Finally!  After several months of tweaking, fine tuning, dumping out and starting all over and many, many soapy overflows onto the kitchen floor (one spill in particular comes to mind – sorry ’bout your ass babe!)….I have done it!  Well, at least I think I’ve done it.  I never had a dishwasher in my home until we moved here.  I just always felt like they were energy and water wasters.  We never really even talked about getting one in our old place and when we bought this house, I figured I’d do with mine what my Grandma did with hers.  She kept her booze in it.  But once I had the chance to fire that baby up and take her on a test drive…I was smitten!  I love my dishwasher and all that she does for me!  I make sure I run full loads (I can pack a dishwasher like no one else…trust.) and I only run it once a day and sometimes skip a day or two.  But what I hate the most is buying dishwasher soap.  First, it’s super expensive if you buy green-detergents and second I feel like I waste it.  I am a little, ehem, heavy handed so when I squirt the stuff in to the cup…I fill that sucker to the brim.  And the other little cup gets a full squirt as well.  I was buying Seventh Generation in bulk from Amazon and felt like we were saving some money..but there had to be a way to do it cheaper.  So I started my quest for the perfect formula for homemade dishwasher soap.  I think this one is the best by far so I wanted to share.  Feel free to try it out and let me know what you think!  If you come up with different ingredients or measurements, let me know cuz I want to check them out too!

Sals Suds Homemade Dishwasher Soap

1/2 cup Sals Suds

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup water

3 tbsp lemon juice

couple of drops of your fave essential oil  (I used tea tree)

How pretty is that?

I use about 1tbsp per load or two if I’m washing pots and pans.  Play around with the amounts and see what is best for your dishwasher.  You should be able to get about 48 loads if you use 1 tablespoon.  I also use straight vinegar for my rinse aid..no diluting with water.  It’ll get plenty of water with the dishwasher running!  Not only does the vinegar do a great job rinsing the dishes – it gives your washer a good cleaning at the same time.  Good luck and let me know how this works for you!

Naturally yours, Dallas

I found this great list of herbs that can be used for natural remedies on the Mothering.com website!  Herbal treatments are my first resort when treating my boys for everything from diaper rash to coughs/colds and everything in between.  If you open up our cabinets you’ll find an arsenal of herbal remedies for the whole family.  Mullein for diaper rashes, wild cherry bark for coughs, essential oils, herbal teas…you name it, I’ve got it.  Remember, when using herbal remedies be sure to do your homework and use the herbs are suggested…meaning keep the “external use only” herbs on the outside and the “internal use only” on the inside.  Here’s to herbs!

Herbs for Natural Remedies

Naturally yours, Dallas

Hello fellow Nuggets!  A while back I posted an entry on supergreens and how great I felt and how awesome they are and blah blah blah.  Well, now I’m getting off the supergreens and switching to something else.  Why you ask?  Because after about a month of  drinking my supergreen shake every morning…I started to feel pretty crappy.  By about two in the afternoon I could barely keep my eyes open and I was really congested all the time. So on my last trip to the  local market, I told the supplement lady my sypmptoms and how icky I was feeling.  She asked me if I had any seasonal allergies and I said yes (hello? We’re in Richmond honey..who doesn’t have seasonal allergies?)  She pulled my supergreen from the shelf and said that about 75% of the ingredients in this particular supergreen were all GRASS.  No wonder I feel like shit.  I’m basically drinking liquid lawn every single morning!

She suggested that I stop taking this supergreen immediately and switch to a superfood that was berry based.  Try it for a month she said and I guarantee you’ll feel better..she said.

Well, I’ve been on the Berry Green for about a week now and I can already see the change.  I have sustained energy all day long and my sinuses have cleared up quite a bit.   It’s a berry based superfood which also contains the three big leafy greens we should all be eating every day…broccoli, spinach and kale.  I love the taste and the way it makes me feel.  Give it a try if your prone to allergies like me.

Berry Green by New Chapter

Naturally yours, Dallas

Yep.  Merck is no longer manufacturing the MMR shots in separate doses.  Some think it’s a conspiracy against families that either want to give all three in separate doses OR want to pick which vax they want from the series.  The thought is that if Merck eliminates the separate dose options, families will be forced into vaxing with all three shots.  No more picking and choosing.  Which I find odd because the rubella vaccine is sometimes given to new mothers before they leave the hospital.  Will they now give new moms the entire series even though they may only need the rubella vaccine?  Please be sure to check out this great, very unbiased, article from Dr. Sears on this topic.  I want to hear from you if you’ve got a little one that needs to get this vax – whacha gonna do now?? Or if your little one has received part of this series in separate shots and you need to finish – will you?  Me – I’m going to delay until 18 months and then give all three at once.  Not my first choice but I’m hoping that if we take some precautionary steps beforehand,  we’ll be able to prep his immune system to handle the vax.  Our pediatrician is on board with our delayed schedule and we’ve already talked about this latest news from Merck.  Get your fax on the vax and let me know what you think!

