jasmine

Instructions:

Begin by making a simple infusion. Bring about five cups of water to a strong boil. Mix all of the herbs in a heat proof container and pour the boiling water over them. Cover and allow to steep for about 20 minutes. Strain the tea real through cheese cloth and be sure to squeeze the cheese cloth to get all of the tea from it.

**Never boil your herbs unless you are making a decoction out of roots and see**

You know it really is true what they say, we must love ourselves before another can love us. I have never met a woman who has been 100% satisfied with herself 100% of the time.

While you are drinking this herbal combination, light some pink candles and focus on how wonderful you are at what you do. Appreciate yourself, pat yourself on the back, treat yourself to something wonderful, be kind to yourself. You are worth it! You are a strong beautiful individual that is very artistic and very caring.

Potion #2

2 parts Black Tea

1 part Peppermint

1 part Spearmint

1 part Orange Peel

1 part Elderberry Flowers

1 part Chamomile

Instructions:

**Never boil your herbs unless you are making a decoction out of roots and see**

Potion #3

3 parts Black or Green Tea

(you can use 3 tea bags instead of loose tea)

4 parts Rose

3 parts Spearmint

3 parts Jasmine

2 parts Orange Peel

Pinch of Lavender

(very strong herb, only use a pinch)

Instructions:

**Never boil your herbs unless you are making a decoction out of roots and see**

What is this all about?

2012-10-04T19:14:00.000-04:00

Women Talking about Change

I wanted to create this blog to go with my FaceBook group "Women Talking about Change.

This is really a girly girl kind of blog. Many women go through different changes and I believe when we communicate to each other in some small way we also help each other.

Sometimes it is the smallest things that can make us miserable, like not knowing how to use a brow-pencil or wanting to know ways to enhance your lips. What is the best thing to use for dry skin, how to hide spots we have by using concealer. The list is endless and my goal for this group is help answer some questions, share some thoughts and perhaps even learn from each other.

Here are two blog post I have written but posted them on my WhiteOak's World blog. Than I decided that creating a new blog just for Women Talking about Change would be the best way to go. Instead of deleting the post from my other blog and re-posting them here, I felt it was just easier to add the links.

Blog Post #1 Women Talking about Change-The Eyebrow

Blog Post #2 Women Talking about Change-The Lips

If you ever have a suggestion or would like to create a post on a topic related to Women Talking about Change, please just send me an email and we can talk about it.