Lemon Sugar Scrub

I don't know about you, but it's around this time every summer that I start ignoring my feet.

You know what I mean, when you start pretending they're perfect, beautiful, lovely, etc... without looking at them. I mean, they've been in sandals for a couple months now, almost exclusively, so you know what they look like. No need to look any closer. You've painted your toenails every pretty shade that comes up on Pinterest so you know they've gotta look like a million bucks, right?!

Right.         I mean, wrong.

I got a little more up close and personal the other day with my feet and let me tell you it wasn't a pretty sight! The bottoms of my feet and my heels have skin that is peeling off them {TMI? Nah.} and the balls of my feet have seen better days, that's for sure.

It was a day I was at home, being productive {read: searching for house after house after house that resembled something we could see ourselves in} and I wasn't about to head to the mall for a pedicure or even a fancy foot scrub. Instead, I raided my kitchen for what has now become my favorite body scrub ever!

It's cheap to make, you most likely have most {if not all!} of the ingredients on hand right now, and it's incredibly effective.

Seriously, bookmark this baby right now. Go ahead and pin this sucker! It makes a great gift in a small jar with a new polish or two, I'm tellin' ya! Just try it!

Here's what you need:

- a jar to store your scrub in
- 1 ripe lemon
- olive oil
- white table sugar

It's simple: mix two parts sugar to one part oil (1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup oil) - then add in sugar or oil to get to your desired consistency. I like the 2:1 ratio for my feet, but if I make a face scrub I generally like more sugar and less oil. Add the juice of your lemon. If you're making a small batch, just use the juice from half a lemon.

Mix it all up, spoon it into your jar {or, if you were smart, you started mixing everything together in the jar itself}, and scrub all your dead skin away!

Make sure your jar has a lid that seals and store it in the fridge for extra freshness. It will solidify at colder temperatures because of the oil, but that quickly goes away when you use it in the shower or let it warm up a little before use.

If you like lemon as much as I do, check out this scrumptious treat sure to please all!


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The Gnarly Whale

One of the best parts of blogging is the relationships you build and this post is some serious proof of that. I met Ashley when we realized we only lived half an hour from each other.

One lovely afternoon last fall, we met at an Atlanta Bread Company between her house and mine and talked for hours. We have so much in common, from our husbands, to our interests, to our in laws.
It's nice knowing that there are genuine bloggers out there who really are as wonderful as they seem on screen. Ashley is definitely one of those!

So that's the reason that I offered my space for the day. She's a great blogger and a wonderful business woman who is doing all the right things for all the right reasons. She'll explain more in a bit, but she and her husband have a business (The Gnarly Whale) making some fantastic beauty products. Yes, I've tried their products (hello yummy coconut lip balm!)... and no, I'm not getting paid to say that. Their business has evolved from a dream to a reality and I couldn't be happier for them! And the best part? You can help their next dream for The Gnarly Whale come true. Keep reading, and you'll see what I mean!

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I'm Ashley from The Gnarly Whale - an all vegan, eco-friendly minimal-ingredient bath and body shop. Today Sara was gracious enough to let me share our story about our company and our dream and I am SO excited to do so. This business is what I do - day in and day out - and to be able to share something I'm so passionate about is truly a privilege for me.

The Gnarly Whale launched in October 2012 from a dream that I was unsure I would ever fulfill. I approached my husband about starting it as a hobby, needing something else to focus on while I was designing and consulting. By the end of the year, we both realized it was never meant to be a hobby. It was never meant to be a small side project. Instead, it was meant to change our lives and restructure our dreams. And that was exactly why I'm here today, sharing our story and even asking for your help after you get to know us.

About Us

We're a husband and wife team doing what we love to do and hoping that some day, doing what we love will be enough to financially support our entire family. Our dream is to someday relocate ourselves and our business to Florida to open up a shop oceanside. We know that this dream will become our reality as soon as we can afford the cost of relocation and the cost of doing business in Florida where there are much stricter guidelines for cosmetic type businesses. Until then, we're focusing on growing our brand awareness and our current product lines.

About Our Brand

All of our products are 100% vegan and cruelty free. We’re tree huggers ourselves so we made sure that all of the ingredients used in our products are completely vegan and have not been tested on animals. Final product testing was also done on humans. Most of our printed materials (business cards, postcards, etc) come from recycled paper. We also use reusable packaging when we mail out our orders whenever possible. Our hope is to leave the Earth a little better than when we found it and provide our customers with a way to do the same.

