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JsCrossing Healthy Healing Digest
Volume 1, Number 6
January 11, 2018

This Week's Thoughts and Thinkings

Hey everyone! Its been a bit. Took some time away after the busy busy holidays to regroup and reconnect and refocus and re-whatever else. I don’t know about you but I feel completely scattered after going-going-going non-stop. :P

I just can’t maintain that pace. I don’t want to maintain that pace. I know it’s needed at times, and I’m okay with it when necessary, but I don’t feel I was made to live that way constantly. There’s a time to put one's foot down and jump off. I mean, I can’t think or feel or function after a long stretch of that.

Anyways.... the down-time has been very productive. Cleaning and de-cluttering the house always helps the stress levels go down. I’ve been doing that on the 'puter too.

I spent much of last week working on the new web design. Maybe that sounds stressful to some, but it was a good chill-out for me. I love working with pics, graphics and design. Tweaking is good fun. :)

The new site design should be ready to go live soon. It's MUCH better than the old site. Cleaner, simpler, easier to navigate. We've even adjusted some of our pricing on large essential oils to make them more fair. I’m sure you’re gonna like it. :)

I guess that’s pretty much it for this moment. I hope your start to the New Year has left you renewed and refreshed.

Love ya,
mary

Weightloss Journey: Trim Healthy Mama

scale reading 169.4
Can you say, "fell off the wagon"? It was the m&ms that did it. (Sheepish grin). Far and away my fave candy. Thankfully the wagon isn’t too far back down the road.

The scale did get down under 170, which I have proof for as you can see in the pic, but that was just once really. I’d say I’m more at a solid 171-2ish. So at least the scale didn’t go up after the holidays.

I did learn one thing about the scale though. It’s not reliable. After that low reading and snapping the pic, I got on it again, thinking to get a better pic, and it read 2 lbs higher. I did that several times, and each time it was a little different.

Some folks get OCD about their scale readings. I’ve never been OCD about it, but after that, now I’m really not. Meh. To pull that pair of jeans out of the drawer that I wore this time last year and finding them humongous on me is just as satisfying and maybe more telling than the number on the scale.

Either way, to help me find the wagon again and ward off those evil m&m's, I made this recipe the other day.

https://joyfilledeats.com/five-minute-magic-cookies/?fref=gc

I didn't have any canned coconut milk that would work, so I used cream cheese instead. I made one batch with cashews and a partial 85% chocolate bar broken into pieces. Another batch I used sliced almonds and mini chocolate chips (I don’t worry about them being sugar free too much; as long as I get dark chocolate chips they don’t spike my sugar). They taste a little like an almond joy. Very nummy. With my oven, I found 13-14 mins was plenty. If you need a sugar free sweetner, try granulated Pyure. If you're not into sugar free, these would work just as well with regular sugar. Enjoy!

Herb Friends: Bentonite Clay

bentoniteclay
Bentonite Clay is amazing stuff. I’ve been having digestive tummy troubles for about two months that won't seem to go away. I’ve tried various herbs with some success. Marshmallow root. Yerba Mate tea. Probiotics. Ginger. Even did an intestinal cleanse for parasites with Black Walnut Hull tea (which tasted far better than I was expecting). All these helped a little, and I would recommend them. I've still been searching though for something that helps more than a little.

Enter, Bentonite Clay.

We've mainly kept bentonite on hand for topical uses. Its great for drawing poison and infection out. We’ve used it with much success as a poultice on bee stings and infected wounds. We’ve even overcome brown recluse bites that were starting to eat the flesh away by being diligent to keep a clay poultice on it for several days. It completely healed the area. Like I said, amazing stuff.

I knew it could be used internally. Years ago we used to take it like that as a detox. It just kept coming back to me that maybe I needed to try it again for my gut issues. So, I did a little research.

Sure enough, one big benefit internally is for digestive complaints. It’s very healing and detoxifying for the gut. There’s a ton of info on why it works chemically which I won’t get into here, but will post a link at the end if you want to look into it more.

Anyway, I took about a teaspoon of clay, tried to dissolve it in water, and I would say I chugged it, but yeah... its essentially dirt. :P So it was really pasty and goopy gloopy. Yum. :P

After a few days, I did finally figure out if I let it set in the water it would dissolve much better and actually become more watery and drinkable. It could be chugged then because...yea...well..it tastes like dirt too. It’s not over the top uckky, and is doable, but getting it down fast is def preferable to the sip.

