One sad and one happy….

So which do you want to hear first? I think I’ll start out with the sad and then end with the happy. It’ll leave a better feeling that way.

Remember Cleo? Mama’s best friend?? She’s the pretty lady on the right, the beautiful one on the left is my mama.

She passed away on Tuesday. Her funeral is next Wednesday. Mama is heart broken. I don’t know what to do for mama. I’ll just be here and cry when she does because I know she’s hurting. Cleo is her third best friend, all have died and left her alone. Please pray for mama and peace in her heart. Cleo is in a better place, it’s just who’s left that it hurts so much. Her husband is a sweet man and Cleo was the love of his life. Please pray for Richard also.

 

Now the happy.

 

Cindy went to her doctors. Yesterday to her liver doctor who says she’s doing just fine. She’s still on the transplant list but like at the bottom, they’ll check her again in 6 months and see how all is going.

She also saw her regular doctor today and instead of a bone marrow test they did a bone density test, her doctors in the cities said she didn’t have to go through the painful marrow test, they could find out what they need to from the density test. No results on that yet but…. love the but.?.  All her blood work up came back normal or really close. Her red blood count, her white blood count are back in the right range. She’s on some strong antibiotics for a long time and has a long was to go but she’s healing, she’s getting stronger and better. She still has lots of issues but one at a time. It’s all because of all your prayers, your support and your love that the Lord saw just how much we still need her and how much she’s loved. Thank you all.

So there’s the promised updates. One day at a times, that’s all we can handle anyways.

Take care my friends and thank you for everything. God Bless you all!

Isn’t he cute?

This little guy is a wood pecker and he’s only a couple of feet from me while I was eating dinner last night. I think he spent more time watching me then eating his own dinner. He didn’t even get scared when Mike got up to get the camera to take his picture. I so love feeding the birds.

Today I made a super moist banana bread. I have been on a quest for a long time to make a moist and healthy banana bread and today I think I did it. See how yummy it looks…

I made a cake, mini muffins and the two loaves. If you want the recipe go Here... I posted it on my other blog and figured you guys didn’t want to read it twice.

It’s a rainy chilly day here today. No complaints because they say we need the rain. Now things will green up even faster and prettier. This time of year is so wonderful. After all that white then brown and dead spring is so nice.

Yesterday I addressed all of Mike’s graduation announcements and open house invites and got them ready to go. Graduation is fast approaching so figured a bit here and there so when the time comes we won’t have to race around like chickens with our heads cut off. Sally will be coming and I’m so excited about that. She’s flying out here from New York to just be with us for Mike’s graduation. Can you believe that, she’s spending an arm and a leg to come be with us. We are so lucky.

Do you guys know Sally? I know I’ve chatted a bit about her here and there. I met Sally about 10 years ago on a daycare forum because I had just started my home based daycare and she was so smart and was so willing to help me get things together. Through the years we have developed such a fantastic friendship, it’s truly is amazing. What’s even better, Sally’s son Alex was in Iraq and Mike became one of his biggest supporters here in the states. Mike would write to him, e-mail him, send him goodies and when Alex had the time he’d write Mike back. When Mike had his Eagle Court of Honor Alex wrote Mike the nicest letter about how proud he was of him. Mike wrote Alex a poem about being a soldier and it was printed up in our local paper with a picture of Alex. To get to see Sally after all these years is going to be the experience of a life time. And to have her here when Mike’s graduates, well it’s wonderful. I have got some plans for when she’s here. We are going to have a girls day/night out, she’s going to be here for Mike’s Graduation Open House and will get to meet my whole family and then her and I are going to have a day to just be together. I’d like to take her all around my home towns to sight see and share what we have. Being I’m from tiny towns and she’s from huge towns I bet it’ll be really different for her. I can’t wait, I just can’t wait to share my Sally with everyone else. I promise to take tons of pictures to share with you guys too. This internet, blogging, meet and greets, well it is one of life's great pleasures.

So my friends, that is that for today. I hope you all are having the most wonderful day. Take care and God Bless!!!

Photo Tag….

Jenna from MN Small Town Mom has tagged me with a game and I’m going to play. It’s time to do a bit more then just posting and sharing, it’s play time. So the rules at to take a photo from your 8th folder and the 8th picture and share it, then post a story with the picture and finally tag 8 people to play along. So without much more chatting here’s my picture….

