Shopping, a lemonade recipe, and the purge.

 Yesterday, I went on a shopping trip with my father and Mark (happy Father's Day, by the way!). It wasn't the type of shopping trip I'd go on with my mom. Instead, we went to Strawberry Fields (a natural food store with great selection and not-so-great prices), Am-Ko (an Asian food store--highly authentic and awesome prices), and World Harvest (a store with tons of food from around the world, as well as gourmet and unusual foods). If you are ever in the Champaign, IL area, all of these stores are located very close to the U of I campus, and are definitely worth checking out.

At World Harvest, I got these "If You Care" gloves--just to check them out. I love wearing gloves while cleaning and washing dishes, and these gloves seemed like a pretty awesome investment. They are fair trade, ethically-sourced, and biodegradable. All of that sounded pretty great to me. They seem to be of very good quality, which is great, because they were five dollars. I like to spend my money well.

Unfortunately, they are bright green, which doesn't exactly match my kitchen!

Also purchased yesterday:
- Peanut oil
- Textured vegetable protein
- Arrowroot powder
- seaweed sheets (for making sushi!)
- washcloths
- rice noodles
- soba noodles
- and more!

Overall, it was a great shopping trip, and a wonderful way to spend a Saturday. And did I mention that we went to the Golden Wok Thai/Chinese Restaurant, too? We got vegetables and tofu. Yum.

Let's see. I've been doing some other interesting stuff lately, right? Oh, right, I made some delicious lemonade the other day. The old fashioned way, of course. Here's the recipe I used from the book, Back to Basics:

1 quart water

4 lemons

1 cup raw sugar (I used a little less)

First, juice the lemons. Then, put the peels on a bowl, and cover with the raw sugar. I only did these with half of the peels, because I used to other half to infuse vinegar. Let sit for 30 minutes, then pour one quart of boiling water over the sugar and peels. Let cool. Combine with lemon juice. Taste, and water down as necessary. I probably added at least a cup and a half of water, because it was so sweet. But either way, it is absolutely delicious.

Now, for the purge.

I really don't wear makeup often. Mostly because it's expensive (I won't buy products that have been tested on animals, which is difficult and guilt-inducing, because many of the products within these products have been tested), and adds a lot of time to my morning routine. Still, I own a lot of makeup that has been gathered through the years (pretty gross, now that I think about it). Same with hair supplies. Having been no-'poo for almost seven weeks now, I have not been using any products (hairspray, mousse, etc.) whatsoever. And lotions, creams, powders, etc. with gross ingredients just freak me out. It's time to purge. In favor of more natural alternatives (I've been looking up homemade versions of these things!), I am attempting to rid myself of most of these products. The problem I'm facing is, what on earth do I do with all these stuff? I'll let you know how it turns out...