Garlic

Here is a confession of this mama... I am a crunchy mama. This means that I am a "neo-hippy" as some refer to us. I do not follow all aspects of this life style but am becoming more and more deep into it as money will allow. I am a cloth diapering, breastfeeding, baby lead weaning, co-sleeping  baby wearing, holistic medicine mama. Many people believe that this life style is for crazy uneducated people. Well I am here to tell you that I am far from uneducated. I have 3 degrees and counting. One trick of the crunchy mom lifestyle... garlic!

1. Heal a cold
Garlic has an antibacterial property. I do not like taking antibiotics due to the side effects associated with these chemicals. I would much rather put something that God made into my body than something engineers made. I am a nurse and I know that these medicines work and the pros outweigh the cons. However, I always like to try herbal remedies before going the chemical route. This is something that I am doing right now to treat this awful head cold that I have.  Take three to four garlic cloves a day and it will help clear it up. I cut my cloves into little pieces and swallow them like pills.

2. Heal acne

Place half a clove on the blemish for 10 minutes several times a day and notice how the redness goes away. I have also heard that it helps with cyst, fever blisters and psoriasis.

3. It is a great cough syrup

Make with hot water like a tea and drink. I would add honey to make it taste better and honey soothes the throat and it also a natural cough suppressant.

What is your favorite holistic remedy?

Love Dare- Day 2

Once I was told a joke (and I do not mean this joke to sound insensitive. I have been a victim of domestic violence.) and it somewhat relates to this. 
There was a women who was married to an abusive man. She went to the doctor with a busted lip and two black eyes. The doctor asked what happened. She explained "My husband drinks heavily. After a long day at work he will stay at the bar and come home late. When he comes home I try to talk to him and he just gets angry and beats me." After a short pause the doctor said "Next time your husband comes home drunk take a sip of sweet tea and hold it in your mouth." The woman did this after all he was the doctor. A few weeks later she came and was all healed up. "I have to know what the secret to the sweet tea is" she said. The doctor replied "it keeps you from talking."

With that being said saying nothing negative really does work. He has been pleasant and down right cheerful. Today I was also supposed to do a random act of kindness. He was given a very nice fishing pole a few years back and hadn't had the opportunity to use it. He was invited to go on a fishing trip. So I brought him a cooler to put snacks in. He was delighted that I wasn't fussing about him going and leaving me with all of the kids despite the fact that I am sick.

This is going to work out great. 

Love Dare: Day 1

Say nothing negative. That sounds so easy, but dang that is ridiculously hard. He keeps saying something stupid that I want to correct but a challenge is a challenge I am going do this if it kills me and it very well might. 

He says that he is happy that I am attempting to do the Love Dare again. "Last time you did this things were so good" This kind of sucks because I swore not to say anything negative and it has cost me money with his hunting gear. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Yup totally screaming out of frustration but didn't say anything negative. 

He attitude has been good today. He was super happy after he got that stupid hat. It was refreshing to see him laughing and kidding.

Love Dare: Intro

                          Our wedding day November 11, 2006

One of my 2013 goals is to read 7+ Christian based marriage books. The first book I am reading is The Love Dare. It was featured in the movie Fireproof, which by the way is an AWESOME movie. I want the fairy tale marriage and we are getting there but that has not always been the case.

We met horseback riding in 2004. We became inseparable from day 1. As from what I have been told by several people is common in military relationships, we moved fast... VERY FAST. By January 2005, we were engaged. We set our date for that June, but it fell through. After becoming injured, he was released from active duty in August. We moved back to my hometown just a week later and set a new date. We were financially unstable and soon debt began to take over. Less that 4 months after we got married, we got pregnant and miscarried and repeated this trend several times. We both became depressed and stressed and things became tense. Dave and I both have strong personalities. 

He needed his space and I needed mine. We needed to unwind and forget our problems. He began hanging with "friends" who I didn't trust and wanted nothing to do with. I began to run with some coworkers (who were like family). We never spent time together. Things were in a rapid down spiral. In January 2008, a fight went too far and I moved back home with my parents. His "friends" were there for him and my friends were there for me. 

I became more emotional than normal and would wake up feeling ill. One day my close friend pointed out "Hey Genius, you are pregnant!" Boy was she right! What to I had filed for a divorce that he didn't want and here we are having a baby! I didn't want him to have a broken home and Dave wasn't ready to give up on me. We did eventually compromise. He dropped those "friends" after they cause damage that took years (literally years) to fix and I moved home. As much as we tried things weren't the same. 

Over the years, things have gotten better. But there still is a lot of struggles. This is 6 years and 3 kids later. We want to establish a relationship our children can be proud of and model the kind of relationship that we want them to have. You can't and shouldn't change the one you love, but you sure can change yourself and that will make an impact so big that your partner will change without noticing. 

I will be tracking our progress over the next 40 days! I will be open and honest and probably sometimes too honest. I am going to blog journal style when it comes to these posts. The purpose of tracking this is 1. for me to look at how far we will come (I hope) and 2. to share any insight I gain in hopes that it will help someone who needs it.

January Monthly Habit

It takes 21 days to form a habit. If I am going to change my life, I need to form new positive habits. I would love to hear what habits you are trying to form. 

This month I am working on my #1 priority my spiritual life. I will be spending time in the word everyday this month even if it is just for 5 minutes!

Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream

I love this stuff! As a nurse and mama, I wash my hands and use alcohol based hand cleansers 100+ times a day! My hands are dry and chapped. I really love how I noticed a difference in only one use!!! That is awesome. My husband notices the difference too in my "man hands" HAHA. I never want to be with out this.


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