My kids and the juicer

I had been toying with the idea of getting a juicer for some time now, and have been checking prices, and models for about a month. Well, I found my juicer on sale at the local Farm and Fleet for $25 less than I had seen it anywhere else, so I had to buy it! (I'm all about a good sale!)

I have been wanting to get my kids to drink less store bought juice, because it is mostly sugar,some juice has more sugar in it than soda! I wasn't sure how they would react to drinking freshly made juice. I knew it would look different and taste different, but hey, it was worth a shot. If nothing else, I knew I would be using it daily for myself.

Yesterday morning I took it out and had Tommy help me make him a cup of apple juice. He thought this machine was the COOLEST thing ever! To put a whole apple in, and out comes juice? Sweet! It was darker in color than store bought apple juice, and foamy, but he took a drink without even hesitating. And, he said it was yummy. I thought AWESOME! Now I hope that he likes it just as good tomorrow. This morning one of the first things he asked me for was apple juice, so we made some, then I made some strawberry apple and carrot juice for myself. He tried mine even, and he loved it! My daughter Ellie asked if I could make her some carrot juice. Tommy said, "carrot juice?!?" I said, "yes, it's really yummy, should we make some?" He said, "yes Mommy." Needless to say, carrot juice was by far his favorite, which I knew it would be, he loves carrots. So, I guess I was worried about what my kids would think for nothing. If we assume are kids won't like something, and don't let them have the chance to try it, we will never know. My kids have been trying new things almost everyday, and my healthier eating is showing them an example. And for the most part they are making better choices than they used to. I can't wait until the kids have their friends over and I can make them all their juice of choice! I LOVE my new juicer!

Making your own cleaners

After my last blog I had a lot of people email me and ask me about making your own cleaners. Most people were wondering about cost. As far as cost goes, it is by far cheaper to make your own. Some things do take a little time, but if you make larger batches you don't have to do it as often. Today I want to share with you how I make my own laundry soap. First I will tell you the ingredients you need, and where you can find them.

Fels Naptha Laundry Soap Bar: Many grocery stores carry this soap. It is usually around $1 for a bar. It's usually found in the laundry soap aisle, or in the aisle with the bar soaps. If you can't find it, you can substitute with ivory soap, but I don't think it cleans as well. You will not find it at Wal Mart or Target, I've tried. I have found it here at Mega Foods, and Gordy's.

Super Washing Soda, this is also usually in the laundry soap aisle at most grocery stores. It comes in a yellow box, and is made by arm and hammer, ATTENTION, DO NOT use baking soda. I have not found this at Wal Mart, but I have gotten it at Target, Gordy's, Mega and Festival Foods.

Borax, the one that I have been able to find is made by 20 Mule team, it's in a green box, also in the laundry soap aisle. This I have found in many stores, including WalMart and target. It is cheapest to buy at one of those stores.

You can either make a liquid or a powder detergent, I personally make powdered, it is easier to make.

Powdered Laundry Detergent

1 Cup grated Fels Naptha soap
1/2 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Borax

Mix all the ingredients together, add to washer basin with warm water first to dissolve before adding clothing. You can change to cold after Borax dissolves. I use 2 T. for a large load on my washer. If you have soft water, or it isn't a heavily soiled load you can use 1 T. Be sure to shake it to mix before each use.

I usually make 2-4 batches at once, the only time consuming part is grating the fels naptha.

Liquid Laundry Detergent

3 pints water
1/3 cup Fels Naptha, grated
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup Borax
2 gallon bucket
1 quart hot water

Mix Fels naptha soap in a saucepan with 3 pints of hot water, and heat on low until dissolved. Stir in washing soda & Borax. Stir until thickened and remove from heat. Add one quart hot water to 2 gallon bucket. Add soap mixture, and mix well. Set aside for 24 hours, or until thickened. Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load. It can be used as a pre-treater for stains.

You can also use Fels Naptha bars as a pre treater, they work awesome! And only cost $1.00! Just wet the stain rub the soap on and scrub a little with an old tooth brush.

Also don't forget to wash your new clothes before you wear them. There are Chemicals and God only knows what else in those clothes. Here is a very inexpensive way to make sure that your new clothes don't have anything lingering in them...

