Friday Finds Volume V

Siete Tortilla Chips

You can have your chips and eat them too.

Are you ready for this? A tortilla chip THAT has no grains, no diary, no gluten, and no GMO junk. YET, has all the flavor, crunch, and salsa dipping abilities that a tortilla chip should. This little paleo friendly darling is my favorite food addiction/substitute that I’ve discovered in the last… forever! Plus, Siete is a family owned biz which makes me love them even more.

Let me tell you how I first discovered these! It was at a restaurant. Yes, that’s right, a place you go and eat food that is not pulled off the shelf of your local grocery store. I’ll explain. I was meeting a friend (see photo below) at our favorite neighborhood Mexican Cantina. You know the kind, where you sit down at a table and in a nanosecond you’ve inhaled fifty tons of chips and salsa… before you’ve even ordered. Just me? Ok. Moving on. My friend showed up, sat down, pulled out a bag of Siete tortilla chips from her purse… Yes, her purse! And plopped them on the table. I thought, “what is happening?” We are literally sitting in the land of bottomless baskets of tortilla chips. Well, for my friend, this was her way of enjoying the good life of Tex-Mex while trying to remain good to her body and it’s health needs. So, we ripped open that bag and proceeded to dip away at bowls of fire roasted salsa. And there was not one ounce of disappointment from this chips and salsa junkie.

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These are now a household staple that I, and even my family, enjoy for all manner of purposes. Such as, nacho night, inhaling my homemade salsa, or when I am going to pass on the pasta or tortillas and “make it a bowl” instead. And of course, for those times I want to shove a bag in my purse and go enjoy good Tex-Mex with a friend.

Gratitude

Write it on the Wall

Ok. So, I’ve wanted to start something for a while but just haven’t. It’s this: bring more gratitude and prayer opportunities into my home. Actually, there are plenty of opportunities to be grateful and always an abundance of prayer needs. However, with a fast a furious schedule and life demands these days, practicing those things can easily fall through the cracks. So many good intentions and what seems like never enough time. Can you relate?

Enter coronavirus lockdown. During quarantine, like many of you, we had more family dinner time, more reflection time, and more opportunities to pause. So, I decided to take advantage of the slower life pace and do the thing I’d been wanting to do.

During one of our Sunday morning live-streaming porch sermons, I passed around a pad of sticky notes and a jar of markers. Then, asked everyone to jot down something they were praying for and something they were grateful for. Afterwards, we shared our sticky note scribbles, and prayed for those requests mentioned.

This was a great opportunity for us to pause and actually practice what Philippians 4 encourages in the Bible.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Our stay-at-home time gave us some space to start practicing these things as a family. Listen ladies, It is not a hard and fast rule that has to be checked off of a dinnertime box. But it is something we can begin to introduced into the rhythms of our home.

Sometimes we write our notes during family dinner or listening to a sermon. Other times, when we are scattered with different schedules, we do them on our own. Then, we stick them on our pantry wall. We put prayer requests on one side of the pantry and gratitude on the other. Our family literally walks in and out of this doorway a million times a day. So, it is a great visual reminder of God’s faithfulness in our lives. One of my favorite things is how these posted prayers bring the people and things we are praying for to mind daily. Also, it’s a place to record, directly on the sticky note, when God answers those prayers. You can find a location in your home and create your own wall of remembrance.

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Morphe Brushes

The Total Package

I like a good make up brush. And I LOVE a good price for a good make up brush. Well, beauties, here she is. Morphe brushes. A make up brush brand that is the total package. She has brushes for every application under the sun, and all at affordable prices. This brand is cruelty free and there are even vegan brush options. They also have many other make up products and some of my favorite eyeshadow palettes… that’s for another Friday:)

In fact, Morphe has soooooooo many brush options that it can be overwhelming unless you’re one of those “make-up tutorial YouTube watchers”. (If that’s you, I need to know all your favorite beauty tubers asap!) Anyway, for the rest of us, I recommend starting with a small 3 or 5 brush set. Each brush and set contains reviews and recommendations which is totally helpful. You can order them online here or find some of their varieties at your local Ulta.

Speaking of make up brushes… did you know they need regular cleaning? They do. I know, I know! Something else to keep clean! But think about it… our brush touches our face (which gets bacteria on it) then goes back into our product (sharing the bacteria with it) then back to our face. And so on and so forth. This spreading of bacteria is not the best for our skin. Also as product builds up in our brush, the fibers become less effective at smooth application.

Never fear my dears! Brush cleaning is easy and actually kind of satisfying. Like having a sparkling clean kitchen sink or freshly wiped down kitchen counters or a crisply made bed. Ok we get! Below is a pic from my brush cleaning night, which likely needs to happen more often than it does. Nevertheless, it’s super simple.

Grab your brushes, baby shampoo (I get the bottle with a pump on it for ease), a clean towel, and plop them next to your sink. Then, run warm water, put a pump of soap in your palm, pass the brush under warm water, swirl the bristles in circular motions in your palm lathering the soap as you do. I sometimes make sweeping motions with the brush back and forth in my palm. Then rinse the brush under the warm water until the water runs clear as you gently squeeze out the bristles. Lay brush flat on a towel to air dry overnight.

NOTE: Some brushes, i.e. foundation and concealer brushes, need two passes of the palm cleaning to remove the build up. Confession: I sometimes have a hard time doing single mundane tasks. So, I capitalize on those times. I often use brush cleaning time to: listen to a book on audible, a favorite playlist, catch up with a loved one on the phone, or have a conversation with whichever child of mine is needing some TLC. Multitasking man!

XOXO,