Category — Holidays

I can feel the Winter season slowly creeping up in the background of this beautiful Fall. In about a month, this crispy colorful leaves will be dry and cracklin’, the wind will whip through the bare branches, the jack o lantern will be dilapidated. Okay, okay, am I giving you early onset seasonal depression?

And with that seasonal depression might come some life stress, and the next thing you know you’ve binged on sugar, fallen asleep, and WHAM! You’re up with a full blown sinus cold (or worse!)

Either you’ve been there, you ARE there, or you WILL be there.

So here we go, a little mama herbal wisdom:

Prevention is the best medicine. Balance, balance, balance. But sometimes, despite you’re best efforts, you get kinda “high”. You’re in the zone, fillin’ up that calendar, working hard and before you know it, you see all those red flags going up. For me it’s a chatterbox brain (and mouth), a listlessness and off kilter energy. I wake up with a little sore throat, I yawn all day, I feel my exhaustion catching up with me and the only thing that sounds good is SLEEP.

Sleep is SO important. The body does most of its cellular rebuilding during sleep, while dreams blow off mental steam and unresolved tensions of the day. I find it SO hard to get to bed at a decent hour. The wee hours of the morning are when my brain is most productive for work, yet I don’t have the luxury of sleeping all day because, alas, I have 2 young kids! If you are like me, your sleep “issues” vary; maybe sometimes its GETTING to sleep, maybe its STAYING asleep, maybe its the QUALITY and DEPTH of your sleep (like nursing all night?!)

Herbs can play a significant role in supporting the body’s need for sleep. The “sleep aid” herbs work gently, not like a tranquilizer, and have been used since FOREVER. They don’t have side effects, are not addictive, and work differently for different people. It’s important to really look at your symptoms and pick the right herb to support your needs. And let’s not forget- fresher is ALWAYS better. Fresh, organically grown whole herbs (leaves, flowers, roots — as opposed to capsules) are powerful when used as either nourishment or medicine. All of the herbs in my list below can be found at Mountain Rose Herbs where you can purchase the fresh, organic herbs in bulk (4 oz, 8oz, even 1 lb). Second to growing/harvesting them yourself, you will benefit much more from theirs than stagnant bagged teas or conventionally grown herbs from many grocers (a little pesticide spray with your chamomile tea before bed? Mmmm….) (You can read more about their guiding principles here.)

That said, here is a quick overview of some herbs for sleep (and/or stress!):

SKULLCAP: Skullcap really became my best friend at the end of my pregnancy. Sleep was hard to come by, and with the heart burn and discomfort I had I really needed something to KNOCK me out. Skullcap is said to be the closest thing to a mild sedative. It doesn’t work that way for everyone, but its definitely worth a try. (Bonus: It is also anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic.) Take as a tincture or even a medicinal tea (15 minutes steep) 30 minutes before you plan to go to bed. Awake from a deep sleep refreshed, not groggy.

CHAMOMILE: Another popular sleepy time tea, and often used for children to promote a calm, restful spirit. Either drink as a beverage tea (3-5 minutes steep time) or add to a warm bath! (Be careful if you have a yellow flower pollen allergy – chamomile tea could make you irritated if you do, the opposite of restful! If you have an allergy to ragweed, chamomile may even cause an anaphylactic shock.)

LAVENDER: I ADORE lavender as a relaxing herb. I have had great success using lavendar as an essential oil from Young Living, (it is useful for many things, relaxation is only one of them!) A drop under my pillow and rubbed into the soles of my feet before bed helps signal my body to relax and often helps me attain a deeper sleep than usual. BUT- it can sometimes be more of a stimulate for some people, so the important thing to remember here is that lavender works to support and strengthen the nervous system, so it could work differently for you depending on your body’s needs. It works for me because the nervous system strengthening helps alleviate any worry or depression I have when going to bed. Once that is liften, sleep is easier to come by, and keep.

Here are some perhaps lesser known herbs that could be your ticket to better sleep:

LEMON BALM: Like lavender, lemon balm strengthens nervous system to help nerves relax. Another thing lemon balm is GREAT for is a decongestant, not only for the body but for the mind as well. Lemon balm grows like weeds around here, so if you find this herb useful you should plant some in the corner of your yard and harvest yourself!

VALERIAN ROOT: Valerian root can really help relieve anxiety. If also repopulates easily, so buying one plant and harvesting yourself is a good idea. Note: it is not the most tasty herb as a tincture or tea, but one tip I learned in my herbs class is to make Mead with it (honey wine). I am very excited to give this a try in the coming months, (I think I’ll start by making a kombucha with it, however).

