Essential Oils for Health & Healing

A few months ago, I jumped with both feet into the world of Essential Oils. I had used them occasionally before to scent laundry detergent with lavender, clean and disinfect with tea tree oil, or use a pre-made peppermint roller for headaches but had not integrated them into our health care. My best friend had been sharing for a few months about how Essential Oils had been changing their family's health and approach to healing. I am so grateful for the introduction, as it has truly benefited me and my family. I always prefer to handle things naturally before turning to doctors or pharmaceuticals, and I love having this new tool in our natural toolbox.

  
Essential oils are highly concentrated plant matter that are extracted from shrubs, flowers, trees, bushes, seeds and roots using steam distillation. They have many beneficial properties including anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal. Essential Oils can be inhaled, applied topically and some people choose to ingest them. Not all oils are created equally, and like many things in life, you get what you pay for. If you want a highly concentrated, effective oil and noticeable results, you need to find a high quality therapeutic oil. I would encourage you to do your own research, but after spending a considerable amount of time researching and trying different brands of oils, I have chosen to use Young Living Essential Oils for our family.

Now when we are experiencing upset tummies, the sniffles, coughs, cuts, scrapes, trouble sleeping, head pain or just about any other physical ailment, we turn first to Essential Oils for relief. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first but I have been pleasantly surprised by how effective they have been. I went from using Essential Oils occasionally around our home to using them daily to promote health and wellness. My girls get excited whenever they see me pull a roller bottle out and sit right down and stick their feet out for some oil. After using Frankincense to soothe bug bites and help promote healing of scrapes, Eden is becoming famous for finding the tiniest, microscopic scrape on her skin and asking for some oil. :) Austin, who was the most skeptical of all is also slowly coming around after experiencing relief from head pain with my head pain roller blend. We have also found that Thieves helped boost our immune systems so we recover from sickness faster. And these are just a couple of examples of how Young Living has helped our family. Essential Oils are not a be-all, end-all and certainly do not replace the medical advice of a doctor, but we love having a safe, natural option to try before turning to the pharmacy.

If you have any questions about Essential Oils, want to hear more details about how they have helped our family, or if you even want to try some yourself, I would love to talk to you more about how Essential Oils can help you and your family in your journey towards natural health. Feel free to comment below, reach out to me through Facebook, or email me at AndreaBankert@gmail.com for more info.


*I am not a doctor and these comments have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or manage any disease.

Finding Strength in Weakness

This morning I woke up with a major attitude. Dear sweet Eden has been up again in the middle of the night the past few nights for various reasons ranging from dreams about dragons to just missing us, and our sleep patterns have been broken at best. Two nights ago when she woke up crying at the top of the stairs, Austin in his sleepy haze, thought someone had fallen down the stairs and bolts out of bed (with a groggy and confused me right behind him) and raced up the stairs at an Olympic pace to find the girls standing at the top waiting for us to comfort them. Once the fog had cleared and our heart rates came back down, it was back to bed for all of us for what was left of the night. Some nights, I think I might as well throw a newborn into the mix because that's about as much sleep as I feel that I get. (NOT pregnant, by the way.)

I often go to bed with prayers for forgiveness for being short tempered, impatient, or having the wrong priorities that day, drifting off with the best intentions of waking up a new and refreshed mom, ready to pour into my children the very best of me, showing the love of Christ in every situation and imparting wisdom, love and patience. Right...... Then I wake up on mornings like today, having overslept and missing out on my precious 30-60 minutes of quiet time to read my devotionals, catch up on emails and get myself mentally prepared for the day. Instead, I woke to a little chatterbox in my ear asking for me to banish the pretend spiders and webs she was "seeing" and making requests for milk and cereal before I even opened my eyes. And I was grouchy about it. Resentful even, despite the fact that my oversleeping was not her fault. (Well, it partly was, but still no reason to take my frustration out on her.)

And I realize that again, despite my best intentions the night before, I cannot be the mom I want to be out of my own strength. I just can't. All it takes is a sleepless night, a missed quiet time, an over-turned bowl of milk, a sibling fight before the coffee has hit my lips, and all of my good intentions can dissolve into frustrated responses and a shadow of the parent I desire to be.

