There are quite a number of herbal remedies for mosquito bites, like comfrey extract, aloe vera, eucalyptus oil, Chinese herbal oils, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, etc. Last month, I found an exciting remedy for our family. It’s garlic again! Since garlic is good for almost everything, so I tried putting a fresh slice of garlic on top of the new itchy bite and use a piece of tape to secure it. After awhile the itchness was gone! But I let the garlic stayed there for more time like half an hour or more as I was afraid the bite would be itchy again. After that, the bite reduced so much in size that I could hardly find it! The only drawback is that it looks kind of weird when you have to go to work or run errands in the city =)
All posts by Kay
Healthy Yummy Satay Sauce
I avoid using canned food most of the time as there are no live vitamins and enzymes inside. Besides, there are substances in the can that might be harmful to us. However, I do use canned coconut milk occasionally. According to the book of “Nourishing Traditions“, coconut oil “are nature’s best source of lauric acid, an essential saturated fatty acid that enhances the immune system and protects us against viruses, yeasts, parasites and other pathogens in the gut”. Therefore, do choose whole coconut milk, not low fat ones! Also, choose the one with no additives.
Ingredients :
- 1 can whole coconut milk
- 1/2 cups organic peanut butter
- 1 tbsp organic soya sauce
- 1 tsp unrefined sugar
- 2 cloves garlic, grated
- 1 small onion, grated
- pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
Place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir constantly. Remove from heat and keep warm. Enjoy it with beef, pork, chicken, rice or noodle.
Cold/Flu and Cayenne Pepper
Last wednesday my dear hubby was ill. He got muscle pain all over his body, headache and feeling so tired. He put a garlic in his mouth and went to work. His situation didn’t worsen any more, but due to lack of rest (as he went to work), he lost all his energy. He slept in the car during lunch hour and slept half an hour right after he was home. But his head still felt so “stuffed”. After dinner, I fixed him a ginger cinnamon drink that I metioned before, and sprinkle some cayenne pepper on top to surprise him (and to heal him of course =) ). He was surprised indeed! As it definitly was a VERY SPICY drink! But it’s good for him. His head felt a lot better afterwards. He drank a cup more of that spicy drink that night before going to bed. And he was nearly all well again the next morning!
I always thought spicy things are not good for us and avoid eating them. I was totally wrong! It’s hard to believe that the cayenne pepper that you use to cook chickens can do a lot of wonderful things! Just to name a few, it can help boosting the immune system, relieve painful muscles, improve stiffened joints, enchance circulation, good for sore throat, heart attact, bleeding, depression, tireness, normalize blood pressure…..etc etc! If you are bleeding heavily, sprinkle some on top of the wound to stop the bleeding! And you can even brush your teeth with cayenne pepper to prevent gum diseases!
Why don’t you buy some today? =)
I don’t normally give cayenne pepper to my young children though, as I think it will be too strong for them. Besides, as their body has less exposure to processed food and drugs than us adults, their body are not that “ruined” yet and can already react very well with milder herbs like cinnamon or ginger.
Fever
Last Saturday night, we found out Odelia and Sonia was having fever during dinner time. They lost their appetite and that’s a very strange thing to happen =) We checked their temperature and they were both around 38.5 celsius degrees. Anyway, I gave them each 2 drops of Sleep Sweet tincture. And I prepared the sleepy time tea with yarrow added. Then I gave Odelia and Sonia, and also Tiffany and Viviana each a cinnamon stick, and the tea with raw honey. After that, Odelia and Sonia went straight to bed as they didn’t have any energy at all. We put them in the same room that night.
