Dearest One,

Today we mark ten years of marriage. Happily, even. With a touch of pride and a cautious joy. Given that a few short months ago I didn’t think I wanted to stay married I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

Ten years ago when I married you under the muggy late-spring sun on that post-thunderstorm day in May, I thought you were so sexy. You were standing up there in your rental tux, all dapper and grown-up and ready to whisk me away into a world of which we clearly knew absolutely nothing.

Let’s be honest, we were just kids playing a grown-up’s game, me still a teenager and you barely finished being one. We were in love though. I’ll swear it to my grave that we were. You know, of course, that at that point it was the kind of hormonal, romantic-notion love that is positively bursting pregnant with hope and naivete. The sort that’s certain the world has bestowed a never-ending burning love upon them. Love that aches when physically apart and smolders when together. Sexy back then was breathlessness and wide-eyed lash-flutters, heart palpitations and passionately united bodies unmarked by child-rearing and age.

Let’s be honest though, we were truly in love.  We spoke each other’s names softly when we held hands at the downtown jazz club, ordering things that made us feel grown-up like escargots and wine. We laughed and gazed in one another’s eyes, and we strolled along the boardwalk as lovers, doing all those things young love is wont to do. We dreamt of the love-saturated life in technicolor that we’d lead, bright future indeed, then went home to our tiny apartment to make love without worrying about babies waking up to nurse or toddlers wetting the bed.

Four months ago I had the worst Christmas of my life.

We were either fighting or simmering below-the-surface the entire day because we just couldn’t for the life of us meet in the middle. The middle of what? I don’t know exactly but it felt like a desert. Vast and expansive and completely parched, populated by bills and piles of laundry and peed on sheets and harsh words, in the company of a whole herd of tiny dictators that apparently we were qualified to birth and raise. We couldn’t even be happy together on Christmas. It was wretched. It had been that way more-days-than-not for a long while.

The day after Christmas I emailed a marriage counselor and asked if you’d come with me.

You did.

I had no idea how we got there, to that horribly unhappy place, but there we were. I guess it has to do with having a bunch of beautiful babies in a relatively short time, moving across the country, getting little sleep and even less alone-time, and watching your dreams and plans crumble. They say we humans tend to take out our stress on those we trust and love the most, and I’d wager that after several straight years of this we each just grew tired of it.

We grew tired of each other. I didn’t know you anymore, and the leftover tired bits were not altogether amiable, nor mine for you, if I’m being truthful.

We talked about it. Actually mostly we fought about it, but when we managed to talk civilly it was pointless. We had no magic solutions. We didn’t want to divorce, but we tossed the word around, wondering if it was a looming inevitability.

If something drastic doesn’t change, we said, there’s no way we’ll be together in a year’s time. I just… (deflated and hopeless). I just don’t know anymore. I don’t.

Trapped. Wounded. Our aching and bleeding frail hearts had grown paper-thin. The old tired wounds kept piling on hurt and anguish and brick-by-brick it continued until there was a mammoth wall looming in between us that we did not know how to dismantle.

It was wearying to keep our secret as we played married bliss to the world.

So, finally, hanging on by a bare thread, we dragged our marriage into a therapist’s office, cracked and bleeding, plopped down into the chairs where the air crackled with awkward tension. It was the sexiest thing I think you’ve ever done for me. For us.

You know, to be honest – I think we’ve come to a new kind of sexy now.

Today you showed up at the zoo to surprise me and the kids. You finished work early and ran to us. Kids that were whiny and tired, a hot and sunburnt wife who handed the deliciously chubby baby over for you to hold. And you came to us, your smile twinkled the corners of your eyes and you walked with us. You just came to be with us because you didn’t want to be elsewhere.

We stopped for ice cream on the way home and then you started teaching our oldest to ride a two-wheeler in the driveway while twilight set on and the baby chattered and crawled and ate dandilions. Our daughter rode her tricycle around and we all basked in this glorious life of sunshine and bare filthy feet and toddler drama, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sexier.

Today sexy means fathering our children and making them feel loved. Making my coffee at night so it’s ready to go in the morning when you leave early for work? That’s sexy. Doing the hard things and swallowing pride down deep when conflicts arise and saying sorry and being sorry and loving me more than your own pride is sexy. That’s what sexy is. Damn straight that’s sexy. It’s sexy when you hold my hand tenderly across the space between our chairs in marriage counseling and when you look at me like that. Like you know we can make it, even if we can’t figure out how. Like you just desperately want to like/love me but can’t and so we ask for help and you are willing. Willing to do the hard things. Talk the hard talks and live the hard ways.

It’s not easy being married almost a decade and realizing you really kind of hate the person beside you in the bed. When the empty space in the sheets between you may as well be a chasm for all the touching we’d done lately. Our feet used to find each other in bed as our dog-tired eyes drooped shut and we were in between awake and snoring. Then somehow they stopped and the space in the sheets grew cold and our hearts got all bent outta shape and frail.

So we fought for it. We stumbled on redemption in the unlikely sexy acts of taking out the smelly-diaper trash, going to marriage counseling, and texting each other apologies for misspoken harsh words.

Tonight, while in the driveway, your eye caught mine between helmet tightenings and you gave me the lovey eyes. You haven’t done that in a long time. Your smile crinkled your eyes up and you did that thing with your eyebrow that you do when you’re content. We had an argument the other day and it felt like the exception rather than the rule, and last night our feet found each other again in bed.

The hard work of Every Day Life brings restoration to a crumbling marriage and whispers sexy back into a couple of hip minivan parents with tired circles under their eyes and a spirit bolstered by a hope that simply refuses to die.

There’s none other in the world I’d rather do that hard work with than you.

All of my love forever,

B

Fast Tube by Casper

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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First, let’s step into the confessional booth, shall we? That photo sucks. Oh, I doctored it up and edited it and slapped some words over (most of) it, but it was late at night and my natural lighting had slipped away and I wanted to hurry up and get this post up, so well… this is what we’ve got. Trust me when I say these burgers are delish, cuz I’m sure the photo isn’t doing much convincing of that fact.

We don’t use buns in our family. (Insert butt jokes here). I keep seeing gluten-free recipes around that I want to try, but meh, that’s too much effort and when you’ve cleaned up all manner of bodily fluids and smashed food bits and mushed banana and paint and crayon-on-your-white-duvet ALL IN ONE DAY and you just can’t stand One More Mess, you tend to go bunless. It’s good. It’s all good, baby. Bunless ain’t never killed no one. <– That sentence did not actually make any sense, grammatically speaking. I lead a wild and crazy life and sometimes I live on the edge by using slang and double negatives in the same sentence. It’s nuts, really.