PASSIONVINE (flower): Useful for mental stimulation and nervous energy, use as tea or tincture.

CALIFORNIA POPPY: Useful and SAFE FOR CHILDREN TOO, a relaxant and pain reliever. It can also be found wild in Oregon. If you find some, you can make tea from the flowers, or use the whole plant in your tincture form.

HOPS: Many folks claim that fresh hops can help them with sleep problems. It is often used in sleep pillows (and it’s easy to make these yourself!). Another tip from herb class: hops can have opposite effect on those who are clinically depressed, so if that is you, hops might not be your friend.

CATNIP: I love catnip, it’s one of my favorite herbs. I tried it for the first time to break fever, and within minutes I was deeply asleep. When I awoke, I looked up more info about it and found out some great stuff: Catnip is wonderful for hyper kids and colic babies, AND it’s an anti-spasmadic (which helps my IBS problems). I drink before bed to pass through breastmilk for Verity to sleep well. Another thing to note is that catnip herb can be great for really bad, spasmodic coughs, but we’ll get more into that in Part 2, when we talk about what to do once you ARE sick. (Tincture fresh leaves).

OATSTRAW: This nerve strengthening herb is a great all over tonic (and its known as an aphrodisiac too! (there certainly are LOTS of nerves, ya know, DOWN THERE )

St. JOHNS WORT: Anti-depressant, moves things through the liver quickly (so does not work in conjuction with prescription drugs) and treats sore overworked muscles.

LINDEN FLOWERS: Relaxant and headache reliever.

Lastly, there are many herbs in their therapeutic grade essential oil form that can aid in your sleep, balance, and prevention of winter time (or any time!) blues and colds. For one, a blend called RutaVaLa includes: Ruta graveolens (rue), lavender, and valerian essential oils.

Coming up next… Herbs for Rest and Inner Defense – Part 2. I’ll tell you about what to do when it’s seems too late. Your are or are getting sick and you need SUPPORT, asap. Before you head out for over the counter medicine or antibiotics that will only mask your symptoms and leave your body weak and more vulnerable to the next attack, remember that nature has supplied us with some amazing herbs to aid your body’s immune (and other) systems to fight off the bad germs itself – leaving you healthy and resilient instead! So stay tuned…

Tree-Tice
By:Douglas Florian

One leaf fell,
Then two,
Then three.
Such is autumn industree.
Four leaves fell,
Then five,
Then six.
A tree-tice on
Arithmetics.

Well, I’m outta here as of tomorrow morning to head over to Champoeg campground with just under 100 other Evergreeners for the weekend. If I could describe my excitement about being outside in lovely weather with my family and friends, knitting and reading and staring at the fire all weekend, I would. I am SO needing this!

What have I been up to this week? Mainly just maintaining life with work, kids, a marriage, so on. Had a knit night last night at Posies with the gals, which was nice, especially since I haven’t had my girl time this week with my running group (my neck was too sore to even think about jostling around like that!) In my spare time I have been reading about herbs and deciding on which avenue of learning I would like to take to learn more. I decided on the simple 1 hour recorded sessions of this lady out in Eugene after watching her free intro course online. She is inexpensive, entertaining, and a seasoned “wise woman” (an approach I really like). I’m so exciting about learning more.

Since learning to knit was last winter’s project, this one is for the upcoming season. As I’ve reflected on before, when I lived in Florida for 20 years I felt like I was burnt out. The number of sunny, warm climate days didn’t mix well with me and I constantly found myself out of sorts. I can’t blame that all on the weather, but I certainly felt a release of that particular feeling upon moving to the Pacific NW. The seasons are distinct and beautiful here, and I’ve come to appreciate them more each year. Many people, including myself, feel a sense of rest and hibernation that comes with the rain and shortened daylight. The kids sleep in longer, more tea is consumed, sweaters and good book follow you around the house. I have found that I scale back on social activities and extend myself a little less, spending more time on my own creativity, processing, and family life. I find that there is a little more time to learn something new, more downtime in between the busy life of a work-at-home-mom. Maybe its my own conscious choice to balance myself out after a jam packed, exhausting summer. Maybe its because its raining and cold so there’s only so much I can venture out to do outside the home without a CAR! lol Either way, I welcome it and call this next chapter of my year: RAIN AND HERBS.

Speaking of the next chapter of life, next week Ethan begins classes at Village Home. We ended up in different classes than we began in, which I think is awesome. He’ll actually be taking “Word World” and “Move and Groove”, along with two family classes for members: Knitting and Organic Gardening. The Word World class is with 5-8 year old’s who will learn early reading concepts through story times and picture games. The Move and Groove class is a physical education/dance category, where the young students are introduced to basic dance concepts and listen and move to jazz, ballet, tap, etc. I think he’ll enjoy the musical aspect of that and love to groove to the music as we so often to while we listen to the radio together!

