Natural living. Healthy eating. Attempted gardening.
This post may include affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I’ll earn a small fee at no extra cost to you.Make amazing, low carb spaghetti sauce for spaghetti squash, meatballs, zoodles, and more with this easy recipe. Sometimes reading ingredient labels can be a real bummer. Take spaghetti sauce, for example. Prego has 9 grams of sugar in each serving, and Ragu has 8 grams of sugar! If you’re
It’s August already…where has the summer gone? If you’re in the middle of canning up your garden’s bounty, you might not be thinking about what you can plant this month. Good news! There are lots of vegetables you can plant in August. Even though it’s hot outside, there are many veggies that can handle the heat and give you a tasty harvest this fall and winter. Make sure you’re planting
Hooray! You have an essential oil diffuser…now what do you do with it? Here are 10 essential oil diffuser recipes that your whole family will love. We quit using scented candles and air freshener sprays when the kids were little. At the time, I just didn’t want them spilling hot wax or spraying chemicals in their eyes. Now I know that essential oils are much safer than air freshener sprays,
How do you find the best essential oil diffuser? And why should you use an essential oil diffuser instead of air freshener sprays or scented candles? Many of us grew up using air freshener sprays, gels, and plug-ins in our homes. What we didn’t know then (but are learning now) is that many air fresheners use carcinogens, chemicals that can aggravate asthma, and affect reproductive development. Independent lab testing of
Making a menu plan or meal plan is a weekly chore that most of us dread. You have to look at the sales, decide what to make, think about what your family likes to eat, what you have time to prepare…yuck. Believe it or not, you can make a menu plan for an entire month in 10 minutes! It is SO much easier to menu plan a month at a
“Endless basil?” you say. “Endless? You mean I can grow all the basil I need from one plant? You keep saying this ‘endless’ word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” On the contrary, my friend. You really can grow an endless supply of basil from just one plant! In fact, that single plant could supply you with enough basil for all of your homemade pesto,
Installing a hummingbird feeder right outside my office window has made it really hard to get any work done! I find myself looking out the window every few minutes to see who’s eating at my front yard feeder. There are lots of different types of hummingbird feeders to choose from, and I’ve had many of them over the years. How do you pick a good hummingbird feeder? First, a bit
What do you think of when I say “bulk food?” Do you picture giant tubs of mayonnaise, a 25-pound bag of peas, or 50 gallons of cheese doodles? While those things do exist, they really aren’t practical for most of us. Just thinking about all those cheese doodles makes my stomach hurt. Buying food in bulk doesn’t have to be a waste of money and space in your house. It
Let me explain up front why I needed to make homemade cinnamon bread: I don’t like raisins. Maybe it’s a texture thing; I don’t really mind their flavor. But they certainly don’t belong in my bagels, my oatmeal cookies, or in my bread. I sure don’t want to pay $5 at the store for dry, stale cinnamon bread that I have to pick the raisins out of! Once you’ve eaten
Ditch the chemicals and make your own foaming hand soap with just 3 ingredients. This gentle, natural soap is moisturizing and cleans thoroughly without artificial ingredients. Add any scent you like with essential oils! Who has walked down the hand soap aisle at Target and been amazed at all the varieties of soap you can buy? I saw Fig & Rhubarb foaming hand soap the other day…wow. When you buy
Spring is a busy time of year for our family. School, gardening, music, and sports take up a lot of our time. I like to make a huge batch of these baked Italian meatballs and freeze them for easy dinners. They can be served in lots of different ways (see Kitchen Tips below), and you can add or subtract spices to change the flavors. While I wish I could say
Did you know that you need special soil for starting seeds? While you might think you could just scoop up some dirt from your garden to start your seeds, that’s not a good idea. Why? Because your garden soil could have fungus! Microbes! Seeds! Pathogens! Bugs! And the seeds you are planting are tender little babies who need TLC. It’s easy to make your own seed starting mix to help
