Strategic Living for a Joyful, Self Reliant and Healthy Life

CBD Dosing: How Much CBD Should I Take?

Using CBD oil as an over the counter remedy has gone mainstream. Alas, from some of the feedback I have received, success using CBD is either boom or bust. Digging further into how those in the “CBD is a bust” camp are using CBD, I have come to believe that the issue is dosing.

Part of the blame sits on the shoulders of CBD vendors for providing unclear dosing instructions and confusing labeling. Additional confusion comes from the fact that each of our bodies is unique in the way CBD is metabolized. All of this is very sad because CBD can be very effective in providing relief from anxiety, sleeplessness, and pain.

In this article, I address the question of “How much CBD should I take?”.

Gratitude and Thankfulness

By Gaye Levy 2 Comments

Gratitude does not come naturally to me which makes Thanksgiving especially challenging. The reasons are many and they are very personal but lest you are curious, I will simply say that I have been a silent warrior for most of life. Fighting, be it for fairness, justice, acceptance or simply to get by, has defined me. It lead me into the life I live now and to what I like to call a “strategic life”.

That being said, it is my opinion that these days we take gratitude and thankfulness for granted. I blame it on the clutter and proliferation of minutia of our lives. Work, chores, social media, and keeping up with the events of the day (whether real or fake), can be overwhelming. Does that sound like you?

But I digress. In this week of giving thanks, it is important that we take time to think about the blessings in our life, and enumerate those things for which we are both grateful and thankful. I will start us off.

I, Gaye Levy, am grateful for many things: my husband, my brother and his family, my home, and the blessing of good health I am grateful that I have saved enough to carry me through (I hope) retirement and that I am well-prepared for disruptive events. Not to be omitted, I am extremely grateful to have been born in and to live in the USA.

Now it is your turn. What are you grateful for?

Easy Homemade Melt & Pour Soaps: Interview with Jan Berry

By Gaye Levy 27 Comments

When I become passionate about something, be it prepping, essential oils, CBD, adult coloring or ballroom dancing, I go all in. By that I mean I spend hours embracing my new passion, learning as much as I can about it, and spending hours practicing and enjoying my craft. Reading between the lines here at Strategic Living, you know that my latest passion is soap making. Hot process, cold process, rebatch, and melt and pour, I do it all. It is the latter that I do when time is short and I don’t want to mess with lye and the associated safety precautions and cleanup.

Melt and Pour soap takes a lot of the work out of soap making. Because it starts with a premade base, you can focus on your inner creative self by customizing your soap with colorants, fragrance, additives, swirls, and fancy shapes.

For those of you that are new to the soap making world, there is one name that stands out as somewhat of a legend when it comes to making soap naturally. Her name is Jan Berry and she is a prolific do-it-yourselfer when it comes to DIY body care projects. When I learned that she was coming out with a book on Melt and Pour Soaps I knew I just had to have it and let me tell you, if there is such a thing as an MP bible (MP is the acronym for Melt and Pour), this is it.

Today I am thrilled to share a brief review and interview with Jan and, in my usual Book Festival style, offer up a print copy of her new book, Easy Homemade Melt & Pour Soaps, in a giveaway. More about that in a moment.