A Gift That Keeps on Giving...

This may not be the ideal gift for many of your family and friends but for those on your list that may be frugal or living on a tight budget, they may really appreciate this as a gift. I know I may have blown the surprise for some of my family and friends that follow my blog. Sorry you all but I hope getting the bucket of suds will make up for spoiling the surprise.

This idea came from the blog of a gal that really knows how to be frugal and loves saving money. Check out her blog, Thy Hand Hath Provided  Jane is always posting up tried and true recipes and ideas. I am a devout follower of her blog.  She posted her recipe for making your own laundry detergent several weeks ago. After reading her blog and others folks comments, I was convinced to give it a try. I was thrilled when realizing, I could do a load of laundry for a couple of pennies plus the cost of water and electricity.

After making the concentrate laundry detergent and giving it a try, I found that purchasing those rubber dryer balls would cut out the need for static and fabric softener sheets. I was so excited about the savings and it was about time to start thinking about Christmas gifts so, I decided to make up buckets with all the needed supplies for my family and friends. I am convinced that if they give it a try, they too will be hooked. I only wished I had a chance to get by an As Seen On TV and pick up several sets of the clothes dryer balls but I have not had a chance to do so.

I picked up the 5 gallon buckets at Home Depot for 2.50 per bucket and the lids which are a must were about 98 cents extra. Then I picked up the needed ingredients (Borax, Fels Naptha Laundry Bar and Arm & Hammer Washing Soda) at Walmart. The laundry bar was 97 cents, the Borax was about $2.67 and so was the Arm and Hammer Washing Soda. I stopped in at the Dollar Tree for the measuring cups and graters. The cost for putting together the bucket with ingredients was about $13.00. I did purchase two of the laundry bars for each bucket. 

The recipe calls for small amount of the Borax and the Arm and Hammer and you grate up the whole bar of Fels Naptha. You can grab the recipe from Jane's blog Thy Hand Hath Provided (click here)

I grabbed a small clip art image off of the web, made recipe cards and laminated them to toss into the buckets along with the ingredients. I just hope my family and friends that I made the buckets up for love the idea just as much as I did. It is very simple to make and saves tons of money for months.

Below are a few photos from when I made my first batch. 

I first grated my laundry bar.

Then I added 4 cups of warm water to my pot and set the heat on my stove to medium.

Once the soap melted into the water, it was this butter yellow color and smelled so wonderful.

In the bucket first, I added about 8 cups of warm water, 1 cup of the Arm & Hammer and 1/2 a cup of Borax and stirred. Then I poured in the soap mixture from the stove and stirred well. 

At that point, I carried the bucket to my laundry room and finished filling it with warm water. I left a few inches from the top to allow room for stirring the mixture.

This is what it looked like as soon as it was all mixed together. I was skeptical at this point because it was very thin. I followed Jane's directions and covered it and waited over night.

The next day, I checked it about mid day. It had gelled up so much that about a third of the bucket was a thick gel. I started stirring and broke up the gel. I stirred it for about a good 3 to 5 minutes. 

This is what it looked like when finished stirring it. It makes 5 gallon of concentrate. At this point, I filled an old laundry detergent bottle half way with the laundry soap mixture and the other half with water. 

I then washed about 5 loads of laundry using the homemade mixture. I was convinced after my first load that I loved this detergent. The clothes were so clean and smelled so fresh but didn't have a heavy perfume smell. I even put a small amount of the concentrate in a spay bottle with a bit of water and used it as a spot remover on some of our T-shirts. I let it set for about 30 minutes and washed. It works great as a pretreat.

I am grateful to Jane at Thy Hand Hath Provided for sharing this recipe. I just hope all of my family and friends enjoy saving money all year long with their Christmas buckets.

Many Blessings and Merry Christmas!!!

A Couple of Flakes...

These two are a couple of silly flakes.

Every year when winter rolls around, we starting thinking about and looking forward to the first snow. We wonder if it will lay, how many inches we will get and how long will it last? We are a family that loves snow. Here where we live, we are not drowning in snow all winter . When we do get snow, it is a real treat. We try and enjoy every moment while it lasts.

