Life at a "Swell's" pace

Hello.

Here are five things this week...

1. This Moment.

Trying to hold onto summer as long as we can. We sat in the car and enjoyed some watermelon in the sunshine before we headed out on the ocean and surfed for the rest of the day.

2. This Birthday.

We celebrated Jeff's birthday this week on the sixteenth. He unfortunately had to work on his birthday, so Skylar and I surprised him at his job with a cupcake.

3. This Bench.

Picked up a bench at IKEA for the area near our front door. It's perfect and just what I wanted to complete this area. This bench I purchased is the SKOGSTA and it is solid wood and perfect for filling in a small space. It measures: (Length: 47 1/4)-(Width: 13 3/8)-(Height: 17 3/4)

4. These Snails.

Skylar's snails are growing and thriving. He also have a wooly bear caterpillar in the habitat, as well.

5. This Reminder.

9/11 had a profound impact on, not only the United States, but the world. While reviewing history facts in our homeschool classroom this week, I came across former President Obama's speech after the death of Osama Bin Laden. Although, the United States was seeking a bit of relief after that news, it didn't ease anyone's mind, or pain from that day. 9/11 will always be a day that I remember as the day I cried so hard for people I didn't know. I still hurt for them even 20 years later.

Did you catch Mercury at its highest point this week (13), or the Saturn, Moon, and Jupiter conjunction (17)?

Positive affirmations this week:

If you're still working from home, like a lot of people during this past year, you may not be keeping your body in alignment properly. With Skylar and me working on our podcast every once in awhile I feel the stress in my shoulders, neck, and even lower back if I don't sit right, keep my hands in the right alignment, and even my legs properly positioned on the floor. Here are some tips to help keep your body in check even if you're headed back to the office.

1. Keep your computer at least 18-inches from your eyes. And, make sure it's properly aligned with your eyesight. Sit up straight, roll your shoulders back, and where your eyes meet in front of your gaze, that's where your computer should be. Use a riser, or even books to bring that screen up to where it should be.

2. Make sure to look outside of a window once every 30 minutes. Positioning a computer near a window, or even placing a mirror in front of your desk that reflects a window view can help with your eyesight over time. Glancing periodically will save your sight from strain throughout the day.

3. Your chair is important. We spend 80% of our time in a chair working a clerical, or office-type job. Your chair height should allow your hips to be a bit higher than your knees when sitting up straight. Try not to cross your legs either. Leg crossing can lead to a lot of issues that will affect you as you get older. If anything else, place your feet on a riser under your desk, if you feel the strain in your legs over time of sitting. Use a lumbar support in your lower back, and also a chair with arms can help keep your arms up to where your hands and wrist meet the keyboard properly.

4. A standing desk, or height desk is also a good investment to make if you feel you're sitting too long and for long periods of time. Also, getting up periodically can help get blood flowing, as well. Doing walks on your lunch break, squats, lunges, side-to-side stretches, calve raises on stairs, and yoga is also a great way to get stretches in and improves brain function and flexibility over time, too.

5. Add some plants to your desk, a small fish tank, paintings, family pictures, or even pictures of plants. A small, live tree in the corner of your office space can help relieve anxiety of the work day, as well as bring in fresh oxygen to your small corner, or room. If you can the more the better.!

Have a nice weekend!

This past weekend we decided not to hit the waves, but clean out a lot of forgotten spaces in our house. One space being the pantry. We are good at rotating foods in our pantry, but every once in awhile we find out we have more of one item than we think. This weekend it was peanut butter. Six jars later we realize that we are pretty set on having enough for awhile. I tried to think of ways to use it and there is so many possibilities. After sorting through all of the options, we agreed on making peanut butter cookies and played around with some of the chocolate candies we picked up at the local food co-op here. We love these chocolate candies and they are similar to M&M's, but are made with Fair Trade chocolate and dyed with better ingredients. Since changing our eating habits to better quality, it's amazing how many things that once tasted "good" now taste off. One of the main products I've noticed the change in taste is chocolate and peanut butter. I used to love Hershey's, especially Hershey Kisses, but now, nope. I can't eat them without feeling like I'm eating chocolate-flavored wax. These chocolate rainbow drops can be purchased online here, if you wanted to use them like we did in this recipe. Here's how we made our peanut butter cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup organic peanut butter, 1 cup organic sugar

1 large organic egg, ½ cup organic flour

Chocolate candies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the peanut butter, sugar, egg in a mixer and add flour on low speed until well combined. Don't over mix, just enough to combine everything and make a wet/oily dough base.

Roll into balls, or create your own pattern of cookie. Pressing a fork into the tops of the cookies creates the lines on the top of the cookies shown here. Add the chocolate candies anywhere on the cookies that you chose. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies start to brown a bit.

These cookies are great when they are still slightly warm.