How I get rid of a Cold or the Flu..FAST!

I've been sick the last two days.  It started yesterday with an obnoxiously, annoying runny nose that had my hypochondriac self convinced I was actually leaking brain fluid.  Thankfully, after careful examination, I was able to determine that it was just regular old, garden variety snot.   Whew.

Several years ago, I started getting really into home remedies and home treatments.   In fact, I even have a whole website I researched and wrote, devoted to this very topic.  Check out...My-Home-Remedies for all your home remedy needs.

Anyway, since colds tend to come around several times a year, over the years, I've had lots of experience going through my arsenal of herbs and vitamins to find the most effective at getting rids of colds or the flu..fast!  So, I thought in my generosity, I would share what I have learned with you.

Now..for the obligatory bit of legalese...I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on the internet.  This does not constitute giving medical advice nor the practice of medicine.  Use any home remedies at your own risk.  Always seek the advice of a licensed medical professional...blah, blah, blah..

This is just me...sharing my experience with you.  (Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?)

Vitamin D:  Vitamin D is like the MacDaddy vitamin for getting rid of colds and the flu.  I started researching Vitamin D in 2009 when the whole swine flu scare thing came about.  Remember that?  The media had everyone convinced that the swine flu was worse that the bubonic plague   The media is good at doing that.  Anyway. Vitamin D if taken in high enough quantities is highly effective at stimulating the immune system to fight off colds or the flu fast.  I take 5000 IU on a daily basis and when I'm fighting something, I temporarily bump that up to 20,000 IU (just for a day or two..no longer).  I also give my kids larger doses of Vitamin D depending on their size, when anyone in the house is ill (ranging from 2000 IU to baby Elsa to 15,000 IU to Heidi (who at not quite 11 is already bigger than many full grown women I know).

Vitamin C:  Vitamin C is also effective...but you have to take LOTS of it, for it to work.  We only use Vitamin C in the form of sodium ascorbate powder and I "try" to take 1000 mg every 2 hours throughout the day when sick.   For kids, I mix it with peanut butter or honey...but a lot of people like to put it into juice.  We almost never have juice in the house, so I don't use that.

Raw Garlic: Garlic is like better than penicillin.  I love garlic!  It heals a whole host of things.  I eat 3-4 cloves of raw garlic, wrapped up in bread 3-4 times/day.   The bread is just to make it more palatable..you could use anything.

Apple Cider Vinegar:  Apple cider vinegar thins the mucous, and is especially useful for sinus infections or when you get all clogged up.  I drink 1 tablespoon of ACV in water, 6-8 times a day, throughout the day.

Cayenne:  I put about 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper in a glass of water and drink that...3 times a day.  I usually have to alternate sips of cayenne water with sips of plain water to soothe the burn...but cayenne is highly effective so it's worth it.  I can feel a noticeable difference in my sinuses when using it.

There are lots of other herbs that other people use....elderberry, ginger, cinnamon, honey, etc..and these are wonderful and I do use these on occasion.  But, the aforementioned herbs and vitamins are things we pretty much always have in the house...so they are my "go to" home treatment.

I hope you all find this post useful...and I sincerly hope you don't need any of these home remedies and stay healthy the rest of the cold/flu season!

Blessings,

Amelia

7 Reasons to Keep Breastfeeding 7QTF

--- 1 ---

I recently came across an article titled 6 Reasons to Stop Breastfeeding, so I figured I'd get all cute and do 6 reasons to KEEP breastfeeding...except this is SEVEN Quick Takes Friday..so I'm going to come up with SEVEN reasons.   The authoress of the article listed only "non-medical" reasons...so to be fair..I'm only going to list "non-medical" reasons, too.  (P.S. I sorta, kinda, maybe, possibly could have stolen the idea from my friend, Martha....must give credit where credit is due!!)

1

If you stop breastfeeding, you still have to feed the baby.  Doh'...ya'll are probably all, so tell me something I don't already know already.   But, it's totally true, if you stop breastfeeding you still have to feed the baby, which means you have to buy formula, and you have to mix it up in bottles, and warm the bottles and then feed the baby and then wash the bottles.  Golly...I'm exhausted just typing all that.   That seems like a lot of work...and I don't like work..it cuts into my internet blogging/surfing time. 

2

You can totally multi-task while breastfeeding.  I'm breastfeeding now as I type this post.   Once the baby gets older and has more head control, it is pretty easy to read, or facebook, or surf the internet or type, or teach school or even eat all while breastfeeding.

3.