Boy was I glad it was something good instead of one of those opps pictures or “do I have to share that one?”. This picture is one of Rachel and Abby with our critters we are sharing with another daycare in New York. Let me introduce you all to Space Monkey, Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Monkey and the newest member, Mr. Monkey’s brother wee one Monkey. Ms. Sally from New York does daycare and she has always had Mr. Rabbit and we here have always had Mr. Monkey and one year Mr. Monkey went to New York and had some huge adventures and meet Mr. Space Monkey and from there things just snowballed. Ms. Sally has written a small story that goes with the animals and this year we’ll write ours and then send it back to her for another visit. Austin is the Cabbage Patch doll that Rachel (the oldest) has carried since a baby and Abby has a collect that’s different each time she comes.

So there’s my 8 and 8. For the 8 people I’m going to pick, well let’s see….

1. Kim 

2. Mumbai

3. Sushmita Jha

4. Jodi

5. Mari

6. Grammy

7.Angela

8. April 

So now it’s your turn girls. It’s pretty easy and it’s always so much fun to share our pictures.

We had a good morning outside playing and I was also able to carry almost a 1/2 cord of wood while the kids played on the slide. I need to exercise this afternoon and then I’m going to at least learn to thread my new sewing machine. Maybe get to sew or practice sewing something.

Take care my friends, have a blessed afternoon.

Watch, listen and learn...WOW!!!!

Good evening…

Our craft show was not exactly a money maker but we didn’t go broke either. We have two very faithful customers that look us up just about each time we have a craft show and always buy something from us and that is what happened on Saturday and we did also sell a couple small things. Here’s what our table looked like…

Here’s my partner Brenda. She’s also my best buddy. You know, I have the bestest friends in the whole wide world. Life is amazing!!

When our sale was done we headed to Brenda’s for the most tasty cake she made for me. We stayed and visited a good couple of hours and then decided to take the party to my house and we fixed steak and brats on the grill and then watched Avatar that Kim borrowed us.

Now I have to share with you my birthday/anniversary gift. Remember I’ve complained my sewing machine was broken and I did buy the bobbin holder I needed but it still didn’t work as good as it should of. So I asked, begged and begged some more and guess what Jim bought me? Yep, a brand new Brother computerized sewing machine. Here’s what it looks like.

I am so excited to get back to sewing. Look at all those stitches. My old machine had two stitches, straight and zig-zag. This one has a big extra attachment that makes like a sewing table attached to the machine and it comes with a quilting foot. I can do my own meandering, that is if I can figure that one out. I’m not a quilter at all but have been planning on making a quilt. Oh I can think of all kinds of things I can sew. Look at all those stitches. Oh how much fun!!!

For our Anniversary Jim and I went gun shopping. Jim has wanted a Henry Lever Action .22. So today that is what we went and got. So when we got home we spent that afternoon target practicing. All three of us shot off at least 500 rounds. I did take some phone pictures but for some odd reason I can not down load them. Oh well I tried.

It really was a great weekend. A great birthday and anniversary. I love my family and friends. I am one very lucky woman to have such great people in my life.

So my friends, that was my weekend. I hope you all had a great weekend also. Tomorrows a new day, a new work week and time to get back into the swing of things. Take care and God Bless you all!!!

48 today….

Today was my day and it was a great day. We drove 250 miles today to celebrate it with my aunt and uncle and it was so worth it. We had such a great visit. We went out for lunch at Perkins (it Mike and my favorite restaurant) and then went back for this wonderful birthday cake. I have to say today was a blessed day.

When I got home and finally settled in for the evening I checked my e-mail and found some really cool things. 1. There were about 8-10 face book birthday wishes for me. 2. Pat wrote me the nicest letter. She just always knows the right things to say and she made me feel so good today. 3. I got a gift from a friend I have never met. Angela is such a sweet person. She’s been such a huge support for my life style change and tonight I opened an e-mail that said she has given me a years subscription to Cooking Light magazine. So cool since I’m working so hard to lose some weight and learn to be healthy and able to take better care of my family.

Thank you to everyone. Today was a great day!!!!

