Sending My Children to School

August 20, 2010 By 6 Comments

I don’t often discuss the fact that my children go to public school.  Sometimes I feel guilty that I am staying home to be with my children yet, once they are of school age, they are gone from me during the day. As a former public school teacher and wife to a teacher I know [...]

Filed Under: family, Finer Things Friday

Starting School

August 17, 2010 By 1 Comment

Yesterday my three oldest children started 6th grade, 2nd grade and Kindergarten. The house has seemed so quiet with just my 2 1/2 year old and I here. I am praying that they, and my husband who is a teacher, have a wonderful school year. It is always hard for me to let them go. [...]

Filed Under: family

Netting Dish Scratcher Tutorial

August 12, 2010 By 3 Comments

My grandma always used to make a dozen dish “scratchers” from netting for each of her daughters every Christmas.  It was a tradition that we haven’t kept up with even though the scratchers aren’t hard to make and we all love using them to wash our dishes. When we stayed with my aunt and uncle [...]

Filed Under: crafts, tutorials

Lunch Bag Sewing

August 11, 2010 By 3 Comments

My daughter asked me to make her a lunch box for school this year.  I set out to find a free tutorial online and chose one from A Lemon Squeezy Home. I didn’t have any bias tape that matched the fabric my daughter chose from my stash, so I chose the turned and topstitched method [...]

Filed Under: sewing

More Frugal Kitchen Decor

August 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago I posted a few ideas of how I was trying to frugally redecorate my kitchen.  I have been having fun coming up with ways to use what I have lying around the house to decorate my freshly painted walls.  Our big project is so close to being finished, but I [...]

Filed Under: crafts

Washer Necklaces and More

August 5, 2010 By 3 Comments

  I just realized that I never posted about the washer necklaces I made in June.  I followed the tutorial I found at Little Birdie Secrets.  Basically, I used some metal washers I found at a hardware store, some scrapbook paper scraps, glue, a glaze and some cording. I couldn’t find the “Diamond Glaze” the [...]

Filed Under: crafts, Homemade Christmas 2010, sewing

How to Skin a Tomato

August 4, 2010 By 1 Comment

I know you are all just dying to know this information.    If you are going to preserve crushed, quartered, or whole tomatoes by canning them you will want to have the skins removed.  I learned this the hard way one year.  I had canned some crushed tomatoes, and when I went to use them [...]

Filed Under: canning/preserving

July Decluttering and Giving Totals

August 3, 2010 By 3 Comments

The month of July seemed to fly by with 4-H projects, a vacation, gardening and a big kitchen project.  Decluttering took a back seat to all of those activities.  Quite frankly, if you walked into my basement right now you might think a tornado hit.  You might never believe that I spent the first 6 [...]

Filed Under: home management

Garden Update and How to Freeze Corn

August 2, 2010 By 8 Comments

I didn’t exactly intend to take a week and a half break from blogging, but my kitchen re-do had to take precedence.  I am not quite ready to show you everything I did, but I will soon.  Let’s just say that I saw 2:00 a.m. more times than I hope to in the near future.  [...]

Filed Under: canning/preserving, gardening