Smells Like Home

Peonies
One of things I loved about visiting my grandmother was how good her house always smelled. It's important to me that my house smell nice too. That's one of the reasons I've always used scented laundry detergent and fabric softener. I would tuck a fabric softener sheet in the linen closet or under the trash can liner in the bathrooms...maybe another between the mattress and boxspring in the guest bedroom.

I recently read an article about the toxic chemicals in scented laundry products and air fresheners so I have decided to stop using them. No point in taking the risk of endangering my family.

So how do we make our homes smell good without the use of toxic chemicals?

1) Baking: My personal favorite. :) Several years ago we had some furniture delivered. I had brownies baking in the oven when the delivery man showed up and he kept going on and on about how he could smell them as soon as he walked in the door.

2) Fresh flowers: Have fresh flowers in your entry way. Beautiful to your eyes and your nose!

3) Linen spray: I have a lavender linen spray that is scented with essential oil. It's so nice to spray on my pillows before I go to bed.

4) Keeping the trash emptied: This probably goes without saying, but it's easy for the trash to get stinky quickly.

5) Baking soda and lemon juice: These are great cleaners and also great ways to keep your drains clear and smelling good. Pour some baking soda down the drain and follow with lemon juice (or vinegar). Let it bubble for a while then follow with boiling water.

6) Non-toxic candles: Be sure to buy candles that don't have lead in the wicks.

7) Homemade potpourri: If you don't have time to bake, put some orange peels, cinnamon sticks and cloves in a small saucepan and cover with water. Simmer on a back burner.

8) Scented non-toxic furniture polish: I love the scent of freshly polished wood furniture. Daddy Van's has some that smells really nice.

9) "Swish" your bathroom every day: Do a quick swipe and swish of your bathroom every day. That will keep any smells from accumulating.

10) Open the windows: Open the windows first thing in the morning before the heat sets in and let in some fresh air.

Ranch Pictures

I thought I would share some ranch pictures with you. My parents have lived there for several years and the kids LOVE to visit. They are out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road and about 13 miles from the nearest town. Most of these were taken back in March.

Today's accomplishments

Today I rearranged furniture in my house instead of rearranging my blog. :) We have a nice size home (almost 2400 square feet), but we only have 3 bedrooms. When all five kids were at home, we used the "bonus room/office" as a 4th bedroom. Lately it has been used as the guest room/"I don't know where else to put this" room. It's been neglected and unused.

Soon it will be put to use as a bedroom again. Greg's 4 years in the military are over next month and he will be coming home to go to college. He'll be living with us probably until Christmas, so I thought I had better get busy on his room. He hasn't lived at home in 4 years and I can't believe we are going to have him not only in the same city, but in the same house! We are really looking forward to having him here. At least we'll have 4 of the 5 at home.

I took everything out of the room today...all the furniture, everything. I wiped down all the walls, cleaned the baseboards, dusted the blinds, and vacuumed everything thoroughly. I threw away all the clutter and dusted or cleaned everything that I put back in the room. It's so fresh and clean and smells sweet. It's a long narrow room and hard to arrange, but I think the way I put the furniture will work well. It's still not really "decorated", but that can come later. Having a room neat and clean is 90% of a warm, welcoming place to relax.

I didn't realize when I took the picture that my dustrag was still on top of the TV. It's gone now. :)

It's a New Day!

Another Day In Paradise
I was a little down yesterday, but I'm starting a new and better day this morning. I've had my coffee, spent some time in the Word, peppy music is playing and I'm back to my usual optimistic self! My mom is going to entertain the kids and I am going to get some overdue cleaning and organizing done. That always makes me feel so much better. Now...where to begin.

I didn't cry...

Mother Weeping After Saying Goodbye to Her Serviceman Son at Pennsylvania Station
It's been a really long day and about all I can say for it is that I didn't cry. That's usually not a problem of course. Believe it or not, I'm not much of a crier. I remember being absolutely mortified when my mom bawled her eyes out during E.T. She's the crier in the family, not me. Today though, I had to fight it all day long.

We took Peter to the airport and by the time we see him again he will be a veteran of a foreign war. I've been through this with his older brother, but it doesn't make it any easier. It's tough to see them off any time, but it's especially hard knowing that in a few short weeks, he'll be in a war zone.

