Hello Gorgeous!

It is sunny today and the heat is a humid one, so it really sits in the air, and you can feel it as you walk through the land. It is officially Spring, and I can put my cashmere and wool away. I brought out the silks, cottons, and linens. 

I have not been working out as much, but have been losing weight naturally. We do our wilderness walks every other day, having slowed that down, and I am on the treadmill only twice a week. Usually, that is not enough to keep me in strong, lean shape.

One reason is because of the heat. I wake up, and all my previous dinner weight is going. I think it is because of sweating. Do not worry, I wash my sheets and pillow regularly. 

Another reason is we make all of our food from scratch now. Well, we have reverted to doing this. This is why I do not favour shopping at Costco all the time, because we get sucked into the idea of buying things that are premade and packaged, because it is easy. I also do not like the idea of shopping for food in bulk. Other things like toothpaste and soap are fine. But food, we buy too much, and it does not get used. 

This is why I cannot wait to farm, because all the things we farm will be all the things I use the most. Butter, milk, eggs, greens, fruit, and beef. I never have to go to the market again. We know where everything is coming from, and when I used to live by myself in LA, I would smell the meat when cooking, and it smelled like chemicals even after washing it. 

That is really scary when I look back at all the times I got sick. My friends in LA are farmers, and they would tell me to not eat lettuce, because there was a poisonous recall, and several people lost their lives to a salad.

We stopped shopping at regular grocery stores the past week, and started picking up food at the local cooperative. I am noticing all the difference with my body. All the food comes from local farmers and we will be one of them soon. Looking forward to that! Also, we will be selling at the farmers market. Starting off with broiler chickens. 

I also want to make clotted creams, jam, lemon curd, custards, and honey to go with afternoon tea. I am thinking of opening an online shop for you guys to try some freshly farmed sweets and yummy bakes. We found a local beekeeper dealer too! We are going to beekeep. Mr. Dixon has been wanting to do it for five-ever. I will try it, but I am scared. I will put on a brave face. 

I can eat as much as I want, and this was before the season started to get warm, and I look leaner. My theory is because I have been going out of my way to make recipes from scratch – especially sweets. There are no additives, weird unnatural replacements for ingredients and preservatives. Also it takes more elbow grease and calories to make them. 

In the mornings, I have black coffee with no milk, sugar, or cream. Then tea the rest of the day, or water that is boiled. I feel really sick in physical pain when I drink cold water from the tap for some reason, so I boil it first. 

My husband always says tap water is fine, but I never trust it. My parents always told me not to drink from the sink. This is not Norway, where the water is fresh. Vannet er ikke så friskt.

I lost a couple pounds, but look learner where I can see my abs again. This probably means I lost fat, but am gaining muscle from all the chores and hours of cooking. Housewives who make everything from scratch – I have a lot of respect for. It takes hours to get a dough recipe to be right.

HERS HAIR MASK REVIEW

I have had this for about five months now, and have only used it three to four times. The reason was my hair was dyed and glossed with this fabulous Glaze hair dye and gloss. It is already prepared in the bottle, takes ten minutes to process, and smells lovely. If you have dyed your hair before, you want to hold off on washes to keep your hair colour consistent and not as faded. However, my hair is growing out. I cut almost all the processed hair off from that bad dye job in LA.

My hair is looking very healthy, and natural.But this hair mask is particularly special. It is not an obvious dramatic change, where you look in the mirror and see a movie star. Your hair simply looks better as the day goes on after using it.

Usually, my hair is the opposite. It starts out looking styled, and then gives up. It really loves hair, so it absorbs a lot, and I feel like I have to put on a lot of product. The mask feels more like a conditioner. I think it is pretty much the same thing. Mostly. Correct in the comments if there is a difference.

It probably has a little bit more oils. Something comparable to this is Davines Nounou hair mask. I think it is called Nounou, because it is short for ‘nourishing’. The Italian hair brand that makes natural hair products from farms in Italy. I tried all their hair masks years ago experimenting. They are all good quality, but they are $38-60. 

Hers feels like the exact same thing, but this is $18 and comes in an 8 ounce jar. I need to use it more to see more results. I would not buy this again for myself, but I would buy this as a gift that I would put in my guest room shower for someone else to pamper themselves. 

The problem is, I do not like hair masks, because they are another beauty chore I do not want to indulge in and expense. But knowing my dry, crispy hair – I will probably end up purchasing this again. 

FACE SPINNING BRUSH

Do not purchase this face spinning brush. I got it in an Amazon haul a bit ago to replace my previous one. I am going back to that one. This one is supposed to have two settings. For some reason it died and stays on the slow setting even with fresh batteries. This sits in my shower, and I will recycle it. Ordering the old one. I desperately need to unclog my pores from all the sunscreen.

WORD OF THE DAY + READING 

I have been very behind on my reading, because I have not prioritised it. Time is something I have, and can make for reading, but I always forget about it. There was a fresh study that said reading from print versus digital opens different pathways in your brain, so I am reading physical books and magazines. But when I find myself not reading enough, I make the excuse that Aristotle hated books, because he thought that people should use their memory – the power of their brains.

There have been several studies done with Gen Z that there has been a decline in the usage of their brains in a handful of developed countries. They rely on their phone to tell them what is right and wrong, and for all sorts of information. They are not using their own judgement and having the internet tell them what to think. This is the same thing with books.

I know a ton of people who refer to information they have read, when that is also questionable. At the end of the day, it is someone’s thoughts conflated with the ideas of others, and they are just playing a giant game of telephone rather than thinking. 

At the cooperative, I read some ingredients, and my husband was getting annoyed, because he wanted me to take a picture of them off the jar of lemon curd. I wanted to make some. I said no, I want to practise using my brain, and he started a fight about it, because he didn’t want to waste time. It was Saturday, and I asked him if he had appointments. What’s the rush. People are lazy.

He was whining at me like a child, and other people were looking, so I laid it on thicker explaining what happened. I am also always practising writing for my blog. It is imperative to use my vocabulary, because I lose it. My other languages are also something I do my best to practise everyday with essential phrases. 

BEING BAREFOOT OUTSIDE

When owning my own land, I always pictured being barefoot on the grass and rolling down hills like we did as kids. There are so many problems with this that I never thought were obvious. The first is ticks. If you have a lock dress or skirt, the tick could hop on, and you have a disease for life. I am going to skip animal and bug excrement.

Number two, metal pieces. On farms, a lot of the time when people are working on heavy duty projects and machinery, a piece will fall off. Or they could be lifting something heavy, or taking out a nail from a piece of wood, and they simply toss on the floor. This is why tons of farmers will check their cattle’s hooves, and see a bunch of puss and infectious secretions. There will be glass and metal in their hooves they have to take out. Poor cows. 

However, the bright side is I have one million square feet to shoot on, so I can shoot a different video everyday with an entirely different view. Currently, I am in the market for a drone, so that I can start vlogs with a shot of that day’s view! This is pretty incredible. I am barely going to shoot indoors from now on. I am even going to have try on hauls outdoors with a rack on wheels in the grass. When the weather is pleasant.