Life at a "Swell's" pace

Five Simple Things (August 20)

Hello.

We took a bit of a drive to the beach this past week, but it wasn't to surf. We did a photoshoot with a new fire pit mat I received from a company named Daxlena. Post on this will follow soon later today, but I loved the fire pit mat so much, I bought one to give away. This week is my birthday and to celebrate my forty-fourth, what better way than to give away a give to someone else? So, stay tuned for that post later on the blog and on Instagram. We also did a bit of cleaning up around our yard this week. Put several items curbside for others to take. Which, living in a city, free items don't seem to last long. I am just glad to offer them up to someone else that can use them. Skylar and I made fingerprint powder in the Rain Valley Red Snails Classroom this week. It was a lot of fun testing out different fingerprints on different surfaces. The powder was rather time-consuming to make, but totally worth it. It kind of fits in with our podcast, too, so we had a lot of fun with it. You can make the fingerprint powder here. I've posted step-by-step instructions. It's super easy, and really worth the time to learn about fingerprints and ridge details that are unique to each person. Here are five things this week.

1. This Place.

Such a magical place.

2. This Supplement.

Been looking for more natural ways to help with my anxiety and PTSD triggers and I have found a great addition to my other supplements. Omega-3 seems to help with that. I like the taste of these because they have a bit of lemon to it, and there's no after taste. I got this particular brand here.

3. This Sunset.

Jeff sent me this from his work parking lot this week. The sunrise here is so behind everyone else, but our sunsets are some of the best you'll ever see.

4. This Hack.

Skylar came up with this super simple/no brainer hack this week. We bought a camping toilet to take on our road trips and our surf trips, and pulling the paper out of the middle has been extremely convenient. What a clever kid, he is!

5. This Shoot.

These pictures were part of our photo shoot with the Daxlena fire pit mat. I'm holding a giveaway, so be sure to enter it here, or here, to win one of these.

Did you catch the Summer Triangle this week (16), or Jupiter at its brightest (19):

Positive affirmations this week:

When someone says something to you that upsets you, or brings up emotions within you, stop. Stop and realize that your emotions are your ego and showing that their words upset you gives them control. If you are easily offended you are easily manipulated and the person trying to trigger you knows this. Train your mind to respond with a calm, and collected manner. It takes practice, but it can be done. I no longer see people's insults, criticism, judgement, or rude comments as an insult towards me. I collect my thoughts and respond accordingly to their faults. People project a lot of their own failures onto others. The one thing that has helped me get better as this is feeling sorry for the person saying these harmful comments. When you see it in a way that triggers your empathy more than self worth, it does get easier to handle other's negative opinions they push upon us. Trick your brain into choosing happiness over negativity.

Have a nice weekend.

Lemon Squares

I hate cooking. Anyone that knows me well will tell you that. Cooking, baking, or even standing in the kitchen making a sandwich, I hate it all. Which, seems odd to say, as most people that are in my bloodline seem to enjoy it a lot. I've never been one to find any joy in it. I've heard people say that it gives them joy, or melts their heart to watch people eat what they've cooked. Nope, not me. If you like it, cool, if not, I'm not surprised. Ha! But, there are random times where I will go into the kitchen and make something completely unexpected. Skylar tells me all the time that he likes that part of me the best. When I cook, or bake something that no one expects. He tells me that's his favorite kind of cooking and describes me as-"The unexpected cook."

The unexpected baking I did this week was lemon squares. I took advantage of our local food co-op's citrus sale in January and stocked up on organic Meyer lemons. I ended up juicing all of them and freezing the juice to use at a later time. Well, this week was the "later time."

These lemon squares are five ingredients and are delicious and easy to make.

Here's what you'll need:

For the crust:

1 cup softened organic butter
2 cups organic sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose organic flour
4 organic eggs
Juice of two organic Meyer lemons
Organic powdered sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, or 176 degrees C.

Mix butter, 2 cups of the flour, and ½ cup of the sugar in a bowl. Press the dough into the bottom of an ungreased glass 9x13-inch* baking dish. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden. Do not over bake. Set out to cool completely.

(*roughly)

For the lemon filling:

Mix in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or by hand, 1½ cups of sugar, ¼ cup flour, all of the eggs (one at a time), and add the lemon juice slowly.

Pour over the top of the cooled crust.

Bake at 350 degrees F (176 degrees C) for 20 minutes, or until the top is firm and set.

Allow to cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar. This step is optional, but it does make for a tastier lemon square and it just looks pretty. Place them on a plate and serve. We like to eat them when they are still a slight bit warm, but they are also delicious when they are chilled.

Garden of Yellow

With last year's garden being covered in a lot of ash from the wildfires, and losing everything, we decided to keep it simple this year. We planted some pumpkin seeds and zinnia seeds, but to our shock a lot of the sunflower seeds from last year came up this year. Sunflowers are not perennials, so it was a nice surprise and kind of a wonderful things given what happened last year. It was almost like the garden was telling us, "I'm still strong and can make it through the worst." Kind of like all of us. Last year was hard, so very hard, but we are still strong and can truly make it through the worst. Our garden is now beaming with bright yellows and after a long, trying day, bright yellow is a nice color to see.