Lemon and Peppermint Shots

So in my last order of oils two of the ones I received were Lemon and Peppermint. I am super excited because I have seen many benefits of each, and am hoping that they will help me in my weight loss journey and my overall goal of being healthier.

I do not currently have a glass to use at work for drinking, so I decided I would do a shot in the morning and one at night. What is a shot you ask? Well I pour a little water in a glass cup, add 3 drops each of lemon and peppermint, and a little more water, then chug it.

Since I just started this last night I cannot share much in the way of experience with you, but do want to share the benefits of these two oils. :-)

Lemon:

Hair
Acne
Seborroea
Skin conditions
Infectious disease
Impaired memory
Gout
Liver and kidney (cleansing)
Urinary tract infections
Parasites
Varicose veins
Anxiety
Insomnia

Peppermint:

Urinary tract infections
Itchy Skin
Morning Sickness
Cramps
Lung Infections
IBS
Cough and cold symptoms
Inflamation of mouth and respiratory tract lining
Muscle or nerve pain
Heartburn
Headaches
Liver and gallbladder problems

Now I have also seen people post they are drinking lemon, peppermint water to help aid in weight loss. With as many uses as they both have, why not take it anyways? I have heartburn so would love if this worked for that and to help keep excess water off.

Lemon and peppermint are also two of the ingredients in the LLP that I use for our allergies. Since we have started using this oil blend, we have not taken any allergy medicine! I diffuse this oil at night in the girls' room. If I know weather has not been good, I will also apply a few drops to the bottom of their feet in the mornings. A few times I have gotten stuffed up, I just use apply a few drops directly under my nose and it clears me right now! I also use this to diffuse at work with some Tea Tree Oil and have gotten several compliments about the smell in our office area.

Please note that I am not a doctor, this is something I am doing on my own. Talk to your doctor before starting any regimen and also make sure the oils you have, if you have any, are safe to ingest. Not all oils are made the same, and some are not ok to take orally.

New Delivery!

I was super excited to open the mail yesterday. I had a package from Spark Naturals! Last week their special was a free 5ml bottle of Lemon Oil when you purchased $25 worth of oils. I have been wanting to get some just plain Lemon so I definitely took advantage of this deal, it also helped it was payday Friday, lol.

So I ordered more LLP (helps us stay away from allergy medicine), shield (helping us get better faster or not get sick at all), Lavender (new) and Peppermint (new). Then of course we got the Lemon oil for FREE!

I am excited to start doing a lemon/peppermint shot in the mornings for overall health. Lemon can help aid in weight loss and peppermint can be great for the digestive system. I believe Lemon also helps with acid reflux, which is something I have had for a long time.

Do you have anything specific you use these oils for? Please share! :-)

Our Afterschool Adventures

The one thing I do wish I could do, is stay home. Even though two of my girls are in school, I would've loved to home-school them. My youngest is almost school age and I feel like I have missed so much time with them due to working.

Well, since I cannot stay home, nor home-school them full-time, I certainly can make sure they are learning as much as possible and help them where they may need a little extra attention. 

So this year I am tailoring our evening activities to each individual. My youngest will be focusing on letters, numbers, and shapes while my middle one will be focusing on reading and writing. For my oldest, we don't really have anything she needs help in but rather something she wants to do which is art. Art proved a little more of a challenge to find something I can follow at home, but I sure enough did find something. Yay!

Last week was the first week of school. My youngest is in preschool, middle is in 1st grade, and oldest a FRESHMAN!! I don't know how time went by so quickly that I now have a freshman. This is a little crazy, lol.

One thing they all did was a Back To School book, which I cannot locate the site for that now. 

So for my youngest we focused on the letter A last week. I found this great site that is for those who want to home-school without spending a hefty fortune on everything. Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool. Another site I love is DLTK's Crafts for Kids. I had her color the alligator and we went with the name April, and then we listened to the story about April the Alligator. It was super cute and Makaylah just loved it. Through the week I had her do a couple tracing pages for A and then we ended the week with an alligator craft.

For my middle daughter, I wanted her to focus more on reading and writing. So we worked on a Long A Worksheet. She had a harder time since she needs help reading so we made this our main focus as well as her back to school book. :-)

For my oldest, she is very interested in Art so we have decided that our focus at home will be helping her learn as much as she can so she can eventually start putting together a very versatile art portfolio. I searched for awhile for something I could use for Art. I ended up coming across a junior high school that has their lessons listed online. Nettleton Junior High School. I am not sure what I will do next year if we continue working on things at home, I might just have to look into classes for her at that point. This week however we went with week 1 which is creating a 3D image using lines and shading/coloring. We didn't get to the coloring, but she did an awesome job!

This week to try and help me stay focused on what I want them working on, I found a printable weekly planner from The Homeschool Mom.I have my evenings planned out and can't wait to share some of our activities next time!

Have an amazing week!

Our Oil Adventures

I won't go into my experience that I have had with some people who do Essential Oils, but rather the good that has come out of using Essential Oils in our every day life.

