So, as I've mentioned before, I am an avid believer that retail therapy can be helpful in many ways. It can be good cardio (if you hit enough stores), stress relief (if shopping is your cup of tea), and it triggers our carefree, creative mindset. Of course these are attained by doing so in a responsible way. I'm not telling you to go blow your whole paycheck at the mall to feel free. But just treating yourself to something pretty once and a while can do wonders for a girl. Mr. Charming and I make sure the tithe and bills are paid, that we save a little for a rainy day and buy healthful food, however, sometimes, one of the things I need is to shop. To just detach for a while and shop. Mr. Charming understands this about me, and I in return understand his love for all things tech-y and gadget-y. Clothes and home decor are my specialties. Yesterday, Mr. Charming and I are redecorating quite a bit to make our space feel more like "us", I went to my favorite home stores and got some new place settings, rugs, and decor to compliment the furniture pieces I am refinishing at the moment. (which I am so excited to share with you all when it's finished and it is a HUGE money saver!)  I also got Mr. Charming some props for his photography business some cute fall clothes for the both of us, and some cute props and backgrounds for my foodie photography for Nosh & Nurture. 

Whil shopping is fun & lovely.. I wanted to move onto the Proverbs portion of my post. As I stated earlier this month I am focusing on being a more well-rounded woman. I adore my career(s), always have, so I had bit of a rocky start with adapting to the balance of housewife and career woman on top of my many, exhaustive creative endeavors that make my soul flourish. Connecting with God has helped me with this in so many ways so I wanted to touch on each portion of the Proverbs 31 post a little more in depth from time to time.

#1: Faith. When I get busy I am the first to admit that church falls to the wayside. I hope this changes when we are parents as I want to instill its importance in our children's lives, because I love our Lord with all my heart. Though I know, like with any habit, if I don't do it now, I can't expect to set a great example for my future children. However, God isn't only in church. He's in us, so I do make a point to do morning devotionals every day, couples devotionals at night with my hubs and stay active in prayer. Don't beat yourself up over how much you do or don't do. God knows our stories, our reasons, our excuses, and our attempts. He loves us no matter what, but I feel its important to make an effort so that we can grow. Share how you stay active in your faith day to day. I'd love to hear inspiring feedback!

Which means I am counting down to fall. Eighteen days to go. I'm seriously counting. I wasn't kidding. I live in Arizona, which means each day that creeps closer to fall means I am closer to hiking again. Running outside. Picnicking in the park. Playing mini golf with Mr. Charming. Basically, not feeling like I'm going to die if I roll down the windows in my car only to be hit in the face with an oven-like heat. 

So... a few awesome things in September. The new featured recipe is now on the site! Zucchini pancakes which are scrumptious and are free of gluten, dairy, egg, grains, nuts and are completely vegan! 

Cold & flu season seems to have hit our house early this year. Oh joy. So Mr. Charming and I are stuck on the couch with an abundance of movies and veggies and supplements. Ok. and I snuck 2 gluten free chocolate chip cookies. But it was only 5 grams of sugar and I ate REALLY clean. Like, all week. 

To help better prepare your immune systems for the magic that is school and workplace germs, the following supplements and vitamins seem to work quite well. 
*Remember to always discuss any regimen with your doctor before starting new medications, vitamins or supplements

• Vitamin D -I load up on extra when I feel rundown, though I am also deficient. So it's a double whammy. I'm taking 4,000 iu a day right now.
• Echinacea - I do 1 capsule 2-3 times a day as a tea. Sometimes I add honey to cut the bitterness, but not often, because sugar feeds your germs. 
• ViraClear - I get this from my Naturopath in liquid form and I believe its saved me some colds in the past. 
• A pharmaceutical grade Probiotic - Everyday. 100 Billion. With gut issues and now a weakened immune system I can't afford not to devour these by the billions. 
• My morning protein shake - Loaded with turmeric, ginger, blueberries, and coconut it packs A LOT of anti-inflammatory, immune-boosting goodness. To see the one I use, click here. 
• And water - LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of water. Seriously. LOTS. 9+ glasses.

Stay healthy & be well! 
Sincerely ,
Mr. and Mrs. Sniffles. 

It's officially September, which means Back to School! When you throw school schedules in with work schedules, time is stretched to the max and students and families are shuffling to get out the door in the mornings - which tends to mean poor choices in meals, excercise and general care for your overall well being. With the Top 10 Quick Breakfast post being such a hit, I thought I would compose two more lists. 

10 Easy Lunches For The College Student - Mr. Charming works a full time job and goes to school at night, so I like to make sure we have healthful choices at home that he can take with him to keep him full & focused throughout his day. We've made a personal choice to never grab fast food or conveinece item that has ingredients that are foreign to us, so it's important, when making this choice to have something on you so you don't go hungry. Click here to see the list. 

