Using Pinterest for your Online Business

I you have a website or online shop you should be using Pinterest. Is is an excellent and easy-to-use promotional tool.  It is a great visual way to get more traffic to your site or shop. (Also a fun way to wile away the hours looking at beautiful photos of places you'd like to travel to or recipes that make your mouth water.)

Add a Pinterest button to your toolbar (so you can "Pin" things quick as a wink!



And now there is Pinerly! 

Pinerly is a new application that makes it easier than ever to use Pinterest. Use it to follow/unfollow pinners, view popular pins, schedule pins, and get statistics to learn how to reach a larger audience. It will help you to optimize your marketing strategies so that you can focus on your content!

More about Pinterest and how and why you should be using it: http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/9-tips-boost-your-business-pinterest.htmlUse this link to sign up for Pinerly: http://www.pinerly.com/i/NabX9

Find me on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/hollynsage/

How to Make Coconut Milk - So Delicious!

I made coconut milk for the first time today and I am so excited about it! I had never tasted truly fresh coconut milk before so I didn't know what I was missing, but - WOW! It is so creamy and smooth.

I followed Jenny's instructions at Nourished Kitchen for making it, and it worked great. It was time-consuming (getting all that coconut out of the shell and peeling the skin off of it), but not hard.* (See my time-saving update below!)

PS - Get free shipping from Tropical Traditions with code 200212free - hurry, it expires midnight EST, Monday, February 20th.


Once you get it out you basically just put it in a blender with some water and blend it up. I was afraid that my blender would have trouble with it (it doesn't do well with ice, for instance), but it shredded it right up quite easily. After I squeezed the liquid out of it, the remaining coconut looked just like what you buy at the store! (Except it didn't have any additives.)

The instructions say to strain it through butter muslin, but I don't have any of that so I used an old (clean!) cotton pillowcase that was getting thin with wear. I cut a large square out of one side of the pillowcase and used it to strain the coconut. It worked perfectly and I felt good about putting something that I thought was 'worn out' to good use!

Jenny says to put the coconut in a dehydrator to use in baked goods, etc. just like any other coconut. I have a dehydrator, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of putting the coconut in it, so I just put it in a plastic container in the freezer. That should be just as good.

After I made it I drank a glass of it before storing it in the frige. It was still warm and indescribably delicious!  Bonus: my hands were really soft from the coconut oil after I finished squeezing the milk out of the coconut.

CHEERS!

*TIME SAVING UPDATE! I just found a product that saves me from having to cut open a coconut and pry the meat out and scrape all the peel off - this is HUGE, believe me! And it actually saves money, too. I was paying from $2 to $4 each for coconuts at the grocery store until I decided to try to find some natural packaged coconut meat without sweetener or additives. I discovered Tropical Traditions Organic Dried Coconut Flakes (it is available shredded, too). 

I ordered a 2.2 lb. bag, and it is a LOT of coconut. It looks to be the equivalent of about 6 coconuts. Since I only paid $8.50 for it (on sale - regular price is $10. - still a good deal), that is like paying less than $1.50 per coconut. PLUS it is organic AND saves a LOT of work! What could be better? :-D


Coconut Chips - 2.2-lb Bag



Order before midnight EST, Monday, February 20th and get free shipping - use code 200212free. 

It's a New Year - What're You Gonna Do With It? My Goals for 2012

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions or start any big changes with the new year. I don't know why, but this year feels different. Maybe it is the inspiration of several good blogs I have discovered this past year. Anyway, I seriously want to get my act together and start living the life I want to live! It seems like a good time to do it...

My 12 Goals for 2012

Goal 1: Simplify my life

This is a big one! I have been yearning to simplify my life for several years now, but I never seem to make much progress in that direction. It seemed so overwhelming that I never know where to start. Every 'simplifying' project that I undertook seemed to make my life even more complicated... probably because I always ended up trying to do everything at once and not finishing anything.

