Botany 101

I found some little pre-packaged seeds with pots and a "soil pod" at Target last week. Since Katie LOVES flowers, I thought this might be a good introduction to how plants grow. She's been bugging me for the last week to get the process started, so today we finally did!

By the way, one of the best things about homeschooling is that you can do it in your pajamas!

It's Official

It's official: I'm a milk snob! A POWDERED MILK SNOB!

Don't laugh. It's true!

I've written before about how much money we began to save by using powdered milk. When made the night before and chilled well, we couldn't tell the difference between skim milk and powdered skim milk.

Then the milk hit the fan....it began tasting watery to me. I couldn't drink it. I told Rick it was like bad Yoohoo (a chocolate drink that's never seen the inside of a cow, as far as I know).

The milk I didn't like was REAL milk (ok, it was skim milk, but it wasn't powdered) from Kroger! I'd found some on sale for $2/gallon and we'd put it in the freezer. Rick had thawed it out and used it to make me some chocolate milk. ICK!

We're mixing the powdered milk correctly and getting the entire yield from the box so it's not like we're using extra powder and making it richer.

So, it's official. I'm a milk snob. I will only drink the powdered stuff now.

I've Got to Get Busy, Busy, Busy!

I received my first wholesale headband order! It's so exciting! To quote Professor Hinkle, "I've got to get busy, busy, busy!"

(You get 20 points--redeemable for nothing--if you know who Professor Hinkle is and what movie this comes from!)

Please excuse my excessive use of exclamation points in this post and the fact that I ended a sentence in a preposition. :-)

There's a Mouser in Our.....House-r!

I was awake at 5:30 in the morning, just cruising around the internet, waiting to get sleepy. Mieke comes up from the basement and into the darkened room. Nothing unusual. Mieke is my "baby". No, really. She thinks she's a child and will rarely let me out of her sight.

I hear a high-pitched "eeking" coming from the other side of the room. In the shadows I can see Mieke wiggling her behind and pouncing again. SHE BROUGHT A MOUSE UP FROM THE BASEMENT!!!

Mortified, I stop just before doing my own squeal at the top of my lungs. I don't want to wake the girls who are sleeping in the next room.

Mieke runs through the cat door with the mouse in her mouth...and into the girls' room! Now I have to run after her. I don't want the girls awakened by a bouncing cat and a bloody rodent.

She had it down and it ran, er, quickly limped, to safety...for a moment. Now the other FIVE cats have come running to see what's the commotion is all about.

Can I pause and say that it must be a VERY STUPID mouse to come into a house with six cats!

I had to go wake Rick up. Rodents are his department.

"Mieke has a mouse in the girls' bedroom!"

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"GET IT OUT OF HERE!"

So Rick drags himself out of bed to save us womenfolk from the dreaded mouse.

I would also like to say that no animals were harmed in this process. However, he did have to bonk it on the head to put it out of it's misery so he could dispose of it.

The story ends with a dead mouse and a confused Mieke who spent the rest of the day looking for her "toy".

Well, I wish I could say that was the end...but she brought another mouse up again in the evening! (We have seen no signs of mice in the house and the basement is unfinished. The rain must be driving them into a drier place.) It was almost the same story except Mieke and Murph played tag with it until it was exhausted and Rick put it out of it's misery once he got it cornered.

Good Mieke.....Good Mieke......

By the way, I didn't know Mieke had it in her to catch a mouse. She's the most loving, docile cat I've ever met.

Good Mieke....Good Mieke....

Works for Me Wednesday: Sewing Thread

There is thread that's virtually invisible! It's clear nylon thread and it's with the other threads wherever it is you go to buy thread. If you sew, it could save you bizillions of dollars in thread because you can go from sewing a dark fabric to a light fabric and not have to change threads at all. It matches everything!

Look at the photo above. The machine is threaded with nylon thread and it's hard to see in the photo. It almost feels like a fine hair, if that makes any sense.

In this photo, you can barely see where it's coming off the spool. Actually, it look like white thread when it's on the spool--white thread with a sheen.

In this photo, you can see where I serged the edge with white, but it's hard to see the invisible stitching about 3/8" to the left of the serge.

You can iron over invisible thread just as you would any other thread. It does have a small amount of stretch to it so you need to go as slow as possible when you're winding your bobbins to minimize this. (I haven't found pre-wound bobbins with nylon thread yet.) I thought the ends of it may feel "itchy" when they stick out, but, so far, we haven't been able to feel them at all!

Saving money on thread--saving time by not having to switch thread--that Works for Me!

For more Works for Me Wednesday, visit Shannon's blog!

More Hoppes Homestead Photographs

More photos from our day with the Hoppes Family!

A Very Nice Day

The girls and I visited our friends at the Hoppes Homestead yesterday. So much fun! They have four new baby goats, lots of chickens, rabbits, and a big fenced-in yard. I knew the girls had fun because they were dirty and tired at the end of the day.

By the way, Kim cans the BEST pickles! Maybe she'll post the recipe on her blog some day!

Making Friends

I've been trying to make friends with the serger again. (I would say "MY" serger, but it actually belongs to my mom--although I don't think she's ever used it!)

Since buying the new sewing/embroidery machine, I've known that I really need get the serger out and see if I can get it working again. Something went wrong with it about FOUR YEARS ago! I was trying to change the thread color from white to red. The tension was then off. The loops were off. I read the instruction book trying to re-thread it. Nothing was working. I put it aside and covered it up. It's sat there, lonely and unused, for a long, long time.

Last weekend I blew the dust off, uncovered it, and tried again. It worked! I've been serging up a storm. It's been mostly used for finishing seams on dresses for the girls. I've done a little sewing with it too. I just keep talking nicely to it....and apologizing for neglecting it for so long.

