Make it Yourself Monday

My friend, Susan, has inspired me. She keeps passing on tidbits of information on her "Thrifty Thursdays" and "Frugal Fridays." So I decided to get in on the fun. And I encourage each one of you to get in on the fun as well! Here's how it will work. Every Monday (Lord willin' and the creek don't rise), I'll post something that I chose to make myself, instead of heading to the store to purchase. If you want to participate, too, leave me a comment below the post and include a link to your blog. Share on your blog something that you have made instead of purchased, and be sure to link back to my blog. It's that easy! I can't wait to see some of the great things everyone makes, and get some good ideas myself!

For today's "Make it Yourself Monday," I wanted to share a natural remedy with you. Saturday night, I got into some dust and other things floating in the air, and by the end of the night, I could feel my head starting to get congested. By Sunday morning, I was trying to decide whether or not to go to church, but I went anyway. I should have stayed home in the bed! I felt terrible! And by last night, my chest felt as though an elephant was standing on it!

Something you should know about me is that I really do not trust doctors - at all. (It takes everything in me just to take Little Man to see his endocrinologist, and I KNOW he HAS to do that!!) I never go to the doctor for illness. And rarely do I even take medicine. I prefer the "let it run its course" approach. God made my body to kill off whatever infection found its way in, so I prefer to just take it easy and let it do its job.

But just because I don't take over the counter meds to clear up a head and chest cold doesn't mean I don't do anything! This morning, I got up and poured myself a nice cup of hot herbal tea to help ease the pain in my chest. Besides herbal teas, there are numerous other natural options that God has provided to assist our bodies in the healing process.

Two of my favorite natural remedies are honey and ginger. Both of these are antibacterial, antiviral, and antimicrobial, which means, it doesn't really matter which type of germ or virus got in, it won't be able to survive! One of my favorite ways to use honey and ginger is to make a syrup out of the two. First, I gathered my ingredients.

I pulled a piece of ginger out of the freezer. I usually use freshly dug ginger from my herb garden. But, I had to buy some recently from our local Asian market, because I overharvested my ginger last year. I am letting it grow for awhile now without digging any of it, so it will multiply and I'll have plenty once again. When I bought this ginger, I washed it, peeled it, and put it in the freezer. Ginger will last longer in the freezer, and it's also easier to grate when frozen.

I also pulled out the jar of local honey that I bought last week from my good friend, Amy. She raises her own bees, and I sometimes buy from her. I love to have local honey on hand at my house just for occasions such as this.

I grated my ginger using the small side of my grater. I have used the large side before, but it makes it a little harder to chew. And if I'm adding this syrup to an herbal tea, I don't really like the chunks of ginger. So I grated it very fine. You can grate as much or as little as you want to use. It all depends on how big of a batch you intend to make.

The last thing I did was pour some of the honey over the ginger. You only want to add enough honey to completely cover the ginger. It ends up being about half of each ingredient. I stirred it up well, and now I am letting it sit for an hour or so while the liquid from the ginger is released into the honey.

That's it! That's all there is to making your own honey ginger syrup. You can use this to sweeten your favorite herbal tea, take it by the spoonful, or, my favorite way, pour it over some hot toast! This is a great NATURAL way to fight off the sickies! I made a batch that should get me through this terrible upper respiratory infection that I ended up with, and if I need more, I can just make up another batch. And I don't have to drop everything and run to the store for meds! It's all in my kitchen cabinet.

I read something on my box of tea this morning that said, "We don't have laboratories. We have kitchens." That is a great saying. God made the best medicines, and most of them are things that we use every day as food. Nothing created in a lab can come close to the natural remedies that God has provided.

I hope you enjoyed today's "Make it Yourself Monday," and I hope you'll head to your kitchen to give this recipe a try. Don't forget to leave me a comment, post a link to your blog that shows your "Make it Yourself Monday" idea, and post a link on your blog leading back to my blog.

And now, I'm going to make me some toast with honey ginger syrup, and then I'm going to take a NAP!