North Eastern Bound

Late last week Mr.G finally got his orders on paper YAY!!! In about six weeks we will be hitting the road headed for Newport, Rhode Island. I am so excited to go back to New England words just can not express how happy I am with his orders. Living on Aquidneck Island will be such an interesting experience the area looks beautiful and full of history. I am looking forward to taking the boy's up to Concord so that they can see where Chavi was born and we can visit the Barefoot Books storefront.

I have a lot of planning and sorting to do and not much time to do it in. From the road trip to de-cluttering our home in preparation for the movers to pack it all up. We are headed down to North Carolina first to spend a couple days with my husband's parents so we are taking I-40 across and I -95 up.

I am thinking we will stop at a few of the state parks, the Memphis Childrens Museum, the Parthenon, The National Mall, and what ever else catches our eye along the way. If anyone has some ideas of things to see along I-40 and I-95 please let us know!



This week my goals are: get through the boy's clothes, toy's, and hopefully get through our little shed. I would like for everything to be done a week before the mover's are scheduled so we can just relax and spend the last few days getting the apartment scrubbed down for the walk through. The list they gave seemed more strident then the walk out for base housing!

What are some tips and tricks you have for moving? Are you a list maker and an organizer or do you fly by the seat of your pants? I am going to try to do this move a lot more organized then I ever have before, so please wish me luck!

Hakarat Hatov - recognition of the good

Today, my hakarat hatov is the joy my children have for life.

Now, I am not sure what is happening in this photo my sister took this. I can see one thing though great fun is being had here by all!

Some days I might wonder why I ever decided I wanted to be a mother. You know, the days where nothing seems to go right. The kids won't stop bickering, dinner gets burnt, homework time was extra special hard, and oh by the way I need three dozen cupcakes by tomorrow and its 8:30 pm. (that's usually when I start humming Rick Recht's Be a  S.T.A.R. to myself!)

Then moments like this happen.

When my children show their sweet, goofy sides, and the times they make me laugh until it hurts (or make my heart grow three sizes bigger with pride). Then I remember "oh yeah, this is why I love my job!" The zrbtt's (if you don't know, then you need some 80's sitcoms in your life!), laughter, mispronounced words, cuddles, and goofiness make this all worth it.

Do you take the time to recognize the hakarat hatov in your life?

I frequently forget to be glad for all the good I do have, all the good others have given me. Way more often, I get wrapped up in what I think I don't have.

That is kind of looking at the world upside down isn't?

*Positive Jewish Living gave me the idea for my blog theme today

Honey and Egg on my face Part 2

So last night I washed my face all nice and clean with my brand new Honey and African Black Seed soap, and I was ready to begin my adventure into homemade skin care YAY!

The first thing I did was put a kettle on to boil, I wanted to use a warm cloth steam on my pores before slathering egg all over my face. While scrounging through the very many tins and boxes of tea I have I discovered I didn't have any chamomile. I mean come on I have chocolate hazelnut tea but no chamomile how weird is that. So in my not so infinite wisdom, I grabbed what I assumed would be the next best thing, peppermint herbal tea.

See how pretty and soothing it looks, well we will get to that in just a minute.

While the tea was steeping, I whipped up the facial masque. It was a lot thinner then I expected it to be and of course both the apple cider vinegar, and the bergamot are pretty strong scents. The lemon essential oil covers most of the smell up, or I got used to it pretty fast so by the time I was spreading it on my face it didn't smell bad at all.

Now this is the part of my adventure that I took a wrong turn, yes we are back to the peppermint tea.




I soaked my towel, and had the brilliant idea to pop the tea bags in the freezer to use later. I got the towel all wrung out and put it on my face. This part was nice a little tingly but it was a good tingle nothing in the danger zone. Breathing in the warm peppermint air was very soothing.




It looks sort of gross but don't let the looks fool you, this masque really worked! The masque itself is kind of on the runny side, so I put it on hovering over the bathroom sink to make clean up easier. My cat was very interested in this part, while he frantically licked up any drops that hit the counter.

Then I grabbed my tea bags and headed for the couch to lay down. Now at first the cool tea bags felt heavenly on my puffy over tired eyelids. Then they started to tingle which still was not very troubling but that quickly turned into an "Oh mylanta my eyes are on fire" feeling. I had to take the tea bags off, and make a mental note that peppermint tea no matter how soothing is not very good for the eyes.

The masque itself was very easy to remove with a warm cloth. My skin was a little red but I am not sure if this is from my super smart idea of opening my pores with peppermint oil or from the apple cider vinegar. My skin felt so amazingly soft and young as soon as the masque came off A+ on that. The real treat though was that it helped right away with my cystic acne (that word really is just gross) on my jaw line. I had a largish blemish right in the middle of my chin and right now it is g-o-n-e! As a result of the egg white my skin also feels firmer. I plan on re-trying this facial masque in a couple weeks and also want to try using baking soda to make an exfoliating paste.

This afternoon I told Mr. G "feel my skin, I swear it is as soft as a babies tuches!"