Sea Salt & Sunshine Recipe from Jana Blankenship

Dry skin is a nightmare for so many of us during the fall and winter months. Luckily, Jana Blankenship, founder of Captain Blankenship products and author of Wild Beauty: Wisdom & Recipes for Natural Self-Care, has the recipe for smooth, hydrated cold weather skin. 

Sea Salt & Sunshine Scrub Recipe 

YIELD: 8 OUNCES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup fine sea salt, or mix of fine and medium grain
• 1⁄4 cup coconut oil, or more as desired
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vitamin E
• 20 drops sweet orange essential oil
• 10 drops lemongrass essential oil
• Optional: 1 tablespoon shea butter

 

ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT

8-ounce glass jar with lid

 

INSTRUCTIONS

Mix ingredients together in bowl with spoon. (If coconut oil is hard, you can melt quickly and add to mixture once cool. If you want to add shea butter for even more nourishment, do the same thing.)

Once mixed, with spoon, scoop scrub into jar with lid.

Use once or twice weekly or as desired; by rubbing salt with dry, clean fingers in circular motion all over body and feet.

Rinse well.

If stored out of direct sunlight, will keep for up to a year (if water is kept out of jar).

Bacardi Mai Tai Recipe

BACARDÍ MAI TAI

INGREDIENTS:

·        1.5 oz BACARDÍ Añejo Cuatro rum

·        0.75 oz Orange Curacao

·        0.5 oz Lime Juice

·        0.75 oz Orgreat

·        Orange Bitters

METHOD: Shake and serve over crushed ice in a tiki mug. Garnish with a dehydrated orange wheel and/or mint sprig

2 Types of Girls

You should be proud of your girl! I am finally- after five years of irritation, loss, depression, obsession, anxiety, laziness, and tomfoolery- making moves to get my life together. And those life coach blogger Youtube ladies on Instagram are not kidding: making a change in your life is hard. It is taking a little bit of patience and a lot of Jesus, but I am in-cre-men-tally seeing some positive changes. Izzy thinks that my road to self-repair could end quicker if I just got a man. 

"Izzy," I tried to explain as calmly as I could, "I don't have  my own place, my dream job, or two pennies to rub together. When and if I get a man, I want to be an addition to his life, not a drain."

"I get it," she said, but she doesn't. "But I'm telling you, a man could help you with some of these things."

I sighed deeply. Sadly and unfortunately, I was going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation with my beautiful yet naive friend. 

"Izzy," I began, "you have been in some type of relationship consistently since I met you...when we were 18. And you have dated the type of men that will come through and help you in a crunch. But it's not like that with men in my life. They typically want to use me for something." And this is true. I am reminded of the guy who came over to my old apartment, acting as if he wanted to hang out, but he really just wanted to burn CDs on my computer. 

"But aren't all men users though in some way?" she asked. 

She wasn't making the conversation easy. So I just had to tell her the hard truth. There are two types of girls in this world: the ones who will always have a man swooping in to save the day and the kind that never will. 

Let me say that I am NOT being down on myself. I am finally at a place where I feel that I am super attractive and I understand my value. But you can not debate with me what I already know and have learned through experience. We could go back to high school. I remember when my friend Tray was holding the door open to the school for all the pretty, skinny girls as they got off the bus. Then he let it slam in my face. Working at fast food joints after school, the cuter girls were able to flirt their way into the work schedules they wanted while I was stuck working holidays. And by college, the "2 Types" theory became painfully obvious. I spent the whole four years paying for my own drinks and dragging my own groceries into the dorm. Aw, to be in my 20s again. 

I imagine that their would be some relief in some guy coming in and helping me. To be honest, I have secretly wanted that over the years so it wouldn't feel like I was taking every punch on my own. But I have to say, I am eager to see how well I get myself out of my hole. I am eager to see myself show up for myself. Some smiling lady on Twitter with a bunch of followers said that showing up for yourself builds confidence and we could all use some of that. If I can get out of this hole, I may just mess around and become the most confident woman on earth, even without a man on my side. 

Desperate

I just want you to hear it from me first: if one more of my amazing, boss, beautiful, wonderful girlfriends hooks up with a loser guy, I am going to shave my head! When I was in my 20s, I used to think that men my own age were immature and irresponsible, so I could not wait to date men in their 30s. Now I am in my 30s and my friends are dating men our age and up, and I really can't tell them apart from the boys that I used to crush on in college! And neither can my friends! I mean, can you imagine dating a man over 40 who has poor communication skills, still wants hookups and doesn't returns texts? It's disappointing. But more disappointing than their behavior is my friends' willingness to put up with it. Lique explained why to me during our recent catch up call. 

