The Adventures of Shoogie...All Natural products

N o more tantrums, fights, or parent vs. squirmy child to get that sunblock on their face.  The sun is hot, brutal and blistering, in fact it's close to 100 degrees here almost every day in August, and there is no way I am enjoying more than 15 minutes in our Florida sunshine without sunblock and of course without sweating like I am in a sauna, and that is NOT the goal today.  I am sitting behind my bright computer screen hammering away on the keys in my gloriously cool house watching the birds outside fighting for the shade of my bottle brush tree.   This Wednesday, my friend Stacey and I and our tribe of children got together for a summer movie, lunch and some playing out in that Florida sunshine at the downtown splash pad.  My other friend, Michelle and her two kiddos joined us late afternoon at the splash pad and they got to test the new Mermaid Sunblock firsthand. I am not joking when I say they were practically fighting each other to get to the glorious...

S ummer quickly approaches and I can tell by the amount of Naughty Bits & Pits I have been using, and by the way my front lawn grass is folding over on itself in protest to the scorching sun.  Our summer starts in Florida in the month of April, literally a week after Easter, and as a mom, I longingly look over at the amount of popsicles my children are consuming without worry of those luscious calories sitting on their bodies like us parents do...I mean the sugar alone in them, you might as well pour a cup of sugar into a bowl and give them a spoon, sooooo that was out for me.  However, I started thinking about how this lady could incorporate the refreshing feeling of a pop without all the sugar, and lets add in some heart healthy benefits...that's right...WINE! I know I have joked about this before, but I am certain that my entire family that doesn't see me at my house every day, really thinks I am a bonified W-I-N-O.  I assure you I am not, I mean I TRY to d...

S angria is kind of...like my jam...and by that, I mean, I enjoy making it, I like sharing my recipes with friends, and I especially looooooove drinking it.  It makes my taste buds happy, it is refreshing, it has two of my favorite things in it...wine and fruit, and it is good for you, you know, for a sane mind...have a glass after a long day and you will start to relax kind of good for you.   I had a really great batch at this restaurant in Miami called Naked Taco with my friend Teresa last month while we were waiting to attend the SOBE WFF.  We had a sip and ordered a pitcher...to which we polished off the entire thing within two hours.  It was cold and tasty and made with brewed tea instead of fruit juice so it wasn't overly sweet.  I told her the next time I came across a mediocre batch of wine that I was going to brew up some of this deliciousness.  That mediocre bottle came last night.  I opened a zinfandel that was a bit acidic and sh...

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. ...