Archive for July, 2009

Purple Tastes Better!!

July 31st, 2009

Greetings Friends!

It’s a lovely 75 degrees outside here today. The sun is shining and the bees are buzzing.
I love these days! I hope you’re all finding joy in your summer days!

I always feed my little kiddos an afternoon snack. It sure helps their focus and their attitude when they have something in their bellies in the late afternoon. During the school year, we call it our “After School Snack”, but in the summer, it’s just something to eat!

Today, Michael requested a Banana Blueberry Smoothie. I thought that was a fantastic idea.

When I was younger, I always loved bananas and milk in a blender. When I got a bit older, I realized that adding ice makes it more like a milkshake! Last year I realized that if you add frozen blueberries with the ice, the banana flavor almost completely masks the blueberry flavor if you add only 1/4 cup. The blueberry flavor gets stronger the more you add, but my critters don’t like blueberries very much so I stick to the 1/4 cup for the added AWESOME nutrition of the blueberries with the tried and true flavor of the banana smoothie.

BBSmoothie Cup (253 x 338)

I think they like the idea of drinking a purple drink!

I have even added baby spinach to this kind of smoothie before. I promise, you won’t even know it’s there. But WOW, talk about your powerhouse of nutrition! Banana, blueberry, and spinach! That’s enough kick to get anyone on the right track in the morning!

But anyway…. I thought I’d share my super quick recipe for my kid approved Banana Blueberry Smoothie! Enjoy!

You will need:

your blender
6 to 8 ice cubes
2 ripe to very ripe bananas
1/4 cup or more of frozen blueberries
3 to 4 cups of milk
1 TBSP sugar (I used “Sugar in the Raw” today but I’ve used Stevia and honey both before.)

First, put the ice in the blender and blend using a pulsing action until the ice is pulverized.

Then add the blueberries, bananas, sugar and just 1 cup of the milk. Blend until smooth.

Once all your chunks are gone (40 seconds or so) add the remainder of the milk and blend a moment more to thoroughly incorporate.

Pour, add straw and enjoy!

This is such a wonderfully nutritious snack! Give it a whirl. You won’t be sorry!

Related Resources

The Ultimate Smoothie Book
The Smoothies Bible
Healthy Snacks for Kids
Smoothie Web
All Recipe Smoothies!

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Flee Fleas, Flee

July 29th, 2009

I have an AWESOME non-toxic flea repellent for your dogs today!

puppy (250 x 375) I was doing some research online for my own darling Abby and found quite a wide variety of suggested home remedies for keeping fleas away.

The one I went with is garlic infused olive oil.

First let me say, she LOVES the flavor!
If I don’t mix it into her dry food, she’ll just lick it off the top. My friend Kris says that her dog sees her pick up the oil jar and starts getting all excited! Getting your dog to eat this will not be likely to be a problem.

Abby has been eating about 1 tsp a day for about 2 weeks now. The red marks on her lower belly where the fleas were biting her and she was digging are completely gone. She’s not excessively licking, biting, or itching anywhere anymore. Her fur has a beautifully healthy looking sheen to it now. She even had some dry skin on the top of her nose that seems to have gone away.

She’s a BIG belly rub lover so I check her under areas for fleas and ticks on a constant basis. She’s happy to roll onto her back and let her tongue loll out the side of her mouth while I rub her belly and look through her fur. After she ate the oil in her food for about 3 days, I completely stopped seeing any bugs on her.

I did, however, stop feeding her the oil for 2 days in a row and saw fleas again. It’s got to be the scent of her skin when she’s ingesting the oil regularly. If this is true, it might work to put the oil in places on the fur of the animal, but I believe she gets enough obvious benefit from eating it that it’s worth giving it to her.

Cats shouldn’t eat onions, garlic or related root vegetables. Onions contain N-propyl disulphide which destroys red blood cells in cats, causing a form of anemia called Heinz Body Anemia. Garlic contains a similar substance in a smaller amount. If it’s the scent that repels the fleas, you might be able to place the oil in a spot on the back of the neck where the cat couldn’t lick it.

It’s important that you cook the oil and garlic together. Garlic can have traces of Clostridium Botulinum, which causes botulism, because it comes out of the ground where the bacterium are often found.

Here’s how I make mine.

I add 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil to a small saute pan with a couple minced cloves of garlic. Then I cook it on medium heat for about 3-4 minutes. That’s 3-4 minutes total time. Be sure you don’t get the heat too high.

Burnt garlic is VERY yucky!!

After it cools, I store it in a small glass jelly jar. I don’t know for sure if it would require refrigeration but I keep mine there regardless.

Every morning, after our 3 mile bike ride/run, I give Abby a scoop of food and add 1 tsp of the garlic oil, drizzled over the top. Then I stir it in.

She loves it and now, I love it too :)

Related Resources

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You don’t need a reason…

July 27th, 2009

Do you spend enough time by yourself? Do you recharge your battery regularly? Most people will unfortunately answer “No” to those questions. Heck, many people don’t even get a good night sleep to recharge at night.

coffeecup (250 x 188) I spend “Day Spa Monday” relaxing and recharging during the school year, every week. I do inexpensive home style spa type treatments and relax and veg for the whole day. Sometimes I’ll have lunch with a friend, but usually I just mellow out alone.

I don’t need a reason to be good to me. I deserve it! So do you!

If you’re trying to hold on to positive, good thoughts and consciously create the life of your dreams, one of the BEST places to start is to be good to yourself. You are your best friend. Even if you don’t always treat yourself as if. But it’s never too late to start taking care of YOU!

You don’t need a reason to require some TLC. You just need to put it higher on your list of priorities and take that time. You’re allowed!

You ARE Super Woman! You CAN do it all! Or at least most of it, with time to spare ,and still looking fabulous!! But it is imperative that you take care of YOU first. How can you have super powers if you don’t take the downtime to charge them up? How can you really be there for your family and friends (which is what we’re all about!) if you haven’t been there for you and you aren’t operating at your best?

Aside from the mental and physical relaxation you get from taking time to yourself, I’ve also found that it’s during this time that I’ve built my relationship with the Universe and God. I see synchronicities everywhere, all the time. I ask questions and have people or things with my answer materialize spontaneously. I truly feel that I’m living a magical and blessed life and this feeling originally began evolving for me back in 2007 when I started losing weight and taking time to care for ME!

I started to really care about myself. I wanted to feel good in my body and I wanted to LIKE myself. I made some minor changes in my life and suddenly my Spiritual growth started a snowball effect that’s had me on a spectacular tidal wave of joy ever since!

You will be amazed at the changes that happen in your life when you just start to take care of yourself.

Sometimes we DO take good care of ourselves, but then life happens and maybe we slack off a bit. I’m going through that now because it’s summer vacation and I have the boys 24-7. They’re off to Grandma’s tonight thoug hearts (292 x 300) h and she’s keeping them for me until tomorrow evening, so I’ll have all day tomorrow by myself. I can’t WAIT!

So please, do yourself a big favor…. be a pal….

Go take some time, however much you can get a hold of, and spend it doing something that makes you smile. Do anything you want to, but enjoy it and relax and smile and know that you deserve to feel good. When you feel good, you make other people feel good! Then THEY make other people feel good and so on.

You don’t need a reason to be good to you!

Related Resources

You Can Heal Your Life

Excuses Be Gone!

Codependent No More