Friday, June 24, 2016

Hope To Be Back Soon .....

This is the real me!
When I posted on March 15th that there would be no newsletter for that day, I didn't realize that it would be three months later that I still can't pull together a newsletter.  It's been hard not to share the birds arriving after winter, what birds are nesting, the babies coming out and entertaining us.  With the long winter here in Central Virginia, we sure missed Spring and the plants didn't bloom on time.  Actually the Rose of Sharons never even budded.

I did keep the blog going with post coming out a few times a month.  I hope you are enjoying them.

Keeping up with the Caring Bridge website posts has been my challenge, but there are so many of you on there encouraging me on and holding me afloat.  Thank you for that.  Without you I would not be making it.  TRULY!

If you didn't get the link to the Caring Bridge website I created to keep folks updated, here's the link:
www.caringbridge.org/visit/donnawatkins3

Just wanted to touch base with those who aren't on Caring Bridge.  Looking forward to getting back to normal again.


Blog Sponsored by The Herbs Place - Wholesale Prices Always - Up to 33% Off

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

21 Awesome Ways to Use Essential Oils to Freshen and Clean

Save 15% on EVERY Authentic Essential Oil and Blend at TheHerbsPlace.com
Sale ends on June 27, 2016 at 9PM Eastern Time.


Refreshing, uplifting, soothing, calming, energizing ... there's a million reasons to use Authentic Essential oils and blends for your daily health and emotional mindset with
SureSource™ Guaranteed essential oils.  This is your opportunity to stock up on your favorite scents...and try something new!


By Dan Bischoff

You probably know that essential oils have calming and healing effects, but did you know they can be used for cleaning too?

Using essential oils around your home is a natural way to freshen and clean your living space. Whether you are finishing up your spring cleaning or preparing for summer barbecues, these essential oil tricks will prepare you for anything.

Here are a few unique ways you can use essential oils to freshen up your life!

1. Keep Pests at Bay

Keep spiders and rodents at bay with peppermint essential oil. These creepy critters can’t stand peppermint! Add 10-15 drops of the essential oil to a spray bottle with water and spray in the cracks and gaps where spiders and rodents enter your home. For extra protection, add one or two drops of peppermint oil to a cotton ball and leave it in common entrance places, such as doorways and basements.

2. Keep Fruit Fresh

To keep your fruit fresh, wash fruit in a bowl of cool water with two to six drops of lemon essential oil. Stir the fruit in the bowl and leave it long enough for the food to pick up the essential oils. This will help increase the shelf life of your fruit, leaving it bright and ripe for a few extra days.

3. Eliminate Shower Curtain Scum

Essential oils can be used to get rid of shower curtain scum. Use a spray bottle filled with warm water, four drops of eucalyptus essential oil and four drops of tea tree oil (melaleuca). Spray this mixture onto your shower curtain for cleaning and then onto your tub. Leave the mixture to help fight mold when the curtain is back in place.

4. Freshen Your Home

To freshen the air in your home, use essential oils in your air filters. Every time you change your filters, add a few drops of your favorite essential oils before replacing them. Essential oils kill microbes in your ducts and will leave a pleasant scent throughout the house. Use cinnamon essential oil to clean the air with its anti-microbial properties or diffuse clove, rosemary or orange essential oils when guests come over to blow them away with your home’s fresh scent.

5. Freshen Your Fridge

When cleaning out your fridge or freezer, use lime, grapefruit or lemongrass essential oils in your final rinse. It will leave your refrigerator with a refreshing scent and help to neutralize any mold that might be creeping into your fridge.

6. Freshen Your Car

Keep your car smelling fresh with essential oils. The scent of essential oils are subtle and are easy to refill, making them the perfect car freshener. Try using an essential oil car diffuser to keep the scent longer and from overpowering your vehicle. Use lavender oil to relieve tension or rose oil to boost your mood on the way to work.

7. Stay Safe in the Sun

You can create your own homemade, toxic-free sunscreen using essential oils. Mix coconut oil, zinc oxide, shea butter, helichrysum oil and lavender essential oil in a bottle and store for summer. This natural sunscreen will help protect your skin from damage at the park or neighborhood barbecue.

8. Sleep Tight

To help you and your loved ones sleep better, place a few drops of lavender essential oil on a blanket or pillow, or add a few drops to a spray bottle with water and use it to freshen your sheets when making the bed. Keep the bottle with you on vacation and spray your hotel room to kill microbes and deodorize the room.

9. Scour Dirty Pans

Clean out burnt pans with lemon essential oil. Boil water in the dirty pot or pan and add a few drops of lemon oil to remove burnt residue or stuck foods. You can also add a few drops of lemon oil to the dishwasher soap compartment before washing to leave your dishes spot-free.

10. Freshen Your Gym Bag

Keep germs out of your gym bag with essential oils. Fill a spray bottle with water and a drop of tea tree and lavender essential oils to refresh your bag, shoes and yoga mat after a day at the gym. For smelly shoes, pick your favorite essential oil and put two drops on a cotton ball. Place a cotton ball in each shoe to find them refreshed in the morning.

