Passionate Homemaking

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Spring Cleaning & Allergy Solutions

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Pic­ture of Karis from the week­end show­ing off her new trick of being able to pull her­self up!

We had a rather full week­end at our home, so I will be delay­ing my post on the 4th chap­ter of the True Woman for tomor­row, Tues­day. It seems that the dis­cus­sion is just get­ting started on chap­ter 3 anyway.

It was such a lovely week­end here in Van­cou­ver, WA! Couldn’t help but get out there and enjoy the weather…although I had a fierce attack of aller­gies! Ahh! That lovely watery, itchy eyes, runny nose attack!

So I got some of that spring clean­ing moti­va­tion this past week­end. The one area of my house that I felt was really call­ing my name was our garage. It is a small one car garage, but it is still amaz­ing how dis­or­ga­nized it can get. Well, my hus­band and I set our minds to it on Sat­ur­day, pur­chased an extra stor­age rack (love those sturdy metal ones from Costco!), and set to work.

An hour later, old tires were recy­cled (better to recy­cle that add to the trash), mis­cel­la­neous items that had been sit­ting for the past year or so were taken to good­will (trying our best not to trash some­thing that may be useful for some­one else), and all of our shelv­ing was orga­nized. It is amaz­ing how much you can get done when you set your mind to it! Garage was swept clean, and orga­nized. Horray! I have a couple shelves now just for my bulk food pur­chases, that were for­mally mis­cel­la­neously strewn around the whole garage. It feels so good to get orga­nized, doesn’t it?

Sunday was filled with a mis­sion focus at our church. As Aaron & I lead the mis­sion team/coordinators at our church we were busy. It is such a joy and honor to serve in mobi­liz­ing others to the Great Com­mis­sion wher­ever you are at. The fes­tiv­i­ties included a guest pre­sen­ta­tion by David Witt with Voice of the Mar­tyrs, prayer time, a cul­tural shared meal, and an inter­na­tional game from India.

So over­all, today is more of my day of rest!

Any spring clean­ing going on around your home?

Here is a won­der­ful Spring Clean Strat­agy Guide from Wise Woman Builds Her House that I found help­ful. I am going to try to get some more clean­ing done today:

Spring Clean­ing Strategy

1. Count how many rooms you have in your home. This will be how many days you will devote to spring clean­ing. You do one room a day.

2. Go room to room with a list and write down what needs to get done. (Exam­ple: wash cur­tains, touch up paint, orga­ni­za­tion, deep clean closet) This is your master list, you don’t really need it if you can remem­ber it all but I like to see every­thing on paper.

3. Follow your list. What­ever doesn’t get done plan for later—-at least you’ve got alot done in your spring clean­ing week, more than what you would have with­out a plan. Know­ing I only have one day to work on some­thing makes me work quicker and more effi­ciently espe­cially since I am plan­ning off the list. Pat your­self on the back, kick up your feet and enjoy the con­tent­ment that comes from beau­ti­fy­ing your home.

Here is a final quote she shares:

“Preparing our homes and beau­ti­fy­ing it is impor­tant work and a time­less art. It requires alot of loving sac­ri­fice and work but so sat­is­fy­ing when the entire family can enjoy the fruit of it all.”

Indeed true!

Any one have any nat­ural reme­dies for hay fever, spring aller­gies? I would love to hear them!

P.S. You will notice that we rearranged our site just slightly this week­end too. We posted the arti­cle links that used to be on the side to the top nav­i­ga­tion (about, con­tact, etc)! Hope this sim­pli­fies things a little.


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12 Responses to “Spring Cleaning & Allergy Solutions”

  1. Tia Says:

    Hon­estly, I had hor­ri­ble aller­gies. they were relieved by going to a chi­ro­prac­tor. I’ve been off allergy AND asthma meds for 2 yrs now, and they were HOR­RI­BLE. Matter of fact it will be a ONE full year since I had a cold this week. I would get sinus infec­tions the whole year. Noth­ing more nat­ural than that!

    I have seen this thing (don’t remem­ber what it’s called) it’s used to flush the sinus cav­i­ties out, thru your nose. Some sort of weird look­ing con­trap­tion. Looks like a tea kettle lol. but the spout is smaller.

    Oh, and if you decide on a chiro, some med­ical ins plans cover some visits. Do NOT et sucked into going THREE days a week for months on end. A good chiro will see you maybe 2 times a month. Unless you are having some issues. We go to ours once every 2 months

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on April 14th, 2008:

    Wow, Tia, does that chi­ro­prac­tor really solve all these prob­lems (as I know you have attrib­uted your good health to him as well)? ;) Actu­ally, my BIL is a chi­ro­prac­tor, which is a huge bless­ing, so we do get reg­u­lar treat­ments from him for free (family priv­i­leges ;), but it hasn’t solved this issue…but it has helped in other areas.

