HERBAL BEAUTY

 My husband is part Lebanese, and Lebanese food is delicious! Every holiday we celebrate with his family, we get to enjoy a wide variety of traditional  Lebanese dishes. One of my favorites is grape leaves. We finally learned how to make them. They turned out great! Our family ate a whole batch in one day. 
The ingredients are simple: rice, beef, lemon or rhubarb, grape leaves, peppermint leaves, salt, and cinnamon. We added quinoa to the last batch. The kids had no idea!  We used peppermint and grape leaves from our garden.

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We currently have 6 sheep and 13 chickens. We feed and water them a few times a day. It is always fun to watch! 

I checked on my herb garden today. I found more green than I expected! 

I planted these lavender plants last Summer. They grew so much! It looks like the winter                  Chamomile. It is still so green! 
did not bother them one bit. They still smell good!  The best variety to grown in MN is                       
Munstead. 

Cilantro. One of my favorites. It still tastes good!     Thyme. Still smells and tastes great!                                   Permaculture island

Today, my husband and I spent the afternoon creating a vision board. I wasn't too thrilled about the idea at first, but once I got started, I got really into it! It brought out my creative side and was also very relaxing. We ended up spending about 4 hours on it, and we came up with some of our best ideas for our future.
Since we both work from home and live on 9.5 acres, it is easy to get distracted and overwhelmed. The vision board is a place we can keep all of our hopes, dreams, projects and more. It also helps us to know each other's goals and intentions so we can motivate each other and stay on track. We focused on farm projects, personal growth, and business goals. I also included some motivational quotes and gentle reminders for how I want my days to feel. 
After we had completed our board, I felt so much lighter. Now I have a clear idea of what to focus on to achieve our goals.

Have you ever made a vision board? If not, you must! The process is so simple and so fulfilling. It is a game changer!
Materials:
Cardboard or foam board
Magazines
Glue stick or tape
Scissors
2-4 hours 

Before you begin, write down some goals for the current year. We focused on farm projects, work goals, and personal growth. 
 "When we’re setting a goal, we think realistically. We analyze our current situation and plan out steps on how to reach our goal. Setting goals is based on reasoning and creating a plan. Setting a goal is very cognitive process of analyzing, planning and reasoning. We are in control of the plan and of all the steps how to get there. But as you know life comes between you and your goals sometimes. Something happens and you can’t do what you had scheduled. It is hard to stay on track because there are so many distractions."-Excerpt from Arina Nikitina @ goal-setting-guide.com
Another important step to creating a successful vision board is setting an intention. 
"Setting an intention is a similar process like setting a goal, but the difference is that you don’t plan out the way how to get there. You just intend the outcome and surrender the process to the universe. It is like making a wish. One requirement that the intention has is that it comes from your heart. It has to be something you really want. It does not come from the reasonable you but from the alive you. It is not created out of fear but out of love. If you’re aware of the battle inside of you between the heart and the mind you know that many times what the heart wishes for the mind destroys with many reasons."
-Excerpt from Arina Nikitina @ goal-setting-guide.com

We are so excited about what we have planned for ourselves, our business and our farm. We plan on sharing the process with you all on here. Stay tuned! 

​Have you ever made a vision board? If so, how has it helped you?