11. Control Flies

Open windows and outdoor cooking are some of the great perks of summer. But, these activities can attract pesky flies that ruin dinners. To create a barrier against flies at your next cookout, mix 25 drops of peppermint or lavender essential oils with water in a spray bottle. Use the mixture on windows, doors and dining tables. Make sure to shake well before use.

12. Eliminate the Smell of Smoke

If you smoke or live next to someone who does, you can easily eliminate the smell of cigarette smoke with a few drops of essential oils. Put four drops of rosemary, tea tree and eucalyptus essential oils in a spray bottle and spray near your patio or in your car to neutralize odors.

13. Preserve Your Leather

To preserve leather jackets, sofas and shoes, use essential oils to clean them. Soak a cloth in lemon essential oil and wipe down leather items. This will help keep the material from splitting and preserve the color.

14. Scour the Sink

You can create an all-natural kitchen sink scrub to make your sink shine without using harmful chemicals. Make the mix using half a cup of baking soda, one-third cup of vinegar, and five drops of bergamot and lime essential oils. Use this mixture to scrub the sink and then rinse with warm water. Your kitchen sink will shine like new!

15. Freshen Your Home While Vacuuming

Use your favorite essential oils when vacuuming to leave a fresh scent after cleaning. Add a cotton ball with a few drops of peppermint, spearmint or pine essential oils to your vacuum cleaner bag or collector cup for a refreshing scent. If you have dogs, use geranium essential oil to clear your carpets of canine smells.

16. Freshen the Bathroom

Make your own bathroom freshener with natural essential oils. To neutralize unpleasing scents and freshen up your bathroom, apply a few drops of citrus, rose or lavender essential oils to a cotton ball and place it behind the toilet.

17. Reduce Mold

Eliminate mold in your home with an essential oil diffuser. Fill it with fungus-fighting tea tree oil or anti-microbial cinnamon essential oils. For a more direct mold defense, mix tea tree oil with grapefruit seed extract and vinegar. The grapefruit seed helps to neutralize the smell of the vinegar while all three ingredients work together to stop mold in its tracks.

18. Make Powerful Solvent

You can create a powerful solvent with lemon or wild orange essential oils. Use a few drops to remove price stickers, get gum out of the carpet, or clean sap off gardening tools. For eliminating tough gunk, leave the essential oils for a few minutes before removing.

19. Camp in Peace

Make camping and backyard fires a breeze with natural mosquito repellent. Protect yourself and your s’mores from mosquitoes with an essential oil bug spray made of one drop of lemongrass, citronella and eucalyptus essential oils mixed with one teaspoon of coconut oil. Rub the mixture on exposed skin for protection all night long.

20. Keep Fishy Smells Away

Does your kitchen smell of fish or onions after cooking? Get rid of unwanted kitchen smells by adding a few drops of clove, cinnamon or any citrus essential oils to a simmering pan of water. You’ll be able to cook a delicious fish dinner without worrying about the smell taking over your kitchen.

21. Freshen Your Linens and Clothes

For cozy towels, sheets and clothes, add five drops of rose essential oil to water and pour it into the center cup of your washer. Finish the laundry by soaking a small piece of terry cloth in lavender, rose or ylang ylang essential oils and tossing it into the dryer. If you are looking to get rid of mites, use eucalyptus to clean your linens and clothes. These essential oils will leave your clothes feeling soft and smelling fresher than ever.

Conclusion

Essential oils are one of the most useful natural tools for home remedies and fresh cleaning supplies. Get the most out of your oils with 100 percent natural products from Nature’s Sunshine’s authentic oils. Nature’s Sunshine promises the oils will be the highest quality and made authentically, so you know you’re getting the most out of your essential oils.

Sources

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2014/04/35-surprising-uses-for-essential-oils-everyone-should-know.html; http://www.edensgarden.com/pages/home; http://www.edensgarden.com/pages/aroma; http://draxe.com/essential-oil-uses-benefits/; http://www.naturessunshine.com/us/shop/c2/oil1/essential-oils/



Blog Sponsored by The Herbs Place - Wholesale Prices Always - Up to 33% Off

Receiving Your Inheritance

By Clint Byars, Forward Ministries


Have you ever wondered if God would “show up” or “come through” for you? The key to never struggling with this mindset is again is understood through adoption and inheritance.

In adoption, the parents take time to evaluate children before making the legal commitment to give them their last name and raise the child as their own. We don’t choose who our natural children are but we do when we take the path of adoption.

Anyone who has been through the process understands the legal side of the process. The legal side can test your emotional commitment and solidify just how intentional you are about bringing that child into your family. God made the decision to allow you into his family through Christ, he’s not disappointed that you are his child, he chose you.

Inheritance is similar in that whomever takes the time to draft a will understands the legal side of the process. My wife and I are currently going through the process of drafting a will for our children. Our attorney is asking us questions we’ve never thought of. This process is very intentional. No one accidentally drafted a will to determine what they wanted to leave to their heirs. This too is an intentional process that one is committed to when determining the inheritance one leaves for their heirs.

