Natural beauty

I want to share two "recipes" for natural beauty products that I've made recently. The first comes from "Herb Quarterly" and is a facial mask. Using a coffee grinder on the expresso setting, grind enough coffee beans to make a quarter cup of powdery beans (they have to be finely ground or the recipe won't work). Add one-fourth cup powdered cocoa and one-half cup whole milk. Stir together till it forms a creamy paste. Apply to face and leave on for fifteen minutes, then rinse off. This leaves my skin feeling toned and soothed at the same time.
     The other recipe comes from a fashion blog I follow. It's for a dry shampoo and works well when your hair is oily but you don't want to wash it everyday cause it's too drying. Take a half-cup of cornstarch, one tablespoon of baking soda, one tablespoon cocoa powder and one teaspoon of cinnamon. Mix together well and put in a shaker jar (I used a vintage sugar shaker). Apply to dry hair and use a large make-up brush to distribute throughout hair. This keeps your hair looking good and smelling good.
     I finally got the book "Wildly Affordable Organic" and am preparing to change the way I buy and cook food. My garden is doing well at present, peas,beans, and tomatoes are doing well. Still waiting to transplant peppers and eggplants. My herb garden is in the front yard and so far I have sage, rosemary, cilantro, and I just planted basil and fenugreek today.  I have basil and parsley indoors.  Everything is coming up green.

Feels like summer

Well, today the temperature officially reached 90 degrees so it feels like a taste of summer to come. It feels so good to be able to BREATHE normally again--I had pneumonia back in March and with the crappy weather we had--first hot, then cold, then colder--it took quite a while to recover.  My yard finally looks decent. Since I never was able to find a battery (and didn't want to pay $150.00 for one) I decided to let go of my electric mower. It didn't work well on my yard anyway--the grass is so thick in spots that it put an incredible strain on the battery.  I hired a guy to mow the yard and I bought a trimmer (really nice, I like it) so hopefully we can keep the yard looking OK. I say OK cause it'll never look good--due to flocks of starlings roosting in my oak tree, the backyard is half grass and half who-knows what. Those darn birds pooped everywhere and deposited all kinds of unwanted seeds.  The trimmer is lightweight and uses a lithium battery. I actually enjoy using it. My old one had a cord and was heavy and unwieldy.
     I'm planning to attend a writer's conference in June.   Haven't felt much like writing this past winter, now that I've recovered from being ill and the weather is good, maybe it'll put me in the mood to write. I have done a lot of reading over the winter--mostly organic living magazines and some good non-fiction books.  The last fiction book I read was "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle".  I liked it but it took a little too long to get started.  I'm sort of a minimalist writer--I like to keep the reader's interest so I don't elaborate on things and try to keep the story moving along. My favorite movies have always been action-adventure movies and my fiction reflects it. 
     Spring is here and the Earth breathes a sigh of relief.