He is doing super with words and reading lately, it is amazing to me. He could spend hours rearranging the letters on the fridge and trying to spell things out phonetically. He reads along in his early reader books already and can’t get enough of it. It’s like all he can think about, which is very cute. Today out of no where he said the word “sit” in a sentence and then like a light bulb went off he said, “HEY! MAMA! I can spell “sit” watch this: “ssihttt…. so that’s sss- ih – tt, which are the letters S, I, and T!” I love seeing him grasp concepts on his own and be genuinely excited about reading.

Stories and narrative are such an important part of our lives, (another post for another time), and to see him get excited about them gives me chills! Tonight for bed we began a child’s version of the classic “Alice in Wonderland”, something he was very curious about at the Enchanted Gardens. We plan to get through the book while camping (it’s rather long) and then have the classic Disney movie version on hold at the library when we get back.

In the meantime he’s been watching movies in the early morning when I simply can’t get up with him because I’ve been up late working (Chris might as well sleep in too because he’s often up folding laundry while I work ). I honestly love hearing his door open at like 6:30am and he hums and sings to himself from the moment he wakes up, heads to pee in the bathroom singing all the while, and then goes upstairs to get himself breakfast. He utilizes chairs and whatever he needs to fetch and toast a frozen waffle or piece of bread, grabs a piece of fruit, gets himself a plate, and heads down to the “playroom” we’ve carved out of the laundry room, where he eats while rocking in his rocking chair and viewing a little movie to keep him occupied while we’re asleep. Lately he’s been on a REAL “Milo & Otis” kick and can practically recite the dialogue, storyline and songs impeccably, lol. He also likes “Charlotte’s Web” like its never going outta style.

In still other news, I recently went back to work with Wiley on a very small scale basis to help out with a new social media initiative. The extra paycheck each month and the chance to work with “the ol’ team” again will be really nice! Chris is still working at networking and has a few events next week where he will go and talk with people and pass out his card. He also interviewed today for an internship in order to gain some skills with a small local (very local, like right down the road) company who is into social media as well. It was funny and reminded us how small Portland can be in some ways, because when he got there the two people interviewing realized they already knew him. One had seen us as Posies ALL. THE. TIME. and another was attending Evergreen at Ethan and Verity’s dedication a few weeks ago! Small world. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that the internship will be his, particularly for the training ground and networking potential. (Shoot, I just realized he might have wanted me to NOT blog about his job hunt so he had some material to post on his sloooooow moving blog at DadaNeedJava! Oops! Sorry, hun. I guess you can always post about how your counseling is going )

In still other news, or update rather, I’ve had a wonderful week eating a “nourishing” only diet. My meals have consisted mainly of a protein, fruit, veggie, nuts, etc. – primarily only “whole foods”. I’ve not had breads, sweets, crackers, nothing like that all week (except one zucchini muffin made by my temptress roommate Lacey today ). You could call it low-carb but the raw honey (for apitotherapy benefits) and fruit don’t put it under that category. Neither is it low-cal or purposefully glutein-free. What it is is SMART calories that give my body the most of what it needs. It’s working so well. My gut feels way less bloated, I’m having tons of BM’s (TMI? LOL), and my hunger is curbed with some nuts or piece of chicken or bowl of whole plain yogurt. I’ve even, get this, lost 2 pounds! lol, hey, it’s something!

Well, I better call this a night and get back to some work and my yummy tea. “See” you all when I get back Sunday or Monday!

I love seasons. Love them. And I always get super excited for the next one just when I’m getting a bit bored with the current.

With that in mind, FALL IS ALMOST HERE!!!!

Crunchy, leafy, yummy fall! Oh, Portland autumn is just to die for.

There are a plethora of area events going on, making it really hard to have any down time in order to catch it all. We’ll bypass things like the Pirate Festival (aaaarg.), but we’ll plan to make it to a few others. Many are quickly becoming an annual family tradition:

Evergreen Community Camping Trip
Sept 11-13th
(View my coverage of last years here!)

The Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire
Sat. Sept. 19th
I am SO looking forward to this event as the homeschool group heads out here for the day, and can’t wait to see what bits of history Ethan learns! I need to quickly think of some type of costume for us, though!

Sun. Sept 20th
Race for the Cure!
The gal pal team of Misty, Amy, Lindsey, Nicole and I (wow, do those names sounds like the make of a good cheerleading squad or what?!) will be doing the timed race this year. Donation link is in my right sidebar- I really need a little more funding so if you feel so inclined, please make your way over there!

