Waiting..............

Here are 2 of our tomato plants that are waiting for a garden!  We are renting a garden plot on post and they have yet to call and say that it is ready for us!  I'm getting impatient.  :)  I'm already behind of some of the seeds that we have gotten.

~~~~Kathy~~~~~

Today

Here is the excitement of the day around here:
~Counting down till Sarah gets home.  (less than 2 days)
~Exercised
~Bible time
~Took Zach to his Worldview class at 7:30 this morning
~updated the checkbook and budget
~Deep cleaned the kitchen countertops
~~~ Still to do~~~~
~Strain the broth and make the soup
~Rolls
~Take Z and B to piano lessons, they are usually done here at home, but the teacher wanted them to practice on the piano at the church that will be used for the recital
~Library stop
~Back home for B's bagpipe lesson
        That is enough of my not so exciting life, but one that I am thankful to have!!!!!

Some beautiful Spring flowers that Becca picked in the lower 40.  (you have to visit us to understand that statement!)  ;)

Smells like Thanksgiving around here.  I cooked a 20 lb turkey for dinner last night.  I have a hard time passing up .79 per pound meat and it was on sale this week.  So right now I have a stock cooking for soup that we will have for dinner.  Later I will make some fresh dinner rolls to go with this!  YUMMY. 

~~~Kathy~~~~~

A beautiful Spring day

Becca and I spent the afternoon a farm of some folks from church.  They have 2 horses.  They had 3 until about a month ago.  They had a mom and her 2 daughters.   The mom recently passed, she was in her 30's.  It was a glorious spring day.  I so enjoyed watching Becca ride and did ride a bit at the end of our time.  Then Becca got to learn a bit about caring for horses.  :)

The beginnings of their garden.  Gets me excited to plant our garden.

A view of the barn

The back of the house and their fruit trees.

Heading out on their ride

Here is Becca on Shala

She had a great time.

Sorry about the messed up format of this entry.  I can't fix it without starting over and I'm too tired to do that!

Blessings,
~~~Kathy~~~~Pu6Uqg8S

Yes, I'm strange

So as some of you already know, I'm a bit strange.  Or so some of you will now think after this post!  ;)
I have been making our laundry soap for about a year or so.  Why?  Lots of reasons, cost effective, child that has problems with laundry soap, not liking to carry those big jugs of laundry soap home from the store and just cuz I can!

Here goes:

The ingredients

2/3 bar of Fels-Naptha (I read on line that you can use any bar of soap)

1/2 cup of Borax

1/2 cup of Washing Soda

Fels-Naptha $.97

Borax $3.36

Washing Soda $2.77

I have not measured, but the Borax and Washing soda will make SEVERAL batches. 

 Grate the Fels-Naptha in a food processor or by hand

 Yes, it will look like grated cheese at this point.  Could be used as a prank!!!

 Just thought I would show you what I store mine in.  Bought the metal container at Wal-Mart and used my Cricut to cut out the vinyl letters to label it.

 I mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.  (I make a triple batch every time I make it so I can just use 2 complete bars of Fels-Naptha)

 Then I put it back into the food processor with the blade attachment in small batches.  That way it cuts the soap up smaller so it doesn't look like grated cheddar cheese anymore.  :)

 Put it in my container and I'm done.  Took about 20 minutes total.  I use 2 Tablespoons per load of laundry.  We have a HE washer (High Efficiency).  Since they are particular about what kind of detergent you use in those machines I wondered if I could use this in mine.  I called the companies that make these ingredients and found out that this mix is fine to use IF I put it in the bottom of the machine before I put the laundry in.  I CAN NOT put it in the little dispenser cups.

I did not figure out the cost of this, but I do know that I get 80 loads of laundry from it and I know that it cost me $1.94 for the Fels-Naptha

I would guess it was less than $.50 of the Borax

and less than $.40 for the washing soda

So I think that it is a great deal to get 80 loads of laundry for less than $3.00

Still think I am strange?  I do too, but in a good way!

~~~~Kathy~~~~~