Interesting Drive

Mondays are always our busy day. We have to leave the house no later than 8:30 to get to church on time. After that we have a sort of co-op class. This month we ordered food from a buying club and we were going to follow friends to go pick it up. Of course, today was the day to do that. Veronica and I have had a touch of a cold the past few days. Our eyes and noses are watering and we are sneezing. Today Veronica woke up with a fever and Kevin woke up sick. James and John were suppose to serve, so we had plans to camp out in the van while they were in doing their thing. I checked the weather last night, like I always do, and today, here, it was suppose to be partly cloudy. Well, as we were loading up and ready to leave and it was flurying a little. We sort of laughed about it. By the time we got to the Alabama line, it was coming down hard and sticking. The driver in front of me was fish-tailing and could not make it up a small hill. He pulled over, we pressed on. Needless to say, it was a slow drive, but by the time we left church, the roads were fine. About a half an hour later, you would never know it had snowed. I had John take a few pictures to show his Dad what we had driven through and I thought I would put it up on the blog.  Hope you had a Happy Monday!

Let’s See How Long this will Stay Here

I really have not given up blogging, I don’t think, anyway. There is just so much going on around here that my head is spinning. Hopefully this coming week there will be a post about the end of 2009 here. After that, perhaps posting will become more of a regular thing. But, I would not hold my breath. I have great plans again for the garden and have already started planning. My seed notebook is up to date. If we can keep up with the plantings and weeding, we’ll be in good shape.

Now, Mary Lou, if you are reading, thank you for the gifts you sent. MaryEllen has exclaimed more than once today that you must have sent that rain coat because you knew she would need it. She went out on the back stoop twice today, briefly, just so she could say she went out side in it. She also had it on this evening over her nightgown. I’m not sure if she has worn it to bed or not, but I would not be surprised. She really likes that and the toys and art supplies you sent as well. John took pictures of her opening the packages, so I’ll try to get them on here before too long.

OK, off to make a birthday cake! Red velvet, if you are wondering.

Edited to add…here is a link to my post about red velvet cake.

Happy Feast Day!

Today is the feast of St. John Neumann.  Happy Feast Day Everyone!

Practical Tips for the New Year

First of all, let me wish everyone a very happy, healthy, & blessed New Year 2010! 

Since it has been so long since anything has been blogged here, I thought the New Year might do well to start with a few practical tips that I have been wanting to post here for a long time.

Stain Remover – Clothing

Mix about half and half of Clorox 2 Color safe bleach and Ivory liquid dish soap.  I mix this in a jar and stir it a little.  Apply to stains and let set.  The longer and harder the stain, the longer I let it sit.  This is great for baby clothes that have been stored and yellowed.  This also works for ring around the collar (move over Whisk!)  I have used it on many stains and it has worked well, sometimes even just after applying the solution and putting it right in the washer.

Crayon Removal

One day this past December, some a lot of my time was spent finding out how to get crayon (purple to be exact) out of white clothes and clothes dryers.  On several websites the following solution was listed for clothing:  Tide liquid detergent and Shout stain remover.  I mixed those two ingredients together, filled the sink with hot water and soaked the clothes.  (I have a side loader that doesn’t soak well.)  After a good soaking, they went directly into the washer (no rinsing first), with some more of the solution.  When the wash cycle was over, most of the purple crayon was gone.  I repeated this process and was quite pleased with the results.  Nylon things such as bras and slips still have faint markings, but everything else came out clean.  Now, what to do after the melted crayon is scraped from the dryer with those stains.  BioKleen all-purpose cleaner, full strength on a rag did the trick.  It took some work, but the stains are gone.  Yeah!

Use Fewer Paper towels

One money-saving tip is for paper towel users.   Papertowels were used quite a bit in our kitchen until I decided to buy a bunch of cheap wash cloths from Wal-Mart.  Pretty soon I went out and bought another package and now have a supply handy in one of my kitchen drawers.  Instead of reaching for a paper towel, I reach for a wash cloth.  These are good for spills, wiping counters, wiping faces, wiping spills or spots off of floors, wiping tables, small dying jobs, etc.  I really appreciate not buying paper towels so often. 

Washing Cloth Diapers

The last thing I want to discuss is cloth diapers.  I started this a little bit when my 4th child was a toddler and we had a top loader washing machine.  All went well.  When the next child came, no matter what I tried, I could not use cloth diapers without her rear getting really bad diaper rash.  At that point, we had a side loading machine.   After spending so much money on diapers with the 6th child, I was absolutely determined to find a way.  Eureka!  First of all, my husband went out and bought an inexpensive 5 gallon bucket.  Yes, we have them lying around already, but who knows what was in them before.  In the past I would rinse poopy diapers and wet diapers just put in the laundry sink to wait for laundering.   Now, poopy or not, I rinse the diapers in the tub and put them to soak in the 5 gallon bucket with just a little bit (maybe a teaspoon) of the stain solution mentioned above and a splash of vinegar.  When I am ready to launder, the diapers are placed into the washer (as opposed to dumping with all the soak water.)  I use a natural baby laundry detergent, and just a little bit.  In the rinse spot goes vinegar.  At present we use diapers with covers (MotherEase).  After the washing machine, the covers are hung to dry and the rest go into the dryer WITHOUT any fabric softener.  Of course, cloth diapers must be changed a little more frequently than disposable diapers, but you won’t ever find gelled pee on your little one’s rump or sepnd the money for disposables (unless you want to).

