Finding Joy in Your Home

Medical Disclaimer: Today we are chatting about essential oils. I use these oils in my home and today I'm sharing how we use them. Please be aware that I am not a doctor, a certified aromatherapist, and have no formal training in aromatherapy. Please always do your own research before using essential oils. This episode today is for entertainment purposes only. 

A couple of weeks ago, I did an episode on essential oils 101! If you've never used oils before and you want to dip your toes in, then this is a great class to start with. But since then, I've had people asking for more in depth tips on using essential oils. So tune in today.

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

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How we use Essential Oils in our Home: 

The two main ways I use essential oils in my home are for cleaning and health and wellness. I first began using essential oils in my home to clean with because it seemed like the easiest way to get started. Plus, I was slowly figuring out how to swap out toxic cleaning items with more natural ones in my home anyway! 

To start off with: Dr. Axe is a fantastic resource for essential oils. Search essential oils on his website, or for specific concerns or oils and a ton of stuff comes up! In fact, he has an AMAZING book on essential oils that I've been drooling over for a long time. I like the fact that it is NOT brand specific! 

Essential Oils for Cleaning: 

My favorite oils for cleaning include Tea Tree, citrus oils (especially lemon), a deodorizing blend, and a germ fighting blend. Young Living has their very popular Thieves cleaning line which you can purchase pre-made cleaners with the Thieves essential oil! 

I just saw (from searching) that Plant Therapy has their own cleaning kit!! This would be a fantastic way to get started with cleaning oils. It includes: Tea Tree, Lavender, Lemon, Germ Fighter, Peppermint, and Citrus Blend. The only one I would add to this pack is the deodorizing blend for laundry!

 

Dr. Axe's Tips for Essential Oil home use from his article 101 Essential Uses and Benefits.

Air cleaner: Diffuse cinnamon essential oil in the air and enjoy its anti-microbial properties.

All-purpose cleaner: Add three drops each of lemon essential oil and tea tree oil (melaleuca) to a few ounces of warm water, then spray countertops to naturally disinfect.

Bathroom freshener: Put a cotton ball soaked in lime or lemon oil behind the toilet for a bathroom refresher.

Bathtub scrub: Mix one-half cup of baking soda, one-half cup of vinegar and five drops of bergamot or lime oil; use as a scrub for a sink or bathtub.

Dishwasher fluid: Add a few drops of lemon oil to the dishwasher before washing for a spot-free rinse.

House fragrance: Diffuse clove, rosemary and orange essential oils when guests come over, and they will talk about how amazing your house smells.

Kitchen odor eliminator: Add a few drops of clove, cinnamon or citrus essential oil to a simmering pan of water to get rid of cooking odors.

Mold killer: Add tea tree oil to your diffuser to kill mold and other pathogens in the air.

Pest killer: Combine orange and clove oils and then spray to kill pests on contact.

Produce washer: To clean fruit and vegetables, add two drops of lemon oil to a large bowl of water, then wash.

Choosing to spend the bulk of our time, energy, and attention on our family and our home can be a very unpopular decision these days. I know there are people in my own life who don't understand the decision so when I got a question from a reader about this topic, I knew it was a good one to address. 

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Here's the question I got: 

"Lately, I’ve struggling with something and I thought you may have insight. I’m getting several questions from my friends and other peers as to why I have chosen to stay home with my young children and become a homemaker. I graduated from a large Catholic university and I also have my masters from another Catholic university. My schooling was not inexpensive and I’m still paying off some loans. But after my husband and I had our first child, we decided the best use of my time was taking care of our home. 

I have many people who question why I’m not working, why I got a masters degree if my objective was to stay home, or why I don’t send my children to daycare and just hire a housekeeper for the home. I feel like my responses are being taken as a criticism of their choices. Have you come across this issue? How have you explained your choice - especially to those who choose differently - without people becoming defensive?"

Let's clear some things up first: 

Let's talk about what it means to be a homemaker first. 

Do I think that all women are called to be homemakers? Yes, I do. Does that mean every women will be married? No. Does it mean each couple will have children? No. Does that mean that all mothers must stay home full time with their kids? No. I think God has weaved us all with very different stories and circumstances, or even for short times. 

What I do this means, is that our heart needs to be home with our family. If you are not married and don't have kids, there are still people you live with that you can love and serve. Are you a newly married wife without kids? You can bless your husband and show love by keeping the house and cooking. 

And if you have kids and a family, then caring for them includes all of the nitty gritty mundane moments as well. 

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." - Titus 2: 3-5, ESV

Homemaking is for all women

"Wherever you live, you are still a part of a household as defined by Scripture. You can still exercise dominion over your private sphere as a single woman. Consider that you shouldn't wait for marriage to learn basic household skills, like food preparation, laundry, and cleaning. There is nothing worse than waking up on the morning of a big meeting to find that you have run out of shampoo, or forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning, or left for hte office on an empty stomach because you ran out of food. Good household management is a characteristic of a godly woman. 

You are not just called to manage your home for your own benefit, but Scripture also requires you to use your home for the benefit of others (1 Tim. 5:10 specifically, and also Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2). No matter your living arrangement, you can still invest in the lives that are nourished there - show hospitality to roommates, friends, neighbors, church friends, or extended family."- The Measure of Success

Medical Disclaimer: Today we are chatting about essential oils. I use these oils in my home and today I'm sharing how we use them. Please be aware that I am not a doctor, a certified aromatherapist, and have no formal training in aromatherapy. Please always do your own research before using essential oils. This episode today is for entertainment purposes only. 

