Welcome to my blog… where I humbly offer random thoughts, personal growth insights, failed and successful cooking recipes, silliness by way of Crazy Lori Stories, some crafty goodness every now and then and info on other things that I am passionate about.
As a Christian I believe that we were each created with unique gifts and a specific purpose, to worship Him in how we live… from our dreams, to what we create and how we inspire others just by being ourselves… Lori
Are you asking yourself “What should I order this month?” Well, I’m glad you asked! Read on…
April showers bring May flowers, and we are showering our health with good things this month. Join us as we focus on creating wonderful health habits and improving our health on a daily basis with some incredible products.
Super Vitamin D – Super Vitamin D is one of our daily supplements for good reason. Most of the US population is deficient in Vitamin D, and it plays a role in so many areas of wellness.
NingXia Red – Add a daily shot of NingXia Red to your routine to enjoy the benefits of this powerful, whole-body supplement. There are MANY reasons we love this wolfberry puree (a quick search in the ‘Resources’ tab of the app will show you!) NingXia Red is packed with superfoods to support overall wellness — plum, aronia, cherry, blueberry, and pomegranate juices and extracts, pure vanilla extract and Lemon, Orange, Tangerine and Yuzu essential oils. The benefits of NingXia Red include support for energy levels, normal cellular function, and whole-body and normal eye health. A daily shot of 2–4 ounces helps support overall wellness with powerful antioxidants!
IlluminEyes – IlluminEyes is an incredible eye health supplement featuring lutein and zeaxanthin that helps reduce eye strain, protects eyes from damaging blue light, and maintains vibrant skin.
Longevity Vitality – Longevity essential oil blend is a powerful combination of Thyme, Orange, Clove, and Frankincense. The name tells you that this oil is a must-have!
DiGize Vitality – DiGize Vitality essential oil blend combines Tarragon, Ginger, Peppermint, Juniper, Fennel, Lemongrass, Anise, and Patchouli, which contain antioxidants and support the digestive system when taken internally.
Lemon Vitality – Freshen up from the inside out with this bright, happy, cleansing oil. Lemon Vitality essential oil contains antioxidants, provides immune and circulatory support, and can be used to add a fresh flavor to food and beverages. We love to start our days with warm water with Lemon Vitality essential oil.
What’s the FIRST thing(s) to go in your cart this month?
Here we are – April 1. No tricks, jokes, or pranks here. Just a fresh collection of oils and products that will make April brighter and smelling amazing. Plus, we see the return of the 100 PV Gift With Purchase!! Take a look and let’s talk about it.
Here is the full breakdown:
100 PV – Lemon 15ml*
190 PV – Purification 15ml, Peppermint 5ml*, Tangerine 15ml*, Lemon 15ml*
250 PV – Room Spray Bottle, Lushious Lemon 15ml, Purification 15ml, Peppermint 5ml*, Tangerine 15ml*, Lemon 15ml*
300 PV – Pine 15ml, Life 9*, Room Spray Bottle, Lushious Lemon 15ml, Purification 15ml, Peppermint 5ml*, Tangerine 15ml*, Lemon 15ml*
*Remember, in order to get the Loyalty Rewards gifts (Life 9, Tangerine 15ml, and Peppermint 5ml) you have to be enrolled in the Loyalty Rewards program and have a monthly order that meets the PV requirements for those items. The extra bonus of meeting all these PV amounts with your Loyalty Rewards order is that you get even more Loyalty Points to spend later!
Lemon 15ml (Bonus Rewards 100 PV tier)
Purification 15ml (190 PV tier)
Everyone needs at least one bottle of Purification in the house at all times. Stinky shoes from everyone running in the spring rain? Purification! Spring cleaning? A couple drops of Purification in some baking soda, put it in a shaker, and use it as a carpet freshener. If you need to purify the air or reboot the emotions, Purification has great cleansing power.
