Monday, July 23, 2012

Miracle oil!

I discovered Tea Tree Oil a few months ago when my daughter had a yeast infection. Oh what a great discovery this was!! Deirdre had had the infection for over a week and I had been creaming her up with a mix of Cortisone and Clotrimazol as suggested by the pharmacist. After over a week treating her with that, there was no sign of improvement. So I started searching for other solutions online. That is when I read about Tea Tree Oil. I read that it was a natural anti-fungal agent and I wanted to give it a try. I bought a small bottle at our department store. With my cloth diapers, I use a diaper rash ointment made of Bee's wax, calendula, yarrow, great comfrey and other plants. I thought it would not be bad to make a Tea Tree Oil ointment out of that, so I took a tea spoon of it and added 3 drops of Tea Tree Oil and mixed it well. I put a very small amount of that on my little girl's infection and used it through out the day. What an amazing oil!!! The infection was totally gone within a day! I could see it disappearing at every diaper change. I then used it to disinfect my cloth diapers to be sure the rash would not come back (I used 10 drops of it in the rince cycle).


Tea Tree Oil comes from the Melaleuca Tree of Australia. It is a good antiseptic and anti-fungal and has a multitude of household uses. I now use a few drops in  water and vinegar as an all purpose cleaner. I put a few drops in the diaper pail as a disinfectant and deodorant. It is common in the Natural products sections in soaps, shampoos, topical creams. It is better to use it diluted as the pure 100% Melaleuca oil is very strong and can cause skin irritation. It is very good as a disinfectant on wounds.

My son had a very bad scrape on his cheek and I used the cream I had made for my daughter's infection to treat his scrape. Within a week, there was barely a sign of a scar! (note that there was Great Comfrey in that ointment...maybe the mix of the two was the perfect combo!)

I love this oil and would never want to run out of it. I think it should be a normal member of the medecin cabinet community!



Friday, July 20, 2012

This Moment!

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Learning to live in tune with nature!

In our fast paced 9 to 5 society, taking time to admire and respect the beauty and greatness of our Planet can be the last of our concerns...but really, it should be the first! I have come to a better appreciation of our lovely Mother only during the last months of this current leave from work I am on at this time. With my children enjoying the presence of other children at daycare, I have some time to myself. This is not something everyone can boast about. While at home, and free from kids, I have enjoyed the heat (and this summer is in excess if heat) and light of the sun, the growth of new grass, the wonder of the growth cycles of "weeds" in a deep corner of my backyard.... and I have enjoyed the great power of the sun, ridding shirts and diapers of stains, heating the water in the little pool, burning my feet on the wooden deck.

  While all this is common to many, the thoughts that originated from those experiences are unique to anyone living them. Since my husband and I are very interested in spiritual matters, and he does a lot of research in the current growth of the world's spirituality, we came across (but not for the first time) some video interviews with Alex Collier (see video below). The simple idea of having to be more loving and respectful of our own Human race and it's home, our Planet, just makes too much sense. It doesn't have to come from Human Aliens from the constellation of Andromeda to be common sense. But somehow, our society's load of belief systems seems to make people not only forget that common sense, but go completely in the other direction....and that direction will be the death of us all if we don't change it soon!

Change does have to be a massive collective thing in one sudden act; it can be a series of little things in everyone's every day life. Taking the time to question. Taking the time to question our lifestyles, our societal systems, our financial systems...do we really need to be slaves to money and follow every little dictatures of our governments? Is it really necessary that we sacrifice 8 hours of each day to work? Is money really the best way to deal with material exchanges?

I had the luxury to sit and ask myself; What can I and my family do to make this world better, help it heal from our mistakes? I thought of a few things, to start with; recycle household materials instead of throwing them away (fabrics, old clothing, old doors, etc...), participate in the city's composting program, reduce and eventually eliminate the use of harsh chemicals (in kitchen cleaning products, shampoo, soap, household cleaners, etc...), increase the use of cloth diapers and speed up potty training. These are just a few examples, but it makes a difference.

That is just a start, but I find it alleviating to know that we are doing a good thing, no matter how small it seems.

Please feel free to share your solutions to help our Planet!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

One step towards Earth Friendly living!




Up until last week, my husband and I were not so sure we wanted to participate in our city's Composting program. We thought, with the current heat, it would be quite disgusting. But our inner need to be more earth-friendly pushed me to start saving food scraps in the compost bin anyway. My husband agreed, provided we avoid animal left overs. Almost 2 weeks along, it really feels nature, for me at least, to give back to Earth what she had provided in the first place! Taking part of a natural cycle.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Welcome!

For this first post, I thought I would introduce myself and my family and why I chose to create a blog dealing with the progress of a family towards a better environmental and human conciousness.

 First, my name is Karine and I am the mother of two beautifull babies; Connor, 2 and a half years old, and Deirdre, 13 months old. My Husband, Lee, is a very spiritual man and has a strong sense of respect for Earth, Humanity and God (or Isness, or Source, as he often calls Him/Her). I started writting a blog shortly after my daughter was born. It was dealing with day to day experiences with my children, venting on some issues of parenting and our society, sharing my creativity with sewing and knitting....but I soon ran out of ideas in that sense, and felt it was too common and not reflecting my true goals in parenting. The idea to start a new blog, dealing with more serious issues and sharing more meaningfull experiences came to me recently, a few weeks ago, as I was hanging up the diapers on the drying line outside and looked at the grass growing where the pool used to be....I had a revelation into what I wanted our lifes to be like and that could happen in the future if time and financial resources permit. That future is one of aboundance; living of our own garden growth, making our own soap, growing medicial plants to make our own remedies, living in harmony with the land, the Earth herself...This kind of living has always appealed to me, and feels like it's the way everyone should live! I would also dream of seeing the monetary system abolished and everyone living in fair shares but that is another story....

In this new blog, I plan to share more ideas and tips on how to live a greener life and teach our children to respect our Planet, to share back to basics creativity, including sewing and knitting, ideas to teach children respect of others, Love of other and Love of the Planet as a whole. Children are the Future of Earth, her Hope and Chance for spiritual evolution. The are the Crystals and Diamonds, the Pearls and Gold of our race! They must be thought as such!