I didn't want to cry because I know it's hard enough for Peter to leave without feeling like his mom is losing it. How could I add to his burden? I managed to bite my lip and blink my eyes enough that I didn't spill a single tear. We all cheerfully waved and smiled as he went through security, but the frowns and moping hit as soon as we got to the parking lot. We're all going to miss him so much.

I'll be praying Psalm 91 over him (and over all our troops) every day.

Jalapeno Appetizers

We had a big party out at my mom and step-dad's ranch last night for Peter. They invited about half the county and it was a lot of fun. I'll post some pictures of their ranch sometime soon. Right now I want to show you the jalapeno appetizers that I took.

They are so easy to do. The ingredients you will need are:
jalapenos
cream cheese
bacon (I used turkey bacon for the first time and it worked out well)
ketchup
mustard
brown sugar
toothpicks

I realize that you can't buy jalapenos in the store right now, so this may be a bad time to post this recipe. Hopefully some of you will have an overabundance in the garden like we did. :)

I'm not sure what kind of peppers the yellow ones are. Mike planted them and he can't remember either...oh well, they tasted good!

First, slice the peppers in half lengthwise. Then use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and membrane. Be careful if you have sensitive skin and be SURE not to rub your eyes or nose.

See the DVD player in the background? Cindy brought it into the kitchen and put The Sound of Music on for she and I to watch while I was cooking. Isn't she sweet? I wouldn't let her help because I was worried about her handling the peppers, but she still wanted to hang out in the kitchen with me. She took some of the pictures.



Here are all the peppers ready to go. We put the insides on the compost pile.


Fill each pepper half with softened cream cheese.


Wrap each filled pepper with a third to a half slice of bacon, depending on the size of your peppers and secure with a toothpick. This is turkey bacon in the picture.


Place the wrapped peppers on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. While they are baking, mix together ketchup, mustard, and brown sugar. I don't measure, but maybe you can get an idea of the proportions from the picture.


After the peppers have baked for 15 minutes, brush the ketchup mixture on them. Return them to the oven and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes.


They are good hot right out of the oven or at room temperature. When we got to my parents house, I went ahead and uncovered them so everyone could sample a bite before I took them into the kitchen. I thought I was going to have my arm gnawed off before I could even get through (and not by the 4 legged creatures)! :) This is all that was left by the time I made it to the kitchen and these few didn't last more than another 10 minutes. The latecomers didn't even get any!

Changing Things Up

I'm changing things up (again) and giving the three column look a try and changing up the background. It took me forever to figure out how to do three columns, so if you don't like it I don't know if there's anything I can do about it without starting over completely. :)

I also put up a little poll in the left hand sidebar. I would love to know what you think! I'm wondering what sorts of posts you like best here. I can be all over the place with the sorts of things I write about and I want to know which are your favorites.

Cleaning out the tea kettle

We have extremely hard water here (meaning that it has a high mineral content). It really does a number on my tea kettle. When I looked in it this morning, I couldn't believe how disgusting it looked!


So I put about half a cup of vinegar in it, and filled it up with water. I boiled this mixture for about 10 minutes (making the house smell like a pickle plant) and it looks SO much better! You can also run vinegar through your coffee maker when the minerals start to build up on it. Of course run plain water through afterward so your coffee won't taste bad the next morning. :)

A Wonderful Time!

Porch Swing
My best friend and I (and our families) had a wonderful time together. It was a whirlwind visit and over much too quickly. I feel like the visit was over before it began. We didn't even get a chance to sit on the swing and talk like we usually do. They are already on their way back home. It's seems so quiet after they leave.

We swam, ate way too much, and laughed like crazy. I wish everybody could have such a fun best friend! I forgot to take one single picture! Where was my head? My kids fell in love with their little chihuahua (even though he kept the girls up half the night).

I can't believe that her oldest son wasn't even in kindergarten when we met and now he's about to be a senior in high school! Where have the years gone? It's been so fun to watch her kids grow up alongside mine. We're secretly (or maybe not so secretly) hoping that we can marry off some of our kids someday so we can share grandbabies. :) Wouldn't that be fun?