The second list is for the Granola Mommies out there.

10 Easy Lunches for the Littles - With school comes the added worry of your childs nutrition. Especially for children with food allergies or sensitivies, its crucial that you pack your childs lunch so you know exactly what they are eating. Click here to see the list. 

My day started off like this. And all credit must go to Trader Joes for their new gluten & dairy free pancakes. I make 95% of my food fresh, cooking it myself, but sometimes on busy work mornings such as today a frozen pancake with minimal ingredients was a-ok to me. I sprinkled them with fresh, organic blueberries and I got organic, all natural chicken and maple sausage to go along with. Mmmm!

I must say I felt very balanced & accomplished today. I give all the praise to my heavenly father for that one because lately I've felt a little overwhelmed trying to keep up with two jobs, the house and relationships. Today I managed to:

• work a full shift at the studio, secure a concert with Nike and blog!
• fully cleaned my office and kitchen. I'm talking top to bottom, cupboards, stove, microwave, the works.
• Prepared breakfast, and a healthy balanced dinner for Mr. Charming.
• AND I found out a song of mine got placed on MTV2 on a show called "Guy Code"

I usually don't toot my own horn, but since I've wanted to spend a lot of this month in bed (partly due to my current ear infection and earlier this month due to hormonal and food issues) I have to give praise and thanks for super productive days. Especially since I'm currently trying to be more intentional on being a Proverbs 31 wifey and woman to those around me. Energy definitely comes in handy for that! So.. on to those new recipes! I posted a ton of new recipes this weekend with even more to come. The latest additions are all gluten & dairy-free with additional notations made on each recipe. If you have any dietary restriction recipe requests, let me know! Without further adieu.. bon appetite!

• Chocolate Granola
• Egg & Veggie Scramble
• Bacon Wrapped Eggs with Sweet Potato Hash
• BLTA Wraps
• Grilled Cabbage & Bacon
• Pesto & Tomato Spaghetti Squash
• Zucchini Pasta 

So, at it's conception I started my little blog here to post recipes. Recipes of food that was safe for me, and others who can't tolerate dairy or gluten, to enjoy. As it started to bloom and I started cleaning up the environment around me, I branched out into incorporating fitness and ways to clean your home without all the harsh, gross chemicals. After getting my certificate in natural beauty my love for organic, all natural ways to do my hair and makeup and skin care inspired me to add that. And so on. 

Yet, as I look at my life and all the wonderful little puzzle pieces... one of the things, if not the main thing, that makes me most happy, and healthy to my core, healthy in my heart, my soul, is love. God's love, love I pour out to others, love that others pour onto me and this man right here. My husband's love. My Mr. Charming. 

I've opened up about my story. I go through these things in my life for a reason and I adore helping others make healthy choices, so I felt like, if I didn't share our story I wasn't sharing a big piece of me with you all. My best friend and I got married September 17th, 2011 and I adore this man. He supports me in all that do. He cheers me on to go for my dreams, he will go to twenty grocery stores in a day just to see a smile on my face when I finally find that perfect gluten free treat I'd been searching for. He holds my hands on the days that are scary and celebrates with me on the days that are amazingly God-gifted and beautiful. I pray that I can one day give this man all the little babies his heart desires, which is one of the reasons I stay on this journey to figure out my health stuff so that I can be strong and healthy to have a family. I thank you all for reading. For being a part of my little journey. I love being able to share and inspire and in return learn and be inspired from all of you. 

I will be sharing more of our journey together here on my love page, as well as other ways we can inspire and love one another!

So, if you're like me and possess type A personality tendencies, you probably adore list making. The satisfaction of crossing something off of a list is one of things that makes me most happy in life. It's that feeling of gratification and accomplishment. Sidenote: It is NOT the same on a phone. iPad. Computer. Or any other technological device that's come along and threatened to take away my pad & paper obsession. I love planners. Spiral bound, real day planners. I love chalkboards. So, much so that I am converting my refrigerator into one.

My office is also covered in white boards and schedules. But I love it this way, that is my happy place. I also firmly believe that bookstores, magazines and newspapers should never go away. Because they too, are my happy place. That and it's how I make a living. 

Tonight we had a crazy big storm here, in Arizona we have a "monsoon season", which is basically massive thunder and lightening storms paired with insane dust clouds that make everything gross and dirty and add to my sinus issues. I've drank 3 mugs of echinacea tea today, by the way. So in the midst of the storm, haha haha, sorry, I perused blogs while trying to set up some more freelance jobs and find more recipes for fall I could de-gluten. And I stumbled upon this lovely blog where she made a plan to make 52 lists over the course of a year. And I fell in love with the notion. If you're looking for a way to connect to the beauty in life, this is a great start. 

