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Just wanted to let you all know that I have all flavors of liquid stevia in stock now, plus the 4 ounce plain stevia in addition to the 2 ounce. It has all been selling really fast lately, so it has been a challenge to keep it in stock. For the moment everything is caught up. :)
Also, we had a temporary shortage of Supermom's No-Lice products last week, but we are back up to speed on all of that as well. Don't let the cooties get you down!
I've Got The Power! (electricity, that is)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Labels:
Supermom Says
After a little more than 48 hours without power, it came back. Literally *just* as my husband was plugging in a space heater to our new generator. LOL
The house temp was down to 47 on the first day after we left, and down to 38 by the time we broke down and got a generator so that the pipes wouldn't freeze. It took hours for the house to warm up to a modest 66 degrees that we were aiming for.
Power was spotty for awhile but stayed on through the night, and today we got moved back into our home. There was plenty of cleanup to be done from the water in our downstairs, and a mighty pile up of laundry in process. I had boxes of products being delivered and needing to be put away as well. And then there was all of our backpacks and baskets and bags full of the clothes and items we took with us when we left the house. Plenty of work for all of us to do. By now I'm wiped out, so what's left waiting to get done will have to wait until tomorrow.
From the time we left the house on Tuesday until we got back here, I have been constantly reminded about emergency preparedness and all of the things I learned back in 1999 and haven't kept up on since:
-pick up a gallon of bottled water each time I go to the grocery store so that we have plenty in case the water goes out (thankfully, ours didn't go out even though the water dept. said they were going to have to close it down, but we're still on a boil water advisory)
-have plenty of foods on hand that can feed us even without electricity
-I've gotten out of the habit of canning a lot, and have recently preferred freezing both for ease of putting food away for later, and because freezing preserves more of the nutritional value of the foods. This year I plan to can more--maybe half of the stuff I'm putting up. I can tell you that I felt very sad at the thought of losing all of the homemade apple sauce I made this year from our back yard trees!
-I would like to get some emergency backpacks put together so that we could leave the house in 5-10 minutes if needed. I didn't have the house as well organized as would have been ideal, and it took us a pretty long time to get out of here. It was fine this time, but if some other sort of disaster was happening, it took a whole lot longer than it should have. Things I would like to keep in emergency evacuation backpacks include socks, underwear, and a change of clothes for each person, some toothbrushes, individual bottles of water for each person, and some emergency cash. I ran into a situation where bottled water was available at just one store and they could only take cash or check, no debit cards. I only had $5 on hand so wasn't able to get as much bottled water as I would have liked. It turned out ok this time, but I don't want to get caught with only $5 in cash again.
I would love to hear your ideas about other good things to have ready in case of emergency.
We're all enjoying being in our own home, though our wonderful friends and family made it very comfortable to be displaced for a couple of days.
My 16 year old son said that although it's not exactly fun to have this sort of thing happen, he feels like it helps people to slow down, care for one another, and remember what to be thankful for. I agree.
Our street was among the first to get power back in our county, apparently because an important water pump station is on our power line. Most others in our area continue to be without electricity, and apparently it could be many more days or even weeks before it is all fixed. The trees are still icy, we had a little more snow today, and more snow is expected Monday and Tuesday.
Here are some photos of trees in our yard at the time when we were first leaving the house, and then a video taken while I was driving around town the next day.
During this video you just get to see a little of the trees down and snow falling. Also you are treated to me repeating myself because I was having a hard time driving safely and thinking about what I was saying at the same time. :) (Also, I think I may have a tendency to repeat myself anyhow. Might have something to do with having many young children with selective hearing....)
The house temp was down to 47 on the first day after we left, and down to 38 by the time we broke down and got a generator so that the pipes wouldn't freeze. It took hours for the house to warm up to a modest 66 degrees that we were aiming for.
Power was spotty for awhile but stayed on through the night, and today we got moved back into our home. There was plenty of cleanup to be done from the water in our downstairs, and a mighty pile up of laundry in process. I had boxes of products being delivered and needing to be put away as well. And then there was all of our backpacks and baskets and bags full of the clothes and items we took with us when we left the house. Plenty of work for all of us to do. By now I'm wiped out, so what's left waiting to get done will have to wait until tomorrow.
