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Showing posts from June, 2011

Timely Tips Tuesday - Hair

Make your own leave-in conditioner for your hair.  This is an easy recipe that will add vital moisture and shine to your hair. Just pour one ounce Jojoba oil and three ounces of water into a clean squirt bottle. Shake well before using.  I recommend applying this mixture to the bulk of the hair.  You can massage it into the roots, but be warned it can make your hair look a bit greasy. It works best on wet hair.  Letting your hair air dry helps retain more natural moisture as well.  For me, showering in the evening just before bed not only invites romance with my husband, but sleeping on slightly damp hair produces nice curls in the morning. (My hair is naturally a little curly.) A tip for curly hair - at night, while my hair is slightly damp, I smooth it down with just a touch of mousse and flip my head upside down and braid my hair from there.  (When I stand upright, the braid begins at the center top of my head.)  Then I sleep with it that way. It keeps it neatly out of my w

A Good Wife's Rules

I love this old excerpt from a 1950's Home Economics textbook.  I think that there are some good tips here for taking good care of our husbands. ·         Get your work done.   Plan your tasks with an eye on the clock. Finish or interrupt your work an hour before your husband is expected home.   Your anguished cry, "Are you home already?" is not exactly a warm welcome. ·         Have dinner ready.   Plan ahead, even the night before to have a delicious meal on time.   This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking of him and are concerned about his needs.   Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal (especially his favorite dish)are part of   the warm welcome needed. ·         Prepare yourself.   Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives.   Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking.   He has just been with a lot of work weary people.   ·         Be a little gay and a little more

Something to Do, Something to Think About and Something to Love

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A few years ago I read in The Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola, that it's good for children to have something to do, something to think about and something to love.  Something To Do Some of the ways we give our children something to do is through wholesome activities, lots of good old fashioned chores and service opportunities.  We don't have a lot of opportunities that maybe other families are afforded right now because we are newly transplanted in the area and don't have much outdoor space to work with (i.e. tiny back yard).  We also have no family in the area and are just beginning to get to know others.  But we are working hard to fill the empty spots wherever we can. This summer, we coordinated some park days with our homeschool group and today we had our first (successful) one.  Our boys have been looking forward to this all week long.  My husband did such a wonderful job leading the games.  He ran and played Capture the Flag with all the kids and

Brick Oven Pizza At Home

For years, Friday's have been our family pizza nights. Now that it's summer, I think I'm going to change our Friday night dinners -just for the summer season - to bbq nights instead.  We've just got to stop heating up the house with that oven every friday! But I thought I'd share my pizza dough recipe with you today anyway, because it's a good one and I'm making it tonight and it's on my mind. I've tried many over the years, and this is hands down, our favorite. The overnight starter gives this pizza an unbeatable chewy/crispy crust! Brick Oven Pizza Poolish (Starter) 1 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1/2 cup water 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast In a mixing bowl or the pan of your bread machine, stir together the flour, water and yeast. Set aside, covered, to rest overnight or all day. Dough 3/4 cup water 2 1/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1 teaspoon instant yeast 1 1/4 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1 tablespoon olive oil A

Answered prayers

Well our house that's been for sale since we moved just went under contract today and we're just praising God.  It's been a long year paying the mortgage of the old house and the rent of our current home. Plus all the expenses that went with the old house - electricity, heating oil and lawn maintenance.  It's been emotionally and financially straining.  If all goes well, it will close one year to the day since we put it up for sale.  We've been unsuccessful in trading in our inept real estate agent for a competent one.  Two days ago he finally agreed that if the current offer on the house fell through, he'd relent to letting us use another agent.  But the offer just went through so he'll be seeing us through the rest of the closing process.  At least he and my husband did clear the air somewhat to make moving forward a little more tolerable. It just occured to me how so many things fell into place this week that I can see the hand of God in. Some lit

