HomeSpunHealers

“Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary.”  ~Chinese Proverb

I’m in love with a new fad that actually is some 4700 years old!  I’ve been drinking a lot of tea this week because I read that it is good for me.  But the ancient Chinese already knew this, so I am a few thousand years behind the times!  Tea has been getting a lot of press lately, especially touting its health benefits.  Oprah has talked about the weight loss benefits of tea, and when anyone, especially Oprah, mentions weight loss, I’m all over it.  I also read about a “secret ingredient” that is helping kickstart a lot of weight loss programs in a Woman’s World magazine while I was waiting to check out at the grocery store.  I can’t resist buying those magazines because every week there is a new “secret” of some kind to help folks lose weight.  They sure know how to sell magazines!

So, the latest secret ingredient was good old tea.  The magazine article made several claims about tea:

• It increases your metabolism
• It suppresses your appetite
• It supplies antioxidants called polyphenols that can help or cure a host of things

Now, this only applies to real tea.  Green tea, white tea, black tea, or oolong tea come from the leaves of the warm weather evergreen plant called the  Camellia sinensis.  The leaves of that plant are harvested, and depending on the season of the harvest (white tea is harvested from young leaves in the spring) and how much processing is done to the tea (the least processed tea is green tea), you get different colors and types of tea.  But only tea coming from this particular plant has all the health benefits that the news is buzzing with.  Herbal teas, which are infusions of other types of plants, such as Chamomile or Dandelion, have other benefits, but not to the extent that real tea does.  If you enjoy herbal teas, you can just add some real tea to them to get the additional health benefits.

I figured if it increases my metabolism and suppresses my appetite, then I’m already sold.  Besides, I enjoy tea.  So, I’ve been drinking tea like crazy this week.  I recently bought the cutest little teapot for a very good price that has a little infuser in it and holds about 5 coffee mugs of tea.  I just put three oolong tea bags in the infuser, pour boiling hot water to the top of the teapot, let the teabags steep for about five or six minutes, remove the teabags and the infuser and serve myself a piping hot cup of tea with Splenda and lemon because that’s the way I like it.  If I have time, I drink most of that pot in the morning before I go to work.  If I don’t have a lot of time to consume that many cups of tea, I drink one cup and drink the rest, which is by then at room temperature, which I don’t mind at all, when I get home.  I can even put my cute little teapot in the refrigerator to have iced tea later.  With all that tea, I am wired!  Because guess what?  Tea has a healthy dose of caffeine, too!  The good news is that it has about half the caffeine of coffee, though.  So, I get enough to make me feel alert and peppy, but not frantic and nervous. 

I have been reading about tea and its health benefits when I have a little free time.  I have read reports claiming that tea helps everything from AIDS to tooth decay.  It’s supposedly good for bad breath and for reducing cholesterol.  Those polyphenols are really miracle working chemicals!  However, I did read that putting milk in tea takes away its benefits, so I’m glad I prefer mine with lemon and Splenda.

To get the maxium benefits, you’re supposed to drink a lot of it!  Besides my five cup pot of tea that I brew in the mornings, I have started adding instant tea with a pleasant raspberry flavor to my bottled water.  Drinking a lot of water is something that I subscribe to anyway, but why not add the antioxidant benefit of adding tea?  I’m not sure it’s only the tea (because I have also been eating a lot healthier this week) but I feel terrific!  Even with not as much sleep as I would like to get, I haven’t been tired.  And my skin looks clearer and healthier, too. 

Has it revved my metabolism?  I’m not sure.  I do know that drinking all that tea has curbed my appetite, though.  So, I’m going to keep on drinking my tea.  I like feeling better.

It’s summer time! Time to take those tootsies out of hiding and show them off in strappy heels, sexy sandals, or colorful flip-flops. For those of us who suffer with calloused heels, this can make for many uncomfortable, awkward, and embarressing days ahead. Not to worry, I have finally found something that REALLY works to remove all that hard, crusty, unsightly skin from your heels and feet.

There was a time that I really disliked my feet. No matter what I tried, I could not get all of the unsightly callouses off of my heels. I would use pumice stones, those little metal scraper things, and when bad came to worse, I would even use a razor to cut the callouses off.  I would soak my feet for the longest time. I would scrub, and soak my feet some more. I would smear on all kinds of creams and lotions that promised smooth beautiful feet, and NOTHING worked. And what did work, didn’t work to any real degree. My feet were never completely without callouses, and never completely soft or pretty.  All of that changed, when I found the neatest little gadget, that requires no foot presoaking, to get the job done.

I am not getting paid to advertise the product that I am getting ready to mention to you. I am just so excited that it really works that I just have to share it with you. Now EVERYBODY can have beautiful, smooth, soft, sandal perfect feet. That includes: ME!  I don’t know why someone didn’t invent this product years ago. And better yet, this nifty little gadget is relatively inexpensive. Ok, Ok….enough rambling and singing it’s praises. Ready?  The gadget is called “Ped Egg.”  It’s advertised on TV, but I bought mine at a CVS drug store. It’s only about 10 dollars. So, it’s easily affordable. And what’s more….IT WORKS!!! 

Calloused feet? You don’t have to live with it anymore. Ped Egg will give you the soft feet you always wished you had. 

(Oh, one more tip, to keep your feet soft and beautiful, smooth them over with vaseline at night, after your shower, and slip on some socks to keep them well mositurized.)

