Herbal Cough Drop/ Throat Soothers

Tammy wanted my recipe for my special herbal cough drops, and since the mouse situation has finally passed, and I’m calmer *see sidenote at end, I thought I would provide it.

Suffice it to say that you should seek medical attention blah blah blah…but if you are stuck at home (as I was) or have a sick child and need help quick, these work great.  I’ll give you the concept, you can’t really call it a recipe, that I use, but feel free to adjust it to what you have at home.  I realize that not everyone has nearly every essential oil in their house in situations like this, so we’ll adjust.  With this concept, you can have herbal cough drops ready to serve in under 30 minutes. These are not just for sore throats. Great for dry coughs, upset stomach, headache, just change the herbs/essential oils and label your container accordingly.

Basically, it’s a hard candy recipe.  DO NOT ALLOW children to be in the kitchen while you are making these.  Boiling sugar HURTS.  Keep an eye on it, don’t let it boil over, etc.

Got all that?  Ok, here we go. 

About 2 1/2 cups of sugar.  White, brown, turbinado, it’s all fine. 

1 T lemon juice

1 1/2 cups herbal tea. * Ok…here’s where it get’s tricky. If you HAVE herbs at home (see below) use them to steep a strong tea, strain and use that. If not, check the kitchen cabinet for any herbal tea bags you may have on hand (celestial seasonings are wonderful) None? ok. Green tea? it’s got great antioxidant properties. no? ok…you’re still good. take a large glass bowl, pour in your water and raid the spice cabinet. Ginger, cinnamon, basil leaves, cayenne (smalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll amount!) sprinkle in the water, microwave for about a minute or so till it’s warm but not boiling, let steep and then strain thru a coffee filter (or not!)

Essential Oils: I use lavender (2-3 drops) oregano (4-5 drops) tea tree (5-6 drops) and Eucalyptus (2-3 drops) Add to the sugar, not the water.

Once your tea has steeped and strained if you desire, add it to the sugar in a pot, and bring to a boil. Bring to 300 degrees (hard crack) or when it makes a nice hard ball in ice water when dripped. Stir a LOT to keep the foam down. Tea will really foam.

In the interim, cover a cookie sheet with wax paper or parchment, sprinkle heavily with powdered sugar. Set aside.

When sugar reaches the appropriate stage, either drip off a spoon to make cute little drops (as if!) or pour gently onto the lined cookie sheet. Allow to cool. Pick up the wax paper by the corners, flip it over and smash it down on the cookie sheet. Break into pieces when cool and store in airtight container. Take as needed. Voila.

Herbs for a sore throat

Marshmallow – Really nice and soothing.

Lavender – calming and reduces inflammation

Hops – GREAT if you are having trouble sleeping

Licorice – great for the throat, immune system, regulating blood sugar and stops upset stomach

Ginger – warming, see licorice

Peppermint – cooling, soothing, good for upset tummy (makes them taste good too)

Horehound – the drawback here is that most folks don’t have this on hand. 😦 Bummer

While you’re at it, make an herbal hand/air/room/surface spray. Clean up the remainder of the mung.

About a cup of water

4 drops of oregano essential oil
4 drops of tea tree e.o
5 drops of lavender e.o.
6 drops of lemongrass (you can use orange, mandarin, lime or pine instead) e.o.
2 T vodka (as a stabilizer)

Mix together in a spray bottle, spray around yourself and gently breathe in, spray hard surfaces that have been touched by the sick person, etc. This is safe, easy and healty to make, unlike waterless hand cleansers which are damaging to the system.

There ya go! Enjoy.

*Promised side note. apparently the noise I heard was mr/mrs. mouse caught in trap writhing and trying to get free. DD checked for me, and after I finished screaming, crying and vomiting, I attached myself to the couch for 7 hours until someone could come and remove the dying mouse from under my kitchen sink. ugh.

New Photo Templates Available

I was kinda testing the waters with the free photo templates I posted, and I noticed that a lot of people do not have or do not use photoshop. SO…I have decided to upload the templates to Zazzle. Check em out!

 

Green Plaid Easter Photo Template
by

HeartsinFocus

Get this custom postcard
at Zazzle

Heads or Tails – Wonder or Wander

My buddy skittles has this wonderful tuesday “meme” called Heads or Tails, are you doing it? You should. It’s fun, thought provoking, and sometimes VERY Therapeutic!

This week our theme is “wonder or wander”. I’m going with wonder, and you’ll see why…as my mind is so fully engrossed in a particular train of thought at this time, there is no other option.

I WONDER what it would be like not to have a phobia or panic. I don’t mean “oh no, I’m running late for a meeting” kind of stressful panic, I mean the kind that is completely debilitating, where you are unable to make any sort of rational thought or movement, the kind where the mind tells you it would be so much easier for the world to end NOW than to have to deal with this….whatever.

When DD was small, I had a severe case of Panic and Anxiety, which is what led me to WANDER down the road to natural health. It made such a difference in my life, and I used to WONDER why more people didn’t choose alternative methods. I have not (Thank God) suffered from this condition for many years…at least not on that level, due to the change in my outlook and methodology. And yet, there are still those moments.

This morning, well it was one of those moments. Picture it. It’s 4:30 am. (yes, 4:30) and I’m working happily away in photoshop, when I hear something. I immediately think “what is Jake doing now??” I go upstairs to check, as the noise is odd, and jake is passed out with DS in bed. If not jake, bodhi? no, bod asleep with DD. Coming back downstairs WONDERING what the…I heard it again. coming from the kitchen. If you read me with any regularity, you KNOW WHAT IS IN MY KITCHEN. I have stated many times before that I am terrified of mice. Now, I don’t mean like June Cleaver in High heels and apron with her fingers over her lips gasping ooh! a mouse! I mean complete and utter degradation of the human spirit. I cannot think, move or breathe. When the bodily functions DO return, it is like an atomic bomb went off. I cannot control my shaking, breathing, want to scream and can’t. Unconsciously I develop a “safe zone” which this morning was my computer chair. Feet CANNOT touch the floor, all lights must be on and NOTHING can be out of view, any movement (even a flashing light through the window from a passing car causes the heart to race, breathing to stop, tears to flow, since my mind has convinced me that it is not a mouse, but a giant mutant killer rat that will be emerging from the kitchen with his cohorts to attack and mutilate me at any moment (think “ben”). I could not leave the chair. It took almost 2 hours before I could get up again…and then it was a mad dash for the stairs to hit the shower. Now, you will ask yourself, I WONDER if she realizes that they are not just in the kitchen? Yes, yes I do, but I can’t actually accept that as fact, or I will have to sleep in my car.

I know that for some people, this seems so ridiculous, trivial in fact.  People make fun of me…hell, my kids make fun of me.  I’m sure I look pretty funny dancing on the couch screaming insanely clutching my head because there could be/might be/are (let’s be honest)  mouse/mice in my house.  It is a completely irrational fear.  I understand that, and all the other crap that people say…they’re more scared of me than I am of them…blah blah blah.  Bullshit.  If they were more afraid of me than I am of them, they would have explosive heart attacks and die on the spot hearing my footsteps on the stairs.  They do not.  So there.  For people who do not suffer from this type of panic/phobia, there is no way for them to understand that even though to YOU it may seem irrational, and I may even believe that myself, it doesn’t change what happens physically, chemically and emotionally in the body when faced with these fears.

When I was seeing clients in VA for hypnotherapy, I had several people who wanted to experience it to try and rid themselves of phobias, or irrational fears. I have been asked why I have not tried this. Alas, I have. Unfortunately, the MOMENT that the therapist began to say mouse…got as far as mou maybe, I flipped out. Session over. No thank you. And I am a very successful hypnotherapy candidate. Not for this, it is too deeply ingrained in my system I suppose.

Still, I WONDER what it would be like to enter a pet store and not hyperventilate when nearing that section. To be able to watch a commercial with a mouse on it and not burst into fits of shaking and near tears. To be able to enter my kitchen with out terror causing me to stand…toes on the edge of the carpet…unable to breathe….shaking uncontrollably, throwing random items onto the kitchen floor to make noise to scare them away. I WONDER what it would be like to be able to sleep at night again…not worried that they will walk on me or bite me in my sleep.

Ugh. Ok. I’m off to wander the net in search of something to occupy my mind…since I assure you I won’t be leaving this chair today.

