WIWW #7

I know that I haven't posted very many outfits lately. Mostly it's because I've been wearing everything I've taken pics of! I'm hoping for warmer weather more often so I show different outfits.
Anyway here's the one outfit I photographed this week. It was kind of a rush outfit to head to the zoo, that's also why the pic looks funny.

Purple shirt- American Eagle

Turq. cami- Maurice's

Jeans- Kohl's

flip-flops-Old Navy

I'm linking up to The Pleated Poppie's What I Wore Wednesday.

I'm going to be painting and cleaning today and I hope I can show the finished results by Friday. So we'll see!

Yard Work Weekend

So this weekend we spent a LOT of time outside working on the outside of our home. I have to say I loved it, especially since the weather was beautiful!

It started Friday night when hanging out with the K's we found out our city was giving away free trees, one per person! WOO-HOO!!! We just had to go pick them up! By the time we got there they didn't want to move what they had left, it was almost time to leave, so we got as many as we wanted. I got 2 for us and one for my mom.

We had this pitiful little spot in our front yard that looks like it had a tree in it at one time but when we bought the house it was empty. So this year we finally figured it was time to get a tree in there. We had just looked at trees on Thursday, so when Friday came with free trees we jumped on it! We planted the other tree in the back yard. They are Red Maple and should be really pretty, although we may not live here long enough to see it....

Saturday we had big plans: mow both yards, clean out & till up the flower bed, plant 2 trees, move a rose bush. We took care of all of that Saturday morning. Then decided to take Trey to the zoo after his nap. He's been asking to go for a couple of days so we went!

Sunday after church, we sprayed the yard for bugs, and power washed the back porch. It feels really good to have gotten so many outside things done! The yards look good and I want to go out and enjoy them more now. Oh and the neighbors aren't embarassed by us now!

The gardens are both planted now and I'm very excited about that! I planted tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and okra. I need to plant some herbs, and hopefully some carrots. I had some extra bricks so I sort of lined the courtyard garden plants with them. Just to help define where everything is and to help keep little feet out of certain areas. We're going to get a few large pavers to walk on.

I love this time of year and look forward to tending my gardens, playing outside with my family and enjoying this mostly warm weather!

Organizing Meds & Cleaning Supplies

For a week or so I've been wanting to go through my cleaning supplies and medicines to make sure what I was storing was stuff we needed to keep. It hadn't been that long since I'd cleaned them both out, maybe 6months or so. But I was feeling like we needed to purge further.

Cleaning Supplies

I had made some of my cleaning supplies back when I cleaned them out last. I made an all-purpose cleaner for countertops, toilet bowl/seat and pee on the floor (hey, we're potty training!). I also made a window cleaner. I tried to make a wood furniture polish but the recipe I had I didn't like how it turned out, so I'm still using store bought.

I don't use store bought toilet cleaners, but dish soap. I'd read about using that through FlyLady. Cheap dish soap works just as well as any "toilet cleaner" and it's safe to use around Trey (no chemicals to inhale) and it's WAY cheaper. I also keep a bottle in the cabinet next to each toilet, not with the other cleaning supplies.

As for shower/tub cleaners I'd been using store bough scrub but wasn't liking that it was a chemical as well. So this week I switched to baking soda. Also safe and cheap.

So all that to say here is what's in my cleaning supply cabinet. Or rather my before pic. Sorry it's kind of dark back there!

Just like any roomy cabinet, things get put in the back and then forgot or you can't get to them. So I got baskets at Dollar Tree (love that everything really is only a dollar!)

My cute baskets and my Dymo labeler (love this thing!)

After sorting all the cleaning supplies, this is what isn't going back in the cabinet. I know it isn't much but it felt good to me to get it out of our home.

This is what is gettting shoved to the back. My big basket of deep cleaning supplies: carpet cleaner to use with my carpet cleaner! I wasn't ready to get rid of that yet. My big bottle of vinegar that I use to make my homemade cleaners and my supplies to make my homemade laundry soap. The towels in the middle are my shammies and the other basket holds my wood polish, stain oil, cutting board oil and silver polish.

I have a stack of white towels that my MIL bought me when we moved into this house. She's big on using them for everything and when she helped clean the house while we were trying to move it she bought me some. I love using them! She gets them in a big pack at Sam's. Not sure how much they are but they last me a long time! I use them for cleaning everything! So they got a basket of their own to keep them from falling over and so I can get to the stuff behind them.
The general cleaning holds, window cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, wood cleaner, canned air and any smelly spray.
I know I still have some chemical cleaners but rotating them out is a process and I'm constantly working on finding more natural replacements for them.