 Several years ago, when our children were young, we started cutting snowflakes with them for decoration. We usually started them around the time we would put up the Christmas tree and they would remain on the windows until spring.

We still continue cutting the snowflakes with our granddaughter and will teach our grandson once he has mastered using scissors. We started a few nights ago working on them. Papaw always cuts the best ones but this year, Doodles really did a good job with them too. We ironed the ones we cut and put them on our windows on Saturday. We will still be adding a few small ones here and there but I think they turned out pretty perfect this year.

As you can tell from this photo, it is a rainy, snowy looking day here. Our weather man says, it will snow in the mountains and higher elevations tonight. Doodlebug is just in hopes we will have a white Christmas. I hope we see a white Christmas too.

Blessings!

Just the Girls...

A few days before Black Friday, Doodles, Granny and I went shopping. We hit a few of the craft and fabric stores. While we were looking at fabric, Doodles checked out the pattern books for a few new patterns for her dolls. She really picked out a few very cute patterns. I snapped quick photos of them and decided, we would wait for a pattern sale. I sure wished I would have went ahead and bought this one. I would love to make a few things from this pattern before Christmas.

We also ran across this very nifty, retro Alexander Henry fabric with a sewing theme. I wished now too, I would have grabbed a few yards of this too. I think I will be going back there next week and getting some to make new curtains for my sewing room. While I am there at the fabric store, I will probably go ahead and get at least one of the patterns that Doodles picked and get busy doing a bit of sewing.

So the gals had a good time to just goofing off a bit while shopping.

 

We actually managed to get Granny to try sushi and squid salad. We were shocked she tried it. She actually liked the squid salad.  

It was a good day just spending time with the gals. 

Holiday Thoughts...

With Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday, I have been thinking about what the makings of a perfect holiday must consist of for me. I have learned in my forty nine years here on earth that, a perfect holiday isn’t about the fixings. It isn’t about that recipe that has been tried, tested and family approved. Although, deviled eggs are a must at every holiday meal for our group and they like them just with the right amount of mao and mustard.

For me, it isn’t about setting the scene; however, I do love to decorate. I think the ingredients for the perfect holiday are, family coming together with an open heart, a willingness to share their hearts with family and friends and genuine love for one another. When those ingredients are present, love lends way to the most blessed of days, filled with smiles, words of appreciation for one another and laughter. Hearts can be restored through our kind words and loving attitudes on these blessed days.

I know I cannot control the attitudes of those who place their feet under our table and say grace with us each holiday but, I can pray each time that our holidays will consists of some of these ingredients. I also can make sure that my heart is open with a willingness to share, engage and be present in the moment, even if I over cook the turkey. I will have to fill you in on my orange Christmas ham sometime. I am still trying to live that down but that is a whole other story.

Many blessings and I hope you all have a very blessed Thanksgiving!

Museum of Appalachia

A little video from our field trip at the first of the month. You will need to go to the bottom of my blog page and pause the playlist player.

I was reminded this morning...

Only 49 days until Christmas! Doodlebug informed me when she woke up this morning. Are you getting ready? All I can say at the moment is, whew! Where did this year go to? I know I listened for years to parents and grandparents talking about time flying by as you get old but man, they were not kidding. I don't know about you all but, I had just gotten use to writing and typing 2011 on checks and such and now, the year is almost over with.

Well, I have bought a couple of Christmas gifts for the grand kids and have been picking their little brains for ideas. Doodlebug is being so helpful coming up with ideas for her little brother and I can bounce ideas off of her too. Now, I only hope she can keep a secret.

Yesterday we went to the toy store to look around and just see what sparked interest and of course to pick up the Big Book of Toys catalog. I have decided they each should have one. I ask them to write their names on them and circle photos of items they may like or items their sister or brother would like. Hopefully it will help me do a bit of shopping for them.

At Thanksgiving the adults will draw names. It just seems easier thing to do rather than rack our brains and stress out over trying to figure out what to get everyone. I am pretty set on knowing exactly what to get depending on the name I draw, so it should be fun.

