Snow For Christmas!

Nice surprise! We had a white Christmas! According to the news it was the first white Christmas(down to the valley floor) in the pacific northwest in a few decades. It has been snowing steady all day, it looks like we will probably get at least 4 or 5 more inches.

I have been relaxing after a busy holiday. We drove to the coast to visit relatives and enjoyed some great seafood. Unfortunately however, it did not agree with me so I spent the last few days (and early mornings 2 am) sick again :( Back to tea and chicken soup for me! Still waiting for the first trimester nausea & throwing up to pass- thought it would be over by now!

Best wishes and enjoy the new year!

Update & Holiday Plans

Just a quick note to let everyone know I have been ill with morning, afternoon and evening sickness most of the time. If I do have moments when I feel OK I find myself having to play catch up on things, leaving little time for the blog. I have also hosted Thanksgiving and Ella's 1st Birthday party. Both events went great to spite my nausea and having to excuse myself to the restroom at 1 hour intervals. Ella is doing great, walking and growing like a weed!
Relatives will be coming in from the East Coast for the holidays soon, I will be busy with family and friends and getting as much rest as I can fit in. I have spent very little time on the computer, taking time to grade student assignments and check email only. The blog posting will be much more regular after the holidays and hopefully I will be feeling better soon (fingers crossed that this is only first trimester).

In the mean time warm tea & bland warm foods have been my friend. The weather has been very cold making it easy to crawl under the covers at every opportunity and just rest when I have a chance. When dizziness, exhaustion, and nausea set in & I feel like just laying around I watch Star Trek reruns, forensic shows, old movies, or listen to Harry Potter books on CD (when Tony is home to watch Ella of course) :)

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Strengthening autumn Foods Thyme thymus vulgaris

During the last stages of autumn the air gets crisp, cold season approaches and we crave warming comfort foods. I love to eat with the seasons, it is a shock for the body to drink colds sodas and eat cold foods when the weather is cool outside. Many herbs that are used everyday in cooking that were recently harvested from your garden also have healing properties, I love to fresh freeze herbs in ice cube trays, remove when frozen, store in a container (in the freezer) & label;use through the winter for soups, stews, and other recipes. It is also great to add your dried herbs to recipes and use year round for healing teas. Thyme is warming & spicy~ as a medicine thyme is a great respiratory herb, stimulating to the immune system, & is used to clear up phlegm and stop coughing (antispasmodic properties) Thyme is also great combined with other culinary herbs such as sage for sore throats, horseradish for head colds, and combined with echinacea it is great for the immune system.Thyme also is great to add to syrups for colds, Henriette has some great recipes here, herbal Honey's check it out on Rebecca's site, and Kiva writes about using Thyme as a substitute for Monarda in her mountain medicine chest post. Thyme is indicated for acute and chronic respiratory problems. coughs, gas, indigestion, diarrhea, whooping cough, bronchitis, spasmodic respiratory and urinary tract conditions, urinary tract infections. Legends say that if you sleep on a bed of thyme and inhale the fragrance you will never have nightmares, it will cure depression and you will wake rested and exhilarated. In ancient Greece the herb represented courage and bravery, it was often burned as incense to clear the air of illness and disease. In the middle ages women would wear embroidered scarves with a design of a honey bee and a sprig of thyme to protect the solders knights that were going into battle.
Culinary Pleasure~ I love to add thyme to fish and poultry dishes, it combines well with parsley and bay. You can drink thyme alone or with other herbs. Here is a great warming, roasted vegetable recipe from Healing secrets of the seasons by Judith Hurley
Thyme Roasted Vegetables
4 carrots, sliced
2 onions, quartered
2 cups whole button mushrooms
2 medium potatoes, cut into 2 inch chuncks
5 cloves garlic, peeled
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried
Pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup vegetable stock or water
In a large cast iron roaster, or other roasting pan, combine all of the ingredients and cover. Roast until the vegetables are almost tender, about 45 minutes. Remove the cover, stir, and continue to roast, uncovered, until the vegetables are very tender, about 20 minutes more. Serve warm as a lunch or dinner entree.
Makes 4 servings
Resource Healing Secrets of the Seasons By Judith Benn Hurley
Healing with the herbs of life Tierra
The Magic Teaspoon By Victoria Zac
Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal
Picture used with permission http://www.florahealth.com