Anyway, BBQ season started for us Canadians when the snow started to melt a few months ago. If you follow my on instagram you saw my hubby outside BBQ’ing in bare feet and short-sleeves, and it was in the fifties (8 celsius). For most of you in America, BBQ season is kicking into high gear now, so hopefully this is perfect timing all around.

These are a simple burger patty. They are full of flavour, but not too complicated or crazy to make. We tend to make several pounds worth at once into patties, freeze them on a cookie sheet on parchment paper, and then throw them into a ziploc bag once they are frozen. I love being able to just grab a couple and fry/BBQ them for an almost-instant meal.

Easy Homemade Burger Patties

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Prep time	20 minutes
Dietary	Gluten Free
Misc	Freezable
Occasion	Barbecue

Ingredients

• 5-6lb Ground beef
• 4 Eggs
• 4 tablespoons Coconut flour
• 3 teaspoons Garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon Dried minced onion
• 2 teaspoons Chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Red pepper flakes ((less if you prefer non-spicy))
• 2 teaspoons Basil
• 2 teaspoons Oregano
• 2 teaspoons Sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Coriander

Directions

Step 1	Combine all ingredients (with hands, a stand mixer, or a spoon)
Step 2	Form into patties (we have a rad little pattie maker gadget that works great, but you could totally just use your hands).
Step 3	Freeze on parchment paper on a baking sheet.
Step 4	Once frozen, store in a ziploc or freezer-safe container, and use as necessary!

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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This banana bread was yesterday’s gift to me. I made it in between the usual 4-kids-under-4 emergencies and disasters, cuddling a teething, nap-striking baby, and crock-potting a roast chicken for dinner. (Is crock-potting a word? I’m gonna go ahead and declare it one.)

I had some spotty bananas that were begging me to make them into banana bread. I could hear their little banana cries. They were past their youth, their prime bright yellow youth, and they were begging me to not give up on them yet. “We still have plenty to offer the world”, they cried. “We may be elderly, but we aren’t dead yet!” they exclaimed with passion.

Why yes, now that you mention it, I may have been reading a little too much into the situation, given the rapidly approaching death of my twenties (July 5, in case you care. Or wanna send flowers. Or whatever.)

Regardless – I decided to play around and come up with a recipe for banana bread that is not gonna feel like a rock in my gut (sometimes gluten does that to me) and doesn’t use refined sugar (Ain’t nobody need be eatin’ that on a regular basis. And you can be dang sure this is a Regular Basis Kind of Recipe). It is verrrry loosely based off of this recipe (mainly the flour ratios).

It uses rice flour and tapioca starch as the base. I am currently loving tapioca starch in my baking – it’s magical. I also decided to add ground chia seeds to see if it would give it a nice non-crumbly texture, as so many GF baked goods are prone to. It worked perfectly. The texture is amazing – non-crumbly, moist (but not eggy like with coconut flour), and remarkably “normal” tasting if you’re used to the wheat-based baked goods. The spices and ratios I used gave it a fabulous overall flavour, and well, let’s just say this recipe makes two loaves because loaf #1 disappeared in less than 24 hours.

Here you go. If you don’t have the ingredients on hand then I highly suggest you get your butt out to the store to get them, stat. Like, stop reading, and go now. Your taste buds will thank you later.

Perfect Banana-Pecan Bread

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Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	45 minutes
Total time	1 hour
Dietary	Gluten Free
Meal type	Bread, Breakfast, Dessert, Snack
Misc	Child Friendly, Freezable, Pre-preparable, Serve Cold, Serve Hot

Perfect Banana-Pecan Bread (which just so happens to be gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined-sugar-free while still tasting better than the other stuff. awwww yeah, baby!)

Ingredients

• 2-1/4 cups Mashed very ripe banana
• 4 Eggs
• 1/3 cup Honey (softened/melted if not already liquid)
• 1/3 cup Coconut oil (melted)
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup Coconut palm sugar
• 2 cups White rice flour
• 1 cup Tapioca starch
• 2 teaspoons Ground chia seeds (I use my Vitamix to grind them. You could also use a food processor or a coffee grinder.)
• 1 teaspoon Baking soda
• 1 teaspoon Sea salt
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon (ground)
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg (ground)
• 1/2 teaspoon Cloves (ground)
• 1 cup Pecans (chopped)

Directions

Step 1	Preheat oven to 350F and grease two loaf pans with coconut oil.
Step 2	Add first five ingredients to a large bowl (bananas, eggs, coconut oil, honey, vanilla) and mix well (I use an electric hand mixer).
Step 3	Add the rest of the ingredients (minus the pecans) to another bowl, and stir well to combine.
Step 4	Add dry ingredients to wet gradually, mixing well to combine.
Step 5	Stir in the pecans.
Step 6	Pour batter equally into the two prepared loaf pans (I use glass pans, and it works great. I recommend glass or stoneware, but not "non-stick" as it used toxic chemicals).
Step 7	Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. Test for doneness by sticking a very sharp knife into the middle. If there's any wetness, bake for another 2 minutes and re-test.
Step 8	Let cool for 10 minutes before slicing, then enjoy with a nice slathering of butter (unless you're dairy-free, in which case I feel sorry for you and suggest perhaps, uh, marmalade? It's delicious on its own too, of course!)

Note

If you really want to make this dessert-like, you could swap out the pecans for chocolate chips. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure it would be delish!

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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read more about PRM here

Welcome back to the Raising Healthy Families series! Join us each week as we take a look at different ways to keep your family healthy and vibrant in a not-so-healthy world.

I’m really excited about today’s post because I have been really wanting to learn more about natural healing methods for every day kind of issues, especially for kids. Today’s post is the perfect place to start!

Stocking Your Natural First Aid Kit for Summer is written by Krissa Jeldy of More Than Mundane.

Summer is right around the corner and now is the perfect time to start planning and preparing your natural first aid kit for summer. Discover safe and effective ways to heal sunburn, relieve bug bites, and care for cuts and scrapes. Head on over to More Than Mundane to learn how to prepare a natural first aid kit for summer.

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Post by contributor, Marissa.