Last month went by in a flash and I never seemed to get time to just sit down to catch up my blog. So, below I will post a few photos from last month as a catch up. October was a good month and our fall here in east Tennessee was very pretty. We had lots of beautiful colors and believe it or not, we still have a bit of colorful leaves and tiny reminders of fall around us now. The leaves will be gone in a few days with all the cool weather we have had. It has been a lovely fall and is my favorite time of the year.

Doodlebug's Birthday at the first of the month.

 The afternoon of Doddlebug's birthday, we left for a 10 day trip to drive up the coast through the New England states. We left after the party of course. It was a wonderful and needed time away. It was nice for Papaw and I to spend good quality time together.

The harbor in Salem, MA

On our drive up, we went to see a few of the light houses.

Papaw ate lobster and or clams at every single meal except breakfast.

Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, ME

We got home from our trip just in time to attend one of our son's friends wedding. It was a beautiful wedding. We also took Doodles with us. It was kind of bitter sweet for her. The fellow getting married was her very first crush. He had always been so very sweet to her and he made a bigger impression than I think he knew at the time. She would ask her uncle Joe Joe about him from time to time. I wished we would have taken a photo of her when we told her, he was getting married. She finally said, she would be OK with it and have no objections as long as his wife was pretty, sweet and good to him.

Joey, Nick the groom, and Cory.

Nick and Ashley are a beautiful couple and Doodlebug approved. She really did like Ashley too. Ashley was very sweet with Doodles and teased her a bit. It was so sweet and kind of them both to include her in several of their photos.

We took Doodles to a story telling night for our Halloween fun at a local historical site. It was really lots of fun. They had a costume contest. There were some very cute and some very scary spooks there too.

They had several storytellers and a bonfire. We went into this little cabin for the very scary tales. The gals telling the stories in there were very good. I truly enjoyed it too. There was even a release form we had to sign because the stories were so very scary.

The stories were truly, nail bitting scary.

It has been a very busy but wonderful month and we know, it won't slow down until the new year. Hope you all have had a very blessed fall too.

Many blessings to you all!

Update: From the Hen House...

Our hen that was laying the daily double yoked eggs, stopped giving us the enormous eggs a few weeks back. We had read that, when a hen is laying doubles, it just means their reproductive system is immature. We had kind of gotten use to not seeing the golly whoopers every day. The largest egg she had laid, before stopping, was 3 inches long, 6 inches around and weighed 86 grams.

Low and behold, she is at it again! Papaw came in from the hen house and announced our biggest egg yet. I never knew a hen could lay such extremely large eggs. This time this one measures 3  1/8 th inches long and 6  1/4 th inches around. It weighs in at 92 grams. It is truly enormous. The 92 gram one is the egg on the right. The one on the left is almost as big. I had to place something up next to it, to give you an idea of actual size. The apple is a good sized Jazz apple.

I will have between 9 and 10 dozen of eggs to share with the family at Doodlebug's birthday party on Sunday. Only a few will be extra large. The other eggs are about medium to large sized eggs.

We have been enjoying the onset of fall, the cooler temperatures  and the crisp blue skies. I have been spending some of my days reading. I have a stack of books, that I have been meaning to get around to and can't wait to read. I have enjoyed being able to relax.  Not having to be on the tractor as often, has given me more time to enjoy fall.

I just recently finished reading Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup.It is a very good book about life, the end of life and the changes that life brings. It was a fairly short read. I read it in my spare time in a day and a half.

Happy fall y'all.
Hope you have a blessed autumn!

Field Trip Tuesday

Yesterday we attended “Down on the Farm” day at the local fair with our co-op group.  We started our day off, having Mini Mouse pancakes at our favorite local restaurant. We got up earlier than Papaw was really ready for but we didn't want to miss a thing. Papaw did get a few minutes to nap, before meeting up with the group at the fair.

Doodles was so excited and raring to go!

It was such a wonderful program. Thanks to the University of TN and all the volunteers who helped to put on that program. Our kids had a blast but I do believe, the adults had tons of fun too. Also, thanks to Amber the gal that arranged it all for our group from our co-op. We have the most amazing folks in our co-op that really goes out of their way to coordinate our outings.  

Below are a few photos from the wonderful folks who entertained and educated our group during the "Down on the Farm" day at the fair.

The fellow who opened the show with juggling.

The bug guy was so funny. The kids loved him.