On another note, Peter said he has gained FIVE pounds since he's been home! Wow! I really am fattening him up. We won't even discuss MY weight. :)

Best Friends

Good Friends
My best friend Retrohousewife and her crew are on their way to my house! I can't wait. We are going to laugh and have so much fun. Usually after she leaves my face hurts from smiling and laughing so much. She is such a hoot!

We haven't seen each other since Christmas. I think I'll go make them some cookies. :)

Mission Trip

Church Steeple in Country Field
I've been meaning to tell you all about Bobby's mission trip. He went with our church's youth group to the Big City! They did some landscaping for a small inner city church there, ran an evening VBS for that church (which has no youth group or children's ministry), worked in a soup kitchen feeding the homeless, and handed out water bottles downtown at the bus stops. It's amazing to me that the youth from our little church could have an impact on a big city hours away.

The church has really been bathing this trip in prayer and boy were those prayers ever answered! Here's just one example: When the youth were visiting the apartments in the area and handing out flyers about the VBS, they quickly realized that they were in an almost entirely Spanish speaking neighborhood. None of our youth speak Spanish. They soon found a young lady originally from South America who could translate. When she didn't understand all of the written VBS material, she would take it home to her mother to translate. Her mother is a practicing Wiccan! The mother was being presented with the gospel through the VBS material. Wow!

Bobby has such a servant's heart and this trip really strengthened that. The youth pastor said that Bobby never complained and willingly jumped in to help wherever he saw it was needed. One of the ladies who went along on the trip to cook told me that the word she would use to describe him is "wise". That's high praise for a teenager. I can really picture him going into the ministry. He's a good example for his parents. :)

The youth shared about their experiences at the Sunday evening service and I was brushing away tears the whole time. They are really a good group of kids. And as our pastor told us, missions are not just for teenagers and not something that has to be done on a trip. We are all missionaries every day. My most important mission field is right here at home. :)

The Cake Was a Hit!

Just had to pop in quickly to let you know that the cake from Sunday's dinner was a huge hit! It tasted so good. I substituted strawberries for the raspberries because strawberries are MUCH cheaper. I think it turned out pretty cute considering I have no clue about cake decorating.

Food, Food, Food

Seems like my whole day today was all about food. Shopping for food, preparing food, cleaning up after we ate food... I don't think I've stepped foot outside the kitchen all day except to go grocery shopping (and I have the laundry pile to prove it)!

I made three meals (blueberry muffins, jambalaya and cornbread, and Frito pie), plus I'm cooking for a big day tomorrow. Monday is my little brother's birthday. He'll be 38. He's back from the wilds of the Wyoming oil fields, plus we have Peter home (and as of today Bobby back from his mission trip) so we have a lot to celebrate.

After church tomorrow my parents and my brother will come over for Sunday dinner. We'll be having a Pioneer Woman menu. :) We're having The Best Lasagna. Ever. (really), Olive Cheese Bread, and the 4th of July Cake (I thought it was fitting), plus sun tea and lemonade. My mom is bringing salad and ice. She also said she would bring paper plates and cups, but I actually like to bring out my nice dishes. I have a good dishwasher and the plates and cups aren't the hard part of washing dishes anyway.

Here's my kitchen in action today. You see two skillets on the stove because I made two versions of the lasagna. One with no pork because my mom doesn't eat pork, and one regular.

See the shiny new skillet on the right? That's my new one. The handle broke off of my old one and I've been making do for weeks with my other two skillets that are not very big. As you can see by the state of my stove top, big meals like the lasagna filling don't fit too well in my cast iron skillet. Mike has been telling me to buy a new one and I finally did. I love it! I want to leave it sitting out in the kitchen so I can look at it. :) I might set it next to the bed so I can look at is as I doze off tonight...OK, not really.


I've already run the full dishwasher twice today!

And just for grins, here's last nights supper.

Sorry I've been Missing

I'm still here, just pre-occupied! :) Peter is home for pre-deployment leave, so we are enjoying every little second with him. This time will pass all too quickly and then it will be about a year before we get to see him again.

Let me just say to all you moms in the throws of raising littles...hang in there. One of the greatest joys of motherhood is to see your children become strong, faithful, competent adults. It's sounds silly, but I look at Peter and think "I would like him even if he weren't my son". He's an amazing young man and I can't believe I've been blessed enough to be his mother.

