Castor Oil

It is quite unglamorous to admit that I had a tiny wart near my thumb when I was 30 years old. I was either lazy or embarrassed to go to the dermatologist. At that time, I had a book by Edgar Cayce ( no computers yet at that time) and he wrote that to remove warts, put a dab of Castor Oil on it. I followed his advice and in a few days, my wart disappeared.

I am the living proof that Castor Oil does remove warts. It is also a very powerful laxative!

Throat Coats

My daughter,Rosanna, takes this concoction to battle sore throats! She was kind enough to share the recipe!

1 cup hot water

2 tbps apple cider vinegar

2 tbps honey

a dash of cayenne pepper

OR

you can substitute the apple cider vineger for fresh calamansi juice if you'd prefer!!! 

Cloves

There is big gentle man in our home who is scared of dentists but I can't tell you who he is. I promised him that I will respect and honor his privacy so I won't tell you his name.

Once he had a very bad toothache, it was soooooo bad, he stayed glued to the Internet just finding ways and means to alleviate his pain.

Voila, he read that CLOVE OIL , would do the trick, . He went to the kitchen and looked through our spice rack and settled for the regular MCCormick CLOVE spice. He rubbed the spice all over the affected area and true enough his toothache was gone.

When you smell the clove , you will notice that it smells exactly like something in a dentists clinic when you bring your mouth there for repairs.

Sambong

When my only son was in college, he would show me the skin allergy  on his back which would become more pronounced every time he would play basketball. Perhaps his clothes were not rinsed properly so I would always remind our helper to rinse them well.

Finally took him to Boy Fajardo  and he advised me to switch to Victoria Laundry soap . He also told my son to shower with  sambong leaves  boiled in water. The sambong leaves could be bought in Quiapo from a vendor named  ' Nora Aunor. ' ( not the singer ) .

I told my staff to buy P200 worth of sambong leaves in Quiapo . Little did I know that she would be bringing home two heavy sacks of sambong. She even had to take a taxi just to bring them home!

Our cook boiled the leaves in a huge vat of water,  and we would all  use it for our daily  baths for a week as we had an oversupply of sambong. The scent of the sambong was very mild. It was a mix of citrus and woody elements. It reminded me of camphor.

Later on, I read that the sambong has astringent properties , our grandparents must have used them as sponge baths . Some people would even immerse their body parts that had arthritis just to help them heal faster!

I will remind my only son to  remind me to take my sambong baths if I get arthritis in my old age! 

sweet dreams

When I go through my crazy hectic  days, I look forward to a nice cup of tarragon tea! Be sure to boil the tarragon leaves in a stainless steel pot . Cover the teacup with a saucer so that the leaves will steep some more .

I always fall into a deep sleep after a while. Hope this will work for some of you who have sleeping concerns.

hola guava

 

The past two weeks, I have been obsessed with guava leaves. I think it all started when my 2 year old granddaughter had a wound as big as a one peso coin. No one remembers how she got it , but when I got the call from my daughter about the wound, I had racing thoughts on what  natural poultice to put on it.

I zeroed in on the guava, simply because I would remember my mother reminding me to use the tea of guava leaves to heal the wounds of natural childbirth.

An empty lot near our home has a huge guava tree, I decided to pick some  leaves, the  young light green ones not the dark green leaves . My granddaughter was taking her afternoon nap, I washed the guava leaves with organic Victoria soap to remove any residue from pollution and pounded them. I then put them on her wound and covered it with a gauze. Thank God, my son in law wasn't asking what was on her leg. I asked the yaya to try to keep the guava poultice overnight .

The next morning , I called the yaya to put the guava leaves again..... After  two days, the wound was completely healed. Was I imagining it ? Or was it a miracle? I always marvel at all these natural gifts from God! So many possibilities, we just have to look around us.

smells like vinegar

One day, little miss dress up was running a very high fever, I desperately wanted to bring down the fever to make her feel more comfortable.. I remember a tv episode 'Balintataw' where I appeared as the daughter of Barbara Perez and Robert Arevalo. This was decades ago , and in that episode I was nursing a fever , and Barbara would put a towelette soaked in vinegar on my forehead.

I googled in the Internet and read up on this home remedy . In between giving little miss dress up sponge baths of tap water every 30 minutes. I also put a towel soaked in vinegar on her forehead. I even did extreme measures by letting her wear socks soaked in vinegar too. I would resoak the towel and socks in vinegar every hour. Little miss dress up was too weak to complain about the smelly vinegar , I covered her in a thick blanket and slept beside so I can guard her fever with my life. ( none of my kids hardly ever got sick while growing up so when they do, my panic button is on red alert)


The next day , Little miss dress up was up and about with no trace of the weakness and high fever of the previous day.

Up to this day, I never told her that the vinegar I used was the SINAMAK variety, one that is filled with chili peppers etc. We had run out of the plain traditional Quezon organic vinegar earlier!

Forgot to mention that I would give her two 200 mg tablets of Provimin spirulina every 6 hours to improve her immune system and lots of water too, but I made sure she didn't drown.