After Sara and I are gone, my children will never have to wonder if we wanted them to have what we purposed to leave them. They will never have to ask if we truly wanted them to receive everything we left them because there will be a legal document stating the fact. The New Covenant sealed between the Father and the Son is God’s last will and testament for Jesus and then it’s shared with us once we’re in Jesus.

We must look at our inheritance in Jesus in this legal manner. God determined ahead of time, before we were ever in his family, before he adopted us when we say yes to Jesus, what he wanted to leave us in his will. We are joint-heirs with Jesus. Jesus inherited a name above all names, authority over death and Hades, eternal life and lastly “all things” (Hebrews 1).

Did Jesus inherit life? Yes
Did Jesus inherit healing? Yes, he rose from the grave healed
Did Jesus inherit provision? Yes, God gave his the keys to his kingdom
Did Jesus inherit righteousness, peace and Joy? Jesus inherited ALL things
Are you a joint-heir with Jesus?

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Romans 8:32

We never have to question if God wants to provide for us because it’s in the will.
We never have to ask if our Heavenly Daddy wants to heal us because it’s in the will.
We never have to ask if God is withholding something because it’s already been given in Jesus.
We never have to question God’s timing because he already enacted the will to give us all things.

If Jesus paid for it, it’s yours now!

It’s like God decided to give you everything he has so he drafted a will in Heaven and came here to die to enact it for you. When we pray we must pray from this mindset. We’re in God’s family, he’s passed and left us his will and we can enjoy everything he left us right now.

Take a little time to listen to this full length message on this topic:
Receiving Your Inheritance

Blog Sponsored by The Herbs Place - Wholesale Prices Always - 30-45% Off

Natural Ways to Get Rid of Fruit Flies

From EverydayRoots.com

As the weather gets warmer, and your kitchen fills with more fresh summer produce, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep fruit flies from invading.

Anyone that has had a fruit fly infestation in their home before knows just how much of a hassle they can really be.

If you have a fruit fly problem, or know it is only a matter of time before you do, make sure to try one of these 4 simple homemade traps to get rid of them.

4 Homemade Traps to Get Rid of Fruit Flies

 Note:  We've used #1 with great success!!


 Blog Sponsored by The Herbs Place - Wholesale Prices Always - Up to 33% Off




Friday, June 10, 2016

Being Led of the Holy Spirit

Follow The Leading of the Holy Spirit
by Andrew Wommack

Matthew 25:14 "For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods."

The parable of the talents continues the theme of being ready for the Lord's return, but it also makes a strong point that we are accountable to the Lord for the gifts He has given us. The Lord intends us to use these gifts to further His kingdom - not keep them hidden.

This parable also shows the Lord dealing with His servants according to their own individual gifts and abilities. The servants who doubled their Lord's money were praised equally, even though one had produced two and one-half times as much revenue for His Lord than the other. Every man's work shall be judged as to what sort it is - not what size it is.

Most people today are preoccupied with quantity of ministry instead of quality of ministry. The Lord is going to reward us based on how well we did, not on how much we did. Those who are not governed by the Holy Spirit in their actions will see all their good works burned up on the day we stand before the Lord and He tries our works. Those who acted only under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will find that their works will endure the test and they will receive a reward.

Many people choose to do good things thinking that God will be pleased. It is our positive response to God's direction (faith) that pleases God (Heb. 11:6). We were created with a purpose and every individual has a God-given plan for his life. Unless our actions are in agreement with God's plan for our life, they will not abide the test of God's fire.

Visit Andrew's website.


Sponsored by The Herbs Place - 30-45% Off Retail Prices  

New Edible 6-pack Rings to Save Wildlife

From Mother Nature Network

A recent study found that 90 percent of seabirds have eaten plastic, and a lot of that plastic comes from the rings that hold together six-packs of beer, soda and other beverages. The marine life that lives in the oceans ingest plastics, too. These toxic plastics harm the health of our sea life, often killing them.

Saltwater Brewery in Florida created a six-pack ring that feeds animals instead of killing them. Many six-pack rings from beer end up in the ocean, so the brewery took barley and wheat remnants from the brewing process and turned them into an edible, compostable, biodegradable product that holds together a six-pack but doesn't harm birds or sea life if it ends up in the ocean. It's also strong enough to handle the weight of a six-pack.




Blog Sponsored by The Herbs Place - Wholesale Prices Always - Up to 33% Off

Pets: 4th of July Survival Video


by Dr. Sarah

Fourth of July celebrations are right around the corner. But it’s not all fun and games, especially for our canine companions. The explosive booms and whistles of fireworks, the lingering smell of pyrotechnics, it’s more than some dogs can handle without experiencing extreme fear.

But what is a pet parent to do? How can you protect your companion animal from this annual event?

Fortunately, Dr. Sarah has dedicated this month’s episode of Pet Talk to exactly this topic! Learn how to prepare and protect your fur kids from the sounds of ‘bombs bursting in air’. If you want to be ready before the holiday revelry begins, watch this episode of Pet Talk now!

Share This Post