This post may have to end abruptly, because I am babysitting a friend's 2 1/2 year old this weekend. He's currently napping, but when he wakes up I'll have to hop to. He's very full of energy, life, and curiosity, which unsupervised leads to disaster but when supervised is really cute and entertaining.
Anyway! So I finally have enough pictures and brainpower to write about herbs! We made a rather large order from Mountain Rose Herbs and at first I was a little nervous that we were making too large of an order for our first time. However now I'm kind of wishing we'd made a larger order! First of all, I've been able to delve into the lovely world of blending my own teas - both for taste and health benefits - and I have LOVED it. I've discovered I have several tea-kindred-spirits, so on the one hand that's helped with Christmas present options, and on the other hand its bad because we're zipping through our order much faster than I thought we would!!
The other benefit is that with all the teas we've been drinking our bodies are responding better than when we were using some very very very expensive vitamin/supplement samples a friend gave us. Kyle especially has had more stamina and energy. Usually by this point in the year we've been sick at least once, but so far Kyle's just had some I'm-about-to-get-a-cold symptoms that go away when I keep the tea and elderberry syrup coming. [My friend's 2 year old had the seasonal very-croupy-cough and I have been giving him watered-down elderberry syrup in his sippy cup, and alternating with rooibos tea, which he LOVES.]
We've been loving incorporating herbs into our daily lives by sprinkling rosehip powder on our eggs, extra thyme and rosemary on chicken, maiitake and reishi mushrooms into our bone broth soups, and ayrvedic herbs into our regular nighttime relaxing teas. We've seen several pairs of eyebrows raise whenever we talk about how much we're enjoying the new herbs, and a few friends have jokingly made a few remarks about snake oils, and hippie's, and old wives tale herbs.
Aaaaaand on that note the kid woke up, so I have to dash off for now. Will write the next installment of this tonight after he goes to sleep.