Random Things I Have Been Enjoying Lately

1. Coconut Water
Coconut is the buzz word in the world of healthifying these days - everyone and his dog is preaching the miracle properties of coconut water and coconut oil. I'm not sold on the supposed benefits of coconut oil but that's a rant for another day. However, coconut water is my new favourite thing. I've only tried a few brands and this one is really the only one I enjoy so far - the others are tetra paks and have some weird aftertaste. I haven't tried a fresh one as yet - it's on my to do list.

2. Watching Dead podcast
I'm years behind everyone with the podcast thing, for several reasons. Firstly, I absolutely detest radio - it makes me super ragey and one of the things that drives me nuts at work is people who have radios on their desks. IT'S 2012, GET A DAMN IPOD. I have always put podcasts in the same basket as radio and therefore never bothered with them much aside from Ricky Gervais, who can do no wrong. However, lately I've been checking out some movie and TV podcasts. Most of them are kind of crap - it's like radio where no one is getting paid. A couple of people who fancy themselves as comedians sit around cacking themselves at their own crappy jokes. I have a rule of 3 minutes. If it's 3 minutes into the podcast and the hosts are still making stupid jokes and talking random garbage that no one cares about like what what they did on the weekend I'm out.

I stumbled across Watching Dead accidentally when I was just looking for general TV podcasts, and loved it immediately. It's hosted by two guys who like The Walking Dead but are not total fanboys, so they are quite critical of a lot of elements. I don't necessarily agree with all of their criticisms, but I think it's refreshing to hear honest points of view rather than just OMG YOU GUYS THIS SHOW IS SO AWESOME, as is inclined to happen when people who obsessively love a particular show start doing a podcast about it. They are entertaining and quite funny at times, though it's organic rather than the 'how can I squeeze a joke in here?' sort of forced humour. I'm a bit confused though - they talk about being from Indiana but they have Southern accents - one of them in particular quite a heavy one. Isn't Indiana in the mid-West? Or am I showing my complete ignorance of American geography? Anyway, this podcast has inspired me to go back and rewatch The Walking Dead (just in time for when it comes back in a week or so - woo!), and I'm picking up quite a few things I missed the first time around.




3. aLoveTart on YouTube
Mary is rapidly becoming my favourite YouTuber for reviews and comparisons. She is pleasant and easy to listen to, with good lighting so you can see the products clearly, and a confident manner in front of a camera. Unlike some of the more well-known reviewers she isn't snarky or dismissive and doesn't spend the first five minutes banging on about how she came to be in front of a camera that day. Her reviews are really informative and thorough. Well worth checking out if you're the type to be watching beauty vloggers.




4. Ron Swanson
If you've seen Parks and Recreation this needs no eplanation. And if you haven't seen it, you're missing out on comedy gold.

5. Perfume oils
This is an old picture and I no longer have many of these, but I still have enough perfume oils to keep me smelling nice for quite some time. I went off them for a while, preferring the ease of a quick spritz of a commercial fragrance, but I've recently come back to my little brown and green bottles of deliciousness, especially since I finally whittled down my stash to the ones I really liked and got rid of everything else. A lot of these have been sorely neglected so I'm doing a bit of a 'use it or lose it' project with them at the moment.

So that's me. What are you enjoying lately?

Green Smoothie Challenge Week #3 - the final

My mum is one of those people who wins everything. She saves gold coins for when she goes away on holidays so she can play the pokies and she always ends up winning. She's won significant lottery amounts a couple of times. Unfortunately her luck is not hereditary, nor is it transferable, as I've discovered when she's visited and I've made her buy me a lottery ticket.

However, my luck may be changing, because for the second time recently I've won a prize! Yes, first UD Naked 2 (pat pat, stare at naked Paul Rudd), and now I have won a prize in the Green Smoothie Challenge, thanks to Echolife, who hosted the challenge, and are fast becoming my favourite online shopping store. If they sold food I'd never leave the house. I won a $50 gift voucher, which I've already spent because I couldn't wait - I spent ages on their site late last night deciding and ended up getting some Weleda Skin Food and some rosehip oil, both products I've never tried before but have heard good things about.