Baby Wipes

For baby wipes, we invested in some nice cloths made especially for this purpose.  We purchased them some time ago from Juliestuff.com and have been very pleased.  After a Google search, this site came up for several different solutions.   Here is another site that has even more recipes.   Right now the ingredients used here are 3 Tablespoons of Dr. Bonner’s Magic Soaps 18-in-1 Hemp Unscented Baby-Mild liquid soap to 2 cups of water along with 2 drops of Tea Tree oil.  This is working well for us. 

That’s all for today.  Once again, I wish you the very best for 2010!

Thank You, Santa

At the beginning of the week a letter arrived in the mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Vogel.  It said that a “secret Santa” was coming to drop off presents a few days before Christmas and we were to wait until Christmas to  open them.  The letter was signed, “Santa.”  I wondered how Santa would be able to deliver them without us being home, since we are due to be here all week.  Well my question was answered.  We came home from Mass this afternoon to find a big bunch of presents, with stockings even, waiting for us at the door.  So, Santa, thank you very much.  The children are all very excited now and are looking forward to opening the presents.  We have put them away until Christmas so that little one does not get into them either.  We are very grateful.  May God bless you.

Update

I really should have posted this sooner.  Maria came through the surgery and is doing very, very well.  Her Mom is updating the family blog with her progress.  You can check it out by looking for “Trinity Acres” on my side bar.  Thank you for the prayers.

Prayers for Maria

I just received word that Maria, a 12-year-old girl, has an inoperable brain tumor.  They don’t know how long she has.  Her Mom, Julie, has asked for prayers for her family (Maria is one of 10 children) and that Maria has a peaceful death whenever God decided to take her.  In your charity, please pray for this family.  Thank you.

Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

We want to wish you a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving today!  We are all very excited to be having a turkey and all the trimmings today.  Uncle Tom is off the road and able to come to our feast.  The pumpkin pies have been baked and the stuffing is waiting to go in the oven.  We will also be having mashed potatoes, kale, pressed salad, sweet potatoes and sweet potato biscuits as well as some other type of plain biscuits.  We’ll have corn, of course, and I’m hoping there are some green beans in the freezer for Uncle Tom.  (We didn’t know he would be coming until yesterday.)  We are so happy to be sharing the day with each other and we are thankful for another year of beautiful family life, among many other blessings.  This is our 5th Thanksgiving here in Bodenburg!  Time sure does fly.  Off to go prepare some more….  God bless you all.

A Genealogy Project

The children and I began a little genealogy project not too long ago.  The children wrote out questions, in their handwriting, geared for older relatives.  There were 4 pages with 3 questions on each sheet.  We had them photocopied and mailed them out to their great aunts and some other relatives.  The response is better than I had hoped.  My only regret is that I didn’t think of doing this years ago when more were still alive.   In each individual’s envelope, we also added personal questions such as, “Where did you and Uncle Fred meet?”  and “Please tell us the story of when you saw Einstein,” etc.  It seems some of the adults had just as much fun answering the questions as we had reading the responses.  Not only that, I have learned things about my grandparents that would have gone to the grave with these relatives.  So, do yourself a favor, and get busy with this little project before another relative dies!

One More Nightgown

Finally finished is one more nightgown, this time for Charlotte, and this time done in nice, sturdy flannel material.  I am very pleased with the results.  We took pictures the morning after Charlotte had worn it to bed.  The girls were both so excited that they now both have nightgowns made by Mom.  MaryEllen had to get into the pictures, of course!  After we were done with the pictures, Charlotte said, “Let’s take our nightgowns, fold them, and put them under our pillows so we can wear them tomorrow!”  If I had know that, I might have made them sooner.  All their other PJs end up on their bedroom floor!

   

On the same day (I think), I was getting a red plaid dress for Veronica to wear.  MaryEllen asked if she and Charlotte could wear the dresses that they had like Veronicas.  So, we had to take pictures in their dresses. 

  We went on that day to try and take a picture for the Christmas card.  If we do use any of them, they will be less than perfect.  Someone always seems to have eyes closed, be making faces, or have their heads cut off.  However, Christmas not being any farther away, we may just have to use one of those pictures for the cards.