Taking CBD for Anxiety Relief

I have anxiety. I was in denial about that until just a few years ago. As a teenager I was aware I was depressed, but I pushed that aside and deep inside, but when mental health stuff came up again strongly about five years ago, I was sure it was depression. But when I explained what was actually happening to a good friend, they pointed out that some of what I thought was depression was actually anxiety. Oh, and panic attacks? That's anxiety. I guess I was in denial about that because it was embarrassing enough to be depressed, but to admit to having anxiety made me feel like I was calling myself a scaredy cat and not a strong woman. I know that is very judgemental of myself, but it was even harder to admit to myself that I was anxious than admitting I was depressed (and even that was a big challenge and took almost a year of therapy to tease out). 

Anxiety can really suck. 

It can make phone calls feel scary, either making them or answering them. 

It can make social get togethers intimidating.

It can make you afraid that you'll lose your friends and be all alone in the world.

It can make you constantly fearful that you'll lose your job. 

It can make you have panic attacks that make you have a hard time breathing and your chest hurt.

It can make you spiral into all sorts of what-ifs, catastrophizing and assuming the worst will happen, no matter how unlikely.

It can be so bad that it makes your life feel so terrible that you even contemplate ending it.

Anxiety sucks.

But you don't have to live with constant anxiety. There are ways that someone can lessen that anxiety to a more manageable level or even get rid of it completely.

Which Careers Give Skills You Can Transfer to Nursing?

With the world in turmoil now and many jobs precarious, lots of people have chosen to switch directions in their career choices. Nursing is a profession that will always be in need. If you're considering switching to a career in nursing, here's some professions that you may already have that give skills crucial to nursing.

Becoming a nurse is a highly popular, rewarding, and lucrative career path. If you are considering a change of career, nursing is a field which may be worth considering. But what skills do you need to become a nurse?

Qualifications

Of course, there are usually qualifications needed to start a career in nursing. However, in many cases it is possible to gain these qualifications through on-the-job training as long as you have the skills and determination needed to make it in this career path. Registered Nurses need to be caring, helpful, able to work as a part of a team, and confident working under pressure. If you have these skills, you may already be off to a good start! Ultimately, having these personal skills is a much more important foundation than having experience in the medical field. 

Thankfully, there are many careers that can teach you these skills. You may think that your existing or previous career is so different from nursing that you would need to entirely start from scratch with your education. However, you may well have already learned some of the skills needed to start a second career in nursing in your working life so far! Career fields that teach skills that can be transferred to a career in nursing include (but are not limited to) the following:

Low Carb Vegan Cheese Sauce Recipe - Nightshade Free, Paleo, Allergy Friendly

Recently my friend Elaine reached out to me asking for my vegan cheese sauce recipe, but then wanted to know if I had a way to do it without nightshades since her husband doesn't eat them. I thought for a bit and then gave her a suggestion, but then thought about tweaking my recipe even more. There are recipes for vegan cheese sauce that are high in carbohydrates. There are recipes for vegan cheese sauces that are nut-based. There are recipes for vegan cheese sauces that are soy based. But was it possible to make a vegan cheese sauce that is both nightshade free, low carbohydrate, and without any of the common allergens (so no soy or nuts or sesame etc...)? 

I think I got it. This recipe for vegan low carb nightshade free allergy friendly cheese sauce tastes great. Is easy to make. Cheap too. It's good for pretty so many different diets including the keto diet, and Paleo.

I'll admit I still like my original one better, because I'm a sucker for sweet, but this is definitely a good recipe and my kids agree. Feel free to put it on anything that you think tastes better with cheese, whether veggies, sandwiches, tacos, etc...

Low Carb Vegan Cheese Sauce Recipe - Nightshade Free, Paleo, Allergy Friendly

The Ultimate Guide to Buying Your Very First Property

I was lucky to be able to buy a home approximately 5 years ago. While home ownership definitely has its challenges, it has also been very rewarding. If you're thinking of buying your first property, here's some things you might want to consider first.

Your home is quite possibly the biggest purchase you will ever make in your life. If you make a mistake, it’s going to cost you. If you want to avoid this, then this guide will help you to find out everything you need to know.

The Ultimate Moving Guide

I hate moving with a passion. I've done it twice in my adult life (moving a whole home) and it is one of the most stressful experiences I've gone through. However there are a few things you can do to make it easier. This moving guide from a reader is definitely a big help with that. 

According to Removalists Melbourne, almost half the Australia population has moved various houses in the last six years. This proves that people are in continuous search of better residential options and the importance of being ready and prepared to move to not lose out an opportunity for better living conditions at an affordable price.

And that is why a ready-made house moving checklist provides the right starting point to such a huge endeavour.

It also helps that, the checklist being accumulated by surveying many who have experience in house moving and learning from their regrets, will be the most practical and useful guide to potential movers.

Here are the numbered guidelines, priority-wise to all who are set to move into a new house.

