YES

spa water! it's so pretty to look at, and the most refreshing thing to drink that i can imagine. here's a great article about it with delicious recipes linked at the bottom, such as "lemony lavender water". can you say YUM!? i can. yum.

in other news: MY GOJI BERRIES ARE GROWING! look at them... LOOK AT THEM.

maybe you can understand my excitement. maybe you can't. but i am thrilled, people. jumping up and down, singing to the clouds, hugging my goji bush - thrilled. this plant was not supposed to produce anything for at least one year, if it was ever to grow berries at all. but here they are in all their luscious, juicy, red beauty. our strawberries and blueberries are growing super fast too, and of course they taste A-MAZING. speaking of berries...

i think tomorrow i'll go on a fruit cleanse for a week. i've been eating really well and all lately but it's summer, fruit's in season and i may as well embrace it as much as i possibly can! besides, i feel best when i'm all fruit diet (for a certain number of days). i know as far as my digestive system goes, i'm really clean, but i wanna give my body a break from vegetables, whole grains and "processed" foods like sauces, seaweed and nut-based foods. oh, i should specify - i will still include greens.

addicted to kale for life <3

actually, scratch that. i will start on saturday. tomorrow my friend is sleeping over and we need to make a bunch of vegan delights, of the non-fruit variety. i'll keep it simple though because i don't want to eat a bunch of cooked food the day before a fruit cleanse. i think i want to make these coconut banana ice cream floats, and share a recipe for raw nutella!

stay tuned, my sweet darlings.

P.S. here's another weird song for you all to question my judgement to:

a new garden!

Over the long Easter weekend, we put our garden reno plans into action.

My mom has been wanting to install raised beds for awhile now; it maximizes your garden space, sunlight and it's more efficient for watering and picking - especially compared to our old garden. It was lovely, but frankly-speaking it was a big patch of dirt with a stone path winding through it.

 

So it begins...

We are the definitive do-it-yourself family... I would explain further but really, we just do everything ourselves. My dad is an engineer and has always loved creating and building stuff, I take after him and usually I'm the one helping him with projects. We built the Zen Den together, for example.

 One box, two box...

... three box, four!

On top of installing FAB-PRO new raised beds from beautiful wood, we laid a brick pathway between each box as well. It's so pretty and now it looks like we are hard-core gardeners. 

Which we are. 

Once it's summer, I'm going to paint on the end of every box; decoratively labeling the contents like "herbs", "vegetables", "greens" and what not. Should look uber cute. 

I am very excited about this new garden, mostly because I have WAY more room to plant my greens and berries. I will be planting loads of - you guessed it - rainbow chard, dinosaur kale, and spinach.
My favourites <3 Plus some strawberries (YES!)

We're also gonna plant carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, beans, zucchinis, etc. Ya know. West Coast schtuff.

All and all - it was a bit of hard work to get the garden done but now that it is, I think we're all really looking forward to the improvement once it starts producing. Besides, it's so pro-looking now, even with no plants in it, it looks stellar.

If you are thinking of renovating your garden, GO FOR IT! Even if you don't have the space we do (we are blessed with a gorgeous, enormous yard) you can still have your own garden sanctuary. Buy a planter for your window and grow flowers, herbs or berries. If you have enough room for a patch of dirt - grow food in the patch of dirt!

There is nothing like walking barefoot into the garden, picking a few leaves of kale, going back inside and adding them to my smoothie, then coming back out and sitting by the kale still growing - while drinking it in. Ultimate connection. 

Tonight I have been making some nut cheese, and I'll let it age for about 2 or 3 days. I am betting it will be way too delicious for words. I'm also making another CHEESECAKE! Get ready =) You guys know you love it. It's definitely a favourite around here.

Much love - Em.

last farmer's market of the season

As the title explains; last Saturday was the last farmer's market until the cold BC winter passes. My heart is weeping. I have no idea where I will get my greens at the moment... I may have to buy inorganic. Agh. Problem. Oh well, I'll figure it out.

So I stocked up on as many greens as I could, my diet this week will be mostly green smoothies --- YAY! Dream come true. Just finished one while I was doing my math homework. I kept saying "yuck"; describing my feelings towards the math, but then I had to apologize to my smoothie because it sounded like I was saying it was gross.

Yes, I talk to my smoothies.

Luckily, we use the CSA box system to get organic, local apples ALL winter. Thank goodness. I'm definitely in an apple-loving period right now. I wanna eat them all the time. They're so crunchy, juicy and delicious.

Apples are great for cleaning out your system and hydrating your luscious skin.
Apples are a food I will only eat organic, they are the most contaminated plant food there is, when it comes to pesticides. Check it out here. Yilk. No thanks, chemicals.

In the spirit of the season, we also bought some GORGEOUS GOURDS. They're all so different and funky lookin'. They're gonna be decorating the house for awhile. I have named them all =)

See you in a few months, farmer's market! You will be missed.
I guess I'll have to find a winter market downtown. It just won't be as convenient.