Things I Like: Books And Tea

Living in NYC has its advantages, one of them is the subway (when it's running on time and not too crowded...ok so it has advantages some of the time...) because I get to read for at least 20 minutes in one direction. The underground forces you to unplug and find other ways of entertaining yourself for however long you are in transit. It's true that you can people-watch, but New Yorkers tend to avoid eye contact like the plague, so we just read, nap, or listen to music.

I like to take a book that I can put down whenever, because when your stop comes up you gotta leave. My choices for this type of reading tend to come from the "young adults" section because I can half pay attention to the book and the other half I can pay attention to where I'm at.

I found this gem at Book Court in Carroll Gardens, BK  Counting By 7s written by Holly Goldberg Sloan. Very basically this book is about a young, genius girl who abruptly becomes orphaned and how her friends go above and beyond to keep her from getting lost in the system.

This is a great read and I highly recommend it. Keep in mind that it is not written for adults (though I feel like that is part of the awesomeness), so don't compare it to Jane Austen or Jack Kerouac, just enjoy it for what it is, just plain great.

On the flip side, when I'm not in transit I like chipping away at this behemoth. Medical Herbalism The Science And Practice Of Herbal Medicine by David Hoffmann. It's technical, but pretty easy to follow. In case you couldn't tell, I am a total nerd and I love learning new things. A few months ago I got into herbalism and when I "get into" something I dive in head first. I should add that I own and have read four other books on herbalism and reference them at least twice a week. But hey, it's all pretty amazing!

I stopped by my local herb shop Remedies Herb Shop on Court street this afternoon on my way home and picked up a couple of things. 

 On the left we have red raspberry leaf and on the right we have dried lemon peel. 

This herb has an abundance of easily assimilated calcium, among many other fantastic attributes. 

I'm not sure what good lemon peel is, but it tastes good in tea and I'm sure I can find answers somewhere. Let me know if you have an idea.

Well that was a varied post, but I wanted to share a couple of things that are a part of my day-to-day and have something other than skincare and makeup on this blog because there's more to beauty than all that business (though a good skincare regimen never hurt anyone).

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great rest of the day!