Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

The Sentence I Never Thought I’d Hear Myself Say

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My natural doctor just took me off grains.

All grains. Not just gluten. Grains. Wheat, rice, corn, oats, and all the others.

What???

I believe (but am not entirely sure) that this will be temporary. Who even knows? Since 2012, I’ve been detoxing heavy metals, trying to get rid of migraines, and cleansing my body under the care of my doctor who strives to get to the root of our symptoms. (It has been a fun four-year party.) As a result, my body started hating sugar about three years ago. Now I’m removing grains to promote further healing.

It’s been almost two weeks that I’ve been grainless. The journey so far has gone something like this:

Day 1: Avoid grains? Fine. No biggie. I don’t eat many grains anymore anyway.

Five minutes later: Hit with the reality that I eat way more grains than I thought. Kept a good attitude.

Days 2 and 3: I’m starving. Eating round the clock. Eight meals a day. Discover that eating constantly is only fun in theory.

Day 4:  Still hungry. Food isn’t fun. I’m so mad that food isn’t fun. Now I’m mad and sad at my doctor. Except not. Except yes.

Day 5: Waffling (which is ironic seeing as I’m not eating waffles) between being grateful for so much food variety and feeling completely sorry for myself because I just want one little biscuit. And also corn chips.

Days 2-9: Grumpy. Fine. Grumpy. Fine. Grumpy.

Day 10: Turned a corner. Oh hey. My body seems to be getting used to this. I only need to eat 4-6 times a day now and the grain cravings are lessening. Cool.

Day 11: Who even cares about bread? (me. still. sometimes.) So very grateful that coffee is a bean and not a grain. So very, very thankful.

Days 12-13: Adjusting. Lettuce makes great nachos. My pants are looser. I’m not starving all the time. Spaghetti squash rocks.

Apparently, there is a normal period of time that your body, which is used to being fed grains, will beg for grains and make you think you’re hungry all the time (which you are) even though you are eating constantly (which I was). There might have been some tears. My husband is very, very nice.

So here we are.

I’m not going to make a big deal of this and I’m not going to change how I cook for my family. They’ll still get their share of whole grain bread and pancakes and rice and granola. For now, I’ll just eat the non-grainy parts of our meals.

If you know me very well, you’ll probably enjoy this giggle:

After the first four days of eating meat and vegetables and meat and vegetables and meat, I actually said this sentence to Matt,

“I’m just so tired of meat!!”

Me. I said this. I’m the carnivorous girl who has always loved and craved meat. The moment the words were out of my mouth, Matt looked at me with a smirk and I said, “Who even just said that?!”

Weirdy weirdness. I was having a moment. I was out of my head, and also I was hungry for pizza.

But now look at me. I am just fine. I am so happy to snack on a spoonful of peanut butter. Who even needs grains? Not me. This is the only snack I could ever want.

yum. peanut butter.

This grain free time (probably) won’t be forever, and I’m so grateful to be on the road to great health. Also? As if I hadn’t already learned that cutting back on breads and desserts leaves a lot of room more more nutrition-packed foods (like vegetables), I’m really finding that now. Yay! My body is receiving so much nourishment!!

Now your job is to leave yummy grain/sugar free food ideas in the comment section.

P.S. I fudge (again, the irony) and eat a little fruit even though it has natural sugar. Also, I can have dairy. Praise God for cream cheese. Amen.

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How to Make Raspberry Sweet (or Unsweet) Tea

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Yep. I’m on a fruity tea kick. You probably will be too after you try these. So far we’ve got:

raspberry tea

Today I present you with Raspberry Sweet (or Unsweet) Tea. Before you add a bunch of sugar, you might test it to see if you like it as-is, or at least with less than your usual amount of sugar. The fruit really adds a delicious natural sweetness that we are loving!