CHICAGO
Sept. 23-27th
I am WAY excited to spend several days with my friend and colleague while we work side by side instead of email to email. (I’ve never been to Chicago, but honestly I’m more excited about late nights falling asleep to Gilmore Girls after a full days work )

The Corn Maize at the Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch
Oct 5th
The homeschooling group will going together this day, and I might try to fannagle some Evergreeners for another one the next week complete with the bonfire rental like last year… we’ll see what happens.
(View our coverage last year here! – same place as the previous link)

Annual Apple Tasting at the Portland Nursery
(See our post about last year’s here!)
“Portland Nursery
Friday-Sunday October 9, 10, 11 2009
Friday-Sunday October 16, 17, 18, 2009
Every year bring in the holiday spirit, turn on the music, and bring out the holiday cookies. Special children’s area with toys and decorations to delight all ages. Our open house is your first chance to see our stores decorated for the season.”

People’s Co-Op Harvest Festival
I haven’t found the dates on this, but its an annual thing and is sure to fall within this time period…
View our coverage of it two years ago here.

The Fall will be a little busy, yes, as ALL Falls are in Portland with young kids, I’m coming to realize. On top of area events, we’ll be hosting a home community at our Kenton House, hosting the homeschooling group here once a month, and my friend/colleague from Chicago will be visiting mid-October as well! I’m sure there will be the annual Evergreen halloween party and trick or treating on the 31st too. In November, I’m hoping to convince the Hubster that a 2 week trip to FL is in order (esp while the tickets are only $188!!!)

I admit, I can’t wait for Fall this year ESPECIALLY because my adorable kids will look so cute in their mama-made knitted hats Tee hee.

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It was a lot of fun to spend time with friends in the sun for the afternoon while celebrating another year in my son’s life. He is such a joy, even in the “worst” of times. He’s been having a rough day or two with stomach problems, so he hasn’t enjoyed himself as much as I had hoped he would. He couldn’t even eat his cake So we opted to skip the special birthday dinner and let him get to sleep early on a bland meal. Chris deserves props for many things these past few days, not in the least for keeping the kids highly entertained with water balloon games, but most notably for cleaning up the bathroom and clothes when Ethan’s …er… stomach problems emptied themselves inside his pants when he couldn’t make it to the bathroom. Poor buddy!

Side note: I’m officially an Oregonian now! Mandatory photo ID check to board the lunch cruise forced me to finally get an Oregon driver’s license Friday morning. I did pass the test, but I got several wrong that were REALLY hard. Who knows what it means when your vehicle approaches a horseback rider on a rural street and they raise their arm straight up? Huh?!

Additional side note: Ethan awoke this morning to follow arrows to the steps around the corner of his room, where a few gifts awaited him: a take-apart car from Nana and Papa, a build-your-own rocketship from Paw Paw and Maw Maw, and from us: glow in the dark stars, a handsewn birthday crown, and a small batmobile. I didn’t finish the rocket ship he asked me to knit him (though I stayed up til almost 1am working on it)… alas, the best laid plains. And after all that, you know what he said after finding all of his gifts waiting for him? “Hey- where’s the squirt gun?!” Ay mi!

So I am birthdayed OUT. I have done nothing but prep for this birthday for the last 48 hours and I’m ready to CRASH. Good thing I have a nice long day of work tomorrow with tons of stuff to catch up on (seriously- I welcome this- anything is better than more birthday work!)

Final side note: My roomates new baby is SO FREAKIN ADORABLE!

I used this recipe for the homemade chocolate zucchini cake (doubled for the castle bunt pan and the muffin pan). Instead of white sugar I soaked turbinado with the wet ingredients for 15 minutes before adding the dry ingredients. I used whole wheat pastry flour, oh and raw milk instead of buttermilk. I also omitted the pecans because I don’t think Ethan would like that, and it is his birthday cake, after all

The frosting is cream cheese – from the delicious Birth day Cake recipe here. I tripled the recipe listed for TONS of frosting, plus adding two ripe bananas.

Topped the cake and muffins with slices of fresh strawberries and a few blueberries. I then mixed honey with a can of pureed pineapple and drizzled it over everything.

Hungry yet?!?!

