One of the things I’ve always been bad at is sunscreen application.  When in the sun, I’m constantly applying it, but somehow I always miss several spots and end up with random burn markings.  When we set sail for Catalina last Friday, it was totally overcast.  While I had applied sunscreen in the morning, I forgot to re-apply due to the lack of sun most of the day (I usually feel my skin burning).  The only parts of me showing, my face and chest, were quite lobstery by the time we had dinner on Friday night.

I suffered through the weekend, still managing to get other crazy burn patterns on my legs, especially around the tape on my knee – yeah, it looks really cool.  When we got back to our boat slip in the marina, our neighbor Dave gave me a tip for sunburns that I’ve never heard before: vinegar.  At first I thought “ick, I so don’t want to smell that on me,” but then I thought about it some more.  Dave is an ex-navy seal, ex-stunt man, and has been living on his boat for many years.  He’s had more experience with the sun than I ever want to, so I decided to give it a try.

I always keep a gallon size jug of vinegar in my cabinet, since it’s so good for getting musty and mothball smells out of laundry as well as many other cleaning needs.  I poured a little on a cotton ball and swabbed it all over my face and neck.  Since it burned a little, I decided to just try it there and leave my crazy leg burns alone.  I then went out and cut a leaf off my aloe plant that I planted in the spring and rubbed it all over my chest and face once the vinegar dried.

I woke up a couple of times through the night and felt my legs burning, but nothing with my face and chest.  When I got up in the morning the difference was clearly noticeable. My leg burns were still cherry red, while my face/chest had faded quite a bit.   For some dumb reason, I never put vinegar on my legs even though I could feel the burn for at least two more days. My face didn’t feel tender the whole time.

So next time you blister in the sun, give vinegar and whatever type of soothing lotion you like to use a try. You may still look burnt, but you won’t feel a thing!

We just got back from another trip to Catalina Island on our 1973 Cat 27’ sailboat. We’ve been once before last October, and both times I’ve gone, I’ve thought only of all the fun we would have on the island.  The first trip, I was worried that the sail would be really long, boring, and possibly tough.  However, the sail turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the trip – possibly because we didn’t realized that it was Buccaneer Days, with everyone there outfitted in pirate gear and shooting off cannons all night.

Yet again this time, I somewhat dreaded the sail over and though we talked about how fast we could get there on a speedboat or even a larger sailboat, I truly enjoyed the whole 6.5 hour journey.  Going 6 knots (or 6 miles per hour) in a boat, surrounded by water is very eye opening, yet also soothing.  You start to realize how small you are, and how powerful nature is.  Yet also, you get to see how amazing nature is, seeing dolphin pods playing in the waters, seals hanging out both in the water and anything they can jump up on, and just the great blue sky.

We spent the time talking, napping, eating, and of course taking photos.  It didn’t seem long at all.  It was just a relaxing, enjoyable day.

We all fall into the trap of just focusing on the goal or the outcome.  But life is a journey.  It doesn’t matter how fast we get there or if we even get anywhere at all.  Who we are is defined by both our DNA and all our experiences.  So instead of stressing out all the time about what we think we want and what we think we need, if we learn to just enjoy the journey, we have the chance to become amazing people – thankful for every experience, for every person in our lives, for everything we have, every gift or talent we have.

I’m very thankful that it only takes a 6 hour boat ride to Catalina to remind me of this!

I love shopping at flea markets. Luckily for me, there are flea markets almost every weekend around Los Angeles.  What I love most is the element of surprise.  You can’t plan for what you want to shop for at the flea market, so it provides me a place and time to be open and see what catches my attention and resonates with me in that moment.

While I always have a running list of things I’m looking for – a cool bowl to put on the tray on my ottoman in the living room, ceramic tiles for a project in my garden, fun vintage earrings in red or purple – I never know what I’m going to stumble across and fall in love with.  Many times I fall in love with things that while worth it, are exorbitantly expensive (like the wooden napkin holder in the shape of a woman in a hoop skirt at the Santa Monica Airport flea market a few months ago) and just not practical for my life now.  But even then I’m so excited to have seen such a cool thing.

