Personal Reflections

Jerseys are like potato chips… you can’t have just one! Clementine is the second cow we purchased to feed our raw milk habit. About 15 years ago, we discovered the health benefits of raw milk, and then 5 years later, we fell head over heels in love with Jerseys. 

​Clementine was culled from a traditional dairy setting because she has suspensory ligament laxity in her udder. This makes her prone to mastitis and teat injuries because her bag hangs so low. Charlie and I have jokingly toyed with the idea of creating a “brudder” (a bra for an udder) for her.   Fortunately (or unfortunately… depending on how you look at it) this is something we did not know 10 years ago when we were buying our first few girls. Our ignorance was her saving grace….. Had we not bought her, she likely would have had a much shortened life, and we would not have gotten to know,love, and learn from her sweet disposition. So, for that, we are fortunate indeed. We do have to watch her udder closely, and when she is in milk she looks like she could feed 10 calves easily.

On Sunday, I was blessed by a sweet friend and talented artist, Kim Guthrie. She took a picture I had taken of sweet Clementine and created an adorable painting for me & I believe she captured Clementine perfectly! She is quite the photo hound and is one of our more curious cows :). Jerseys by nature tend to be curious and in your pocket once they get to know you. Having friends who happen to be cows is a definite added bonus to our raw milk addiction!
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As a prepper, we need to think of ourselves as a well oiled machine. We would not leave our guns, tools, and food supply in an environment that would ruin them…. so why do we neglect our bodies and purposefully expose ourselves to toxic agents?… especially knowing that we need to be in prime health to survive and thrive.

Chances are that your house is sick, and that means that you are affected too. Household cleaning products are responsible for over 10% of all toxin exposure calls to the Poison Control Centers in the United States. But what about the more insidious silent illnesses caused by seemingly harmless household chemical exposure?

Of the over 2000 chemicals on the market, more than 1/2 of them are known to ACTIVELY cause or promote allergies, asthma, cancer, birth defects, nervous system disruptions, and/or endocrine disruption. 

In our preparations for what is to come, we will need to be healthy! …. scratch that…. we need to be healthy no matter what!

Think about the products YOU use around your home, your children, and your pets.

What’s in them? If you are curious, check out the  Environmental Working Group website to find out.

Personally, I don’t like to wonder…so I found out,  and then I made some serious changes many years ago in our house and on our farm.

This is one of the reasons I love essential oils.

They’re safe.  They’re natural. They’re non-toxic…. And they can kick some serious booty when it comes to cleaning. Their presence in your home “creates an inhospitable environment” for bacteria to grow.

Thieves® oil blend and the entire Thieves Cleaner family are miracle-workers…. and giant killers. This blend truly is a David vs Goliath story when it comes to germs.

You’ll see what I mean here.

So, get your house in order! We are told to do that, right?….Both Biblically and in preparedness. Our “house” isn’t just our home… it is also a reference to our body. Let’s clean house!

Finances. Ah…… Debbie Downer…. don’t bring that up. I was having a pretty good day until you mentioned the “F” word.

This is a topic that is such a big one in ALL of our lives, and yet the average person wants to run the opposite direction when “the big F” is mentioned. It is very personal. Some peopleare blessed with stewardship training at a young age. One of my parents greatest gifts was the actual act of teaching us to manage money. I knew how to manage money from a pretty young age, partly from this training, and partly because I’ve worked since I was barely a teenager caring for and supporting my own horse. Squandering money just didn’t happen in my world. Others may have figured it out on their own without training, but by trial and error. My hat is off to you…. not everyone learns from financial mistakes, and consequently there is a wake left that grows to tsunami proportions with each passing year.

The reality in today’s world is this…… no matter what your prior circumstance, unless you are born into wealth, your retirement plan likely looks like one of these scenarios:

• It just might be do-able. I’ve been saving for retirement since I was 16, and my family tends to die young anyway (now THAT’s another topic for another blog!)
• I know I don’t have enough saved, but I’m planning on working til I die of old age. I just hope I’m not on duty as a Wal-Mart greeter when it happens!
• Uhhh…. I’ll just live off Social Security… isn’t that what it’s for?(Good luck with that one! I’ve seen too many people at the pharmacy who make monthly choices about food vs medication because they’ve tried just this approach to retirement).

Now dream with me a moment. Have you already fallen in love with  Young Living products? (If so, you can scratch the whole “dying young plan”off your retirement scenario list, ’cause it ain’t likely that’s gonna happen). Or, have you just stumbled into my website… dazed, confused, and a little rising excitement about what you’ve found regarding natural wellness options…?

I’m not asking you to share Young Living with others… Only about 8% of YL users actively grow a business, so you are in great company by just being a content product user. Thank you!

But I would like to tell you what could happen if you did share your love of YL’s presence in your life with others.

You see, my husband and I  have great jobs. We both work very hard on the farm and in our careers. We also only get 2 weeks of vacation a year, and when you have remote family members with health conditions and/or farm events…. choices for vacation days have to be made. There were several years we’ve had to use nearly all our vacation to address very “non vacation” life events, and several times we’ve missed critical moments in life because of this. Residual Income comes from building an asset (your ever growing YL business) that continues to earn you money even if you are not actively building that asset at every given waking moment.  Make no mistake… building a business around Young Living IS work, but the freedom to plan….. or to be spontaneous about this work is priceless. If I could have some “do over” moments in my life and not miss some extremely important family events because of work, I would in a heartbeat. Many of you are younger than me…. Don’t be me. Think about this long and hard now, and don’t miss out because you had to “clock in”. Begin working now on freedom.

Secondly, Charlie and I HAVE been saving for retirement. I personally have been saving since I was 23 years old (I am 50 now). There have been times in our lives that we have dumped relatively large amounts of income into retirement plans, and while we are better prepared than most (when we turn 70 1/2!), it’s still not a ton of money in the grand scheme of growing old. It gives me great peace to be at a point in my Young Living journey (after just 3 years) to have residual income we can count on. If Social Security evaporates into thin air before we retire, with our YL income, we will be fine. This is not a pipe dream… this is our reality. Again…. many of you are younger than me. If I’d started growing my YL business at 25 instead of 47, who knows what kind of financial magic would be happening!  Remember, this business is an “at your own pace” kinda thing…. but even if you grow slow and steady, in 25 years, you’ll be the rockstar granny (or grandpa) who is enjoying retirement instead of working  at Wally World because they have to! What is your current 401K offering you? You can see actual “pedal to the metal” numbers on the 2015 YL Income Dislosure Statement. 

Thirdly…. what does your WILL look like? Will your job continue to pay you long after your death? Do you have a spouse, kids, relatives (or a farm full of animals like us!) who rely on the support your income affords? What if it stopped? The cool thing about Young Living is that once you get a YL business off the ground and write a personal will, you can then fill out survivorship paperwork with YL, and guess what….. that residual income becomes a legacy for your family…. (or in our case, our ‘farmily’). You can read more about willing your business in section 3.7.1 of the Policy and Procedure manual.  Does your current job offer this perk? I didn’t think so….

If, after reading this… you find yourself interested in learning more, please contact me!

If you’ve never even heard of oils til now AND you’re already nervous about what your retirement does look like, let’s talk.

If you love oils and are already on my team, but have never even considered these options until now, maybe I’ve planted a seed or two. I am here to help you get started. We are about raising each other up, and I’m more than pleased to help.

If you are on my team or about to be on my team, and this message has rocked your world, ……………… contact me. If you are truly serious, I will make sure you have the resources you need at your fingertips to be successful. This business is about growing up, locking arms, and thriving together.

A Young Living business will truly offer you a sustainable future.

Hugs and Love, liz

Hey there!

If you want to ask something nearly impossible of an introvert, ask them to write a blog about themselves. Sheesh! This is going to be a rough one for me to write.

Yes, I’m an introvert and don’t normally air my health laundry…… but my passion to promote great health is bigger than my privacy issues…. and YOUR health is just as important as mine…. so I’m here to spill the beans on how I came to be “a healthy me” at the age of 50. Perhaps you can glean some inspiration, knowledge, and hope from MY story….and then maybe you too can turn your health around. I going to dissect my life into two halves, and will post the first half today… the second will come by the end of the week.

Life is full of lessons. I have been fortunate in that my profession of choice (pharmacy) has given me the gift of continuous learning. I LOVE learning, researching, digging up and exhuming hidden facts. It took me many years to piece together my health story, but once I did, everything made perfect sense. If I had not made some conscious choices to change my life habits in my early 30’s, I likely would be one of the statistics (one of the “one in two” people in the USA with an active chronic health condition).

