Praying for rain

This has been a strange week. I don't feel like I should be bothered by it.
But I am.

Husband got a new job, after much encouragement and pushing from me. His old job, while the pay was good, was very stressfull and unstabile. Sometimes he wouldnt get paid for the week. He would come home tired and angry. He would call me several times a day, to check in, say hi, maybe vent a little. During our long work weeks, we stayed connected. We would even ride to work together the last few months. But, atlast he got a job offer and it was time to move on to greener pastures. It's a good job working for a framing contractor.

Great! I thought. This will be a new experience for him. He will have better opportunies, be happier. And in turn, it will make things at home, that much happier.

Wrong.

We are on day 3. I don't like this job. No phone use unless on breaks and even then he doesnt call- doesnt want to call the old lady in front of the new boys at work I suppose. He starts at 6:30 and who knows when he gets out for the day. Last 2 days its been well after dinner time. Last night, I missed him so much (pathetic I know, after 2 days of barley seeing each other) that I decided to make a nice dinner to butter him up and get some attention. He came home late, chowed it down and promptly fell asleep on the couch. No "how was your day". No "thanks for dinner". He was toast. And for the record, he thinks the job is "okay".

So this morning, I woke up, in an empty bed. He was already gone. On the way to work, my hour long commute was very lonely. My hour long lunch break and hour long ride home will be too. I found myself hoping for rain. May it pour and he be rained out of work today. Maybe my old husband who needed me will come back.

homestead update

With all this beautiful summer weather who has time to sit in front of a computer! Not I! But I thought I might take a moment and catch all my loyal readers (um, to date none) up on the happenings of us.

Weather has been hot hot and the garden is doing awesome. We have some japanese beetles and I am going to have to do something about that soon. Corn is tall, blueberrys are plentiful and everything else is trucking along nicely.

The waterbarrel has yet to be used for watering, as I am still nervous about what was in the barrel, but I have been using it to wash dirty hands and feet after gardening and that has worked out really well.

The yard is doing great, we have all of our wood for the winter now, just have to stack it all and fashion a better wall around the wood shed. We are currently on the hunt for some reinforced plastic, tarps just didnt cut it last winter.

Lastly, I've been doing a bunch around the house and things are looking great. New (to us) couch and love seat, lots of weeding out the old and re organizing. I've been repurposing tons of stuff. We also have drastically cut down on waste and expenses by making our own household cleaners and laundry detergent and using alot more rags and less papertowels. I have never been a paper plate person, so our new dishes from the wedding are being used all the time!

Lastly, our new food plan. I work 45 hours a week and commute 10. So when I get home, I want the high heels off, the wine in a glass and dinner to be quick. I love to cook, but by 6 I am done for the day. I've been finding myself running around in circles when I get home, especailly if I have not planned ahead. So we are trying a new way. I do big shopping every 10 days or so. Then I make a list of all of the meals we can make with what I bought and what we have on hand. If this works right, I have atleast 10 meals. I post this list on the fridge. Whomever gets home first, picks a dinner off of the list and starts it up. No fumbling for an idea, no "oh no we dont have that!". Its all there and its ready. And I am efficiently using what is in the cuboard- I buy less because I am putting my pantry to work. It has been a life saver and my husband loves it! He's made dinner 3 times now!

anyway, thats whats new. Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

Gifts on the cheap

Today is my mothers birthday. Cash (as always) is super tight but I wanted to give her some nice gifts. So last night I racked my brain and made some home made gifts that I could make her. I ended up distilling some home made rosewater for facial tonic and making some mint foot scrub. Both came out awesome, were cheap and hopefully she loves them!

Ultimate Homestead Weekend!

Whew! What a weekend we had! I blindsided the husband a bit with a work weekend, he was expecting a relaxing one and I had other things in mind. I hit some resistance, so I took it easy on him (he has been working a ton) and did most of the work myself.

What brought this on? Well, nothing better to do for one. But I also bought the best book ever on Amazon and it arrived friday while I was at work. Do It Gorgeously- It was packed with awesome ideas and I had some things I wanted to get done anyway, so I set my mind on getting some projects knocked off.

The first thing I did was revamp the homemade laundry detergent. My sister seems to like the liquid stuff we made, but I found it to be weak and not as effective as I need it to be. So I made the powdered kind. Heres the receipe I used-

1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda

1 grated bar of all natural soap (my girlfriends use Dr Bronners- I used the cheap stuff)

Let me tell you- it works awesome! My husbands work pants look fantastic!! I even hit the local flea market and bought the cutest green antique tin pail to store it in.

I cleaned every corner in the house. Even defrosted the chest freezer and cleaned it out. Made meal plans, sewed some projects, made the all the beds in the house and even reorganized some rooms and closets.