Peppermint 5ml (Bonus Rewards 190 PV tier)
Grab this bottle of Peppermint, get a glass spray bottle, combine 10-15 drops with water, shake, and spray wherever the pests might try to get in the house. Tis the season for spiders. Plus, with Lemon and Peppermint in the Gifts with Purchase, just grab a bottle of Lavender and you’ve got the seasonal trio right there!
Tangerine 15ml (Bonus Rewards 190 PV tier)
Tangerine has to be one of the more underrated citrus oils, but nothing helps brighten a day quite like Tangerine in the diffuser! It calms the nerves and helps keep sadness at bay. Try it in place of Bergamot every once in a while or combine the two with complimentary scents and watch your whole household slowly start to smile. 
Plus, Tangerine Vitality (same oil as what’s in this 15-ml helps support so much in our bodies, including the digestive system, brain health, overall immune system support and more!
Room Spray Bottle (250 PV tier)
For that “creepy crawler” spray we talked about earlier or a room spray, this bottle is perfect for making whatever scent you want as a room spray! You can’t go wrong with any of the oils in this batch of Gifts With Purchase as part of a room spray, especially this next one.
Capture the scent of spring. This 250ml amber glass bottle with a spritzer spray top allows you to put your favorite essential oils to work to create your own unique room spray.
Lushious Lemon 15ml (250 PV tier)
What a perfect starting blend for a fresh, bright room spray! It’s uplifting, helps cleanse the air of unwanted odors, improves moods, and so much more. Lemon Myrtle, Spearmint, Eucalyptus Globulus, Ylang Ylang, and Lemon might be your next favorite combo. I love that almost every bottle of oil we get are 15ml!
Pine 15ml (300 PV tier)
There are some really interesting studies out there regarding Pine oil. I recommend doing a deep dive into some of them and seeing what it’s good for. 
One thing that it sometimes gets overlooked for is how it can help us emotionally. Wood oils are very good for calming and centering. Combine it with citrus oils for a fresh twist on a walk in the woods or add a couple drops to your calming/sleep diffuser blend. Let me know what you think of it.
Life 9 (Bonus Rewards 300 PV tier)
A healthy gut is so important for so many areas of our health, including mentally and emotionally. Adding a probiotic is a big key to maintaining a healthy gut. Life 9 has 17 billion live cultures from nine beneficial bacteria strains to support healthy immune function, maintain optimal metabolism, and promote normal intestinal function. You will notice a big difference once you add this to your daily regimen.
Give a few of these room spray recipes a try!
I add these to the bottle and top with water (you can also add half water, half witch hazel if you want!):
FRESH: 15 drops Purification, 15 drops Lemon
SLEEPY: 15 drops Tangerine, 15 drops Pine
FRESH LAUNDRY: 20 drops Lavender, 5 drops Lushious Lemon
When you order are you EARNING POINTS BACK?
Wait – WHAT?! Yep, that’s right. You can earn points back when you order via the “LOYALTY REWARDS“, to use as payment for future products!!!
So, because I want to make sure you’re maximizing your dollar, I share this info. I mean, we purchase items from YL that we’d be buying anyway – toothpaste, lotion, shampoo, makeup, supplements, and cleaning supplies, etc – from Young Living, and we not only get amazing, high quality products that are safe for our families, but we could also qualify to get free products, free shipping, AND product credits galore!
I am ALL about boxes of safe, effective, and healthy products showing up on my doorstep with fun freebies inside! Make sure that you are ordering the very best way, which is through Loyalty Rewards.
So, when shopping online you can either “Add to Loyalty Order” (best way to order) or “Add to cart”. My choice is the LOYALTY REWARDS ORDER. ALL.DAY.LONG.
What are you getting this month in your orders and which gift with purchase are you most excited about?
Spring is just around the corner, and we are ready for days of sunshine and blooming flowers! We’re refreshing our homes and our routines for the changing of the seasons and stocking our cabinets with these favorites:
HOUSEHOLD FAVORITES How about a simple Spring refresh for the home? Adding in Lushious Lemon blend to all your cleaning products and your diffuser is a great way to elevate your space!
