Have oils, will travel!!

          So recently (like this past weekend) I got to go on a weekend away with a super cool friend. We went to Austin for the weekend and kept it really weird! :) Austin, sweet Austin. How I love your cooler weather, decreased humidity, strange folk and mellow vibe! We get along well, Austin and I, and I wish I could go more often!

            This trip was my FIRST trip since I became an oil junkie! (see oil junkie; noun; person who can not go an extended length of time without the use of oils in some way, shape or form. Also see addict)  So, as you can imagine I was a bit worried about how to travel with my oils. Which oils to take? How to transport them? To leave them in the room or take with me all the time? So many questions!!! Hopefully, by sharing what worked for me you may find some tips and tricks that will work for you too!

My Travel Oils

          1 - What to take?
                       This was tough! I have probably close to 30 different oils at the house right now. I don't use them all on a regular basis, but I wanted to take enough that I could deal with things that I thought may come up on my weekend adventure. So, what did I take??

Stress away, Joy, Cedarwood, Lemon, Peppermint, Lavender and Tea Tree.

Stress Away and Joy because my trip was supposed to be fun and relaxing. I wasn't going to let anything stop that from happening.

Cedarwood and Lavender to support all of  the systems the help run my body because I wasn't sure if I would have trouble sleeping. With my crazy work schedule and sleeping in a new, strange place I wanted to be prepared.

Lavender, Lemon and Peppermint to support my respiratory system! Being in Austin, I wasn't sure what funky things wold be in the air and I wasn't taking any chances of those funky things ruining my weekend!

Tea Tree because, well, I love the smell and I'm using it for skin care support right now!

Pencil Bag turned Oil Carrier!

         2 - What to take it in?
                      I don't have any of the fancy cases (yet) that are offered by a variety of companies. While I thought about buying one, it was too late to get it in time for my trip. I looked around my house to see what I could possibly turn into an oil carrier. It had to be on the smallish side, I wasn't taking all my oils! It had to be about the height of the 15mL bottle. Much bigger than that and it would allow the bottles to topple over. Viola! I found this! A cheap pencil bag I bought a few years back at the dollar store! It was perfect! My 5 big and 2 little bottles fit perfectly!! I was set! Yes!  I stowed this handy dandy little bag inside my big bag that served as my suitcase. Making sure to keep it rigth side up, and between things so it wouldn't fall over and my prescious oils wouldn't leak all over!

         3 - Leave them in the room or take them with me?
                       I have a 31 bag that I carry around with me in my vehicle. It is my purse substitute. I keep the things I need in it, and take them out and with me as needed. I try not to carry around a purse. I've just never been a purse girl. I'll take my wallet into stores and such as needed, and then chunk it back in my bag. Most of the time, I applied my oils in the morning and let them safe in my room. One day I did take them with me, when it was cool out, and left them shaded in the bag in my truck. Worked out well.

          Traveling with my oils was easier than I thought!  I didn't need an expensive oil carrier to accomplish my goal of traveling with some of my oils. I think it helped that I only brought that ones I thought I'd need. I do wish that I'd traveled with a small diffuser, to use in my room at night. With the weather being so nice last weekend in Austin, we didn't run the AC! We slept with the windows open! I tried putting a few drops of Stress Away on a cottonball and setting next to the bedside table. That didn't seem to work too well. But other than that, I wouldn't change a thing!


          Want to learn more about oils? Have questions you'd like to ask me, or topics you'd like me to blog about? Click the oily tab at the top of this page, or email me at yankecwgrl@hotmail.com

Lemon! Who knew?

Hey y'all!! Thought I'd type out this informative little post really quick before I head off to our make and take event tonight. What is a make and take? It is a fun little event we host monthly that allows people to try oils! Sounds fun, right? It really is! Tonight we are doing a Halloween theme, and our containers for the items to be taken home in are tooooo cute!!! I'll come back and post a picture
later. Anyway, on to the reason for my blog post today.......