Husband did make it outside to stack wood and mow the lawn. I heard the lawnmower shut down 2 times followed by silence. Both times I went to investigate (I wanted to make sure he didnt lose a foot or anything) and BOTH times found him hunched over a plant. "Look! We have strawberries growing here!". "Look! We have raspberries over here!". He was excited! And so was I! Looks like this homesteading thing is contagious! Glad to see he is liking it too.

Anyway, I feel like we got alot accomplished! One step closer to a greener, happier (and pretty!) home!

my first pie!

Admittedly, I am not much of a baker. Not because I can't, more because I don't want to. I don't follow directions well and like the freedom of throwing together a meal. Exact measurements are just not my thing.

But, that may change.

Last week was my Dads birthday. As I was weeding my garden the morning of his birthday, I looked over at my very small rhubarb bush. As I continued on with my gardening chores, I thought back to when I was a child. Every June, this older gentlemen from our church would bring a bundle of rhubarb to my dad. They sang together in the choir and my dad must have mentioned how much he loved strawberry rhubarb pies. My mother would bake him one every year for his birthday, until the old man died. Then the pies stopped.

So, then it dawned on me. Why not make him a pie? Well for one, not enough Rhubarb. But then I remembered I had loads of frozen blueberries from last season in my freezer. And I had a whole pile of fresh strawberries. I hurried with my chores and then ran to my sisters house next door. She can bake.

She instructed me on a quick pie lesson. Line the oven with tinfoil, it will blow. Don't grease the pie pan. Wash top crust with milk and sugar. All the stuff us non bakers don't really know. And with that, the invention of my strawberry blueberry rhubarb pie.

5:00 came and the pie was fresh from the oven. It looked good. It smelled good. We loaded up the car and I made my husband drive 5 under the speed limit all the way to my parents house as I held the pie on my lap. Then I realized. Would people even eat this? I don't bake! They may not trust my first attempt. I told husband he should try it first- no way! was his response. Nice.

Well, I have never seen a prouder father! He was surprised and was tickled that I remember his love of rhubarb pies. He loved my addition of the blueberries. We made him try it first (it was afterall his birthday!) and he loved it! We didn't believe him, but he didn't keel over, so the rest of us dug in. Perfect! So, maybe I can bake after all!

home made laundry detergent

So last night, after much persuading by my sister, we made a large batch of home made laundry detergent. We found a receipe online and had all the suppys handy. Off to walmart we went in search of something to store it in and we lucked out. We found a 5 gallon water jug (like the kind you put on a home water dispenser) and it had a handle and a lid. It cost us $7 but was well worth it.

We decided to alter the recipe a little, but steeping a nylon full of lavendar in the boiling soap mixture. This does make it smell nice, but don't use a colored nylon...duh.....our batch is kinda black! Definetly wont be using it on my whites! Whoops!

Anyway, heres the receipe we used-

3 gallons water

1/2 bar ivory soap shaved and boiled in 3 cups hot water

1/2 cup borax

1/2 cup washing soda

Overnight it gelled up and it now looks like store bought laundry detergent gel! It smells good, but not sure how much of that will carry over to the washer clothes. I plan on trying it out tonight. I have a frontload HE washer, so I plan on using very little until I figure out how well it works.

We will see!!!

cleaning up my act...a quest for better cleaning products

Okay, so I have mentioned this before. But I am still on the kick of working on streamlining my cleaning products into better, multi-use, eco-friendly products. We have been trying to start a family, so I have been very concerned with chemicals in the house and finding ways around them. So far I am doing really well. Heres what I have done, and while there is room for improvement, I think this is some real progress.

1. Today I purchased my first box of Borax! There is mixed reviews on this, but I am going to make my argument. First, I am saving on packaging of so many other cleaners. Second, it's not dangerous to inhale or touch. It's also a renewable product. I am replacing soft scub, oxy-clean and comet with this product- maybe even more!

2. I converted to all natural spray cleaner, with reusable bottle. When you run out, you just add a new little bottle of cleaner to the spray bottle and fill with water. No more throwing away bottles!

3. Rags. I found on another website a lady who had a basket of rags on her kitchen counter. She used these to clean the counters and such and every couple days she would swap it out for a clean one. Then I remembered my grandmother gave me a ton of dishclothes for my bridal shower! So, I've been using those and have cut back drastically on the papertowels. I can't kick the habit completely, because (sorry) I refuse to wash the bathroom with rags and then throw them in my washer with clothes. Can't do it. So papertowels it is for that, but I use very little.

4. Lastly, I have gone back to a product that I love and have a hard time finding Dr. Bronners Sal-Suds cleaner. I can't even tell you how well this washes dishes! It works great on the floor too!! I adore Bronners and use it camping all the time- now we are using it in the house too!!