"Your friends are getting desperate," she explained to me. She understands because she is a couple of years older than me and has been there and done that when it comes to 30-something homegirls dating douche bags. "They want to be married, and they are settling for men that they never would have got with before."

She told me a horrifying story about her CEO homegirl that, out of nowhere, started dating one of these low-end man children. She said this guy took her friend to a motel, not a hotel, for a hookup that went south when they checked into the room and found human feces on the carpet. Can you imagine?! But never you worry. This friend has found another man who she now almost completely supports financially. 

I just want to run outside and scream, "What is going on?!" It's like nature gone loco! 40% of my time is spent explaining to my friends why they should not be crying over men whose idea of commitment is asking for their Netflix passwords only to watch Anime and complete ruin their suggestions. Who was it that told women that that it is nearly hopeless to find love with a real contender over 30? I don't believe that that is true! But I do believe that dating bad guys can leave you with a stench that repels good ones, and right about now, my friends are sticking like that motel room carpet. 

Do you all pray that your friends find love? I do. I pray that they find love with men that can have a conversation and that isn't afraid of someone real. At the very least, I pray that he can pay for his own Netflix. 

Zoya Tobey Is Back!

Zoya Tobey is this amazing, vibrant pink that is only here for a limited time! Use the code Tobey to get her free with any purchase at Zoya.com and hurrey! She will be leaving at the end of the month and won't be back until next summer. 

 

The Divorce

Izzy is getting a divorce. Well, not officially, but she is well on her way. She has moved with her kids across the country and is now looking for a lawyer. She is over it and beyond stressed. She calls me for support and sometimes I have no idea what to say. Everything I know about divorce I learned from Lifetime Movies! 

Yet Sally Fields and Tori Spelling are nowhere to be found in this drama which includes entanglements of the Jada Pinkett Smith variety, calling the police, email snooping, text spying, fighting, car keys hiding, sleep deprivation, credit card canceling, and a Kantana sword. This is real life, and I have never been good at that. 

This is so weird for me, because I remember when Izzy and her husband were happy and very into each other. They could not go out in public without passionate French kissing and butt slapping. Now he has changed his number and she has crossed about 20 states to get away from him. 

I was reading in The Bible just last weekend that Jesus is not down with divorce. Like, really not down with it. But I can't imagine He would be down with Izzy and her husband bringing their kids up in a situation that was becoming more and more loco by the day. 

I want my friend to be happy. Life is too short to be miserable. But it is still unbelieve to me how two people can be so in love one minute and resent each other the next. At the end of the day, a lot of money will be spent for funds, custody, and properties to be split, then for each person to go their separate ways and act like they never met. It almost makes you wonder if it is worth the risk. 

Izzy thinks so. She is already looking forward to finding a new forever love, one that is forever for real, minus the lies and calls to 9-1-1/.

Queen Communication

I graduated from college with a degree in Communications which I can't even believe, knowing  how poor my communication skills were back then. There were so many spats that I got into with my friends that were made worse due to my inability to communicate like an adult. That was then. Today, at 35, I'm just now learning how to talk to folks and how to put these new skills into action. I can't take all the credit. God revealed to me not too long ago that I was becoming nearly impossible to talk to and that I am a bad listener. Luckily, Corona has given me a seemingly endless amount of time to work on this. Now I am trying to spread the good news of good communication to my friends. It's been interesting. 

My girl Izzy is talking to a new guy. Everyday she calls me, upset over the communication in this budding relationship. He doesn't text her as much as she would like, and she feels like she is putting in most of the communication effort. 

"Why won't he text me?!" she demanded, beside herself. 

"Did you make your need know that you would like to be texted everyday?" I asked her. 

"NO! If he likes me, he should want to text me."

Sigh. Getting woke on how bad of a communicator I am has helped me to shed some annoying habits. Ladies, we are in 2020. Can we finally flush the Three Day Rule and the "He-Has-To-Call-Me-First rule that someone told us were the rules of engagement back when we were in the 7th grade? Me and many of my homegirls are nearly 40, and we are still operating under the dating communication rules from middle school! It's exhausting and as your friend let me tell you, it is also hard to watch. Stop making expectations without making your needs known! And if you like someone and want to talk to them, do so. I swear, you will feel better. 

In the name of good communication, can we also stop friend-dumping folks without letting them know what they did? Enough! Fear of communicating and having hard conversations is giving us the green light to dispose of folks that we are annoyed with but really care about. There is a chance that your friend doesn't know that they hurt you because YOU DIDN'T COMMUNICATE THAT TO THEM. 

Whew! Being the new self-proclaimed Queen of Communication, it is hard out here spreading the word. But for those of you who will receive it I tell you, communicating better can be scary, but it is also a life saver. Give it a try! Just don't be about it, talk about it.