In the almost seven months we have been open, we already have plans to work with an international retailer to carry our products and will be featured in two celebrity gifting suites this year: The Primetime Emmy's and The Cannes Film Festival. Our current product line includes: hair detangler, beach waves, body and face scrub, body spray, shampoo, and lip balm. In the future, we have plans to include a child product line, a pet product line, soap, skin care, and various other hair and body products in the future.

And here is how you can help us make all of this a reality. We've asked Intuit to grant our small business wish and we're hoping we can get enough votes to win the money to expand our product line, purchase better equipment to speed up our manufacturing, and to put towards the cost of relocation. All you have to do is take a couple of seconds, click the link, and vote once a day. And if you really think our story is worth it, share it with you friends. With your readers. With your family. With your neighbors or co-workers. Shout it from the rooftops if you like us that much.

Anything you do to help is appreciated. No matter how big or small of gesture, we're grateful for you even taking the time to get to know us and our dream. And if you'd like to connect with us further, we'd love to hear from you! Follow us on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Send us an email and say hello. Or even stop by our shop.

Thank you in advance for anything that you do!

- Ashley and Nathan

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Please click on the link above and vote for Ashley and Nathan. They'd appreciate it, I'd appreciate it, and it only take 5 seconds. You don't have to register for an account, you don't get spam emails, and you don't even have to enter you name. You DO get a feeling of satisfaction knowing you're helping a dream come true, and that's better than anything else.

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True Confessions

If you recall, I decided to start blogging as a way to remember life as newlyweds. Life is just the two of us - no pets, no kids, nothing to tie us to 'home'. I wanted to remember the fun things we did together and the way it felt being young and married.

So Trevor and I were talking today and this idea came to mind - there are so many moments I would still love to capture here at You.And.Me.Are.We and this is how I'm going to start!

Welcome to the first edition of True Confessions of a Blogger's Husband!

I'll be posting little snippets of conversations we have in order to fully capture our newlywed life. This means you won't see the polished side of us all of the time - like the moment I want to share with you today.

I'm hoping this will be a fun and easy way to document little happenings and some hilarious thoughts that come out of Trevor's mouth :)

You are more than welcome to join me in this endeavor. If there's interest, I can provide code for the button above and we can all link up. {If you're interested, let me know in the comments so I can make some magic happen!} However, for today, I don't mind sharing alone.

Last night, Trevor and I were discussing pros and cons to peeing in the shower - saving water vs. having pee on your feet - and confessed that he'd pee in the shower without a second thought if he was the one scrubbing the tub.

In fact he said something along the lines of, "I'd totally pee in the shower if I knew I'd be the one cleaning it! But whenever I think about doing it, I tend to think of how you'd be the one scrubbing the tub clean afterwards and then I think twice!"

I'm so glad he thinks of me before he pees ;)

At the Orchard

We did it.

We finally found a local orchard that has enough crop for customers to pick their own apples.

Right off the tree!

If you remember, I've been worried that our yearly tradition of apple picking would be ruined by this spring's crazy weather. Worry no more, because we went apple picking last weekend!

Thank you, Apple Gods.

Yay! Apples!

I caught hubby with his mouth full of apple on that last one!

I'm so glad we were able to find a nice place to pick apples. They're so yummy and cost less than buying them at the store. Of course, no apple picking trip is complete without a caramel apple and some cider ;)

Now, I've got a lot of apple pies in my future!

Happy Fall!

Beauty, Day 3

Hey there and happy Wednesday!

Today is day numbero tres {yup, totally bilingual} of Beauty Week!

I hope you've read Monday's post about makeup and yesterday's post about nail care.

Today, Liz at I couldn't help but wonder... has shared a post all about homemade beauty products. I love them all and I'm stopping at the grocery store on the way home from school to pick up a few of the grocery items I don't already have so I can try them all out {I gotta put my bananas to good use!}.

Check out the recipes, experiment, and enjoy!
Just don't eat it all off your face ;)

Wind Farms

July 27- Write up something about an alternative energy source.


A little known fact about Wisconsin is that our energy companies are required to have at least 10% of the energy they sell come from renewable sources by 2015. I'm all in favor of renewable energy - so much so that I think the 10% is too low! I'd love to see 40-50% of the energy come from renewable sources in the next few years - heck, how about ALL of it coming from renewable sources?!


There are a few areas within day-trip driving distance of our home that have "wind farms". That is, where there are communities in the country that have tens of windmills {more precisely, 168 in six towns in one county} strategically placed out of the flight paths of birds and bats. The energy is piped into the grid and sold to homes and businesses just like non-renewable energy.