Tsh Oxenreider must have been reading my mind when she wrote One Bite at a Time because she presents a list of 52 changes that you can easily make one at a time. It seems like a no-brainer, but anyone can make one change - it is easy and do-able. I have always said I can do anything if I have a list in front of me. Now I do! (My task this week is #45, Set annual goals.)

(I also plan to break down my yearly goals so that I tackle one each month instead of all at once. That is why I choose 12 goals.)

Goal 2: Learn to use Nook and Springpad

I got a Nook for Christmas :-) I like it a lot, but I am really feeling my age - it is taking me a while to learn to use certain features of it. One of the main reasons I wanted to get one was so that I can consolidate all my lists. I am a list-maker, and I always seem to have lists all over the house. I spend a lot of time looking for missing lists.

My goal is to get all my lists onto the Nook so I will always know where they are. But first, I have to learn how to use it effectively.

Goal 3: Get up earlier and establish a morning routine

I have found that I have a happier and more productive day when I get up and take a shower and get dressed right away. If I don't do it right away I end up in my pajamas at 2:00 in the afternoon and I feel really lazy.

Goal 4: Get organized

This is another big one. Kinda like simplifying, but not exactly. Getting organized, to me, has more to do with my physical space - finding a place for everything and making my home a sanctuary instead of a temple of chaos...

Stephanie O'Dea of Totally Together Journal is one of my favorite blogger friends. Organization is her thing. I will use many of her tips to accomplish this one.

Goal 5: Quit coffee

Ann Marie of Cheeseslave is another favorite that I discovered very recently. I agree wholeheartedly with her food philosophy and she gives great nutritional advice in easy-to-understand language.

She gave up coffee a while back and she tells her reasons for doing it in 30 Reasons to Quit Coffee. I believe that if I give up drinking coffee I will sleep better (a big problem for me), digest my food better, have more energy, and just generally feel better.

Goal 6: Find out what my food allergies are and alter my diet accordingly

I have read a lot about going gluten-free, and I suspect that I might be allergic to wheat and/or gluten. I don't think I am allergic to dairy, but I want to test for that too, just so I know for sure. You can find an easy method for testing yourself at home in The Mood Cure by Julia Ross.

The Mood Cure: The 4-Step Program to Take Charge of Your Emotions--Today

Goal 7: Clean out the attic

Our attic is a mess. There are things up there that have been in boxes for the whole 3 1/2 years we have lived in this house. Occasionally one of us will go up there to look for something and rummage around in the chaos which makes it even worse (and even harder to find something the next time).

My  goal is to remove everything that we don't need and get rid of it. The  rest of it needs to be organized so that we know where things are when  we need them. (This goes for that closet in the garage, too.)

Note:  This project needs to be done in the spring or fall. It is too hot in  the attic in the summer and too cold in the winter. Better do it in the  spring, or it may never get done!

Goal 8: Connect with the Earth

A little while back I came across an article on "earthing". I had never heard of it before, so I did some research and it really piqued my interest. Many experts believe that there are a lot of benefits to one's health and well-being from physical connection with the earth. I won't try to explain it; for information check out Earthing.com.

I hope to spend a bit of time each day (as weather allows) with my bare feet on the ground. The fresh air and sunshine won't do me any harm, either!

Goal 9: Unclutter my wardrobe - FINALLY!

I dream of looking in my closet and seeing only things that I love and that fit me well and look good on me. I think can make this happen if I set sentiment aside and clear out about half of what I own.

I feel stressed out when I see things in my closet or drawers that I don't really want to wear but I can't part with. If those things were gone, I would probably never miss them and I could avoid that stress!

There is a section in One Bite at a Time about this that should inspire me. Also, Frugal Living Now has suggestions for general decluttering.

Goal 10: Get some exercise

This is no surprise. Like just about everyone I know I would feel better if I exercised - I have experienced it in the past. I don't know why I fight so hard to keep from doing it, but I do. This year I want to finally stop talking about it, planning it, and researching equipment and just take the plunge and DO it!

Goal 11: Create an essential papers and information file

This includes passwords for my husband so he can have access to my accounts, etc. if something happens to me. He is going to do the same for me. We really should do a will, too - maybe I can convince him to stop procrastinating and do that too.