When we moved across the country to a tiny community in rural Nova Scotia, we bought our seven and a half acres with a big old duplex farm house without having seen it other than a video and pictures.

With grand – if slightly vague – dreams of our own cow and chickens, we packed up our girls and our dog Molly and headed off to our farming dream.

It’s been almost two years now and I’d like to say we are wiser and have successfully established our small family farm.

But, my friends, success and/or wisdom are still yet to be discovered in our ten year plan. Alright, so we don’t actually have a ten year plan but if we did that would be written in. We do have our chickens and our milk cow, along with an unexpected pony and we have certainly learned a few things along the way.

Beth has asked me if I could share a little about our “homesteading” life from time to time and so I thought I would start out what has been the most important and at times most challenging dynamic of this new life that we are carving out here; how we do all of this with our children.

We don’t ever plan to make our main living off of farming but we do intend to get to the place where we grow most of our own food with enough extra to trade with those who raise what we don’t. My husband also works full time with his own business and so it is a constant juggling act of using the time that we have in a day well. Our kids are still small (4,3 & 16 months) and need pretty constant attention so we are continually working on ways to make this all work.

Because this lifestyle takes so much time, we are intentional about including our kids in the work.

As most of us with small children know, everything takes a great deal longer when you have one, two, three or more keeping you company.

Sometimes it feels like my day would just go so much faster if I could just run out to care for the animals myself and while that does happen at times, I also know that we all benefit for the time that we spend together caring for our animals.

I hope that our kids will grow up with many memories of the hours they have spent fencing with their daddy or pulling weeds with their mama while sharing their thoughts, dreams and stories.

As the kids are out and about on the farm, it’s been really important to teach them how to interact safely with farm life.

It’s one thing to have a few cute little hens that lay your breakfast eggs; they are pretty harmless. But, once you begin including larger farm animals, it becomes very important that your children have some basic rules of conduct around animals. The point isn’t to instill fear but to ensure a healthy respect for the animals that are much larger than they.

At this point, our girls understand they may not enter any pens unless we are with them. Gradually as we work with our animals, they are learning appropriate handling and the importance of calm voices and movements.

There are also essential details such as always closing the gate, putting tools away (we need to work on this ourselves) and keeping the animal pens neat and the girls are learning as we go.

I love that our little farm offers endless opportunities for learning.

Because we will be homeschooling, I’m becoming more mindful of the education available through our daily activities. Eggs are counted as they are collected and placed in cartons for selling. Grain is measured for feeding (Always supervised at this point as too much can be dangerous). Planting the garden offers an entire Biology unit as we learn the relationship of the seeds to the produce that we eat.

I’ve been realizing too that it’s so important to explain things to your children. While I often tend to forget explanations, I find that it sparks interest if I explain why something is important or how something helps an animal. Also as the girls get older and take more responsibility of animals it will help them in their care of the animals.

Some days, when six a.m. comes far too soon, this little homesteading life that we have chosen seems like way too much work. There are times when the last thing that I feel like doing is trudging out into the rain and muck to milk a cow and I’ve been putting off the big chicken coop clean for a few weeks now.

However, when we actually stop and take a minute to think about our life here, we realize that while it is demanding, it is also a lot of fun.

We can and do have fun while farming together and with our children.

Sometimes we do have step back and make a choice to change our attitudes but truly, there are few things that I could think of that are as pleasure-filled as a beautifully sunny, crisp-aired morning spent feeding animals, collecting eggs, and tending the garden; together, with my family.

I love hearing my children laugh with delight. I love that my hands and feet have a constant stain of soil during the summer. I can honestly say that our decision to start this little farm was a good one and it has given me a deeper appreciation for my family, this world that we live in, and life as whole.

Have you ever dreamed of farming or is it something that you are getting into now? What are some things that you’d like to know or advice that you would share?

We love visitors so if you ever have a desire to have a farming vacation, we’d welcome you for a visit!

Marissa Froese

While learning to live a simple farming life in rural Nova Scotia, Marissa finds home wherever her beloved, Dan and three darling daughters are. She writes about her journey of life as a wife, mother, woman, novice farmer, homemaker, & Christ follower at Becoming Kindred.

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read more about PRM here

Welcome back to the Raising Healthy Families series! Join us each week as we take a look at different ways to keep your family healthy and vibrant in a not-so-healthy world.

This week’s post is by Susan Vinskofski of learningandyearning and she is sharing how the health benefits of dirt. My kiddos have embraced this truth wholeheartedly

Did you realize that our health is intimately connected to soil? It plays a role in our mental health as well. Read learningandyearning’s Go Play in the Dirt! It’s Good for your Health to learn more about a very special bacteria found in soil which boosts serotonin in our brains. The post has lots of ideas for getting dirty, too! As if you needed help with that…

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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There is a sweet little trick I discovered a few years ago. I don’t remember where I first learned it. Somewhere in internet land, I’m sure. It’s a brilliant idea that carries magical powers to increase the excitement over healthy snacks by at least 74.3 percent. Minimum. It’s true – I’ve tested it. The secret? It’s called a Snack Tray, and here is the complicated magical potion:

Step 1) Get a muffin tin out of your cupboard.

Step 2) Fill it with a variety of healthy snack foods.

Step 3) Present it to your children

Step 4) Go prepare your acceptance speech for your Mother-of-the-Year award.

Sounds tough, eh? Don’t worry, I have confidence in you. I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain. I have confidence that spring will come again! BESIDES WHAT YOU SEE I HAVE CONFIDENCE IN MEEEEEEE! (<—name that movie).

Whew, this idea really inspires me with excitement, can you tell?

Honestly though – I am not exaggerating when I say that my kids *literally* cheer when I mention A Snack Tray. They are 74.3 percent more likely to eat everything in it than if I served it on a regular ol’ plate. I don’t pretend to understand it. Sometimes you just gotta believe in the magic.

I’ve done a ginormous variety of Snack Tray fillers over the years. Here are our usual favourites:

• Banana, apple, orange, kiwi, grapes, melon…
• Nuts (cashews are the fave around here)
• Dried fruit
• Crackers & cheese
• Air-popped popcorn (with butter and sea salt, of course)
• Carrot sticks (my kids actually love raw carrots – they eat them every day)
• Cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas
• Ants on a log (PB & raisins on celery sticks)
• Small hunks of cold cooked meat
• Jerky (we made our own once before and it was amaaaaazing)
• Hummus (beside the crackers)
• Berries, frozen or fresh
• Frozen peas (my weird kids love ‘em!)
• Hard-boiled eggs cut into halves

It can get pretty darn creative, but to be honest our snack trays most often consist of a quarter or a half filled with popcorn, and the rest with fruits and veggies. If I have cold cooked meat (meatballs, chicken breast, deli meat, etc), I’ll throw that in too, since I like to have lots of protein and healthy fats in our diet as much as possible.

PS. A decently filled snack tray TOTALLY can count as lunch. Just sayin’.

What would you put in your snack tray?

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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If you’re in the thick of running a home and kiddos and all of the craziness that comes along… are you kinda sorta maybe a wee bit busy?

Would it be helpful to have a boatload of mama-tested healthy whole foods recipes at your fingertips instead of random google searching every time you meal plan?

Would you love to pick up a few fashion and beauty tips? (everything from DIY beauty scrubs to how to embrace the beauty of a body that has born a kiddo or two).

How about some cleaning and organizing advice from authors who know exactly what it’s like to be a homemaker in this season of life?

Or how about a book (or 6) on budgeting or time management? Maybe homeschooling? Or camping? What about health and fitness? Or even – if you’re really thinking ahead – Christmas and advent? One of my personal favourite ebook is Truth in the Tinsel – I bought it and used it last year during advent, and my kids LOVED it. It’s included in this bundle – woohoo!

And don’t forget all of the crazy bonuses that are included. The freebies alone are worth more than $140! Check out the amazing list below…

So what all is included? Take a look…

(I’ll be chatting this deal up a bit more this week on Facebook, including my favourite ebooks from this collection that I already own! Be sure to follow Red&Honey on FB to join the conversation.)

What an incredible resource this will be for so many homemakers. I am super excited to dive in and start browsing some of the ones that catch my eye first. Now the real question is: where to begin?

PLUS, You will receive FREE Bonuses from these companies…

A FREE Two-Month Membership to Fit2B Studio, where their wholesome workouts for the whole family are tummy safe and particularly target Diastasis Recti (split abs). ($19.98 value. No shipping restrictions.)

A $15 store credit to TruKid. With products like their aware-winning sun care, they are dedicated to providing all natural skin and hair care for kids, babies, and now pets. ($15.00 value. Standard shipping applies. International shipping available.)

Your choice of incredible natural products like sea salt and clay for FREE. Choose from the Redmond Trading Earthpaste Bundle ($24.90 value) or the Facial Mud Bundle ($26.90 value). (Standard shipping applies. Continental US only.)

Your choice of a FREE heirloom sourdough starter or FREE yogurt starter from Cultures for Health, the leading supplier of starter cultures and supplies for making cultured and fermented foods ($12.95 value. US & CAN addresses only. Standard shipping applies.)

 

Your choice of: a FREE 3-Month Subscription (for new accounts) or 30% off a One Year Subscription. Plan to Eat is an online menu planner that uses your recipes, scheduled for the days you want them. ($15.00 value. No shipping restrictions.)

 

A FREE Culinary Herbs Assorted Seed Pack Check just in time for spring planting from www.wheatgrasskits.com, a living whole foods company. ($11.95 value. Standard shipping applies to all US states and territories- no international shipping for seeds.)

 

Get $10 off Union28′s original “my husband rocks” tee. Their marriage apparel lets you celebrate your spouse in style. ($10.00 value. Standard shipping rates apply. International shipping available, but free shipping only available within USA.)

 

A $10 store credit plus 1 FREE lip balm from Bee All Natural. Their whole body products nourish and heal, and are made using only the highest quality, food grade, organic ingredients. ($13.49 value. Standard shipping applies. International shipping available.)

 

A FREE 2 oz. bottle of your choice of liquid herbal formula from TriLight Health. They specialize in fast acting, great tasting natural herbal remedies. ($12.95 value or more. Standard shipping applies, within the USA only.)

Your choice of 3 FREE ePlanners OR a 3-Month FREE Membership to ListPlanIt, whose mobile lists will help to organize your life. ($15.00 value. No shipping restrictions.)

The fine print:

Bonus Offers

• Each bonus offer can be redeemed once only per eBook Bundle purchase.
• For each bonus offer, transaction numbers or proof of purchase may be required at the time of redemption.
• All bonus offers are free gifts from the bonus sponsors, are their sole responsibility to provide, and are subject to availability.
• All bonus offers expire at midnight on May 19th, 2013 (2 weeks from the last day of this sale).

General

• It is your responsibility to download and back-up your purchase within the 1-month download time-frame. With proof of purchase, we can renew download links up until August 1st, 2013. After this date we will no longer have access to the books and will not be able to provide any new links to download.
• Due to the nature of this sale, there will be no refunds available. However, we would invite you to read our Frequently Asked Questions page to learn more about the file types, the download process, how the bonus offers work, etc.

Please note: This collection is only available from 9 a.m. EST on April 29th to 11:59 p.m. EST on May 4th. There will be no late sales offered, so make sure that you get your bundle right away!

Particularly for those wanting to read these ebooks on their mobile devices (iPhones or iPads, Android, Kindle, etc.) you will want to learn more about the file types, how to download them correctly, and how to transfer them to your device.

This post includes affiliate links, and I make a portion of the sale of each ebook bundle. Thanks for your support of this site! I am also committing to donate half of my proceeds to Save the Mothers, a non-profit organization devoted to maternal health in third-world countries. Thanks for your support! xoxo, B.

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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The Raising Healthy Families Series continues today with this story of healing and avoiding surgery through alternative methods, by Jennifer Lambert.

“Learn about how I massaged my daughter out of a major leg surgery using essential oils and the power of prayer. After visiting several doctors, specialists, and physical therapists, we turned to natural methods – prayer, essential oils, massage, and yoga to heal my daughter’s legs and feet. Read our story at Royal Little Lambs.”

Note: This series is designed as a fun and informative compilation to help you and your family thrive. Each post is the opinion of that particular blogger, not necessarily mine.

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Hello friends. First a little piece of news: we have decided to end Your Green Resource as a regular weekly link-up. It has had a fun season of green goodness, but the time has come to bid adieu. There are a ton of link-ups out there for you to enjoy, and we all feel that we’d like to pursue other projects with our individual blogs.