Another way to get free plants

Writing the recent blog party Local Herbs post got me to thinking about ways you can get local herbs/ wild foods for free without having to know where to wildcraft and if it is legal. I have talked about asking the land owners permission in the past to gather plants. You may think it is a little embarrassing to ask someone you do not know to gather weeds off of their property. One thing I found this year was people are giving away herbs for free! Many people re landscape their gardens, check the paper and craig's list, often people give the plants away to make room for new ones! Also I would post something yourself on craig's list, simply offer to come to someone's property to collect "weeds" or post "looking to collect your weeds for free" and see how many responses you get! Also, if you see new construction about to go on, ask to talk to the foreman, if you are nice the will probably have no problem with you collecting plants before they break ground (they may think you are a little nutty but o well!) I am sure there are many more ways to collect, including word of mouth, you would be surprised just mentioning you collect plants, someone may know someone who owns private property. My husband and Dad both go to private property sites to hunt and fish, I just ask if I can tag along to collect plants, they always have some teasing remark, but I get my plants!

Kiva's Blog Party Local Herbs

Have you ever read Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West and Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Coast by Michael Moore? Well if you have you see the difficulty I have narrowing this down to my 100 mile radius~ I do however have some plants I really want to focus on, these of course will not be the only plants I work with and there will be barter and trade going on. Some of these are old friends that I cannot be without and others I want to get to know better. This was so hard to narrow down! No real order, I kept adding herbs as I thought of them. Honestly, my list was much smaller, but I kept adding plants LOL! I may not get to all of these, or I may work with others I run across, but I think this is a good start!

Herbs:

Aster, chokecherry, Yarrow, mullein, nettles, false solomon's seal,sage, crains bill, self heal, osha, angelica, goldenrod,usnea, violet, red root, mallow, California poppy, cow parsnip, skullcap, Devil's club, Ground Ivy, maidenhair (& other) ferns, plantain, Hawthorn, Salal, yellow dock, wild ginger, red root, mints (& work more with bee balm monarda fistulosa, henbit Lamium amplexicaule), licorice, horehound, evening primrose, Coptis, coltsfoot, currant (ribes species), cleavers, elder berry, evening primrose, Rosemary, catnip, burdock, bunchberry (cornus canadensis), chickweed , chicory, red clover, dandelion, wild rose, wood betony, uva ursi, valarian, St Johns Wort, red raspberry, motherwort, echinacea, horsetail, Hound's Tongue, Huckleberry leaf, knapweed, meadowsweet, Oregon grape, Pearly Everlasting, pyrola, serviceberry, sheep sorrel, sweetroot Osmorrhiza occidentalis, Thistle, Wild Mustards Brassica nigra Capsella bursa-pastoris and Lepidium perfoliatum, Black Walnut Hulls, Wild strawberry root and leaves.

Trees (OK give me a break I have to list these separate, so many!)

Alder
Ash (fraxinus)
Elder
Red Cedar
Willow
Cottonwood
oak
Douglas fir
Pine

Pregnancy Tea and getting back in the swing of things

Well as you can see it has been a while since my last post. Don't worry, I am beginning to get back in the swing of things. I decided to take a break from the computer, now tackling my literally hundreds of emails on my return. You see I have not been feeling well, nausea, head aches, exhausted, crampy.......anyway we are expecting again! I am enjoying my Pregnancy tea Rose hips, Dandelion root, Raspberry leaf, nettles, spearmint, oats, and Alfalfa. I have a history of high risk/ early miscarriage and complications. I also made a tincture of False Unicorn, wild yam, partridge berry and a little cramp bark- I have a separate cramp bark and wild yam tincture I take when I feel the cramping coming on. I am also taking my pre natal, extra calcium magnesium, vit D, and fish oil, my diet is great - ironically I am craving steamed vegetables, soups & salads, not anything weird like ice cream or pickles. My husband insists I go the high tech hospital way at least until the the pregnancy has been shown to be "normal" and not high risk~ at that time I would like to switch to a midwife and try water birth if possible. We had an early scare because they did not see anything on the first ultra sound, the fear was an ecotopic pregnancy may be possible because of my past history. That was ruled out however when 2 days later a gestational sac was there and normal HCG level increases. I go back next week to confirm normal development has continued. The whole thing has taken an emotional tole coupled with exhaustion, and trying to talk myself out of fear of the past repeating itself. Going the high tech way also has a rigid, cold feel about it that I don't particularity like, although I do really like my Doctor, she does take the time to talk with me, is very understanding and warm, and is not anti herbal remedies.
Look forward to some new posts in the next few days including Kiva's blog party (late sorry about that)

Immediate food allergy reactions and food sensitivities

An immediate food allergy reaction is when you are allergic to a certain type of food, the reaction is predictable, happens every time you ingest the food, and it happens immediately. I have a family member who has this issue, his throat closes and he feels as if he cannot breath when eating the offending food. This reaction happens when he eats various types of melons, it has even happened to him when he has eaten pizza (who knows what went into the sauce). So this person avoids this type of food (not pizza, just that place where he bought it that time LOL). He has other problems as well on a daily basis, excessive gas, chronic heart burn, IBS symptoms, and even a tendancy toward depression, anxiety and problems with "brain fuzziness" . Could this be food caused? Unfortunately a little bird with a white coat has whispered in his ear that food sensitivities are a bunch of BS. He has no problem avoiding the foods that cause the immediate reaction, but foods causing IBS and heart burn, come on! In fact, people who have these types of reactions are likely to have other less 'obvious' food sensitivities as well.

