The One Starring the Born Again Hippie

Remember that one summer when I lived in the wilderness with wild adolescents and only showered every 8 days when I got a couple days off?

I was rocking the hippie vibes back then.

It only lasted as long as the job lasted (which was the summer) and then I was back to my shower-taking, oven-using ways.

But now I'm feeling a spark of that hippie-ness return. And I like it.

Let me rewind.

Awhile ago (can't remember exactly when and can't remember what we were talking about), Ben mentioned that his family, with the exception of his dad, wasn't covered with health insurance. I have to admit that I honestly figured that the guy just didn't know what he was talking about. I mean, who doesn't have health insurance??? Isn't that something that everyone has?

It wasn't until later, when I was talking to my mother-in-law, that I realized Ben wasn't lying.

My mom-in-law said that she was getting tired of paying for it. In her eyes, it was expensive when they didn't use it and it was expensive when they did. She was sick of it. So she started doing research and that's when she discovered herbs.

She researched and learned as much as she could and started healing virtually all her kids' problems. With herbs. They got rid of the health insurance and Mom said she never regretted it.

Which is saying something because they had to pay for Ben's broken back when he was 17.

Anyhow...

A couple weeks ago, I got a stiff neck. Now, this wasn't your run of the mill oh-I-slept-kinda-funky-and-now-my-neck-is-hurting kind of stiff neck. No. It was the holy-cow-I-really-shouldn't-be-driving-because-I-literally-can't-move-my-neck-to-see-if-a-car-is-coming-from-anywhere-other-than-right-in-front-of-my-face kind of stiff neck.

It was that bad.

But I'm cheap and this was not immediately life threatening...so I didn't want to hit up the doctor. So we called Mom.

She sent us to the store with a list of herbs and gave me a strict regimen to follow. Less than 2 days later, I felt good as new and I kept telling Ben to, "look at me!" while I turned my head back and forth with full rotation.

It was an herbal miracle! The stories Mom had told me had intrigued me...but this...this convinced me! (Don't worry...it didn't convince me to drop my health insurance).

So Mom suggested this book for me (not to make all my posts book reviews):

The Herb Lady's Notebook
By Venus C. Andrecht

You know you have to believe her herbal know how because of her hippie reminiscent name.

I loved reading this book. It was hilarious, entertaining and very informative. The Herb Lady has an herbal remedy for every problem you could think up. Reading the book kinda made me want Ben to get sick so that I could try my hand at using herbs...but, gosh, that makes me sound like a crazy...

I didn't REALLY want him to get sick. Sheesh.

Anyhow, Mom suggested buying herbs from vitacost.com so I made a small order because Ben's knee has been hurting him. The email vitacost sent me to confirm my order said, "You ordered something healthy! Nice!" Positive verbal reinforcement. Nothing works better to convince me (except ice cream).

Now, I'm not trying to convince any of you to cancel your health insurance (cause heaven knows I'm not doing that)...but I just wanted to inform and maybe pique some interest. Herbal healing is natural and its hecka cheaper than spending a chunk of change at the doctor's.

Next on my hippie studying list:
Muscle testing (which is too legit to quit)
And Iridology (who knew, right?)