Katie 2/26/16 “The Miracle Elixir”

I’ll bet most of you have heard of it, that trendy, strange, fizzy drink all those strange kale munchers have been guzzling like it’s going out of style. Kombucha.

What’s all the hype about? After all, anything you read about kombucha says the health claims “lack scientific evidence.” And have you seen a SCOBY? That mother is friggin’ creepy, man. Why the heck would anyone want to drink something farted out by bacteria?

Trust me, you definitely want to be drinking this weird stuff.

People have been making and drinking kombucha for thousands of years. There are a number of fermented foods many cultures enjoy, and we know that these foods are good for us because of the live cultures and enzymes. We need probiotics and enzymes in our gut. They’re a huge immune and digestive boost, because of the detoxifying properties and build up of flora they contribute to.

Kombucha is full of probiotics, essential acids, and vitamin B. This site contains a list of the acids found in kombucha, and the particular benefit of each. It’s powerful stuff! The site lists a quote from the book Kombucha Tea for Your Health and Healing by Alick Bartholomew. It says:

“Another feature of Kombucha is that, biochemically speaking, it is an adaptogen, that is a substance which has no harmful effects, but which works on a wide variety of conditions by normalising the metabolism of the body, and bringing it back into balance. So, for example, if you have high blood pressure, an adaptogen substance will lower it, and if you have low blood pressure, it will raise it. Kombucha's adaptogen effect is seen mostly through its effect on the liver, the blood and the digestive system, where it normalises the acidity or pH.”

All the goodies contained in kombucha balance your pH levels. That is amazing! One of the biggest problems we face with our health today is the body being too acidic from the crummy food we eat. Kombucha will actively combat that, and restore balance to your body. Sound holistic and healthy to you, folks? It sounds like a blessing to me!

What the heck are you waiting for? Brew up a batch of your own and start enjoying the benefits. It’s easy and cheap! Two of my favorite things!

These directions were written by my mother, who makes excellent kombucha. I also included some links at the end for flavored kombucha and some other brewing info.

(SCOBY: Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast)

(Pictured: SCOBY in kombucha liquid)

When you get your new SCOBY and its kombucha liquid, cover the jar with a clean cloth (or paper towel secured with a rubber band) until you are ready to make your tea. Keep it at room temperature, too. Kombucha needs to breathe, so never use a sealed lid. Also, never use anything that is anti-bacterial like soaps, bleach, etc., because they will kill the SCOBY’s bacteria and it won’t grow.

You will need:

1 glass gallon jar

Large metal pan to boil water

14 cups of water, dechlorinated (I just boil it and it takes the chlorine out.)

1 cup sugar

8 tea bags: try green tea, jasmine green tea, black tea, white tea, or a combination of them; all work great. Most herbal teas don't work because they have too much oil in them.

Clean glass bottles with stoppers for storing finished kombucha (I purchased these at a store where you get beer making supplies. Make sure you get bottles with stoppers that won't pop off or you will have a big mess everywhere. I use the bottles with the rubber and metal stoppers.)

Plastic funnel that will fit into the neck of the bottles

Clean cloth or paper towels

Rubber band

Towel to cover the gallon jar to keep it in the dark

Bring 14 cups water to a boil; pour into clean gallon jar and stir in 1 cup sugar until dissolved; add tea bags and cover with a clean cloth or paper towel secured with a rubber band. Let tea bags steep until water is completely cooled to room temperature. Remove tea bags from cooled tea and add the SCOBY and two cups of kombucha to the gallon jar of prepared tea. The tea must be completely cooled or you will kill the SCOBY.

(Pictured: Glass gallon jar, steeping tea)

Secure a clean cloth or paper towel over the top of the jar to keep dust, bugs, etc out of the jar; then store in a warm, dark place for 7 to 10 days.

After 7 days, take a clean straw and dip down into the kombucha tea past the SCOBY and lift some of the mixture into the straw. (I just take a few dips with the straw and put it into a little glass so I can taste to see if it tastes how I want it to taste or not.) If it tastes good to you at 7 days, then you can bottle it up. Refrigerate so that it stops fermenting and doesn’t become kombucha vinegar. (Unless you want kombucha vinegar!)