(source)

I've always agreed with green energy, specifically wind energy. Using wind to create energy seems like one of our best options for a sustainable future because wind is not taken away when it is used to make energy. Therefore, the same wind can be used to turn many, many wind turbines and create more energy than a finite resource like coal or natural gas.


What are your thoughts about renewable energies? How do you feel about windmills and wind-produced power?


This post is part of the Summer Blog Challenge.
To see more posts inspired by the challenge visit my Summer Blog Challenge page!

The Secret to Happy Plants

July 22 - What's your best gardening tip?

Well, you've seen the beginning of my garden here but it's grown quite a bit since then. We've had some Roma tomatoes, some peas, beans, and lots of lettuce already; all which were delicious!

Recently a little cucumber has started growing and I'm already looking forward to making pickles once I have enough cucs to keep me busy in the kitchen for an afternoon!

I can't say I'm a professional gardener but I do think I have a little bit of green on my thumb ;) It hasn't always been that way, but it's getting there!

The best tip I can give you {and I'm not joking here} is to water your plants.

Ok, I'll wait for you to stop laughing.

Better? Great. As I was saying, you want to make sure your plants aren't drying out!

When I first started trying to keep something alive {other than myself}, I couldn't figure out why my plants weren't thriving. They weren't dying but they sure as heck weren't really growing much!

I was a busy college student and didn't exactly put "watering the plants" at the top of my to-do list everyday. Heck, the plants were lucky if they got watered once a week! It wasn't that I was thinking plants only needed water on Sundays, it was more because I just plain didn't have time between taking classes for two degrees, working a paid job, an unpaid internship, and trying to do homework.

When life settled down and I was able to bust out my watering can more frequently, I noticed the plants perked up and actually grew. {Huh, who knew, you water plants and they grow!}

Now I water my outdoor plants depending on the weather. If it's going to rain, I hold off. But if it's supposed to be sunny I try and water my plants before work. I usually water them about 5 times a week.

My indoor plants are mostly outdoors for the summer but I do have two low-water, low-light plants that stay in. They get watered once a week, sometimes once every two weeks. It just depends on how moist the soil is.

If you're anything like I was and didn't realize just how much water plants need to thrive try adding another day or two to your watering schedule every week. You may be surprised just how nice they grow!
{and if all else fails just add some Miracle Gro to that baby and watch it go!}

What are your gardening tips?


This post is part of the Summer Blog Challenge. 
To see more posts inspired by the challenge visit my Summer Blog Challenge page!

Lazy Sunday

July 1 - Talk about something eco-friendly you already do.

Sorry to take the lazy way out here and just post a link, but I just posted about this last week! See my post  Being Eco-Friendly from June 24 to read my ramblings about all the fun stuff we do in our house to save money, reduce our strain on our resources, and be eco-friendly! If that's not up your alley, check out my Summer Blog Challenge page for more posts that are bursting at the seams with pretty photos, fun stories, and good information.

Back to normal posting tomorrow, I promise :)


This post is part of the Summer Blog Challenge. To see more posts inspired by the challenge visit my Summer Blog Challenge page!

Laundry Tips and Tricks

Oh me, oh my. I hope I don't bore you too much with this prompt!

June 28 - How do you do your laundry? Give your laundry tricks.

So there are only two of us living here which means that laundry only really needs to get done once a week or so. I usually do it on my Friday off of work or sneak it into a Saturday or Sunday morning. The nice thing is that I only have three loads to do, so it goes relatively quickly!

I separate our clothes into 3 piles: darks, lights, and crap-that-needs-germ-killing.

Darks are mostly my scrubs from work, jeans, and some t-shirts. Lights are all of Trevor's work shirts, some undershirts/camis, and our daily shirts and khakis. Basically everything else gets tossed into the germ-killing pile: towels, washcloths, underwear, socks, etc. If it got moist or sweaty or just generally gross, it goes in the germy pile.

I wash my darks and whites on cold/cool/lukewarm temperature settings in my front loading washing machine. The germ-killing stuff goes in on warm or hot - depending on the load. All three loads get the same detergent, but I use a splash of white distilled vinegar (in the fabric softener slot in the washer) with my towels to make them more fluffy and to keep the mildewy smell at bay. More on my detergent in a bit.

Then, my darks and lights go out on the line to dry. If it's nice out, they go outside. If not, they go on the lines we have hung in the basement.

