On Tuesday night, I was beginning to feel a little under the weather and thought to myself  “I cannot get sick right before Thanksgiving…I have too much to do!” So I decided that I better nip this thing in the bud and took out my ever-so-dependable Neti Pot. “What’s a Neti Pot?” you ask? It’s a nasal cleansing pot that irrigates your nasal passages with saline water (the Pot comes with a special salt). I started using Neti Pot years ago at my husband’s recommendation and have been a non-paid promoter of it ever since!

The first time you try it, it’ll feel a little awkward because you have to tilt your head, put the tip of the pot into one nostril and let the saline solution run out the other. I usually do this when my sinuses start to feel a little tender or if I’m suffering from allergies. It’s a great natural remedy…I haven’t taken sinus/allergy medication in years!

Another tip: When I feel a sore throat coming on, I do something similar by gargling with salt water. It sounds horrible, but the results (for me anyway!) are fantastic! I recommend doing this right before you go to bed. Just mix about two teaspoons of salt with about 4-6 oz. of warm water. The salt water cleanses your throat much like the saline solution does for your nostrils with the Neti Pot. I gargle for about 10-15 seconds and repeat two more times. You might feel a little burning, but I like to think of it as the start of the healing process.

So today, I feel great and I truly believe it’s because I was able to nip it in the bud. A positive attitude and keeping busy helps me too!

When my husband and I had our house built, we went with tile flooring on the main floor. We thought that wood flooring would require more upkeep and seeing visible scratches and dust bunnies just didn’t appeal to us. For the most part, we’re happy with our decision–it looks nice, it’s durable and the dust is not so visible. I bet my son would say otherwise! When he started crawling, we noticed that once he’d get to tile area, he would just stop. And then when he decided that he didn’t want to limit his crawling area, he developed what I would describe as this “crab crawl”. He’d crawl with his right foot planted on the floor while his leg was underneath. It looked quite funny, but then I decided that my son was very smart for adapting to the harsh surface! I felt really bad so I brainstormed what I could do to make his knees feel better when he ventured out onto the tile floor.

What I did was this: I took a pair of tube socks my son no longer wore and cut the foot part out, leaving a tube with both ends open. I slid it onto his knee which fit snuggly and inserted a nursing pad onto the knee area and voila! I made some knee pads from existing materials I had in the house. My son thought it was a little weird at first, but he soon adjusted to wearing them. Now that he’s walking, it’s great for cushioning his falls too. Now I know I can’t prevent all his bumps and bruises, but I’ll do what I can while I still can .