Count Your Blessings Monday

Down on the Farm has started a Count Your Blessings Monday, Please visit her blog to sign up and participate! How it works is that every Monday we will count our blessings and be able to share them and maybe be inspired by others Blessings as well!

Today I Thank God for my Family, we are a loving and close knit family who enjoy spending time together, we rarely do anything that is separate from one another and I consider that to be a Blessing in my life!
We also received a Blessing yesterday, After Church we were Blessed with a whole day of rest which is something we rarely have the opportunity for!
We have so many Blessing in our lives, often times we just take them for granted, so this will be a wonderful way to think about them and share them with others!

Home Made Laundry Detergent

I use this Laundry detergent every day, It is safe for the environment and very economical but most important, It cleans my clothes better than any other detergent I have bought and that is important to us, we have a well and we have a high iron/rust problem here, this detergent keeps my whites white with out the use of bleach!
It takes just a little elbow grease and a small amount of time to make it but, that's well worth it to me for the benefits I see in the end!

I pay 99 cents for a bar of Fels naptha, 2.49 a box for each,Borax and Arm and Hammer Washing soda.
This detergent will go a very long way, I saw on another web site that it costs about 2 cents per load of laundry! That's a savings I can sure live with!
I buy all of these items at my local grocery store but, if they are not available in your area, you can purchase them over the Internet. There are several different recipes I have seen and tried but the one I prefer is this;
Grate 1 bar of Fels Naptha soap and add 1 cup each of Borax and Arm and Hammer Washing soda ( This is not the same as baking soda), Mix all ingredients together, I also run this powder through my blender a few times to mix it all together very fine.
Use 2 Tablespoons per wash for regular laundry, add 3 Tablespoons for hard water or very soiled laundry.... Like I said this goes a long way!
It will not make suds in your wash but it will clean your clothes better than those expensive name brand soaps!
You can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to the final rinse if you like a perfume smell to your laundry, I like Lavender for my bed sheets!

Gathering Wood

We spent our day gathering firewood!

We cut, Chopped and split wood most of the day!

Hunter came along to help ,but he really just ran around exploring in the woods,

Lucky Dog!

The weather was perfect, just enough chill in the air to work without getting too warm or cold! We had a perfect blue sky all day,
funny how the weather can be so deceiving, we are expecting to get freezing rain and snow starting tonight.


When we came home, Alan split the big chunks of wood to fit in the wood stove and Robin helped stack the wood into nice neat stacks while I got started on fixing dinner. We ate oven fried chicken with my home made shake and bake seasoning, Angel hair pasta with a Parmesan sauce and snow peas, for desert I made Chocolate chip cookies!


We had a good time, got a lot of work done and it feels good at the end of the day!


Who needs a gym membership when you live in the country?

awaking my spirit

I have been doing a lot of thinking today, thinking about my life and the way things are going for me and my family. for the last few years we have been feeling over whelmed with so many changes in our lives. Several years ago we moved into a home that Alan grew up in, his Dad built it many years ago before Alan was even born and it is in desperate need of repairs, every time we look around we find more things wrong with it, every time we do something that improves our home a little more, the more things we find wrong with it. We are not rich people, we have made many mistakes in our past that has lead to poor credit and a fear to apply for any type of loan, we struggle along making the changes we can afford little by little. Everyday it feels like we are just barely keeping our heads above water, there are so many responsibilities on us and so many tasks to accomplish and so many people who always seem to need our help. For several years now we have been putting the house and other peoples needs before our own, we rarely get to do the things we used to enjoy, we don't take road trips, we don't go to amusement parks or the beach in the summer. We stay home muddling through the daunting tasks that our new home has required of us and never really able to see where much progress has been made for all of our hard work and NEVER feeling like we have the time to rest. The most difficult thing that I used to worry about was what other people thought, how even our own Family sometimes do not understand why or how we don't just change the the way our house is, but I am not going to worry about that any longer,

Our house is not perfect but, it is our home!

Inside the walls of this dwelling is a home filled with love, a family within it's less than perfect frame work that cares about one another and that's what makes it home.

But, You know I am learning that the biggest reason we feel so stressed and over whelmed, the reason we don't see those changes that we are working so hard for and the reason we feel so unsettled and without rest is that we have put all these things before God...

its like being knocked in the head and waking up to say WOW what did I do?

So from now on, I am putting all of my needs into Gods hands and I know he will show us the way.

God wants us to have what we need and if God thinks we are where we should be at this time in our life, well then I am accepting of that and when he feels that we have proven ourselves to him, well I know in my heart that he will remove these burdens from us... I know, I have a lot of proving to show to God and it is about time I realize that and work hard to please him first, then I believe everything else will fall into place as it should.

Thank You God for opening my eyes to the root cause of all our struggles!

and I already know you have forgiven me because you are wonderful like that, from now on I want to put you first and ask for your guidance on all of the decisions we make because I know we can not go wrong when we do!

Thank You for awaking my Spirit!

Early Morning Thoughts

There is always something special about the quiet solitude that the early morning has to offer, I enjoy this little bit of time for thinking and preparing myself for the day ahead. I believe that God gives me this gift of quiet time in the morning because as the day unfolds we become so busy, so preoccupied with the days events and when evening approaches we are just too tired and our minds are so active with thoughts of the things we have done throughout the day and of what will need to be done tomorrow. There is no other moment in the day that offers this kind of peace and it is a gift from God that I cherish each morning!

Bandit

Unfortunately Sheba did not work out for us, she was an older dog who was set in her ways and at times not very nice, she would growl and occasionally snap at us when we would try to play with her or discipline her for something she did wrong and with a young child in the house that was not a chance we could afford to take so, We have had to take her to the animal shelter where she could be evaluated and we hope placed with a proper home where she will fit in.
Robin was so upset, she has wanted an animal to call her own for a very long time and had a hard time accepting that Sheba was not the one for her or Ryan.
We understood that heartache and talked to her about finding a puppy that would grow up with Ryan and be trained to be the dog that would be good for our family so, she combed the newspaper for a few days and found this adorable little sheltie puppy, he is 5 months old and just as sweet as can be!
We have taken him in and he is getting along great with Hunter our Golden Retriever and Bandit just's adores Ryan, They are playing together as I write this, So.... I think I had better go check to see if my living room is still intact!
A New puppy and a two and half year old can create alot of damage very quickly!

Goodbye Pogie

Today was a sad day, I found out that one of my good friends lost her little dog. Pogie was such a cutie and whenever I would go visit,(and I am really sorry, it has been too long now) pogie just thought I was there to see him...no one else just him! I remember Pogie in the winter, When he would get cold and he had his very own blanket that he would crawl under and just peek is cute little face out from under it and how he loved McDonald's Hamburgers!
Pogie had a wonderful home with Robin and Craig, He was not their dog... He was their child and was very loved by his family, Robin and Craig, Please know you are not alone in your grief. So many people will miss this sweet little guy and I am one of them.
Goodbye sweet pogie, may you rest in peace under your favorite Red bud tree!