Tomorrow is my first craft show of the season. Really this year I’m only doing two craft shows. It’s time for a break this year but I had promised to do these two shows last year and both Brenda and I can’t go cold turkey so we’ll hope for a great show. Mike took tomorrow off too so he’s going to help us set up and be there for a bit with us. Mike has been such a great help with my craft shows. He makes some of the jewelry too and it sells wonderfully.

Sunday is Jim and my 30th wedding anniversary. 30 years, it seems to have flown by pretty darn fast. Life flies by pretty darn fast. Lots of mile stones along the way, lots of smiles, happy memories and so much more.

It’s time to head to bed. I hope you all have the most blessed and wonderful weekend. Take care my friends!!

Earth Day….

Photo from my Mother Earth daily news report.

Today is Earth Day. Do you have anything special planned? I didn’t plan anything super special with the kids or anything. We already do a lot to help the earth. I do have to admit we drive suburban's and have no intention of driving anything smaller. We have a small fleet of them, 4 to be exact but we don’t speed and we take good care of them so they don’t add to much to the world mess. I read that the Meteor Shower started on the 16th of April and will continue until the 25th so I thinking tonight  Mike and I will get up about 1:00 am and just see how much of the Meteor Shower we can see. I remember back when Mike was about 8 or so we got up in the cold fall season and watched an amazing shower. Mike still remembers that night.

We all need to do our best to help the environment. I really don’t believe in a lot of what people say but we do need to just take care of what we have. Just do our best.

I have been using a lot more “green” products for cleaning and have been making my own for a while too. We use a lot of Terri’s natural products made from herbs and goats milk and other natural ingredients. Of course like lots of people I am not perfect and have a few things I just can’t change or haven’t yet but you never know, I just might find something that works as good and smells great too.

I bought two tomato plants yesterday, it’s really way to early to plant them but I’m going to cheat. I have a toy box in the shape of a dinosaur that I’ve used for a planter for years and I’m going to take a tomato cage, wrap it in shrink wrap (like a little hot house) and keep it safe up here at the house. When it gets cold I’ll give it a warm water bottle and cover it up and just maybe we can have some tomatoes early this year. But I won’t hold my breath, this is Minnesota and we could have a snow storm still. We’ll just see.

Well it’s time to head outside, I’ll talk to you all this weekend. Take care and God Bless!!!!

Cinco De Mayo swap….

You know, I just posted this. Even got a comment on it and then it disappeared. I can’t find it in my live writer, I can’t find it on my blog. It’s gone. Weird, very very weird. So here I am for the second time reposting it because I want Jerrica and Lisa to know how much fun we had and I just don’t know if they’ll see the pictures if I don’t do it again. So if you all see this twice, please just ignore it….if not please enjoy!!

Yesterday we got this huge box in the mail, it almost didn’t fit in the mailbox. The kids were so excited and could barely get to the house before we got to open the box. The kids helped me open the box and got to see all the cute and tasty goodies inside.

Before I even got the garage thrown away they were wanting to taste my goodies.

This is what all of the goodies looked like.

Jerrica was the host of this wonderful swap and Lisa was my partner. This really was a fun swap. I learned a bit about Cinco De Mayo and also found a few really neat things to share.

Thank you to both Jerrica and Lisa for such a great fun idea and event.

Take care my friends and again I’m sorry if this is out in blog land twice. Somehow I screwed up but then again I about as far from perfect as anyone can be. I just do my best and let the Lord do the rest.

God bless you all. Have a great and wonderful afternoon.

Baby chicks and …..

      

  

This year we only brought home 29 chicks (well 30 but one didn’t make it all the way home). I am hoping my chickens and ducks will lay on some eggs. The chicks were expensive this year, at least $2.39 or so each plus with feed up at least $2.00 a bag from last year this was about all we could muster up. The kids love the baby chicks as you can see and the chicks are pretty relaxed around the kids since there’s really no choice for them. That’s good though because we feed the big chickens by hand and they come a running each time we are out and about.

 

Do you remember this?

This is the ring my mama bought me last May. We’ll in the 9 months I owned that ring I lost the pearl 4 times and kept having to send it back for repairs. Well the last time they offered to buy it out and as much as I wanted THAT ring, it just wasn’t meant to be so today mama and I went over to pick up the next ring we picked out together. Now all my life I have wanted a pearl with diamonds on each side but we couldn’t find that so we got this one instead. What do you think?

