Summer Tea

Beautiful Peppermint and Hibiscus! Both coolants, both delicious.
During the heat of the summer I usually put peppermint spirits in my water or make iced peppermint hibiscus tea.

Freshly Dried Hibiscus can be found at Food City but I buy mine on line from MOUNTAIN ROSE HERBS.

Fresh peppermint works best in my opinion, I grow it and that is what I use but if you do not have access to fresh peppermint you can also use peppermint tea bags.
I also add 2-3 drops of therapeutic grade peppermint essential oil from YOUNG LIVING Essential Oils. If you are like me and like your tea sweet than you can add Peppermint Stevia. STEVIA is a natural sweetener made from leaves of the stevia plant. I recommend using the liquid drops and since it is 8000 times stronger than sugar, I only add 9 drops in the whole pitcher of tea. Just a touch of sweet.
My daughter loves it, I love it and the natural coolant of both hibiscus and peppermint keeps you refreshed and cool in the summer heat. For the younger kids who may not like drinking plain water, the pink from the hibiscus helps by giving it a fruit punch or juice look to it.
Another option is just the PEPPERMINT ESSENTIAL OIL and fresh peppermint or tea bags and one or two lemon slices, omitting the hibiscus is an option that I take if I do not have hibiscus readily available.

I take a handful of fresh peppermint and steep for 15-20 minutes in about 1/2 quart size jar covered with boiling water and a lid. Add Hibiscus here as well or do the same with the hibiscus in a different jar.
After 15-20 minutes strain and pour over ice in a large pitcher. Add 9 drops of peppermint stevia and 3 drops of YOUNG LIVING PEPPERMINT OIL. At this time you can add additional filtered water.
Pour over ice and garnish with fresh sprigs of peppermint and enjoy!

CAUTION: be careful with the peppermint oil. ingesting straight essential oil is not recommended and may cause skin irritation to some that come into contact with the oil. My suggestion is to only use up 3 drops per large pitcher of water.

Ordering up one dose of Propylene glycol !

Germs:
We all have busy lives, no time to do everything we can in the time that we have available to us.

So, we adapt. We take needed short cuts to get by; there isn’t anything wrong with this right?

What about simple hand washing. It is said that in order to adequately wash your hands that you should run your hands under warm water with a good soap and rub with friction for about 20 to 30 seconds.

So, I ask… “why don’t we have 20-30 seconds to wash our hands? Are we that much in a hurry”. Perhaps not, maybe we just want to make sure that we are germ free when there may not be a washroom around.

Our toddlers touching everything, putting there hands in their mouths after 30 other toddlers just did the same thing and what if the parents of the other toddlers don’t teach hygiene like we teach hygiene, perhaps the other toddler was ill or touched something disgusting? So, we do our best as parents to keep those nasty germs off of and out of our children. We carry our little gel instant sanitizers.

Purell put on the market a wonderfully magical INSTANT HAND SANITIZER with Moisturizers and Vitamin E.

They reinforced our FEARS about germs and then offered their miracle cure. Great idea in our germ phobic world, however they forgot to mention the dangers in there miracle germ cure.

I read the ingredients, but first had to search for them.
The only one listed on the back of the bottle was the active ingredient. Ethyl Alcohol 62%.....purpose Antimicrobial.

Reading the small print, I learned that I could peel away the back sticker and conveniently hiding under was the Drug Facts Continued list.

I couldn’t’ pronounce most of the other ingredients and certainly didn’t know what they were so I GOOGLE searched them. None were that good, and actually listed in MSDS sheets as pretty nasty stuff.


MSDS stands for Material Safety Data Sheets and these sheets are required on all chemical substances. The agency regulating these sheets is OSHA, the U.S. Government owned OSHA
The problem that I am having is that we aren’t really told these awful truths, we have to search them out. Fine, I can do that… my responsibility right…

So that is exactly what I did. I found a plethora of information but will chose just one ingredient to list, when choosing this single ingredient I randomly chose 3 and this one was the worst but there are plenty of other ones on there that you can check out for yourself.

Propylene glycol here is a link so you can read for yourself. I did cut out a few of what information only to shorten the lengthy list but if you want the whole shebang than by all means USE THE LINK.