Dealing With Endless Quarantine Without Spiraling

The last few weeks in my house have been "fun" to say the least. Over winter break my two autistic kids still had school but it was optional, and I decided not to send them so that we could do nice things together as a family when my other kids had off. 

It turns out that that was a good decision because one of the girls in Rose's class got diagnosed with corona, and everyone who was in school during that time needed to quarantine. So Rose went off to school and had more or less one on one time with the few teachers and therapists who were also not exposed and therefore weren't in quarantine. 

Just a few days after the kids went back to school, one morning after Rose had already left to school but none of the other kids did, we got a call from Anneliese's school telling us that her teacher was diagnosed and her entire class needs to go into quarantine for the next 10 days. Because I can't just quarantine one kid away from everyone else in the house, we decided that everyone at home would quarantine together, but Rose would go to her dad and continue going to school and not need to quarantine.

We went through our 10 days of quarantine, looking forward to the time when the kids could rejoin Rose, me being able to see her again, and both her dad and I being able to get some time without kids when we found out that one of the few kids that hadn't previously been quarantined since she didn't go to school over break, came down with corona, so now Rose and the few teachers that hadn't been in quarantine until that point now needed to quarantine, until Saturday. 

The kids were sad about this, and we were counting down the days until Sunday when they could be reunited. And then I get told that someone that Rose and her dad saw yesterday was diagnosed with corona so now they need to go into quarantine for 2 weeks. (Let me just point out that this was a person who broke quarantine rules because he got one negative corona test, but the second one came back positive so that's why.) This has been especially hard on Anneleise because she and Rose are buddies and play with each other a lot and entertain each other a lot, and she really misses her sister. She told me that she regrets ever saying that she wishes she didn't have a sister, because now she sees how much she relies on her sister.

So being that this is quarantine after quarantine, I wanted to share some tips on how we're managing here, and what I'm doing to try to get through this without spiraling emotionally, something that is very easy to do with all this stress.

Science-Based and Affordable Ways to Fight Stress and Anxiety

Are you stressed out? Ok, that was a trick question. I think nearly everyone today is stressed out. Stress has a negative effect on people's overall health. The question is how to deal with it. Here's some tried and true stress relief tricks from a reader.

Everyone deals with stress nowadays, whether related to family issues, work problems, or other factors. Research shows that 79% of Americans experience stress daily. And while medical treatments are effective, most are expensive, and not everyone affords them. So what can you do to relieve your anxiety without breaking the bank? 

Here is an extensive list of ways to decrease stress.

When you’re stressed out, your body and mind feel it. Therefore, to loosen up, you should release each muscle group in your body, starting with your fingers and toes and extending to your back, abdominals, and chest.

When your body feels relaxed, your mind easily follows. Progressive relaxation is a technique many therapists use to improve depression and anxiety symptoms. Check online to find out how to perform progressive relaxation at home.

Sweet and Sticky Tofu Recipe- Gluten Free, Vegan, Easy, and Delicious

My kids aren't the hugest fans of tofu. Plain, that is. They refer to it as a white sponge. But if it's prepared with lots of flavor, as in this recipe, they definitely appreciate it. 

I made this tofu recipe based on my sweet and sticky green beans recipe and used it for poke bowls and my family devoured it. This is a great way to give bland tofu a flavor oomph. 

It's gluten free and vegan and easy to make as well. Feel free to use it as is, or as a side dish, or as an addition to salads, etc. Be creative. It's delicious.

Oh, did I mention it's really easy too?

Sweet and Sticky Tofu Recipe- Gluten Free, Vegan, Easy, and Delicious

Easy Sesame Carrot Salad Recipe - Gluten Free, Vegan, Paleo, Allergy Friendly and Frugal

I almost feel like this is too simple and silly to be a recipe, but it's yummy and good, and so what if it's ridiculously easy? I made this side dish kind of accidentally, because I was making poke bowls (another post on that soon) and wanted to put grated carrots in it, but didn't want to leave them plain. I thought about what flavors would go well together and did it, and it came out delicious enough to want to eat it plain. I thought at first that since it was so simple I should probably add some extra stuff to it like garlic, but while it's fine with garlic, I think it's even better without.

Easy Sesame Carrot Salad Recipe - Gluten Free, Vegan, Paleo, Allergy Friendly and Frugal

DIY Painting Frugal Colorful Accent Walls -- My Successful Cheapskate Experiment

Where I live, apartments nearly always come painted a stark white. Wallpaper isn't really a thing here, nor is colored walls. You see, when you rent an apartment, you have to return it fully painted, and the standard is white, so most people don't bother painting their walls another color, especially since painting jobs aren't so cheap. However, coming from other countries where non-white walls are standard, people often want colored walls or at least something to bring a pop of color into the room instead of industrial standard white.

