Joan Female Arlington, TX United States: Share

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Welcome to Joan's Page

Do You Love to Cook?

If you love to cook, you'll love my foodie blog Joan's Country Kitchen. Share my family recipes, find money saving and menu planning tips, and more.

If you'd like to build a business around your love of cooking, Watkins offers a complete a great income opportunity, plus a line quality cooking and baking ingredients, including organic herbs and spices. Everything from dip mixes to soup mixes, plus grapeseed oil, bread mixes and more.

Watkins cares about the environment too with their eco-friendly cleaners, laundry detergent and natural skin and body care products. Watkins nutritional and weight loss lines round out everything you need to Watkinize your life.

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About Me

Follow me on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/NTXWriter

My journey to better health started about 15 years ago but my love of of eco-living really started when I was a kid. Living a more natural lifestyle is all the rage right now but I grew up that way. When I was young, "back in the olden days" nobody ever talked about eco-living - they lived it because there was really no other way.

I'm telling on my age here, but I grew up in the Beaver Cleaver world of the 50's. We lived on a small family farm where we raised our own cows, pigs and chickens. We drank fresh milk and ate fresh eggs, provided courtesy of the animals we raised.

My mom had a huge vegetable garden, not as a hobby, but to feed us. As kids we helped her plant, hoe and water. The plants were fertilized with composted manure from the animals and all of our table scraps went into a compost pile.

My mom was a city girl in her youth, til she married my dad, an Iowa farmer and ex-Marine. She worked from dawn to dusk, making our clothes, growing our food and then preserving it. Along with her, the kids gathered eggs and sold them to the neighbors. I raised rabbits to sell but then got too attached to sell them for food- a trait I retain to this day, something my farmer ancestors would laugh at.

As the oldest I helped my mom hang laundry on the clothes line outdoors (whoever got their laundry up first and had the whitest sheets in the neighborhood "won"). We fed and milked cows right along with my dad. There was no inequality of pay in our family. My mom and dad both worked for the common goal of feeding our family.

As kids we got to run free around our rural neighborhood.We spent our days at the creek or on the mountain behind our house. Nobody ever thought we'd get stolen and we needed no cell phones to keep in touch. We showed up for meals and the rest of the time we were off being kids.

I didn't have to wear that many hand-me-downs of the clothes my mom made but only because I was the oldest. My two sisters wore my old clothes though. We got a couple new outfits when school started and a fancier one - with black patent leather shoes - at Easter.

At Christmas we got clothes and ONE toy that we most especially wanted. We spent weeks scouring the Sears & Roebuck catalog for the perfect thing to ask for. Nobody had heard of designer clothes and NOBODY ever suspected that kids could also be consumers.

For fun my parents used to take us to the A&W Root Beer stand for a root beer float and once in a great while, not often, we went out to eat. We'd have thought Thai food was from Mars back then. The rest of our meals were all home cooked and mostly home raised, as well. Nothing we ate came from a package and we'd never heard of "processed" food.

We had no toxins in our air and water, no chemicals or pesticides on our food. We controlled everything we put into our bodies back then.

Over the years, I got away from green living and about 15 years ago I was overweight, depressed and had constant health problems such as digestive upsets, colds and bronchitis, and just generally felt tired and run down. I'd spent my adult life up until then working in conventional medicine which taught me to find a pill for every malady that struck.

There came a time tho, when I started to see that this approach wasn't working. Not only for myself but for my husband and daughter, I started looking for ways to improve our health, making changes I could stick with.

I loved to cook so I research healthy recipes for our family. We switched to a mostly organic diet and I started using natural remedies for health issues that came up, rather than popping some over the counter drug. I started walking every day with my dog. Once my walking buddy got into this habit, she never let me skip a day!

I learned a lot along the way, discovering healthy products that supported my new lifestyle. I was so impressed with some of them that I started my own business teaching people how to live a healthier, happier life.

Let's face it, no matter how wonderful your life is in other areas, if you aren't healthy, it affects everything else. If you are healthy, you can take on the world and come out on top.

I truly think that as much as 90% of our health and how we age is within our own control due to our lifestyle choices. My goal is to empower people to take control of their health and well-being to live longer, happier lives.