RESPIRATORY NEEDS You say Spring… I think pollen… Anyone else?? Whether you’re sensitive to the changing air quality or just need some extra airway and immune support, here are our Wellness Cabinet must-haves for Spring. Also, if you’re feeling the springtime needs and want more acute respiratory and immune support, check out the Winter Stock Up resource linked below for some other favorites!
TRAVEL If you’re heading out of town for Spring Break or just wanting a head start on your summer travel necessities, here is what we’re stocking up on now (before it sells out!).
So, off you go … log in to your YL account or use this link to setup an account. Your items will be sent straight to your doorstep, sent directly from the YL warehouse.
With its cool breezes and sunshine-filled days, March brings the promise of spring, of renewal and a fresh spirit. After a long winter, we are ready for a little spring refresh ourselves! Join us as we use these items this month and beyond to freshen our spaces, our spirits and our health!
Thieves Kitchen & Bath Scrub We LOVE this all-natural scrub for the kitchen, bath and beyond. Brighten your sink and ditch the stink with this plant-powered favorite! This chlorine-free all-purpose cleaner is safe for use on porcelain, ceramic, copper alloys, fiberglass, Corian, brass, bronze, and chrome and is infused with the germ-fighting power of Thieves essential oil.
Lushious Lemon Essential Oil Blend This blend of Ylang ylang, Eucalyptus globulus, Lemon myrtle, Lemon, and Spearmint is the perfect springtime blend! With a sweet, citrusy aroma with floral and minty undertones, this premade blend helps neutralize unwanted odors and uplift the spirits. Bright and fresh, this blend will brighten any space – diffuse it, add it to DIYs and even clean with it. Happiness in a bottle!
Thieves Household Cleaner The real MVP of natural cleaning, this plant-based formula contains only naturally derived ingredients to effectively clean your home without taking synthetic shortcuts or using potentially harsh ingredients. Effective, economical and safe for kids and pets. That’s about all we need to know, but this all-star product just keeps getting better.
Thieves Laundry Soap Designed to be powerful and efficient, this concentrated 32-ounce bottle of Thieves Laundry Soap can clean up to 64 loads of clothing, making it an economical favorite. Harnessing the power of stain-fighting enzymes and Thieves essential oil blend, this plant-based formula is a straightforward clean with no surprises and no synthetics.
Eucalyptus Radiata Whether you’re whipping up some fresh DIYs or needing a little airway support for all the blooming flowers, Eucalyptus Radiata is perfect this time of year. Try adding it to dryer balls for fresh, crisp laundry, soaking in a tub with epsom salt and E. Radiata to soothe sore muscles, or diffuse it and breathe in deeply to open up the airways.
DetoxZyme Freshen up from the inside out with this daily enzyme supplement that gently detoxes the system. There is so much in our daily life that can weigh down our systems, and DetoxZyme helps our bodies process it out so we can get the most out of our nutrition and keep functioning well!
// MARCH GIFTS WITH PURCHASE //
But first, I want to make sure you’re maximizing your dollar. Every month this generous company loads us up with free items simply for being loyal customers. We purchase items we’d be buying anyway – toothpaste, lotion, shampoo, makeup, supplements, and cleaning supplies, etc – from Young Living, and we not only get amazing, high quality products that are safe for our families, we get free products, free shipping, delivery to our doorstep and product credits galore! I am ALL about boxes of safe, effective, and healthy products showing up on my doorstep with fun freebies inside! Make sure that you are ordering the very best way, which is through Loyalty Rewards.
Alright let’s break down these promos to see what you get!
100PV // 10% Off Enrollment Code to gift a friend!!!! Plus, Free Shipping (YES PLEASE!!!)
190PV // ENVISION, 5ml // CLARITY, Rewards Bonus, 5ml // EN-R-GEE, Rewards Bonus, 15ml
+ Envision
Helps to open the brain and helps you to daydream. When you are sad, upset, angry etc and your vision is gone. You can’t see what’s possible. Use it with Motivation.
