If you're not using essential oils, why you should be.

What?  Essential oils?  Like olive oil?  Something you eat/cook with/grease things with?  Speaking of which, are they greasy?  Will it stain my clothes?

I know by now you've heard me mention essential oils on here but probably lots of you still have no idea what I'm talking about!

FIRST OFF, WHAT THE HECK ARE ESSENTIAL OILS?

Essential oils are the oils from plants - flowers, trees, leaves, stems, roots, peels or seeds.  Here is a peppermint leaf magnified so you can see the oils sacs on it:

 The oils of a plant are where any of it's medicinal or therapeutic benefits reside.  Probably most of us have heard that lavender helps with relaxation - and the part of the lavender plant that does that is in the oil of the plant.  And when you distill the oil from the plant it becomes as much as 70 times more potent than using that plant alone!  For instance, one DROP of peppermint essential oil is as much as 28 cups or more of peppermint tea!

Also, when I say "Essential Oils" I mean not just one type of oil but endless amounts of oils such as:

Lemon
Lavender
Peppermint
Melaleuca or Tea Tree
Oregano
Ginger
Cinnamon
Frankincense
Wild Orange
Bergamot
Clove
Patchouli
White Fir
Grapefruit
Myrrh
Basil
Clary Sage
Fennel
Coriander
Cypress
Geranium
Helichrysum
Wintergreen
Marjoram
Vetiver
Ylang Ylang
Thyme

Get the point?  There are endless amounts of oils and so many of them have powerful benefits.

Ok, SO WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ME?!

Well, if you ever have allergies, stomach aches, head aches, burns, cuts, wounds, injuries, back aches, colds, flu, infections, rashes, acne, depression or anxiety, sleep disorders, irritable bowel, or ANYTHING else wrong with you, you can count of mother nature to have a remedy!

REALLY?  WHY DO ESSENTIAL OILS WORK?  

I'd bet most of you believe that plants have medicinal benefits.  In fact, most traditional pharmaceuticals began when scientists noticed that certain plants had abilities to heal certain things.  They then took those plants into the lab, isolated what they believed was the chemical constituent in the plant that was helping and then manufactured a synthetic version of it.   And while I am SO grateful for the miracle of modern medicine, there are problems with doing that.  Don't believe me that there are problems?    They're called SIDE EFFECTS and you see them all the time on all those happy TV ads.  They range from excessive sweating to headaches to hallucinations and even death.

High quality, properly distilled essential oils have up for 1000 known constituents in them - probably even more that we haven't discovered yet!  And EACH of those constituents has medicinal benefits on its own so essential oils are POWERFUL remedies.  And they work FAST!  I can have a stomach ache from eating too many pieces of pizza and after applying an oil directly to my belly, I feel better within 60 seconds.  Crazy, isn't it?

IS THIS VOO-DOO?

 No - essential oils are rising in popularity and usage - in fact, Primary Children's Hospital in Utah just hired an essential oil expert to be a part of their staff to help them incorporate their use in their hospitals.   Why would they DO that?!  Well, not only have people been using essential oils for thousands of years but in the past couple of decades science has really started to figure out why they are so powerful and there are new studies coming out ALL OF THE TIME proving that.

ALRIGHT,  WHAT ELSE?

Essential oils are amazing - they work quickly, effectively, and with no side effects.  Plus - you can use them safely on your whole family including brand spanking new babies!  So, imagine a world where you rarely have to visit the doctor because you can proactively treat just about anything at home.  But guess what - it's not something I have to imagine - we treat everything with essential oils - every.single.day.  I would truly be unable to live without them and because of that we are healthier than we've EVER been - EVER.  While the rest of you are spending weeks waiting for a nasty cold to make it's way through your family - it's likely we didn't even get it.  And if one of us does happen to get sick, we're over it in a day or two without getting the rest of the family sick.  Amazing, isn't it?

I could REALLY go on for a long long time but that's not really appropriate for a blog post so I won't.  You know what it IS appropriate for?  A class or a webinar.  I'm teaching free classes all over the country all of the time - next weekend I'm teaching one in Spokane, the week after that I'll be teaching three in Texas.  BUT if you don't happen to live in any of those areas you can jump on our weekly webinars - every Thursday night. We go over the basics including which oils to use for what.  There are also giveaways so you can get some oils in your hands for  FREE!   Click here to register for the next webinar!  PS - it's free and open to anyone!


Ok, so this is kind of a part one on this topic - next I'll be talking about how essential oils are not even close to being created equal - in fact some brands are downright dangerous and toxic.  That's super important so if you're thinking of embracing a more natural healthcare then you must check back on that!  I choose to not only use but sell doTERRA's oils because their quality and safety are unrivaled.

Also, are you so interested in learning about essential oils that you think you'd like to teach classes on them and help others find out about them?  It's amazingly rewarding(even financially - check out these monthly numbers).  If you're feeling that way - totally email me and we can start talking about how that works!

PS - No, they aren't greasy and they won't stain your clothes, but you can eat and cook with them!

Love Garland.

Since I still had my Christmas garland hanging on the fireplace I knew it was time for a change.  I looked through pinterest for inspiration and found this one.  I liked the idea but needed something longer so I changed it up a bit - taking a line from the Beatles - and voila - here's my new garland!

I printed out the letters on card stock, cut them out, spread them with glue, and poured on the glitter.  I let them dry, hot glued them to some ribbon and hung them up!

And then I decided that the scaling on my fireplace wasn't right so I moved them to the window.  They're a Valentine's theme but I imagine they'll be up a lot longer than that! ;)

The Dress.

This September the company I work for, doTERRA, will be having their annual convention and at the end they have a gala where they award people who hit certain ranks.  And I want Mike and I to be getting one of those awards.  It's pretty great - they have a red carpet to walk down and people line it and cheer.  You choose the song that will play and you get to dress up.  Part of envisioning myself there is choosing the song and the DRESS.   Here are some dresses that inspire me:

First off, Mike and I saw "The Artist" a couple weekends ago and every shred of clothing in that was beautiful.  Not that having Berenice Bejo wearing them hurt at all.

Hair that makes you want to chop yours off.

Prettiest woman alive.

The dress that hasn't left me.

This last dress just won't leave my brain.  It was so beautifully beaded and sparkly with that perfect fat ribbon around the middle.  Ok, so those dresses are in a movie and not something I can walk into Dillards and buy.  Here are two dresses that are actually for sale that I would die for:

This dress is amazing.  But it's just a little over $800 dollars.  So, it's not for me.

This next dress totally hits the spot for me - the silver one.  I L-O-V-E it.  But it's like a bazillion dollars.  Out of the question.

So, perhaps I could make one?  As of now, my sewing skills are sub-par for this dress BUT I could get better by the end of the summer.  This pattern look like with some alterations it would work:

I'd do the black one on the bottom right with not such a high slit and add cap sleeves.  I like the idea of it being long - it's dressier.  AND it's an easy sew one.  This pattern might work too:

The only draw back on this one is the ruching.  I couldn't wear a belt with it like I'd like to.  I don't HAVE TO wear a belt...I just like the idea of the ribbon belt thing.

Anyhow, getting the award would not only allow me to get a dress but would also be seriously helpful in bringing Pearl home.  It would mean my income level was high enough to replace Mike's income plus some.  So, say a little(or big) prayer that we make it!

And if you haven't seen "The Artist" yet here's the trailer: