Yard Work and a Question...

Today I have been doing yard work like crazy! It's been the perfect day for it. So what have I been doing? I re-potted a Gerbera Daisy that was given to me as a thank you gift Thursday. Then I planted my Oregano, that my friend Rachel brought me. Did some moseying around in the backyard then I headed to the front where I trimmed a couple trees, including my beautiful Japanese Maple in front of our house. I also started in on this HUGE bush/hedge that lines one side of our driveway. It will be a couple day chore though as it is heating up nicely out there!

We took a break and headed to the Grower's Market, where I bought some Kale plants. I have been wanting to add Kale to our diet and figured that I would be more likely to try it if it is growing in our backyard!

On the walk home, I spotted this tree and I am pretty sure that it is a Dogwood Tree. I am not sure though, so I took some pics to show you, my readers! Here they are:

So, am I right? Is it a Dogwood?

Whew...I Am Worn Out!

I didn't understand when I was younger and my grandma would tell me how when they were putting a garden in, the house just seemed to limp along. You maintained it, but it was never completely clean. I understand now! After all, you can only focus on one thing at a time. Today we got a break from outdoor work as it is really cold out. So we are working on different projects in the house. For me, it was tackling my desk that had piles of junk mail and books from this past week sitting on it. Rather an eyesore! For the kids, it was tidying up their rooms and helping clean up our messes in the living areas of the house.

Just to give a head's up, I won't be actively posting over the next ten days or so. I might post once in a while, but certainly not like I have. We have another week and a half left of our break and it will be rather busy. When I come back, I may double up some of my posts with my Homeschooling Happy Hearts. As alot of the homemaking things we did and are going to do, tie up with homeschooling!

So have a wonderful Easter week coming up! Remember our Lord and Saviour who died and rose again to set us free!

God bless!

Break? What Break?

While on a break from school we have been working on our garden and lanscaping. My hubby wrote such a nice blog about it, that I will just link up to his blog for you to read! Just go to PTSGP to read about our adventures.

Today: Less is....well, less!

For weeks now, I have been going through the house...giving away so much that I think the kids might start wondering if they are next!

Today we finally got to one of the things that has been on the back burner for weeks: the clothes. We LOVE hand-me-downs and get them frequently. When hand-me-downs come into the house, I don't let them get any farther than the couch. I sort them and decide what we can use. Since the last batch of clothes, I read that after you have sorted through the hand-me-downs, take them out to the car to be taken to the next person or donation drop off. Then they are not in the house to be "absorbed"! I will be doing that from now on. Last time I was not so careful and the extra clothes were cluttering up the hampers, the closets, the bedroom floors, the laundry....TOO.MANY.CLOTHES.

Some people have the misconception that the more clothes you have, the more you have to wear/the less laundry you have to do/etc... There have been studies done that show we only wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 skirts...you only wear two of them 80% of the time. You wear the others, just rarely. I believe this is a very accurate study. Also....you have MORE laundry to do, especially with little ones cause they change their clothes more often...after all, there are more in their drawers...And, you have more laundry to do because you are going through more clothes. The clothes take up space, which takes up your time to dig through and find what you actually do use.

I proved this recently with our towels. We had a ton of towels...when I say a ton, I mean you could probably have filled a small row boat with our towels. Seriously. At least 80% of these towels were from our wedding almost 13 years ago!!!! What annoyed me is how often I had to wash a load of towels!  We had so many, that everyone (yes, including me!) would use a towel once and in the laundry it went. They weren't getting hung up for a second use, thus making me have to wash at least a load of towels every day. So....several weeks ago, I went through the towels. I saved enough bath and hand  towels for two per person as well as some for company. I gave away at least 3-4 garbage bags of towels....did you read that? THREE TO FOUR GARBAGE BAGS! (What I want to know is: How come almost every person that gave us a gift for our wedding gave us TOWELS? Sigh....) Anyway....back to laundry...I now only do about one load of towels a week. YES! I love it! We use a towel, hang it up to dry, use it again. After the second use, it is thrown in the laundry.

Side Note:The same concept can be used with anything in your house. If you haven't used it in the last 6 months to a year, give it away. 
There is only one exception for me and that is holiday/seasonal stuff. You only use it once a year, so of course you need to store it. However, what I do is when I bring it out to use, I mentally look over what is in the box. If I find that I haven't used it for the last year or two, out it goes. When you buy something new, find something to give away. Even better, when you find something new, give two or more things away. Then you are always on top of it!

Now...back to what we were doing today with the girls' clothes. I had them bring ALL their clothes out to me in the living room. We sorted through everything, putting aside things that were ruined/stained/or for donation etc..then they folded their clothes back up and put them away. We ended up with several bags for donation as well as a few pieces of clothing that will be used for rags or something. Now, to finish this job, as the clothes come through the laundry over the next couple days, I will be sorting them and putting aside any for donation.

I hope you don't have an over-abundance of stuff. But if you do, and you are not sure where to start, try this:

• Start small. Pick one drawer, one cupboard, or one shelf. 
• Make three piles: to keep, to give, and to throw away.
• Re-organize what you are keeping. 
• Promptly give away or put in your car what you are giving away.
• Toss what is not being saved.
• Move onto the next small area.

Good luck!!!