He really cracked us up when he stepped out with the hat on.

The bee keepers group was of interest to Papaw and I too.

The gal doing the "Wow, that Cow" table gave us a lot to thank the cow for.

The kids got to milk a mock version of a cow.

 

The highlight for Doodles was being able to pet all the animals but the horses were at the top of her favorites list. She loved getting to pet the pony too and talk to a gal there with the horses that was a teen. She really thought that was cool.

The kids learned so much about all the grains that the farm and farmer provide. We learned that there are grains and items from the farm, in almost every thing in our homes. 

The kids got to handle soy, wheat berries and dried corn. Doodles was excited to see soy beans. She loves to munch on roasted soy beans and adds them to her salads.

After the program was presented to our group, we were free to go and check out all the other exhibits at the fair. I do think we spent the most time in the poultry house checking out all of the different breeds of chickens, geese, ducks and foul. I can’t tell you how much fun it was to see the different breeds and study their personalities. We certainly know too now, why we really don’t want a rooster. Man those guys were so loud in there yesterday calling back and forth to one another. It was so neat to hear them.  I am just glad we don't hear them here daily on a regular basis.

I know we were never this interested in chickens and birds before we raised our own. After seeing the category of the Red Pullets, we do think we may have been able to enter one of our gals and walked away with a prize winning ribbon. Not that the gals that were entered were not beauties but, we do believe a few of our gals could have brought home a ribbon or two. Even in a couple of the egg categories, I am certain that a dozen of our daily double eggs could have walked away in the largest egg category.  We measured and weighed one of our largest eggs today and it weighed 81 grams. It was 3 inches long and exactly 6 inches around. That surpasses the Jumbo category by the US Standard. I will take a couple of photos of our Extra Jumbo sized eggs and post them in a couple of days. 

Modern Sizes (USA) Size Mass per egg Jumbo Greater than 2.5 oz. or 71g Very Large or Extra Large (XL) Greater than 2.25 oz. or 64g

I have so many photos from the fair that rather than post them all here, I am going to just toss them over on my photo stream. Click here to see more photos from the fair.

There was an abundance of produce. I was surprised to see a variety of red okra. I never knew there was a red okra. I have never tried it but, would love to.  I must give kudos to some of the local growers for growing some beautiful produce. I just hope one day, we are able to grow such a wonderful variety of veggies in our own garden.  I must get to one of the seed saver community meetings before long. I would love to grow our garden from all local seed.

After the morning and afternoon at the fair, we came home for a bit of a rest and some coffee, before heading back out to Wonder Works in Pigeon Forge.


We were so beat after the morning spent at the fair, I know we were all questioning if we could find the energy to continue on. This was also the week Wonder Works was sponsoring their homeschooler week with free and discounted admission for homeschool families. So, for our schedule, Tuesday was really the only day we could go. Doodles has wanted to go there for such a long time. It was a very neat place to go and I do want to return there sometime, when we can spend more time really enjoying each activity.  I do think that Papaw and Uncle Joe Joe really enjoyed the place too. They seem to have lots of fun just playing together there too. Those boys really play together so well. While they were playing, Doodles and I were in the “Dance, Dance, Dance” booth. They were planning late 70’s and early 80’s rock music and we both found a few new moves. The boys found us in there and they had a few moves to share too. I think when Papaw picked Doodles up to spin her in the air for a big finish, they about finished off Uncle Joe Joe with Doodle’s feet. Papaw whipped her around so fast, Uncle Joe Joe barley missed getting hit. To see more photos from Wonder Works click here.

Field trip Tuesday was a lot of fun. My feelings about getting out and enjoying the fall with a few field trips here and there, is a thing we must do. We will be home all winter long, without so many opportunities for field trips. We are just going to go for it and enjoy the fall as much as possible.

Doodlebug still had a full day of school work today. She had a math test, which she scored a 96 on and also, a math lesson that she only missed one question. She had a spelling quiz that she did very well on too. This afternoon, when she went for her piano lesson, she was very tired. Even her piano teacher noted that she seemed a bit more tired this afternoon. I wonder why?  I am sure she will rest well tonight, I know I will.

Many heartfelt blessing to you all!