30 Uses for Coconut Oil

There are so many uses for coconut oil!  If I could only have one natural thing in my house I think I would probably choose coconut oil just because it is good for so many things!

Here are 30 ideas to get you started:

Beauty Aids:

1. Skin Moisturizer
2. Lip moisturizer
3. Make-up remover
4. Under-eye treatment for bags and wrinkles
5. Prevent or treat stretch marks
6. Treat nails and cuticles
7. Smooth rough and cracked heels
8. Natural sunscreen
9. Treat dandruff
10. Reduce age spots
11. Tame hair flyaways
12. Dry hair treatment – leave in hair for a couple hours, then wash out
13. Make homemade body scrub – mix with sugar and essential oils
14. Natural deodorant
15. Shaving cream
16. Homemade toothpaste – mix with baking soda


Baby care:

17. Treat minor diaper rash
18. Treat cradle cap
19. Treat or prevent nipple irritation for nursing mothers
20. Increase milk flow in nursing mothers

Health and medicine:

21. Soothe bee stings or bug bites
22. Soothe sunburn
23. Energy boost
24. Prevent nose bleeds

Cooking:

25. Use while cooking in place of vegetable oil
26. Butter substitute
27. Use in place of shortening or pan spray
(For tons more ideas for using coconut oil in cooking, go here)

Around the house: 

28. Mix with lemon juice for natural furniture polish
29. Homemade Goo Gone
30. Leather moisturizer

This is by no means an exhaustive list.  If you use for coconut oil for something that's not on this list, would you mind leaving a comment and letting us know?

You can order coconut oil from Tropical Traditions.  Theirs is the highest quality oil I know of.

Anti-Procrastination Challenge: Company’s Comin’!

Inviting guests over may come easier to some of you than it does to me.  I always have some reason why I don't want to have anyone over.  I love spending time with friends and family, but it just feels like it's going to be too much work to make it all happen.  The excuses come flying through my thoughts at an incredible rate.  “I don't have time to get my house as clean as I want it.”  “Have you seen my living room?  It is in such serious need of re-decoration that I'm embarrassed to let anyone see it!”  “What in the world am I going to cook?  I don't have stuff on hand, and I really don't feel like going to the grocery store.”

Let me tell you, whenever I just go ahead and invite somebody over, all of the excuses seem to take care of themselves.  I suddenly have motivation to get my house clean; we end up with something to eat (maybe nothing gourmet, but food nonetheless); and my living room does not get re-decorated.  But, I am always so glad I decided to just invite somebody regardless of my embarrassing living room.  Time spent with friends or family is so enjoyable, and as a bonus I get a clean house and a good meal out of the deal too! (Maybe one of these days I'll also end up with a re-decorated living room.)

Are you procrastinating on inviting someone over because you're waiting on your house to be perfect or you've mastered gourmet cooking?

You're missing out on some priceless times with people you love.

Just invite them!  Once you've obligated yourself, you'll suddenly find yourself motivated to get your house clean and cook a decent meal.

Are you going to take the challenge?

I'm letting my crockpot do the work for me as I wait for my guests to arrive.  They'll be here any minute.

When are yours coming?

This post may be linked to one of these parties.

Spring Cleaning for the Easily Overwhelmed

Spring cleaning and I don't get along too well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm ready to get rid of the germs, dust, and cobwebs just as much as anyone else, but I get overwhelmed way too easily.  I march into a room ready to attack it full force, but before five minutes have passed I'm already ready to give up.

I want to empty every drawer, scrub it out, then re-organize it.  But before I can do that I have to try on clothes to determine what still fits and what I need to get rid of.  “Oh, goodness.  Is that a hole in that shirt?  I need to get that mended.”  
 Before I know it I'm sitting in the middle of a room full of empty drawers, piles of clothing, cleaning supplies, and now mending supplies.  I have a mess bigger than before I started, and I'm getting nowhere fast.

That is a rather drastic example, but honestly, I do have a really hard time not getting overwhelmed.  I want to do everything, and I want to do it all at the same time.  That approach gets me into a lot of trouble.

This year will be different.  My Anti-Procrastination challenge has made sure of that.  Instead of leaving every cleaning or organizing project to be a huge ordeal that takes a week to accomplish, I have been plugging away day by day on one thing at a time.

Instead of “spring cleaning” having the meaning of washing windows and curtains, moving furniture, scrubbing baseboards, and organizing drawers for a week straight, all it means to me is that I continue on doing one thing each day.  To be honest, there's really not even that much that needs to be done since I've been working on things since the beginning of the year.  We're nowhere close to 2013, but I've already decided the Anti-Procrastination challenge will be going on again in my life.  While I may not always feel like tackling one thing every day, it sure makes things easier in the long run!

What about you?  Are you dreading spring cleaning?  Are you easily overwhelmed by all that you want to accomplish?  For many of you it seems impossible to get that much cleaning done in a week's time, especially if you work or if you have small children.

Maybe you need to re-think your definition of spring cleaning.  Pick one thing to accomplish each day.  Just start with whatever it is that's bothering you the most.  Is it the cobwebs you see in the corner every time you sit down on the couch?  Or maybe the window you can't see out of because it's so dirty?  Just pick one thing and do it.  You'll only spend about 15 minutes, but you'll feel like you've accomplished so much!

Come back and tell me what you worked on today, okay?  In the meantime, I'll be spending a few minutes sucking some cobwebs out of the corners, then spending a fun-filled day enjoying my little ones!  No stress for me trying to keep them out of my way while I scrub for hours on end!

I'm linking this post to the Spring Cleaning Challenge at Amy's Finer Things 

Anti-Procrastination Challenge: Fulfill Your Promises

 I'm working right now on scanning a bunch of stuff that my sister-in-law needs.  It is a little time-consuming, and to be honest, I don't really feel like doing it.  I mean, it's boring sitting here waiting on stuff to scan and tedious to make sure I save all the files in the right place and get them all emailed to her. 

But, she is my sister-in-law, and I love her dearly.  This is stuff she really needs, and I promised her I would do it for her.  Procrastinating on it just because it's not exactly something  fun is not going to help her any, and it's going to leave it hanging over my head and making me feel badly that I haven't done it for her yet.

(If you're reading this, dear SIL, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty!  I'm happy to do it for you, it's just not exactly what I would call fun.  And my flesh would rather have fun than do work.) 

So, now that I've gotten this far on my post in between scannings, I am done with what I promised!  That wasn't so bad, was it? 

Your turn!

What have you told someone you would do for them, and why haven't you done it yet? Have you told your kids you would take them to the park, but haven't found the time because you're too busy working on your to-do list?  Have you made a promise to a friend out of politeness and conveniently forgotten about it?

Whatever it is, it's time to get rid of the excuses and do it!  I'd love for you to leave a comment letting me know what you've accomplished!

If you're just now joining our Anti-Procrastination challenge, you can read all the details here. be sure you're subscribed to email updates or follow me on Facebook to receive each day's new challenge!  

This post may be linked to one of these parties.

How to Grind Wheat in a Blender

Step one: Get some wheat berries.

I used hard white wheat berries, but it shouldn't make much difference what kind you use.

Step Two:  Get your blender ready to go.  Do not let the brand name of my blender fool you.  KitchenAid mixers are definitely 10 steps ahead of any other mixer, but their blenders?  Eh…not my favorite by any means.  All that to say – even if you have a cheap blender, it will probably work just fine.

Step 3:   Add the wheat berries and start grinding.  I only ground about a cup at a time.  The wheat berries jumped so high when I turned it on that I was afraid if I added any more the flour would start flying out the top of the blender.

Step four: I found that I needed to let it run on high for about 2 minutes. If I ground for less time it still had chunks. And if I ground for more time, it didn't seem to get any more fine, but the motor started heating up the flour.

Step five: Bake some bread or rolls using your favorite whole wheat bread recipe.  I actually made some of both.  My bread didn't turn out too pretty, but you get the idea.

My conclusion:  The blender definitely does not get the flour very fine.  The dough feels very gritty when you're working with it.  But as you can see from the pictures, it is still very useable.  (How pretty your bread turns out just depends on how good of a cook you are – which I'm obviously not the greatest!)

Update: I tried making blender pancakes and was super happy with how they turned out! The wheat berries ground up even more nicely with the liquid added to the blender. Click here for the blender pancakes recipe.

Anti-Procrastination Challenge: Just Buy It!

This is a hard one for my tightwad stingy frugal self.  The back of our office chair fell off a good while ago.  Really, I can't even remember when it was.  Maybe a few months?  Six months?  More?  I don't know.  We just kept using it like it was “until we get a new one.”  Well, we haven't gotten a new one yet.

I have lots of excuses, the main one being, “I just haven't found a good deal on one.”  I don't buy anything unless it's a really, really, really, really good deal.  Or free.  That's the truth.  (That would be why I run another blog all about deals and free stuff!)   

But, even though there have been several times I've come up with pretty much the best deal I'm gonna find on an office chair, my tightwad stingy frugal self always backs down at the last minute.  I just hate spending the money, good deal or not.

Well, this whole Anti-Procrastination thing has had an over-riding theme of getting rid of excuses.  The broken chair is hideously ugly, and it's bugging both my husband and me.  It's time to just buy a new one!  Part with that money already!  I'm biting the bullet today and getting a new chair!

Your turn!

What is it that needs to be replaced in your home?  Hey, it could be something as simple as a lightbulb, but it's just made its way to the bottom of the list.  Just buy it!

Please be aware that I'm not advocating your going out and spending money you don't have.  Please, no!  But, if it's within reason and needs to be replaced, what is keeping you from buying it?  You may need to be purposeful about rearranging your budget a little bit so you can financially fit in that purchase this month.  But you'll be glad you did when you can stop looking at that ugly, broken whatever-it-is and wishing you had a new one!

If you're just now joining our Anti-Procrastination challenge, you can read all the details here. be sure you're subscribed to email updates or follow me on Facebook to receive each day's new challenge!

This post may be linked to one of these parties.