Today: Purging the Shed

We have a shed on our property that we are able to store things in. It has been really handy and I have enjoyed it up till the last two years:

A couple years ago we stored some things for someone. We were only supposed to be storing for a couple months. Those couple months turned into a couple years. Then they moved and didn't want the stuff. In the meantime, we had no way to even get to our stuff because their stuff was in the way. It resulted in us haphazardly moving things around here and there till we could get to what we wanted. Over the past few months I have been able to get in for a hour or so at a time. I would tidy and give away a few things, but it just hardly made a dent. 

So....guess what? This afternoon while the sun was out, we dug into that storage shed. It took almost 4 hours, but we got it done! It is completely organized, cleaned out and best of all I was able to give away a TON of stuff including:

• A baby bouncer. (Uh...Lil Mr is three years old.)
• A Stroller. (Repeat above...)
• A dining room table. Not the greatest condition, but works.
• 7,000,000 Reader's Digest Books.
• Two lawn chairs.
• A huge box full of misc. small things.
• A baby bassinet. (Was going to keep this for my girls....but decided not to.)
• Several bags of clothing and jackets. (I think this were supposed to go to Goodwill some time ago and got side tracked...)
• Two old youth desks. The old kind where the chair is attached to the desk. I wanted to keep them so bad, but just no room in our house.
• A tall tin Nutcracker. (Decided our house isn't cut out for him...)
• A vanity with mirror.

And so much more! I mean, we can actually get to the freezer now. The bikes can be parked and not stacked. It's a miracle! 

The downside would be that I am completely worn out now and contemplating a early bed time!

Have a great day!

Today: Shed

This will take several days. At this point, what I am interested in, is getting the stuff that is not ours,you can read more about that here at the end of the blog. Anyway, in order for us to actually organize, we need to have other people's stuff out. I think today, I will start getting some of it out. No cleaning, no organizing...just pulling out what isn't ours and has been abandoned.

Plus, I will get to enjoy the sun!!

Today: Finish Major Spring Cleaning Projects

Nothing makes a person bust into over-drive than a call from DHS saying, "It's time for your 6 months safety check." Of course, we will NOT talk about how if our son's adoption had been finished 9 months ago like it was supposed to, we wouldn't have to deal with these fun visits any more.... As I made the appointment for next Tuesday, I looked around the house and saw several Spring Cleaning missions that I have been in the middle of this week! ACK!!!!! Well, thanks to my wonderful family, today we have been tackling those last projects around the house.

My oldest girls took on my son's bedroom and they are having a blast with it. Doing a FANTASTIC job too! Our son's room had not been put back to rights from having our foster son for six months and it was time to make it his room again. So they have been re-arranging, cleaning and having a blast! I am so proud of them. I am sure I could not have done a better job...positive. They ROCK!

The little girls and Lil Mr have been going around doing little odd jobs for dad and I. Dad is cleaning out some of his stuff and I am tackling my very last major project for Spring. Indoors, that is. Outdoors has not really begun yet.

All in all, we are only half way through the day and I am feeling the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from my family having fun working together!

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Yesterday: My bathroom and cleaning chemicals

My first was-too-tired-to-blog blog! There had to be one at some time, right?

 So first off, yesterday afternoon I finally got to Spring Cleaning in my bathroom. I am pleased to say that I was able to be rid of a bag and a half (Walmart/store-sized) of old hair products, outdated things from the medicine cabinet and just some weird odds and ends. I consolidated the girls and my hair accessories into one bucket since we use the same things. I cleaned out every nook and crevice of the bathroom. Scrubbed my porcelain difficult hard to clean sink with baking soda, and that worked amazingly well! So now, the bathroom is picture perfect!

Now for my cleaning chemicals....I have been doing a little research on commercial cleaning chemicals. Reading articles, talking to people etc...we are officially switching to all natural cleaning components. You know, the ones our grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents etc used? Those cleaners didn't hurt their health and they were inexpensive. I have made my own cleaners in the past, but as with my grocery shopping and meal planning, I had stopped due to what I thought was a lack of convenience. I found some great articles on how to make sure that your ingredients work together properly and do the job you are wanting them to do. Also making sure you don't mix things improperly. Just because things are natural, doesn't mean they can be mixed together willy-nilly! Now, I could go buy all natural cleaners. But why do that when they cost the same as the commercial and I can mix my own for 100th of the price! Yep, 1/100th of the price of store bought cleaners!

I think this will benefit our whole family. Not only as a way to save money, but also for the health of our family.

Today: My Son's Room

Thankfully, my son's room didn't take too long. For one, he is much younger, so less time in his life to accumulate things. Two, he is not sentimentally attached to a whole lot yet besides his trains. Don't mess with his trains!

So here is what we did in his room in the hour that I worked in there:

• Cleared out a large garbage bag of toys & stuffed animals to pass to Freecycle.
• Gathered a small bag of things of our foster son's that we will pass on to him next time we see him.
• Collected a small bag of garbage. 
• Gathered a LARGE pile of his sister's things, for whatever reason!
• Brought down toys that had been put up for their safety! (The little guy that stayed with us loved to take things apart!)
• Collected a bunch of small toys from the bottom of his toy box. We are going to use these to make a "sensory" box for him. You fill it with rice or beans & mix the toys in. When he plays with it, he is able to experiment with the different textures.                 

And that is about it! Only took about an hour, but made a HUGE difference!