I'M A YA-YA for the 10TH TIME!

Isn't she just spectacular??? :)

The Lord knit you in your mother's womb.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made! We give HIM all praise and glory!

Welcome baby Olivia, beautiful grand daughter and daughter to Marcus and Ivy, sister to Will and Charlie, cherished and loved by a whole lot of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents and more!

The waiting for her arrival: Aunties and Cousins

She was born today at around 12:50 and is 7 lbs. 13 oz.

In honor of all my children and grand children. :)

The Past Returns To The Present

Many, MANY years ago, we were soooo poooor!  You may ask, "How poor were you?"  Well, not third world country poor. We had running water and flushing toilets.... but we were POOR.  I could not afford to buy cleanser or cleaning supplies, so I learned how to use Baking Soda. 
I used it for everything, including laundry, dishes, and cleaning the bath tub. 
I was really happy when we were able to purchase those well advertised "cleaning supplies", that in reality just don't work that well. 

FAST forward 33 years. 

A month or so ago, I was reading Sarah Kovak's blog.  She is on my side bar of favorite blogs to read. :)
Sarah is a wife and mom and also has the same condition as Erika; arthrogryposis.  Her blog is delightful to read.

She is becoming more back to nature and guess what?  She gave instructions for using baking soda for shampoo!  And the conditioner?  "Apple Cider Vinegar!"  I have used distilled vinegar before, for cleaning floors,  but not apple cider vinegar for rinsing hair!

One of the challenges around here is with Miss Alli's tangles. She has the most tangliest hair I have ever seen!  I think it is too dry, and then gets oily and the combination is a disaster with tears and frustration that follow.
I decided maybe the shampoo was drying her hair too much.  So we agreed to try Sarah's recipe for shampoo and rinse.
It was fun doing an "accidental science experiment" at the same time.  We added 2 TLB of baking soda into a cup of warm water and stirred it well.  We wet Alli's hair and then poured the solution onto her hair and washed it as we would if we were lathering a shampoo.  We rinsed, and then added 2 TLB of apple cider vinegar and a cup of warm water in the cup.  ( our accidental experiment was that there was still some baking soda in there, so it got real foamy. :)  )    We poured the baking soda on her hair and let it sit for a minute then rinsed. 
Her hair was much easier to comb out.  It lasted for 2 days and it was time to wash again.  The SECOND TIME, her hair responded even more! This time, there were hardly ANY tangles and in the morning it was MUCH less tangly than normal.

I think my theory that her hair was drying out thus causing her to produce more oil, which was a bad combination was correct.  She is happy and I am happy and it is REALLY CHEAP!

I tried it on myself this a.m. and I am loving the results.  So, NO MORE EXPENSIVE or CHEAP shampoos around here. We will be using soda and vinegar from now on!
Another great use for baking soda is for teeth cleaning.

By the way, we buy the 13.5 LB bag of baking soda for  $6.68!  YES SIX DOLLARS and SIXTY EIGHT CENTS!   The vinegar is more expensive at around 4 dollars.

Sarah also has a face cleanser recipe on her blog.  We are going to try that too, as some of the girls are really getting into face cleansers. :)

And now, the past has returned. I have decided to start using baking soda for cleaning products BY CHOICE.   I forgot how well it cleaned. :)
I have returned to my "hippydom".... now to get an organic garden going again. :)

Ya-Ya The Wood Splitter

We are having a lot of fun with this wood splitter.... :)

Yummie Lunch on Pretty Dishes

Lunch is so much more lovely when pretty dishes are used. :)
Today we are having tomato, cucumber and onion salad, and parmesean  herb red potatoes. :)

More Green Life.....

I posted below an Update on My Green Life.... but also wanted to show what we are doing in preparation for winter.
I have posted pictures before of our wood stove. We invested in it a few years ago, and it is WONDERFUL!  This stove has an outside air source so it does not draw cold air into the house and only heat one room.  Our house is not HUGE, but it is the biggest one I have ever lived in.  It is 1,900 sq. ft. and this stove heats the entire house well.  Because the door is sealed, we can put wood in at night, and safely burn it till morning.  It payed for itself the first 3 months we had it.

We live in an all electric house, so heating is more expensive than cooling. We don't keep the house that cool, as that can get costly, but we can keep the house warm all winter, and all it takes is a little planning!

This year we will be sharing wood with another family.  We have agreed to store the wood, since they don't have room, and they have been out getting wood. We have all participated to one degree or another,  in unloading, cutting and stacking.  We are in various forms of some finished, some not, some seasoned and some not.

We will most likely go through 3 or 4 cords of wood this winter between our two families.
A cord of wood is 4x4x8 TIGHTLY STACKED, not criss crossed like an apartment type stack.  When people buy wood today, they are not buying a real cord. It is usually called a "face cord"... Most wood is cut at 16-18 inches to fit a modern fireplace, so people get ripped off thinking they are buying a cord, when they aren't.

We get our wood in a few ways. A tree service gives away Orange Osage. It is a Poppy kind of undesirable wood, but does very well in a wood stove with a sealed door.  The popping doesn't matter because the door is shut. It has a similar quality to coal!  We also pick up wood after people have cut down trees waiting for the city to dispose of it.  Most people are glad to have you haul it away!

This year we had a friend moving away and they gave us some of their seasoned oak!

We should have everything finished being cut and stacked by the end of the month. It is a family project that we all enjoy...... and it is putting already cut down trees to good use. :)

Here's to being GREEN! :)

UDATE on my Green Life

I posted in August about wanting to be more green and giving up my paper plate habit. :)

It has been 6 weeks and I am happy to say, we have not purchased any paper plates in that time.
BECAUSE of that, we have saved some money that I have invested into some fun dishes.
I am rather eclectic in style so I have found Target to be a great source for fun and decorative plates and bowls.

We use bowls a lot because of the types of foods we eat..... We eat soups, rice dishes and pasta dishes or salads.  Instead of buying large plates, we bought some larger bowls and salad plates.  It has worked out really well!  We all like eating out of our pretty dishes way more than eating off of our paper plates. :)

We are also being careful not to use the garbage disposal. We have a dozen and a half garbage disposals outside who would love nothing more than to eat what we were planning to waste. :)
The only thing is, now that we have been feeding them regular scraps, as soon as we open the door we hear "MAAAAAA_MAAAAAA!!!"  I think they like our cooking! :)

We also got this old thing back out! More dishes means more washing.... but we have found it easy to do quick washes and save the dishwasher for 1 use a day.  Once it is full, it is the old fashioned way that works.  If you wash in hot soapy water.... not too much, and then rinse quickly with hot frest water, you wind up not using too much water AND no electricity. :)

I'm feeling crunchier by the moment. :)

Preparing for Winter

My friend Michelle and her husband are adopting once again in Ukraine. She graciously let me use this photo for my blog. :) Thanks Michelle. Ok, I had to use the other one too to see the whole scope of this pantry. :)

I was so fascinated with this well stocked pantry! WOW~! I have canned foods before, but never on this scale! I wonder how long this much food would last? If we grew our food and canned it all, I wonder if we would come up with this much food? Would we be tempted to go to the grocery store anyway? :)

I would love to have a full scale raised bed garden and then in turn start to can my own foods. It is a big idea, I know. This year, we got our famous tomato and that was it.
With all the chemicals and junk in foods these days, and the prices of organic foods not being cheap, I just wonder if we did this on a large scale, and took it seriously, how much food we could really grow?

Any ideas?

So I'm SUPPOSED To Be Green

Not green as in Kermit green.... but green as in caring about pollution and what we use and throw away green.

I have gotten lazy. It is SO EASY to just throw away plastic, paper, magazines, boxes, cans, instead of recycling. We have no recycle bins in our area. It would make it easier if we did. In FACT, I'm going to do a little research for our area and find out for sure that there is nothing.

Nobody around here recycles. They even dump cans and trash in our ditch when they drive by. Makes me think of the stereo types for country people are sometimes true. :(

One of my Biggest FAULTS in this area is to use paper plates. It has been my staple china for a while. I hate it, that I have used these instead of real dishes!

So I am turning over a new leaf! For the past week, we have used paper plates VERY sparingly and now, we are OUT! The dishwasher is getting filled with more plates than normal, and I'm glad to see it! I am hoping we all withdraw from our old "Chinette" to our new "China" (not real china, just Target dishes) and continue to care about how we can do our own part to care for our planet.

After all, God gave us this place to live. Shouldn't we keep it as neat and clean as possible?
Did you know it takes oil to make plastic containers?

I wonder, how much we really are dependent upon oil, and don't even realize it.
Is there a place I could find a list of products that use oil?
I think that would be a fun project for school.

I like learning right alongside the girlies. :)

Time to google!