My grandmother used to tell me that pets make good folks. I’m sure I didn’t understand what she meant at the time; I just knew I loved pets. I’ve had cats, dogs, birds, guinea pigs, rabbits, and fish, and I’ve loved every one of them. But I know now what Granny meant. She meant that the responsibility of taking care of a pet makes for a responsible person in general, and the love that is given to an animal develops our ability to love in general. Pets are funny and comforting and unconditionally loving.

I always had a pet or pets growing up, but in my first marriage, my husband didn’t want any pets. He had never had pets growing up, and he felt they were aggravating and a general nuisance. That viewpoint was that of his parents, and once our three year old son asked Santa for a kitty cat for Christmas, he gave in and we had our first and only family pet. We unimaginatively named him K. C. (for Kitty Cat) and the abbreviation seemed to give manly character to an otherwise “girly” sounding name. My boys always wanted a dog, but their dad wouldn’t give in on that. But after we separated and he moved out, one of the first things I did was get a dog. My next door neighbor at the time, who was also a United Methodist minister, told me that for every hard event in her family’s lives, they had always gotten a dog, which made the bad seem not so bad. That’s how I came to get Kojak, my 10 and 1/2 year old pug. And the first thing that my present husband had to pass muster on before I took him seriously was his agreement that Kojak was like my child, and if you love me, you have to love him, too. And he did, and he does, but what’s not to love about Kojak? My younger son, who was 14 when we got Kojak, also had and still has a great bond with him. Kojak came into our lives when things were all topsy turvy, and both of us took great pleasure in that little ball of furry energy. He seemed to restore normalcy in our hearts. And my older son, who was 17 at the time, used Kojak unabashedly as a “chick magnet.” He said that Kojak was more attractive to girls than a snazzy car!

I’ve read a lot about the value of pets as far as healthy living is concerned. From placing fish tanks with beautifully colored swimming fish in a dentist’s waiting room to taking pets on trips to nursing homes, medical professionals recognize that being around animals is calming and has many health benefits for patients.

First of all, pets help reduce stress. Many people use special techniques to reduce stress because excess stress can wreak havoc on our health, including increasing our chances of heart disease or stroke. Yoga, exercise, meditation, and journaling, among other things, can help us manage the excess, harmful stress in our lives, but so can petting a dog or cat! There have been medical studies that showed that having a pet, particularly a cat or dog, could reduce spikes of high blood pressure caused by excess stress and reduce heart rates even better than ACE inhibitors.

Having a pet can also help relieve depression. Having been diagnosed with clinical depression myself, I can testify to how much the companionship of cat and a dog helped me with my inexplicable feelings of loneliness. Although human companionship and exercise also helped me a great deal, there was something special about coming home to K. C., who would meet me in the driveway and roll over for a belly rub and then wind loving around my legs all the way into the house. And it is beyond special to come home now to not only sweet, little Kojak, but also my big, robust Elvis, the two pugs that greet me with tails wagging and are all but frantic to touch me and have me touch them. I have humans who love to see me, too, and mostly greet me with a hug and a smile, but there is something so incredibly endearing about those little dogs who never show anything but absolute adoration when I walk into the house. I wish every person suffering from depression could have a pet to take care of, a pet who is warm and soft and needs the human. There is something so healing about unconditional love, and a cat or a dog know how to give it.

Pets can make you laugh, too. My pugs keep me in stitches with their antics and the cute looks they give me. Sometimes when I’m a little grumpy, all it takes is a comical cock of the head when one of my dogs looks at me to chase away the irritation. Pugs are like little clowns sometimes, and they can chase away blues like nothing else. A friend of mine, who doesn’t really care that much for dogs, but does tolerate mine, was over at my house recently. She was politely recognizing them, but for the most part shying away from them until Elvis stuck his whole head into her purse, and she broke out in laughter and actually petted him! Not many people can resist the charm of a pug, who is bred solely for the purpose of being a companion to a human.

Finally, a dog or a cat is a good listener. Kojak has sat patiently with me while I cried or worried out loud over situations in my life. He never offered unwanted or unsolicited advice. He just sat there and listened and heard me out. There is nothing more helpful to a woman sometimes than just having someone who will listen to her. My dogs never tell me to just get over it. They just sit and look lovingly at me, and then they curl up with their warm, soft bodies against mine, and all seems okay again. Therapists get paid big bucks for much less.

I must admit that a dog or cat is not for everyone. Some people just don’t like animals. Some don’t want to be bothered by the extra work that having a pet entails. And for those people, I say that’s okay. But maybe they could heed the advice of my grandmother when she told me what I seemed to know instinctively: pets make good folks. And now I can add more to her philosophy: pets make healthier folks, too.

Apple cider vineger (hereafter referred to as ACV) is probably one of the oldest home remedies in the book. There are claims that boasts of it’s ability to cure everything that ails you from head to toe.  Listed below you will find some of the ailments that this wonder working liquid has been known to work it’s magic on.

*High blood pressure

*Allergies

*Sinus infections

* Sore throat

* Weight loss

* Chronic Fatigue

* Acne

* Candida infection

*Arthritis

* Gout

* Heart burn

* Dandruff

* Dermatitis

As you can see, the benefits of ACV are numerous, and the list probably doesn’t end here. So drink up, and be sure to add your known ACV cures here.