It gets easier...I promise, it really, really, really does.  Most of the problems moms have in the beginning are because new babies are tiny and have tiny mouths and no head control.  But, babies grow and get head control..and it gets easier, much, much, much easier, and it's so worth it. 

4.

It's free..it's free!  Yippee!!  I love free stuff!  And formula is not free...in fact it is $$$$$. 

5.

You always have a readily available, perfect temperature, food source with you..and you don't have to lug a bunch of stuff around.  Which is great news if you are totally disorganized and always late and constantly forgetting things...like me.  But, so far, I haven't managed to forget my mammary glands..yet.

6.

It gives you a great excuse to get away from boring or annoying people.   Say you're at a  party and get stuck listening to someone drone on and on..  Whoops...sorry Uncle Roger, I'd love to hear all about your trip to Timbuctoo for the 20th time, but baby's hungry.  What's that you say...she just fed 30 minutes ago and appears to be sleeping soundly.   Growth spurt..she'll wake up any time...better go feed now...sorry to miss those pictures. 

On the flip side though...if you're someplace fun and don't want to get up and leave, you can just feed anywhere.  I do it all the time, and so far, no one's ever kicked me out.....yet.

7,

Breastfeeding  assures that you are at least one person in this world's totally, bestest, most favorite,person ever!  I love admiration...even if it is only coming from someone who drools all day long.  I'll take it!

Look at my admiring fan!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

We don't get to choose our crosses

Life is a vale of tears someone once said. Not sure who...but I know someone once said that.  Heck..I just said that..so that counts, right?

Life became a lot easier once I was able to accept that it's not supposed to be easy..  It took awhile.  It took a lot of suffering.  It took a lot of crying and mental temper tantruming and "why me, God."  But, accepting that life is just plain tough, was the first baby step towards greater spiritual maturity,.  Not that I'm spiritually mature or anything...I think it might have just bumped me up from a spiritual newborn to a  slightly older newborn...like from a 1-day old baby to a 1-week old baby...and even that may be overly generous.

We've had a difficult past couple of years.  Not super hard or terrible or anything..but difficult.  Dealing with unemployment and underemployment and then my husband deciding to move us all 1400 miles south to attend law school has not been easy.  At some of the worst times, I was so tempted to think that other people's crosses were  not as hard.   I was tempted to think, I'd rather be dealing with your X than my Y.   Which was a totally immature, selfish way to think, because no doubt, if I was dealing with Y, I'd think I would prefer X.

This past summer I had a scare..a major scare...the big C scare.  After about a month of worrying and stress (and oh..the stress was awful, totally completely awful) and depression and anxiety, and way, way, way too much time on google...the biopsy came back normal and all was well.  But, it was scary, it was really, really scary and being pregnant made it all the scarier. I was so weak under that stress...I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't want to see anyone.  Just going on with daily life was a struggle.

But, I also learned a lot from that month.  I learned to try to rely on God more.  I learned that I can't give in to anxiety and fear and depression.   I learned to rely on my husband just a bit more.  And, I'd like to think that I learned to appreciate the really important things in life more...my children, my husband, my family.  Not to say that I haven't forgotten those lessons at times...I have.  But, I still have the memory of that month, that awful, scary month to remind me of "what almost was" and to try to hold fast to God. To remind me that life will not always be easy, at times it will be downright painful...but all I can do is trust God and forge on.
 
I also learned that we don't get to choose our crosses.  We don't get to say...I'll take this cross, God..but not that one.  I'll suffer through this...but not that.   God knows exactly what we need.   They say God doesn't give us more than we can handle.  But, sometimes I think God wants to stretch us a little bit...to increase our burden just a bit, to make us stronger.   But, the learning curve is painful..oh so painful sometimes.  Sometimes, all we can do is just grit our teeth, throw up our hands and pray.

Jesus, I trust in you.  

 I've heard people talk about choosing a word for 2013...and focusing on that word. .My word is trust.   2013 promises to be another stressful year...what with Ben graduating from law school and job searching and moving and taking the bar and all that jazz.  So.. 

Jesus, I trust in you.

Stick it to the State!

Forbes Magazine recently published an article online with the oh-so-amusing title of   Want To Tell The State To Stick It? Homeschool Your Kids.

 I have mixed feelings about this article.  On the one hand, it's EXTREMELY favorable towards homeschoolers..maybe even ..just a teensy, tiny bit too favorable.  After all, homeschoolers are like everyone else and homeschooling isn't a magical formula for turning your kid into a super smart, responsible, entrepreneurial, virtuous, moral, upstanding member of society that always pays their bills on time, attends church every Sunday, never, ever exceeds the speed limit and discovers the cure for cancer, all while coaching soccer and running a successful restaurant that sells only locally-grown,  organic, grass-fed, free-range food.

