Things I'm Loving: June 2015
June is always one of my favorite months of the year. June brings strawberry season, birthdays, my family beach trip (which tends to fall on my birthday - SCORE), lots of daylight (my birthday is actually on the longest day of the year WHAT WHAT), fireflies and warm, lazy days. I just love it. This year's June did not disappoint. One particular highlight occurred yesterday (although I guess that was technically July), when I was a guest on the ChoppedCon Podcast. Be sure to check that out if you want to hear more about my food blogging journey. Here are some random things I was loving throughout the month of June:
LISTENING
So Let's Hang Out podcast - Gina from So Let's Hang Out and Beth from Tasty Yummies teamed up to bring the world a super fun podcast. They both live a gluten-free lifestyle for health reasons, so they touch on that a bit in each episode (at least so far), but the podcast is really about anything and everything. It's basically just two friends hanging out and you get to eavesdrop. If you're a fan of listening to Joy and Tracy on the Joy the Baker podcast, then this one is right up your alley.
WATCHING
Begin Again - This movie was recommended to Robert by his recent photography subject Mackenzie Johnson (<< check out her YouTube channel - she's amazing), because he loves the movie Once and it was created by the same person. So I bought it for him as a birthday gift and we got around to watching it a few weeks ago. It's delightful. First of all, Keira Knightley and Adam Levine are two of the main characters, and they are two of my biggest Hollywood crushes. Obviously Adam sings, but so does Keira Knightley and she has such a sweet voice. It's a great feel-good movie, but even if you don't watch it you should check out the soundtrack.
USING
Cashew milk- I've been getting on this non-dairy milk train very slowly over the past several months. Since I'm already a crazy hormonal millennial woman, I decided to try cutting out the extra hormones that come along with dairy milk. I still often bake with regular milk, but I've switched to non-dairy for things like cereal and putting in my homemade iced coffees. And honestly, I think I feel a lot better for it. I was doing almond milk for a bit but it was feeling very lackluster in my coffee, and then I discovered Silk's new cashew milk and it was the like the doors of heaven opened up for me. (I get the unsweetened version.) Personally I prefer the taste of the cashew milk to the almond, and it has a much creamier consistency which really beefs up my iced coffee situation. Robert will even drink it straight; it's that good.
Imbibe Skincare - Finding good natural skincare options has become increasingly more important to me over the past few years. I try to put real, whole ingredients into my food as much as possible, so it only makes sense to do the same with what I put on my body as what I put into it. When I heard about Imbibe Skincare on the Wellness Wonderland podcast, I knew I had to get my hands on some of their products. What makes them so interesting is that they "wildcraft" their ingredients in the deserts of Southern Utah, pulling from the strength of plants that have the ability to thrive in such harsh conditions. How cool is that?! Of the handful of products I've tried, my two favorites are the Body Polish (an exfoliant with wild raw honey, yucca root and dandelion, etc.) and the Bright Eyes hydrating eye cream, which is super cool because it has WASABI EXTRACT in it. That stuff will wake your eyes right up in the morning. I just ordered their Perfect 9 Balancing Oil Blend (which I know is a fan favorite), because they had a deal where you get a free jar of their Pearl Essence Cleansing Mineral Treatment with the purchase of Perfect 9. Luckily for you, if you want to try them out you can get 20% off your purchase with the discount code "cakeoversteak" for the next 30 days.
READING
The Call of the Farm - I think I get most of my information from podcasts. I heard about this book when the author was on One Part Podcast with Jessica Murnane, and I knew I would have to read it while I was at the beach (which I did, in 24 hours). It's a memoir about her year spent working on a farm in central NY. I'm a sucker for food memoirs, but this one's even juicier with some steamy farmer romance thrown in there, and I've kind of always wanted to live and work on a farm, so the whole thing was a dream come true for me to live vicariously through her words. LOVED IT. There are some wonderful-sounding recipes thrown in there too.
Full disclosure: I am an affiliate for Imbibe Skincare, so if you choose to purchase something from there I will receive a small kickback. I chose to be an affiliate for them because I love to support companies such as theirs, and I honestly love their products. I hope you do, too!
Illustration at top created with watercolor, watercolor pencil and Photoshop.
Prints of my illustrations (and other products with my work on them) are available in my Society6 shop.