Dr. Sears Newsletter

Holy shit what a month.  It all started with my hubby giving himself 2nd degree burns on his hand, then he caught a cold, then Kiki got an ear infection along with croup and it all ended with me getting the worst effing cold I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Ever.  Never seen anything like it.  We ran the scale on treatments too.  Eastern, western, homeopathy – even praying to get better and eventually praying for someone to take me out back and put me out of my misery.  But we gave it all a try….and for the most part, everything worked in it’s own way.  Kiki and I ended up on antibiotics – not my first resort but was definitely needed.  Andy got away with just using Eastern treatments.  So here is what we tried for each pertaining ailment.  Try them out if want and be sure to let me know how it goes. Read the rest of this entry »

I went into the grocery store the other day looking for some stuff in the wellness section.  I was talking to the salesperson about types of probiotics, superfoods and the like.   She mentions that every morning she makes this shake that contains superfoods, protein powder and raw honey.  I say, “oh you mean the honey that comes in the bear?”  Nope…this honey is straight off the honeycomb. It’s unfiltered, undiluted and looks incredibly disgusting.  I remind her this stuff comes out of a bee’s ass and if I have my choice, I would prefer that it’s diluted and filtered in a last ditch effort  to remove all the poo before they pour into that cute and cuddly plastic honey bear.  Said salesperson informs me that by the time they’ve done all that processing there is really no nutritional value left in the honey.  It’s basically just a sweetener sort of like sugar.  I let her convince me to buy a big jar of raw honey with the promise of going home and doing the research online.  Here are two  sites I found online that talk about the benefits of raw honey both externally and internally.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=96

http://www.reallyrawhoney.com/healthfacts.php

I am officially a raw honey whore.  This stuff is incredible!  The taste!  The smell!  It really is nature’s perfect sweetener.  I haven’t tried to use it externally but with Kiki’s rate of injury on a steady incline these days – I’m sure I’ll have a use by day’s end.

Naturally yours, Dallas

We made it. First cold, over and out. And we did it without heading to our Western Medicine doc. Yes, we did see our acupuncurist and yes, I did some home remedies. But mostly we just rode it out. It’s amazing what your body can do if you just give it the chance to heal itself. I don’t know if you know this or not..but something like 70% of our immune systems live in our gut. What this means is, alot of what we eat affects our immune systems. If your gut is out of whack, you can catch illnesses easier and if you let your gut STAY ouf of whack..those illnesses will hang around a lot longer. Here are a few ideas of some things you can do the next time you’re feeling sinus-y and like a cold is coming at ya!

1) If your sinuses are feeling gooped up and congested…lay off the dairy. Dairy is damp and it tends to cause us to produce mucous. So if you’re feeling “mucousy” – lay off the dairy for a while and see if it clears up.

2) If you’re only a day or two into the onset of your cold – definitely try the Gaia Quick Defense that I’ve talked about before. I swear to you – it works. BUT if you’ve got a full blown cold and are feeling like your head could explode at any second…running a fever..etc…the echinacea will do you no good. And your body will fight the echinacea and you will develop a tolerance to it. So you only want to take it at the very beginning of a cold and when you’re well. Also – if you’re sick…skip the vitamins too. Same thing happens.

3) Try a little aromatherapy. I bought an oil burner and used eucalyptus and peppermint…man o man! Really opened things up and was super soothing. That being said stay away from incense or smoke. Only irritates the sinuses.

4) Add a little cayene pepper to tea, food, anything really. Will help to dry you out.

And most importantly, get rest when you can. I know that’s that hardest part but if you can just take it easy on yourself, your body will do it’s job and not get too over stressed. I took the week off from doing pretty much anything other than caring for Kiki and I’m glad I did. I did go to my Ashtanga yoga class and it made me feel better. But other than that – I chilled at home and took care of myself.

Hopefully you’ll get lucky and won’t catch whatever it is that is making its rounds around our town…but if you do, just try the ideas above and see what works.

Naturally yours, Dallas

Oh. My. God. I hate being sick and up until this past week, I haven’t been sick in years. I get acupuncture, I don’t smoke, I rarely drink, I meditate, I do yoga, I try to eat a balanced diet and I limit my dairy intake. I take my prenatals and all the chinese herbs that my Doc of Oriental Med tells me to. I was pregnant for most of 2007, made it through all four seasons and gave birth in a hospital at the height of flu season without a flu shot – and did not get sick once. No, I’m not a germaphobe and I do not use anything that is antibacterial because I don’t believe a sterile environment is the best way to go either. I think a healthy dose of germs can be good for us. But I thought I had the perferct immune system and I thought I was sick-proof. Then I had Kiki. And now I’m exposed to more germs than I can care to think about. He touches everything. Licks everything. Puts everything into his mouth. And YES I’m watching him like a hawk but you know sometimes I just want to buy everything that is on my grocery list during ONE visit and if letting him chew on the shopping cart handle let’s me do that in peace…so be it. (It’s not like I didn’t wipe it down before I even put him in it but a wet wipe can only kill so much.)

So – here we are with our first shared cold. He got it first and beat it fairly quickly. Me, on the other, not so lucky. Naturally I haul my sickly butt into Ellwood Thompson’s and beg for something…anything…a pill, a herb, vapor rub, whiskey, a bullet – to get me out of this dimension of hell I seemed to have stumbled into. (Kidding on the bullet.) The chick in the herbal department gives me something called Quick Defense By Gaia Herbs. It’s liquid echinacea and you take two capsules every five hours at the onset (or within two days) of getting sick. And it knocks it out. Apparently Gaia Herbs has discovered some new way to manufacture echinacea that no other herbal company is doing and it’s really effective. Here is the link to check it out for yourself.

www.gaiaherbs.com

I will say that within 48 hours of taking the recommended doses I was on my way to recovery…and I was sick. I mean illing. Bad. And I am no fun to be around sick. Andy was feeding those things to me like candy and begging me to get well soon because he “needed” me. (I know..try not to laugh too hard, ok?) Anyways – we are on the road to recovery over here and if you’re starting to feel wonky…try this stuff and see if it helps. It was pretty cheap and had no side effects. You should be able to find it at any natural food or health store. I went back to Ellwood’s today to stock up and they were completely sold out so I’m going to order it off the site. Happy flu season!

Naturally yours, Dallas