And, most homeschoolers I know, don't actually want to "stick it" to anyone.  In fact many even enjoy a rather congenial relationship with their local school department...even using the school for special services, extra-curricular activities or sports.  Furthermore, many families drift in and out of the homeschool lifestyle.

My major beef with the article is that it paints all homeschoolers with the same broad brush.

  The God-fearing, flag-waiving, gun-toting homeschool crowd

I mean...really....we don't even own a flag.

One common criticism of homeschooling is that it lacks diversity.  And, to some extent, that is true...homeschooling families, for the most part, consist of married, college-educated, single-income parents.  Not to mention, that most homeschoolers have messy homes and bookshelves that look like this. Not us, though.. Ok..so we do too (except we don't own any bookshelves, so our books are even messier).

Nonetheless, there is a lot of diversity too...I've known homeschoolers of different races, religions (or no religion), and homeschooling philosophies.  From the unschoolers to the classical educators..homeschooling spans a wide divide...with most people falling somewhere in the middle.

However, the one thing almost all homeschoolers have in common is that they are fiercely independent and fiercely  protective of personal liberty and the right to choose how to best educate their children,.  

“Expect the rapidly expanding homeschool movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to rebuild a free society with constitutional protections.”- Ron Paul

Homeschoolers, for the most part, don't take affronts to personal liberty sitting down.  And, that's a good thing.  After all, by homeschooling, one of the most important thing I want to teach my kids is to think critically and to learn how to learn what they need or want to learn. Got that?

There are so many different reasons why people homeschool, and the reasons one family chooses will be wildly different from those of another family.   But, one thing almost all homeschoolers have in common is that the parents are, almost by definition, highly involved in the education of their children.  And, that is likely the reason why, homeschoolers are seeing such success when it comes to test scores and spelling bees.

I love being part of the homeschooling community.  I love being in charge of my children's education and I love spending time with them and watching them learn.  I love learning right alongside them.  But, most of all, I love the independence and freedom that homeschooling gives our family.  And, that is why we homeschool...not so we can "stick it to the state"..but so we can live our lives the way we choose, teach what we feel is the most important and educate each child in the best way for that child.   My 12-years of public school education taught me nothing more than how to get an A, I want my kids to learn more than that.

Blessings,
Amelia

7 Quick Takes Friday

--- 1 ---

Today is the annual March for Life   in Washington D.C.  I waver between wishing I could have gone, and then looking at pictures friends have posted on Facebook and being all "Man, it looks cold there...like, really, really cold..like we don't even have warm enough clothes for that level of cold."   Living in Florida sure can spoil a girl.   The last time I attended the March was back in 1999, and I must say that it was an awesome experience marching with so many other pro-lifers in defense of the unborn. 

 Photo taken from here.

--- 2 ---

Speaking of living in Florida, I think the thing I like least about it is that I feel such a disconnect from the rest of the country.   Everyone else is posting on Facebook about playing the snow and the cold temperatures and showing off their cute boots. 

  

And, we're down here sweating.

--- 3 ---

One thing I don't miss though, is dealing with this! 

--- 4 ---

My kids want to make "healthy cookies".   So, I made up the following recipe.  They came out, really, really yummy.  

Molasses Cookies (Gluten-Free)

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cup unprocessed cane sugar

1 cup blackstrap molasses

2 eggs

2 cups gluten free flour (I used a 1:1:1 blend of potato starch, rice flour and coconut flour)

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 cup ground flaxseed

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg.

Cream sugar and butter.  Beat in eggs, molasses and vanilla.   Mix in dry ingredients and drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until done.

And unlike most gluten-free baked goods...I didn't even add xanthum gum.  Shazaaam!!

Don't they look yummy.

--- 5 ---

We've been following meatless Fridays here in the Bentrup household.  For a variety of reasons, which I will perhaps...maybe...someday address in a future post, I've been trying to stay away from cheese-heavy meals.  So, much to the chagrin of the other members of the household...we've been eating more fish.  Which they protest..loudly.   But, I think I finally made a way to make it *slightly* more acceptable to the miniature members.   I've been making fish cakes out of everything...cooking the fish and them mixing it with eggs, bread crumbs, spices, minced onion and garlic..etc..making little cakes and baking in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or so.   I wouldn't say anyone LOVES them..but they eat them... and get their protein and omega-3's..  So...it works.