Someday we’ll find another pearl and diamond ring but this one mama helped me pick out is just as special and just as beautiful. It’s has 5 sapphires and wee diamonds around it and it’s just beautiful. It’s also gold like my wedding ring so perfect to boot.

I know it’s two posts in one day but I didn’t want to forget to share and with a busy day planned tomorrow and my birthday on Friday I wasn’t sure if I’d be back before Saturday or not. I’m heading out of town on Friday to spend my birthday with my parents, son and my mom’s sister and family in Minneapolis. It’ll be a great day and I am so looking forward to see Daryle and Pat. We just don’t get to visit with them as often as I’d like so we have to really enjoy the time we do get there.

So take care my friends and have a wonderful and blessed afternoon.

Promised pictures…

I’m still short but not quite as round.

 

The banquet and the Eagles that were honored.

Mike, our scout master Kevin and Jack, two of troop 52’s honored Eagle Scouts. Just to let you know, our Troop, troop 52 had 11 Eagle Scouts in 2007,08,09. A great bunch of boys.

All 11 scouts that were honored from the Pine Tree District.

Our Scouts and the supporting Elks.

Our Scout Master got this years Scout Master award. He is such a wonderful man for all these scouts. The boys look up to him and see him as their best friend. He truly is the Master Scout Master!!!

So that was the Eagle Scout Recognition Banquet. Each scout received a flag and a certificate. The speakers were wonderful but there was one, Guy (that’s his name) and he was a speech teacher (maybe still is, don’t know about that) but he gave the best motivational speech I have ever heard. He told the boys, some people will say I was this or I was that but they can always say I am an Eagle Scout, it never goes away it never ends. It’s an honor and a privilege to be an Eagle Scout. People expect more from you and you know you can do it. Many great men are Eagle Scouts and now it’s your turn to do great things.

Being the mama to an Eagle Scout is such a great thing. I know just how much work Mike put into this. He got his Eagle when he was 15 years old. He was on a mission, to become an Eagle Scout before Uncle Henry passed away. You see, Uncle Henry was one of Aitkin County’s first dozen Eagle Scouts and Mike wanted to be sure Henry could see that. It didn’t work out quite that way, Henry ended up with Alzheimer's and didn’t know but he was still here for Mike to tell him about it. Just maybe in his mind somewhere it sunk it because he always looked at Mike with such respect. Mike also went on with scouts to earn 52 merit badges. 52 for troop 52. Something everyone will remember and mostly Mike. At his last Scouting Court of Honor he received his last merit badges and last palm as a scout. Now he’s an adult and can help Kevin when he needs it, be part of the troop for as long as he wants to be and just who knows, maybe someday he’ll be a scout master for his troop or another troop some place else. Now that would be taking the honor and doing something extra great with it.

So there you have it guys, the banquet in words and pictures. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed sharing and doing the mama thing, bragging a bit. I can’t help it, I just know how hard it is, how great an honor is it to become an Eagle Scout.

Now take care and have the most blessed afternoon possible.

Garden Swap…

So I hope that everyone got their partners now and are figuring out what to send them. Isn’t this fun? I had a blast getting everything ready and then Justin helped me pair up the most of you. If something is missing or wrong with your partner or the e-mails I sent out please contact me and I’ll get them straightened out. I think it’s all okay, I did mess up on one name and e-mail but that got cleared up so I think all is well in the Garden Swap world.

To the right I have put up the MckLinky so when you receive your goodies, post on your blog what you got and then stop by here and leave your name and post and everyone will get to see just how much fun all of this was. I set the link to start next Monday and end May 2nd. I think that will be plenty of time but if we need more time please tell me and since I figured out the MckLinky thing I can change it.

Now to give you a sneak peek on something. May 5th is my one year anniversary and I’m going to be having a give away. It’s not going to require anything but leaving me your name and e-mail address in a comment. No tweeting, no face booking, nothing, just signing up. I have a box of goodies I’ve been working on and I promise it will be worth your time to sign up.

I want to thank you all for your kind works and prayers for my family and Cindy. Cindy is out of the hospital and hanging in there. She is improving every day and will see the doctor on Thursday to see about her bone marrow testing. I find it so amazing how one week ago we were afraid she wouldn’t be coming home and here she is at home and able to do a bit of shopping and go for a car ride and enjoy. Praise the Lord!!!

