Moving Soon!

To a new blog, that is. I've really been feeling inspired lately to expand my focus beyond unschooling and write about my other passions--simplicity, wellness, spirituality--and how they all fit together to create a whole, balanced life. My involvement with our local Holistic Moms Network chapter has ignited a desire to start sharing what I've learned over the years with others. I'm so excited to have a reason to dive deeply into my favorite topics! Of course, since unschooling and natural learning are, for me, an important part of a holistic lifestyle, I'll still be writing about those, too.

Since my new blog will have a different tone and look than this one, I think it's best to move house and start fresh. Check back soon for the link to my new home, This Holistic Life.

And now for something completely different....Oil Pulling

I'm in the middle of an experiment that is turning out to be verrrry interesting, so I thought I'd better start keeping a record of it. A while back, I was online looking for natural treatments for gum disease, and I found a site about natural remedies called Earth Clinic. I was fascinated to read about a simple therapy called oil pulling, which supposedly cured a whole range of ailments. My interest was piqued at the time, but not enough to actually try it. Instead I ended up ordering a product called OraMD, which worked miracles on my gums. But, it's expensive and I ran out, and I ended up going back to brushing with plain old toothpaste, and all my problems returned. At my last visit to the periodontist, the predictions were dire: I am in danger of losing one of my front teeth and a couple back molars due to bone loss, and they want to either yank out the tooth and replace it with an implant now (to the tune of $4000!!), or do some kind of iffy bone graft procedure on the root. I can't afford either one of those options right now, so I was in wait-and-see mode, trying to decide if I really want to go into further debt over this.

In the midst of all my dithering, this past weekend I developed an abscess behind my bad front tooth. I've had these before, and they usually require a trip to the dentist and a course of antibiotics. But, it was the weekend, and I was in pain, and something made me remember the oil pulling. One of the things it's supposed to heal is gum infections. I also remembered that the miraculous OraMD stuff was made completely out of natural oils. Soooo, on Sunday morning, as per the instructions on the Earth Clinic site, I swished a tablespoon of olive oil (mixed with a drop of peppermint oil) around in my mouth before eating breakfast. You're supposed to do it for twenty minutes, until the oil turns thin and white in your mouth, but I felt like I was going to gag and so I spit it out after ten. But still, there was a noticeable reduction in the pain and swelling of the abscess. Hmmm....

Yesterday morning, I did it again, and lasted the entire twenty minutes. By the end of the day, my abscess was completely gone. Totally healed. But there were a few other interesting things. The first is I had awakened earlier than usual feeling very refreshed. This is one of the things they say will happen. Another is that immediately after doing it, I felt really, really good. Kind of buzzed, actually. Before I even had any coffee! And the third thing is that yesterday afternoon, I started coughing up mucus--another one of the promised effects of the therapy. Okay, now I was getting really excited. I went back online and did some more research. Google "oil pulling" and you'll find hundreds of testimonials by people who swear it has completely cured them of all of the medical complaints. At the very least, people say it reversed their gum disease and made their teeth whiter. 

But the thing I am now most hopeful about is that many, many people say that it improved their arthritis. I have degenerative osteoarthritis and can barely move after a busy waitress shift. My hands, knees, feet and shoulders have some degree of pain and stiffness pretty much all the time. My rheumatologist wants me to take 4000 mg of Tylenol a day. Yeah, that's not happening, so I pretty much just live with it. But if I could get some relief with a simply, natural therapy like oil pulling? And get whiter, healthy teeth to boot? Well now, that might be pretty miraculous indeed.

Book Sharing Monday

Just finished a fantastic book that I had to share, Bloodroot by Amy Greene. This is one of those rare books in which the characters and the setting are so vividly drawn that they seemed real to me. It's a multi-generational family saga that takes place in the Appalachians. The author grew up (and still lives) in East Tennessee, and her love for the area comes through loud and clear in her descriptions of Bloodroot Mountain, the physical heart of the story. 

The novel is told in the first person by six different characters, each with a unique voice, each connected through blood, love, or violence--sometimes all three. Is there a family curse, or is it just the curse--and blessing--of being human? This is one of those novels destined to win awards for its first-time author, and will probably show up on the big screen before too long. As I read it, I couldn't help thinking about which actors should be in the movie! It will stick with me for a long time.

