Friday, March 21, 2014

My favorite natural nausea aid


Fun botanical fact: plants in the mint family have square stems

I have mentioned before that I have a chronic illness, POTS, that I deal with pretty regularly. And one of the annoying symptoms is nausea. When I was in Dallas at the POTS Treatment Center, one time when I was nauseous, they burned some peppermint oil. I know that peppermint is supposed to help with nausea but I didn't think that smelling it would help. But I was totally wrong!

I love having this method because it is completely safe and natural and I don't have to take any medications or prepare anything, or even spend a lot of money on it.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Our first attempt at a DIY project- over the bed picture ledge



I can guarantee you this will be an easy DIY project for you because it was the first home DIY project we undertook and our skills are not well honed. It was pretty much as simple as you can get!

We decided to build a picture ledge like this to place over our bed instead of getting a headboard. It was definitely less expensive, and a fun project! 

Man, it makes sense procrastination is in the title of this blog because it took us about a total of 4 months to finish this project after buying the supplies, even though it was only about an hour total of work (including hanging).

Monday, March 17, 2014

The best, simplest, peanut butter cookies there ever were. That also happen to be gluten free.



When I first went off of gluten, I seriously craved some good baked goods. It's hard to like the grocery-bought stuff when you remember the taste and texture of wheat cookies, cakes, and breads. This recipe enlightened me to the amazingness of gluten free (and also grain free!) baking.

I don't have step-by-step pictures, so hopefully I can add them later in an updated version of this post. What I do have is an amazing recipe.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Shampoo Free Since 23!



I haven't shampooed my hair in over a year. 

No, this doesn't mean I have not washed it. I've been doing the "no poo" method.

A little over a year and a half ago I increased a dosage of a medication that can make your hair fall out as a side effect. I was losing hair all over the place and worried about it getting thinner. I read about different vitamins you could take or products you could buy but none of them seemed convincing for me (not to mention expensive). 

I discovered the no-poo method by chance on pinterest. I read a very detailed account on why shampoo is bad for your scalp and how to no-poo wash your hair from Code Red Hat. And it has been awesome for me. Not only do I feel great about reducing the amount of chemicals I put on my body and down the drain- I also don't need to wash my hair as often, and it has gotten thicker! And it is way cheaper than shampoo.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

It's hard not to love a hedgehog (vol. 1)



If you follow me on instagram (sunflower_susie) you will immediately notice that I have just about the most adorable pet hedgehog ever. Besides my parents' dogs, she is the only thing I take pictures of lately.

Her name is Falafel Hedgington, or Falafel the Hedgehog. She sometimes goes by Falafalaf or Little Munchkin. She is a champagne colored African Pygmy Hedgehog.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Organizing Addiction

You know, I never liked the game tetris growing up. I didn't like many games at all, except for things like the Sims and Carmen San Diego. Anyways, you wouldn't know it by how much I love organizing now. You would expect me to be a tetris expert!


I joke with my boyfriend that he is like a squirrel. When he doesn't know where to put something, he stuffs it away in a drawer or a closet and then forgets about it. And then every time I feel like reorganizing a closet (about once a month) I found a trove of random things that don't belong anywhere. And that is my big problem. I need everything to have a place where it belongs.

Here is the thing where you may call me crazy- I don't care if things are out of their place. As long as I know where they can be put back. So I'm a strange combination of messy and organized.

I'm working on reorganizing our main closet, which serves as our largest storage and a kind of make shift pantry, in our apartment. I've really let it get out of hand. I'll post updates as I go along!

Keep posted for lots more posts about my organization projects- we are also reorganizing the guest room/ office. It's going to be a crazy before and after.