Medicine Drawer

Ok, this can be a personal kind of thing. At least showing pics of what I have and have thrown out. However I want to show how much I threw out and how I organized it. We have large drawers in our hallway and I use one to store our meds. It works really well and Trey can't get into it. The drawer is about 18x16 and about 9in deep.

Here's the before pic. 

This is all the meds pulled out on the changing table. Our changing table is tall and roomy so this was a great space for me to do this!
Like I said before, I'd gone through this around 6months ago and purged a TON of pain pills! David and I have both had surgery so we ended up with a boat load of pain pills. I don't like taking those so a bunch got flushed. I'd kept one bottle of heavy meds but this time I decided that we really had no need to keep them. We're down to just the basics. We had lots of duplicates with different outsides that I condensed down to one and some stuff we just weren't going to use or didn't use. I also had about 5 thermometers, mostly from baby showers (why does everyone give you a thermometer?). I kept 2, one mouth one and one forehead one.
I also had lots of boxes with the pills in the foil packages. I hate those! So, using empty bottles from the pills I flushed I used those to hold the boxed pills. I cleaned them out and made my own labels. These take up way less space and look neater. For bandaids I just put all those in a ziplock bag. They store flat which I like.
Here's the trash pile.

Here's the keep pile.
And here it is in the drawer.

I had some extra room on the right side that I could fit our ace bandage, corn bag and my essential oils. I hadn't been able to put the oils in the drawer before, so I really like this set up.
I didn't label the baskets because there wasn't a place to put the labels. So I put little labels on top of some of the bottles. Just enough to give an idea of where most items are.
I like this set up so far, but I have a feeling things will just get thrown back into those baskets eventually.

Ideally, I'd love to downsize this even further. I'm trying to get more essential oils to take care of most ailments and do away with the "drugs". I want to get better about putting good stuff in and on our bodies.

Weekend Projects

This weekend I was able to finish a couple of small projects that I had been meaning to, well, finish!

First up was refinish/clean up a solid wood cutting board I found at Goodwill back in February. I absolutely LOVE wood! So when I saw this cutting board, I had to have it and since it was $1 I figured I'd splurge and get it.

The before pics.

They were used but the cuts weren't deep. I wanted to sand it down past any finish and past the cut marks. And then I added our trusty block oil (for cutting boards).

So here's the after and I think it looks great! The pic doesn't quite do it justice.

    
Next project is something special to me. It's a wind chime that was my Grandpa's. He made it probably around 30+ years ago to put by the pool he had installed in their backyard for the grandkids. When my grandparents estate was divided up, everyone got to request certain items. If no one else wanted what you wanted you got it. I wanted the wind chime. It always reminds me of summer and swimming at their house, and of my grandparents.

This is what it looked like when I got it.

(please excuse the nasty on the wall, we will be power washing the porch soon)

It originally had 6 chimes but when I got it, there were only 5. Or as of the start of Spring it only had 2 still hanging. And most of the parts were rusted. I've wanted to fix it for a while but just now got around to it.
The parts cost me about $6. I needed a new ring and wire to hang it (bought the ring and I had the wire). It needed a new chain and fishing line (bought the chain, the fishing line was kindly donated to this project by my good friend, Thanks C!). And lastly it needed a good cleaning and a coat of paint.

The top circle piece is wood and the middle circle and drop shape are some type of acrylic. I cut the chimes off and cleaned and painted it.

I've never used this particular kind but I really like how it worked. I wanted a fun summery color so this is what I chose.

I had no intentions of making this perfect. This is old and more sentimental than some show piece. I just wanted to freshen it up. Which is good since I sprayed too much on some areas and it has drips on it, but I'm ok with it.

Here's the finished piece. I'm very happy with how it turned out. It looks fresh and happy and still reminds me of my childhood and grandparents.

As far as projects go, we were able to get our dirt for our gardens but due to nasty weather I haven't planted anything in them yet. I have my plants but it was too cold for me to go out and plant them. So, I'm hoping to show that off later this week.

Daddy & Trey shoveling dirt

I was also hoping to paint my dresser this week but depending on how cold it is will determine if that happens or not. But I'm hoping to show that off in the next couple of weeks. It's a big part of my master bedroom fix up. And I'm ready to be done with it and show it off.

Free Paint Sample & Stuff

Last week through one of the blogs I follow (I can't remember which one) said that Valspar Paint (at Lowe's) was giving away free paint samples. I checked it out and I just got mine in the mail today. So I'm now sharing the info with you!