BUT on the days that I intentionally slow down to whisper desperate prayers for patience, for eyes that see my life through His perspective, for a tongue that is slow and intentional to speak, for selflessness and the ability to see my service to my family as service to Christ, then something beautiful happens. The problems are still there. The inconveniences that come with life as an imperfect person surrounded by imperfect people are still there, but they do not overwhelm and break me down. When I live each moment through Christ's strength instead of my own, I am able to take each intrusion to what I perceive as a perfect day in stride. And I am able to look at these interruptions as opportunities for us all to grow and learn. And He changes me in these moments where life isn't picture perfect and I realize that these inconveniences aren't holding me back from life, they ARE life. It's all part of His process of refining us into the people He has made us to be. It's up to us to recognize and embrace these as opportunities instead of inconveniences.

Aldi Love

After a long break for a wonderful Christmas and New Years with my family (more on that later), I am back and ready to share what we've been up to on Planting Purpose. For now, I have to share our recent re-discovery in saving some money while still eating fresh and healthy at Aldi!

I am always looking for ways to eat clean and healthy on a budget (hence a 2,000 SF garden in our back yard!), but when it comes to the grocery store, my desires don't always meet up with reality. We have settled into a pretty solid routine of what fresh and packaged items we buy organic and which items we compromise on due to price or availability. I have gotten into a routine of shopping every week in Kroger and have my shopping "route" down to a science. We recently have started focusing closer on our grocery budget and I decided to check out Aldi again.

Aldi is a discount grocery chain that has a unique atmosphere and an interesting back-story. The groceries are quite a bit cheaper than you find at conventional grocery stores for several reasons:

1. They are only open during peak shopping hours to save labor costs.
2. They do not waste money on labor costs for baggers or employees who hunt down grocery carts in the parking lot. You bring your own bags, and you place a quarter deposit down to borrow a shopping cart and receive your quarter back when you return it to it's proper location.
3. They do not accept credit cards. Credit processing fees are expensive, so they only accept cash, debit, and EBT cards.
4. They stock only the fast moving, most common grocery items rather than a huge inventory of obscure products. This keeps the stores smaller and cuts down on rent and utility costs.

Once I got used to the quirky differences, I really started to enjoy shopping at Aldi. Picture a mini Costco where the items are displayed in boxes rather than on shelves and you are bagging/organizing your purchases yourself. I had tried Aldi several years ago and wasn't impressed, but what has me excited this time around was the fact that they have really stepped up their game with organic and gluten-free items. I will likely have to go to a conventional grocery store 1-2 times per month to supplement, but I'm thrilled with the savings with most items at Aldi. We were able to purchase an entire week's worth of groceries for our family of 4 for less than $100!

Here are some items I found this time around that were healthy and extremely affordable:

- Shredded Wheat Cereal with wheat as the only ingredient
- Organic Apples
- Wild caught canned tuna 
- Sea salt grinder
- Organic Spaghetti Sauce for only $1.79! (I've never found this under $2.50)
- Organic Vegetable Broth also for $1.79
- The world's best Garlic & Herb Goat cheese, 4 oz for $1.99 (love this on salads and in eggs!)
- Organic bananas
- Organic corn chips
- A great variety of gluten free products including corn pasta, brown rice pasta, crackers, pizza crust mix (not pictured), sandwich wraps (not pictured). I won't pretend that gluten free products are a "health item" as many are highly processed and contain a long list of ingredients, however it is awesome to have some easy/quick options for snacking and dinners when you are intolerant of gluten.

There were several other items that I didn't get to try this week and am looking forward to checking out. They had organic grass fed ground beef for $5.99/lb. Their produce also is priced well and they have some organic stuff mixed in depending on what's available. I'm hoping for even more organic options as we draw closer to summer. For now, I'm happy to find somewhere that helps save on the grocery bill while not compromising on quality. You can look for an Aldi close to you by clicking here!