Website #1: http://www.Path2HealthyLiving.com/

Website #2: http://www.JoansCountryKitchen.com

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Joan's Blog

What I've Discovered About Blogging For Income

Looking at my page on Natural Networkers, I realized it needed serious updating. For the past six months, I've been building blogs with the hopes of creating some income streams. This idea hasn't panned out as I'd hoped and my 4 blogs make a sum total of about $5 a month between them - lol. I've now come to a time of re-evaluating.

My husband and I have decided at last on "what we're going to be when we grow up." Right now we are looking for some land in east Texas with the idea of starting an… Continue

Posted on May 19, 2009 at 8:59am — 1 Comment

What's Going on in My Life

This past month has been a whirlwind and the next month is likely to be also. On the upside, I spent a week in Washington, DC with my husband while he attended a meeting there in early October. I really enjoyed that. Walked my feet off and took lots of photos.
Next I had a visit sche… Continue

Posted on October 24, 2008 at 1:30pm — 1 Comment

Branding myself

I posted a question in the forum area about a new idea I have for a senior living blog. This idea has really taken hold of me because I feel that in "admitting" I'm now in that category is a big step for me - but it's also a step into the future and being more authentic.

I joined the CafeMom network and have made lots of great friends there, among them Andrea, Eunice, Brandi and Dali. I found some forums I like there too but by an large, the journal posting there and many of the forums are just… Continue

Posted on August 2, 2008 at 11:11am — 2 Comments

Wish I'd had an Organic Baby

My only daughter is now 22 years old and a college student, bless her heart. Seems like yesterday she was a cute little 2 year old, with her cropped, curly hair and carrying her little purse. She never went anywhere without that purse.

Even back then, I was into doing things more naturally if I could, but there weren't many products around that were organic. About the time she was one year old and drinking apple juice, they had a big scare about the pesticides in apple juice, which petrified me… Continue

Posted on July 24, 2008 at 1:00pm — 1 Comment

Comment Wall (16 comments)

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At 2:02pm on September 25, 2008, Annette said…: Joan, thank you for your suggestions! I do so appreciate them. Now, where do I start blogging or posting articles?
namaste
Annette

At 3:49pm on September 8, 2008, Kimberly Langert said…: Any and all advice is great. Thanks

At 7:41pm on September 1, 2008, Melody Thacker said…: Joan, welcome to the Stumble Friends group! If you have any questions feel free to start a discussion and ask away!

I look forward to seeing what you have to share with the group and giving you a little stumble love.

At 8:22am on August 29, 2008, Elizabeth Dunphy said…: You are so right Joan - this all still can be obtained but it sure takes diligence on a parent's part these days. There are so many factors working against a good intentioned parent. Its like you wrote above - children are seen as consumers now and the food giants have this down pat. I am amazed at how much influence all this commercialism has on children. I find myself having to constantly undo what my children learn from t.v. and from their "unhealthy" friends.

Thanks for your kind words!
E.

At 7:13am on August 29, 2008, Elizabeth Dunphy said…: Hi Joan - I very much enjoyed reading your story here. What a fun life you have lived. How great that your roots were so firmly planted that you were able to regain your health when you went astray by simply getting back to your roots. And that you were able to begin a new journey with it is just a bonus! Beautifully written!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth

At 5:43pm on August 28, 2008, Melody Thacker said…: Gosh we have lots in common, which reminds me I should add more to my profile.

I look forward to getting to know you better!

At 7:46am on August 27, 2008, Joan said…: There is a Twitter discussion on here that might help you. It's free to sign up. In fact, I have some free twitter handbook type things if you'd want to pm me your email address. Another thing you can do is write ezine articles. They let you put a website link in your bio. I thought your website looked like your own. Most replicator sites aren't that wonderful-lol.

At 6:17pm on August 26, 2008, Onika Henry said…: Hi Joan,
Thanks much for that. No it's my own website that I use to promote my business and market my products, it is not a replicator site given by the company (company does not do that). But I see what you're saying about promoting me.

Don't know about twitter or squidoo, so I'll research that. Much thanks again. Will keep you posted.

At 1:36pm on August 26, 2008, Onika Henry said…: Hi Joan,
Nice to hear from you. I've been to Houston, Texas, where my uncle lives, many years ago. Nice place.

I don't know much about building a online, but I've submitted ads to free classifieds, doing the traffic sites thing, getting safe lists etc. Please feel free to suggest anything. Would love to brainstorm!!!

Blessings