I am in Cyprus now for the last one week, visiting my family with the little one. I’ve had the chance to experience warm sunny weather most days, unlike back in Istanbul at this time of year. I collected yellow daffodils, savored oranges right off the tree from my family’s citrus garden and enjoyed unpolluted fresh air.
I was also meaning to collect whatever was left of the olives on the olive trees in our parking lot. After rinsing the olives, I placed them in a jar, sprinkled a generous amount of sea salt, poured some apple cider vinegar and olive oil, sprinkled a little bit of red chilli flakes & dried rosemary, gave the jar a shake after closing the lid, and placed it in the cupboard until the olives are ready to be eaten in a week or two.
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Before dinner, I chopped some bergamot that went into the copper distiller for my mom to extract some bergamot hydrosol & essential oil. Bergamot has a refreshing citrus aroma and it is used in aromatherapy to uplift the spirit & promote feelings of contentment. A few hours later, my mom is still going in and out of the house to where the distiller is set up to watch the distillation process.
Other than stinging nettle and blue mallow, and a couple of wild calendula & sow thistle here and there, I didn’t notice a lot of herbs. My mom collected some stinging nettle last minute this evening and made some delicious creamy nettle soup for dinner. My baby loved it. We had that along with some leftovers.
Finally… I was hoping I could fit in a blog post in time for the first day of the year. We don’t celebrate New Year’s Eve, but we happened to get together as a family last night for a warm meal. After dinner we played mahabis, laughed a lot, and ate some homemade baklawa.
I hope this new year will bring much good to everyone reading this – health & overall wellbeing. I hope that this year we will break less hearts, be more forgiving of others, speak less, reflect more, take better care of ourselves, and make better use of our precious time. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said that the two blessings people waste are health and time. I hope we can wake up in a mindful state every morning and remind ourselves of what is important.
Disclaimer: No content in this article is implied to substitute professional medical advice. How you choose to apply this information is solely your responsibility. The information provided is for educational purposes.
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