God Bless you all!!!!

P.S. Tomorrow I will have some photo’s to share with you. We went to Mike’s Eagle Scout Recognition Banquet Saturday evening and even though a lot of the pictures didn’t turn out there are some that are worthy to share with you. They honored 11 Eagle Scouts that night. It was an amazing banquet.

Spring and more…

Today sure didn’t happen like it was planned. Remember I was going to take Justin shopping, McDonalds and to see the bunnies? Well as soon as I got to town mama called and Scott was sick at school and with Cindy in the hospital, her hubby there with her, my dad fishing with his friend and my mama not driving far she wasn’t sure what to do. So Justin and I ended up driving to Brainerd to get him, an hour the opposite way we were. It didn’t matter to either of us, Justin was just happy to have me to himself and I just go with the flow. So got to Scotts school and he had a cough I could hear coming down the hall so picked him up and took him home. I had planned on my home but on the way we met Cindy and Kevin. They released Cindy today. She has improved a little bit the past two days and her insurance company said as long as she’s improving she can do it at home. Even though the doctors have no real idea yet why she’s so sick. They sent her home with antibiotics and to just rest and try to get stronger and her doctor will see her next Thursday if he doesn’t see her back in the hospital before that. They didn’t do the bone marrow test either, she’s not strong enough for that so maybe next week if she gets better. Justin did get to go to McDonalds and play and also got his Happy Meal. He was ready for nap and I got his caked baked and ready for him. The kids came at 3:30 and his party began. I didn’t get to great a pictures this time but here’s a couple of Justin and his day.

It ended up being just a great day, though not what I had planned but still great.

Tonight Jim, Mike and I went for a long hike in the woods. Jim wanted to find the corner stakes, the survey markers. The total walk was about 3 miles up and down, over and under, around and though the woods. Guess what else, the ticks are out by the hundreds. I am pretty lucky, with my thyroid problems they don’t like me but both Jim and Mike got at least 30 ticks each. Wilbur got stuck by a porcupine so part way though the walk I had to get the quills out of his nose. He’s fine now just very tired. It was beautiful walk and so nice to be out with the guys. Usually it’s my dad and I that walk. Speaking of…see…..

This is my daddy and me. Here’s some of what daddy and I saw during last evenings walk.

Well that was today and the promised pictures. If Hannah is feeling better we’ll go see the bunnies tomorrow, if not next week will do too.

Take care everyone. Tomorrow is Friday Follow and New Friend Friday, click on the buttons on the right and they’ll take you right to where you need to go to sign up to meet and great some new friends. I so love Fridays, I so love new friends and I so love all my old ones and no so old ones. You guys are really terrific and so wonderful. I appreciate all your concern, love, support and prayers.

Have a great TGIF and a blessed weekend. 

Good morning….

So far it is anyways. Not a day I had expected but what fun is everyday that’s planned. Today I just have Justin because his sister has the flu. To bad for Hannah and her mama who’s missing work. Great for Justin though because today is his birthday and since it’s just him here today we are going to do a few extra fun things. Like we’re going to go to Terri’s farm and see that baby bunnies, calves and chicks. Then we are going to go to Angel Dance, it’s a 2nd hand store, and just see what we can find. When that’s done he gets to go to McDonalds and he can have a Happy Meal for his birthday. We’ll come home for nap time and while he sleeps I’ll make his birthday cake. David is going to pick up all my kids after school and bring them out here for Justin’s birthday party. YEAH!!!! Except I just got a phone call, Anton is sick today too so the party is getting a little smaller but we’ll make it happy!

I don’t have any big news about Cindy right now. Yesterday was a small improvement. Her blood test came back just a little bit better. They just aren’t positive yet what is going on but they’re working on it. Today they are going to do a bone marrow test. We know what that means but hopefully it’s to rule out stuff not because of a suspicion. Thank you all for all your prayers and support. My family appreciates your love and caring support.

Now to lighten the mood just a bit……well lots if you love the song like I do. You gotta check this out.

I took some really pretty pictures last night on my walk with daddy but want to wait to download them when I do the bunny pictures so tonight or tomorrow will have some goodies to show you. Oh can’t forget the birthday party pictures too.

