My Journey with DoTerra Essential Oils

I've been using DoTerra essential oils for a little while now and wanted to share my amazing experience with them. I rave about them because they work! 

I ordered the Family Physician Kit because it contained all the individual oils I wanted to purchase, plus a few extras that I was able to try out! It contains a 5mL bottle of each: lavender, lemon, peppermint, melaleuca, oregano, frankincense, Deep Blue, Breathe, DigestZen, and OnGuard (the last 4 are oil blends).

The lavender, lemon, and peppermint are the single oils I use most. Ethan and I both suffer from mild seasonal allergies. We've been using the combo of these three oils to treat the allergies and I have been able to stop taking my meds! We diffuse the lavender at night and we have both been sleeping better. We also put lemon in our water each day which tastes wonderful and helps reset your pH levels and detox your liver (**if using essential oils other than DoTerra, please be sure to check that you can actually ingest them. DoTerra is the highest quality and are safe for internal use). We diffuse peppermint in the afternoon to help perk us up in the afternoon slump.

OnGuard and Breathe are constantly being diffused in our home. OnGuard actually purifies the air and Breathe helps you, well, breathe better. OnGuard is the DoTerra equivalent to Thieves oil that you might have heard of. We put it on the bottoms of our feet for immune boosts, too. Breathe is great to rub on your throat if you feel stuffy or if your throat is bothering you. You will feel it working immediately.

If you know me, you know I have had 'tummy' issues my whole life. DigestZen is my new best friend. I keep a bottle on me at all times, but lately have rarely had to use it. I think the lemon in our water is helping a lot. But the DigestZen calms the stomach and intestinal tract. If you start having those tummy issues we all hate, you just rub a few drops on your abdomen, sit back and relax, and feel better in a minutes. I'm not joking. I love this stuff. And it smells amazing to me!

If you have questions, please let me know! And if you want to look around the DoTerra site for more info, check this out: www.mydoterra.com/emilyrosejones

Favorite Stretches/Yoga Poses

Good morning!

It's rainy and yucky here today, which made waking up hard, but my nails are painted (finally) and the flowers on my desk are beautiful, so it's a happy day, nonetheless. God is so very good to us!

I have a new blog in my list of 'favorites.' Primally Inspired.

When I started looking into cooking gluten free dinners, Kelly's website was one of the first I came across and I have drooled over every single recipe of hers that I've tried. I'll have to do a whole post of my favorite recipes she has posted.

But today, I want to share with you some posts she did about stretching for good posture.

-Stretches for Low Back Pain and Posture: Sitting at my desk all day and wearing heels most days, I tend to have a little low back pain. Truly, if you do these stretches the way she describes in sequence, you'll feel stronger and more open. I even mind myself more aware of my posture the next day.

-Stretches for Rolled Shoulders and Posture: Again, sitting at my desk and working at a computer or reading and typing papers, you will notice that your shoulders will roll forward. The first few times I did this, the next day, my muscules were a little sore. Just goes to show that I needed to strengthen the back muscles to hold the shoulders in better posture. I have found these so very helpful.

I usually do both of these routines back to back, at least every other day. They are very helpful and easy to do! You should try them and also check out Kelly's blog. She's great!

Happy Monday, friends. Have a great week!

A few homemade snacks...

So, how about a proper blog post?

Earlier this year, in an attempt to save money and better control the ingredients we eat, I started making our snacks. Ethan and I both eat 3 small meals per day, with small healthy snacks in between. Since we started enjoying these homemade snacks, we've never gone back! I'm not a huge Pinterest user, but here is a link to the board for the healthy food: Healthy & Yummy. Here are a few that we use regularly...

No Bake Energy Bites : I make mine a little differently. I double the recipe, which lasts Ethan and I one week. I don't use the flax seed. I used unsweetened coconut, all natural peanut butter, and sometimes I don't add the vanilla. We have tried it with cinnamon chips instead of chocolate and it is amazing! You can change this up in so many ways, but they are delicious and I highly recommend them.

Frozen Granola Bars : We keep these in the freezer for an evening snack/dessert substitute. They are easy to make and delicious. We don't always add dried fruit and I have used honey instead of maple syrup and I think we liked that better!