This morning Ethan asked me about this holiday, the 4th of July; why do we celebrate it? Why the fireworks, the party? I confess: I have done an extremely poor job of teaching my almost-4-year old the basics of government, lol. (I’m fairly disinterested in the topic myself). As we walked, I pointed out the American Flag and reminded him about Obama (who he always recognizes on TV or t-shirts and declares: THAT’S THE PRESIDENT! YOU VOTED FOR HIM!). I tried to tell him how on July 4th we celebrate the fact that no one owns our country, that we are free. That part was a tad over his head. It struck me that I should have been focusing his learning on this these past few weeks, but alas, it fell between the cracks. Good thing there’s a July 4th next year

Freedom, however, is something he gets. Independence? Oh yes.

So I’ve been reflecting today on the concept of freedom, how it effects me in my marriage and my relationship with my children.

In my marriage, we are learning that we have the freedom to make choices and have feelings, to share what’s truly on our minds, and to be different individuals whilst loving and respecting those differences we bring to the table. We have the freedom to make mistakes and make amends.

With Ethan, we are learning that although he is 3 foot nothin’, he is still a person who deserves love and respect, to be listened to, to be given a safe and secure home. He has the freedom to make choices and have feelings too, and to display them — to make mistakes, and make amends. I recently add to my sidebar the slogan “Free Range Kid” because I want to remind myself (at least as often as I come to my own blog, lol) that my child is a gift from God, a small person entrusted to me to guide and facilitate, not to control and mold. He is free. I am free to love him, I am free to respond with gentleness and understanding, I am free to be excited about who is uniquely is. You might think these things are fairly automatic for a parent, but not always. Children have the capacity to wear you MIGHTY THIN, and the daily process can get you stuck in survival rather than enjoyment. So this is certainly a learning process for me, and for Chris.

In other news, I’ve had a busy week, esp with “field trips” and outings. We spent a total of seven hours at Jamison water park this week, and Ethan is now sporting a nice tan line above his crack Yesterday Chris was off for holiday, so the homeschooling group got together for a family-wide potluck/picnic– which was great. Looks like this week we’ll be doing a Berry U-Pick farm perhaps. In a few weeks we are visiting the water plant. It’s been such a blessing to meet the families preschool homeschooling around here. One of them even has an Azure Standard drop near us, so we get to add 15 lb Peanut Butter and 1 gallon of raw honey to the drop this week, a sweet deal. Also, we are bartering our kefir grains for her handmade natural soaps. Another mom is planning a day when us moms can get together to watch Bollywood films. God, I love this city.

We’ve been blessed a lot this week. From expert financial advice, a free clunker laptop for Chris to begin looking for his own freelance administrative work, and an infant carseat we can borrow. I snagged 5 handmade cloth diapers from Craigslist so we are finally back to cloth. Oh, and our roomies are having a rough go this last end of the pregnancy- they’ll be trying to naturally induce via acupuncture this week because of a liver problem that could be effecting the baby, so hold on to your hats folks- we could have the 8th Kenton House addition here VERY SOON! YEEK!

So, our lofty Independence Day plans to go to the fabulous church house party/grill-out were dampened by a lack of transportation, but all is well. We stayed in: Verity slept a bunch, Ethan made flags, I sewed and worked. We went out in the yard for the afternoon and enjoyed the beautiful, healing summer rays. We ate watermelon and Newman’s Oreos while Chris and I shared a cold Reisling. The boys did boy thing with fireworks while I continued a knitting project. Sweet times…

Curtains for Ethan (future Verity) room. Trying to overhaul this room to be a tad more manageable (toy rotation, etc) and less gender specific (away with the blue dragon rug and in with the multi-gendered patchwork curtains!) Sewing curtains for Ethan’s room has been a looooong time coming, so I’m happy to have this behind me, lol.

Remember those itty bitty carrot sprouts? Our garden is really taking off!

Tomatoes… coming soon?!

Verity is so beautiful. And she sure loves to sleep outside!

Wine and watermelon, anyone?

No, I’m not practicing voodoo on an unlucky lion out there who double-crossed me. This is my latest knit project- a jungle animal baby mobile for my nephew Logan, due sooooon! (And yes, I am very aware that these little animals are so ugly their cute. What can I say? They are imperfect because they are handmade, right?)

Ethan’s tribute to our backyard 4th of July party

Chris and Ethan in a watermelon eating contest!

And lastly – 4th of July is not complete until you light something up while in your watermelon soaked t-shirt

HAPPY FREEDOM DAY, EVERY ONE!!!

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In honor of New Year’s: Hubby’s hair journey as he patiently asks me daily to give him a haircut.
Before:

Okay, okay, so that’s not him…

But trust me, the do was bad. And professional haircuts are simply a luxury we cannot afford. SO – about once a month, with some bonding over the buzzing of the trimmer, we get him all purty again (and we just HAD to get this done in honor of the new year ):

AFTER:

Ta da!