Food can be emotional and complex, it involves tradition, habits, and emotional attachments. No one wants to feel like they must be "deprived" after all, their aunt, brother, Grandma or whoever always ate the food so they should be able to right? If a person can get past this and try an elimination diet to see if it may make them feel better, maybe they would be willing to change. Mind body techniques, really getting in touch with your body and working with it instead of against it can really benefit. Meditation (this does not have to be traditional, simply taking a time to be silent and connect is OK, or even a walk or yoga), and being in the present, delaying immediate gratification in order to have your body functioning at it's optimum level will help as well. Rewarding yourself with other things instead of food is also a good alternative, massage, a brisk walk, a swim these things will help decrease stress and increase energy~ you feel better immediately, you will wonder why you thought you needed that cookie for a quick energy boost. Change is very hard for most people, but the benefits will outweigh any temporary discomfort. After a while your new style of eating will be like second nature, you will make mistakes, and your body will likely let you know you made them, simple try and do better most of the time rather than giving up completely. The question is, how bad do you really want to improve your quality of life? There are many symptoms that may be related to food sensitivity.

Here are some examples (and there may be others):

• Chronic Digestive problems of all kinds
  
• recurring infections of any kind
• recurring inflammatory conditions of any kind
• Difficulty loosing weight, putting on weight easily to spite exercise
  
• Unexplained bouts of fatigue after eating
• Tendency to hold water that is not associated with cyclic fluid retention or menstrual cycling
• Chronic dark rings under eyes
• Chronic horizontal creases under the lower eye lids
• Frequent stuffy nose or nasal drip for no explainable reason, clearing throat after eating
• Chronically swollen glands, with no known reason
• Bouts of anxiety, sweating, or heart palpitations withing several hours of eating
• Frequent unexplained skin rashes
• Immediate family members with food allergies or asthma
• History of gall bladder disease
• Mental fuzziness for fogginess after eating
• Bouts of "low blood sugar" that do not go away
• Headaches that don't go away
• General ill feelings that do not go away and are not explainable

I highly recommend keeping a food diary of everything you eat for one week (be honest and consistent) I have found that this is hard for some to do, but it is very important, many people are not eating consciously, in other words, eating while driving, eating and doing other things, many times forgetting that they ate the particular food at all. Sit down and take a break when you eat, really be in the present moment. Find foods that overlap each other that you eat frequently (these may be culprits), also note any symptoms you may feel after eating. Try the elimination diet that Henriette explains on her blog on the post about food sensitivities- you will also find much more detailed information there about the subject. Once you start an elimination diet, you will be amazed at some of the creative alternatives you may come up with! Ask family members to help as well and do not bring the offending foods into the house to make you tempted.

Besides the major culprits discussed on many web pages and in books that focus on food sensitivity (Dairy, Wheat, soy, corn, yeast, eggs, citrus, carrots, apples and berries, members of the nightshade family, refined sugars)

Be mindful of what you drink and cook with as well, you may be sensitive to; alcohol, refined sugars and or additives in drinks, coffee or certain teas, citrus drinks, tap water, certain processed oils, additives and preservatives such as MSG & food colorings (before you spice up that meat, read the label many pre made spice blends have added preservatives, colorings, sugar and other junk! or better yet create your own spices with fresh herbs or single herbs where you know the source)

Really read those labels!

Changing food habits can be very hard at first, I have heard every justification and excuse in the book, but I guess what it boils down to is how bad do you really want to feel better and have a better quality of life. I have seen the effects of those who have stayed committed. I have one client who found she had food sensitivities to both dairy and gluten, she worked out daily and could not loose weight, plus she had many other symptoms, as soon as she eliminated these foods, she dropped 30 pounds, feels great, has more energy and even has had improvements with her menstrual symptoms, her relationships have improved and she has more energy to spend time with her child and husband after she does her daily workout. Trust me if you have food sensitivities, it is worth it to change your food choices!

Resourse: Healthy Digestion the natural way L Berkson 2000