Homemade Lara Bars: I don't have a recipe to link for you, but here it is: 4 cups pitted dates, 2 cups raw almonds, 1 cup chocolate chips, 2 Tbsp peanut butter.  Put half the almonds in a food processor and chop. Add chocolate chips and pulse until combined and chopped. Put in a bowl. Put half the dates in food processor and pulse until it forms a combined ball. Add half the peanut butter and pulse until combined. Put the almond/chocolate chip mixture in the processor with the dates and pulse until combined. Put in a 9x13 in pan. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Press both batches in the same 9x13 pan until stuck together. Cover and refrigerate until set (a few hours) and cut into 16 bars. Wrap individually or keep in the pan and remove as needed. They don't have to be kept cool during the day, so feel free to sick on in a bag in your purse to munch on during the day. These are YUMMY!

KIND bars: Do yourself a favor and make these IMMEDIATELY! They are crunchy, sweet, salty, and fabulous. You have no idea. I don't make it all organic, for the record, and I used peanut butter instead of sunbutter. But these will quite possibly change your life. Wow.

Happy snacking!

A Quick Update

It's been a while since I've posted. It's not for a lack of happenings in the Jones world, but because I just feel like everyone will be bored by what I have to say. But here's what we've been up to:

• This summer we moved into a rental house. Actually, it's more than that. We are taking care of our friends' house because they are living in Germany for one year. It's been nice to be off campus and our of an apartment for the first time in our 7 years of marriage.
• Ethan began teaching at the seminary as a teaching assistant. He is doing this in conjunction with his job at the church. He is talented and smart and absolutely loving it.
• Ethan is in year 2 of his PhD and is reading like crazy. He enjoys school very much and I'm glad that God has called him to it.
• I hosted 2, one day girls' retreats at church for our ministry. They were both a lot of fun, totally different, and allowed me to have one of my best friends come in to speak. She nailed it and I'm so proud of her. Read her blog here: www.elissawroberts.com
• We went on vacation to see our friend on the coast. We had 3 days of rest, eating, and beach walking, but mostly a lot of talking. We love and miss Michelle too much.
• We said "see you later" to our precious friend, Sarah, who is following God's call to Asia. She has been a crucial part of our ministry for 3 years. We miss her but are so proud of her.
• We said "see you later" to some of our best friends, Lauren and Kevin, who are following God's call to Asia, also. If I write too much, I'll start bawling my eyes out, but let me just say that Ethan and I are so blessed to call these two friends.
• We have visits from both our families, which we always love.
• We have entered the 'season of weddings' at church. One of the joys of working with college and young adult age people is watching so many sweet relationships form. We've had 2 and have at least 3 more coming up.
• We are looking forward to Thanksgiving break when we'll head to New Orleans for a few days with my parents!

See, what did I tell you? Super exciting, right? No. But we are happy, loving life, and so thankful for what God has blessed us with and what he's doing in our lives.

Hopefully, I'll update more quickly next time!

It's a new year...

2013.

I feel like it came quickly. Over the last few days, I've been going over all that happened in 2012 and it was quite a packed year.

As a way to remember the high points, I'll share some photos:

My sweet friend Michelle came home after 2 years abroad.

I learned to quilt.

We had a baby shower for DeAnna.

And then got to meet one of DeAnna's baby girls.

Went to Catalyst Dallas.

Went to weddings and graduations.

Especially Kirby's, my brother in law.

hung out with these girls a lot.

Went on vacation with friends...

...in New Orleans.

celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.

spent a lot of time with our students.

Fancy Ketchup and French Mustard for Halloween.

fun parties with our students.

Moved apartments.

Sis and bro in law moved to TX.

made a lot of journals.

Had a great Christmas.

saw my BFFs.

But mostly, had a lot of fun just hanging out with this guy.

Praying 2013 is a great year, full of joy and laughter, lessons and learning.

Why I stopped blogging...for now

Several people have asked why I stopped posting, so I thought I'd give my answer, even though it's been several months! But prepare yourself...this is a super long post:

In June, Ethan and I went on vacation with some friends. While packing, my thought was, "My outfits have to be super cute because I'll need outfit photos for the blog." What? This was vacation! Why was I working? So, I decided not to worry about it too much and just be myself and be comfortable. And I very much enjoyed the break from thinking about the blog.

When we got home, I just took a little break from blogging regularly. I posted some, just not as much as normal. However, I felt this pressure on me to always look a certain way. I felt like if I just wanted to wear jeans and a plain t-shirt, it wasn't good enough. People were literally coming by my office asking to see what I was wearing and I just felt so much pressure to always look perfect. That is not a way to live!

So, I just stopped. It bothered me because I have never really cared much what people thought about my clothes. I just wore what I liked and what I thought looked interesting and I was always happy with that. So when I started caring about the opinion of others and started dressing to satisfy the blogosphere,  I decided that enough was enough.

You know what? I really liked not blogging every day.