PPE:
Splash goggles. Lab coat. Vapor respirator. Be sure to use an approved/certified respirator or equivalent. Gloves.

It may be absorbed through the skin and cause systemic
effects similar to those of ingestion.

It may affect behavior/central nervous system(CNS depression, general anesthetic, convulsions, seizures, somnolence, stupor, muscle contraction or spasticity, coma), brain (changes in surface EEG), metabolism, blood (intravascular hemolysis, white blood cells - decreased neutrophil function), respiration (respiratory stimulation, chronic pulmonary edema, cyanosis), cardiovascular system(hypotension, bradycardia, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest), endocrine system (hypoglycemia), urinary system (kidneys), and liver.

Ingestion: Prolonged or repeated ingestion may cause hyperglycemia and may affect behavior/CNS (symptoms similar to that of acute ingestion).

Inhalation: Prolonged or repeated inhalation may affect behavior/CNS (with symptoms similar to ingestion),
and spleen………..
WAIT… isn’t that enough? Well there is more, I encourage any who are interested to stop, read and educate what it is that we are doing to ourselves with these products that we think are safe to use, daily, and on our children. Disgusting.

So what is the solution?
My NIECE gave me the idea to take little flannel sheets or wash cloths, dampen with sterile water and add essential oils that are anti microbial.
Here are a few antimicrobial essential oils:
Lavender
Rosemary
Sage
Thieves which is a beautiful blend of Clove, lemon cinnamon, eucalyptus and rosemary.

Not only would this be a wonderful aromatherapy but also isn't harmful for our health, and we are also being GREEN, by not buying and throwing away all those empty bottles of hand sanitizers! Which opens up a whole other can of worms. I strongly encourage you to check out this WEBSITE on plastics.

sorcery?

Seriously....
How is it that the use of insect/animal/plant derived remedies from traditional culture is looked upon as voodoo or as disgusting and superstitious, but cellular poisons such as chemotherapy is accepted in our culture?

If we come from earth and return to earth in our life cycle than wouldn't it make sense to live from earth as well?

Does everyone know that pharmaceutical drugs are still derived from mineral,plant and animal sources For instance there are vaccines derived from blood and urine of various domestic and wild animals such as horses, monkeys and insects. Why is it that pharmaceuticals companies aren't playing SORCERY when they take these natural sources and then alter, taint and tweak them? Then they inject them into our bodies and our children's bodies.

We can learn from nature, eat of the land, stop creating poisons but take what mother earth and father sky has already provided for us in it's glorious natural state, from the plants as they already are and then eat ourselves well or eat well as a preventative... with our families. Yes! actually sitting down with your family at a table sharing with our loved ones thus healing our souls and hearts, healing our bodies with whole unprocessed foods. Herbs and Vegetables rather than boxed, canned or fake foods. IT CAN BE DONE, one step at a time.

Our culture is lacking in nutrition, sleep, community and self worth and we continue to cause damage by ignoring this.

I am not suggesting immediate drastic changes over night but only one food at a time and one meal at a time... even if it is once a week to start is effort.

I am not suggesting to stop your pharmaceuticals, throw out your processed foods, force members of your family to sit around a table at every meal.

I am only suggesting that you look inside at your true needs, begin to imagine what it would be like and maybe start slowly.

It's a choice. Your choice and mine. I am still learning and have a long way to go but slowly I have weeded out one thing at a time, eliminating processed foods one at a time.

It has been two years since I have started, it is a process... I still have processed foods in my house, there are canned goods and ingredients that I cannot pronounce, yet there is a whole lot less of that these days than two years ago. I think that I would have starved to death if I just tossed all processed foods out with out first learning how to replace them.

I am okay with my progress, it isn't perfect but I am okay with where I am and know that it is a process.. it isn't exactly easy, it takes a little time and a lot of effort but it can be done.

It can be expensive too, but there are ways to cut back and that you may not even be aware of. Just by not eating fast food,cutting back or eliminating starbucks, no buying bottle water, turning down your air conditioning by 2 degrees... it all ads up and if it is really important to you to change your unhealthy habits than you WILL find a way.