The Adventures of Shoogie...All Natural products

A new year means new resolutions...and this year is no exception.  This year I set a goal for myself to walk a 5K at least three times a week, rain or shine.  I also have this notion from being a mother to two wonderful kids, that time should not be wasted, and multi tasking is a must.  So when 5 o'clock hits, mama gets to cooking dinner and pours herself a glass of red wine...you know, for the heart benefits...so it got me thinking...what if I combined my love of red wine with my loathing of exercising to make it more bearable...and it worked! Every Monday, Wednesday & Friday at 5:30pm I log in to Facebook and Instagram Live and my friend, and kind of neighbor, Hilary and I go to town demonstrating one exercise to torture ourselves with and build up our strength.  Then we walk like shorty shorts speed walkers minus the sweet head and wrist bands, with a lidded tumbler full of 5-6 ounces of the elixir of the gods...AKA red wine...and see if we can beat our tim...

A s most of you know, every once in a while, usually around the holidays, I get a wild hair and decide to post some of my recipes.  Here are two that are sure to please, easy and nourishing for your body.  The first is a chopped salad.  Inspired by a great coleslaw recipe that I have been making for years from the Neeley's.  I decided to change up some of the ingredients to go with the produce that is in season and available at the Florida Local Exchange.  Not only is this extremely tasty, but is has unusual ingredients that I had never tried before until last week.  These recipes both highlight the mighty radish...an often overlooked ingredient in the produce aisle, but one that packs a powerful punch health wise. Why Radishes you ask?  Well, not only are they in season, but here are some of the many health benefits of eating these spicy babies. Fight Cancer Researchers at India’s Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University found that radish...

T here's nothing on the planet quite like a hurricane to level the playing field for all people of any economic status.  Whether you are rich, poor, or somewhere in between, a hurricane doesn't discriminate.  It sweeps through, bringing the furry of wind, rain, debris, unfamiliar pathogens, flash floods, sometimes tornadoes, and it doesn't care about your skin color or how much you bring home every week. It's the first or second weekend in August, the candles (about 15 of them huddled in their jars on a giant charger in the middle of the table) are lit, a bottle of wine is cracked and my husband's cousin, Malisa and I are having a serious conversation in my screened in back porch...we call it fire talk in the winter when we light the giant fire bowl and sit outside sipping wine or hot cocoa...but it's Florida and winter is nowhere in sight yet...at least not for months... so tonight, it is candle talk.   The sticky, humid night greet us, with mosquitoes so th...

M y husband had to work the entire storm as he is part of the Emergency Operations in our community, so I was thankful that our family was mandatory evacuated and was staying with us.  It was a packed house, for sure, but it was also fun.  The kids got to spend time with their cousins and Aunts and Uncles and their dog.  We played that hilarious game with the mouth piece where you say phrases and people try to guess what the heck you are saying...talk about laughter being the best medicine, this was a winner for games...and another game where you don't have to guess the right answer, just the person closest to the right answer wins, which was really fun too.  We made popcorn, and hot dogs and s'mores over the fire pit in our backyard, and the kids swam in the 2 1/2 foot pool in the screened in room in the back porch...to which they declared as their "Hurricane Bathtub" and soaped up and swam in their filth...but at least they were cleaner, another win in my book. ...

Why You Should Detox Your Armpits... Y our body sweats for a reason, and blocking all that sweat is not the right solution. Antiperspirants are made to reduce the production of sweat. Their active ingredient is aluminum salts which dissolve into your skin’s surface creating a barrier. It basically blocks your sweat glands temporarily and reduces the amount of sweat released. But your body is a smart machine and eventually it finds a way to get those toxic, chemical demons out, which is why sometimes you have to change deodorants and eventually you are on the clinical antiperspirant because it is the only thing that is working…trust me that was my story before I found…the lump…in my breast/armpit area. There has also been a lot of speculation if using these type of deodorants are one of the reasons we’re seeing so many cases of breast cancer. I stopped taking my chances 10 years ago and will never use an antiperspirant again…refer back to my original and first blog ever written...

M y friends Megan and Mark own a shop in downtown called Ocala Wine Experience, and this year marked their one year anniversary of being open for them.  They bought the place from a sweet, older British lady a year ago.   When they acquired it, it was in need of a young people vibe to bring it back to life, and Mark and Megan were just the ticket.  Mark has a passion for good food, good wine, and unusual craft beers and he was going to bring that to the table, while Megan is bubbly, fun and outgoing, having the ability to talk to anyone when they walk through the doors.   Before you know it, you are chatting like old friends, and she is selling the crap out of something to you, but she can also be tough when needed if you clearly have had too much to drink. While in a brainstorming session with her this year over a glass...or maybe it was a bottle of shared wine, we were coming up with new ideas for the place as she was wanting to bring in some more events that w...

M y freak out moment came this morning after falling down the proverbial rabbit hole of Facebook/Youtube videos...and I think you know that you too have fallen down the rabbit hole at one point or another.  It is when you start watching or reading one thing that you were looking up and that next video pops up after the one you were just watching...it is just as interesting, if not more, than the last one you watched and one hour later you realize you forgot what you were doing on your phone or computer in the first place.  This morning I fell down the rabbit hole, and it is the first time in a long time I'm glad I did, let me explain why. I am very cautious about what I purchase for my family in terms of soaps, shampoos, toothpaste...don't even get me started on that rant...and foods.  I buy mostly organic, or minimally processed foods for my family and we eat pretty healthily.  I'd like to say we eat healthy100% of the time but in reality it is about...