Thanks God that the next morning they are up and running again! And they didn’t pass the fever to anyone else in the house too! How many times that I have to praise God for giving us herbs! God takes care of us by putting benificial herbs all around us in the yard. Actually, you can see them everywhere. And we don’t need to have Advil or Tempra at home for backup, and only to wait for them become expired. And most of the time we don’t need to rush to the doctor or drug store. I just need to prepare a tea, that’s all. And use my prepared tincture to help us sleep better during illness. Isn’t that great?! Besides, there’s no worries of side effects. In fact, using herbs will make our bodies stronger as they help stimulating our bodies to heal itself more effectively whereas drugs will weaken our immune system as they keep telling our bodies that healing itself is unnecessary, just kill all kinds of good and bad bacteria and surpress the symtons. The symtons are actually our bodies’ process of self-healing.
YARROW – It’s is great to keep yarrow at home. It’s said that if you drink generously at the beginning of a cold, it will break up within 24 hours. Drink with warm water or peppermint tea is good for fever. And it is good for all childhood diseases, kidneys and bladder problems, respiratory problems etc.
CINNAMON is a stimulating aromatic herb same as ginger, which helps to increase the energy of body tissues, improves digestion, clears blocked respiratory passages, fights infection…..etc.
Herbs in the tea and tinture that I used which are beneficial to fever :
PEPPERMINT is excellent for fevers, flu, colds, diarrhea, ulcers, and colitis. It strengthens nerves and heart muscles. It cleanses and tones the body. It can be used instead of aspirin for headaches. And it stimulates blood circulation.
CHAMOMILE is good for fevers, sore throats, aches, pains, intestinal and menstrual cramping. It helps to settle the stomach, aids digestion, expels gas from the bowel, reduces inflammation. It is also soothing and relaxing to nerves, helps sleep. It is probably one of the very best nervine herbs for children.
LEMON BALM – It is antibacterial, and antiviral. Lowers fevers, relaxes spasms, improves digestion, mildly sedative.
HOPS reduces high fevers and pain like headaches. It is a relaxing nerve tonic.
Bible Curriculum
Our Bible curriculum is our Authorized King James Version Bible and our Chinese Union Bible. The KJV is our authority; the Chinese Union Bible is the best Chinese version we can get, but we do not believe it holds the whole truth. We only use the Bible as we want to focus on God’s words but not men’s ideas.
During our morning Bible time (Mon to Fri), I will read a whole chapter directly from the Bible to our children. If the chapter is too short, I will read more than one. I started from Genesis 1, and now we are at Proverbs 28. The children (except the baby) are expected to sit still like they do in the Sunday service, so this is like a training section for the Sunday Service too! We do not use children Bibles at Bible time as they are not God’s words. We want them to know God’s words in English only come from the KJV Bible. That’s the Words they should live by. Children Bibles can be used as leisure readings. Although they cannot fully understand what I read to them, they get a whole picture of who God is. They hear every word strictly from the Bible.
Besides Bible reading, I will ask them to follow me reading a passage sentence by sentence. The same Bible passage will be used for one to two weeks. Tiffany and Odelia can usually memorize that passage by that time. We encourage memorizing a whole Bible passage rather than just one Bible verse, as the meaning of a Bible verse can be easily altered when taken out from the context.
At the end of the morning Bible time, we will take turn to pray. Monday will start with Tiffany, our eldest. Tuesday will start with Odelia, our 2nd eldest, and so on.
Evening Bible time is lead by daddy. All our children will have a KJV Bible as their 6 year old birthday present. And they are expected to bring that with them during Bible time with daddy. Daddy will choose a book to study with them, a few verses per night. And the children take turns to read. Now we are studying the book of Romans. And we sing a hymn to end this section.
Every Saturday morning, we have our family Bible sharing time. Each of us will take turns standing in front of others to read a Bible passage and share the things we learned from that passage. We have big papers with Bible passages written on it. Even our two-year-old loves to choose a Bible passage and use a long wooden stick pointing at the words while we help her read them out. She will lead us a song after her “presentationâ€. =)
Retired Homeschool Moms
A few days ago, we visited a church with quite a lot of homeschool families. I talked with a few ladies whom already finished homeschooling as their children are already in college or apprenticeship programs. They said it’s quite a change since suddenly, they didn’t know what to do! One of them said it’s pretty sad to see her little ones don’t need her anymore. The other one said she thought she could get many things done after she finished homeschooling her children, like getting some painting done, volunteering, trying new things….but no, she did nothing in the first year. She guess that year was like a transitional period…getting used to the “new†life style.