As for the challenge itself, it's now over, but it seems that quite a few of the participants (myself included) enjoyed it enough to continue. They do say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit! I don't think I'll be having a green smoothie every single day, only because I'm fed up with washing my blender so often. If I had a manservant I'd be all for it. I am having one this morning for breakfast, though.

I forgot one day in the last week - I don't know how I managed that. However, for 20 of the 21 days I faithfully drank my greens and I do feel a bit more springy for it. Thank you Sabine and Echolife for finding a sneaky way to healthify us!

Day 15: soy milk, banana, yoghurt, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, flaxmeal, baby spinach, baby cos lettuce

Day 16: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, flaxmeal, wheatgrass, spirulina, baby spinach, parsley

Day 17: oat milk, yoghurt, banana, blueberries, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, cinnamon, ground ginger

Day 19: oat milk, yoghurt, banana, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, flaxmeal, avocado, baby spinach

Day 20: oat milk, banana, yoghurt, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, muesli (home-made) baby bok choy

Day 21: oat milk, blueberries, honey, vanilla, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, flaxmeal, avocado, English spinach

Green Smoothie Challenge Week 2

Still really enjoying this challenge, and in fact there has been discussion about having a Winter one with soups, which I'm all over because I LOVE soup, and I have loads of quick, easy recipes for them. Come on, cold weather!

I didn't really change up my ingredients much in my smoothies this week, mostly because we are coming up to two weeks now that have hovered around the 35 degrees mark or higher every day, and it's too damn hot to trek to the market for supplies. OVER IT. Aside from that, I have a ginormous bunch of English spinach that I've been working through. Hopefully next week the weather will finally cool down a bit and I can shop for something a bit different. On the bright side, spinach is good for you, so having a couple of big handfuls of that each day certainly isn't going to hurt.

Day 8: skim milk, banana, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, English spinach, avocado, parsley

Day 9: soy milk, banana, yoghurt, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, English spinach, cos lettuce

Day 10: soy milk, banana, yoghurt, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, English spinach, parsley

Day 11: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, blueberries, flaxmeal, spirulina, wheatgrass powder, baby spinach

Day 12: soy milk, banana, English spinach, spirulina, wheatgrass powder

Day 13: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, English spinach, cos lettuce, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, flaxmeal

Day 14: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, English spinach, spirulina, wheatgrass powder

Green Smoothie Challenge Week 1

I'm quite enjoying the Green Smoothie Challenge. I can't honestly say it's made me feel much different (I eat a lot of vegetables anyway), but it's certainly not doing me any harm. My only complaint is having to clean my blender every day - normally I'd only use it once or twice a month.

Day 1: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, blueberries, flaxmeal, chia seeds, baby spinach

Day 2: soy milk, yoghurt, flaxmeal, banana, ice, baby spinach and parsley

Day 3: apple, butter lettuce, cucumber, water, ice

Day 4: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, chia seeds, flaxmeal, parsley, English spinach

Day 5: soy milk, flaxmeal, banana, butter lettuce, wheatgrass powder, spirulina

Day 6: soy milk, yoghurt, banana, butter lettuce, parsley, flaxmeal, wheatgrass powder, spirulina, ice

Day 7: a 'Green, Lean and Clean' from Boost Juice, which had pineapple, celery, wheatgrass and a couple of other things I can't remember

Random things:
1. I took Amy's advice and peeled my bananas then froze them. I already have a pile of unpeeled bananas in my freezer as I can't eat them once they get really ripe so I throw them in there for muffins. However, peeling them while frozen is impossible, and letting them thaw makes them turn to mush (which doesn't matter for muffins but defeats the purpose of having an icy cold banana in a smoothie).

2. I won't cheat and go to Boost again. It was ridiculously expensive for what amounts to a bit of juice, and no doubt it was packed full of sugar. And it gave me brain freeze.

3. I prefer the milky ones to the non-milky. I didn't really like the apple, cucumber and lettuce one. I would probably like it better if I had a proper juicer (I am saving but those things go for several hundred dollars so it will be a while), but the texture in just a blender was kind of slushy.

4. I don't know why I used soy milk as opposed to the regular skim milk I have at home. I think I just wanted something organic. I know you can get organic skim milk as well, so that's not really very logical. Oh well.

Sabine from Echolife has done a round-up of how other people have been getting into the challenge. Did you do it? How is it going?

21 Day Green Smoothie Challenge

Woo, I'm a blogging machine today! I decided to join in the Echolife 21 Day Green Smoothie Challenge after hearing about it on Twitter. I've been vaguely considering getting into these anyway as I've been reading some books about skin and health and they rave about the benefits of greenery.

Although I did buy some kale and parsley at the market yesterday, I wanted to start off slowly so all I did for day #1 was add baby spinach to what would be my regular smoothie recipe. I don't measure when I make these, I just eyeball it. So for my first time I used the following:

organic soy milk, probably a bit less than 2 cups
a few tablespoons of plain yoghurt
a heaped teaspoon of chia seeds
a heaped tablespoon of flaxmeal
a banana
a handful of frozen blueberries
two big handfuls of baby spinach
a smidge of vanilla extract (at Noodles' insistence, I wouldn't normally add this)

The colour came out more purple-green than the bright, lush green I was expecting, thanks to the blueberries. The taste was quite nice - it just tasted like a regular banana-blueberry smoothie with a little bit of a tang. Tomorrow I might try some parsley and throw in a bit of apple. It was quite filling - I had mine for morning tea but I could probably get into them for breakfast.

Noodles hated it, though more because of the texture than the taste. She's not a fan of smoothies because she doesn't like 'smooth' food. She also hates blended soups. Oh well, she eats her vegetables and salads so I'm not going to push her on this one.

Ever had a green smoothie? Did you join in the challenge?

How To Do Customer Service

A while back I read an article in a magazine about chemicals in everyday products, including tampons. I'd never really given any thought to that before, but once the idea entered my head I was a bit freaked out by what I could possibly be - uh - putting inside myself. So I was on Twitter chatting to Jade about organic tampons and up pops Sabine from Echolife, who offered to send me some to try. I was happy to pay for them - I'd been meaning to do an order from the site anyway because Jade had already given it a massive thumbs up rave, and a tampon's a tampon. Even if it's not that fantastic, it's still gonna get used. However, I did ask if she had any samples of natural shampoos she could send with my order for Noodle Arms to try on her thick wavy mop.

As you can see, those 'samples' are actually a full bottle each of shampoo and conditioner! And both Noodles and I really like it, so that's going in the staples pile. So what did I think of everything else?

Organyc Organic Cotton Tampons
As I said, tampons are tampons - they have one job to do and these ones do it. I'm happy with them and I will buy them again. I wish I'd thought about it years ago though - 30 years of sticking who knows what (YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) in my lady parts plays on my mind a bit. :-/

Nature's Goodness Olive Leaf Mouthwash
I've mentioned before that I'm paranoid about the throat cancer links with mouthwash that contains alcohol, and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Previously I'd been using Listerine Zero, but I like this one better. It has a nice minty citrus taste. My only complaint is that it bubbles up a lot so it's hard to gargle with. I'll still buy it again.

Wotnot Naturally Nurturing Facial Wipes
I have to admit I'm not entirely sold on these - they smell quite strongly of olive oil and they seem to leave a bit of a film on my face. I could be biased as I'm not keen on facial wipes in general - I keep them on hand for severe bouts of laziness, but I'm not a regular user. I'm undecided about whether I'd buy this brand again.

Organyc Organic Cotton Panty Liners and Cotton Ultra-thin Pads
I bought these for Noodles. I asked her what she thought of them.
"Fine."
"Can you be more specific? It's for the blog."
"Mu-uuuuum! They're FINE."
Okay, then. They're fine, apparently.

Echolife has free delivery in Australia and my order arrived within a couple of days. Sabine is also extremely helpful and knowledgable and has customer service down to a fine art. During a conversation I had with her I mentioned that I wasn't a fan of lip balms and considered them a necessary evil. A few weeks later at Christmas I came home one day to find a package in my letter box.

How awesome is that? Echolife is definitely where I'll be doing all my hippie shopping from now on. And also, as lip balms go, Burt's Bees are pretty damn good, I have to admit.