Green SAHM

Um, wow. This one pretty much surprised me, even though I’d heard from my mother and uncle that nasal irrigation really does work.

I started out this morning with really painful sinuses. I was pretty much in tears from the pain. I’d done a bit of nasal irrigation a couple days before, but the results hadn’t impressed me that much.

I think today I hit it just right.

I used a squeeze bottle I already have. If you read much about it, you’ll hear about Neti pot, but the squeeze bottle worked just great for me. Neti pots are plenty affordable though, if you would rather go the traditional route.

My mix is about 1/2-1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in a 8 ounce bottle full of lukewarm water. Some people recommend sea salt, and many say to skip the table salt if it has iodine or anticaking ingredients added to it, as these may cause irritation. And who wants to increase the irritation when you’re trying to beat a sinus infection or cold?

Have a lot of Kleenex or cloth handkercheifs ready.

Tilt your head over the sink and to one side. Put the squeeze bottle or Neti pot firmly to the nostril on the upper side and let the water flow in. You do not want to use a lot of pressure when doing this. You want the water to flow through your nostril, into your sinuses, and out the lower nostril. This feels really weird.

Make sure you breathe through your mouth.

If you can stand it, let the water stay in your sinuses for several seconds at least. This can help to really loosen things up.

Allow the water to drain. Dry off your nose and start blowing. When I did this, I was amazed at the sheer quantities that came out. Do not plug either nostril as you do this.
Repeat on the other side.

If you make your mixture too salty, it can irritate. You’ll get a sort of lasting stinging sensation in your sinuses. It goes away after a while, thank goodness. And don’t be surprised if you feel about like you snorted some sea water. That’s about the nearest I can come to describing the sensation after letting the water drain.

You can do this up to every 2 hours or so, or the traditional Ayurvedic practice is to do it twice daily, even when you aren’t fighting a cold.

I think the problem I had the first time I tried this was that I was so tightly congested at the sinus entries that I didn’t get past it. First time I tried it, the water just came straight back out the same nostril. I gather that if I had kept at it, I could have broken through the congestion and gotten this to work.

But today, what a difference! The pain was gone immediately.

I can feel some of the pressure rebuilding now, about 5-6 hours later, so I’ll be repeating soon. I love it when I find a natural remedy that allows me to forgo a doctor’s appointment. The pain was bad enough today that I would have gone in if it hadn’t cleared up so delightfully. Hopefully repeating over the next few days will solve the problem.

Technorati Tags: nasal irrigation, home treatment, Ayurvedic, sinus infection, neti pot

One of the things I’ve long wished we did was use cloth diapers. My husband was completely against them at first, and now we’re in the process of potty training our son, so the point will finally be moot.

But my husband finally understands the problem with disposable diapers.

He was watching a show on the Discovery Channel or some such, and they’re doing a bit on how much a person consumes throughout a lifetime. My husband was just appalled when he saw how much waste goes into disposable diapers. He now says if we ever go for #3, we’re getting cloth!

Odds are we won’t have #3, in my opinion. I’ve made my criteria well known to him. First we need to own our own place, because I’m not dealing with trying to rent with a 5 person family if I can help it! Second, we have to be able to reasonably afford it.

But he also knows of my concerns, because my second pregnancy was a bit rough, and I nearly miscarried at the end. I have a lot of fears about ever trying that again, even knowing that my grandmother did miscarry in the way my doctors save me from (low amniotic fluid), and later had more kids with no problems. Still a scary thought.

Even so, I’m delighted that he finally is really understanding the big deal about diapers. It should be interesting to see how it goes if he continues to watch it. I don’t know the show’s name, or exactly the channel it’s on, or I’d share it. Pretty sure it’s Discovery or a similar channel, but I don’t know for certain.

I’m still trying to get over that flu that has been going around. Pretty much got the kids past it, but I’m still suffering some. But I’m up and around enough now to share some of the things I did to make my kids more comfortable.

I did use Tylenol to help with fevers; high as they were I didn’t see a better option. I prefer to limit that as much as possible. And my daughter ended up on an antibiotic because her fevers continued too long, too high, and she developed an ear infection. I really, REALLY hate using antibiotics unless they’re necessary. Seemed reasonable enough this time. Only the second time in her life she’s needed them.

Cool compresses are good for fever also, but this time they really weren’t enough.

The rice bag is a favorite of mine if you need some warmth. This was great for my daughter’s ear infection, and it helped me too when I was just dealing with chills and body aches. It’s a cloth bag that has been filled about halfway with rice and sewn shut. Mine is a lightweight denim, and then a second bag over it of terrycloth. The second bag is not sewn shut, so it can be washed without getting the rice wet.

The rice bag goes into the microwave for 4-5 minutes or so, then stays warm a pretty good amount of time. For my daughter’s ear infection her pediatrician recommended moist heat, so I wrapped the bag in a plastic grocery bag to protect it from dampness, then a towel, then gave her a damp, warm washcloth. The rice bag helped it to stay warm longer than it would have otherwise. If you’ve ever tried to get a nice damp heat to something, you know that it can be a bit of a pain to keep the heat up.

Having everyone sick made me realize that I really need more than one rice bag in the house. They are really easy to make, so I suppose I should just pull out the sewing machine one of these days, find a sturdy enough cloth and go at it. Might even throw in some dried lavendar or something for a nice scent.

