Oils and garlic and herb tea and Vicks

Isaac woke up with a fever yesterday. When Isaac feels bad he feels REALLY bad. Poor little guy has been curled up on the couch for the better part of two days. Ibuprofen perks him up a bit but mostly he's just feeling rotten. I read somewhere that pedatricians are very dissatisfied generally with their jobs because so often there is really nothing they can do for their patients. Parents bring their sick kids in but really they just need to wait it out. I think parents are frustrated in the same way. I hate watching my little ones suffer and I want to do somthing! My mom, sisters and friends have all given me wonderful ideas for dealing with sick kiddos. Curtis calls it my "voo-doo magic." I can't say for sure that all these remedies work all the time, but I know they're not harmful and it is comforting to do something!!

So, step 1 of fighting off illness involves garlic. I chop up 2 or 3 cloves and warm them on a little piece of foil in the oven until they smell fragrant (5 min or so). Then I put the garlic in a baby sock and safety pin it to the inside of sick kiddos shirt. That way it is right against their chest and they can breathe it in. IMO the reason for the myth about garlic and vampires is because garlic is SUPER powerful and so it would follow that garlic is your best bet in warding off blood-suckers. My mom actually sucks on a piece of raw garlic when she's not feeling well and swears by it. Sometimes I will chop up several cloves and saute them with olive oil and then eat them on a piece of toast with soup. It's yummy and a great way kill the bacteria, virus, fungi or whatever else is ailing you.

I am also hyper about hydration when my kids are sick. Water, water and more water. If they really refuse I add some Gatorade powder to it. Herbal tea is another great way to get liquids down and the warmth feels so good on a sore throat. I love Herbal remedy's "Throat Coat." It really soothes but my kids don't love it. So for them I just make some kind of orange or raspberry tea sweetened with OJ concentrate and honey.

Another stand by is essential oils- especially when my kids were younger and got sick more often. I don't know if it's placebo at work- all I can say is I love them. My sister got me interested in them years ago and now I just smell oregano or peppermint oil and start to feel better right away. My kids love them too. I rub them on their feet and sometimes back or chest if they are having trouble breathing. Same for Vicks Vapor Rub.

I keep offering foods like brothy soup and oranges. As long as they are not puking everything up I try to get them to eat good things. Sugar and dairy should be avoided like the plague because sugar weakens the immune system and dairy just makes more mucus. As for traditional meds, I try to avoid pain meds if possible but will give ibuprofen or tylenol if the kiddo is miserable. I've also read that zinc can help early on so I have some of those "Cold Eeze" lozenges around.

Oh and I don't do this every time. Sometimes I am bad mommy and preoccupied with other things so I drag my sick kids around on errands and buy them foods like McDonalds. But today... is not that day.

Fabric and stuff

ahhh... did I tell you I love fabric? I dream about fabric. Seriously. One of my VERY favorite things is sleeping kids while I browse fabric on etsy and eat a good snack. A few weeks ago I noticed a seller was having an aweseom sale and I stocked up on some beautiful prints. Several are by Etsuko Echino- I LOVE this fabric. The only problem- I'm having trouble cutting into it. :O

I've wanted to make a bunting for family room/playroom for awhile now and finally finished it. Now I have to hang hooks so it might be another month or so...

I think these little flags are a great idea for birthdays or year round decor. Really simple and fun to make.

And this is my first quilt of 2011! Da-da! I made it using a jellyroll I found on clearance. I've been wanting to try something like for awhile. Piecing this type of quilt is so hard for me- I'm just not patient enough but I still like it. I had planned to quilt it with horizontal or diagonal lines but realized that would accentuate all the errors so I chose a circular pattern. I'll get a finished pic once I get the binding done.

Mommy Blogs

My sister forwarded this article from salon.com to me a few days ago. I still can't decide exactly what I think. The author is a self described feminist atheist... who's secret habit is reading blogs by LDS moms.

