Contradictions

 They're magically delicious.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how difficult it is to live my life with consistent goals/purpose.

For example, here's a sampling of some of my contradictions just this month:

"Eat healthy. Fuel your body. Choose whole foods."

"Oh celebrate St. Paddy's Day! Life is meant to be FUN--and making processed marshmallow treats with processed sugary cereal will be F-U-N! Yay! Fun, fun, fun, fun ...."

"Don't use cosmetics that test on animals; it just seems so cruel."

"We need a medication that happens to be tested on animals. NO PROBLEM WITH ME--fill that prescription."

"Use your words to build people up."

"Son of a b#*$^! I can't find my keys for the 2,000th time. WHO HAS MY Mother-flippin' keys?" (PS: This happens either out loud or in my head daily. And sometimes over things that are so trivial. My patience level is insanely low for some reason.)

"Kids, you each get 30-60 minutes of free screen time a day. That's more than enough."

"Give me a minute. I don't want to go to the park right now, it's windy and I have 20 emails to reply to."

[Me to a kiddo] "Don't let that friend get you down. They wouldn't be mean if they knew they were hurting you. They are still learning."

"That woman is SO MEAN. I promise you she has never liked me. And I am ALWAYS nice to her. I'm so burned out on being nice to someone who is a CRANKY MEAN person."

Now I know this self-talk and self-walk seem super SELFISH. And I know (sometimes while I'm speaking/living it) I should STOP the negative thinking or the not-so-great for the Planet living.

But it's sometimes SO hard!

Maybe this is just part of being human--finding a way to reconcile the contradictions?

At least for me, today, that's what I believe: my goal is to do better each day and hopefully become more aware of ways that I can avoid the contradictions. AND forgive myself--and others--for the missteps. Because they are going to happen. It's part of life, right? 

Oh, who knows! But my point is this:

Sometimes it's pretty funny to see just how many opposing thoughts I can hold in my noodle at the same time.

PS: This year we've been trying to be more aware of the foods and things we eat, use in our home, purchase, etc. Ideally we are trying to make a move toward being more healthy. Anyway, we've learned a ton and made some good changes on the whole (less sugar, more fruits/veggies, meatless eating one day a week, no toxic chemicals in some of the household products, etc.). And this week we even made our own deodorant and lip balm--free from chemicals, dyes, etc. It was awesome! (And while it sounds way hippie to me, I love the deodorant. LOVE)! (PS: Here's the link to the site where we got our deodorant recipe, but you can find 100s on Pinterest, too: http://mylittleme.com/homemade-probiotic-deodorant-vanilla-scent/

And then of course, we made those Lucky Charms marshmallow treats.

See what I mean: contradictions around every corner.

The End.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Zu and Cam beginning the deodorant-making process (fairly easy once you have all the ingredients).

The ingredients.
 (I bought them on Amazon--even the little containers. I think true environmentalists would not use plastic containers or would recycle older ones. We will do that once we use these.)

The raw cocoa butter is TO DIE FOR if you are a chocolate lover. Oh, and the arrowroot is in place of corn starch. The more I learn about corn-based anything, the more I realize this is nutty to support The Corn Man. LOL.

Cocoa butter up close.

Real beeswax. (Which made us look up the phrase "Non of your beeswax.")

The empty containers.

Melting the ingredients and filling the containers with Lu.
PS: We didn't have a funnel, so we made
one out of the top of a plastic water bottle. Thrifty upcycling!
But on the flipside: why are we drinking out of plastic water bottles? Ahhhhh!"

The finished product. It is a little softer than over-the-counter deodorant, so it has to harden in the fridge at first. After it hardens you can keep it in a cool place and it's fine.
(I like it because it smells way better than my former deodorant.
And for some reason I don't sweat at all with it. At all.
And I'm telling you, I typically sweat just blow-drying my hair. Truly.)

PS: Once we made these, we learned you have to "top off" the containers once they harden--because there's some settling and you don't want that little stick showing if you use these as gifts.

This week's major contradiction: lots of sugar vs. whole foods.

But its SO tasty and FUN.

Zee Meehan Chapstick.

(beeswax, coconut oil, and shea butter)

Finished sticks.

PS: I'll edit this later--I've far exceeded my recommended 60 minutes of screen time!