I've been cooking up a storm. It's so much fun to cook for someone who is starving for good home cooking. I've made about 10 recipes in the last few days from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. One of the biggest hits has been her chocolate sheet cake. Yum!! I'm totally blowing my grocery budget, but it's for a good cause. :)

I'll probably be posting rather sporadically over the next week or so, but I'll still be reading comments and checking in.

A Day in My Life - July

Little Jenny Wren has been hosting A Day in My Life since March and I've enjoyed participating in it so much. It's fun to take a peek into the lives of the other participants. It's all about chronicling an ordinary day.

Today I intended to take the girls to visit my grandmother, but she said last night that she wasn't feeling well and didn't think she would be good company. We're going to try again tomorrow.

I woke this morning about 6:00 to a loud clap of thunder and the sound of heavy rain. That encouraged me to snuggle deeper into my bed and sleep a little while longer. :) I knew that I had no schedule or agenda today, so I had the luxury of sleeping in. I didn't actually get out of bed until after Mike left for work.

The girls were still asleep, so I turned on some soft music, made my coffee and cereal and had my quiet time. I read two chapters in Acts.

I always make big breakfasts on the weekends, so Monday's breakfast is usually YOYO (you're on your own). The girls woke up about the time I finished my reading and had cereal and juice.

While the girls were eating I stripped my bed, put my sheets in the washer and did a quick pick up around the house. Then I did my 2 mile walk exercise video (while the girls giggled) and checked the church website to see the new pictures from Bobby's mission trip (the youth pastor posts new pictures every night). I also emailed Mike, emptied the dishwasher and did what little breakfast dishes we had.

Then the girls and I took a quick turn around the very wet garden to see how everything was doing and checked the rain gauge. Can you believe that tomato plant? It's about 4 feet tall and spilling over the edge of the garden. The rain gauge showed 9/10ths of an inch.


After my daily phone calls with my mom and my best friend it was mid-morning and I still hadn't had my shower! Ick! So, I showered, got made up and dressed. I decided to wear my hair curly today because it's SO humid. There was no point in trying to straighten it.

I decided that for a special treat while it was just us girls at home, we would have a fun "girly" afternoon. We went out for lunch at Subway, which the girls loved. Then we went to Tuesday Morning where I got a cute decorating book and a pilates DVD and exercise band. I spent a little over $10 with tax for all of it.

Here's a page in the book.

Then we decided to head to a nearby antique "mall".


We found so many things we just loved. I found some cute aprons, table linens, and dishes that were calling my name, but we left without buying anything. Most of it was just too expensive.

Here are some of the fun things that we saw. I love these old radios.


Aren't these chairs cute and retro? I think they must have come from a waiting room or something. They are all joined together. If you look in the mirror, you can also see some old theater seats for sale.


After leaving the antique mall, we went to the dollar store where I got some sandwich bread and dishwasher detergent, then picked up Mike's dry cleaning, then home. When we got home I checked the mail and yippee, I had some freebies. I just love getting freebies in the mail!


I made the bed up with clean sheets and sat down with my cookbooks (and looked at The Pioneer Woman Cooks) to decide what I want to put on the menu for this week. I need to get the grocery shopping done in the next day or two.

For supper, we just had a simple meal of sandwiches with homemade pimento cheese, and salad. No heating up the kitchen! :)

After I did the supper dishes, Mike and I sat on the swing in the front yard for a bit and watched the girls play.

Now it's getting dark and I'm again hearing the rumble of thunder. The girls are watching a DVD and I have another load of laundry in the washer and one in the dryer. I need to check email and finish the laundry, then I'll probably settle down with my new book and head to bed.

Goodnight! :)

A Day in My Life

Tomorrow is the 14th (I can't believe it's here already) and I once again have the privilege of participating in A Day in My Life hosted by Little Jenny Wren.

