Upcycling

What exactly is upcycling? Upcycling is the process of taking something old and making it new again. Not refurbishing, but rather changing it into something better or different. I have this Holoku Mu'u Mu'u, for those of you on the mainland it is similar to a mermaid dress fitted and then flaring out around the knees.

I loved it pre baby. Post baby, I still love it but it does not love me or the 30 lbs I can't seem to get rid of. May Day is coming up and my daughter needed new aloha wear for her class performance. I picked out some adorable fabric and had grand plans to make a Matilda Jane-esk dress using all aloha print. I choose lots of fun shades of pink and purple. Then I learned that the class color would be blue. Oops. Then I thought of this dress and how I still loved the fabric. So what is a girl to do? Upcycle of course!

I think it turned out amazing!

I'm soo darn excited for May Day now!
Happy Earth Day bloggy world! What can you upcycle today?
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Location:Palai St,Village Park,United States

The Family Minivan

We live in Hawaii, on O'ahu specifically. We have some unique issues especially with parking. When you have a baby in a infant carrier and you drive a regular 4 door vehicle sedan style you have to be able to open the car door all the way open to get that carrier out of the car. In a Hawaiian parking lot that is virtually impossible. Most spots are soo narrow that you have a hard time getting out yourself let alone getting the baby seat out. Now that I have a 5 year old, who has accidentally put door marks in many cars getting herself out of the car, and another infant our old Ford Focus wagon just wasn't cutting it anymore. The upgrade time had come. It's only new to me, and doesn't have all the bells and whistles but its an amazing antistresstimine in my life. I can now haul around the extra kids I need to regularly, and get the baby out without turning into a pretzel. The gas expense I'm not so fond of, but the positives far outweigh that negative.



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Basic bread recipe

L's bread recipe is the first recipe we are going to share because bread is soo important to moms. Toast, sandwiches, and just generally best for filling little bellies.
1and 1/2cup water
1/2 cup coconut milk
3 Tblsp sugar
4 tsp yeast
Sprinkle of salt
5 cups flour
Step 1:
Measure the water in a microwave safe cup or bowl. Heat for 1 minute.
Add coconut milk.

My darling hubby bought me a kitchen-aid mixer and so I use that, however you could do this all by hand, although you should know its a lot of work.
Step 2:
Put the. Sugar, yeast and salt in the mixing bowl, pour milk and water mixture over the dry ingredients.

Let the yeast activate for a couple of minutes till a froth begins to form.
Step 3:
Measure in all 5 cups of flour. Using the Dough hook....

Turn on mixer first to level 1 until you can hear the strain, then move it up to level 2.

Allow it to mix for roughly 8-10 minutes.

I've made so much bread that my mixer bounces around a little so I usually hold it down. If the dough seems to be sticking too much add. Flour 1/4 cup at a time.
Step 4:
take the dough hook out of the dough and remove the bowl from the mixer.


Place the bowl inside a plastic shopping bag and tie closed. Allow to rise for approximately 1/2 hour.


Step 5:
Once dough has doubled in size.


Turn dough out onto a generously floured surface.

Knead dough adding flour as necessary until dough is no longer sticky. Cut dough into 2 equal balls. I use a pizza cutter.
Step 6:
roll out dough to a thickness of about a 1/4 inch in a rectangleoid shape. To make sure it is not too sticky i usually roll a little lift the dough, add flour underneath and flip several times. once you have gotten it thin enough roll the dough into a log shape the length of your loaf pan. I use parchment paper to line the pan. Place dough log in the pan to rise. Allow to rise for about 1 hour.
(Photo was taken after baking it)

Step 7:
carefully place pan in oven at 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

The amazing thing about this recipe is that with a few tweaks you can use it for lots of different things. This recipe is going in first because you will need it for many of our other favorites like pretzels, doughnuts, pizza, garlic balls, etc, just wait and see.

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What do we mean by Allergic to Motherhood?

Okay so years of living with food allergies has taught me a few things. First and for most is that quite often motherhood and allergies produce the same reactions. For example your toddler sees your fairly new smart phone sitting on the coffee table, she picks it up and notices that it feels hot. Well what do you do with hot things, you put them in water to cool off. So into your nice cold glass of water goes your cell phone. Then knowing that might not be right they pull it out of the water and immediately go find something to play with. Coming out of the bathroom you notice how well she is playing and congratulate her on playing so well. Patting yourself on the back for having such a calm and independent child and happy that you could use the bathroom alone for a change. Then all at once you notice the puddle around your phone.... it becomes difficult to breathe, then your breathing all but stops as you pick it up and water streams from it. Knowing full well why your daughter was playing so well you suddenly get your breath back only to yell and turn several shades of red. When you get that out of the way and you are a little calmer you try to explain to your toddler why it was wrong only to have them use such perfectly clear logic as to why it was right.

Yep just like allergies, breathing is difficult and a physical reaction is all but guaranteed. Motherhood can really send you into shock. SO how can we cope? Well with antistresstimines of course.
According to Wiki "A histamine antagonist (commonly called an antihistamine) is a pharmaceutical drug that inhibits the action of histamine by blocking it from attaching to histamine receptors; or it may inhibit the enzymatic activity of histidine decarboxylase, catalyzing the transformation of histidine into histamine (atypical antihistaminics)."Antihistamines are commonly used for the relief of allergies caused by intolerance of proteins." 

So an AntiSTRESStimine is a Stress Antagonist which can be just about anything that inhibits stress by blocking it from taking hold of our life and making it spin out of control. Antistresstimines are commonly used for the relief of stress caused by the state of being a mother.

For now we will share some of our favorite antistresstimines. Recipes, products, and destinations that make our lives better. be prepared for some rants along the way. This is just one way that we can cope with our lives. Between us we have 6 adorable stress initiators and when they get together they are an adorable tornado, lets just say there is a lot of chances to use antistresstimines in our lives.