Obituary

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend by the name of Common Sense who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valued lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge). His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened his condition! It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, spilled it in her lap, and was awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone

(This is from the Internet.)

Breaking Free!

Yesterday I did a photo shoot for a friend of mine who has started a ministry called "Breaking Free Women's Ministries". They minister at the local jails, providing a Bible study, prayer, and support after the women are released. They are currently working on a big fundraiser in hopes of opening a halfway house in the county.

The shoot was a lot of fun! They haven't even seen the photos yet, and I'm still in the process of editing them. Wish I could do things like this more often.

Tag! I'm It!

Cyndi tagged me today! Here goes!

1. What was I doing ten years ago? I was living in Jasonville, Indiana and was working as a dental assistant for a company that provided services to nursing homes. A LOT of traveling was involved. Rick and I hadn't even met yet.

2. Five things on my to-do list today. Do a photo shoot for a friend of mine, start editing process of the photos, work on figuring out how to use my embroidery machine, take the girls outside to play, watch Survivor.

3. Snacks I enjoy? Popcorn, chocolate, nuts, BBQ Pringles, apples with peanut butter.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire. Have college/trust funds for my children and my neices and nephews. Start several scholarships for homeschoolers' needs. Fund my business with things it needs. Pay off the house. Pay off my parents' house. Pay off my siblings' houses. Give millions to the church. Do Random Acts of Kindness that are anonymous--like Oprah's The Big Give.

5. Three bad habits. Too much of the snacks listed in #3. Staying in my pajamas all day. Letting the girls stay in their pajamas all day.

6. Five places I have lived. Bloomington, IN; Jasonville, IN; Indianapolis, IN; Carlisle, IN; Short Hills, NJ. Yes, New Jersey.

I'm tagging anyone who wants to play! Be sure to let me know so I can visit your blog! Be sure to visit Cyndi's blog also!

Wordless Wednesday

For more Wordless Wednesday go to www.wordlesswednesday.com.

She Bringeth Her Food from Afar

She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar

Proverbs 31:14

Katie and I made our monthly shopping trek to "the city" yesterday. It usually takes us all day, and we make it a fun day together. It's a learning experience for Katie. We talk about everything we see. We compare prices (as much as she understands it), pray for guidance before we go into a store, look at the ads, and practice good habits like courtesy towards everyone.

At CVS I spent a net of just over $3.00 and got $38 worth of products we use. That also included $7.00 for mouth medicine that Katie needed and we usually don't buy. We used coupons combined with sales and the ECBs we'd accumulated. Not bad!

Kroger went really well too. Rick LOVES seafood and they had some crablegs that are normally $28 marked down to $10 so that was my first item. We also got 6 boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal that were on sale for $1.99 and I had a coupon for $2 off EACH BOX making them free! (We'll eat a lot of that, but some will be donated also.) We found milk marked down to $2/gallon and bought 3 of those for the freezer. Two cake mixes were for my mom and were on sale also. All together, I spent $28 and saved over $40. It's like I bought the crablegs and got the rest for free!

We also stopped at the meat market, Aldi's, Walgreens, GFS, the bread store, Wal-Mart (where I used $14.50 in coupons), and the Farmer's Market. Other than adding in a few fresh fruits and veggies in a few weeks, we're set for the month!

Our excitement for the day happened while I was having some fabric cut at Jo-Ann's. My cell phone rang and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello

Rick: You've gotta come home. Audrey has a BEAD stuck in her nose!

Me: What? Are you serious???

Rick: Of course I'm serious. Come home soon!

(At this point, I'm trying not to laugh. The woman who was cutting the fabric was giving me the oddest looks..... Keep in mind that I was at least 25 minutes from home! I get my fabric cut and hurry to the register.) The phone rings again....

Me: Yes?????

Rick: I got the bead out. You can finish your shopping. I'm throwing away every bead in this house!

Me: You got the bead out???? She has no bead in her nose???

(At this point, the cashier starts giggling and I can't help but laugh too!)

Rick and I hang up and I finish my errands. When I got home, Rick had indeed thrown out every bead he could find. (Katie and I love beads.) Knowing Audrey, she'll just find something else....like a bean, or a piece of cat food, or a small toy.

Karate, anyone???

10
The questions for this quiz are hilarious! You can click on the box to take the quiz yourself.
(Not that I would ever, ever, ever take on 5-year-olds for any reason....)

Wordless Wednesday

For more Wordless Wednesday, go to www.wordlesswednesday.com.

Summer Jammies

I made Audrey some new summer jammies this weekend. I cut them out for Katie, well, two years ago!

Technically, they're "lounge wear" since the fabric is cotton and not flame resistant. I'm sure she'll wear them to bed.

The pattern for the top originally had a curved hem. I started pressing the hem up to sew it, but curved hems are a pain. So I just chopped it off straight! Problem solved! Now, of course, it's a little short...but she's only wearing it to bed.

She was standing over the heating vent when I took the photos. It's too cold here for summer jammies today! The blowing heat made her look like one of those models in front of a fan.

Please disregard the unmatched socks. :-)

The Easter Cactus?

Our Christmas cactus started blooming in the fall and is still going strong! Lovely, isn't it?

Easy-to-Do Rag Quilt

I made the girls a quick rag quilt for their dolls from some scraps I had in my sewing room. You can view the tutorial here. It was very easy to make and would be a great gift for any little girl. The hardest thing about this quilt was finding scraps that hadn't been prewashed. Using new fabrics would, of course, solve that problem

This quilt would be simple to make larger for a baby, or even larger for an older child or adult.