Natural Living

It was just recently that I realized that natural living is such a big part of me. I never even thought about it before, but nearly every time I get on the computer I end up looking at and/or researching something related to it. Since it's something that I enjoy I just ended up doing it without realizing it.

The thing is in the four months I've had this blog I've yet to post a single thing about natural health or beauty. Now that's sad! That's going to change now, as I have quite a few posts I want to get written up relating to it. Before we dive into that though, I decided to write up with post about my thoughts on natural living.

Natural living to me is living in a way that you're using as minimal artificial ingredients and chemicals as possible. Instead I try and buy products with simple and natural ingredients, but there are many items I'll make myself instead. Natural living covers everything; what you eat and put on your skin to what you wash your clothes with and clean your kitchen with.

Some ways I've made my lifestyle more clean and natural are:
-washing my hair with homemade shampoo
-using apple cider vinegar in place of conditioner
-eating foods without artificial ingredients or preservatives
-using vinegar and water as a window cleaner
-buying toothpaste without sodium laurel sulfate
-choosing glass over plastic when I can

Those are just some of the main things I'm doing that fit into my natural lifestyle. I'm always trying to improve it though, as I can only keep making it better and better. My current ongoing project is to convert all of my store bought makeup to natural homemade makeup. I started yesterday by making my own mascara and lip balm, both which I plan on posting about soon.

My goal when buying products is to find ones with ingredients that I would use if I was going to make it myself. Some things are just really hard to find without bad ingredients, so with those types of things I try to either make my own or do without if possible.

When it comes down to it, we really don't need as many cleaning products as the world wants us to believe. It's all just advertising making us think we "need" a different product for every chore. Less is more, in my opinion. Just give me some vinegar, baking soda, and liquid castile soap and I can clean just about anything!

And that's about all I have to say at the moment. Hopefully that all makes sense. If it doesn't, or if you have any questions just let me know!

2013 Favorites in Film, TV, and Books

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I worked Christmas Eve then spent a relaxing day at home with family on the 25th. A nice quite holiday, but fun.

I can't believe tomorrow is New Year's Eve already. 2013 has went by crazy fast for me. The past few months in particular feel like one big blur for me. Hopefully the new year won't go by quite as fast.

Since the year is practically over, I though some sort of review post was in order. I decided to share my favorite movies, TV shows, and books that I watched/read this past year.

Movies
2013 was the second year that I've kept track of every movie I watched. This year the total is 108 films, with 74 being ones I'd never seen before. Just three films short of how many I watched in 2012. Looking back I didn't watch nearly as many old movies or musicals as I'd like. Out of the new ones I watched, these are my favorites:

Monsters University (2013)

Monsters Inc is one of my favorite Pixar films, so I was really excited for this one and it didn't disappoint. Seeing a different side to Mike and particularly Sully was neat.

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick note wishing everyone the merriest of Christmases!

Deck the Halls

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
'Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la la la la la."

  

Christmas Favorites: Movie Edition

Watching Christmas movies is my favorite way to spend a cold December evening. There are many good ones to be watched each year and most of mine are favorites that I grew up on. But last year I began expanding my horizons a bit after I discovered some of the Hallmark Channels Christmas films.

Sadly, though, this year between work and other activities there hasn't been much time for movie watching. I've been able to fit a few in, though not as many as I'd like. Hopefully I'll be able to fit in more these next few weeks, especially since I have a lot of Hallmark movies sitting on the DVR begging to be watched!

Anyways, today I'm sharing my all time favorite Christmas movies. They're in no particular order, as I doubt I could pick one as better than the other.

P.S. Please pardon the wonky formatting. I keep trying to fix it, but it just keeps getting worse!

Eloise at Christmas Time

{2003}

STARING
Julie Andrews as Nanny
Sofia Vassileva as Eloise
Gavin Creel as Bill
Sarah Topham as Rachel Peabody
Rick Roberts as Brooks

Bill: So, how's that Christmas list coming?
Eloise: Still one or two items short.
Bill: How many you got so far?
Eloise: Seventy three. What? I think it's nice to give Santa lots of options.