Raspberry Sweet (or Unsweet) TeaYum

How to Make Raspberry Sweet (or Unsweet) Tea
 
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Author:
Serves: ½ gallon
Ingredients
  • 2 quarts of water, divided
  • 4 ounces fresh or frozen raspberries
  • 4-8 tea bags of your favorite black or green tea, depending on how strong you like your tea
  • Liquid stevia, honey, or sugar to taste
Instructions
  1. In a medium-sized pot, heat 1 quart of water and the raspberries to boiling. Add a teaspoon of sugar or honey if you like. This will help make a "raspberry syrup."
  2. Simmer for about five minutes.
  3. Mush the raspberries in the water and add the tea bags.
  4. Allow tea to steep for 5-10 minutes.
  5. Strain tea into a ½ gallon jar or pitcher.
  6. Add a quart of water.
  7. Stir in stevia or sugar if you want your tea sweetened.
  8. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
  9. Serve over ice.

How to Make Raspberry Sweet or Unsweet Tea

Notice how the Raspberry Tea naturally has a red tint while the Mango and Peach teas have a naturally orange-brown tint? This is the stuff “no artificial colors or flavors” is made of.

Consider the Combo

I’m now excited to try different varieties and combinations of these and other fruits. I’m thinking:

  • Peach-Mango
  • Raspberry-Peach
  • Strawberry?? Do you think that will be good?
  • Something with Lemon and/or Lime?
  • This is where you leave comments giving me your ideas… :)

I’m loving the treat of these iced teas this summer!

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Iced Chocolate Using Homemade Nesquik!

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Iced Chocolate

When you are the youngest of four boys, growing up in a home filled with silliness and sarcasm, you pretty much have no hope of becoming anything but silly and sarcastic.

Malachi, our 11 year old, barely remembers how to shoot it straight anymore. When we say, “How’s your project going?” he’ll answer with an enthusiastic, “Terrible!” which of course translates to mean, “I’m making some great headway here.”

This is funny-not funny because sometimes I just really need to know the answer to something without being given the run around. And then there is the issue with him using sarcasm around younger kids or unsuspecting adults. Someone might say, “You look nice today, Malachi.” and he’ll come back with with a happy, “I know.” which takes people off guard and I always hope they know he’s kidding.

We’re working on teaching discernment on when to be “funny” and when to simply answer a question already.

In the meantime, I tried a new recipe a readers sent to me that sounded amazing, but then of course, I cut down the sugar so I didn’t send everyone off to Bible class with a major sugar high. I prepared the drink, then ran upstairs to finish getting ready for church. Later when I hesitantly hollered down, “Does it taste okay? Do you like it?” Malachi promptly answered with, “No. It is really not good.”

Oh man, I had hoped this would be a fun, refreshing, filling drink I could make this summer. Oh well, I’d move on to the next idea.

Then he smiled and said, “It’s actually really amazing. Make it again.”

That kid!! I give up.

(Because that’s what frustrated parents do. They give up. They stop trying. There is no other way.)  Weird. It’s as if Malachi comes by his sarcasm naturally.

We’ll continue to work on when to be silly and when to shoot it straight, but according to Malachi, you should definitely not try this recipe. You won’t even like it. It’s disgusting.

Welcome to my world.

Iced Chocolate Using Homemade NesquikYum

By the way, all credit goes to Laura on this one. Not me. Another Laura. Laura D. She emailed me this idea!

Iced Chocolate Using Homemade Nesquik!
 
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Author:
Serves: 3 servings
Ingredients
  • 3 cups whole milk
  • ½ cup Homemade Nesquik (see recipe below)
  • 2 cups ice cubes
Instructions
  1. Blend ingredients on high in the blender until smooth.
  2. Serve right away.

You’ll find my easy Homemade Nesquik recipe here.

Delicious and Easy Iced Chocolate

Take note that there’s still quite a bit of sugar in this because I don’t know how to adjust that in my Homemade Nesquik recipe. This makes for a great summer treat, though!

Thank you Laura D. for sending in this recipe idea. Malachi really does appreciate it, even though you might not be able to tell at first. :)

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Free Printable Sight Word Cards (So Cute!)

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Back in the day when I taught school (it feels like a lifetime ago) – one of my favorite parts of the day was working through a big stack of sight words cards with my 1st graders. I think it seems a little silly now that words on brightly colored cards were such a great learning tool, but it’s the simple things, right?