The germy stuff gets tossed in the dryer to heat it up and hopefully kill the gross stuff.

Because I hate folding and putting away clothes, I try to do that as soon as they're dry... because I can tell myself that it will be over faster that way! However, we still sometimes have piles of laundry in our room. We don't have enough space for everything despite my best efforts to get as much as possible in the closet.

Ok, enough rambling, you want to know about the detergent!

I use Ecos Liquid Laundry Detergent (I love the lavender smell) because it works well, smells great, and is freaking natural! Have you ever looked at what's in traditional laundry soap... I hadn't... and then I did... and now I only buy this stuff. End of story. Anyways, this is what's in the soap (taken right from their website): 100% natural anionic coconut kernel oil based surfactant, horsetail plant, essential oil of lavender (NOP Certified Organic), purified water. Yes, please! All opinions are entirely my own - nobody paid me to write all these nice things... but if they wanted to send me jugs upon jugs of laundry detergent I wouldn't object ;) I also just want to throw this out there: I've used vaska detergent in the past and have had great results with it as well. It just so happens that a jug of Ecos is cheaper and easier to find than the smaller jugs of vaska.

I don't use fabric softener because it's full of nasty chemicals and I don't really feel like our clothes come out stiff or lacking. Not even when they're line dried. 
On a similar note, I pass on the dryer sheets. To be honest, we haven't had an issue completely forgoing them but I am thinking about getting some dryer balls to use to speed things up.
I also don't find myself needing a stain remover. Everything that I've tried to get out comes out with either baking soda and water or some of the Ecos detergent. Easy peasy.

 So that's it. That's my simple laundry routine. I hope I haven't bored you and that you're still awake (heck, I hope you made it this far in the post!) after reading all those details.

What does your laundry routine look like? Any tips you can share with me?

This post is part of the Summer Blog Challenge. To see more posts inspired by the challenge visit my Summer Blog Challenge page!

Shared at: Fingerprints on the Fridge

Being Eco-Friendly

Today's Summer Blogging Challenge post is one that I am passionate about and am very interested in what others have to say.


June 24 - Favorite eco-friendly thing to do

I fully believe that if there's something I can do to reduce my carbon footprint on our Earth, I should be doing it - I try my darnedest! Because I can't pick just one, here are a few of my favorite eco-friendly things to do!

1) I love buying locally. Me driving a mile and a half to a local farm to buy produce is a heck of a lot better for the earth and the local economy than if I drive to a WalMart and buy their overpriced fruits and veggies.

2) I hang my laundry on a clothesline to dry. I'm posting about my laundry habits in a few days so here's a quick overview: The exception to line-drying are the loads of towels, underwear, and socks. I want to make sure all of the gross stuff that's on those dirty clothing items are killed in the washer and the dryer by the heat. In the winter, I put everything else on a line that hangs in our basement. The air is dry enough that the laundry dries within a day. When it's nice out, I hang stuff on a clothesline in our backyard. Saves us money because we're not running the dryer, but it's also a help to the environment.

(source)

3) We recycle as much as possible. In fact, most of the time we recycle so much that we don't have too much garbage to take out on our weekly garbage day. We can easily go two weeks on one garbage bag, but we often need to put out our recycling bin on a weekly basis.

4) On a related note, I try and buy recycled goods as much as I can when I'm doing household shopping. I think it's important to buy things that are packaged in recycled content and I will happily support businesses that do it.

5) We have lights on light switches. This way, we can turn off whole rooms of lights/TV/stereos with the flick of a switch. Doing this reduces the amount of ghost energy usage that our small appliances use when they're turned off. We also use florescent light bulbs in every part of our house that we can. I found a bunch of them on sale a year or so ago for less than a dollar and I snatched up as many as I could. We have replaced 90% of the traditional bulbs in our house with energy saving florescent bulbs!

6) In the winter, we cover our windows with plastic to reduce cold drafts. This also saves money with our heating bill. It takes a few hours to do in the fall, but it pays off when the heating bills come all winter long. I'd imagine that this isn't something you need to do further south, but in Wisconsin's climate it's a big help!

What about you? What do you do to be eco-friendly?


This post is part of the Summer Blog Challenge. To see more posts inspired by the challenge visit my Summer Blog Challenge page!