Did it help? It did! I won’t say it got rid of the problem (still working on figuring that out), but it very definitely increased my belly’s comfort levels. I feel like it has increased my energy too, which isn’t surprising since it has soooo many minerals in it. It also increases oxygen to cells which is an energy booster big time.

Of course, as always, if you have any medical condition, talk to your doc first about using Bentonite clay.

Where to buy: https://www.vitacost.com/redmond-trading-company-bentonite-clay

More info: https://wellnessmama.com/5915/bentonite-clay-benefits/

Product Review: Calphalon Ceramic Coated Nonstick Pans

Calphalon Pans
For Christmas my husband and kids got me a Calphalon set of pans. I love em!

Ever since my stroke, I’ve had a penchant for burning up pans. Yes, I know that’s not really a stroke thing, and I was fully capable of setting off the smoke alarm while cooking before that, :P but in these last three years it’s happened kinda, well...yea... a lot. Several pans that were my faves have gone the way of the trash can, being beyond redemption.

I’d gotten away from Teflon pans after reports of Teflon’s toxicity surfaced several years ago. I began collecting various less toxic enamel-coated pans here and there from thrift stores, including some cast iron ones I got for a great deal. Those were pretty awesome, but very heavy, and being so weak after the stroke, I had to give up on them altogether. So, I made do, and was happy with the enamel-coated aluminum pans I happened on to here and there.

Problem was... they were so light that they easily burned the food if you weren’t watching carefully. And not being non-stick, that was a giant mess.

Enter Christmas 2017 and Calphalon. These pans are slightly heavier than my thrift store enamel-coated cheapies, but much much lighter than cast iron. I’d say they’re more in the range of stainless steel weight which is fairly easy to handle.

The first pan out of the box, and sure enough, I burned the veggie I was making, :P but... it didn’t stick. So chalk one up for the ceramic nonstick coating! Yay!!

On the other hand, to maintain the coating, it’s recommended to only hand wash the pans and skip the dishwasher. So some might consider that a drawback. But hey, for me, I’d burned enough of them that they usually had to be scrubbed by hand anyway, and the clean up on the newbies is way easy.

Here’s a comparable link on Amazon for the set they gave me.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001AS94TY/ref=psdc_289816_t3_B01CY3N2BY

Not quite the same (my set had a white interior, and btw, forgive the picture of dirty pots, but I wanted to give you a feel for what they look like after cooking). The hubs and kids paid a little over $100 at Walmart which was, I believe, a Christmas sale. So you might not get that good of a deal except at Christmas time. But still, if you're in the need of a new set of pans, would like non-stick and wanna skip the chemicals in Teflon, then these pans could be just what you're lookin' for!

Spiritual Ponderings: The Purpose for Failures

johnwayne
God uses failure in our lives in some pretty awesome ways.

Nope. It doesn’t ever feel good.

And yep. We get tired of being failures.

We were recently watching a John Wayne movie where he was breaking a "green" (unbroken) horse. Basically, the idea was to stay on that bucking bronc until it was too tired to move and would give up and submit. I thought about how that was exactly what God does to us when failure after failure comes.

We're green, wild and content in our self.

Some would say it was cruel to do that to the horse. But an unbroken horse is an unusable horse. Unstable in all his ways. He can’t be ridden cuz he‘s not tame. He’s beautiful to look at in all his free-running glory, but you can’t even touch him or get close to him.

And God wants to get close to us and be able to use us for his kingdom.

So, he allows us to fail. Again and again. As many times as needed.

Until ...we’re quiet enough for him to get close to us.

We do buck and hate the process. HATE. It’s not comfortable. It’s not fun. It curtails our freedom. It reigns us in. It wears us out. We FIGHT it with our whole being.

Yet, in giving up and surrendering peace comes.

Don’t be afraid of failure. Don’t be afraid to let God break you. Trust him in your failures. They have a purpose. Again and again, if necessary.

God is right there with you. And he’s a gentle Master with a heart of peace for you.

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Healthy Healing Digest is published from Barnsdall, Oklahoma 74002
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www.jordanscrossing.net
Copyright © Jordan's Crossing 2017-2018
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