We made games, acted silly, did whatever we could to help those kids learn words that didn’t necessarily make sense phonetically (thank you, English language).

comesm

When I quit teaching in the classroom a few weeks before our oldest son was born (like I said, a lifetime ago), I took some of the supplies I’d bought or made myself. Among them were my sight word cards.

I had no idea then that I would homeschool my children. I just knew I loved and wanted those sight word cards.

Through the years, especially since we did decide to homeschool, I definitely got a lot of life out of those cards. I used them for all four boys as they were learning to read.

Ah, the good ol’ days of fun school games and brightly colored activities before these days of geometry and research papers took over. I’d say I miss those days, but I love this season in life just as much. But without a doubt, the books and activities aren’t nearly as cute.

I’m not even exactly sure what led me to this, but over the weekend I had a project in mind and went to find some graphics to help me complete it. Instead of finding what I needed, I found an adorable giraffe. I became smitten with the giraffe, and truly before I knew it, I started creating sight word cards.

Free Sight Word Cards

This is all good because many of you have children who are beginning readers and they need cute giraffe sight word cards. So please enjoy these fun cards to help your kids learn to make sense of the fact that s-a-i-d is pronounced sed. (There are just some facts that must be memorized. Sight word cards can help!)

Sign up here to get your free downloadable/printable sight word cards.

Signing up for this freebie will connect you to our Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone. It’s free, of course. You can unsubscribe at any time, your info will never be shared or sold, and being on this list means that you’ll be the first to know of the other fun (yes, FUN!) educational tools we’re putting together!
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How to Make Overnight Whole Wheat Waffle Batter

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What if you could mix up a yummy waffle batter before you go to bed at night, then stumble into the kitchen in the morning to cook just as many waffles as you need – with little effort?

Overnight Whole Wheat Waffles

Are you telling me that you don’t stumble into the kitchen in the mornings? That you’re a bouncer? A springer? That you wake up like Tigger? I am so happy for you.

For the rest of us stumblers, we can use this recipe to wake up slowly but still have breakfast on the table in a very short amount of time. The measuring and mixing (and the thinking and the reading of recipes) will have been done the night before. You can have your waffle iron set out and ready so that all you have to do is plug it in, turn it on, and wait for it to heat.

For that matter, you might consider prepping berries and whipped cream the night before because a waffle with syrup is good, but a waffle with berries and whipped cream is even better.

My aunt gave me this recipe a long time ago. Then I misplaced it. Now I have it back again. (Good talk.)

That fascinating story was my way of telling you that while I did do some tweaking of this recipe to use ingredients I prefer, I give all the credit to my Aunt Claudia for providing the genius behind it so that you and I can be morning stumblers. These waffles are delicious!

Overnight Whole Wheat WafflesYum

5.0 from 3 reviews
How to Make Overnight Whole Wheat Waffle Batter
 
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Author:
Serves: 8 waffles
Ingredients
  • 2¼ teaspoons active dry yeasr
  • ¼ cup warm water
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup melted coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon honey, sucanat, or sugar
  • 3 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground soft white wheat)
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
  1. Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside.
  2. Heat milk to just warm.
  3. Beat in eggs, oil, yeast mixture, and all remaining ingredients. (I used my blender for this, or you can use an electric mixer if you like.)
  4. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
  5. Bake in a waffle iron.

Easy Overnight Whole Wheat Waffles

See the bubbly batter you’ll wake up to in the morning? No need for you to be bubbly. You get to stumble. The batter will be bubbly enough to make up for your inability to be bubbly in the morning. You might find it is enough to bring a slight smile to a half-awake face.

Overnight Whole Wheat Waffle Batter

Some additional recipes and tips you might find helpful to go along with this waffle recipe:

While we like fruity syrups, we typically enjoy fresh (raw) berries on our waffles. Fresh strawberries with whipped cream is our favorite waffle topping. So amazing!

Have you ever tried a mix-the-waffle-batter-the-night-before idea? I love this and plan to make it a staple at our house to save time (and brain) in the mornings!

