First Everly got sick, then Adalyn. Nathan got it next, then they passed it around a bit… I was the last to come down with it, just as everyone was getting better and just as Christmas was coming.

As soon as Nathan’s holiday vacation began I was completely down for the count. It’s funny how “mind of matter” keeps us moms going until it’s more convenient to be sick, then when we are sick it’s like total checkout.

My fever came a four days before Christmas, I slept and shivered and mouth breathed my way through the days and nights. Finally, I hauled my butt out of bed for Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Sadly, I caved and had to get some antibiotics. It was very bad. The chest junk was making me cough so bad I was throwing up. We feared pneumonia would be next.

Anyway, I am now two days post-antibiotics and feeling much better respiratory wise. The down side to the antibiotics is that I am back to ground zero in terms of my gut healing journey. Antibiotics kill off everything, even the friendly bacteria that are the basis of your immune system and digestion… and in the absence of those friendly bacteria yeasts and other nasties are left to take over the system.

So I am fighting Candida bad and starting over with gut healing now. The die-off fatigue, anxiety and mood disruptions are back and my diet is VERY limited as I try to cleanse and beat the Candida while recolonizing my gut.

It’s like walking a tight-rope right now, I can’t totally dive in to a Candida detox since I have Adalyn’s breast milk supply to safeguard and to keep toxin clean but I can’t live with the impacts of rampant Candida destroying my gut and making all my foods cause allergic reactions.

Anyway, that is where we are right now… along the way we stumbled upon this great tea to help with sinus congestions and throat junk. It works wonders as long as you aren’t fighting bronchitis and on your way to pneumonia. I really wanted to share it with you. If you are suffering cold or flu give it a try for sure!

Throat soothing tea: A natural cold and flu home remedy

I’ve been drinking this tea at night and it has helped immensely with releasing sinus pressure and chest congestion before bed. It also has been helping my cough. This recipe is for 1 cup of tea:

• 1 large cup of water (about 8 oz)
• 1 whole clove
• 1 portion fresh ginger root, chopped
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbs raw local honey *add in after simmering all the above ingredients
• 1 tbs apple cider vinegar (raw with mother is best) *add in after simmering all the above ingredients

I boil all of this together. The cinnamon won’t dissolve in the drink (it will collect on the bottom), but it really helps with the taste, it is POTENT. Once the water and spices are boiled, pull the liquid off the stove and add the apple cider vinegar and honey. Cooking the ACV and honey will kill off the live organisms and be less effective. This is why they are added afterward.

Drink it warm and fast as the mixture really globs up as it cools. It is like a tart warm apple cider drink and it kicked our sinus headaches, soothes the throat and helped clear my husband’s throat drainage and resulting cough.

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I’ve seen commercials about S.A.D and the prescription pills that “I should ask my doctor about if I am experiencing similar symptoms”. I have always rolled my eyes about the idea of the winter season making people depressed enough to need a special prescription.

Well, N and I were chatting about how strangely productive we’re feeling as a result of the oddly warm and nice weather we are having and have been having all weekend. We might be coming out of our own winter depression or something! (by the way that is why I didn’t post all weekend, we were busy doing stuff outside…)

We got all our storm debris cut up and ready to be hauled away and we finished the 100% homemade rabbit hutch for Boner! We went grocery shopping, made yummy meals together for dinner, cleaned stuff, looked at rental home possibilities, toyed with the idea of trying to get approved for a mortgage, tried to have the brakes replaced and were outside in the fresh air. It was so nice.

I am super proud of N’s rabbit hutch project (I hope he’ll blog about it and share the plans). We are just waiting for the sealant to dry then it is ready for Boner to move in! Look how it turned out:

Oh, and we stopped in our local Circuit City just for fun to see what deals were to be had (N still wants a 42in flat screen LCD tv…). Have you been to their going out of business sale? We were just amazed at how many people were still looking for and actually buying those high ticket electronic items.

Actually all this weekend we saw people everywhere buying all this high priced non necessity stuff like big screen TV’s and other electronics despite the claimed economic hard times so many are experiencing. N and I just scratch our heads when we see it. We DIDN’T buy a tv by the way…

I mean these aren’t wealthy people, they appear to be mid to lower class and they are just lining up for a $2000 big screen tv or a new video game system. Um, hello! Save your money and think ahead about your economic future guys!

Oh and don’t even get me started on Nadya Suleman, the now mother of 14 who just had octuplets…

The post Coming out of the winter coma on a warm and sunny weekend… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

I had planned to publish the instructions for the cozy sweater purse in my previous post titled Homemade Christmas gift ideas, to-go boxes and purses… Oh my but the post became rather long and for the sake of the sanity of my readers I put the instructions here in a separate post so it could be found more easily.

All you need to do to make this nifty little sweater gift bag/ purse is find an old knitted sweater or perhaps a nice wool seater that has been felted (or if you are like me it was mistakenly shrunk).

Take your favorite purse pattern or draw your own. I’ll post a my own free pattern here for your to print and use, please don’t repost it though, link to this blog post if you wish to share the pattern/ instructions with your own readers.

Place the top edge of the pattern along the bottom part of the sweater so that the decorative ribbing/ edge of the sweater becomes the top portion of the purse.

Place right sides together and stitch the sides and bottom of the purse. Note do not stitch the top sides of the bag that this time!

Turn right side out, clip and and press the edges so that the purse has the desired shape.
With right sides out you will now sew the top sides of the bag (the seam you are sewing should be on the outside of the bag, opposite of the rest of the bags seams).

Next cut two 8 inch strips from the sweater for the straps. Mine were 1 inch wide. If you prefer you can use cording or belting inside the strap.

If using belting or cording wrap the sweater fabric around it press with iron and hand stitch.
If you are not using belting you can sew the pieces together (wrong side out) and then turn the strips right side out after sewing them.

Place the sewed straps into the strap slits and hand sew the slits back together with the straps inserted. Fold the top portion of the bag down and you are done!

This homemade gift bag/ purse is very customizable and can be made into any shape or pattern you like. You can sew buttons or beads onto the purse for decoration or you can even iron on some decorative patches to customize the purse even more.

I found some cheap bath items that I plan to fill the homemade purses with, then I’ll give these as hostess/ host gifts this holiday!

At last the pattern I used is available for download! Simply click the link and when the photo displays righ click it and choose “save image as” – sweater-purse-pattern.jpg Print out he pattern an cut the blue outside away and your ready to begin crafting. Enjoy!

The post Recycled sweater purse and glove instructions appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Tonight I came across a fun blog site that I was browsing. One of the articles posted was a tutorial on creating easy origami gift boxes. I thought this was a cute way for me to give some of my homemade goodies this holiday season. I was trying to learn the fold tonight and I used paper from the wasteful Victoria’s Secret catalogs. The boxes are actually really cute because of the catalog colors and print and the box is really easy to learn!

If you are trying to save money or if you just love to give homemade gifts consider recycling some of your piled up catalogs! Make some origami gift boxes and fill them with homemade goodies like truffles, bite sized cookies or fudge!

The post Homemade Gift Idea- Origami Treat Box appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

All you need is a jar of your choice. Think about the gift recipient and decide what theme you want to use to decorate the jar. Once the jar is decorated you can fill it with strips of paper that have meaningful things written on them. For a gratitude jar you would write all the things you can remember that you are thankful for. Things that happened long ago or that were forgotten are the most memorable and touching. This is a wonderfully personalized gift just like a message in a bottle gift, that will be cherished by the recipient for many years to come!

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