Sunday SELF - C. 🫑 A. 🫧 R.🌿 E.🍸🐄

Hey guys,

Spring has sprung and I’m obsessed with pansies this year because I think they look exactly like my puppy, Lux’s face!

You see it, right?!

Or maybe it’s just that delusional parent lens coming online for me, but walking out to my pansies every morning makes me so happy.

Last month was full of seed sprouting excitement, blooming flowers, and few more rainy days to enjoy cozy hot chocolates before it’s time to swap over to smoothies and cucumber refreshers.

Here’s a glimpse into my world this past month:

Sunday SELF - C. 🫑 A. 🫧 R. 🌿 E.🍸🐄

🫑🥔 Cooking: Zucchini Skillet (Finally zucchini season is on its way back in!)

The zucchini in my garden is just now taking off and spreading its leaves, but I can’t wait until it starts growing this summer so grabbed some zucchini from a farmer’s market and brought back one of my OG favorites after a long winter without it.

As you know from my favorite breakfast in the world, any meal that's a big, giant bowl full of zucchini and potatoes is #1 on my list of deathbed meals.

This dinner recipe is a go-to I’ve been making for years.

When I was a fulltime teacher, I’d make this on Monday for dinner and then for the next three days I’d spend all day dreaming of the leftovers I’d have the second I got home.

It’s so simple I almost can’t even understand why it’s so good…

But there’s no meal that feels more nourishing than this one.

🐶🫧 Art: Captain and Kodiak: Grooming Day

My first children’s book is published! 

This project has been so fun. Finding inspiration in my everyday life and creating from that place of enthusiasm is something I’ll continue for the rest of my life. 

This book encapsulates my family and our love. 

It’s also the exact kind of stories I shared as a teacher and includes discussion questions that open up the type of conversations I loved having with my 3rd graders. 

I believe that children, especially, learn best through stories and kids are way too tapped in these days to be excited about the surface level themes of most children’s books today.

They want real life! They want to share their thoughts on problems that they actually see and experience.

Captain and Kodiak has more obvious themes to unpack like family dynamics and getting along with siblings as well as more undercover themes that can open up conversations about insecurities and dealing with confusing emotions.

There’s also a few Easter egg moments that only the most curious kids will notice! Plus everyone’s favorite moment on the last page where you can see the real-life pictures that this story was based on.

Get your copy of Captain and Kodiak: Grooming Day 🐶🫧🤍

🌿 Reading: Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

I’m super into healing from nature and avoiding “science-based, medical poison” at all costs.

So of course, when you combine memoir with herbalism and ancient, traditional healing practices, I’m all in.

This book is written by a woman who becomes an apprentice to a Mayan healer in Belize. Every morning they forage deep in the rainforest for Earth’s medicine, where her teacher, Don Elijio, knows every single plant and its healing potential.

Despite being called a “witch-doctor” and shamed by society, every day his small home is packed with visitors who come in desperate need of healing.

When medical doctors fail them and desperation takes over, people run back to nature.

And being so disconnected, they lean on this old man, one of the rare few who stuck to what has been done for centuries, using wisdom that was passed down through generations.

Every chapter opens by highlighting one specific plant and how it’s used to cure different ailments. 

I love learning about herbalism while also falling deep into these stories of people healing in ways that is so normal and natural, but completely different from the medical approach that I’ve grown up accustom to.

Explained exactly as I have been saying, we all have to stop with the factory food and women, especially, have got to cool it with all the iced drinks.

I know it’s helped me. That’s all I’m saying.

🍸🐄 Enthusiasm: The ancestral approach to alcohol (and food)

My main focus with everything I make is ancestral recipes with zero packaged food items.

I make bread from grain that comes in a burlap sack. 

Cheese, yogurt, & butter from raw milk, brought home in a glass jar.

Eggs I grab from my backyard and vegetables I handpick from the land I live on.

Obviously this is the most ideal way to live and I’m not 100% there, but I’m on my way to having everything I need and use on my own land or within my community.

This approach to living has made me realize that the very best things in life are ancient.

They’ve been here on Earth basically forever. Nothing new, innovative, or high-tech.

Just simple, natural, and so obviously healthy. Just the pure magic of nature before humans started messing with its process and making us all sick.

I think about this with everything I consume on a regular basis.

Take alcohol for example, some people say it’s all poison and the only healthy way is to avoid it at all costs.

I think that’s true for most of it, but if you want an ancestral approach to alcohol, think about what humans were drinking in 5,000 BC.

They naturally fermented grapes, barley, and honey to have wine, beer, and mead.

So finding wineries, breweries, and meaderies that are still using ancient practices and letting nature do all the work (no chemicals or additives) is what I choose over any kind of hard liquor.

Of course, there is liquor that lets nature do all the work too, but this is a newer invention and it’s obviously a more harsh poison so I make it a very, rare occasional thing.

This is the exciting conversation I’ve had with my husband recently and I love when we both come to these logical agreements.

The other thing I’m obsessed with recently is enjoying homemade marshmallows in bone broth hot chocolate or as a little boost to a matcha.

🌧️ With the end of April showers, I was excited to have a bit more time to cozy up under a blanket with this warming mug of nutrients.

I’ve never been a fan of marshmallows, but recently I’ve been incorporating gelatin into my diet for beauty and fertility benefits. Then everybody was saying how homemade marshmallows taste nothing like the store-bought ones, which obviously, because look at the ingredient differences!

These beauties are just gelatin, honey, vanilla, and marshmallow root. Stunning ingredients and so easy!

I followed this recipe.

Plopping some marshmallows into your hot drink in the morning adds a special little boost of pleasure. 

I love it and I recommend trying it out soon! Or if you’re over the hot chocolate vibe and ready for more refreshing summer drinks, save this recipe for next winter and next Easter!

I was going to post this recipe before Easter saying, “If you were thinking about buying your kids Peeps this Easter… Please do not. Make these instead.”

But I figured maybe that’s a bit rude… So as always, you do you. But honestly if you’re still buying Peeps…

that’s wild.

Sending you love, joy, and beauty this May 🌷🦋💌

🤍 Jaclyn

P.S. What’s one highlight you had in April (a recipe or creative project you made, book you read, or something fun you did)??

Reply and let me know 🫶