I want to say thanks to my co-hosts, and to you all for reading and linking up each week. This will be the last Your Green Resource link-up, so go ahead and go crazy with the linkage, ok? Let’s go out with a bang, shall we? Link up as many posts as you want – this and all previous YGR posts on all of our blogs will remain in the archives for anyone who wants to browse!

This isn’t the last you’ll see of the Your Green Resource Bloggers! Our popular Pinterest board will continue. We will be pinning content from our own blogs and other helpful green posts we find across the web. Plus, some of the hosts hope to collaborate together on things like a blog series, giveaways, eBooks, and more. I am honestly not sure yet what my own role might be, but I am giving myself a bit of a bloggy breather right now after moving and starting a new work-at-home part-time job last month.

Here is some exciting news:

A number of the Your Green Resource hosts, along with a few other health-focused bloggers, will be starting a new podcast all about natural living! If you want to stay in the loop and find out when the podcasts begin as well as what else we have planned, sign up for the newsletter below and you won’t miss a thing.

Now it’s your chance to share all your green ideas, resources and solutions with ALL of our readers! 

Each week, the hostesses each choose a favorite post from the week’s links and pin it to our Your Green Resource Pinterest board! This is our last link-up, but we will still choose a post to pin.

The post I chose to pin last week was: “If it’s Dietarily Insignificant, Then Why Bother” – a great discussion about those sneaky “minor” ingredients in food items that may be compromising your health, from the blog Don’t Waste the Crumbs.

Now it’s your turn to share your green living posts with us! Link up your post (not your homepage), old or new, on any of the following topics:

* Real Food Recipes
* Repurposed Projects
* Upcycled Projects
* Organic Gardening Tips
* DIY Natural or Green
* Thrifty Solutions

Thank you so much for being part of the Your Green Resource community. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ve got to share this week

Don’t forget to link back to one of the hostess so we can all find these great green resources!

Please link to your post, not your homepage.

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Hey friends! Have you heard the buzz? Two of my awesome blogging friends have teamed up to organize an absolutely amazing opportunity for us all. Remember the Natural Living ebook bundle sale from last fall? That sale was so crazy popular that Steph and Erin decided to put together an even bigger and better package, with even more freebies than before!

Starting on Monday, for 6 days only, more than 75 widely-known bloggers and authors in the homemaking sphere have joined together to offer 97 of their most popular eBooks and eCourses, valued at just over $600, for the incredibly low price of $29.97!

More than anything, our goal for this sale was for it to be, well… ultimate! We firmly believe that you will not find a more comprehensive collection of homemaking resources anywhere on the web, and particularly not in this price range. For this low price, you gain access to every single one of these resources, so that you can customize your own collection to contain exactly the ones you want and know you’ll use.

The amazing value of this package is truly incredible, and the wealth of knowledge available is beyond amazing. I personally own quite a few of these books already and am familiar with the majority of the authors. I feel completely confident in recommending this deal to absolutely all of you.

Annnnd, since I don’t recommend stuff to you unless it’s something I would actually spend my own hard-earned dollars on, I will be purchasing my own bundle first thing on Monday morning. To be honest, the freebies alone make it worthwhile!

This library of homemaking helps include topics such as mothering, organization and cleaning, recipes and kitchen helps, home education, spiritual growth for both moms and kids, home décor and DIY, pregnancy and baby care, frugal living, health and fitness, and even work-from-home and financial tools. There’s something for everyone! (Not just homemakers).

To sweeten the pot, we’ve also teamed up with 10 companies to bring you over $140 in bonus offers, giving you an affordable opportunity to get products you’ll use and love for only the cost of shipping, or in some cases, entirely for free!

I am also happy to report that I have the opportunity to be an affiliate of this awesome sale, which means that once the sale starts, if you buy your bundle through my link, I make a really great commission that will help support my family. Some of you long-time readers may remember my rant about the affordability of organic food and the attitudes of some middle-class people who just don’t understand what it’s like to live on a low income while also serving your family real, whole foods. Well, since then I’ve been working on growing this site into something that can be a small source of supplemental income for us, and sales like this are a great opportunity to help that along. I would be honestly so grateful if you’d consider buying a bundle through my link.

So. Two things are happening here:

1) You get a truly incredible deal that I have zero hesitation in recommending wholeheartedly.

2) I get a bit of a commission that helps support my family.

I think that’s what we call a win-win

Check back on Monday for full details including the titles of all 97 ebooks, the e-courses, and the freebies, and a big ol’ button to clickety-click and make your purchase!

Thanks for being part of the Red & Honey family. xoxo!

Beth

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Welcome back to the Raising Health Families series, join us each week as we take a look at different ways to keep your family healthy and vibrant in a not-so-healthy world.

Written by Justyn Lang of Creative Christian Mama.

When a woman is pregnant or is trying to conceive, she is usually told to start taking a folic acid supplement to prevent birth defects. Did you know that this synthetic form of the vitamin folate has been shown in many studies to cause cancer? Please visit Justyn over at Creative Christian Mama to get the scoop on what folic acid is and how to get plenty of the natural sources of folate in your diet!

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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I have an announcement: I hate this diet. I am struggling big time.

Here’s the thing… it’s honestly not just about junk food cravings. Allow me to explain?

BEFORE Whole 30

We ate pretty decently before and had a few minor health issues but nothing huge (sometimes tummy rumblings, ahem, bathroom stuff, ahem… fatigue, maybe some aches and pains, especially after eating sugar – stuff like that). We weren’t eating perfectly… and in fact while we had embraced the “80-20 Rule” (where you eat super healthy 80% of the time and try not to worry about the other 20%, within reason of course), we had really started sliding down that slippery slope of making way too many exceptions to what we knew was best for our bodies.

DURING Whole 30

Now we are feeling decently healthy… but kind of the same as before. You’re not supposed to weigh yourself during the 30 days, but my rebel husband has been doing it anyway. He has lost 12 pounds so far, at 15 days in! Much is probably water weight from the infamous carb/sugar bloating that most people carry around, but not all of it. And I don’t remember what I weighed at the beginning but I think I’ve lost a bit because I’m down a jean size (which was welcomed).

When you eliminate ALL traces of junk and sugar and other foods your body doesn’t like, it can often cause die-off. The bad bacteria in your gut start dying off and making you feel like crud. People can feel woozy, flu-like, headachy, “hangover-ish”. I felt a bit of that, especially exhaustion and a general sense of woozy/fuzzyness that I couldn’t shake. It didn’t go away until one day at the suggestion of a friend in a Whole 30 facebook group, I diced up a sweet potato and fried it in coconut oil and had it with my eggs for breakfast. Carbs.

