Anita said:

I need you to post something on PMS as you get closer to menopause. I am 45, baby boy is 13 months and we are still nursing….he is up WAY too much at night, so I don’t sleep much and then can’t sleep when he does! At certain times of the month things that I can usually deal with just are insurmountable. My husband thinks I am demon-possessed (ok, maybe not really). Just one or two days! You have any tips on handling this time, if this is perimenopause or what ever!!

I’m kinda tickled about Anita asking me for advice on demon-possession menopause and peri-menopause. I certainly don’t hold the key to ease of transition! Frankly, menopause (for me) STINKS! I hope to be on the other side soon!

And we prefer the term Mad Cow Disease instead of demon-possession.  ;)

It’s a long road and nobody seems to wanna talk much about it, which is why I talk freely about it here. It’s a HARD, HARD time for women, and consequently marriages.   Husbands need to be very understanding and patient and forgiving (and should give backrubs without being asked!).

I don’t recall having huge PMS problems during the peri-menopause stage (Hubs might disagree, loudly). The thing that got my attention, and I’m sure it’s different for each woman (Dave and Perry and any other men or boys reading this should just move along now), was the horribly heavy periods. (I warned you, fellas! You have only yourselves to blame. Go away now!) And this lasted for about 3 years. All the way to the end of my rope! Then they ceased altogether!

Now my worst thing is the foggy-headedness. I remember being smart. Now I can seldom think of a smarter word than smart.  And the forgetfulness is rather extreme.

Lots of gals find relief in a tube of progesterone cream.  I wish it were so for me, but I don’t notice any difference and the stuff is too stinkin’ expensive to mess with unless it can make me sweet again!

Never in my life have I found it so hard to just be nice on a regular basis.  OK, maybe during puberty, but I don’t recall thinking it mattered back then.

I take several herbs to combat the hot-flashes and anxiety. I know that some of them are not recommended for nursing moms, so the best advice I can give you is to read up on the herbs. Look into dong quai (I bet I spelled it wrong), black cohosh, kava-kava (my best friend!), depending on your symptoms.  Do the research.  We all have our own “worst” symptoms that need to be addressed.  I started having hot-flashes before I had my two smallest children.  Variables abound!

I love the books Prescription for Nutritional Healing and Prescription for Herbal Healing (watch out for the New Age crap there-in).    Another one I’m leaning lots from (although not so much about mad cow disease in this one) is 10 Essential Herbs.

My philosophy on the whole thing is this:

• This is a natural part of a woman’s life.  Not a medical “problem” to be treated with scary pharmaceuticals or mutilation surgery.
• Women have the God given ability to get through this part of life without the drugs or the scalpel.
• I can make it through!  I’m one tough broad!
• Hubs is my Knight in Shining Armor for loving me and being patient and understanding (and giving the occasional spontaneous back-rub) even though I have Mad Cow Disease!
• Fork over the chocolate and nobody gets hurt!

If you are considering ordering any of these books please, please, please use these links so I can buy a villa in France pay for my internet habit buy a Hershey bar.

Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition
Prescription for Herbal Healing: An Easy-to-Use A-Z Reference to Hundreds of Common Disorders and Their Herbal Remedies
10 Essential Herbs/Everybody’s Handbook to Health: Everybody’s Handbook to Health

Remember when I made applesauce and canned it last January?  Ooooooh!  That was some mighty delicious applesauce.  And pretty easy to make.  Of course I complicated things by canning the results. (We ate all that applesauce up way before it would have spoiled w/o canning.)  But still, it’s an easy and cheap way to get some wholesome, homemade applesauce.

Well, It’s going around the blogs.  If you read very many mom blogs then likely you have read about someone making applesauce in the crockpot.

I had to try it.

My grocery had red delicious on sale in the 5# bag for $1.99.  I had to make applesauce!  Had to!

All I did was peel the whole bagful and use my handy slicer/corer on ‘em and toss ‘em into the crockpot.  I added a bit of water, maybe a cup and a half and about a capful of lemon juice..  Turned the smarty-pants-pot on high and forgot about it for a few hours.  After about 3 hours, I checked it and gave it a stir, then left it alone for a couple more hours.  Way too easy!

When the apples were nice and mushy I used my potato masher and mashed ‘em right in the pot.  Then I put the sauce into quart jars and put ‘em in the fridge.

Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!

The bottom line is that I paid $1.99 for the apples, got 2 quarts of homemade applesauce out of it!  Lovely!

Linked to:

• Tightwad Tuesday
• Tackle it Tuesday
• Tasty Tuesday
• Toot Your Horn Tuesday
• Tempt my Tummy Tuesday
• Crockpot Wednesday
• Ultimate Recipe Swap

I have had the awfullest sinus infection of all time these last couple of days!  I get them with unfortunate frequency due to my allergies.

I have a bit of optimism on that front, I’m hoping I’ll get some relief (any relief) when we move out of town.  San Antonio is notorious for allergens!

This time it was probably the worst sinus pain I have ever had.  Pain that made me hit my fist onto the table top!  Pain that made me moan!  Pain that made me wonder if a person can actually die from pain!

I never have had much faith in what a medical doctor can do for a sinus infection.  I’ve had enough experiences where I take the meds they give me, suffer the side effects and get no relief from the infection.  Makes me so much less likely to sign up for that kind of treatment any more.

What usually does me a world of good is my neti pot.  I love my neti pot.  It’s the best thing for folks with allergies.  It usually wipes out my problem within a day or two.

Well, this time the thing came on so fast and furious and hurt me so badly that I was just not willing to give it a day or two.   I needed some right-away relief.

My friend Faith said to sniff an onion.  Very wise advice.  Onions are powerful anti-bacterial agents.  That helped a little.

Then she told me about the apple cider vinegar treatment.  So I had Hank fix me a tall glass of warm water w/1T of acv and 1 T of honey.  Tasted rather weird, not horrible, but it got my nose running a bit.  (That’s what you came here to read about, right?)

Anyway, the pain was just overwhelming.   So, I read up a bit, to refresh the info that was coming to mind.  Then I did the weirdest thing I have ever done for my sinuses.

I poured a cup of warm water to which I added 1/8 tsp garlic powder, 1/8 tsp ginger powder, and 1/8 tsp powdered cayenne pepper!  Then I poured that into my neti pot and proceeded to pour it up my nose!

Y’all! That was some hot stuff!  I could only tolerate one tiny blast of that fire-water in each nostril, but let me tell ya!  The pain was gone!  Right away!

I felt so much better, right away!  I was able to lay down and take a good nap, which I richly deserved, since I hadn’t gotten any sleep due to the “sledge hammer in my sinus” sensation the whole night before.

I did decide that, should any subsequent “torture sessions” be required, I would use significantly less of the cayenne.

I have done this twice more.  Once yesterday evening, and once this morning.  Both times I used a pinch of cayenne, instead of the 1/8 tsp.  Lots easier to take.  Not easy, mind you.  But I can go for about a count of 15 on each side.  The relief was just as complete and quick as when using too much cayenne.

The relief is immediate and the benefit is long-lasting!  Yay!

Linked to:

• Gratituesday
• Works for me Wednesday

Question Everything

• Point #1

Folks selling stuff do not have your best intrest at heart.  They have your money at heart.  How to get your money into their wallet, that is.

• Point #2

I have my doubts about the quality of ANY factory produced dog and cat food.  (think China)

• Point #3

My hubs’ mom used to cook for the dogs.  She cooked the weird, gross parts of the chicken that we usually don’t eat and threw in some cornmeal or oats or something.

Now, when I put all of these points together in my brain and leave ‘em to brew for a while the obvious outcome is that Trixie-the-Wonder-Dog is gonna be eating some homemade dog food.

You know you’re curious.  Go ahead and Google homemade dog food.  As always, Google came up with 4 billion recipes (~ 3.9999 billion).  I can’t say I am gonna follow any of those, but just using the ideas as a guideline I oughtta be able to provide some yummy meals for my favorite 4 footed admirer.

And I found a great site for dog treat recipes.  This one is very similar to the recipe I use.

Have you switched to sea salt yet?

Did you realise that Morton’s iodized salt has sugar as an ingredient?

I’m not trying to ruin your day, but, sugar is in everything.  Either sugar or HFCS.

We really have to be diligent about reading those labels.

She copied my no-poo and my solar oven.  Well, fair is fair, huh?  I’m copying her sourdough.

Y’all read my friend KimC @ Life in a Shoe, right?  For those of you who don’t know, Kim and I are good friends IRL.  And part of the reason we are such good friends is that we think alike.