Take care my friends, enjoy the show. Thank you all for so much. God Bless each and every one of you!!!

My sister….

Is very, very sick again. I do not know how long her body can take all of it that happens to her. She looked so frail tonight. She’s been in the hospital since Friday, has had tons of test and they can’t tell her a bunch yet. Her white count is so low it’s not even on the charts, her intestines are enlarged, her hemoglobin is 3 points below low. She barely can eat, talk and stay awake. She so weak but she made sure she stayed awake to visit with us. She ate dinner because I sorta pushed her too. I brought mama, daddy and Mike with to visit too because we just don’t know. I feel so helpless. She has been though so much in the past 16 years.

Please pray for her and her family. She has two sons and a hubby. My mom and dad and me, her sister. She is so loved and needed.

Tonight I met a neat man, Ron Copper at Inspiredbyron. I read so many of his poems, inspirations, tributes. Tonight I needed to read some good. I needed to feel some good and reading some of Ron’s stuff is doing just that. I hate poetry, poems and all that kind of stuff. It’s just never been something that tickles me but….well there are two that I really liked at Ron’s Joyfully and A sister admired.

Please remember Cindy tonight in your prayers. Thank you everyone. God bless you all!!!

Garden Swap sign up over….now the fun part…

Well guys, we have 16 people for the Garden Swap. Yeah, I am so happy. I am getting ready to send out the survey and shortly you’ll receive it. If for some reason you signed up and didn’t get it please leave me a comment and I’ll send it right out. Fill them out and get them back as fast as possible and I’ll get to the next part, giving you your partner.

So now it’s onwards and upwards to the fun part. Getting something for your partner. I have picked a few things already for whomever I get (oh by the way, I’m going to number everyone and put it in a bowl and let one of the daycare kids put the partners together, I hope that’s okay with you all how I’m doing that part) and once I get my partner I can personalize it better.

Thanks everyone. Really!!!

Have a great week. God Bless my friends.

Had to share these….

As you know daddy and I talk lots of walks together and lately I’ve been bring my camera with so I can see what I can find out there. Well lookie what I found on Friday’s walk….

Spring is finally here. I’ve been working in the garden getting all the stuff cleaned out of it from last fall. Burned up the dried up old plants and got rid of the root balls from the corn stalks and sunflowers. Now this weekend or early next week I’ll clean out the chicken coop and then get all that goodness in the garden and Jim can till it a good 3-4 times before planting season starts. If this weather keeps up I think the first part of May I’ll get my ground crops in, the ones that can handle a freeze at night. But first we need to make sure it will stay nice. We never get the real garden in until the Memorial weekend or so because up until then we can have snow, blizzards and or below freezing weather. Just not worth having to plant a garden over again because you rushed it.

Here’s my last picture to share. It’s our pond that we dug out many years ago and have been working on. I love the deep blue sky reflecting in it.

We got the pump uncovered and read to use now. This pond is a never ending pond, even in the worse part of the year when things are dry this pond is always full. It has an artesian spring in it that keeps it full, ice cold and fresh. We have put fish in there and every once in awhile they come to the dock and look at us. This year there’s a muskrat that thought he was going to make this place into his home but that didn’t work out to well with him when we have a beagle that says that pond is his. Wilbur spent the better part of two days barking, digging and rousting him out of there. Haven’t seen or heard anything now for a few days so hopefully that meant he moved down the ditch back to the lake.

So there’s my spring pictures for now. Even the grass is turning green just very slowly.

Take care my friends and have the most wonderful and blessed weekend possible.

Garden Swap…

Who: Anyone - the more the merrier.

What: You & your partner will each send one another a package of gardening goodies (i.e. flowers/veggie seeds, garden tools, gloves, etc.)

When: Sign up NOW through the 12th. Just leave me a comment here.

Partners: Assigned 16th or 17th

Swap Date: April 26th.

So far there are 4 signed up so anyone interested?

Want to read more about the swap? Click here.

Take care everyone. Have a blessed day!

Sorta Wordless Wednesday…

Like Father, like son….

 

They built this…

A flag pole 75’ in the air. 45’ of dragline..30’ of flag pole. Can’t miss this coming down our road.

Take care everyone. Have a blessed and wonderful day!