Goal 12: Make annual goals for 2013

Do this for next year. Hopefully BEFORE the new year next time. It is the 4th already and I am still planning. Oh, well - better late than never I guess!

Next week I am going to write about how I am customizing Tsh's 52 projects into a plan that works for me.

Real Food Recipe: Holiday Eggnog

I always loved eggnog as a kid - it was one of my favorite holiday traditions. When I got older, though, it didn't taste as good. I eventually realized that it wasn't me that had changed, but the eggnog. 

The eggnog I had as a child was homemade by my mother from real eggs and milk. The eggnog I had later came in a carton from the store. I haven't read the ingredients on these cartons of 'eggnog', but I am certain that I wouldn't be happy with what I saw if I did! 

So, I have always made my own eggnog. Now that I am buying pastured eggs and raw milk from local farmers I feel especially good about drinking and serving this real food homemade eggnog!

If you would like to make some yourself, here is my recipe. Don't worry - it is really easy!

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup of whole, raw milk
• 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla
• dash of nutmeg (optional)

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend for 1 - 2 minutes to mix thoroughly. Pour into glasses or mugs and sprinkle a bit of nutmeg on top.

Serves 2

What Exactly is Real Food? 

Why Raw Milk?

Cheers! And Happy Holidays!

Is Skim Milk Making You Fat?

I received this article today and thought it was worth sharing.

Is Skim Milk Making You Fat?
By Paul John Scott

You probably spend all of one second deciding what kind of milk to put in your coffee. What's to debate? If you want to keep the pounds off and avoid heart disease, choose skim. This is gospel, after all: It's recommended by the USDA and has so permeated our thinking that you can't even find reduced-fat (2%) milk at places like Subway—and forget about whole.

But is it true? Let's start with the question of what's fattening. Whole milk contains more calories and, obviously, more fat. A cup has 146 calories and almost 8 grams of fat, reduced-fat (2%) has 122 calories and almost 5 grams of fat, low-fat (1%) has 103 calories and 2.5 grams of fat, and nonfat (skim) has 83 calories and virtually no fat.

But when it comes to losing weight, restricting calories has a poor track record. Evidence gleaned from numerous scientific studies says that if you starve yourself for lunch, you typically compensate at dinner. And according to a 2007 report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, telling overweight and obese patients to cut calories led to only "transient" weight loss—it didn't stay off. The same goes for cutting saturated fat. In 2003, the Cochrane Collaboration, a respected source for unbiased reviews of research, compared low-fat diets with low-calorie diets and found that "fat-restricted diets are no better than calorie-restricted diets in achieving long-term weight loss." As Walt Willet of the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in theAmerican Journal of Medicine, "Diets high in fat do not appear to be the primary cause of the high prevalence of excess body fat in our society, and reductions in fat will not be a solution."

It's becoming widely accepted that fats actually curb your appetite, by triggering the release of the hormone cholecystokinin, which causes fullness. Fats also slow the release of sugar into your bloodstream, reducing the amount that can be stored as fat. In other words, the more fat in your milk, the less fat around your waist. Not only will low-fat milk fail to trim your gut, it might even make you fatter than if you were to drink whole, according to one large study. In 2005, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and other institutions studied the weight and milk consumption of 12,829 kids ages 9 to 14 from across the country. "Contrary to our hypothesis," they reported, "skim and 1% milk were associated with weight gain, but dairy fat was not."

But surely low-fat milk is better for your heart? We are often told to watch our consumption of dairy because it raises our bad cholesterol, the kind known as LDL. But LDL comes in at least four varieties, and only the smallest and densest of them are linked with heart disease. Dairy fat, it turns out, affects only the large, fluffy kind of LDL—the benign kind.

And here's a final thought: How would you feel if you opened a carton and poured a chalky, bluish-white liquid into your coffee? That's the color many nonfat milks are before powdered milk is added to whiten them—a process that brings its own problems. Any way you look at it, there's been a lot of whitewashing of skim milk's image.

