Deodorant

I've always been leery about putting deodorant on my body when I know it has harmful things in it.  Then when the boys started to need it, that made me more worried.  We tried a "healthy"  brand sold in stores and that didn't seem to work and cost so much money.  Then my blog friend Trina posted on her blog that she just made some, I was so excited to read all her info.  She sent me to another blog and that one showed a clip of the lady actually making it!  So this past weekend, after finding the ingredients at the health food store, I made it.  My husband would be the perfect tester!  He was playing basketball with the men from the school where he works.  Not to be mean, but he usually stinks after he plays ball!  So the ball game was the first big test.  The next test was Sunday.  Mark teaches Sunday School teens and that makes his body work out too.  After church, Mark commented that he didn't smell like he usually does.   Last night, Mark commented that he is "sold" on the deodorant and said it works better than any other kind he has used before! Yippee!

This is yet another way to take care of our bodies and not put harmful chemicals into them! 

The recipe is this: 

6-8 Tbs coconut oil (solid state)

1/4 C  baking soda

1/4 C arrowroot powder (found in health food stores)

few drops of tea tree oil

few drops of essential oil for scent, if desired (I used peppermint)

Mix together with a spoon.  Great arm work out! 

You can put the good deodorant into a bad deodorant's old container.

Schooling choices

I'm so thankful for the freedom to still choose in our country how we educate our children.  I pray these freedoms still remain for our boys!  

The home school catalogues are beginning to come in the mail, getting me thinking and praying about next year's school year.  Next year Jordan will be a senior, making this our 13th year of schooling!  Wow, has time flown.  I remember when we were first married and knew a little child would be joining our family, we began discussing how we were going to educate him.  Mark was really opposed to the idea of home schooling especially since he'd be teaching in a school.  After a short time of teaching, he was all for us home schooling.  Not that the school he was teaching in had anything "wrong" but he saw the flaws with class room settings.  (One child gets the lesson and has to wait for the others to "get it" and many other reasons).  So this began the long process of picking out the curriculum that we thought "best" for us.  

I guess the reasons for home schooling and philosophy of learning will influence your choice.  I've never been a quick learner and growing up, had the types of text books with the word I had to learn in bold print.  So I began cramming those words into my brain and tried to pass the tests that way.  I knew I didn't want that type of education for the boys!  I call that BORING text book learning :)    I just got cheap-o letter and number books for Jordan (and whatever my Mom passed on from schooling my sister Ruthie).  Then once Jordan learned to read, I began using Rod and Staff for his reading and math.  I tried another reading when Hunter came time to school.  For the rest after Hunter, we went back to Rod and Staff (I asked Jordan and Brendan what curriculum  they liked best and they said they learned the MOST Bible from their Rod and Staff readers so I figured that is what I needed to go back to, they both read well and are so knowledgeable in their Bible). I switched Hunter back to Rod and Staff too :)   

We now use Rod and Staff for beginning reading, spelling and phonics.  Horizons math for the elementary grades, Keys to Math for the older boys, Bob Jones  English, Alpha and Omega science and history, Explode the Code for added reading and other books supplemented in for the older grades.  This is what has worked for our family.  I have  never been a huge fan of sitting the boys in front of a video of a classroom and calling it homeschooling.  I guess that goes back to your philosophy of schooling,, example: are you home schooling because there is no Christian school available?   Mark had to monitor a video class and it drove him nuts watching the kids in his room watching the video and the ones who were getting it, sitting there wasting time while the others tried to get  it.  There's NO personal interaction either.  I love knowing that the boys reading is from ME teaching them, not a Mrs So-in-so from some video!   Now for older education, a few videos may be ok but I just haven't had a need for it yet (thank the Lord).    This, of course, is all my opinion and each family has to decide before the Lord what is best for them with their philosophy of education.  We've always tried to praise character over achievement.  Some things are just plain learning that has to be done (times tables, neat penmanship,  nouns, pronouns, etc) but with home schooling, we can work their schooling around their bend in life's interests.  I'm so thankful for this freedom we enjoy right now in our country! Christians, keep praying that it stays that way!

Aprons

"I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty noses.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. 

And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables.   After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. 

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the menfolks knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

Remember: Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool.  Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to cool.    They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron."

Friday's Simple Pleasures

Every day this week I've had to run out of the house; dentist office, groceries, piano, taking the truck to the shop, field trip, etc.  Today is the first week we're staying home all day (except Mark, of course).  It feels so good to just be home!  So I've just totally enjoyed many simple pleasures of just being home.