Here's the lowdown. If you "like" Valspar Paint on Facebook they will send you a jar of paint in any color you want, a mini roller with tray and extra roller and $5 off your next gallon purchase.

The box

They are only "open" during the day, certain hours (not really sure what they are or why they have hours online) but they direct you to their site where you pick out the color you want the sample to be. Then you fill out your address info and wait for your package.

What's inside

The coupon, paint chip, paint sample, tray and rollers 

I submitted my "order" last Tuesday and it showed up today. And it was totally FREE!!! I didn't pay for shipping or handling, or anything! Valspar is still running this. I'm not sure if it's a limited time thing or what but if you like paint or love free stuff or need to paint soon this is a great opportunity.

 I have no idea what I'm going to paint with my sample but it's nice having some extra paint around for being creative!

I have a couple of projects going on right now so I'll have some stuff to post about next week. Also we are planting our garden on Saturday (SO excited!) and I can share more on that too. And my parents are gutting their master bathroom and totally remodling it and I'm going to try to post about that as well. All of this to say that hopefully I will have some more creative projects to share next week and the week after.

Natural Ways

Well, it's Wednesday and I don't have a WIWW post to share with you. This last week has been crazy and I just didn't take any clothes pics, partly because what I was wearing was stuff I've already shown!

So, I thought I'd talk about something else. This has been on my mind and heart a lot lately and I love learning more about it.

I've been trying to learn what I can about essential oils and herbs and how they are used to heal our bodies, and maintain health in our bodies.

About a year or so ago I started to hear about how essential oils can be a healthy alternative to over the counter drugs. I loved the idea of relying on them for relief or help rather than a drug. When I was prego I had made the decision to had a drug free labor and birth. I didn't like that what meds I took my baby was getting too, even when he didn't need it. I didn't want that stuff going into his tiny growing body. Since his birth I've tried to not take a pill for every little thing even though he wasn't going to get it.

So, when hearing about a way to find relief from sore throat, anxiety, pain, breathing problems and such in a good for my body way, I was SO interested!

You know it makes sense that the God of this universe who created all we see, can create plants that will heal and take care of us in a way that is good for us.

I did buy a few basic oils that I thought our family would use the most: Lavender, (it is a calming oil helpful in relaxing, also good for cuts and burns to heal the skin) Eucalyptus (it's great for opening up breathing passages), Peppermint (also good to help you breathe and good for headaches), Lemon (it's good for sore throats and cleaning) and Orange (I'm not sure what it's good for but I bought it to use in my homemade cleaners, smells so good!).

There are more oils that I'd like to add and I'm trying to learn more about the ones I have. I'd love to trash most of my medicine drawer stuff because we've found healthier alternatives.

I've also been slowly learning about herbs as well, although I haven't been able to try any yet. But that is my goal in the next few months.

I really like using the oils and knowing I can use them on Trey (they can be used on babies too) and that I'm not drugging him or putting something artificial in his body, as well as mine and David's.

I've felt lead for a while to take care of my family in a healthier way and I'm learning daily some of the ways God has provided a way for me to do that.

If you'd like to learn more on essential oils check out Finding My Niche. She has a ton of helpful info on her blog. She does sell oils but she doesn't push, she just shares her knowledge on them with everyone. (By the way I buy mine through Akins Health Food)

If you want to know more about herbs, especially through the childbearing year check out Shalom Mama. She knows a lot about herbs and can answer questions about them, where to get them and how to use them.

I'd love to hear if anyone out there is using either essential oils or herbs and how you use them.

What's Up With Me

So, since last Saturday I've been struggling to get enough rest and just to get regular stuff done.
I've been helping our friends with some house projects (which I LOVE to do). See Friday's post.

And I've had some major dental issues this week. Actually it started about 2 weeks ago with a BLT sandwich in which the bacon attacked my dental work and created a crack. I finally decided to get it checked out this past week.
So I went to my dentist on Tuesday morning and he promptly referred me to a specialist (my current dentist did not install the work that broke, and it's a few years old). So a few hours later I was sitting in another dentist chair.
Then that evening I was eating dinner (another sandwich) and "Houston we have a problem"! Major, major breakage. So, I called the new dentist the next morning and they were kind enough to do a temporary fix.
And now yesterday morning I sat for 3 hours in a chair getting a major overhaul, but it's only my temporaries for a month. Thankfully the permanents won't take long to install.

And the weather was so great this week and I tried to get out more with Trey to enjoy it.
So needless to say, I've had a crazy week and haven't gotten much done! But that's ok, because I helped my friends and played with my son and enjoyed being outside.

Here's hoping that this week will feel more normal!