Love Your Husband

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In the Bible, God commands the aged women to teach the younger to "love their husbands".  You'd think that a young woman would naturally love her husband, but I truly think God is talking here about actions rather than feelings. Feelings are fickle and can change with the wind.  Romantic love is awesome, but those who depend on that alone are heading for trouble. What we feel when we fall in love is an inevitable euphoric state that we all revel in. It's wonderful!  I am a big fan of romance. Perhaps God designed things this way in order to cause two people to actually make the lifelong commitment to marriage?  It certainly helps! :) Every married couple fondly remembers the feeling they felt when all the world was lovely and studded with roses and diamonds just because they had found the love of their lives.  But I have "fallen in love" with my husband over, and over, and over again throughout the years. Each day we are together, side by side shoulderi

Timely Tips Tuesday

I use Dryer balls.  I went for years seeing those little spikey blue dryer balls in the laundry section of the grocery store and wondered - do they really help? What good are they? At a garage sale recently, I found a pair of beautiful, practically brand new dryer balls for 50 cents and picked them up. I was excited because these were on my grocery list for the week and now I'd just gotten them for one tenth the price! The lady selling them said she didn't like the noise. Huh. I can put up with the noise, myself.   If it means conserving energy and saving money, bring on a little banging around noise. Doesn't bother me.  (FYI, it's not that loud.) I threw them in the dryer and there they've stayed doing their amazing little job of cutting the drying time by at least a third.  So instead of an hour to dry heavy stuff like towels and blue jeans (on high!) it takes anywhere from 30-40 minutes. For other laundry loads, even less.  These little balls work by break

Menu Monday

Here's my menu for the week!                                  Menu for the Week 7am Breakfast 12pm Lunch 3pm Snack 6pm Dinner Dessert Monday Cold Cereal and milk Pastrami Sandwiches Fresh peaches Blueberry Muffin   With Milk Homemade Chicken Pizza Green Salad Milk Dessert Pizza Chocalate cookie crust, cream cheese frosting and strawberries Tuesday Scrambled Eggs, toast Orange juice Peanut butter Sandwiches Cut veggie slices Applesauce Graham Cracker & milk Green Salad Salmon Alfredo Iced Tea Fresh Fruit Weds Granola with Milk Orange Juice Tuna fish Sandwiches Celery Sticks & fruit Whole Milk Yogurt w/ granola Quesadillas, beans and rice Milk Homemade Raspberry Jello Thursday Cold Cereal   with milk Sliced Turkey Sandwiches with lettuce and tomato Apple Slices with peanut butter Baked Flounder with mashed potatoes & mixed veggies Iced Tea Fresh fruit Friday Granola with milk Burritos Beans,

Growing Food

I'm excited to soon be growing some vegetables out on our back patio.  We have a very small back yard (thankful we have a yard at all, though!) and we decided that since we're renting, we don't want to dig up the ground and ruin the grass for a garden.  So my husband is going to build us a couple of raised planters out of natural wood.  They'll have feet so they'll be easy for me to care for without even bending over.  I'll try to post pictures when they're finished. One thing I think I will plant on the side of the house where there is some beauty bark is pumpkins.  They vine out and take up so much room that they'll be too heavy for a container.  But I think they'll be pretty easy to grow and we won't have to dig up any grass - just clear a little spot where the beauty bark is, plant it and water it.  Come fall, I should have a nice patch of pumpkins for pies and front porch decorating!

Juggling it All

We are in a very busy season of life right now.  We recently moved to a new state and there is so much involved in getting settled.  So many balls in the air it can really feel overwhelming. Our last house is still for sale and trying to take care of all the aspects of it's care and dealing with the real estate agent has been very time consuming.  Right now my husband feels our agent has shown significant incompetence and we have severe doubts as to his ability to sell our home properly.  Last February, we had excellent buyers and got all the way to  the  day of closing the sale. Literally on the morning of closing day, we got a call after they did a final walk through and were told that the house was flooded. Apparently the pipes froze and burst overnight. This was devastating news. My husband took it especially hard. We not only lost the sale, but now we had to do major repairs on a house 2,200 miles away.  But God.  Little did we know that the Lord was about to perform