            So, for this particular event I was in charge of one of the containers. Frankenstine! I picked up the perfect green paint, already had my repurposed Starbucks jars cleaned and ready to roll, and I was good to go! Laid out some cardboard on the outside table to keep it from turning green, and away I went. Sprayed those suckers down in about 5 mins and went back in the house. I planned on leaving them out to dry for at least 2 hours. The can of spray paint said 2-4 hours until they were dry to the touch. I popped my head out the back door after about 30 minutes had gone by, just to check on the jars. It was a bit windy outside but I didn't think it was windy enough to knock the jars over. Well y'all, it wasn't the wind I should have been worried about, it was my husband's chickens!!! Yes, my husband has a small herd of chickens, about 25ish hens and 4 roosters. Those stupid buggers had gotten up on the table and knocked all my jars over! TWO were on the ground, and the rest managed to stay on the table. I ran down the steps yelling at them and waving my hands to scare them off. Ugh, I seriously dislike chickens, and this little escapade didn't help me in the chicken love department. The two jars on the ground had sticks, dirt, grass and feathers all over them. The other 5 that remained on the table had a spot or two where the paint had been rubbed off, but were fine otherwise. So, two at a time I carry the jars inside and set them upside down on our small freezer. As you can imagine, wet paint plus a trip inside equals paint all over my finger tips. Even though I was as careful as possible in my chicken induced rage, I still managed to go paint on my hands.

            So, this led to another problem. How to get the paint off my fingers. I knew water wouldn't work. This was outdoor type paint, Rustoleum, I think. I could hear my husband's voice in my head saying there are cans in the back yard with gas and diesel in them, that'll take the paint off! Gross! I don't want to put that stuff on me! I don't want to smell like gas or diesel either! Then, I had a lightbulb moment! I remembered that, a while back, I used Lemon oil to get some gunk off one of my apples. I wondered if it would work on the Frankenstein green paint that was now dried onto my fingertips? Well, I knew that if I didn't work, no harm would be done. So, I reached for my bottle of Lemon oil and dropped a drop on one of the paint spots and rubbed. Y'all, it worked like a charm! One drop on each spot, run it around, and wipe with a paper towel. That simple! No harsh, harmful chemicals on my hands to remove it, and my hands smelled great! That is a win, win!

            Want to learn more about oils? Click the oily tab at the top of this page, or email me at yankecwgrl@hotmail.com

This & That!

            A little bit of this, and a little bit of that! I've been up to many oily things lately.....but none that I've been using enough to devote an entire blog post to. So, I'm going to give you a little preview of  a few of the things I'm working on.

            About 3 weeks ago one of my puppies (ok, he's almost 6, but to me he is still a puppy!) got a horrid infection. On his NOSE! Yes, his NOSE of all places.  Poor fella. His nose got dry and cracked and it bled. Poor boy. I felt so bad. So, off to the vet we went. Two different types of medicines and two weeks later, the infection is cleared up. His poor little nose, however, isn't back to normal. So, I started giving him coconut oil in his food while he was sick. It didn't really help. I then tried putting some on his nose. That worked a little bit, until it dried up, but then once the oil soaked in it was back to dry. I reached out to an "oily" friend of mine, and her reply was simple. Add Lavender oil to the coconut oil. Seemed easy enough, since I had Lavender oil on hand already! So, for the past 5 days I've been adding Lavender oil to the coconut oil. I'm happy to report that his nose is getting much softer and much more like that cold, wet nose I've grown to love!

            I have very sensitive skin. I'm allergic to all sorts of Laundry soaps and lotions and sun screens and any other thing you can think of that most people are ok putting on their bodies. My skin gets red and gets bumps on it. So, to take care of one of the issues, I've started using coconut oil with some essential oil added in for a nice aroma, in place of lotions.  :)  The coconut oil by it self moisturizes my skin and doesn't make it red and bumpy. Adding any essential oil has also not bothered my skin, and makes my skin smell wonderful! I actually applied some coconut oil and essential oil not too long after I used a "regular" lotion, and it took the redness and bumps away not too long after I put it on.

            So, in my "quest" to rid my house (and life, in general) from as many chemicals as possible, I'm changing how a do a lot of things.  I believe the is a correlation between the chemicals in our lives and some of the sicknesses and diseases that are harming us. I've already cleaned out all the nasty, chemical ridden cleaners from under my kitchen sink and have replaced them with one, all natural cleaning product. Thieves Household Cleaner. See my post about that here. Along those lines, I'm changing my laundry soap, and dryer sheets. I ordered some wool dryer balls. You use them instead of chemical and fragrance laden dryer sheets. To give them a pleasant aroma, simply add a few drops of essential oil to each one and you are good to go. They are reusable, and supposedly last quite a while. I'm waiting until I replace my current laundry soap to try them out. This should happen soon, just a few more loads worth of detergent in that jug I think.  Once I've used both the new laundry detergent and the wool dryer balls for a little while I will be making an entire post about my opinion of both products.

            So, those are just a few of the "oily" things I've been up to lately! Questions? Feel free to email me directly!  Ready to start your own oily journey? Sign up here! Our team is full of positive, helpful fellow oilers who are ready to guide you each step of the way!