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  2. Tia Says:

    Yes, truth­fully! I’m glad you have a chiro in the family! Nice to have, I’m sure. I’m a firm believer if you have a healthy spine (which is the nerve center of the body) you’re body will line up and in turn become healthy.

    We also don’t eat/drink a lot of dairy prod­ucts.
    Look up Agrisept.

    I get an email from a health dr every week. (dr Bob) He dis­cusses healthy alter­na­tives to dis­eases. If you are inter­ested I can fwd an email onto you. I THINK I still have one on aller­gies.

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  3. Megan Says:

    What Tia is refer­ring to is using a system like Sin­u­cle­anse. It uses a neti pot which looks like a genie’s lamp and pours through one sinus and down the other side’s nos­tril. I’ve been using it for a month now, and it seems to be work­ing. It comes with saline pack­ets to dis­solve in water prior to wash­ing. Try it, you might ben­e­fit!

    [Reply]

    Tia replied on April 14th, 2008:

    That’s it! I couldn’t think of the word, but I knew if some­one knew what I was talk­ing about, and men­tioned the name I’d know it!

    [Reply]

  4. Rebekah Says:

    Is is called a Neti pot? Never used one per­son­ally but have a friend who does and loves it.

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  5. Amy Brigham Says:

    The big Karis smile is just pre­cious! :D

    This past fall I came across an arti­cle about using raw, local honey to treat pollen aller­gies and men­tioned this remedy to Sean who has ter­ri­ble spring aller­gies. He has been taking a table­spoon of raw honey every­day since, either in a smoothie, herbal tea, or on it’s own, and his aller­gies are much less severe this spring despite the fact that the pollen counts are sig­nif­i­cantly higher than in years past. He hasn’t had to take any OTC or even home­o­pathic remedy yet this year, and that is a great improve­ment. Usu­ally the Clar­itin would be out daily by now ;o)

    [Reply]

    Lindsay replied on April 15th, 2008:

    Thanks every­one for the feed­back! I do like the honey idea…since I love honey! ;) I have tried incor­po­rat­ing bee pollen powder into my diet in the past, but with­out suc­cess. I will try it.

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  6. Amy Says:

    Aller­gies: I don’t suffer but I too know people who eat local honey. You are then ingest­ing small amounts of the dreaded pollen and your body deals with it better. Per­son­ally I think any excuse to eat honey is good!
    I have just a spring clean and feel great for it. It is great to know that all those nooks and cranys are lovely and sparkling.

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  7. Mrs. Hewett Says:

    Sev­eral people already men­tioned the use of local honey… but another sug­ges­tion I was given is to wash your hands and wipe your face off thor­oughly with water when you come in from being out­side for an extended period of time. This removes sur­face aller­gens from your skin (espe­cially around the eyes, nose and mouth) where they are most likely to enter your system and cause prob­lems. I did this last year and it really helped reduce the sever­ity of my symp­toms. It did not elim­i­nate my aller­gies, but they were less over­whelm­ing. I’m adding the local honey tip to my rou­tine this year as well. I hope this helps.

    Bless­ings,

    Mrs. H

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  8. jodean Says:

    I don’t have aller­gies, but my hus­band does. The best thing that we ever did for his aller­gies was to get rid of all of the carpet in our home. Obvi­ously, that is expen­sive (and I don’t even know if you have carpet!) but, when the carpet reaches the end of its life and needs to be replaced any­ways, it might be some­thing to think about. We got a close­out deal on a dis­con­tin­ued color of lam­i­nate, and it ended up not cost­ing any­more than medium qual­ity carpet would have. And it was really easy to put in!

    We also do the local honey thing. I don’t know if it works or not, but we both love honey and would eat it even if it didn’t!

    Thanks for the spring-​cleaning sug­ges­tions. I need to do some fall-​cleaning around here:-)

    [Reply]

    Kate replied on September 24th, 2008:

    When we bought our home, we replaced all the carpet w/wood floor­ing. My cousin, hubby and I put it all in. My cousin owns a rental place that rent out equip­ment, so we were blessed to have knowl­edge­able people to install it, and free equip­ment rental!

    I’ll never have carpet again! I don’t like it, and you have to replace that after so many years. And I don’t think carpet is all the safe either. Tons of chem­i­cals in it.

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