Breakfast with Mark
Rain on the tin roofed porch
Rubber boots in the mud
Excited "Look Mom, I put my gloves on all by myself!"
100% on a spelling test
Chickens in the yard pecking at the snow
Piano being practiced on
Wrestling in the kitchen
Sewing machine going
Funny messages on FB from Mark
Crocheting a rug
Crackling of a woodfire
Browsing through the seed catalog and ordering the seeds, envisioning the garden full of veges
Fun chat on the phone with my sister
Making cuttings of the ivy and putting it in the window
Just feeling so content to be home in the place the Lord has placed us and the role He has given me!


Proverbs 15:13  "A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance."

Proverbs 15:15 "But he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast."

the Woodpile

When Mark was a Pastor in Maine, he was often asked by homeschool  mothers what to do with boys.  They were concerned that they would be too "wimpy" or "feminine" being around a woman all day (especially if they had sisters).  I remember hearing Mark give his answer and it has come to mind quite often.  His answer was,"get a woodpile,,, if you don't burn wood, find someone who does and have your son help them often."

We have burned wood for at least the last 10 years. I can remember Luke when he was 2, carrying the split pieces over to the pile and handing them to an older brother to add to the pile.  He was named the little fork lifter.  We praised them and praised them for helping with the family!   Not only does it physically help them but helps them see their value as a family member.  All of us working together to save us money, keep us warm and clear land.  

We start our wood gathering  in early summer and hope to have it all in by the end of June.  What pride comes from the boys and Mark as they stand and stare at the full wood shed!   In the winter months, they take turns bringing in wheel barrel fulls to the house and then stacking it on the porch and then bringing it into the house.  How much more team work than that?    They take turns emptying the ashes and loading the woodstove up.   It warms our wet hats and mittens and cold bodies after a bath.  Oh the memories around the woodstove and it's process!

Laundry Money

I read somewhere, "My husband works hard for his money so I work hard at saving it at home."  One way I've tried to always help, is by line drying our clothes.  A clothes line was one of the first things we put up when we moved.  We have even moved our clothes lines with us (my Dad made us a nice one while we lived in MD so I loaded it up to take with us to ME when we lived there).  While living in ME, we also put up a huge wheel and pulley type clothes line that we got in Amish country.  Many people would stop in our driveway and take pictures.  That always seemed so funny to me!   I was tempted to ask them to come and help fold it all :)

The Tightwad Gazette author says she saves her family $20 a month by line drying 50 loads of laundry a month.  (this was written in 1992 so I'm sure it's alot more now!)  After I just read this, I tried to figure out how much laundry I do a month.  I think I do 15-20 loads a week.  So, we almost double what she does.   How rewarding to know I can save our family $120 a year  just by hanging our laundry out 6 months of the year. (I tried the drying racks in the house and just couldn't handle the clutter so must use the dryers in the winter).   This is one "chore" I don't mind doing at all.  I love going outside, hearing the birds and chickens,  and hanging it out and then looking out the window and seeing the clothes flapping in the breeze.  Now the folding, that's another story :),  but the clothes smell so super fresh from off the line and there's nothing like getting into crisp, fresh smelling sheets! Super COZY!

The wonders of Garlic

While I was at my parent's this past week, a neat-o thing happened.  On the morning of Ruthie's shower (the reason I was there), my sister Tonya called and said she had a problem.  Levi (who had been fighting a terrible cold) had a terrible ear ache.  She said he's fussing and screaming about his ear.  If she just touched his face, he'd yell in pain.  Oh no, I wasn't prepared to do her part of the shower!  I asked if she had tried garlic yet.  She hadn't (she was going to take him to the doctor at 2:15 in the afternoon and this was early morning). So I walked her through preparing it and we got off the phone as she gave him to dose.  I called back a few minutes later and asked if she got it into him and she had.  I called back about 1/2 an hour later and I asked how Levi was.  Levi was laughing and playing with Violet.  She couldn't believe it!  Can it work that fast!?!?!  She did two "doses" before the shower and he was a new little boy.  

Later we were sitting around chatting about how the garlic had worked for Levi and Silas said, "Oh, that happened to me, my ear killed and Mom gave me the garlic and it went right away!"  My Mother was so impressed to hear it from an older child too!  Garlic is truly an amazing thing GOD has blessed us with!