(Pictured: Kombucha ready to be bottled and enjoyed)

Be sure and reserve 2 cups of the kombucha tea with the SCOBY so you can start a new batch of kombucha. Always use two cups of kombucha with each SCOBY when making a new batch. At this time, you can also separate the SCOBY "mother" from the "baby" and you will have two SCOBYs so you can make two batches at once; make sure to use two cups of kombucha tea for each SCOBY. Also, be sure to sanitize your hands and jars thoroughly before handling the SCOBY. You want to keep that culture healthy and pure.

I separate my SCOBYs each time because I want to have several going at the same time to make a lot. Right now, I have 4 gallons going because I separated my SCOBYS and used the kombucha to start 4 gallons worth with the 4 SCOBYS I had. If you only want to do one gallon at a time, just leave the SCOBY in one piece and add it to your new batch of cooled tea with two cups of kombucha. You do not have to separate the SCOBY if you don't want to.

To make flavored kombucha, you may add fresh fruit, dried fruit, grated ginger, juices, or just about anything else you can imagine for flavor.

There you have it! Some of you may be thinking, “What about the sugar and caffeine? Those aren’t good for me!” Absolutely, they are not. However, the SCOBY feeds off of it. By the time your kombucha is ready to drink, it’s eaten all the sugar and caffeine. There are only very slight trace amounts of it left, leaving you with a bottle full of health instead.

If you live near me and want a SCOBY to start your own kombucha, let me know. I’ve always got little baby SCOBYs who need good homes!

Live well,

Katie

How to make kombucha (and lots of other info about health benefits)

How to make flavored kombucha

Claire 2/19/2016 "My Bullet Journal"

By Claire Enos

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the idea of using a bullet journal and I posted a link to a how-to guide as well.  I was so inspired, I immediately started my own! I bought a journal and the first thing I did was start doing it exactly how they said to set it up in the video. However, there were some parts I didn’t particularly like, but I didn’t know how to do it the way I wanted, and I’m not good at art. I found another video on bullet journals and looked at how some other people were doing theirs. I soon realized that there are so many different and unique ways to do what I needed my planner/journal to do. So after a few bumps, I finally found something that works for me, at least for now.

I keep everything in my bullet journal. I would tell you, but why don’t I just show you? Here are a few pictures from my very own bullet journal, and then I’ll describe some other pages I have and tell you what else I use it for.

This is what the front of my bullet journal looks like. I wanted a nice sturdy journal that wouldn’t easily fall apart, even with constant abuse. I made sure it was fairly lightweight and had plenty of pages. I love the one I found, it’s by a company called: Blueline. If you pay close attention you can also see that I have tabs at the top. Those tabs take me to individual months. I only have two at the moment because it’s only February, but by the end of the year there will be a lot more!

This page is at the very front of my bullet journal. On one of the videos I found, the girl who was showing off her bullet journal had a word that she wanted to use as a guide for her year. I thought that would be cool, so I chose the word “Explore” because that’s exactly what I hope to do this year! Around the word I have other awesome quotes about traveling and exploring, and then a bigger quote on the next page. I tried doodling the Charmed symbol but it didn’t work. Oh well, I’m sure with practice I’ll get better! ;)

This is how the video I shared at the beginning suggested doing the monthly log. With each date of the month written on each line. I found I didn’t like it much and didn’t really use it as you can see. Later I found a better way of logging stuff on a month to month basis. I will have a picture farther down in this post.

This is my daily task list page, where I put each of the things I need to do in any specific day, things such as appointments, rehearsals, homework assignments, etc. Obviously the formatting changed from the first time I did it to the next. Now I’ve pretty much figured out how I like it, but it took a little work figuring out what I liked! As you can see, I love colors. You’ll see more colorful pages ahead!

On this page, you can see that I doodled a little bit. It is totally fine to doodle as much as you like! It makes your bullet journal YOURS. On the next page, I have my goals for the semester which I wrote up and wanted to keep somewhere safe. I taped it to the page that I track my habits on, that way when I go to mark my habits I can remember to contemplate my goals and see if I’m staying on track or if I need to do better at something. It’s just an easy way to keep track!