Put clothes in washer with enough water to cover.
Sprinkle one cup of baking soda into washing machine. Soak the clothes overnight.
During soaking agitate the machine for a few minutes.
Launder as usual.

Cruise Ship or Nursing Home

On Saturday, Steve and I attended a seminar put on by the Maximized Living Chiropractors in our area, entitled Cruise Ship or Nursing Home. Basically they asked us where we wanted to be when we grew older, in a Nursing home or on a cruise ship...well duh, I wanna be on the Cruise ship, silly. Who doesn't? I don't think any of us wake up one day and say, "hey, I'd really like to live in a nursing home when I'm 80." Nope, not how it works. So, how do you not go to a nursing home. Well, I did learn a few new things, but a lot of it was stuff that I have been learning over the last 6 months at Dr. Kevin's office. There are 5 essentials to Maximized Living, and if you follow all five, you will live a healthy life.

I want to talk about the essential that I just dealt with, and that's Toxins. No matter where you turn or where you go, toxins are absolutely everywhere. In our food, water, soaps, air, our homes, absolutely EVERYWHERE! So, what do you do about it? There's a lot of things that you can do. First, start buying natural soaps, cleaners or better yet, start making your own. A very inexpensive thing that you can do is crack a window. Even in winter. Get a little fresh air in your house. The toxins in your paint, carpet, cleaners, etc. etc. build up and build up, and then you are breathing in toxic fumes, whether you realize it or not. Start buying organic. Now, I know many of you think that you can't afford to buy organic. One of the best things you can do is hit your local farmers markets, or grow your own produce. Buy and freeze stuff when it is in season. It is WAY cheaper to buy at your local farmers market than it is to buy it in the grocery store, plus it is fresher and tastier. And what I just finished doing was a total cellular detox. I have to tell you what this has done for me and my husband, Steve.

I have lost a total of 9 lbs, I have lost my addiction to caffine and sugar. (I used to drink a pot and a half of coffee a day!) I sleep better, I feel more alert, and best yet, I am happier than I have been in months. Steve, is also experiencing the same type of results, and he has lost 20 lbs. This detox is a 30 day program. We plan on doing this about every 6 months to get the toxins out. I have been told by many that every time you do the detox the easier and better you feel. Detoxifying is just one of the 5 essentials, but if you start with that, even just getting some of the chemical cleaners out of your home, you will be one step closer to the cruise ship, and you will be helping your children lead better lives as well.

McDonalds Chicken McNuggets

So, the other part of my life, besides mother and wife trying to live healthy, is as an independent demonstrator for Uppercase Living. In this "job" I have fun, meet with ladies and party. No, not kidding...and I like to meet with my hostesses to plan their parties, whenever possible. So, yesterday I was meeting with one of my hostesses. I wanted to go to a coffee shop, they are usually the easiest places for me to meet with people, quieter, more room, no chicken McNuggets to make my kids crazy...Well, this hostess wanted to meet at McDonalds (right next to the coffee shop), so she could keep her son busy with french fries. Well, OK, I thought, I can do this.

You need a little more back story here. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I went to a little seminar about nutrition. We got to see the ingredient list of a McDonalds Chicken McNugget. Here it is for those of you that want to see it:

Chicken, water, salt, modified corn starch, sodium phosphates, chicken broth powder (chicken broth, salt, and natural flavoring (chicken source)), seasoning (vegetable oil, extracts of rosemary, mono, di- and triglycerides, lecithin). Battered and breaded with water, enriched bleached wheat flour (niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, bleached wheat flour, modified corn starch, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, dried whey, corn starch. Batter set in vegetable shortening. Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). TBHQ and citric acid added to help preserve freshness. Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an anti-foaming agent.