It is also great for respiratory exchange of oxygen. You gotta breathe diaphragmatically, breathe into the gut, breathe into the brain, get the oxygen past that neocortex (logical) part of the brain to make that vision happen. Rose brings you to a state of joy. Nobody is going to see good visions if they are angry. A sense of peace and balance helps to promote positive visions. Powerful in promoting the regeneration of new tissue, it takes 5000 pounds of petals for just to make 1 pound of oil. Orange is for the happiness! It makes you happy happy happy! Lavender is for the balance.
Diffuse this one when you need need to snap back to an inspired state!! It’s great during hour weekly planning sessions or anytime you need to get organized and inspired. I love putting a drop of this on my crown or in a roller as perfume!
+ Clarity
Use this blend to promote a clear mind and to amplify mental alertness and vitality. It increases energy when overly tired and brings greater focus to the spirit and the mind. A few years ago at convention Gary shared if you diffuse Clarity and put Forgiveness over the heart – this combo helps you break destructive emotional patterns. And putting Clarity behind your ears and on the back of your neck with Believe on your forearms with help you see your path and believe in your ability to go after it.
+ En-R-Gee
This “En-R-Gizing” blend of Rosemary, Juniper, Lemongrass, Nutmeg, Balsam Fir, Clove, and Black Pepper (seriously LOOK UP these oils!) has a spicy-woodsy scent and is perfect for early morning, your gym routine, or ANY time you need to feel rejuvenated!
Diffuse En-R-Gee during long drives, late night study sessions, strenuous events, or the afternoon slump! En-R-Gee can also be combined with V-6 massage oil and rubbed into temples, feet, back of the neck or anywhere you find helpful. I like to apply this blend to the middle of my back, right about where you would find the kidneys and adrenal glands!
250PV // ROLLER BOTTLE SET, 3-pack
How beautiful is this set of bamboo + glass 10ml rollers! They say Motivate, Focus, and Inspire You could add 20 drops each essential oil to its corresponding roller bottle and top with carrier oil to take these blends on the go! (Motivation/Motivate, Envision/Inspire, and Clarity/Focus)
300PV // VALOR, 5ml
Literally every single person needs to experience Valor themselves. So snag that bottle for yourself and see why it is so cherished and valued by so many of us. And if you *think* you don’t need Valor, buy it anyways. YOU DO.
400PV // MOTIVATION, Rewards Bonus, 5ml
Use Motivation in the morning when you get out of bed. This blend is nooo joke. Generally within 15-20min, you feel the adrenals kicking it. Rub it behind the ears, If you feel brain fatigue, the throat chakra goes out and you will feel it into the neck. Motivation can really help. By applying it on the occipital, you will move the oxygen and energy in that area. Now go slay the day!!!
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10% Off Enrollment Code Details // When you place a 100pv order this month, you’ll get a code for 10% off to gift to a friend!
You can earn two codes this month – one for your Subscribe to Save order, and one for a Shop order!
It’ll be emailed to ya – so keep an eye out! (Or Customer Service can give it to you!) Your friend can use that code to receive 10% off whatever they want using your referral link!
(And, you’ll earn 25% cash on their purchase! Um, yes please! Just make sure to swap your account to a Brand Partner to get paid
Ask me how to snag your own referral link!
Now – back to those Gifts. What are you most excited for this month?!
Abba Anthony received a letter from Emperor Constantine to visit him in Constantinople. He wondered if he should go and asked Abba Paul who said, “If you go, you will be called Anthony, but if you stay here (in the desert alone), you will be called Abba Anthony.”
“To achieve anything today, an artist has to develop a conscious strictness in respect of time which in former ages might have seemed neurotic and selfish, for he must never forget that he is living in a state of siege.”
Public Service Announcement: Quit apologizing for yourself.
I’ll admit it… this is a HUGE pet peeve. But I’m not a blogger of pet peeves. So please take this for what it is… I’m jumping on the Brene Brown bandwagon and begging you to stop shaming yourself.