Bam! It was an immediate and obvious change. I felt vitalized and awake and energetic that day, and continued to crave sweet potatoes regularly. Hmm. Other than being up multiple times a night with a teething baby, I am feeling pretty energized. Of course, that could be due to the Paleo-ish-ness of this thing, or it could be due to the 100% cutting out sugar and vegetable oils and such.

Why I Suspect Whole 30 Isn’t Working For Me

So. Here’s the thing. Have you ever heard of nutritional typing? Dr. Mercola may be kinda kooky in a lot of ways (sensationalistic, self-promoting and aggressive marketer), but his research is usually pretty solid. A few years ago I read an article of his talking about how some people are “protein types”, some are “carb types”, and some are “mixed types”.

These Paleo people are advocating a diet of mostly meat and vegetables (and healthy fats). The main way they differ from the WAPF (Weston A. Price Foundation) folks as far as I can see is how they approach grains. WAPF advocates eating grains (soaked, sprouted, or sourdough – we are NOT talking Wonderbread here, people) along with healthy meats and fats, veg, etc. But Paleo advocates cutting out grains entirely. At this point in the game, I’m just not so convinced. I really, really think I’m a Mixed Type – I don’t function best on cutting out grains altogether. I had the same cravings when our family did the GAPS Diet for 4 months. I craved homemade bread slathered with butter like nobody’s business.

(Oh, and side note: there are lots of veggies that are a good source of carbs. It’s not just the typical bread and pasta. I’ve often heard people criticize the Paleo Diet for “cutting out an entire food group” and how that’s so unhealthy… but in reality the government’s food guide is total garbage produced by politicians to further the bottom-lines of various processed food industries. What we need to focus on including in any healthy diet are the three essential macronutrients: fat, protein, and carbohydrates).

Here’s the thing: I can’t give a final verdict just yet. I’m just barely halfway through, and according to the timeline, I am just starting the awesomeness phase. Here’s what they have to say about what will happen on Day 16-28 (we are on day 16):

“Goodbye cravings, hello Tiger Blood! This must be what everyone is talking about! You’ve hit the downhill slope of your Whole30 and life is beautiful. Your energy is through the roof, you’ve kicked the cravings, you’re experimenting with new, delicious food, and you’ve finally got the time to notice that your clothes fit better, your workouts are stronger, and you are generally more awesome. There’s not much more to say about this phase – go and enjoy it!”

Two weeks from now will be quite telling, I imagine. One last note of concern for me is that I am beginning to suspect my milk supply has dropped, but I’m not sure how to tell for sure. I’m trying to make sure I eat lots of sweet potatoes and squash for the extra carbs, but I really do not enjoy the taste of sweet potatoes, and can only eat so many before getting so sick of them. It is possible I’m not eating enough calories, with the stress of trying to prepare so much from scratch on a limited diet.

Why I Still Want My Friends and Family to Try the Whole 30

I can’t say for sure yet, but I suspect I’m going to go back to WAPF ways after this experiment (the Whole 30 authors, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, call it a 30-day self-experiment) and continue eating moderate amounts of non-processed starchy carbs, like rice, potatoes, etc.

HOWEVER… if I had much more obvious health concerns (like many of my friends and family do! Like extra weight, fatigue, unhealthy hair and skin, serious bowel issues, brain fog, aches and pains, seasonal allergies, headaches, diabetes, arthritis, chronic infections/inflammation, colds, etc) then I’d be ALL OVER this diet. I wish I could convince people to just try it. And if not this, then WAPF. To cut out the junky processed stuff that is making our society sick (plus common triggers for so many people like dairy and grains), and just see what would happen. For those who suffer from these kinds of health issues and have never tried changing their diet: Whole 30 could be jaw-droppingly life-changing. For reals. I think this diet is really more for those kinds of people.

This post has already gotten pretty long, but there is one more reason why I am really struggling with this diet. I will talk more about that in my next post. It’s more of a philosophical sort of discussion, less science-y.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever tried changing your diet to alleviate health concerns?

Also, I’m curious: do you identify with Paleo, WAPF, or any other particular nutritional philosophy?

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Good Saturday morning, dear friends. I am writing to you from a very messy master bedroom that is yet to be unpacked from the day we moved in, nearly one month ago. We are at that point where you’ve unpacked the essentials, and just tend to turn a blind eye to the remaining “stuff” that is sitting around in corners and hallways and, well, everywhere, really.

OK, I lied, there’s no blind-eye-turning here. It frustrates me way too much as each day slips by in a haze of diapers and naptimes (not mine, unfortunately), crayons, whining, hubby working late, cooking, laundry, and dishes. And always, always the “I’m Hungrys”. (Oh my WORD, does that ever end?) And I flop into bed, exhausted, knowing that I’ll be woken by Crying Teething Baby at any moment. Of course it’s usually just as I’m drifting off. Then we get up and do it all again the next day, and still my bedroom looks like this:

(Our room is a bit of an odd shape, and that little nook is going to be my work space, as soon as I can find a desk for cheap at a thrift store. Yippee!)

What a fun pity party. Did we all enjoy that? I’d love a little cheese with my whine, except wait – I’m on Whole30. Bah humbug. I mean Yay for Being Healthy! (Cravings and mood swings, anyone? haha!)

One of the biggest contributors for why life has been especially hectic lately (aside from the obvious things) is something I haven’t yet shared here. I am pleased and honoured to tell you that just over a month ago (yes, just before moving time!) I was approached by Stephanie at Keeper of the Home with a job offer. It’s undoubtedly perfect for me: it is around 5 hours a week, working from home, and getting paid to do something fun.

So, I am now the Advertising Manager for Keeper of the Home. You can see my little bio added to the “Team” page over on KOTH, which is in addition to my role as a monthly contributing writer (an unpaid thing, in case you’re wondering). In fact, my first contributor post (10 Truths You Need to Hear When You Feel Like a Failure as a Mom) went up this week at KOTH, in case you missed it. I am humbled by the amazing response it’s gotten.

So with moving chaos, Chris working a ton (6 days/week), teething baby, and a new job… life has been very full (and at the risk of sounding too complainy: pretty stressful).

And yet.