Wow! For me, I don’t have room to picture or plan for all those years yet! My eldest is just doing Grade 1 and Grade 2 stuff, and I still haven’t finished deciding all the elementary materials that I would use, not to mention the high school curriculum! And I’m still trying to figure out how to schedule my 6 years old girl with some formal schooling! And I’m even still struggling with the crawling issue of my 1 year old baby who cannot crawl yet! I just know……I still have a looooong way to go!!!
I pray that I will not let these precious homeschooling years slip by too fast without enjoying and making the best out of them!
Arrowroot
Arrowroot is a white powder made from the root of a West Indian plant, Marantha arundinacea. It looks and feels very much like cornstarch, only that it is more easier to digest and contains less carbonhydrates. It also contains calcium and other nutrients. It is a good food for babies. I use it to replace cornstarch now as it also is a thickening agent, which is flavorless and becomes clear when cooked.
The powder should be mixed with a cool liquid before being put into a soup/sauce. And it should be added towards the end since overcooking can destroy its thickening property.
Arrowroot powder can usally be found in the health food aile.
Strawberry Soup
It’s this time of the year again! STRAWBERRIES =D~~ Whenever we see lots of fresh ripe strawberries, we think of this soup. We make this every year. Only this time we made it with our own strawberries! Isn’t that something!? =)
Ingredients :
- 4 cups strawberries
- 2 cups orange juice or apple cider
- 1/2 cups tapioca
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp grated lemon peel
- 1 tbsp arrowroot
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 cup buttermilk or whole plain yogurt
- 1/2 cups unrefined sugar or raw honey
1. Wash and hull berries. Puree them in a blender or just cut them into small pieces.
2. Bring about 3 cups of water to boil, put in tapioca. Simmer till tapioca becomes transparent. Strain. Let cool water run through the tapioca in the strainer for awhile. Strain again.
3. Put strawberries, juice, tapioca, cinnamon and lemon peel in a pot. Heat and stir constantly until mixture comes to a boil.
4. Mix arrowroot with a bit of water and add to the mixture. Cook until thickened.
5. Remove the pot from heat. Let cool for awhile.
6. Add in sugar/honey, lemon juice and buttermilk. Blend well.
7. Let cool and chill for at least 8 hours.
Rasins Board
Every morning after breakfast, I will show my appreciation to my girls for being good helpers the day before. Each of them are supposed to get 10 rasins! On our rasins board, you can see 10 circles for each of the 4 colors representing Tiffany, Odelia, Sonia and Viviana. (Shoshana is too young for this now =P) However, when one fails to do a good job like the dishes are not clean enough, or forgetting to clear the table, then one circle will be moved up to the upper section, which means she will has one rasin less the next morning. O-Oh…!
Treasure Bucket
This is our little treasure bucket filled with many little items from dollar store, like cute wooden clips, ribbons, cute erasers, pens, necklaces, cute hair bands, metal stickers..…etc. Yes, many girly stuff, since we have girls only so far =P There are also coupons of $.25 value. If one collects 4 of them, can get $1 to choose whatever she likes in the dollar store!
Whenever any one of our children can memorize 5 passages of Scriptures that I assigned or can dictate about 15 Chinese words, then she can get a chance to pick anything she likes in this bucket! We believe that it’s very important for anyone to memorize as many Scriptures as one can, since you never know when the Bible will be banned from any country! Also, as a Chinese, we do expect our children to read and write Chinese like us even that they were born in Canada. It’s so hard to motivate them to put effort to do these things as they do not understand the importance of such at this age. However, this little treasure bucket works well so far =) For Tiffany, she can already memorize passages like Psalm 1, 8, 23, 100, 121…..etc! And when she can memorize the passage in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, it counts triple =)