From the time we left the house on Tuesday until we got back here, I have been constantly reminded about emergency preparedness and all of the things I learned back in 1999 and haven't kept up on since:
-pick up a gallon of bottled water each time I go to the grocery store so that we have plenty in case the water goes out (thankfully, ours didn't go out even though the water dept. said they were going to have to close it down, but we're still on a boil water advisory)
-have plenty of foods on hand that can feed us even without electricity
-I've gotten out of the habit of canning a lot, and have recently preferred freezing both for ease of putting food away for later, and because freezing preserves more of the nutritional value of the foods. This year I plan to can more--maybe half of the stuff I'm putting up. I can tell you that I felt very sad at the thought of losing all of the homemade apple sauce I made this year from our back yard trees!
-I would like to get some emergency backpacks put together so that we could leave the house in 5-10 minutes if needed. I didn't have the house as well organized as would have been ideal, and it took us a pretty long time to get out of here. It was fine this time, but if some other sort of disaster was happening, it took a whole lot longer than it should have. Things I would like to keep in emergency evacuation backpacks include socks, underwear, and a change of clothes for each person, some toothbrushes, individual bottles of water for each person, and some emergency cash. I ran into a situation where bottled water was available at just one store and they could only take cash or check, no debit cards. I only had $5 on hand so wasn't able to get as much bottled water as I would have liked. It turned out ok this time, but I don't want to get caught with only $5 in cash again.
I would love to hear your ideas about other good things to have ready in case of emergency.
We're all enjoying being in our own home, though our wonderful friends and family made it very comfortable to be displaced for a couple of days.
My 16 year old son said that although it's not exactly fun to have this sort of thing happen, he feels like it helps people to slow down, care for one another, and remember what to be thankful for. I agree.
Our street was among the first to get power back in our county, apparently because an important water pump station is on our power line. Most others in our area continue to be without electricity, and apparently it could be many more days or even weeks before it is all fixed. The trees are still icy, we had a little more snow today, and more snow is expected Monday and Tuesday.
Here are some photos of trees in our yard at the time when we were first leaving the house, and then a video taken while I was driving around town the next day.
During this video you just get to see a little of the trees down and snow falling. Also you are treated to me repeating myself because I was having a hard time driving safely and thinking about what I was saying at the same time. :) (Also, I think I may have a tendency to repeat myself anyhow. Might have something to do with having many young children with selective hearing....)
Iced In
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
We are in the midst of an ice storm here in central KY. Our power went out yesterday afternoon and my husband (who was at work) called to tell me to pack up and get to his parents house. Power wasn't expected back for more than a day, and we have no way to keep the house warm without electricity.
We only got as far as a 3-4 minute drive from our home before we realized that with tons of trees down in the road, power lines down, and more icy rain falling, the 40 minute drive to the in-laws might be too risky. Some friends happened along our path and invited us to stay with them. They still had power plus gas fire places if we needed to use 'em.
We've had a slumber party. I got to go home briefly earlier today to grab some more food out of the fridge and freezer (I hate to see so much stuff going to waste!!) and extra clothes. I found that our downstairs had flooded a little. grrrr.... Just a little extra excitement.
The local water is expected to be turned off, thanks to frozen pump stations. Power still isn't working on my side of the town, and it looks like it could be a few more days.
Needless to say, I don't know how soon I'll be back home, but all orders placed right now will unfortunately have to wait until I can fill them.
I took some pictures of our pretty-and-health dinner with company, plus some pictures and video of the weather here. When I can upload them I'll be sure to share! :)
We only got as far as a 3-4 minute drive from our home before we realized that with tons of trees down in the road, power lines down, and more icy rain falling, the 40 minute drive to the in-laws might be too risky. Some friends happened along our path and invited us to stay with them. They still had power plus gas fire places if we needed to use 'em.
We've had a slumber party. I got to go home briefly earlier today to grab some more food out of the fridge and freezer (I hate to see so much stuff going to waste!!) and extra clothes. I found that our downstairs had flooded a little. grrrr.... Just a little extra excitement.
The local water is expected to be turned off, thanks to frozen pump stations. Power still isn't working on my side of the town, and it looks like it could be a few more days.
Needless to say, I don't know how soon I'll be back home, but all orders placed right now will unfortunately have to wait until I can fill them.
I took some pictures of our pretty-and-health dinner with company, plus some pictures and video of the weather here. When I can upload them I'll be sure to share! :)
Company's Coming and Here's What's for Dinner....