Just stop. When someone stops by for an unannounced visit – don’t apologize for the state of cleanliness in your home. They didn’t expect it to be spotless. Stop jumping on Periscope and within the first 3 seconds of the video start apologizing for something. (I know, I shouldn’t just pick on Periscope… this happens on most every social media outlet.)
Stop apologizing for the lighting, stop apologizing for the fact that you don’t have makeup on, stop apologizing for the fact that your kids are running around in the background, stop apologizing for the background noise…. stop apologizing for being you and what your world looks like. Reality is reality.
By doing so you’re just adding to the tape player in your head that continually runs… shaming yourself of every expectation (your OWN expectation).
Grant yourself some grace and forgive yourself already. Period. You won’t be perfect. I won’t be perfect.
No one expects either of us to be perfect … and if they do expect that of us we don’t need them in our lives.
Can I get an AMEN?! Just be YOU! The rest will come naturally.
Better yet… accept His grace… for it is enough.
Linked above is Matt Maher’s song “Your Grace is Enough”, which is based on the premise that Christ’s grace is sufficiently enough. He has covered us in His love. His mercies are new every morning.
Lamentations 3 tells us all about that.
It’s a quick and easy post… someone needs to watch this video, read these lyrics, being rocked by this message today.
Go watch this video: No Longer A Slave
Felt a little uncomfortable yet? Learn anything new today? Stretched to be a better person yet? Or better yet, have you had your proverbial hand slapped today? In a good way, of course… in a “you’ll be a better person for it” kind of way.
Let me share this quote with you… as shared by a friend. I won’t lie: it challenged me a bit… and it’s so right on!
We live in a day where we spend more time studying what others say about the Bible than studying the Bible for ourselves. – Rob Ketterling
We read blogs and others’ rhetoric, we stand around and talk it up, we make judgments based on outward appearances instead of turning to the good book to see what it has to say on the topic.
So, here’s your hand slap… put down the phone / mobile device / pc… and go pick up your Bible. Do a little study. If you’re looking for something to read… check out Isaiah 61. It’s rather promising!!!
This morning in the break room at work several of us gals got caught up in a conversation with a newly engaged male co-worker. He was laughing at the planning board that his soon-to-be-bride is working on and the binders and binders of ideas she has put together as she plans their wedding day (and the festivities leading up to it). We all looked at him very seriously and scolded him to not make fun of the planning board.
His wedding is over a year away and he was clearly annoyed at how much work was going in to planning for the wedding. I wanted to say – “Good luck, buddy. It gets worse before it gets better.” But I held my tongue. He’ll learn that one on his own.
And I walked back to my desk, quietly giggling to myself. Once again I was grateful for our quietly planned elopement… which we later surprised our family and friends with.
But in all seriousness, I have a question for you… my 3 faithful readers.
Did you plan more for your day-long wedding and festivities than you did for your lifelong marriage?
Most people do. In fact, when you do a Google search on “planning for a marriage” Google suggests that planning for a WEDDING is what you’re really out to find. So it comes back with wedding planning tips instead…
Planning for a marriage SHOULD take even more time and effort. Newly married brides are probably laughing at me right now because they know how much work they put into their weddings… how could ANYTHING take up more time?
But it’s true. Planning for a lifelong commitment takes more time and, believe it or not, more moxie. And yet so many of us spend so little time doing that. We fall in love with the idea of falling in love and it feels right so we jump in with both feet before we even have our first “lovers’ quarrel”. And then we’re afraid of having our first fight so we bite our tongues, biting harder than we’ve EVER bitten our tongues. And then we might even start resenting the other person for not knowing that we’re biting our tongues… and blaming them for not queuing in to the silence. And… the list goes on. But that’s another topic for another blog post.
Planning for a lifelong marriage commitment is serious business. But good news… it probably won’t be as expensive as planning a wedding and reception! But it will take some time, dedication and resilience. And it will require 100% commitment from both parties.
You know what’s really sad? I’ll leave you with this. The same Google search about planning a marriage also includes search results for divorce. As if Google is suggesting it was over before it even began. Granted, in some cases it may have been.
Lori J. Tisdale 