Somehow, in the midst of it all, we are Living. Hoping. Breathing in, breathing out. Sometimes intentionally so in order to slow down that racing heartbeat of Overwhelmed and Stressed Out and Fearful.

Some days I rush through with too much snapping and grumping, but some days wind their crazy moments right into my conscious heart of gratitude, causing me to wake up and see the gifts before me, even in the midst of midnight nursing and rocking sessions.

I am hoping that Crazy Season is winding down a little now, and I will soon be back to regular writing and posting. I’ve missed it.

Here are some links that caught my eye this week.

How to Make a Home @ A Holy Experience

How to Deal With (Your Own) Anger @ Simple Homeschool

I’m a Pee Fight Pacifist @ Five Kids is a Lot of Kids

When Thrifting Isn’t Thrifty @ This Sorta Old Life

Five Gentle Tools for Handling Lying @ Little Hearts Gentle Parenting

How is your weekend going?

Is it spring yet where you are? Are you dreaming and scheming for your summer bucket list like I am?

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Post by contributor, Dea’ Daniels.

Once upon a time, I lived and worked on pristine mountain ranch. The property was breath-taking, the work was challenging, and the houses could have graced the cover of any high-end home magazine. It was nice!

One of my responsibilities was to tend The Big House (we lived in “The Cabin”). I scrubbed the floors with blends of natural soaps and oils. I kept the windows clear with vinegar. I sanitized with mint and citrus and tea tree. I freshened rooms with lavender. It was the perfect venue to hone my natural cleaning skills in a variety of spaces. 

The cleaning days were fresh and fun…until I came to the {beautiful and expensive!} leather furniture. These pieces were a deep burgundy nail-head collection. Gorgeous! They were also in a high traffic area with guests, pets, food, and frolic. The answer? A matching high-end, highly-toxic, furniture cleansing and conditioning kit. 

Each month’s deep cleaning session found me carefully cleaning and conditioning the gorgeous natural fiber. I tried not to think of the petro-chemicals seeping into my skin or the synthetic fragrance hovering in the air. The furniture needed to look good, and look good it did.

But was it actually good?

Good in the sense that I was alright with my baby’s bare skin on the newly cleaned couch?
Good in the sense that it was safe for a guest to nap with their face on the newly cleaned arm rest?

Nope!

Most furniture cleaning products, although created for natural fibers, are neither good nor safe for living skin. Sure, it made dead-cow-skin furniture look healthy, but I valued my true health more than the dead cow I was sitting on. 

The solution?

A beautifully simple, surprisingly affordable, and incredibly effective furniture conditioner!

Bonus? It not only conditions and protects leather, it also does amazing things for wood {cutting boards, counter tops, chairs…}, and is shockingly lovely on cuticles, feet, and even wounds! It’s pretty much the ultimate multi-purpose home balm your home can have in stock.

Spero Naturals’ All-Over Home Balm

Ingredients:
3 weighed ounces bees wax (If possible, use the real stuff; raw hunks of wax that actually smell like honey. Check your local honey farm! Grate it, or chop it into small chunks for easier melting)
12 weighed ounces liquid oil (as simple as olive oil or grapeseed. Liquid. Organic if possible. )
10 drops pure essential oil, depending on primary purpose
{If using for wood or leather, or just keeping one main jar for everyone, I recommend lemon or sweet orange. If making a batch for skin and wellness, try a bit of rosemary, lavender, and tea tree. If making for the mister’s rough work hands, try some pine. Your lips? A bit of spearmint is fun!}

Directions:
- Heat the oil on the stove pot
- Add grated beeswax
- Keep on stove top until incorporated fully, stirring occasionally
(do not simply melt the beeswax and pour into unheated oil. The beeswax will solidify immediately and you’ll have a lumpy concoction. Also, stir with a wooden stick or something disposable like a shish-kabob branch is handy as you can toss it when you’re done.)
- Remove from heat. Add essential oils. Stir thoroughly.
- Pour directly into wide mouth jar, or several smaller jars (This should make about two or more cups.)
- Let cool.
- Keep in a central part of your home for regular use by all family members!

Notes for Use:

Use directly on all natural fibers…including your skin!

Leather

Clean surfaces first with warm water and a bit of natural soap and vinegar. Follow with the Balm, applying somewhat heavily. Allow to absorb. Buff with clean dry cloth. Use monthly and enjoy the soft natural fragrance and gorgeous sheen! (Always do a test patch first, just to be sure)

Raw wood

Apply heavily. Allow to absorb for two hours or overnight. Re-apply. Buff with clean dry cloth. Food safe! Excellent on cutting boards, salad bowls, counter tops…. Best if re-applied at the start of every season or after heavy use.

Skin

Apply as needed to dry, cracked areas in need of care and hydration.

I would LOVE to hear how this works for you and your home! Enjoy!

{One final note: I am inviting you to use and share this original Spero recipe! I’m not currently selling this balm but do ask that you make note of Dea’ of Spero Naturals if you choose to share the recipe. Sharing and loving—beautifully alive!}

Dea’ Daniels is a mom, wife, student, freelancer, and Seeker way out in Three Hills Alberta. Her days are filled with the color and energy of her three wildling boys, her pre-midwifery studies, and her paramedic husband. Dea’ writes weekly  Life reflections at wholedei.com, as well as sharing research and information on natural living atsperonaturals.wordpress.com.

DeaDaniels

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It’s no surprise that when you commit to preparing healthier food for your family, you also commit to spending at least a little more time in the kitchen. And if you’re following this series on Raising Healthy Families, you’re probably doing it with kids.

Stephani from The Cheapskate Cook is no stranger to making dinner with a toddler clinging to her shin. However, over the years she’s learned a few simple but intentional ways to take the fight out of kids versus kitchens, and she tells all in her post, Peace on Purpose: Managing Kids & Cooking. Click on over to check it out!

This is part of the Raising Healthy Families Series; for more info, click here.

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Well hello there, long lost internets. It has been a while. I’ve missed you. We’re coming up on one month since moving in to our new house, and yes, we’re still unpacking.

Sometimes it’s frustrating to spend days working like mad chasing around four little people age four and under (my niece is added to the mix four days a week now) and then plop on the couch late at night after the kids-who’ve-gone-through-a-lot-of-change-and-need-extra-time-at-bedtime are finalllllly asleep and just have NO time left for writing. Oh, and the teething baby. Oh mercy, the night waking. Oh dear. I just want my cupboards organized, stuff on my blank walls, and a little time to write now and again. I’m not asking for a full night of sleep or anything, because hello: Let’s Be Realistic.