I ended up finding Spark Naturals Oils and decided to try ordering a few to test them out, especially since they were in my price range!

My first order included Dream, Bliss, LLP and Shield.

I use a drop of Dream on the girl's big toes, then a drop of Bliss on the arches of their feet. I use LLP in their diffuser and have shield on hand to help us hopefully not catch something going around, or to get over it faster.

LLP is a blend of lavender, lemon, and peppermint. Some call it an allergy bomb. It has done wonders in our house! Since I got these oils, my youngest who has the worst allergies, has not once used over the counter allergy medicine.

Since school started I have added a few drops of Shield with the LLP in the diffuser. My oldest has been fighting something so I have had her use it with some carrier almond oil on her throat and chest, as well as the bottoms of her feet. Since my youngest struggles with fighting things, I have started using it on the bottoms of her feet for a little extra protection.

I have ordered several other oils since this first order and will discuss those later. I am looking forward to trying out some salves, bath mixtures, and much more and sharing this journey with you all!

So I thought with everything I am trying to do, and those who also want to do similar things, I would start a blog to try and keep things together and easier to find, rather than scrolling and scrolling trying to find things again on Facebook.
This week was one of those things that I know others have asked me about, and believe me, even though I accomplished it this weekend, that is not a normal event to make 18 crock-pot dinners at one time. I kept seeing this post about 20 Gluten Free Crock-Pot Meals from Costco for $150. I thought no way!
No after my shopping trip at Costco, I did not do a break down, so I cannot give you an exact cost, but can say for almost 3 weeks worth of dinners, I spent less than I would normally for two weeks. so that is a huge plus for me!!

Below are the recipes I used and the shopping list. I will say we were short two recipes, if you go back to Gluten Free Slow Cooker Freezer Packs, you will see all the recipes. We didn't do the Chicken Tortilla Soup because by the time I got to those packs, I was out of chicken. So next time I will buy either more chicken, or make sure I weigh everything out. I do like bringing left overs to work for lunch, so I will probably end up buying a little extra to make the meals bigger.

The shopping list was provided on the site:

Costco Ingredients & Price List

Meats
1 6 pack boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 6 lbs. – $20.99
1 6 pack boneless, skinless chicken thighs, about 6 lbs. – $21.31
1 15 ct chicken apple sausage – $13.99
1 package stew beef, about 4 lbs. – $15.04
1 package pork chops, 8 count – $15.44
Produce
1 8 lb. bag white onions – $6.59
1 6 pack peppers, multi color – $6.49
1 5 lb. bag baby carrots – $5.49
1 8 lb. bags sweet potatoes – $5.99
1 15 lb. bag gold potatoes $7.99
1 5.5 lb. tray of apples – $7.59
1 24 oz. box of sliced mushrooms (optional) – $3.69
Freezer/Pantry Staples
1 5 lb. bag frozen corn – $5.99
1 12 pack of chicken broth, 16 oz. each – $9.99
8 pack diced tomatoes, 15 oz cans – $6.29
8 pack black beans, 15 oz cans – $6.79
2 pack BBQ sauce – $5.99

Total – $161.96

Leftovers

BBQ sauce, 1 + ½ bottle – $4 worth
4 cans black beans – $3.39 worth
Frozen corn – $3 worth
6 boxes of broth – $5 worth
about 4-5 lbs. potatoes – $2.67 worth
2 onions – $1.50 worth
= $19.56

Estimated Cost After Leftovers $142.40 

Now that being said. They did not list anything else you might need or want in the shopping list. Like some of the meals will need a side or something for them to go over. Like some brown rice, rolls, or maybe even a nice side salad.
So keep that in mind if you do this and make sure to add to your shopping list what you might want to go with your meals. Also, look through the recipes to make sure you have the other ingredients like coconut milk, or spices that they call for.

Below are the recipes I did make.

• Slow Cooker Chicken with Apples & Rosemary

• Slow Cooker Pork Chops with Apples & Sweet Potatoes

• Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Chicken Curry

• Slow Cooker Italian Chicken

• Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken & Potatoes

• Slow Cooker Sausage, Peppers, Onions

• Slow Cooker Italian Stew Roast

• Slow Cooker Beef Stew

• Slow Cooker Chicken & Sausage Stew

Now, this was my first time doing this, so I just went down the list and had two bags for each recipe as I was going. I am sure if I split the meat up first, I would've realized I shorted myself on chicken for the one recipe and been able to adjust since nothing else would've been added. I will have to see about splitting meats up first next time. Or maybe I will split up the veggies first etc, meats, then broths.

This is what I ended up with, and so far we have used two of them and we have been pretty happy. Adjust any and all spices/recipes to your families taste. For instance I didn't buy coconut milk, because I simply used the recipe list, and we are not big curry fans. So I just used some broth and then creole seasoning for the Sweet Potato Chicken Curry. Have fun and enjoy!

 Thank you $5 Dinners!