Flea markets are also a green way to shop.  Everything there is already in this world, so why not put it to use instead of buying cheap new things from China. I love the history too.  Who knew that children’s play kitchens used to be metal and probably quite dangerous to play around, but after seeing some on a tour of Castle Green in Pasadena, I started seeing them (and buying them) at the flea market.

Anyway, why in the world am I droning on about flea markets?  Well, on Saturday after my fun morning at the flea market, a few other plans I had for the day did not go the way I expected.  Through my yoga practice, I’ve learned when things don’t go as planned to just take a deep breath, stay fluid and go with whatever comes my way – most of the time.  Not so much on Saturday.  I became a mess: grumpy, mopey and even snappy to my husband a few times.

Sunday, after a lovely bike ride to church and excellent sermon, I was able to put things in perspective.  What I realized is that I need to approach all areas of my life the way I approach the flea market:  having in mind some of the things I hope to come across or accomplish on my journey, but then being open and excited at what I might find that had never even crossed my mind.

We all have goals and dreams, and our modern society teaches us to push and work our butts off for the things we want.  But does that really make us happy?  Yes, many things in life are better planned, but if we get too rigid I think we miss out on smelling the roses and the excitement of what will happen next!

Thanks to all of you who provided feedback on how you have greened your life.  So very inspiring! Also, thanks to the very generous Lynn Hirschfield, you will all be receiving a copy of Girls Gone Green soon.

This year I’m working on several more greening projects.  First, thanks to Mia Wasilevich in Girls Gone Green, I’ve completely switched to non-toxic deodorant.  I’ve known for a while that the aluminum in anti-persperant was really harmful, since it is absorbed into and congests our lymph nodes directly under our arm pits.   These white blood cell rich lymph nodes aid in the removal of cancer-causing agents, such as aluminum.

It was a hard switch for me because I’m a sweater and whenever I would switch for a day or two I just couldn’t stand the smell.  Thanks to Girls Gone Green, I realized that the odor was not my natural smell but my body getting rid of all the toxins clogged up in my arm pit pores.  I’ve been using natural deodorant for over a month now and I rarely notice any smell.  Yes, when I’m teaching a tough yoga class I get sweat rings, but I’ve just retrained my thought process – no matter what the ad industry tells us, sweat is natural and so much better than getting sick.

Secondly, I’ve also wanted to change to bio-degradable doggy poop bags, but again it has been a convenience thing (thanks Sue for including this one).  Having 15 bags all rolled up compactly in a little leash “bags on board” container makes life easier.  But I’d rather have a healthy planet and a little inconvenience.  I will be getting some that are compliant with the California ASTM D6400 specification for biodegradable product claims.

The third greening project I want to take up is more greening of my body.  The last few times I’ve gone to the grocery store, I have been reading all the ingredients of the items I put in my cart.  I was shocked at many things, including how corn syrup is one of the top ingredients in many marinades and salad dressings.  I started looking at all the brands and purchased the ones with the least sugar and unknown ingredients.

This got me thinking.  It is so easy and fulfilling to make marinades and salad dressings, so I’m going to buy a cookbook dedicated to sauces (like this one: 500 Best Sauces, Salad Dressings, Marinades and More) and never again willing ingest miscellaneous preservatives!

I have another friend who makes lots of her own bread and snacks.  I’ve always been a baker, but of sweet things not bread.  I guess my husband’s incessant ridiculing of my sister for the one time she brought over homemade bread that was hard as a rock has left me a little gunshy.  Also the fact that I don’t eat tons of bread makes me lest interested. But I do love the Mediterranean flat bread from Trader Joe’s, and I figure it’s good to know how to make any product that you really love. So next time I run out, I will be doing some experimenting.

Greening my wardrobe is the final thing on my list, but that’s a whole other post.