Laundry Soap…

I’ve had a couple people ask about my homemade laundry soap. About a year and a half ago one of my daycare mom’s was talking about homemade laundry soap and how she had heard at work it’s pretty good stuff and was wondering what I knew. I googled a bunch of different ways and at first I made some liquid soap and though it worked good it wasn’t great and it was in a 5 gallon bucket and took up space and in this house space is at a minimum. Anyways I did a bit more research and in the past year have came up with a really good recipe.

So here it is if you’re interested.

1 bar Fels Naphtha – it equals 1 cup

2 cups Washing soda

2 cups Borax

1 cup baking soda  (for my teenage son that…well’s not as fresh as a daisy at times)

1 cup LA Totally Awesome (from the Dollar Store and it works so good as the degreaser)

So you grind up the Fels Naphtha as fine as possible. I use my old food processor and do a bunch of bars at a time. Add in the washing soda and Borax (for some reason the past two boxes of Borax have been either hard as rocks or really lumpy so I’ve put them in the food processor too to make powder) and the rest of the ingredients.

For every day laundry a tablespoon is plenty and for those garage clothes or gardening clothes two tablespoons work great.

You get 7 cups of laundry soap, close to 112 loads at about 4 cents a load.

Now you can put in some scent in it but it adds a bit more to the costs and since I use drier sheets in the winter and sunshine and fresh air in the summer I don’t add anything.

Give it a try, it really is great and easy to make and cheap. Anyway to save a dollar here and there is worth the effort.

 

I found a recipe for a All Purpose Cleaner that I’m going to try. I found it at Holly's  Here’s her recipe that her mother gave to her.

 

All-purpose cleaner

Ingredients:
- 3% Hydrogen peroxide. 97¢
-Water
-Essential oils -  lemon, tea tree, and lavender found at Whole Foods (or any health food store) The oils will last you forever.
-Spray bottle tops
Recipe:
Use one 16 oz. hydrogen peroxide bottle half full, and fill the other half with water.

*Note: Make sure you use the brown bottle for the container. It looses it's strength when exposed to light.

5 drops of lemon (lemon is an antibacterial, deodorizer and disinfectant)
5 drops of tea tree (tea tree is an antiseptic, antibacterial, antiviral and anti-fungal)
2-5 drops lavender (for scent purposes) You can use any scent that you like. I just love lavender. The aromatherapy makes me feel great!

-Shake before use.

She says that she uses this for all kinds of cleaning like - mirrors, bathrooms, kitchen counters, and even toys!

Another great idea to save some money.

So I’m off to bed. I hope that you all had a great Easter and time with family and friends. Take care and have a wonderful and blessed week.

Happy Easter…

The reason Christ died for us, so we can spend eternity in heaven with him. All we have to do is choose to except him into our hearts and he will come and clean and take care of us. He will lead us, teach us and support us in our life journey. Today, except the Lord Jesus Christ and from that moment on your life will be something really worth living.

HAPPY EASTER MY FRIENDS!!!

May the God Lord bless you and keep you safe from this day forward.

Daycare and Easter…

This is my crew. My little ones, my life, my joy, my reason to do the best I can with what I have. I love these guys so much and am so lucky that their parents believe in me and trust me with their most prized possessions.  They are an extension of my body. And they love me always. It’s a great life, it really is.

  

Spring is coming, our trees are budding, blooming and the birds are coming back. I love these little fuzzy things on the poplar tree. They feel so soft, sorta like a pussy willow but longer. So cool.

 

 

We decorated eggs today. They had a blast and then when they were done we made these butterflies out of the dye and paper towels. I hate throwing away all the dye so just went a bit further.

When the littlest ones were resting or napping the girls and I made these. They are sock bunnies. A bit weird looking but the kids loved them and the girls had fun making them.

So that was our day. Daycare started at 6:45 AM and ended at 9:00 PM. I am pooped and more then ready to hit the hay, at least very soon.

The kids learned a few important facts today. Christ was crucified at 3:00 PM. The Easter bunny came to life in the 1600’s and he was first known as the Spring Bunny. He was a non-Christian observed holiday and then later on the non-Christians became Christians and that’s how the Spring Bunny met Easter. I’m not to sure about this fact but we did Google it and that what we came up with.

So my dear friends, take care and have a blessed Easter.