There are over 30 different sugars in it, just to start. Second, how many of those ingredients can you read, and know what they are? Third, look at the last ingredient...that is what really got me, anti-foaming agent? SERIOUSLY?!? At that moment, I decided, my kids are not ever eating these again...unless I don't know about it. We haven't been to McDonalds in awhile anyway. They like going to Culvers, while it isn't healthy, at least I know it is more chicken, than McDonalds "chicken". But, here we are...I gave him a healthy snack right before we left, cottage cheese and strawberries. My plan was to offer him some french fries, I know, probably not good, but hey, he has to have something there or this meeting isn't going to work. As soon as we pull up, "I want french fries and chicken, yay", comes out of Tommy's mouth. CRAP! I said, "Tommy, you just had a snack, how about some french fries, you don't need chicken today." At first he looked like he was going to cry. Then he said, "can I have to toy?" They get you with the toy EVERY TIME! McDonalds knows how to market! Lucky for me the toy displayer was empty, so I told him they ran out of toys, and he believed me, he didn't even cry. He asked for apple juice, and I was OK with that, at least he didn't ask for soda. We met with my hostess and her son and all went well. No tears! I was so happy! I don't know if I will get that lucky next time, but my son made some decent decisions yesterday. I was proud of him, and proud of myself for sticking strong to my values and not giving in. Seems how we used to frequent this establishment almost weekly, I felt pretty good about how it went. But, from now on, I need to avoid that place, like the plague.

To understand where I am, you first have to understand where I started.

Before I started on my new healthy journey, I was obviously not healthy, but there is much more to it than that. I saw a chiropractor somewhat regularly, but it wasn't for "Health and wellness" it was more to fix the hurt. I was a "Coupon Queen", you know...that lady with 2 shopping carts full of multiple processed food items, toiletries, 20 of each item and a huge fist full of coupons. You did NOT want to get in line behind me. My total would go from $200 down to $20 after my coupons. Yes, amazing, I know, but it was all processed JUNK that I was feeding my family, not anything we are really meant to consume. We, as a family, ate out a lot. Mostly fast food, I drank a pot and a half of coffee a day, and one or two mixed drinks every night. I felt like crap, looked like crap, was always tired, and always crabby. My kids were whiny, my husband getting fatter(I was right there with him), things weren't looking all that great.

So, you might be wondering how someone goes from being the Queen of couponing (spending $50 a week on groceries for a family of 5) to buying all organic, free range, healthy food ($200 a week)? Well, it started a little over a year ago, when my middle daughter, Gwen, started suffering from night terrors. If you don't know what a night terror is, consider yourself very lucky. Basically, it's a bad dream that you CAN NOT wake your kid up from. If you try they scream harder and longer, they can last what seems like an eternity. Her eyes would be wide open, but she would be looking right through me. It was the freakiest thing I had ever seen or had to deal with, and if you asked her how she slept last night, she would say, "good"...she never remembered them. She had them nearly every night. She was crabby most of the time, and rightly so, I'm sure that she wasn't getting enough good sleep. So, I was on a mad search to find out why the hell my then 5 yr. old was experiencing these night terrors. Doctors will say they are hereditary, or can be caused by a fever, well thanks for NOT helping me...she had NO fever. To google it was. I found an alarmingly large number of articles linking night terrors to our good friend MSG. Then I started thinking, what does this girl eat? Highly processed food, loaded with MSG, favorite of which was ramen noodles. She ate them nearly everyday for lunch. Well, I thought I better try to get her on a diet with no MSG. That's when I discovered the dozens of other names MSG hides under. It's not just listed on the ingredients as Monosodium glutamate! NO! why not? Because people are starting to get wise and they know MSG is bad for you, so they call it tons of other things. The first day with out MSG, she still had a night terror, but not anywhere near as bad as they usually were. The first week without MSG she had 3 terrors total, after a month she was down to 1 every couple of weeks. Now a little over a year later? They only happen when she has an extremely full bladder, or a fever. If it's her bladder I carry her to the bathroom, then back to her bed and it's done. That was the start of it all for me. My cabinets were purged of MSG, was it hard to throw my stockpile away? Well, I didn't throw it away, I donated it to the food shelf, but yes, it was hard. I was proud of my savings, my free pile of stuff...but it was just stuff that was poisoning us. Do I miss couponing? Yes. It was a hobby that I loved, but I am replacing it with a better one, learning how to be healthy, body, mind and soul. To love my family and myself. I have a lot further to go...I will need help along the way, I know I will trip, but in total I have lost 38 lbs, am free of my caffeine addiction, and I feel better already. I will post more of my back story in the future, but the majority of this will be my families journey forward. Tomorrow I will tell you about how I got my son to not scream today when I told him he didn't need chicken McNuggets.