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
We have some friends coming for dinner tonite, so I have been working on making a yummy and delicious AND healthy meal to share with them!
On the menu:
Super Salad Bar
Healthified Macaroni Grill Rosemary Bread
White Bean Chili ~or~ Tomato Bisque Soup (I'm going to make both, I think)
Apple Crisp
I plan to take some pictures and share some recipes later in the week. :)
On the menu:
Super Salad Bar
Healthified Macaroni Grill Rosemary Bread
White Bean Chili ~or~ Tomato Bisque Soup (I'm going to make both, I think)
Apple Crisp
I plan to take some pictures and share some recipes later in the week. :)
From a class member
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Labels:
Recipes,
Stevia Ideas
One of my class members sent this to me. I thought that some of you would appreciate knowing how this works for her family:
For my husband who is "diehard" about his southern sweet tea, I've found that using 3/4 cup sugar and 5 dropperfuls of plain stevia to a gallon of tea to be perfect, especially if it sits overnight! This has really cut down on the sugar. Before stevia, I used a lot of splenda or almost 2 cups of sugar to a gallon of tea. ( I tried cutting the sugar back to 1/2 cup and using more stevia, but at that point, it seemed to lose the sugar sweet taste.)
For my husband who is "diehard" about his southern sweet tea, I've found that using 3/4 cup sugar and 5 dropperfuls of plain stevia to a gallon of tea to be perfect, especially if it sits overnight! This has really cut down on the sugar. Before stevia, I used a lot of splenda or almost 2 cups of sugar to a gallon of tea. ( I tried cutting the sugar back to 1/2 cup and using more stevia, but at that point, it seemed to lose the sugar sweet taste.)
How to choose supplements and vitamins
Monday, January 19, 2009
Labels:
Healthy Living Tips
Today I want to share some advice I often give to people about trying new vitamins and supplements.
First of all, people usually want to know how to tell if a vitamin is a good quality or not.
Low-quality vitamins and supplements usually have a large number of fillers, starches, and often even aspartame. Look at the ingredients first to see what the non-nutrient items are that are included. If you see a lot of them, you might want to keep on looking for something else. You also want to weed out the ones with aspartame right away. (Children's vitamins usually have aspartame in them--horrible and poisonous!) MSG and its various forms are also sometimes in vitamins. I recommend the site MSG Myth to learn more about the many ingredients that are derivatives of MSG.
You want to get a vitamin that is affordable and easily absorbed into your body, and in a form you can easily remember to take. You can have the best vitamins in the world, but if you hate to take them or forget all the time, it isn't going to do you any good.
When it comes to vitamins or supplements that you are expecting to experience a result from (like energy from Bee Strong),
I recommend that people start out with just 1 or maybe 2 items at first and see how you feel after a couple weeks of just using those. That way you know what's working and what's not. Did it give you the energy you were looking for? If yes, do you want to adjust the dose a little higher or lower? I tell people to just take the smallest effective amount that helps them. No need to go overboard.
Now obviously, for something like a calcium supplement (for instance) you probably aren't going to feel any different from taking them, but you know that absorbable calcium is very important for your bone health, so you want to find a good source for it that you can afford and be consistent about, and continue on. Don't *not* take supplements like calcium just because you don't *feel* anything.
However, if you start taking a new calcium supplement and you notice that it makes you feel sick, now you know that maybe you need to try a different one. If you had tried it along with 6 other new vitamins, you won't know which one is the likely culprit. Get it? :)
If someone wants you to buy a whole bunch of stuff at once, it is going to make it hard for you to tell what to attribute any success or problem to a particular item. By taking it slow you can find what truly works well for you, and not waste money on products that aren't going to be a help to you.
Yes, eventually you will probably want to take a good multi-vitamin, a calcium supplement, and possibly several other items to address your unique needs. Just take it one step at a time when getting started, and work your way up to all of the items that you want and need. (Obviously, this is not meant as contradictory advice to something that a health professional may have told you. This is just a general rule of thumb that works for many people.)
First of all, people usually want to know how to tell if a vitamin is a good quality or not.
