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Monthly Archives: April 2012
Child Abduction Prevention Tip: A Whistle
I’ve had child safety on the brain recently, especially as I’ve been following the Sierra LaMar case, centering on the disappearance of a 15-year-old teenage girl from Morgan Hill, which is only about 30 miles from where I live. It’s basically every parent’s worst nightmare: your teenage daughter leaves for school one morning (the morning of March 16, 2012, to be specific), and then never comes home. She never made it to school, either, apparently. Then, her cell phone is found three blocks from the school bus stop, and her bag is found just a few blocks past that, containing … Continue reading
My Favorite 3 Weeks of the Year…they’re also my least healthy.
Yesterday, April 26, kicked off three weeks of almost continuous celebration for my little family. Yesterday was my husband’s birthday, you see, and May 10 is our wedding anniversary, and May 15 is my birthday. It’s an especially big year for us, because it is our 10th wedding anniversary, and I am turning 40! OMG, I can’t believe I just said that out loud. I mean, on paper. I mean, where everyone can see. But now that we have a little one, we also have Mother’s Day in there to celebrate, and on May 19, I am a bridesmaid in a … Continue reading
Posted in Joyful Moments, Miscellaneous, Weight Loss
Tagged anniversary, birthday, bridal shower, cake, going out to dinner, healthy diet, overeating, wedding, weight loss
2 Comments
Natural Remedies for Sore Throats: Home Remedies Submitted by My Readers
In my post last week, I complained of having thrown the kitchen sink at my 4-day-old sore throat, and asked for you to submit remedies that I hadn’t already captured. Well, I had no idea how big the kitchen sink really was! I got tons of remedies from both Facebook “Likers” and blog comments, and as promised, I have compiled and collected all of them below. Boy, did I learn a lot. I hope you will too! PS – My sore throat lasted 9 days total. What ended up helping get rid of it was a suggestion from one of … Continue reading
Posted in Herbal Remedies, Herbs, Holistic Home Remedies
Tagged apple cider vinegar, balm, cough syrup, gargle, garlic, home remedies, honey, lemon, natural remedy, recipe, sore throat, vapor rub
4 Comments
10 Things You Should Know about Raw Local Honey…and Why I’m Suddenly Thinking about Beekeeping
I recently learned that my co-worker and friend, Larry Bunka, keeps bees in his backyard. His kids finance their annual class trips through the sales of the honey his bees produce, and since he lives within 1.5 miles of me, his honey is truly “local” to us…and so, I bugged and begged and pleaded with him to bring in a few jars and sell them to me. He did, and I bought two jars off of him for $10. Wrapped around the jars was this very sweet, charming, and educational writeup about “Neighborhood Honey.” I asked Larry for permission to … Continue reading
Product Review: Gluten-Free Bistro Pizza Crust
After reading this article on exactly why wheat is so bad for you and having the living daylights scared out of me, I found myself suddenly motivated to get as gluten-free as possible. Even as motivated as I am, however, it has been slow going because I haven’t really found that many gluten-free items that taste much better than cardboard. The other day, for example, I brought home gluten-free English muffins that were indistinguishable from rocks, and about the same texture/consistency. After forcing myself to down one, I could not bring myself to eat a second one, and we ended … Continue reading
Posted in Product Reviews, Reviews
Tagged colorado, flour blend, gluten-free, gluten-free bistro, pizza crust
2 Comments
I’m collecting natural home remedies for sore throats. Got any to share?
Today is the 4th day I’ve woken up with a lump in my throat. It hurts so badly to swallow, I find myself collecting large pools of saliva in my mouth throughout the day just to avoid having to do it. Eww, that’s gross, I know. And probably too much information. I’ve also tried every natural remedy that I know of, and I still haven’t beaten it. It seems to be worse at night, before I go to sleep. But when it gets the absolute worst is when I first wake up in the morning…just thinking about the pain in … Continue reading
An Idea for a Delicious Cold/Cough Remedy: Vegan Mexican Hot Chocolate?
As I mentioned earlier this week, my little girl is coughing again, and again I am attempting to expand my holistic medicine cabinet to find remedies to ease her symptoms. (There are only so many times a 20-month-old will agree to taking elderberry syrup before balking – and unfortunately, I think we have reached that limit). So I’ve been thinking, what about a nice Mexican hot chocolate as a cold remedy? I know, it sounds crazy. And I haven’t actually tried it yet. But hear me out for a second: it MIGHT work because a) the heat of the drink … Continue reading
Posted in Colds/Flu, Coughs, Herbal Remedies, Holistic Home Remedies
Tagged cold, cough, mexican hot chocolate, natural remedies, remedy, spicy hot chocolate, vegan recipe
3 Comments
Natural Remedies for Croup
At this point, I am an old hand when it comes to nursing a croupy child back to health. I think we are on Croup version 6.0 in my house – well, that depends on whether you count what I mistakenly thought was croup, but was actually whooping cough. As I type this, my daughter is coughing and sounding like a barking seal, it gets worse while she’s sleeping (or lying down, basically), and it gets worse at night. Last night was night 3, so if conventional wisdom is correct, she is over the worst of it, and we’ll be … Continue reading
Posted in Aromatherapy, Coughs, Homeopathy
Tagged babies, congestion, cough, croup, herbal tisane, holistic, homeopathy, humidifier, natural remedies, toddler, vapor rub
1 Comment
An Open Letter to Samantha Brick
Samantha Brick, if you haven’t heard, is a columnist who has almost broken the Internet by writing a super-viral post about how she is universally hated by her fellow women because she is too beautiful. Then, after a worldwide outcry that consisted largely of insults and accusations of vanity, she wrote a follow-up post that garnered even more criticism because it said, essentially, “See? Your vitriolic reactions just prove that I was right. Women do hate me because I’m beautiful.” (I’m paraphrasing, of course). On the off-chance that Samantha Brick ever comes across my site, here is my sincere, heartfelt, … Continue reading
To the person who stole my yoga mat:
Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of one very gnarly, used, and sweated-upon yoga mat. Do you understand that that thing has been with me to HOT YOGA, where they turn the temperature up to 90 degrees, so we can all detox as we downward-dog? Do you realize that thing has seen the bottoms of my crusty feet and the insides of my clammy palms? In my senseless devotion to attempting every pose, even the upside-down ones, I’ve probably even drooled on it. Do you know that I’ve never cleaned it even ONCE since I started using it? I … Continue reading
Posted in Miscellaneous, Weight Loss
Tagged hot yoga, letter to thief, stolen, who would steal a yoga mat, yoga mat
3 Comments