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Where to Get Supplies to Make Home Remedies

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I’m working on some yummy new recipes and fun new printables to share with you this week, but for today I wanted to pop in to tell you where I’ve been finding many of my supplies for the simple home remedies I’m learning about.

Where to buy supplies to make home remedies

It’s important to note that the ingredients needed for making home remedies are pretty simple. The hard part for me has been knowing exactly what to do with them. I knew lavender was good, but what to do with it? Bath salts are healing, when used how? And on it goes.

Now that I have my collection of resources all put together in my Home Remedies Binder, I can easily reference it to know what I need to do. (The notebooking printables for this are free for the grabbing, so go do some grabbing.)

The basic supplies I currently have on hand I’ve listed here.

  • A collection of essential oils to use daily as we need them. I always have basics like peppermint, lavender, eucalyptus, and lemon, plus combo bottles that are blended for aid in digestion, for headaches, and an immune booster. (It’d give you the names of these combo bottles, but every company calls them something different.)
  • Bags of dried eucalyptus, red raspberry, lavender to make teas or baths
  • Epsom salt
  • Pre-made tea bags (to make life easy) – peppermint, immune booster, red raspberry
  • Apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, onions, oats, fresh ginger root
  • Herbal salve

Where to buy supplies to make home remedies

There are hundreds of online sources for buying ingredients needed to make home remedies. I’m only listing a few here, because these are the places I’m purchasing from right now as I build my “medicine cabinet.”

1. Golden Poppy Herbal Apothecary

They offer great products at great prices!

2. Mountain Rose Herbs

I order my vanilla bottles through this company, but how silly that I haven’t ever looked at their herbs before. Well, shucks, I didn’t really know what to do with them, I guess. But sure enough, Mountain Rose Herbs carries a big supply of herbs. Go figure.

3. iHerb

iHerb doesn’t carry much in the way of loose-leaf herbs, but they do carry a nice variety of vitamins and supplements if you find something you’d like to order ready-made. They also offer a $5 coupon to new customers and free shipping on $20+ orders, so that’s pretty sweet!

4. Vitacost

I needed to order a few food items anyway, so I ordered some pre-made tea bags recommended in the books so I’d have these on hand for when I need them. Nice and easy! (New customers can get a $10 coupon to use on their first order – details here.)

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.

Where do you like to purchase your home remedy supplies?

Free Home Remedies Notebook

Don’t forget to pick up your free Home Remedies Notebook printable pages here. They are available to everyone!

Home Remedies Notebook

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Self Employed? What Our Family Does for Health Insurance

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This post is exactly like the Taco Salad post. Exactly like it.

What I mean is, I’ve had dozens of requests that I share this info and it’s only taken about six years for me to get around to it. (Just like it took me six years to share the taco salad recipe. You see how that makes the posts exactly the same?)  I have nothing to say for myself about this issue. Perhaps there’s a home remedy for this??

Health Insurance for our Self-Employed Family

Our family has qualified as “self-employed” for almost all of our 25 years. Even when my husband worked as an employed minister for churches, we carried our own insurance. So trust me when I say we’ve shopped around for the best type of health insurance to pay for out of our own pocket. We’ve experienced all the good, bad, and ugly. We’ve nearly gone broke in the past from paying monthly premiums, and we haven’t had a co-pay option since 1998.

Lest you think I’m complaining, let me tell you where we’ve landed after all these years of trying to figure out the best way to carry health insurance for our family:

We are so super happy that we get to make the decision for ourselves!

Taking care of our own health insurance means we aren’t stuck with what we don’t need or want, paying money we don’t want to pay. We hear from too many people about how much money comes out of their paycheck to go toward health insurance. We hear many a complaint about poor coverage. Instead of dealing with these frustrations, we get to choose where we want to put our money! We’re thankful for this.

We’ve always chosen a high deductible plan so that we pay less per month and instead put our money toward real food and natural/homeopathic/chiropractic care. But with regular insurance companies, even with a high deductible, our monthly premium payment kept going up and up and up. It was horrible, actually.