Then I started feeling really run down. Like, exhausted all the time, from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. Just utterly exhausted. I thought I was just stressed (July was shaping up to be pretty crazy). But it wasn't getting better, and after several weeks of feeling this way, I went to the doctor who tested my iron and as it turned out, I was iron deficient. Simple answer! YAY! I began taking vitamins as suggested by my doctor, but then started feeling even worse.

I was throwing up, had a terrible headache, bad stomach pain, and the exhaustion was worse. I couldn't sleep well (only about 3-4 hours per night) even though I was horribly tired. I could barely walk around. All I could do was lay on the couch. I went back to the doctor, but all my blood work was normal. The only explanation I could think of was that I was pregnant, which would have been a surprise. Pregnancy tests came back negative. I finally made my yearly appointment with my OB/GYN and he confirmed that I was not pregnant, however, this weird rash that had appeared the day before looked suspiciously like shingles. What?

I went back to my general practice doctor and he confirmed the shingles diagnosis, which explained all the stomach pain and upset, headache, and severe exhaustion. But seriously, who gets shingles?! Apparently, stress can be a cause of shingles in people my age. So I took seriously the suggestion to whittle down my calendar to the essentials only, which was very difficult for me, and to rest a lot. I learned a lot during that time of being sick with the shingles (about 6 weeks total); to rely on people, take time for myself, spend a lot of time with the Lord, and keep my priorities in line.

Right before I went to the OB/GYN, I found a small lump in my breast. Kind of felt like a tiny marble. I have been in the practice of self exams ever since my mom found out she had breast cancer 6 1/2 years ago. You are never to early to start! I asked my doctor about it and he wasn't worried at all, but he did order a mammogram for when I was healthy again from the shingles.

I made my appointment at the Breast Center to have a mammogram and sonogram (exciting, right?) and  was so nervous, I could hardly stand it. What if they didn't like the look of it? What if it was cancer? What is something is wrong with me?! Ethan took me to my appointment and I had the best doctor! She took one look at the "mass" and said it looked totally normal, but since I have a history of breast cancer in my family, she wanted to do a biopsy of it.

I had the biopsy procedure this past Thursday, which involved making a tiny little incision and taking 3 core samples of the mass. I'll spare you the details, but it was a quick and easy procedure and if you EVER need a breast center, I will highly recommend Dr. Talwar to you. She and her team were unbelievable. I cannot praise them enough!

I received the results this morning and everything's fine!!! The samples came back as benign and the doctor is not at all concerned (she never really was, actually). I have a follow up appointment in April just to make sure everything still looks good, but again, they are not worried about it. I'm so thankful to be done with the waiting and praising God for good results!

All that to say, taking a break from the blog has been a good thing for me. I might pick up posting again, but it will be as I want it and when I have time. So, thanks for reading. Thanks for caring. And if you made it this far in the post, you are a trooper! I'll post another time about all the things I learned during the past few months. It would be crazy not to share it all. God has been so good to Ethan and me.

Have a great day, friends.

What a joy!

My sister, Molly, and I combined efforts over the last few weeks to make some journals to sell for our friends, Matt and Elissa Roberts, to help raise money for their adoption from Ethiopia.

Last week we were able to put a check in the mail for $700 to Matt and Elissa. That is unbelievable to me!! My goal was to make $300, but I would have been happy with $150, honestly. I just wasn't sure if people would want a journal. Molly had a much more confident goal set for us of $500, but I just couldn't see how that would be possible. But as it turns out, journal or not, people love to help other people raise money for adoptions. I was blown away at the amount of requests for journals that came in so quickly! We made lots of trips to Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart. Molly and I were fast and furiously making journals, sometimes until the late hours of the night, and praying over each one. I carried armfulls of packages to the post office, just overwhelmed with how many people were wanting to help our sweet, sweet friends.

Let me just share something that was really incredible to me. Only 31% of the precious people who bought a journal actually know or have met Matt or Elissa. That means 69% of the purchases were from people who don't know Matt and Elissa and most like never will know them! That is unbelievable to me! I am so thankful that the Body of Christ stepped up to serve my friends by doing something as simple as buying a journal. Honestly, I could not be more grateful. Molly and I could have made as many journals as we wanted, but without people to support the effort and give to Matt and Elissa, it would have been for nothing.

So, thank you for buying journals. Thank you for praying for Baby Roberts. Thank you for showing the love of Christ to those around you and blessing us and the Roberts family.

Matt and Liss, I love you guys more than I can say. I am so happy that you have obeyed God to bring a sweet orphan into your home. I know EEOO will forever be changed and will know the love God has for him or her. Lydia and Charlotte will be the BEST big sisters!!