The girls and I will be off bright and early to visit my grandmother who lives about an hour away. Mike will be at work and Bobby is off on a mission trip in the Big City (more on that later). Hope you're having a wonderful, restful Sunday and I'll see you when we get home tomorrow! :)

Singing in the kitchen

How many pre-teen girls know all the words to several Rosemary Clooney songs? Mine do! We are having a rainy afternoon here and the girls and I have been baking and singing at the top of our lungs. Mike says if we start dancing too he's going to go to think he's in the middle of a bad musical. Poor man. He's probably ready to retreat to the bedroom and watch a John Wayne movie. :)

This song is one of our favorites.

Texas "Caviar" and Sun Tea

I had some of my Blue Star Mom friends over last night for us to discuss our latest projects. The meeting started late enough that I knew everyone would have already eaten supper, but I wanted to have some sort of snack for them. I settled on Texas Caviar and sun tea. The "caviar" recipe is actually Paula Deen's recipe for South Georgia Caviar, but I changed the name. I can't be making South Georgia Caviar if I live in Texas. :)

They enjoyed the "caviar" and sun tea and we all enjoyed the conversation. We had a really good time just visiting and they stayed pretty late. I feel sorry for the ones who had to get up early and get to work this morning.



Texas Caviar

Two 15 ounce cans black-eyed peas, drained
One 15 ounce can whole kernel corn, drained
One 10 ounce can Ro-Tel tomatoes
2 cups chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh jalapeño peppers
1/2 cup chopped onion
One 8 ounce bottle Italian salad dressing
One 4 ounce jar chopped pimentos, drained

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, stir gently to combine and refrigerate overnight. Serve with corn chips. This recipe will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.



Sun Tea: One Gallon
3 family size tea bags (I prefer Luzianne. It makes the best iced tea)
Place tea bags in gallon jar filled with water.
Cap jar loosely
Place in sunshine
Steep 3-4 hours
Remove tea bags
Refrigerate within 1 hour

Look on the Bright Side

Couple Just Married
Some things are all in how you look at them. Our husbands are men (obviously), so sometimes they drive us crazy. I'm proposing that we look on the bright side of all those annoying habits.

1) He doesn't notice how you look.
You got a new haircut or lost 10 pounds and he never noticed. Look on the bright side...when you gain that 10 pounds back or get a bad perm he'll be oblivious.

2)He doesn't remember dates.
He probably remembers your birthday, but that's about it. The good thing is that if you make that Father's Day cake on Monday, he won't mind.

3)He doesn't care about details.
This can be so annoying if you really want his opinion on the color of paint for the kitchen, but the bright side is that you can decide with your best friend and he won't mind. She has a better eye for color anyway.

4) He just steps over the mess.
This is one that really used to annoy me until I realized that he just doesn't see it like I do. The good part about this is that when I have a bad day and don't get the house cleaned he doesn't even notice.

5) He can do something so obnoxious one minute and want dinner (or the bedroom) the next.
This used to make me shake my head in wonder. How could he possibly be thinking about THAT when I'm still MAD?? He just closes a door in his mind and the argument is over. He doesn't think about it again while I'm stewing all day over it. I've come to realize how great this is though when it's me who has done something obnoxious. He can close that door and it's over.

Let's give the guys a little leniency and remember why we married them in the first place. :)

Updates From the Garden

The garden is coming along well. We haven't harvested a huge amount yet, but I think we're about to be over run.

We set up our little garden plot a little differently than most. We put down several layers of newspaper (just the black and white part, not the slick ads), dampened it with the water hose, and put topsoil and compost over it. The grass won't grow up through the newspaper, but the plants can put their roots down through it. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it does. We've also been using grass clippings as mulch around the plants. That seems to be working really well to keep the weeds at bay too. We edged the garden with wood from an old swing set. It's not too pretty but it works, plus it was cheap. :)

These are either watermelon or cantaloupe that Mike planted last week. He planted both and I'm not sure which is which.


These are jalapeños. We have several different types of peppers. Something is eating the leaves, so we'll have to figure out what to do about that. We haven't been using any chemicals on the garden.


These are tomatoes. We have several tomato plants of different varieties and they are thriving.


The garden has been a lot of fun and we really haven't put much money into it. We bought a few bags of topsoil (spending $20 at most), the tomato and pepper plants (maybe $15 for that) and the seeds for the other plants (about $2). I think we'll wind up with much more in harvest value. We also now have the garden well established for next year and a great compost pile going. Maybe we can even expand.