...living a less toxic life! - Homeschool Blogger

Bye bye Berrysong

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:10:00 -0600

Just three more days.

For nearly 18 months, I was a business owner of Berrysong. If you click on the Berrysong link after November 30th, you will find nothing. Come December 1st, Berrysong will be snowballed.

Like many home school moms I was eager to be a financial blessing to my husband. I thought if I found the perfect product, being a Merchant Mama would be relatively simple. To some extent I did find the "perfect product". I had been using the product all along and had been recommending it to friends and relatives for a few years. It was economical and effective. And which home school mom didn't want to buy non-toxic stuff for her household use?

But having an online store was not as straightforward as I had thought. I will share the challenges of owning an online store one day. This post is more an announcement that as from December 1st, I'm no longer the owner of Berrysong.

Any regrets being a Merchant Mama for 18 months? Not really. I learned so much about Internet Marketing through this experience. That was invaluable! I also enjoyed getting to know my customers. In fact, one of the ladies I met online has become one of my best friends. If not for Berrysong, I would not have met her!

The only regret is the time I had spent developing the business could have had been spent on my children, husband and my personal study and reading.

If I want the Berrysong to really succeed, I know I need to invest more time into it. And I'm not willing to sacrifice that kind of time now. In everything, there is a season. And this is not the season.

To keep in touch, visit me here or here or there.

New Website!

Mon, 3 Sep 2007 18:45:00 -0500

Hope you are having a nice Labor Day today.

Yeah, we finally got the new website up!

Go take a look. I'll need to find the time to populate it with articles and recipes though. If you find mistakes, misspellings or ambiguities, please email me and let me know.

Many Thanks!

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 23:24:00 -0500

Sometime back, Robin from Robin's Nest (she has a beautiful site and many cool ideas!) awarded me with the Blogger Reflection Award. Wow! But I was so swamped with this and that, I forgot all about it. Imagine, I actually forgot all about it. So tonight, I'm going to claim it and paste it here!

There! Thank you Robin. You are kind to think of me.

Garden of Joy

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:22:00 -0500

Some years back, someone shared this with me. It is so cool. I wish I knew who the author was. Apparently its origin is unknown. If you know who wrote it, please let me know so I can acknowledge her. My daughter likes it so much she wanted a copy framed up for her bedroom. :)

I especially dedicate this to all gardeners!

Garden of Joy

Plant 5 rows of Peas:

Prayers,
Perseverance,
Politeness,
Promptness, and
Purity.

Plant 3 rows of Squash:

Squash gossip,
Squash criticism, and
Squash indifference.

Plant 5 rows of lettuce:

Let us be fruitful to duty,
Let us be unselfish,
Let us be truthful,
Let us follow Christ, and
Let us love one another.

No garden is complete without turnips:

Turn up for church,
turn up with a smile,
Turn up with new ideas,
Turn up with determination to make everything
count something good and worthwhile.

Unknown origin

3 Simple Words

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:05:00 -0500

I recently learned how three simple words could change my attitude from a negative one to a pleasant and thankful one.

For example, the children are playing quietly and I'm enjoying a book. I look at the clock and sigh, "I guess I have to start dinner now." Or I may be in the middle of organizing my kitchen when I remember that I have to take my daughter for her violin lesson. Or while working on a fun project, I know I have to finish balancing my check book or I'll get stressed out.

Now replace "I have to" with "I get to" and see what happens.

I get to cook dinner for my family now. How blessed I am that I'm in charge of what they eat. I get to feed them with nutritious and delicious food.

My daughter is talented and I get to take her to her class. How blessed we are that I'm at home with her and when she needs me to drive her anywhere, I'm able to do it.

Not everyone has a checkbook. I get to balance mine! My husband has given me free rein of it and I get to balance it. How blessed I am.

Try it! Just three simple words, and you will find yourself counting your blessings instead of grumbling when you face a task that you rather not be doing at the moment.

10 Reasons Why I am A Sprouting Mama...

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:56:00 -0500

Here is one simple way of eating young organic greens every day of the year inexpensively.

You don't even need a yard to do this. Read all about it in this article.

Some Breakfast

Tue, 1 May 2007 21:04:00 -0500

Yes, I've been remiss in blogging here! If you need a reason, check this out. Maybe having multiple blogs isn't a good idea. I still haven't found a balance yet. This one is supposed to be my business blog with a personal touch.

So just to ensure my friends continue to visit this blog, I'll post what I had for breakfast this morning.

I recall reading a title of a book on blogging (which I didn't get, evidently) that went No One Wants to Know What You Had for Dinner or something like that. Actually, I'm quite interested what others have for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between, especially if they include photos. I'm just interested in food, lol.

So this morning, after I made my breakfast, I thought I should take a photo shot of it.

So here it is.

What on earth is that?

It's a slice of honey wheat bread spread with miso. Then I piled it with homegrown alfalfa sprouts and tomato slices. See the greenish black stuff the open sandwich was sitting on? That's a sheet of nori or seaweed. I use that wonderful stuff to wrap everything. How else can I prevent the alfalfa sprouts from spilling all over me? On retrospect, I should have had a few slices of raw garlic. I LOVE that stuff. (I know some of you will drool over my concoction; the rest of you will wonder “Why she's eating that? Yucks!”).

So I had that and hot green tea for breakfast. I also had a tablespoon of organic peanut butter after that. Yummy. I can have this breakfast every day.