Read it if you're interested. As a stay-at-home LDS woman who happens to have a blog, all I can say is:

1) I blog because it's an easy way to keep my super spread out family in the know

2) I can print out my blogs at the end of each year and have a sort of memory book, which is cool

3) I LOVE to see beautiful photographs of food, paintings, quilts, etc... and so I've posted some of my own in the hope of inspiring other people

4) Every now and again I have something to say and this is as a good a forum as any

Most of the women I know who have blogs do it for similar reasons. We're not trying to make our lives look easy and glossy. BUT... I'll just speak for myself here: Mostly I'm a pretty happy person and that's probably gonna come through on my blog. Maybe it's just my nature and I'd be happy in communist Cuba. All I can say is that:

1) I am totally in love with my imperfect husband

2) I adore my messy, foul mouthed children,

3) I believe I am one of God's children, that Jesus Christ is my savior and that the Holy Spirit comforts/inspires me and

4)I get a lot of joy from the above and am so thankful I can devote my energy to all of them

I haven't read much from the blogs listed in the salon article and I just quickly skimmed through each of them. The only one I will look at again is "natthefatrat." Her writing cracks me up- she totally reminds me of pioneer woman. The other blogs almost instantly turned me off, WAY too many pics of the authors- it all felt a little too narcissistic for my tastes.

Maybe I'm bristling b/c I hate being pigeonholed, even if it's in a sort of complementary way. It's irritating to feel like you are being represented by someone you didn't vote for. I know many LDS women and they are ALL so different. Oh and for the record, I don't arrange flowers all day. Actually I don't arrange flowers at all- I'm more of a plant person. (I like what my sister Em had to say too)

And now for a picture of one of my many junk drawers, just so you know I'm "keepin'it ree-o"

PS: The pic at the top of this post is the price I paid for writing this and yes, that's bread dough. eeeeww!

And What A View!

In 1993 I left for college just 5 days after graduating high school. Bursting for independence much?! Actually I think I was mostly excited to get to hang with some peeps who had hobbies besides alcohol (doesn't BYU win some "Stone Cold Sober" campus award every year?)... I'm so glad I did! I met my soul sista, got a job as as janitor at the Missionary Training Center, took a few classes and got to know my way around campus before the fall crowds showed up... and I saw the movie, "A Room With A View."

It was one of my all time favorite GNO's. We all met off campus at a friend's house to watch the movie. I LOVED the love story and Lucy's hair/clothes, the stunning soundtrack and scenery, and then of course the bathing scene. Suffice it to say we all pretty much screamed during the whole thing! When the movie was over we turned off the lights (so we could see the glow in the dark stars on my friend's ceiling) and listened to Sting's "Fields of Gold." We were all positive it was written with this movie in mind.

I've been craving some happy girl time so I invited some cool TX girls over for a little foreign film time. I don't think anyone loved it as much as me and the nekkedness was a LOT to take in. :O But we had an awesome time and I'm so glad I got to share such a happy memory with some buds here. Oh.. and we made Kale Chips and they were gone so fast and everyone loved them. The End.

WOW

My friend Sarah told me about Kale Chips several weeks ago and I've been meaning to try them. They don't sound super yummy but Sarah has never steered me wrong. So I just made some and WOW!! They're awesome! I could seriously eat a whole bunch of kale by myself this way. Definitely a great alternative to chips. Here's the recipe:

1 bunch kale
olive oil
1 tsp salt
sprinkling of Lowry's seasoning salt or Old Bay for a little extra flavor

Clean, dry and tear kale into pieces. Spread parchment or tin foil on a cookie sheet (the recipe says to use a non insulated one so I just used my super old thin sheet that burns cookies- now I know why I've kept it around!)

Place kale onto parchment and drizzle olive oil over top. I then used my hands to help the oil cover the kale. Or... if you have one of those awesome oil spritzers you can spray some on and it works beautifully.

Sprinkle on salt and seasoning and bake at 350 F for 8-12 minutes. It realy depends on your oven. I was worried about burning these but I actually ended up taking some off and putting the rest in a little longer so they would be nice and crispy.

Leafy green requirement? Check!

Okay, a little deflated. The boys just walked in from school. Isaac was the only one who would even try them and he said they were "disgusting." Dang! When did they get so picky?? They used to fight over my steamed spinach- (I guess that was because they really believed it would give them popeye muscles.) Anyway, I still think the kale chips are amazing and like most of the healthy foods I want my kids to love I will keep making/eating them and hope it rubs off on the kiddos. :O

**Update** After making these several times Isaac said they were awesome and the other two ate them as well. So don't give up!!