This week has definitely had its fair share of ups & downs. It mentally exhausted me. I cried a lot. Tried not to worry too much. Spent time with family and let my soul laugh and rejuvenate  I got to spend some much needed one on one time with my husband. And I wrote and worked, a lot. In a nutshell I went in for some tests, that looked as if they may be worse than they were, however, my Dr. is amazing and wanted to be thorough. So I am alright kiddos, however, I have been feeling sicker lately. A mix of hormonal stuff and I think grains were getting the best of me and I am on a mission to be grain free by Christmas. And a long term goal to control my candida. 


And this goal has really been a challenge for me. Because I like rice with stuff in moderation. I gave up gluten, dairy and corn cold turkey. Didn't look back, even though I still dream about cheese sometimes, but for some reason letting go of rice and sugar (even in the healthy, organic honey kind of way I consume it) hasn't been as cut and dry.


But my candida hasn't cleared and I know that it poses a real health danger. Fungi can lead to all kinds of worse health problems like my little scare this week so I want to do everything in my power to put the healthier fuel in my body, the fuel that God created for me to consume, that my body can handle. This week when I had a crazy chocolate craving I sat down and ate this. A big bowl of spinach, smothered in apple cider vinegar. I can't let it win. 

So, this week I am planning to attempt to create "rice" out of cauliflower to serve as a side dish. I will let you know how it goes, Mr. Charming isn't a cauliflower fan so I shall attempt to make it as "ricey" as possible with sea salt and a little coconut oil. A happy moment highlight, I spent the weekend at my sisters house and my picky-with-food two year old niece loved my lasagna and it made my heart happy! Wishing you all health, healing, love & happiness. Take it one day at a time. The great ones make it all worth it. 

So, I am obessesed with fall and winter. Yes, I ADORE the beach and cute summery clothes, but it pretty much ends there. Even living on the beach, summer has always been my least favorite month. Except for my birthday. (June 20th, woot woot!) I adore birthdays. And celebrations. Parties of any kind really. Anyways. I wanted to make something that tasted like fall but that was healthy. I'm really excited to make healthy dishes for the holidays this year and wanted to start testing some out. Mr. Charming and I woke up the other morning and while he was cooking us up some organic eggs I made us coconut flour pumpkin muffins. Next time I will use almond flour, because for some reason I still can't get down with the strong sweetness in the coconut flour, but these were fun and would make a good addition to a Labor Day BBQ. (and even cuter when made with stars & stripes cupcake wrappers.) You can find the recipe here. 

Anything warm and fluffy. Or warm and savory. Or made with pumpkins. Or squash. Or turkey. Makes me want to curl up with an old movie and countdown the days until Christmastime. <3 What's your favorite time of year and why? Send me your favorite Fall recipe and if its allergen friendly I will add it as a guest post! If it's not, I can show you how to adapt it to be! 

So this past weekend was filled with work, tons of writing and a simple date night with my love. I havn't been feeling to good lately, so we took it easy and decided to do a game night in at home (he kicked my butt at yahtzee!). I decided to skip dinner and lighten the load on my digestive system and just had my anti-inflammatory smoothie for dinner. Usually when I do this I will treat my hubby to Jamba Juice and a Builder Bar so he can get a fruit smoothie too and I ended up picking some some organic dehydrated apples to munch on if i got hungry! (which I did, and they were delicious!)

We've also posted the sequel to Miss Kaity's Chinese Herb piece here, which I find fascinating and we hope you do too, even helpful! She is really inspiring me to put my own story out there more, exposing even the dark corners of all of this, why we have to eat this way, live this way. Blessed to have her be a part of the Nosh & Nurture journey. Everyone enjoy your week! Be productive and healthy! 

So apparently today was National Sister Day. One of those random, made-up "holidays" like National Donut Day or National Wear Pink Socks Day that is totally ridiculous. However, any day I get to spend with my sister, Ashley, is an amazing one so we thought "what the hey" let's celebrate this bogus little "holiday" and so we did. I was ecstatic to hear of a little coffee shop in Scottsdale from the owner of my work, Elements.(Thanks, Shauna!) Jolta Java and Echo Coffee in Scottsdale both have rice milk and almond milk lattes! YAY for not having to roadtrip it 90 miles to Prescott for good organic, vegan coffee! And while I barely do sugar, and can't handle caffeine (decaf all the way for me) sometimes I like to sit in a quaint coffee shop, catching up with my sister and splurge on something yummy that won't totally take me down. Enter, the vegan latte.

Afterwards, we hit our favorite shopping quarter and did this. 

Because being healthy in mind body and spirit, always includes a little retail therapy, right? ;)