--- 6 ---

Despite my best efforts to discourage it...Elsa seems bound and determined to be a thumb-sucker.

Is there anything cuter?

--- 7 ---

I've been getting so crafty lately..which is pretty unlike me.  I had an old stained white cardigan shirt from Newport News which I loved..except for the fact that it was a white shirt with a blue ink stain on it.  So, I picked up some blue dye from Wal-Mart the other day and tried dying it this afternoon.  Not too bad.  I probably would have liked the color to come out a bit darker..but oh well.  It was my first time dying anything..and I even managed not to dye myself or the baby or anyone else blue!

 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

{pretty}

 Who knew the swamp could be so pretty??  This picture was taken at a nearby nature refuge/swamp.  This is one of my favorite places to hike here in FL.  It is so pretty, we've seen owls, alligators, woodpeckers and other birds.  Plus, it doesn't smell swampy...it smells nice and cypress-y.

{happy}

 

Happy, happy, happy baby!!  

{funny}

This is how John frequently falls asleep at night.   In case you can't tell, he's sleeping inside a plastic bin.  Good thing he's such a skinny minny, so we can still easily lift him out and place him in his bed. 

 

 {real}

This is how I spend many a day, especially school days.  Elsa had just finished nursing and Heidi wanted to snap a picture.  I had to quickly cover up to make it presentable!

Unplanned Joy

Tomorrow marks the 40th Anniversary of the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision.  I've always known what abortion is.  My parents were active in the pro-life movement, and I have this distinct memory of being on the playground in the 3rd grade walking around and talking with two friends.  One little girl said her mother had just had an abortion, the other little girl asked what that was, and I oh-so-blithely piped up "Oh, I know what that is, that is when they kill a baby before it is born."

I *knew* but I didn't really *know*.

I've always considered myself pro-life.  I can remember arguing against abortion in Spanish class (of all things...can't quite recall why, I think our assignment was to argue something in Spanish).  In college, I took a bus down to Washington D.C. with a few friends and marched in the March for Life.

I *knew* but I didn't really *know*.


It wasn't until I had my first child that I really and truly understood what abortion is and what a travesty it is.  It wasn't until I saw the 2nd line turn pink, saw that first ultrasound, felt a baby moving around and then gave birth to a little, tiny, brand new person that I really understood.

I can remember after giving birth, seeing those little arms and legs kicking and head turning and thinking "Oh, so THAT'S what I was feeling when you were still on the inside".

That is when I realized in my heart, what I have always known intellectually.  That the beginning of a pregnancy is the beginning of a brand new life and that life precious...life is always precious....everyone's life is precious.

It always amazes me how "easy" it is make a baby.  I know couples struggling with infertility don't think it is easy..and my heart goes out to them.   But, I find it amazing how a single act of sexual intercourse *can* lead to a whole, BRAND, NEW, PERSON. It's almost like magic...conception occurs and then POOF, there is someone there who wasn't there before and the mother doesn't have to DO anything (other than continue to eat and nourish her own body).  If all goes well, the baby grows and develops and is born and grows up and leaves his or her mark on the world.   Because, everyone...no matter how long they lived in this world or what they did, somehow leaves their mark.


Patricia Heaton (of Everybody Loves Raymond fame) and honorary chair of Feminists for Life said

“Women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy."

And that's what a baby brings...joy.  Sure, pregnancy is hard and painful and birth is hard and painful and raising a child is hard and painful..and giving a baby up for adoption would be very hard and very painful.   All those things require lots of work and sacrifice...but amidst the sacrifice and work and pain, there is joy...there is always joy.

After Elsa was born, when out and about, I was amazed at how total strangers seemed to take such joy in seeing a new baby.  Maybe it's because I live in an area dominated by retirees, or maybe it's because she is exceptionally cute (okay, I know every mother thinks their baby is exceptionally cute...so I'm just a bit biased... sue me), but I was always being stopped in the grocery store, or on walks by people wanting to see her and admire her and just look at her.   Just by being a new baby she seemed to bring at least some small measure of joy to others.

And, that is why abortion is such a travesty in our society.  It destroys a life, it destroys a person and it destroys a mother's chance to experience joy through her child.

My heart goes out to women who have experienced a crisis pregnancy.  I never have.  I will admit, I don't know what it's like.  My heart goes out even more to women who have experienced abortion.  I pray they only feel compassion and love and gentleness from the pro-life movement.