I was not a chronically hospitalized kid growing up, but I had my share of chronic issues. I was the kid in the family that the pediatrician saw frequently for fairly severe allergies, bad asthma, and for some odd reason, strep throat regularly. I had a steady diet of (prescription strength) Dimetapp, steroids,  and antibiotics in the early ’70’s. When I hit puberty, my cycles… tho regular… were excruciating. It took a few years, but I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis. This was in the early ’80’s, and not many doctors were well studied on this female disorder. I will abbreviate the story here…. 2 surgeries later, and after being told to ‘have children quickly or good luck with that‘….. we found a way to manage the ongoing problem with a prescription. Meanwhile, I still had allergies to many things. Sadly, the things I loved the most were the things I was most allergic to!….. animals and the great outdoors (pollen, grasses, trees, etc)! My allergies were severe enough that they prevented me from entering Vet School (my life long dream). I was crushed, and after some deep thought, switched directions to pursue a pharmacy degree. Many years of college (and working while in college), poor diet, too much coffee and Diet Coke and not enough sleep eventually gave me some fairly significant stomach issues. I graduated in ’91 with my degree and a diagnosis of (ICD-10 code K59.9) ‘functional intestinal disorder, unspecified’ as an added bonus.

Fast forward…. Charlie and I got married in ’92…….. and in 2001, after 4 doctors and many months of seeking answers for my new issue (the incessant need to pee both night and day) … I got diagnosed with interstitial cystitis (a bladder condition that has no cure). Thru trial and error over the next several years ( that’s another post/another day) we found a definitive pattern regarding food triggers. Using diet modifications, I was able to ‘somewhat‘ manage my IC without the VERY EXPENSIVE drugs or the daily self- catheterizations that are common among people with this condition. Thank God! Let me tell you…. there is no incentive like the prospect of daily self-cathing to change your diet!

About the same time my IC was diagnosed, I had a fairly minor fall (tripping over a wheelbarrow) and broke my wrist. I was 33. My orthopedist suggested a bone density scan, and I was subsequently diagnosed with osteopenia. He told me to take more calcium and warned me that I would probably need to be on a medication to prevent further bone loss before I turned 40. It was the same year that Charlie and I both were told that we both had high cholesterol (over 200), and that if we didn’t attempt to lower our cholesterol levels soon we would both need to be on a cholesterol med.

So you see….. I was right on track with the “not so American Dream”…. to be good and unhealthy by the ripe old age of 40. I was set to join the ranks of the 50% who drew the genetic short straw and got to be on the losing team of the “one in two” who have a chronic health condition. Yay me! Not.

And this is where the baby steps of change truly began occurring. 

Fast forward to 2017….so how did a sickly, allergic, asthmatic …..who became a young adult with endometriosis and a messed up gut…. who then became an adult with interstitial cystitis, osteopenia, and hypercholesterolemia on top of all the previous ailments (at 33) become a healthy 50 year old? That, my friends, is what comes next….. how I slowly worked my way backwards out of this health hot mess train wreck I was going to be the older I got.

Stay tuned…. You truly ARE what you eat….. and drink…. and expose your body to (or deprive your body of)! In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about some of my lifestyle choices my family and I have made, join me here!

Hugs and Love,
​Liz

Let’s talk for a minute. You have been reading for about a month now, and hopefully you’ve now embraced the notion that you need to be preparing on a level that is unique to you and your family’s personal health concerns. If so, call me… email me… it’s time to get serious about the planning.

Health preparedness is not as simple as just storing product. 

While product is nice to have on hand when you need it, the ability to apply knowledge that you’ve accumulated thru personal experience and thru experience of others could be a gamechanger.  Proficiency in anything requires practice.  It is my personal goal that every single person who joins my team have access to as much education as they desire (in the form of private Facebook groups, books,  education here… thru my blog and emails, and also direction to science backed resources)….. so that they (you?) can become proficient in their unique health and wellness plan BEFORE a crisis situation dictates that it must be implemented.  However, when a crisis happens (and it WILL happen someday), what if you don’t have access to your internet, phone, or your “go to person” when a “how to” question arises? Then you must rely on what you have stored in your brain, what you have in your Bug Out Bag to implement your plan. 

Today’s the day… make a commitment to do this. Let’s pack your bag with the essentials that will be pertinent to YOUR health, (along with the 400+ page essential oil manual you’ll get for free from me) AND begin training your brain to think a bit differently. Let’s get some practice under your belt! Who knows…. by implementing what you learn now, you might become healthier for it, and THAT itself could actually save your life… even if the SHTF doesn’t happen anytime soon.

Let’s do this!

In health and preparedness,

​Liz James, RPh