AWESOMEness

I found this great blog earlier, 1000 Awesome Things, and Logan and I spent a very pleasant hour reading some of the entries together. Then we were talking about writing, and blogging, and he decided he wanted to start his own blog, so with no further ado, here is Logan's very first blog entry--about his latest passion, Pokemon--at Logan 101. (A title he came up with, by the way!)

More awesomeness: Yesterday we visited Wheaton Village with our wonderful homeschool group, and got to see a glass pitcher being handblown right in front of our eyes, as well as over 7000 pieces of glass in the museum! The museum lady almost had a heart attack when she saw how many kids there were, but they were all very respectful and interested. (Of course, they're homeschooled!)

Logan's favorite part of the day was watching a man make a clay pitcher and a bowl on a pottery wheel. It was very cool. He made it look so easy! They teach classes there. I think we'll definitely be looking into that.

Love Them Like a Rock

Earlier today, Logan was NOT happy. We had been on a homeschool outing with some other families, and we had just stopped at a restaurant to eat. He was tired, hungry, grouchy, upset that we didn't go to Friendly's, and frustrated that his DS froze up on him. He was taking it out on us. When we settled into our booth, he was rude and surly, refused to look at the menu, refused to talk to the waitress, threw a coaster at me, and was just generally unpleasant.

At that point, Ely and I had a choice. We could parent him the conventional way, using some combination of reward and/or consequence. I work in a restaurant, and so I see this form of parenting every day--threaten the kid with leaving, or with no dessert, or yell, or bribe. I've waited on many, many families sitting in stony silence because of the parents' reaction to their kids' behavior.

Or, we could love him like a rock. As my boy sat there and huffed and sulked, I had this vision of myself as a solid unshakeable rock, being buffeted by a storm. The rock isn't affected by the storm, the rock can't be hurt. The rock is simply the rock, before, during and after the storm.

We were our usual cheerful selves. We didn't ignore him, but we didn't make a big deal about his mood either. I offered to order for him if he didn't feel like talking to the waitress, and he tearfully agreed. We ordered his favorites. We suggested that he take a break from the DS if it was upsetting him so, and he threw it across the table. I calmly picked it up and put it in my purse with no comment. I pointed out that it must suck to be so miserable, and I reminded him of one of my core beliefs, that he could simply decide to be happy if he wanted to. He could let go of the bad mood.

He wasn't interested in doing any of the puzzles on the kids menu, so Ely and I started the word search by ourselves. Well, before long, he wanted to do it with us. By the time the food came, he was back to his old self. He had decided to let go of his bad mood. We jokingly asked, "Hey, what happened to that other kid that was here??" Logan answered, "He ran away to Arizona," as he happily spooned up his mac and cheese.

After dinner (which he didn't finish, by the way) he had a sundae, because we always get him dessert if he wants it, no matter what. (He didn't finish that either.)

As we left the restaurant, with Logan's bad mood all but forgotten and with our happy family feelings intact, I couldn't help but think of all the parents who would have handled that whole scenario very differently than we did. I am so grateful we discovered unschooling, which has helped me unearth my inner ROCK.

Sorting and Counting Hot Wheels

Earlier today, I noticed Logan was being awfully quiet in his room, and when I went to investigate here's what I found:


He had sorted all of his Hot Wheels and Matchboxes by color! Right after I took this pic, he asked for help counting them, and here's the final tally.

Silver--37
Gold--12
Pink--5
White--45
Green--42
Black--42
Brown--12
Yellow--40
Red--96
Blue--96
"Special" cars in a display of favorites that didn't get sorted--59

Grand total--485!! Wow! We knew he had a lot of cars (he gets a new one every time we go to the grocery store, plus multi-packs for all birthdays and holidays) but had no idea there were so many. I told him there are probably more around here that didn't get counted, in the couch, under furniture, outside, in my car. If we find anymore, we'll update the tally. I'm thrilled to be able to share his passion with him!

National Pi Day!

We did some fun stuff for National Pi Day. Logan would like to tell you in his own words:

It was a very fun day. We made a pi pie. We also made a pi paper chain. Each color represented a digit. Even though this has nothing to do with pi, I made a splatter paint picture. So here are some pics: