WellBeing Clare

This is the best French Canadian pea soup recipe you will ever try.  Even better? Okay, well, just as good is the fact that it is extremely easy to make.  How I Got My Great-Grandmother's French Canadian Pea Soup Recipe   I never met my great-grandmother. In fact, I never met most of my father's side of the family. We didn't live close, and it just didn't happen. Families, right? That said, as things played out, I ended up with a recipe box full of yellowed, often-stained recipe cards with handwritten recipes. This beautiful gift has become a key tool along my WellBeing journey . The writing is hard to read and sometimes the measurements are a little odd - or completely missing - but I'm determined to try as many of them as I can and to share the ones I've enjoyed, even if I've tweaked them a little bit to make them more modern. For instance, while a traditional French Canadian pea soup recipe is very appealing to me, most of the recipes involving gelatin wi...

If you’re anything like me, then when you picture a wellbeing journey, the first thing that pops to mind likely isn’t putting lotion on your hands before bed or choosing the right gentle cleanser that is perfect for your skin type.   It’s just not the first – or second – image for me. I usually think about superfoods and yoga.     Healthy Skin is Important to Overall Physical Wellness   The thing is, skin care is a very important part of self care. A good healthy skin care routine isn’t just about trying to look good or some quest to stay young looking. Perfect skin just doesn’t exist. Perfect-looking skin is covered in makeup or digitally altered. Healthy skin, on the other hand, is more achievable.     Considering that your skin is the biggest organ in your body – and it’s right on the outside exposed to absolutely everything from sunlight to air pollution and from excess oils to the toxins in fabric softeners. Taking good care of your ski...

Before I start to talk about starting my gratitude journal, I should get something out of the way. I suffer from depression. I'm not always depressed, but I always have depression. It sucks. It's part of the reason I've started this journey to wellbeing. Gratitude Journaling for Depression I've been hearing about gratitude journaling a lot over the last while, particularly since last March when everything changed. For some reason, I've been resistant to it. Last week, I hit an emotional low. Not for any big reason, but probably for a million tiny ones. it's easy to bottom-out on an emotional level these days. One of the things I've learned about managing my depression (and let's get this straight, I'm not a shrink and I'm not any kind of expert . This is what works for me - mostly - so I'm not saying it will work for you) is to do something. It doesn't mean I need to start some new project. Doing something might just mean getting out of ...

As a part of my wellbeing journey, I've been trying to take a fresh look at all the choices I've been making in my life. not all at once, of course, but gradually. Over the last week, I've been thinking about the music choices I've been making. As a part of that, I've decided to stop listening to Hamilton , at least for a while. Important note : I absolutely love Hamilton . I love it . This is not a hate piece against it. It's fantastic, amazing, beautiful, clever, and all good things. This is not me saying I'll never listen to it again. I'm also not recommending that other people stop listening to it. In fact, if you haven't seen/heard it, I'd recommend you pop on out of that rock you've been living under give it a try. it's amazing. Anyway... Music For WellBeing   So here's the thing. Since July 4, I've listening to the entire Hamilton playlist at least once per week. Often many, many more times than that. At times, it has ...