the weather turned warm, and this project lost steam as it became less about this spring and more about the next one.  

spring salad

spring greens
mangos or strawberries
goat cheese
spring onions
spicy pumpkin seeds
dressing made from 1 part olive oil, 2 parts apple cider vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper

enjoy with some yummy bread! 
love,
jane

it's mango season and we are loving it!  they have even found their way into my dreams!  here are some of the ways we are eating mangos right now:
~plain!
~with yogurt and granola
~in a salad with goat cheese, spiced pumpkin seeds, spring onions and greens

all zero-waste and all so tasty!

love,
jane

okay, i love thrift shopping. i also love to hum the song while thrift shopping. but let's be honest...  i have never. ever. loved denim dresses. especially long ones. i'm sure you've heard the stereotype of homeschoolers wearing long denim outfits, so as a homeschool graduate, i never thought i'd actually find myself buying a denim dress... but there i was, thrift shopping to the tune of macklemore and buying not one, but two (!), long(!) denim(!) dresses! 
but hey... with a little tweaking, they're actually really cute!

with a little snip and a new hem, these dresses became two of my favorites!

hurray!!! next time you're thrift shopping, perhaps remember to give those weird dresses with the awkward length a chance! making them cute is easier than you might think! ^.^
xx,
jo

more traditional poetry does offer some beautiful and powerful words. while we might love the new poetry forms, we can also remember the wonderful poems of days gone past…

some of my personal favorites:
:robert frost's stopping by the woods on a snowy evening,  relavation, the hill wife
:john keats' a song about myself, to a cat, on the grasshopper and the cricket
:emily dickinson's hope is the thing with feathers

are you reading or listening to any favorite poems to celebrate national poetry month? i'd love your recommendations!
xx,
jo

we've been sharing a few of our favorite places to find fair trade clothing for the past few weeks.  really this is where we should have started, because, well, it's where we should start!  i took this photo at a local thrift store.  this is about one fifth of a row of jeans.  there were maybe 6 rows of jeans in this one shop...and these are just the women's jeans!    

we all know there is too much of a disposable aspect to our clothing.  some cheap clothing doesn't last.  some clothing is too trendy to keep for long.  we often just want something new.  if you don't want to change your  way of thinking, thrift can actually be a great option for you.  think of it like checking a book out of the library.  if you buy something cheap from the thrift store, you can wear for as long as you like and then bring  it back to the store to be sold again.  the cost per wear is still low, similar to cheap fashion at the mall, but new things don't continually need to be made.

i do think that a change of mindset is necessary at some point, however.  we just have too much…and we aren't using what we have.  we aren't buying what we need, what we want to wear, what suits our lifestyle, what we love.

having a simple wardrobe and reversing the thought process above is sustainable for the earth and for us individually.

ok, so maybe, just maybe, you are not going to find the same pair of jeans that you desire at the moment… and maybe you are going to find them.  maybe you are going to need to tweak the pair you find just a little.  maybe you are going to have to shift what you are looking for a bit.  in any case, i think you'll probably be able to find something that works.  this post has more on the mind shift i undertook in the autumn while doing my jean shopping.

this is a great place to find some jeans to turn into shorts as well…plenty of high waisted stock, if that's your thing.  

happy thrifting!
love, 
jane

so enter the weirdest beauty tip you'll ever read... MUD?! actually, yeah, green clay. this stuff is miracle working. wet clay. on your face. i am so serious! natural remedies will not only work, but also be so much healthier! what if we could keep our beauty routine clean and chemical free? that just seems to make more sense to me, if our goal is health for ourselves and our environment. in fact, this type of thinking isn't new at all! healing clay has been used for many remedies since ancient times! apparently people used to carry this clay in their packs for tons of reasons, sometimes even ingesting it? this specific clay brand tells you not to do so (...and so do my opinions on taste...), but others actually still say that it's okay! so anyway, green clay is an amazing acne treatment.

so begin with getting a small amount of the clay into the palm of your clean hand. you could also use a glass container, but i find this much quicker and easier. you don't need much and you can always add more.

alright, dribble some water down your free hand into the clay. mix it together. the consistency should be pasty, so add more water/clay as necessary. i take the more solid pasty bits (can you see the clumps?) and press them where i have a bit of acne. sometimes that will be a single spot, or i'll go ahead and put it all over my acne prone areas. 
next, you're going to want to let it work on your skin and dry for 5-10 minutes. you'll feel your face tightening and maybe tingling, but don't worry! i tend to crack myself up making faces in the mirror, because there comes a point where you literally cannot move your face. for some (possibly immature) reason, i find that hilarious.
anyway, when you feel that it's done it's work, or you can't take the itching that may occur any longer, rinse it all off your face. there might be some redness, but that's okay. it'll go away. if i have a nasty zit, i might use a little bit of acne cream on that, but otherwise i will leave my face alone afterwards. a bit of moisturizer won't hurt, since this can leave your face a tad dry. for that reason, i wouldn't use this on days that you have no acne. use it when you need it. 
i hope you try this out! it might sound weird, but it actually works really well. also, the clay will last much longer than any of your "normal" products. 
let me know if you try this, already use it, or have another natural remedy for acne! i'm always into hearing about natural alternatives... i think it's really important! ^.^
xxx,
jo

(jane:  we came to this method through the amazing  kara naydyhor, who makes the wonderful source skincare line.  thank you so much, kara!)
 

it's april which means it's national poetry month! now i haven't always liked poetry... i used to hate it! however, i've been able to find poems that i love. there are some beautiful poems... you just need to find the ones that fit your taste and those that speak to you... 

slam poetry is a more modern type of poetry, taking spoken word and adding a little more rhythm and emotional qualities. (here's a good book about it) some favorites include...
:anis mojgani's shake the dust.
:tyler joseph's lyrics, what's your story, and street poetry.
:levi the poet's resentment, college ruled lines. (words here)

i hope you find some good words here! i'm looking forward to sharing more poetry in the weeks to come.  if you have any favorite poems or poets, please do comment them below! i would love to get some recommendations!

xxx,
jo

i hope these posts are helpful to you.  i don't really always like product posts, because i don't want to be pressured to want or "need" some thing else.  i hope you know that's not the way i mean these to come across.  i think it can be hard to know where to start (or continue) buying fair-trade, so i just want to share what i find and like.  so, what i mean to say is…if you find yourself in need of flip-flops…these could be something to consider.  :)  

feelgoodz are made from all natural rubber (harvested from their rubber farm in vietnam!) and are fair-trade crafted in thailand.  their "packaging" is even recylable-yay!  julia and i think they are comfortable and cute! they are also available in men's and kids' sizes.  (we found ours locally at whole foods.)

love,
jane

as always, this is not a sponsored post.

to fully "get" this one, you need to know what inspired it.  mat kearney's new album, just kids, is on repeat around here.  the song, heartbreak dreamer is amazing!  i get choked up every time i hear it.  the song features a slam poem by anis mojgani…like i said, amazing. 

love,
jane