Le jardin

6.5.10 - The garden. I've written about it before, but I will say again that I do not garden, also I admit that I have more of a black thumb instead of a green thumb, meaning I have probably killed nearly every plant I've ever had, but I can design and decorate (and photograph!)  - so that's good enough...right?

Cilantro ready to be planted by well-manicured hands.

Cilantro planted.

Joshua's hands after digging around in the dirt.

My afternoon in detox

5.24.10 - And by detox, I mean foot detox. This adventure began when Mary saw a local news anchor's comedic experimentation with foot detoxification. Mary told me about it, I saw the news spot and we both decided to check it out - especially after we learned that if we mentioned that we heard about the ionCleanse foot treatment on TV, we would get a 50% discount.

Mom, Mary and I went to the Aurora Spa in St. Louis Park and let's just say, the spa was not at all what we thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a "I'm at the spa, darling," but it was more of a mini-spa-in-the-wall.

Above and below: The ionCleanse machine. Our setting: Volts = 19.60, Amps = 2.23...whatever that means.

I bet you can't wait to discover what my color was.

My mom's color was orange (purifying the joints).

Part of the abstract I read while waiting out my 45 minute foot detox.

I forgot to meditate! Maybe that's why I didn't feel differently after?



Sexy! My color was yellow-green/brown/orange with black flecks which is just a hot mess. Apparently the ionCleanse purified my kidney, bladder, liver, joints and extracted some heavy metals out of my system. Ugh. It looks bad, but it didn't smell like anything.

Probably totally unrelated, but my feet got really itchy and irritated during this process. I also think that they should rinse the client's feet off before starting the foot detox, especially considering that I had lotion on my feet that had little flecks of gold in it.

Notice all the particles in the water? All of ours looked like that too, but the camera picked it up better against her skin tone. I think Mary had some foamy white and some other colors that I don't remember.

"Color is produced even if there are no feet in the water." Hmm hmmm.

We washed everything down the drain, rinsed our feet and hit the street. Contrary to the brochure (you may feel tired, lighter or energetic), I didn't feel differently at all, but for $15 it was an interesting one-time experience. I was not impressed, mostly because there was only one ionCleanse machine and so it took nearly three hours for us to all cycle through, but it was an semi-enlightening experiment. I got to read some abstracts and research papers about the entire process and found a lot of weird holes or other facts that made me cynical of the foot detox process and all it's "benefits."

Check it out if you are so inclined, but don't expect a lot, also I recommend that you go during the weekday when it is less busy or maybe get a colonCleanse if there is a wait...oh, yeah...they have one of those.

Rainy morning at the farmers' market

Winter hours: Saturday from 9 to 12AM?!

5.21.10 - Bright and early Saturday morning Mary, Mumsy, Jonny, Danielle and I went to the St. Paul Farmers' Market. It was raining and everything was wet, so I hurriedly snapped pictures trying to keep warm and stay dry,

Next time I'll take my time and get more angles, but being cold and wet is not a state I feel comfortable photographing in at all.

Scariest thing I saw at the market. What kid wants a clown at a birthday party? They are slightly terrifying.

Look at this adorable flower! Looks like a Red Hat society kind of plant, doesn't it?

Hmmm. So good. I've had some of this maple syrup before and it is really yummy. A gallon looks huge though, that must last a year!

A really awesome gourmet muffin. I usually only like eating the tops, but I had to eat more than just the frosting this time because it was so rich and let's be real, I love rich desserts.

We don't need a plastic bag, we brought our cool reusable bag. I'm all about the cloth bags. They fit so much more items in, are greener and the handles don't break.

I've heard good things about Simply Gelato, but when we got there selection was lacking. It was too cold for me to have any, but next time I shall get some.

Organic soap that smelled nice. Mumsy bought some cool scented ones and they were so cute.