This where I track my habits. It doesn’t matter if I forget a day or something, as long as I’m keeping track and seeing where I can fix my habits. I have my weekly as well as daily habits listed here and I mark them off as I do them. I love this page because it keeps me on track with my goals!

This is my ABSOLUTE favorite page in my bullet journal! I love how colorful and ME it is. This is how I now do my monthly log, I just do it as a calendar and then I can put important appointments and birthdays and everything in it. Then each week I transfer them over to the weekly log. This way I can remember everything that’s important. Like that the 14th was Valentine’s Day, and I had no class on Monday because it was President’s Day! <3

This is my weekly log for last week as well as my daily logs for last week. As you can see I have a format I do things in now and I’m sort of figuring this thing out. It’s so versatile and I love it!

I think the best thing about this is that it can do whatever I need it to do.

Besides the pages I’ve shown you, I also have notes from church, my expenses and finances, other doodles, sometimes even class notes if I’ve forgotten my notebook! And I plan on doing a lot more with it as the time goes on. For example, I might even include a log for my blog posts and the dates I’m supposed to post! And, I also have a page for my essays, where I submitted them to, and when. So I can keep track of where I’ve submitted to and what essay I sent them.

I hope this has been as fun and educational for you as it has been for me! Let me know if you do this, and if you have any suggestions I am always looking for new, more colorful, fun suggestions for using my bullet journal!

Live well,

Claire

Katie 2/12/16 “Let’s Talk About Love”

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, let’s talk about love. It’s the defining force of our existence, for it was in love that we were created, by love that we are saved, and through love that we are perfected. It drives each and every one of us. The more love we feel, the happier we are.

The most important thing in our lives are our relationships. At the end of the day, all we want are family and friends who are supportive to us. We spend a lifetime cultivating them. Some come easily, naturally, effortlessly. Others are a hard won battle. Hopefully it doesn’t take a lifetime to learn how to discern between poisonous relationships and tough ones.

Valentine’s Day is all about lovers, but what about our relationship with ourself? Don’t we deserve to feel love for ourselves the same way we do for others? I want you to go deep today, and really think about yourself. Set some time aside today for yourself and use it to reflect and assess how you’re doing. Now that you’re ready, please proceed.

I think we all know that self-love is where our joy comes from. When self-love is deeply established in your heart, you shall never want for love. A lot of people think of love in a backwards direction. They think that if someone loves them, that it will open their heart and heal all their ills. This is a false, limiting belief.

Love and marriage do not heal or correct. It's not a magic spell that fixes all our ills. Those exist just as before. Love has no power to change us or our life like a light turned on with a switch. If you're unhappy and have problems now, they will persist if left alone. Happy relationships are a great tool for the healing process, but not a cure-all. This is why divorce happens. People expect love to fix them and live happily ever after. We must first master self-love.

It’s one thing to know this, and another to feel love for yourself. Life can be hella hard, and kick your teeth in and leave you bleeding and alone. The things that happen in life can bury the love we are born with. If you are reading this and think you’re not worth loving, that you can’t ever forgive yourself for your past, or that you’re beyond reach, I want you to know that you’re deceived in these feelings. We are all beings of light and love. We’re Heavenly Father’s children. You have a divine birthright, and are not only worthy of love, but have an eternal spring of it within you.

When you’re having a bad day, smile at a stranger. Think of someone you care about and do something kind for them. This could be as simple as emailing a friend, making your family’s beds, taking your neighbor’s trash bin to the corner for them, or helping a senior bag up her groceries. One of the best ways to build self-worth is to serve. You have capable, helping hands. You can bring light and love to someone, and that’s truly amazing.

As children, we are sometimes shamed for our behavior. It’s not always done in spite, but it still affects us. We carry that shame forever if we don’t do something about it. Think of little children. They are innocent and pure. When they make mistakes, it’s not because they did it to hurt someone. It’s not on purpose. They’re too young to know any better. The same is true of you. When you were punished as a young child, you didn’t know, either. Go back in your heart and mind and rewrite the way you were spoken to. Change the words from a harsh, crushing punishment to words that uplift and heal and guide. Replace all the bad with good. Speak to yourself in your mind the way you would speak to a sweet child, desperate to learn and to please. You would use loving words. You would uplift. You still need that as an adult. More than need, you deserve it. As we rewrite our past, we begin to write a better future.