We've been covering a lot of natural and practical homemaking topics lately on the podcast which has been so fun! And one of the questions I keep getting over and over: is about essential oils! How to get started and how to use them. 

So today we are covering essential oils 101! Join along and listen in here: 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

My journey to Essential Oils

I've been using essential oils since 2012 and I was a skeptic at first. At the time, essential oils were only barely starting to catch on and most people didn't use them yet. Even today, with essential oils being widely used, there are still so many who don't use them yet. 

So when I first started hearing about them, I really wasn't sure what to think. They seemed like this hippy stuff...how could oils do all these amazing things?! But I had a few friends looking into them and decided to do some searching of my own! 

“Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. They can be both beautifully and powerfully fragrant.” ~ Modern Wellness: What Are Essential Oils

Basically, essential oils are the pure and concentrated oil from that object. Orange oil is  the powerful and concentrated oil from the tree and peel.

” When we peel an orange, walk through a rose garden, or rub a sprig of lavender between our fingers, we are all aware of the special scent of that plant. But what is is that we can smell? Generally speaking, it is essential oils that give spices and herbs their specific scent and flavor, flowers their fruit and perfume.” ~ The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils, pg 13.

Ways You Can Use Essential Oils

Knowing how to use essential oils was one of the most confusing things to me about them when I first heard of them. People threw around words like using them “neat”, diluting them in a “carrier oil”, and I wasn’t sure how you actually used the oils – in everyday life!

Here are the 3 main ways that essential oils are used.

Topical

When you apply an oil topically, this is referring to placing the oil on your skin. 

Typically this means you are rubbing the oil on to some part of your body {i.e. the bottoms of your feet, your back, arm, ect}. When you apply the oils directly to your skin {without diluting it first}, this is often called applying it “neat”.

However, most essential oils are so powerful that they should not be put on your skin “neat”. So instead you dilute a couple drops into a teaspoon or tablespoon of a “carrier oil” and then you rub it onto your skin. It might seem that that dilutes the effectiveness of the oil, but actually using a carrier oil can help facilitate the absorption of the oil easier. 

Common carrier oils include fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, olive oil, ect. 

 Aromatic

This is another wonderful way to use essential oils and can have wonderful effects. 

A great way to use oils aromatically is to use a vaporizer, diffusor, or humidifier to easily spread the essential oils throughout the house. There are many essential oils on the market in varying p...

As a mom of five young kids (5 and under), I get this question a LOT. How do we cultivate quality time with young kids (and at the same time actually take care of our house)!? Listen in to today's episode for advice from several mamas: 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Here's the question I got:

“Ideas for quality play time as parents of young children. How do you keep your kids busy while keeping technology to a minimum? Do you have ideas for playing WITH your young ones? Ideas for educational play? Ideas for getting young ones to play independently?”

I know I have some thoughts and ideas on this, but at the same time, I am in the trenches of this myself with my oldest two only being 5, my middle two being 2, and my baby is only 16 months. So I turned to the best source: Other women and what they have found to be the most helpful!! 

If you want to come over and read all the answers, you can do so here. 

Reading Together: 

I have found that for me and for them, reading together is one of the most bonding things we can do together. We have a new routine of a morning basket where we store our kid Bible, a hymnal, a few chapter books, and a few fun educational books. We alternate going through the books each morning, reading from 3-4 of them each day. 

We keep the reading short and quick! Reading together was one of the #1 recommendations from the gals I asked. Another great suggestion is listening to audio books together. You can even do this when you are running errands in the car, etc! 

In our basket: 

The Jesus Storybook Bible

Adventures with Waffles

Hymns of Grace Hymnal

The Usborn Children's Encyclopedia

Jame's Herriot's Treasury for Children (this is my current FAVORITE book with the kids!)

The Usborn Book of Science Activities (Volume two)

Do a dance party! 

This is another very popular suggestion I saw! And we love doing this!! I sometimes, but not always, participate in the dance party. But it's such a fun way to turn around the attitude in the home, especially on a cranky day. Or to get people moving and to have a little fun together! 

Singing songs together is another great suggestion. Singing fun and silly songs together is obviously fun! But we have started memorizing more hymns together. I love that we can all sing them together and they are learning them for Sunday morning worship. 

We have been using the new hymnal from the Master's Seminary: Hymns of Grace. Jason got it at a recent conference he went to and we love it! 

Impromptu dance party in the living room!!

Rotate Toys & Keep it special! 

I did this a few years into my parenting journey when I was frustrated with them not playing with their toys. So I took older moms advice and cleaned out half their toys. These toys went into the shed and about 6 months later I remembered I did this. So I packed up all their current toys - and then brought the long forgotten ones out and it was like Christmas day!! 

Shelley had a great tip: "Sometimes I would set up the toys in a fun way before my kids got up (train tracks or a farm or whatever). They usually jumped right into playing as it looked more interesting than the usual buckets of toys that they had to set up. Another thing my kids loved was to take a bucket of water and some paint brushes and “paint” the deck outside." 

Or just play in a box!! ;) That will keep them super busy as well!

Biblical discipleship, mentoring, and relationships have been on my heart and mind a lot lately! I recently read the book Adorned by Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth and it's all about Living out the Beauty of the Gospel Together. 

After I read the book, I knew I needed to see if I could get Nancy on the podcast and we had such a sweet conversation about the topic!

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Links & Resources:

Nancy's Book: Adorned

Adorned Bible Study

Nancy's Ministry: Revive Our Hearts

Revive Our Hearts Podcast