I’m back?!?

Well, I’m up and around, how about that? Back….we’ll see.

I HATE being sick. Now, I realize that it’s been over 3 years since the LAST time I even felt “unwell” and I really can’t complain, but….dang it…I will anyway. It sucked. BUT I got these really pretty (read gross and disgusting, good for keeping the kids in line) white spots on my throat as a reward…how can you top that? lol!

By friday I felt well enough to drag myself up and make some tea tree cough drops (yes, I make my own), which went a long way in annihlating the nifty spots. Of course, had I felt better I could have made them monday or tuesday and I wouldn’t have ended up feeling like crap all week. ah well.

So other than cooking and getting DS up and off for school, and some limited homework help, I did a lot of nothing last week. At least physical nothing. Which, by saturday, was clearly visible in my house and my general state of mind.  I’m not a “do nothing” person…it doesn’t work for me. Spent the next 2 days cleaning up and grousing about how I have to do EVERYTHING and being not very pleasant I assume. It’s my right….cuz I’m sick (see, that CAN work to your advantage!)

Saturday, during the clean fest, I found….gulp, scream, gasp, ugh, gross! poops under my kitchen sink. That sonic boom you heard? That was me screaming “I HAVE POOPS…I HAVE POOPS” which of course prompted DS to run haphazardly into the kitchen announcing “we have mice? cool!” jerk. So sunday found me taking a brief foray to the store for traps for the little disease carriers. Of course, I cried the entire time I was setting them out….SURE that they were amassing an army and would attack me as soon as my hand reached into their home or when I’m asleep at night. I am NOT happy.

AND I spent an inordinate amount of time on the couch reading any and all old magazines I could get my hands on, and went out saturday and treated myself to a new one. I am such a glutton for punishment. I have a severe craving for the new Nikon D3, it’s a sickness really…and the mag had wonderful ratings on it, so of course, I was looking all hang dog about how great it was and I CAN’T HAVE IT! (sorry folks, $5000 is a bit out of my range right now!) So anyway….after laying on my butt for a week….sunday afternoon….feeling like a trapped rat (no pun intended)….. I’m rereading the mag for about the 100th time, needing to do something creative like the cool magazine people were getting to do. Follow along, as it’s amusing. I get up, go get my camera bag, pull out camera and lay back down.
Him: What are you doing? (staring at me as I lay on my back with camera in hand pointed at the ceiling, staring off into the ethers)
Me: I’m thinking
Him: Um…..ok??? About?
Me: (shooting the “don’t bother me I’m thinking” look) about pixels.
Him: Um….ok. Why?
Me: *going into a long explanation about pixel size on a photo, how I am going to reset the settings (I got good english skills!)on my camera, tweak some things and  shooting in RGB Tiff instead of jpg and can’t shoot in raw because my computer doesn’t have the software to read raw…etc etc.
Him: Oh. I see. Well, ok then.

advance 20 minutes. DD staring thru crack in bathroom door at me as I sit on the floor in the dark.
Her: mom?
Me: yeeessssssssssssss……………
Her: um….what are you doing? why are you in the dark? (as though perhaps I did NOT have strep, but some mental disease that has rendered me incapable of normal thought)
Me: *annoyed by her tone…I’m DOING something.
Her: uh…..ok. then to DS, “don’t bother mom, she’s on the bathroom floor in the dark.
DS: *through the door…Mom? Hey Mom? what are you doing in the dark.
ME: I’M DOING SOMETHING WHATDOYOUWANT? yes, it was all one word.
DS: uh…ok. (my family turned into cavemen last week while I was sick apparently…uh…uh…uh…)
Needless to say, when they finally left me alone, I had a bit of fun, first time in a week, and the results are:
 

  

Nifty little creations with my mini maglight, recolored in photoshop. Technical stuff…camera at iso 200,  f/18, shutter speed 15 seconds. Of course DD was MORE excited about my bathroom darkness when she saw it included HER initials!  🙂   I was inspired…what can I say?

Photo hunt – Wooden

Sick as a dog this week….so I’m going into the files for this one.  One of my all time favorite wooden things/places….Schofield Ford Covered Bridge….one of the many covered bridges right here in Bucks County!