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June’s habit is Drinking Water, and that’s great news. I can confirm the experience of the woman who wrote earlier that she drinks more with a straw… I had no idea that it made such a difference! I’ve started gifting my friends reusable glass straws made by SimplyStraws (my favorite is the pale pink).

Initially I got the reusable straws to avoid staining my teeth with hot tea and wine, but I these days use them more often for water, since I actually drink it now! One thing that I learned during my training as a scientist is that the body processes general fluids in a different way than it processes pure H20. We can drink tea or flavored beverages all day long, but we still need pure water.

Earlier, “Flying in NC” wrote that she finds the water at her workplace tastes unpleasant; she’s probably onto something. Our taste-buds are sophisticated instruments! There may be a pollutant, leach from the pipes, or treatment residue that just isn’t healthy. Further, there could be a high mineral concentration that is making the water very acidic or alkaline. In matters of water, I trust my intuition.

There are lots of pollutants that we can’t see or taste, so if its bad enough that it actually tastes unpleasant, I don’t drink it. At my workplace, I have a 3-gallon bottle either made of BPA-free plastic or better: a glass jug (easily purchased from a beer-brewing store). I fill each jug with reverse osmosis filtered water (and add a very low level of trace minerals to balance what’s been taken out).

When it’s time to switch jugs, I bring the new one in atop a rolling suitcase after hours or on the weekend, then keep it stashed between my desk and the file cabinet. I pour my water from that into a covered pitcher on my desktop, and refill my pink-glass straw sippy cup throughout the day. With this system I’ve been doing for a year, I drink close to 3 gallons a week which is an incredible improvement!

As a scientist, I’ve experimented with just about everything to improve my sleep problems; better hydration has made a huge impact on that specific issue and my overall well-being.

Thanks FlyLady for encouraging us in Drinking Water!

Blessings aplenty,
Water Baby FLYing in Hawaii

What are you waiting for? Procrastination hurts you!

We have everything you need to keep your home shining! Sometimes we need a little motivation. Our efficient tools give us a jump start! They make a tough job fun. If you make it fun; it will get done!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the e-mails, tips, essays, and testimonials from you and our world-wide family and friends. I really appreciate getting free help with my housework!

But regarding June’s habit, I would just like to say that it evokes memories of home in a simpler time. I am sure many of your readers will share these memories with me. In the 50s I was growing up and learning how to do the things that a pioneer woman would have done to keep her family fed and healthy. (We had no electricity and no oil or gas furnace but a wood/coal-burning pot-bellied iron stove). I helped my mother change diapers on my younger siblings, I fed them a bottle of water now and then to supplement her breastfeeding of them, I watched her cook (and clean up after herself when we had devoured her delicious meals, which she cooked on a wood-burning stove, by the way!). I helped my mother do “the warshin'” and gave the babies their baths.

So much of what I learned depended upon judicious use of water! You see, we had no running water and no sink. Our water was obtained by one of us walking into the woods about 1/5 of a mile with two empty 3-gallon buckets, dipping them into the pool that was fed by an underground spring, filling them to the brim and walking carefully back to the house, the last fifty to seventy-five feet being a fairly challenging uphill trek! We made several of these trips daily, until my siblings grew big and strong enough to help carry Winterlein Lard buckets of water (about three quarts worth).

All of this is to underscore the feeling of deep gratitude I get when I realize I am thirsty and that all I have to do to satisfy that thirst is walk to my kitchen sink and turn a knob and the best-tasting water in the world comes pouring out into my glass. Since we have well-water, it is always cool and refreshing. Also since it is well-water, it is delicious! Hard, yes, but delicious! It tastes just like the water I drank when I was growing up, and let me tell you, I am a water connoisseur!

I have tried many of the expensive and cheaper brands of bottled water over the years, but NONE of them have come close to water out of that springfed pool except our present well-water. I thank our Creator for it every time I quench my thirst with the most natural drink of all.

I am so thankful to my husband for the fact that, when our well failed about ten years ago, he and a savvy friend of ours used a Bloomfield jack to raise each section of the old pipe up out of its hole. They determined they would need 75 feet of new pipe, one of those pieces to have a point on the end with holes in it to strain out large stones, which they would then drive BY HAND back down into the same hole, one at a time. When they got the first one almost driven in, they screwed on the next piece and continued driving. It took them one day to raise the old pipe, and another day to drive in the new. I cried with thankfulness that we were not required to tap into that awful, chlorine-tasting, fluoridated city water!

So it is with great joy and gratitude to the Creator, my husband and our friend, and you, dear FlyLady, that I join you all in June’s habit, Drinking Water. I do have one tip for FlyBabies like me who have sensitive teeth but love cool water.

Fill the washed and rinsed 16-ounce size of empty soda bottles with good-tasting water of your choice, and keep them in the refrigerator (we have a camping refrigerator that we keep on our front porch). One of those bottles fills the 16-ounce stainless steel water bottle just right with cool water that stays refreshing until you have drank it all, even if it takes you all day to drink it. Of course, I drink mine in about two hours and refill it three more times daily.

Adding ice would make it just too cold for my sensitive teeth (and my asthma is triggered by very cold drinks as well), but fridge-temp water is perfect! Thank you again for encouraging us to partake of this life-sustaining fluid regularly!

FlyBaby Marilyn, Indiana

What are you waiting for? Procrastination hurts you!

We have everything you need to keep your home shining! Sometimes we need a little motivation. Our efficient tools give us a jump start! They make a tough job fun. If you make it fun; it will get done!