Airborne is pretty popular in my home too. We throw it into smoothies so that we don’t have to taste it, and there’s just this slight fizziness to the smoothies. And of course all the fruits and such in the smoothie are really good for you anyhow.

We used honey for the kids’ coughs. It’s been recommended by the FDA that cough medicines really shouldn’t be used for children, and apparently honey is more effective. It has also been suggested that cough medicines aren’t too effective on adults either. I have to admit, I loved the taste of honey as a kid, but taking a spoonful of it now just isn’t that appealling. A small taste is much better.

Tea tree oil is a favorite for congestion. Most often we put a few drops along the rim of the tub while showering; the tea tree oil then evaporates enough to have an impact on congestion along with the steam of the shower. I’ve used it cautiously in baths, and you do have to be careful. Too much irritates the skin in some rather tender areas, in my experience. A couple drops is plenty.

Baths work really well for calming sick kids. I don’t do them too cool, even with fevers. It’s amazing, though, what a bath with some bubbles can do to cheer up a kid who has been feeling miserable all day.

Let’s not forget the classic, homemade chicken soup. Except this time it was turkey soup that I had stocked in the freezer. Still a great comfort for everyone.

And of course, drink plenty of fluids. When the kids are sick is one of the few times that I don’t fuss if they just want juice all day. They’re drinking and that’s important.

Or something along those lines. My poor daughter started out with a 10.35 degree temperature during her class’s Valentine’s Day party last week, and kept the fever up all weekend anytime the Tylenol wore off. Finally developed an ear infection (her first!) Sunday night, and the antibiotics the doctor prescribed certainly did the trick. She was much perkier the next day.

But I do so hate having to use antibiotics. On the other hand, it’s harder yet hearing her constantly crying because her ear hurts so much, not to mention the general body aches from this bug.

Which I’ve been dealing with this week. Not a lot of other symptoms for me, certainly not the fevers my daughter had, but I’m just constantly exhausted right now.

Sick times with my kids are a great reminder of the wonderful parts of being a stay at home mom. I spent hours just snuggling my kids because it was one of the few things that made them feel better. I’d had a lot of work planned, and had really wanted to keep to that schedule since we need the money now that my husband has been laid off, but priorities are priorities.

There are a lot of little ways to save energy around the house. Most people know the basics, such as turning the thermostat to a lower temperature in winter and wearing a sweater. But it’s easy to not think of your energy use when you’re cooking.

This can seem like a pretty small thing. After all, cooking is not a large part of most people’s day. But it is one of those things you can do to make a difference.

We’ll start with putting a lid on the pan when you’re cooking. If you don’t need direct access to the food, having a lid on the pan means it will cook faster. This is particularly evident when you’re boiling water before adding spaghetti. The water boils much sooner with a lid on.

Having the lid on the pan helps to keep your food at the right temperature for cooking, while you can have your stove on at a much lower level since less heat is lost out the top. If you don’t like to spend a ton of time in the kitchen, this also translates to a shorter cooking time.

Another factor to consider is how long you preheat your oven, or if you even really need to. I very rarely preheat mine, as it takes only a short time for it to reach the required temperature anyhow. I make an exception for anything that is more sensitive to temperature, such as when I bake bread. But meats and casseroles don’t need to start out at that perfect temperature.

A tool I’ve been learning to use is my pressure cooker. It takes a bit of practice, but it can cook many foods in under 10 minutes. It’s one of the few things that I’m considering finding a cookbook for since I have very few pressure cooker recipes.

My slow cooker, on the other hand, is used very regularly. Despite how long it spends cooking, it can use less energy than the oven (depending on the type of oven you have). It’s also very easy to have just about the entire dinner in one pot. Throw in a roast and put the potatoes alongside it.

Another favorite way to make quick, just about one dish meals is to stir fry. The chopping takes extra time, but that means the meat cooks very quickly. As a bonus, it’s one of the few ways I can be sure that my husband will eat his vegetables. The fact that everything only needs a little cook time really helps. If you need a little more intense cooking time, throw a lid on for a little while and decrease the heat so things don’t burn.

And of course, there’s the microwave. Meats generally don’t cook up too well in them, but for reheating leftovers or giving vegetables a quick steam they’re very efficient.

As you build up your cooking habits to use energy more efficiently, you may come to appreciate how fast many of these methods are. There’s nothing like doing something that saves you both money and time.

Some stats I researched and did my best to work out:

from Flex Your Power

Since they didn’t have crock pots listed, I had to do some more research to figure it out. A crock pot runs about $0.02/per hour, whether on high or low, according to this PDF file on Making Cents of Electricity.

Using these figures to guess how much each cooking method can cost:

Of course, there are a lot of assumptions here, and one of the problems is that I couldn’t get all my numbers from a single source, so it’s kind of hard to say how accurate the numbers for the crock pot are relative to the others. I figure the others should at least be accurate enough in relation to one another, since they share a common source. The PDF showed the crock pot to be using about 150 watts on high, versus 70 on low, so clearly there’s some roundoff in there.

So it’s possible that the gas oven is more cost effective to use than the crock pot, but the crock pot easily beats out the electric one. Just depends on what you have around the house.

And of course I can’t imagine doing any serious cooking in a microwave. I won’t get into the arguments for whether or not they’re healthy to use at all here, except to note that all cooking changes food, not just microwaves. To me they’re adequate for reheating leftovers and maybe a quick steam of some veggies, nothing more.

Technorati Tags: cooking, energy use, saving energy, food