Low-quality vitamins and supplements usually have a large number of fillers, starches, and often even aspartame. Look at the ingredients first to see what the non-nutrient items are that are included. If you see a lot of them, you might want to keep on looking for something else. You also want to weed out the ones with aspartame right away. (Children's vitamins usually have aspartame in them--horrible and poisonous!) MSG and its various forms are also sometimes in vitamins. I recommend the site MSG Myth to learn more about the many ingredients that are derivatives of MSG.
You want to get a vitamin that is affordable and easily absorbed into your body, and in a form you can easily remember to take. You can have the best vitamins in the world, but if you hate to take them or forget all the time, it isn't going to do you any good.
When it comes to vitamins or supplements that you are expecting to experience a result from (like energy from Bee Strong),
I recommend that people start out with just 1 or maybe 2 items at first and see how you feel after a couple weeks of just using those. That way you know what's working and what's not. Did it give you the energy you were looking for? If yes, do you want to adjust the dose a little higher or lower? I tell people to just take the smallest effective amount that helps them. No need to go overboard.
Now obviously, for something like a calcium supplement (for instance) you probably aren't going to feel any different from taking them, but you know that absorbable calcium is very important for your bone health, so you want to find a good source for it that you can afford and be consistent about, and continue on. Don't *not* take supplements like calcium just because you don't *feel* anything.
However, if you start taking a new calcium supplement and you notice that it makes you feel sick, now you know that maybe you need to try a different one. If you had tried it along with 6 other new vitamins, you won't know which one is the likely culprit. Get it? :)
If someone wants you to buy a whole bunch of stuff at once, it is going to make it hard for you to tell what to attribute any success or problem to a particular item. By taking it slow you can find what truly works well for you, and not waste money on products that aren't going to be a help to you.
Yes, eventually you will probably want to take a good multi-vitamin, a calcium supplement, and possibly several other items to address your unique needs. Just take it one step at a time when getting started, and work your way up to all of the items that you want and need. (Obviously, this is not meant as contradictory advice to something that a health professional may have told you. This is just a general rule of thumb that works for many people.)
Price Increase on Stevia Coming Soon
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
I got a surprise this week when my newest order of stevia arrived. There had been an unannounced price increase. (which was right after an increase last year) Unfortunately, this is very common these days with the way the economy is going. I will be needing to increase my prices too, but wanted to give you all some fair warning (and explanation) before I do.
I will have to increase my price on all 2 ounce stevia to $14.99 on January 22. I will honor my current price up until then.
I think I have every single flavor of stevia in stock right now. Plain 2 ounce stevia is already sold out, but I do have 4 ounce stevia in stock. The price will be going up on that as well, so it is an extra good deal to get the 4 ounce size.
I love to keep my prices as low as I can. Thankfully, for as far as one bottle of stevia will go, it is still a great deal even at the new price! That value combined with zero calories, zero glycemix index, and zero carbs makes it even better! :) Good stuff.
P.S. Stevia tabs are still not available. The company is reformulating those and the release date for the improved version is not known. I'll have them here just as soon as possible.
I will have to increase my price on all 2 ounce stevia to $14.99 on January 22. I will honor my current price up until then.
I think I have every single flavor of stevia in stock right now. Plain 2 ounce stevia is already sold out, but I do have 4 ounce stevia in stock. The price will be going up on that as well, so it is an extra good deal to get the 4 ounce size.
I love to keep my prices as low as I can. Thankfully, for as far as one bottle of stevia will go, it is still a great deal even at the new price! That value combined with zero calories, zero glycemix index, and zero carbs makes it even better! :) Good stuff.
P.S. Stevia tabs are still not available. The company is reformulating those and the release date for the improved version is not known. I'll have them here just as soon as possible.
New Video!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Hey everybody,
It has been a super busy start to the year because I've had tons of new people joining me in my 10-week long healthy eating class. I made a quick video this morning to answer the most common questions people are having about the class. I thought you might enjoy checking it out.
If you are interested in the class, you can learn more here.
It has been a super busy start to the year because I've had tons of new people joining me in my 10-week long healthy eating class. I made a quick video this morning to answer the most common questions people are having about the class. I thought you might enjoy checking it out.
If you are interested in the class, you can learn more here.
Come on Over and Hang Out With Me!
Monday, January 05, 2009
This week I'll be visiting the ladies over at the Healthy Living area of Homeschool Christian's bulletin boards. We'll be talking about the best (and worst!) ways to get going on your health resolutions for the new year. Come join us, and spread the word! :)
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