I must say that an hour before that satisfyingJapanese-flavored repast, I had a tall glass of greens. I make that for my husband before he goes to work most mornings and I have that as well. Very rejuvenating and cleansing.

By the way, the automatic sprouter my husband got me for Christmas is one of the best investments of 2006! I get to eat healthful sprouts almost daily; and I get to give containers of sprouts away to friends and my mother-in-law too. And guess what, Berrysong WILL be selling these automatic sprouters soon! Look out for more news.

Have a wonderful day, all.

Chicken Rice Soup

Tue, 6 Mar 2007 13:41:00 -0600

We eat a lot of soups in the Gibson household. This is one of our favorites. It is easy to make when you have left-over rice and cooked chicken. It is hearty and nourishing. We usually have this for our Saturday lunch (dinner if you are from the South).

Chicken Soup with Brown Rice
(makes about 4 servings)

5 cups organic chicken broth
1/2 small onion, peeled and sliced
2 carrots, peeled and cut into small pieces
1 stalk celery, cut into small pieces
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into small pieces
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups cooked chicken, cut into bite size pieces
1 cup cooked brown rice

Directions
1.In 3-quart saucepan, combine onion, carrots, celery, sweet potato, broth, and salt.
2.Heat to boiling over high heat.
3.Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
4.Stir in chicken and rice, heat through.
5.Serve immediately unless you dont' mind the rice soaking up the soup.

I like to sprinkle dried cilantro and dried seaweed over my soup. The rest of the family prefer not to notice that though.We all have personal preferences. :)

Variations
1. Add spinach or other chopped greens like collards and kale the last five minutes before the soup is ready.

2. Instead of the vegetables mentioned, use a bag of mixed vegetables. That always works when I'm in a hurry and don't want to mess around with peeling and chopping vegetables. You also save time as you don't need the whole 15 minutes for the mixed vegetables to become tender.

About the chicken broth
If you have no time to make your own chicken broth, get Swanson's Certified Organic broth. I don't care for the regular kind because it contains MSG. Some people are also very allergic to MSG. I have also not used chicken bullion in a long time too and I don't recommend it unless you can buy those without MSG.

What I do is to make my own broth (more frugal) or stock up one the organic broth whenever there is a sale. I usually save around $.50-$.75 per carton when it is on sale so that adds up when I buy 10 cartons at a go.

What's on Your Label?

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:12:00 -0600

Years ago, the SKULL & CROSSBONES was on the label of many household products. It was replaced with fine print labels.

Today, many of our cleaning products have one of the following labels:

DANGER
Harmful or Fatal if Swallowed

This means a single taste to a teaspoon can be FATAL to an adult!

WARNING
Harmful if Swallowed

This means a teaspoon to an ounce can be FATAL to an adult!

CAUTION
Harmful if Swallowed

This means an ounce to a pint can be FATAL to an adult!

If you have young children especially, do know what kind of labels your household products have.

In a study by the Columbia Univeristy College of Physicians & Surgeons, "More than 7 million accidental poisonings occur each year, with more than 75% involving children under 6!"

We will never know the exact figures of accidental poisonings, but we know that the figures are high.

So bring out your baking soda, and vinegar and lemon juice. And if you want more effectiveness, you can always try Berrysong products. They are very cost-effective too!

Overeating

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:23:00 -0600

This blog is all about living a less toxic life. One way we can do that is to not become hostage to negative emotions.

Today, I want to share something that is close to the heart of many women.

It's overeating.

Call it what you like, but most of us overeat. Not because our bodies need it. But we overeat when we're happy and in a celebratory mood. We overeat when we don't want to waste our children's food. We overeat when we're with wonderful friends and family. And if you are a Baptist...can you resist yet another spoonful from that covered dish?

We have all been there.

But there also is the darker side to overeating that goes beyond partying or having a good time.

We overeat when we feel lonely or unhappy. We overeat when we are depressed or bored. We overeat when we are disappointed or angry.

Sometimes we don't even know that our overeating is not due to hunger but negative emotions.

Well, not to worry. I have a simple test for you! It is funny that I read in an article somewhere not too long ago about the same test that I use for myself and my children. I thought I invented it! LOL. I call it the “apple test”.

Each time I want to eat something in the middle of the day, late at night or when I'm pottering in the kitchen, I ask myself, “Do I want to eat an apple now?” If I say no, then I know I'm really not hungry.

But if my mind is still set on that mini-bag of chocolate chip cookies (sans trans-fat and all things supposedly “bad”), I'll crunch on the apple. Usually that takes the edge off my emotional hunger and I can pass the cookies or some other kind of comfort food.

When my children say they are hungry soon after a meal, it's usually because they want something sweet or unnecessary. My question to them is usually, “Shall I get you an apple?” If they are hungry they will say “Yes, we want the apples!” If they say they are not hungry for apples, then I try to distract them or put some apple slices in front of them anyway.

I'm sharing this because I believe we feel better about ourselves and others when we don't overeat. One day I may talk about the binges I used to have in my late teens and early twenties. They were not pretty. Oh, I loved the Lord and I had a passion for lost souls but how painful were the throes of self-loath I found myself in each time I binged. One day...may be

For now anyway, I hope the “apple test” will help you distinguish between real physical hunger and emotional hunger. Knowing the difference is the beginning of taking charge of your food intake. And having a control over that aspect of life will reduce a significant amount of stress for not a few women. We can all do with less stress in our lives...