Dear Healthy Homemakers,

I apologize that I have been away for a few weeks. It's been a difficult few weeks for my family as my sister's middle child who is only 26 years old was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer when she was five months pregnant. She was told that the baby was causing the cancer to grow much more quickly than if she was not pregnant. She opted to take her chances so that the baby could live and grow bigger. They removed 95% of the cancer that had grown to the size of a baseball in her frontal lobe. The baby survived the operation, but it was difficult not being able to take pain killers. Meanwhile, my trips down were to help care for her two year old son so that her husband could balance work and being with his wife.

At 28 weeks my niece had a c-section and the baby was 3lbs 1oz. Meanwhile, the cancer did not grow as expected. She was given 13 months or less to live, but will start radiation/chemo treatments next week that may give her 3-5 more years with her family.

We've made many suggestions to help them fight the cancer, but I think they are still in denial. This was a time for much reflection and realize that we need to take responsibility for our own health. The doctor mentioned the red dye in the "hot cheetohs" she loved so much or the excessive use of cell phones and drinking bottled water. The family doesn't like to cook so there was a lot of eating out or fast foods.

Does this sound like your lifestyle? If you were told that you had less than a year to live would you wish you would have done things differently? Would you give in to every kind of junk food you ever wanted or would you stand up and take charge of your health and do something positive to start the healing process?

I'm almost done with my before and after pictures of my pantry. I moved all my store bought canned foods to a small closet that we will eat as not to throw money away, but meanwhile I'm replacing everything with homemade foods a little at a time. All my household cleaning products I'm trying to use up and replace with all natural ones that I've made myself so I know what I am using.

I don't like spending a lot of time cooking and cleaning so I've been experimenting with quick and easy ideas. I like simplicity. I found the best homemade pretzel recipe that I am now experimenting with that I will share with you. I haven't perfected my indoor natural ant deterrent yet as they would come back about every three days, but I used "food" grade diatemaceous earth on an ant mound then poured white distilled vinegar on top of that and they have yet to come back. Don't use pool grade. I got mine at the local feed store. It should last me about five years.

The one household cleaner that was most difficult for me to let go of was my Lysol bathroom cleaner that would have this beautiful foam whiling destroying germs. I took some baking soda and put it in a recycled spice container that would let me shake out how much I wanted I then added 10-15 drops of an essential oil such as eucalyptus, juniper or lavendar into a spray bottle of white distilled vinegar (about a cup) and shook it up. I then sprinkled the baking soda (not powder) into my sink where I had make-up sticking to the porcelain and followed it up with a spritz of my vinegar mixture. It fizzed up more than foamed, but I was successfully able to remove the make-up, hard water deposits and gunk from around the sink without the strong vinegar smell.

I need your feedback if you'd like to plan a get together or if you'd like me to put kits together for you to purchase? I have a mascara kit right now and I'm about to order a wonderful variety of mica. There's lipstick tubes on sale I will buy in bulk and I already have travel kits that just need filling (for men and women).

All my weekends are currently booked up for September, but I may have October 17 or 24th available (Saturdays). I'd love to plan on any of the following:
a) household cleaners
b) cosmetics for women/cleansers for both men and women
c) soap making and gift baskets (the holidays are coming up soon)
d) jewelry making (chocolate theme) - Annie says she's been going crazy with this project
e) canning and preserving

Do me a favor and stay healthy and do not take any of the flu vaccinations. I'll be sending out lots of information on them that will shock you! I'm waiting on one more article from a friend of mine on the Swine Flu vaccination.

Take care and I will be updating the site soon!

Your Healthy Homemaker