The worst of it for us was that we really only kept this insurance for major illnesses or catastrophes. As I’ve shared before, our family doesn’t head to the doctor for every sniffle, and in fact, the only time we’ve taken any of us to a regular doctor in the past 11 years is for stitches.

So it was becoming more and more painful to pay hundreds of dollars each month for what felt like nothing. (Not that we wanted anything major to happen, of course. “Let’s get majorly sick so we can get our money’s worth out of our insurance!” said no one ever.)

How we save thousands on health insurance every year

We looked into alternative options for health insurance

I’d heard some of my friends talk about Christian Healthcare Ministries, so at the point our regular insurance premium doubled (again!) I decided to see if their price might be better.

Oh my stars and dollar signs.

Their price was shockingly lower. You guys – our family of six pays $235/month for insurance. The price does NOT go up year after year. I still can’t even believe how good this is. Annnnnd, instead of our money going to who knows where, our monthly payment goes to another Christian family to help them pay their medical bills. It almost makes me want to pay a higher premium. (Except not.)

Now granted, we pay such a low monthly fee because we chose a $5,000 deductible (which is the same deductible we had on the super expensive insurance). We chose the “bronze” level of coverage, which doesn’t cover anything beyond the big stuff because that’s what works best for our needs (since we rarely, if ever, go to a regular doctor).

We’ve saved thousands through the years – putting the money we would have been paying for insurance into savings so we have deductible money if we need it. And here’s the best part:

Instead of paying huge money every month for insurance that covered nothing but catastrophes, we can put money into our natural doctors, chiropractors, and home remedies instead. All that, and we still save money.

I’m not an affiliate for Christian Healthcare Ministries; I don’t get a kick-back for telling you about them. (Actually, I do see that they give incentives for telling your friends. I haven’t yet learned how that works. Hmmm….) I’m just answering people’s questions I get so often about what we do for insurance since we’re self-employed. Just like knowing about home remedies, I believe people should know they have options for health insurance too!

Because they aren’t technically an “insurance company” (though they still meet the government requirements to be considered such) things work a little differently than you might be used to with Blue Cross or whatnot. As a matter of fact, Christian Healthcare Ministries claims, “We are not health insurance. We are a ministry.” I love this! While their system works differently, it’s not complicated and every need and issue we’ve had has been worked out beautifully; every phone call pleasant.

So there you go. Christian Healthcare Ministries. That’s how we handle our health insurance as self-employed family. I can’t believe it took me so many years to finally write this post.

I’d love to hear what you do for health insurance. Do you have it through your employer? Carry your own? Have you tried a Christian ministry option like this one? 

UPDATE

Many have looked into Christian Healthcare Ministries since I posted this. It seems that if you give them our insurance number, our family will get a referral bonus which would cover the cost one month of fees for us. What a wonderful perk! If you feel this is a good option for you, our referral number is 145625. Thanks! :)

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Great for Your Kitchen and Home Remedies! Win a Stainless Steel Zester/Grater!

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For some reason that we shall never understand, it took me until recently to grate the zest of a lemon, lime, or orange into recipes that called for this delicious addition.

Actually, I can attempt to offer some reasons – such as:

  • I don’t like recipes that take too many steps.
  • I only had a big stand up grater for a while, which actually did make zesting quite tedious.
  • That’s it. There are no other reasons.

Then I got a hand-held zester. Suddenly the job of rubbing a lemon rind across a grater to utilize that natural and delicious flavor was easy and quick. I think it goes without saying that my Low Sugar Cookies taste much more amazing when I take the few extra seconds to zest. Here, you need those recipes:

Low Sugar Lemon Melt-away Cookies

If you haven’t been a zester for all the reasons mentioned above, I’m happy to share that this little gadget can be a game changer in your kitchen.

zester grater

This, my friends, is a ECALOO Classic Stainless Steel Zester/Grater. I like the nice non-slip handle, but mostly I like the versatility in that you can use it to grate or zest cheese, lemon, citrus, ginger, garlic, onions, nutmeg, cinnamon, chocolate and much more (even veggies). That it’s stainless steel means it’s safe for our food and easy to clean.

