Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Activated Charcoal

I hope everyone had a FABULOUS Memorial day weekend.  We were working on our new stair gate for a good amount of the time.  I will hopefully have a post for you soon, but in the mean time, I want to talk about an AWESOME remedy for any kind of upset tummy issues. 

The reason I bring this up is in the last few weeks my entire family(except me thank goodness), my nephew, and just yesterday my sister in law and her son have had some kind of nasty bug that brought on throwing up with a side order of the runs.  No fun, right?  Now, normally we would just make sure everyone is drinking plenty of fluids, and a probiotic if they can keep it down.  But what do you do if you can't keep anything down?  Activated Charcoal my friends!

(I normally buy it in bulk and make my own pills for costs sake, but I wanted to let you know what to look for at the health food store.  And no, you can't buy this at Wal-Mart.  I have only seen it in the Health Food Stores.)

Everyone should have some activated charcoal in their medicine cabinet!  Seriously, this isn't just the health nut in me talking about how awesome herbs are.  Activated Charcoal's most common use is as an anti poison agent!  So if you have small children who like to put anything and everything in their mouths, this is seriously a must.  Poisons, upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhea, gas, it does it all!  The Charcoal soaks up whatever is causing the problem so it doesn't bother you anymore.  And it begins to work almost immediately after you've taken it!  Even ambulances carry this stuff for the people who O.D.! 

Are you convinced yet?  Need I go on? 

Now, I'm not a doctor, so if you, or someone you know ingests poison, its still probably best to call poison control.  And you want to make sure to drink plenty of water when taking activated charcoal because it will absorb all it can and you don't want to become dehydrated. 

So, if this nasty bug keeps going around, activated charcoal is your best friend!  So go out right now, before you forget, and pick some up.  Follow the instructions on the bottle, and for kids I would probably mix one pill in a sippy cup full of juice and have them drink it little by little.

You Welcome ;)


Saturday, May 28, 2011

Jumping on the Blog Wagon!

I have wanted to start a blog for a while cataloging all of our home decor and building adventures for a while now, but had doubts.  You know how it is, 

"No one will want to read what I have to post"
or 
"there are a million other bloggers doing the same thing"
 
Anywho, I finally decided I'm cool too, and people may just want to read about our diy-ing adventures!  Plus, in trying to decide what to blog about, I wasn't exactly sold on starting another decorating blog, or building blog.  I just wouldn't have enough posts to sustain it.  My husband and I build a lot, and enjoy decorating, but there's so much more to us that I wanted to share with the blogosphere!
 
  My proudest accomplishments in my life are when we built our first home (along with 7 others), and the home births of my three children.  And blamo!  The idea was born: Home Construction to Home Birth!  After building our home I fell in love with building anything and everything, and it was when I was pregnant and deciding on a home birth that I fell in love with herbs and essential oils, and alternative methods of healing.  So from my greatest accomplishments is born my diy passion.
 
So in this blog you can expect to see all sorts of diy projects.  There will probably be a lot of decorating and building posts, but you can also expect to see posts on herbs, oils, alternative medicines, posts on some of my home birthing thoughts and interests, composting and gardening exploits, sewing(although I am terrible at this on I want to become better), painting, we will start homeschooling this year, so there will probably be some of that as well as a bunch of stuff I just can't think of right now.  
So stay tuned!  Coming soon will be posts on a stair gate we are currently making, built in shelves, our garden, and why I diy!