THE SKINNY ON NONFAT MILK
To turn skim milk white, "some companies fortify their product with powdered skim," says Bob Roberts, a dairy scientist at Penn State. Powdered skim (which is also added to organic low-fat milks) is produced by spraying the liquid under heat and high pressure, a process that oxidizes the cholesterol. In animal studies, oxidized cholesterol triggers a host of biological changes, leading to plaque formation in the arteries and heart disease, Spanish researchers reported in 1996. "OCs are mutagenic and carcinogenic," they wrote. In 1998, Australian researchers studied rabbits fed OC and found that the animals "had a 64% increase in total aortic cholesterol" despite having less cholesterol in their blood than rabbits fed natural sources of the substance. (A 2008 Chinese study with hamsters confirmed these findings.) Roberts says the amount of OC created by adding powdered skim is "not very much," but until the effects on humans are known, it's impossible to say what's a safe level.


Also of interest: 

What is Real Food?

I Drink Raw Milk: Fresh, raw, local, and full of fat

What Exactly is REAL FOOD?

I am reading a book that might very well change my life! That is a strong statement, but I feel strongly that eating 'real food' will have an incredibly positive impact on my life.

In Real Food: What to Eat and Why Nina Planck does an excellent job of explaining complex scientific nutritional information so that a layman (me) can understand it.

I am a long-time fan of Michael Pollan. He presents the problem of eating industrial food (as opposed to real food) in a very readable way, but doesn't solve the problem, so to speak, as well as Ms. Planck does. Reading this book has prompted me to TAKE ACTION to change the foods I eat.

(This is where my husband and some of my friends roll their eyes and say, 'There she goes again...') time will tell if this is truly a life-long change or a short-lived fad. Time will tell. I am betting my health on it! (Okay, that was a bit dramatic! Sorry!)

So, what exactly IS real food?  

Real food is traditional foods that humans have been eating for millenia:

• Unprocessed traditional oils and fats: butter, coconut oil, olive oil, chicken fat and lard. NEVER hydrogenated!
  
• Meat (chickens, cows, sheep, etc) raised the old-fashioned way - on farm pastures. Eating grass, bugs, etc - what they were meant by nature to eat.
• Eggs from pastured chickens, ducks, or geese.
  
• Fresh fruits and vegetables. Ideally locally grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
• Wild fish and seafood
• Minimally processed whole grains
  
• Full fat dairy foods, ideally raw from grass-fed cows
• Wild game (rabbit, deer, etc.)
• Traditional cultured and fermented foods: yogurt, sauerkraut, and sourdough bread
• Unrefined sweeteners: honey, maple syrup, evaporated cane juice (in moderation!)

NOT real food:

• Processed foods of any kind - cereals, industrial breads, etc.

• Imitation anything - soy "meat" products, margarine (fake butter), non-dairy creamer or 'dessert topping', processed cheese, etc.
• Light or low-fat products. Sugar is often added and these are without exception highly processed foods.
• Powdered eggs
• Bleached white flour and sugar

This list is probably not complete - I am a only a student of this and still learning. I encourage you to read the book for yourself. You will never look at food the same way again!

(See all Health, Mind & Body Books at Amazon.com)

Michael Pollan

Introductory Offer - New Beaded Wrap Bracelets only $15!

My newest designs are these colorful wrap cuff bracelets. Made with memory wire, these bracelets are easy to put on because no clasp is necessary - they just wrap right around fitting any size wrist.

 Elegant enough to go with your dressier outfits, but still light-weight, easy to wear, and affordable enough for every day! Try one with a sun dress for a casual summer party!

I have put them on sale for $15 for one week only - don't miss out! (Regular price will be $18.)

Send me a message if you would like a color combination other than the ones I have listed - I am happy to do special orders!

Not in the market for a wrap bracelet right now? Good news - All my other bracelets are $3.00 off this week, too! Sale ends at 11:00 pm Thursday, July 7.

Find me at:
Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/shop/hollynsage
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/HollySage
Twitter -http://twitter.com/hollynsage
Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/hollynsage/