My friend and I were talking and she was looking for ways to inexpensively bring life and color into her house. She theoretically liked the idea of painting one wall in a room an accent color, but paint is expensive here and colored paint is even more expensive. I knew from experience locally that while colored paint wall paint is expensive, white paint is cheaper, and whitewash is even cheaper than that, by far. The cheapskates locally use whitewash to paint the walls, but whitewash can possibly come off onto you if you lean on the wall, so they recommend only using whitewash to paint ceilings. 

I had an idea to maybe mix whitewash with a bit of the type of paint used here in craft projects with kids. They call it gouache here, but it isn't the gouache you have in the states- it's more like tempera paints or acrylic paints, or maybe poster paint. I'm just going to call it tempera for this post though. I had no idea if it would work or not, but suggested it to her as an experiment. My friend didn't want to experiment with her walls, so I said that I'd try it out.

It took me a few months to actually try it.

But before I talk about that, I want to mention costs.

I know that whitewash is cheaper than acrylic paint locally. I'm having trouble finding exact cost comparisons on the internet though. So you'll have to actually check local pricing before being assured that this is indeed cheaper where you live. 
However, I found this recipe for making homemade whitewash. I have no idea if it will work as well as with the store-bought whitewash that I used, but again, it's worth an experiment.

When I painted my dad's apartment, I ended up with some leftover whitewash. So I didn't need to buy that for this experiment. I already had tempera paints as well for crafting with kids. I also had a paint roller, paintbrush, and paint rolling tray. So when one of my girls asked me when I can get a start on making their room more girly, I decided it was the perfect time for an experiment.

One of the walls in the kids' room and part of the ceiling was no longer white. Because years ago I was trying to do something with puffy paint and it wouldn't come out. I squeezed it harder and harder and finally it exploded, all over the wall and the ceiling. I tried cleaning up the paint but it just smeared the green onto the wall, so I smeared it purposefully, into the shape of palm trees. But it wasn't the most beautiful thing. And when we got a spare freezer we put it in that room, blocking part of the ad hoc trees.

I figured that the perfect place to experiment was behind the freezer, where it would be blocked anyhow, and if that worked, over the trees which looked bad anyhow. It definitely couldn't make things worse, even if it didn't work out.

We decided to go with the color pink. Ike who still shares a room with the girls isn't too thrilled about that, to be honest. But hopefully, soon we'll be able to make him his own room.

I knew that one of the biggest potential issues with making my own color is ensuring that it is uniform throughout. So I made sure to write down the "recipe" so that I could recreate it if it worked out.

For this recipe, I used 3 paper cups filled with whitewash, and one squirt of red tempera paint. It made a medium pink. If you'd want a paler pink, go with 4 or 5 cups of whitewash.

Mix it well. Very well. Very very well. The first time I did this I didn't mix the stuff well enough on the bottom and I got some red speckles that were hard to get rid of. 

Then roll it onto the wall. I started with a pretty uniform layer.

And then I let it dry.

I had no idea if it would dry ok. Would it crack? Would it peel? Would it look ok?

But fortunately, so far so good. 

Once I saw it worked ok I tried painting over the green. Whitewash is thin, and the green was dark, so it took 4 or 5 layers to cover the green, waiting in between each time for it to fully dry before applying another layer.

Mid painting. Still needed 2 more layers to cover up the green "tree".

It worked so well that we ended up expanding the area and going up to the ceiling and over the door frame to our stockpile/pantry and down an adjacent strip of wall. 

I didn't do a perfect job because the masking tape I had wasn't working properly (that's what I get for leaving it outside in the rain) so I'll have to paint over the pink that got onto the ceiling and wall with white, using the masking tape.

But overall, I'd say this experiment was a smashing success. I'm tempted to make a light grey to paint one of my living room walls now. For that I'd probably use a teaspoon of black tempera to 5 or 6 cups of whitewash. 

This project is far from done, but it doesn't need to be done for me to share this cool idea with you.

In terms of texture, I did want to mention that the wall that I painted with my homemade pink paint is a bit rougher to the touch than our other walls in our house, but not noticeably, and the color doesn't come off onto my hands or clothing once dried.

Since I can't promise how this experiment will work for you with the equipment you have available, I'd suggest trying with paints you have available- poster paint, tempera paint, acrylic paint, etc... and the cheapest white paint you have, whether its homemade whitewash, milk paint, or white wall paint, and see how it works, experimenting on a little area first, and if that works, moving on to bigger areas.

Also, this reminds me that I still never got around to my post about what I learned painting my father's apartment- I'll try to write that post soon!

Are your walls in your home colorful? With paint or wallpaper? If you've redone walls in your home, did you paint them yourself or pay someone else to do it? Did you end up going with white because it is cheaper, or did you go with color? If you looked into the price difference, how much was the difference between white and colorful? What is the cheapest type of white paint you can get locally? What is the difference between whitewash and white paint where you live? Does this look like an experiment you'd try?