Today, they are giving one away to five different winners. Sign up below!

In addition, they are offering a 35% discount to everyone! Use the code H7WAL8BT to receive your discount from now to  7/30/2016.

As I’m learning more about making home remedies and trying new recipes, I’m finding that this zester/grater is fantastic for fresh ginger to use in the recipes. Ginger is a staple in home remedies, so I love that this gadget makes grating it so easy!

Here’s your chance to win one! Sign up here, then watch for an email on Wednesday, June 29 sharing the five winners.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Easy Taco Salad Recipe

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I sort of shared this “recipe” back in 2010 when I first posted my Homemade French Dressing recipe. Since then I’ve had several people tell me that they’d prefer me to write out an actual recipe. It’s only taken me 6 years to do it. Therefore, if you have any requests, ask now. First come, first served – I shall answer your requests by 2022.

I hope I’m kidding.

taco salad1

A key player in this salad is the French Dressing. I used to toss this with bottled Catalina Dressing, but the homemade variety is easy and better for us. If I don’t happen to have time to make the French Dressing, we just dump in a little salsa. It changes the taste of this salad, but it’s still a great meal!

I shall now attempt to write down measurable quantities of salad fixin’s to provide an actual Taco Salad recipe. If in fact you don’t follow this recipe precisely, you will still turn out a fabulous Taco Salad. For that matter, since everyone in my family has specific preferences (some like tomatoes, some don’t; some like beans, some don’t) I often lay out all the salad makings and let everyone build their own bowl however they like!

Easy Taco SaladYum

Easy Taco Salad Recipe
 
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Author:
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 1 pound hamburger
  • 2 Tablespoons taco seasoning mix
  • 1 head lettuce, any variety (we prefer red leaf, green leaf or romaine)
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar or Colby jack cheese
  • 15 ounces (or 2 cups) of pinto, chili, or black beans
  • 1 cup diced fresh tomatoes
  • 1-2 cups crushed tortilla chips
  • 1 cup French Dressing (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Brown hamburger meat and season with taco seasoning mix (recipe link below)
  2. Chop or tear lettuce into a large serving bowl.
  3. Add cooked meat (cooled), shredded cheese, beans, tomatoes, and chips.
  4. Toss with French Dressing.
  5. Serve.

Other fun Taco Salad toss-in options are:

  • Black olives
  • Guacamole
  • Salsa
  • Onions
  • Peppers

I recommend making this Taco Seasoning Mix to have on hand for recipes like this. Easy and delicious!

Easy Taco Salad

We will likely enjoy this Taco Salad every week until the end of summer. How about you? Are you a Taco Salad fan?

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Are Home Remedies the Be All and End All? (I Bought Something For You!)

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We’re going to have a Home Remedies discussion, then we’re going to have a giveaway. Excuse me a moment while I first rub on some peppermint oil to get rid of the last of my headache. But you should know that yesterday I had to break down and take an over-the-counter migraine med – so don’t think I am closed looking at all the options. I mean, a migraine will make a girl desperate. ;)

First let’s talk about conventional doctors.

I am grateful for them and so very amazed by the investments they have made toward their career of serving people. I am constantly impressed by the sacrifices they make daily and the long hours they put in. I could go on and on in gratitude about the doctors who delivered my babies, performed surgeries on my husband, stitched up my sons, and on it goes.

Except for times we get late night phone calls about our son who fell and bit through his upper lip and needs stitches (his scar healed perfectly, thanks to one of our fav local doctors!), heading to our conventional doctors is no longer our first choice when we or our kids aren’t feeling well. Typically, we now look at other options like simple home remedies, chiropractic, or our natural doctor in a city nearby who looks at the root of problems instead of only treating the symptoms.

People should know they have options.

Before our youngest son was born with chronic eczema, I didn’t know. The kids got sick, I took them to the doctor. I got sick, I went to the doctor. It’s the thing to do, right?

Maybe. Sometimes. But I’m so grateful to know that that is just one option of many.

I hear from frustrated people all the time who have gone to their doctor with miserable symptoms – only to be given the same medication, or a stronger medication over and over to no avail.