High Five For Friday

1) I hit up Victoria's Secret for their semi-annual sale and found some really cute stuff! I was hoping to find more of their Biofit bras because I am in lurve with them but sadly, they only had a strapless style. The other things I did get helped make up for my disappointment, though! It's funny how cute undergarments can make your whole day brighter :)

2) Last Saturday was the first day of our local Farmer's Market and you bet your bottom dollar that I went! I was looking for zucchini to make some zucchini bread but most of the stands were either sold out or totally overpriced. I'll look again next Saturday! I did, however, manage to buy some squeaky fresh cheese curds!
(Oh, and side note, going to the Saturday Market totally got another thing checked off my Summer Bucket List. Woohoo!)

3) We went to dinner with my dad and my brother on Saturday night to celebrate Father's Day. He lives on the other side of the state (about 4 hours away) and we don't get to see him much. It was nice to catch up and enjoy some good food together. No matter how old a girl gets, she's still her daddy's little girl, that's for sure! This is the yummy turkey avocado something-or-other sandwich I got; looks good, right?

4) Earlier this week, we had a handful of storms move through our area (in addition to the muggy 90+ degree days - ugh.) that woke us up at 3:30am and interrupted post-work milk runs at 5:30pm. It's funny how things like mid-day rainstorms make me realize that I really am a four-seasons girl. No, not like the hotel chain Four Seasons, but like the actual four seasons - summer, fall, winter, spring. I love my rain and I love my heat but I feel so lost without both. Wait until September rolls around and you'll see that I'm itching for some orangey-yellowy-redish leaves and pumpkin patches!

5) Our first wedding anniversary was this week! You can see what I wrote to my husband on our anniversary here. It's hard to believe it's already been a year since our big day. Time certainly flies when you're having fun and living life! Trevor loved all of his gifts and we got to spend quality time together over dinner at the fancy shmancy place that catered our wedding. I had also ordered a cake from the baker that made our wedding cake so it was nice to reminisce over the first meal we had as husband and wife. I have the most supportive husband and I am so grateful for him! One year down, many many many more to go!

See the huge piles of food in front of us? It was SO. GOOD. I had freshly made pasta tossed in marinara sauce, topped with prosciutto, chicken breast, and crunchy eggplant. Trevor had peppercorn dusted sea scallops on top of mushroom risotto. To die for, seriously.

Have you checked out my Summer Blogging Challenge posts yet? Why not! Go here to see them all!
 

Cleaning With Vinegar and Water

I'm warning you now - this post will not be filled with pretty pictures because... *dun dun dun* I'm here to tell you about cleaning my microwave.

Natural (or reduced chemical) based cleansers have totally caught my eye recently. I've been questioning the use of nasty chemicals in our house because it was zipped up tightly all winter long to save on heating costs and I know that the air doesn't move around a lot in our home unless the windows are wide open.

I have been using a bleach cleanser in the bathroom because 1)bathrooms are gross and 2) I can never seem to get rid of the 'bathroom smell' but the bleach does the best job at it. With that said, I always have my eyes peeled for a good natural cleaner than is inexpensive, easy to make/buy, and (most importantly) does a great job getting my home clean.

I came across a vinegar and water cleaning solution on Pinterest - I think - and I filed it away in my brain to do 'someday'. However, when I was cleaning my kitchen the other day I decided to give it a try. I didn't have a 'recipe' to follow so I made it up as I went.

I put about 1.5 cups of water in a 2-cup liquid measuring cup and added about 1/2 cup of white distilled vinegar. Then, I tossed it into the grimy microwave and heated it up for 3 minutes. I wasn't sure if 3 minutes would be enough, but I figured I'd try and add more time if I needed - which I didn't.

You'd think that after heating up a vinegar mixture your kitchen would smell like a pickling factory but it really didn't have much of a smell at all. I was able to get right in and scrub!

I used the vinegar/water to wipe down the inside of the microwave and most of the junk came right off. I had to scrub a bit harder on the ceiling of the microwave but it wasn't anything back-breaking.

It took me maybe 10 minutes, start to finish and my microwave looks better now than it has in years!

Seriously, if it can make my microwave sparkle, it can clean anything. Seriously... just look at these before and after pictures. They're gross. In fact, it's kind of embarrassing how nasty we let our microwave get!

Try it in your own microwave and let me know how it works!

Know of any other good (read: actually works) natural cleaning 'recipes'? I'm looking for effective but inexpensive and always love to see what other people come up with!


Linking up to Natasha in Oz, My 1929 Charmer, Singing Three Little Birds, A Little Knick Knack, You're Talking Too Much, A Pinch of Joy & Tater Tots & Jello!