And today she posted about making a sourdough starter and I thought it was such a fine idea on so many levels…

• delicious sourdough bread
• no need for store-boughten yeast
• homeschool chemistry lesson on the hoof [so to speak]
• won’t it be cool to say, “Would you like to taste my sourdough bread I baked in my solar oven?”!!!
• did I mention delicious sourdough bread

…that as soon as I read most of her post and most of the starter recipe that she linked to, I jumped up and went in search of the perfect sourdough starter container.

You know, it has to be at least 2 qt., made of glass or ceramic, no metal parts, clean.  Picky, picky, picky.  But I found it and we’re off and running.  Never mind that it’s 10 p.m.  Sourdough needs started and it needs started now!

So, here’s your link to Kim’s post about it.

Here’s your link to the starter recipe.

Here’s a photo of my starter, just minutes old and you’ll notice it’s being guarded by a desert tank (I dunno, I guess ‘cuz of the cloth covering on the jar?).

And here’s a photo of my other latest project.  Ya know, if the electricity is gone you have to make your own music.  Just sayin’.

(psst!  it’s called a mountain ocarina)

(the creepy antenae looking stuff is a neck strap)

Here’s your link back to Make-Do-Monday.

We are allergy folks.  We suffer the allergies, seasonal.  I try to avoid the harsh allergy meds, because the side effects kinda mimic allergy symptoms anyway.  (crazy, huh?)  But one useful thing I have found for the kids is The Neezle.  Don’t run off and google neezle, it’s a made up word.  Sally Mae comes to me several times a day and declares, “I need my neezle.”  I get a real good hoot (on the inside) over that every time.  At first I thought we should teach her to say,  ”May I please have my Saline Nasal Spray?”  But why would I want to deprive myself of the cuteness?

The Disclaimer

This is an article about what worked for me.  This is not medical advice.  You are responsible for what you do with this info, not me.  I’m just sharing what worked for me.

Saturday evening I got sick.  I had a fever and the worst sore throat I’ve had in years.

Sunday morning I was worse!  I didn’t even get to attend worship service.

So, of course, I Googled “natural remedy sore throat” or something like that.

I love using herbal remedies for minor maladies, but when I am sick I want something that is gonna help RIGHT NOW.

So I scanned a bunch of info and came up with a recipe that used only stuff I had in the house, and seemed common sense-ical.

I made a cup of beef broth and added a few things to it.  I put the whole recipe on Homemade and Wholesome.  I alternated a cup of the beefed up broth with cups of Celestial Seasonings Echinacea tea and cups of Traditional Medicinals Breathe Easy tea.  Adding a vitamin c tablet every 3 hours or so.

I have to be careful because I am prone to pneumonia and sinus infections.  So any time I get sick I try to nip it, right away.

In between cups of hot beverages I drank huge glasses of water.

I was feelin’  better by Monday afternoon.

Another herbal remedy that has worked well for us is using Chamomile tea for pink-eye.  Google “herbal remedy pink eye” and see what you find.  I was amazed how fast The Princess got relief the first time we used it.

Here’s your link back to Works for me Wednesday.

I know you missed it.  I know because I hid it.  While I was on my blog-cation I wrote a post on my recipe blog, Homemade and Wholesome, about my favorite store-boughten bread having the verboten, evil ingredient.  (I know, kind of a bus-man’s holiday, posting while on blog-cation.) 

Anyroad, I have really applied myself to not buying any of our bread.  But, when you have 8 people to feed 3X a day that adds up to about 24 well, 3 loaves of bread every day.  And 2 of those for lunch.  Which means I have to start my machines (I feel very GENTLEMEN, START YOUR ENGINES every time I say that) by 9:30 EVERY morning.  Which means I have become very skilled at making bread in my sleep while still a tad sleepy.  So, please, don’t talk to me while I do this or I may loose count putting 3 cups of bread flour into the pan.  I know!  But, it’s like rocket science after only one cup of coffee!

Back to the intended point.  Go here to read about how we avoid the evil ingredient.  Go here to see what I thought of that being in my OLD favorite store-boughten bread.  And go here and here to see what’s in my bread machines today.  It smells GREAT here, and I promise, no unpronounce-able scary stuff in my bread.

And go here to get a groove-in-yer-get-along today!

Here’s your shortcut back to Food on Friday.