That’s exactly what we experienced with Malachi. When he first broke out from head to toe with eczema (when he was about 4 months old), he was given steroids and cortisone. The rash went away. I was so relieved! But then the meds wore off and the rash reappeared. Back to the doctor. Again, he was offered steroids and cortisone. We were taken aback. Really? That’s our only option? Should we really keep giving this stuff to our baby?

That’s when we first realized we’d better look into other options.

So we went to specialists. To allergists. To dermatologists. Every time the answer was the same: steroids and cortisone.

This was heartbreaking (because our son was suffering) and more than frustrating (because the answers we were being given weren’t helping).

This is when we moved on to alternative forms of care. This is when we learned that it is best to get to the root of the problem instead of simply trying to treat the symptoms. This is when we learned that eczema isn’t even a skin condition, but rather an internal issue manifesting itself through the skin. This is when our lives and home turned upside-down as we changed our diet, our detergents and cleaners, and our medicine cabinet.

My Home Remedy Knowledge Quest

This has been a journey, and not one I’ll likely ever feel as though I’ve arrived. I’ve swung from one extreme to another in an effort to do what’s best for my family. But I’ve landed peacefully at the place of knowing that I have a lot to learn and I’ll never do it all perfectly. After all, is there actually a “perfect” way to do it?

For all major illnesses, I contact our natural doctor (about an hour away from us) who has been amazing at helping us become and stay healthy. But for minor illnesses like colds, stomach aches, low fevers, or even bug bites – we first try simple home remedies. This has saved us wads of money on what I consider to be unnecessary doctor visits. Why spend $100+ on a doc appointment when a few simple ingredients at home will give us comfort and a boost to help our bodies heal?

One of my goals this summer is to learn more about home remedies and natural care. I want to sharpen my knowledge and continue to build up our “medicine cabinet.” Through the years, we have been accumulating a nice supply of basic essential oils, vitamins, minerals, and herbal tinctures. But what else? There’s so much to learn!

How I’m Learning Right Now

A few weeks ago, I received an email about a set of herbs, essential oils, and natural care resources. I immediately went to hit the delete button because it looked like just one more thing someone wanted me to buy or promote. (You should see my overloaded inbox!!) But because the focus is on home remedies, I decided I should at least glance at it to see if it was something that would help me learn.

I took a couple days to look over it and chew on it before I realized that I really should invest. The price was amazing, but it doesn’t matter how much money I’ll “save” if I’m not going to use something, right?!

Getting this was a great idea! During the two weeks I’ve had the resources, I have learned a so much, and I really like having the quick go-to references. Since this is a topic many of you also want to learn more about, I decided I wanted to share the opportunity with you, too. In fact, I’ve been enjoying it so much that I went back and bought a second set to give to one of you! (See rafflecopter below.)

The thing is, just like over-the-counter meds like Advil or Sudafed, essential oils and natural remedies aren’t something to mess with unless you understand just how to use them. That’s why I’m thankful to come across these well-studied resources. What I love most about going the natural route is that I can know exactly what I’m putting in or on my body (unlike meds where I have no idea what ingredients are or why I should trust them).

I’ve already taken a few hours to really dig into these books and courses. I’ll have them forever as resources to revisit at any time, but I also found that I wanted to take notes as I read and learned. I thought it would be nice to have a “Home Remedies Notebook” where I jotted some go-to information for easy access.

So I had a little fun and I made this:

home remedies notebook2

home remedies notebook1

Home Remedies Notebook
This Home Remedies Notebook is free to all!!
Find download instructions here.

I printed the pages and put them into a binder. I also printed several of my favorite reference pages from the books and sources in this package so I would have them handy for quick help as needed. Beyond that, I created a new “Home Remedies” file on my computer so I could easily find these books and courses whenever I need them.

I’m pretty excited about all of this and happy about what I’m learning! I started ordering a few supplies so I could make some bath baths and teas. After all, I’ll want to have these on hand when we need them, and I can’t buy most of these in my small town.

Be sure to grab the FREE Natural Remedies Notebook printable!

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