Good gracious. That’s enough whining out of me. I am finished.

You know, to be honest I am feeling the teensiest bit of normalcy and routine creep in around here and I am beyond excited. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming (namethatmovie).

What is “Your Green Resource”?

It’s your chance to share all your green ideas, resources and solutions with ALL of our readers! That’s right, when you link up on any of our blogs, your idea will get shared with all of the readers here and at:

Emily at Live Renewed, Megan at Sorta Crunchy, Stacy at A Delightful Home, Rebekah at Simply Rebekah, and Mindy of Creating Naturally

We know that many of you have posts of your own about your green journey that our readers will love. Some examples of Green Resources you can link up:

* Real Food Recipes
* Repurposed Projects
* Upcycled Projects
* Organic Gardening Tips
* DIY Natural or Green
* Thrifty Solutions

In addition to making this a weekly place where you can both share and learn new green ideas, each week we’ll be Pinning our favorite post to the Your Green Resource board! We want your green ideas to go viral – so we’ll pin the post for you!

Today I’m featuring this Easy Green Stain Remover from de Jong Dream House. I have a pile of stained things piling up and this could be the perfect solution! I was really wanting to avoid toxic commercial products on my kids’ clothes especially, but I just hadn’t had time to research it yet. I will play around with this recipe to see if it works for me!

So, now it’s your turn:

Just a few things to remember as you share your green living links – OLD OR NEW – with us each week:

* Make sure to link to the post with your green/natural/frugal living idea – not your homepage.

* We would love it if you could spread the word about Your Green Resource to YOUR readers by linking back to one of the six hostesses. Posts with a link back to Your Green Resource are the posts eligible to be pinned to our Your Green Resource pinboard each week.

* Your Green Resource is a GREAT way to connect with other like-minded bloggers. Check out the other links shared this week – it’s a great way to grow your own blogging community!

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Written by Hilary Kimes Bernstein of Accidentally Green

Welcome back to the Raising Healthy Families series!

Unfortunately, many commercial cleaning products are toxic. But the great news is that you can make your own effective, safe cleaners. Before you start your spring cleaning routine this year, choose your supplies carefully.

Please check out Accidentally Green’s Detoxing Your Cleaning Supplies to learn more about toxic cleaning supplies and non-toxic, homemade options.

Pssst! Also be sure to check out an article here at Red & Honey called How to Clean Your Whole House Without Nasty Chemicals.

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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Every Thursday I co-host a link-up called Your Green Resource. What is “Your Green Resource”? It’s your chance to share all your green ideas, resources and solutions with ALL of our readers! That’s right, when you link up on any of our blogs, your idea will get shared with all of the readers here and at:

Emily at Live Renewed, Megan at Sorta Crunchy, Stacy at A Delightful Home, Rebekah at Simply Rebekah, and Mindy of Creating Naturally

We know that many of you have posts of your own about your green journey that our readers will love. Some examples of Green Resources you can link up:

* Real Food Recipes
* Repurposed Projects
* Upcycled Projects
* Organic Gardening Tips
* DIY Natural or Green
* Thrifty Solutions

In addition to making this a weekly place where you can both share and learn new green ideas, each week we’ll be Pinning our favorite post to the Your Green Resource board! We want your green ideas to go viral – so we’ll pin the post for you!

Today I’m featuring this Old Barn Wood Mirror from Taylor Made Ranch. I love the intentionality and care that went into each detail a simple DIY. I also love the look of it. Old barn boards are so awesome.

So, now it’s your turn:

Just a few things to remember as you share your green living links – OLD OR NEW – with us each week:

* Make sure to link to the post with your green/natural/frugal living idea – not your homepage.

* We would love it if you could spread the word about Your Green Resource to YOUR readers by linking back to one of the six hostesses. Posts with a link back to Your Green Resource are the posts eligible to be pinned to our Your Green Resource pinboard each week.

* Your Green Resource is a GREAT way to connect with other like-minded bloggers. Check out the other links shared this week – it’s a great way to grow your own blogging community!

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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original image credit

I have always been a dreamer. I major on grand ideas and enthusiastic starts, and I minor in follow-through and completion. The amount of projects around here that are half-done is embarrassing. My husband knows this about me, and yet he loves me still. It’s probably why he rolls his eyes every time I tell him my latest and greatest plan for awesomeness, but I digress…

Here’s the thing: I’ve been trying to get myself into the habit of exercising with Fit2B Studio to heal my diastasis recti (AKA my wrecked abdominal muscles from growing three human beings). As much as I wish I were a highly disciplined person, I sadly am not.

BUT now that I’m approaching 30 years old (this July, baby!), I am learning more about myself than ever before. And you know what? Do you know what works for me to get stuff done?

Competition and peer pressure, that’s what. Oh yeah. Intrinsic motivation for self-betterment? The reward of a job well done? Nope and nope. Just some good ol’ fashioned potential embarrassment for being a failure in the eyes of the world.

*Shrug* Hey, whatever works, right?

A Challenge to Myself

So. Here’s the plan: In April I am challenging myself to spend 30 minutes for 30 days on a couple of habits that I want to cement in my life. I will be focusing on two things:

1) A daily quiet time with the Bible (whether it’s 1 verse or 1 chapter or more)

2) Exercising with Fit2B Studio videos

30 minutes a day, minimum, and it has to include both of those things.

Wanna Join Me?

I am inviting you to join me! Pick your own goal, and commit to spending 30 minutes for 30 days working on it. If there’s enough interest, I will make a blog button for y’all to use and we can make a link-up happen.

What goals do you have? Organize your home? Exercise? Bible reading? Cooking healthy snacks? A crafty project? Gosh, it could be just about anything, really.

Let’s do it!

And a Whole30 Bonus…

Hubby and I have decided to do Whole 30 for the month of April! It fits in nicely with my little theme, right? I’m turning 30, we’re doing Whole 30, the 30 for 30 challenge. Serendipitous, n’est ce pas?

So, Whole 30. I had my friend Paula guest post about her experience here at R&H a while back, which you can read here and here. It’s a major undertaking, and I will be blogging about it along the way. If there’s anyone who is interested in doing Whole30 for April as well and wants to join an support group on facebook with us, let me know – I’ll send you the link.

So… Who’s In?

………………………………………………….

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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