If there are things you feel regret for, do this same exercise. Forgive yourself and know that the person you are now is a much better, stronger person. Life is not for perfect choices. It’s designed for us to make mistakes and learn from them. We are still very much like children. This is the only life we’ve lived, and we’re going to mess it up the first time! God knew we would sin, that is why he made a plan for us. Just as Christ’s Atonement is infinite, it can cover our finite weaknesses. If the Lord with His strict justice can forgive you, and He does, so can you. Listen to your Father and trust His love. His perfect Son delivers you from the memory of your sins. You don’t have to be harrowed up by them anymore. It’s time to move on and progress.

Thanks for reading, and know Claire and I love you! Now scoot your butt off to a quiet, meditative space and start the process of renewing, invigorating, or beginning your self-love. You’re so worth it!

Live well,

Katie

P.S. Some good literature on the subject of healing past feelings is as follows:

Feelings Buried Alive Never Die by Karol S. Truman

Healing Feelings From the Heart by Karol S. Truman

Believing Christ by Stephen E. Robinson

Claire 2/5/16 "Unwinding From Stress"

By Claire

If you google or pinterest “Living a Holistic Lifestyle” you can find lots of ideas on how to start. In fact, I’d recommend you do that right now! However, I am going to start focusing on a few of the most basic ways of living a holistic lifestyle starting from the bottom and working my way up. These are simple ways of starting the process that will lead you to a new way of living without a ton of stress, which is one of the reasons you should try living a more holistic lifestyle because stress is terrible on you mentally and physically.

One very important aspect of living a holistic lifestyle is learning to unwind at the end of the day, and even in the middle because this will help you to feel less stressed overall. Here are a few ways you can unwind:

1. Read a book! I would recommend reading at least one informative book each month. This will keep you learning throughout your life and help you to become the person you want to be continually. Lately I’ve kept “The 5 Love Languages for Singles” in my backpack everywhere I go (even though it’s one more book I need to carry around on campus in my heavy backpack) and I try to read it whenever I get a free minute in between classes or wherever I am. I would also recommend reading a “fun” book at night in order to unwind, it allows you to think creatively and explore your imagination! (Both very good things if you ask me, the Creative Writing major).

In fact, I could share an essay I wrote about reading literature and why it’s so important, but I won’t because it isn’t very good. However, the gist of it is (according to my awesome Psychology major roomie: “So we’re not uncultured swine!” Basically, reading literature (and other great genres) allows us to learn, grow, and become our best selves. It shows us a side of society we might otherwise ignore. And it allows us to experience a world outside the world we know.

Why did my blog post about how to unwind turn into a lecture about why reading is good and even important? I have no idea. But I’m an English major, so that could be why.

2. Meditate! Meditation is a great way to focus on your body physically and mentally, and even spiritually. It allows you to consolidate everything and de-stress. I try to meditate on a daily basis, as it helps me to focus on the good and get rid of the bad in my life. Even if it’s just a couple minutes here and there, meditation is great for just getting in touch with what your body wants and needs.

Here is a blog I found via Pinterest that talks about how to meditate and the health benefits of doing so. It is a great resource! (By the way, Pinterest is a great resource for all of your Holistic needs. And there are tons of blogs out there on this stuff as well, so definitely look some of them up yourself!)

3. Last but not least on my very short list: Try yoga! Yoga is so good for all of your needs. You can literally type anything from “Yoga for flexibility” to “Yoga for stress relief” and find a video with a routine. It is the perfect (in my opinion) combination of exercise and meditation. It is one of my favorite things to do before I go to bed because it helps me to de-stress and stretch my muscles while I’m at it. It is also very relaxing. Definitely try it and let me know what you think!

This is just a short list of what I do in order to de-stress, but there are so many other ways of de-stressing that are completely holistic, and you may not even realize it! Crazy! If you have any questions or comments, leave a message below or on our facebook page. I love helping others to come into themselves and discover the benefits of living holistically. Love and light to all!

Live well,

Claire