Click A Positive Thought

I bought myself a clicker with a wrist strap when I attended a Time Out for Women program in Idaho Falls.  I haven’t actually used it yet so I guess I’d better get on top of things and get my act together.  Watch the Following Video presented by Hillary Weeks, to see what clicking is all about and then get out there and start clicking!  Even if you don’t have a clicker, think “CLICK” mentally, every time you think a positive thought and see if it makes a difference in your thinking habits.

Making More Dryer Lint Fire Starters

Today I was back in the kitchen making more fire starters.  I’ve been having my co-workers save me their dryer lint and I had enough to make close to four egg cartons of starters.  I bought me a miniature pan at Wal-Mart that I could melt the wax in.  I was using a can that I bent on one end for pouring but it got too hot for me to handle so I opted to buy a pan.

It was difficult to control the wax pouring from the pan so I melted the wax in my new pan, poured it into my bent can and from the can, onto the fire starters.  Where I was not melting the wax directly in the can and just pouring the melted wax into the can, it was easy enough to pour the wax from the can without getting too hot for my hands to handle.

The second and third rows from the left do not have waxed poured on them.  As you can see, I stuff the carton holes as tightly as I can with lint before pouring on the wax.

After pouring on the wax, I take the handle end of a butter knife, run it under hot water and then push all the lint down into the wax.  Before this procedure, I just grabbed a butter knife out of the drawer to push the lint into the wax and that did not work at all.  Where the handle of the knife was a bit cool, all the wax and lint was sticking to the knife.

I’ve read where you can also use sawdust to make fire starters but I do not have any sawdust on hand.  Go figure……..my husband is a woodworker and no sawdust!  A friend suggested that I try some animal bedding that you buy in pet stores but that came in such a huge package so I bought a small bag of wood Bar-B-Que chips to see how that would work.  You can see the wood chips that I used in the top left-hand corner of the previous picture.  I think they are a bit chunky so I think I’ll just stick to my dryer lint, which I know works, and call it good.  I guess where I have this all-most-full bag of Bar-B-Que chips I’ll just have to have a nice cook-out.

Visiting Teaching Bunny, Sagebrush & Tree

I went Visit Teaching on Sunday and as I was leaving one home and headed up the lane, this rabbit was sitting right off the side of the lane.  He could have cared less if I was there or not.  I slowly crept my car along just to see how close I could get before he would take off.  He never did leave so I just took some photos and left.  At first, he was looking at me head on and then he turned one way and started eating and then he turned the other way.  You can tell by the pictures how close I was. 

Then as I was on the main road headed for home, I saw some sagebrush poking through a wooden fence.  I thought it was pretty so I turned around and took some pictures.

Then along came this tree.  I can’t believe I’ve traveled along this road as many times as I have and didn’t notice this tree.  It is almost a perfect shape.  It wasn’t until after I took a picture and was previewing it that I noticed the Christmas lights hanging on it.  You can see just one strand hanging along the bottom of the tree greenery.  I will need to make it a point to remember this beautiful tree come Christmas time to see if the lights are lit.

The Hearty Little Dandelion

As Evan and I pulled in our driveway yesterday, got out of the car and headed towards the house, look what was standing proudly in the middle of our driveway.  We couldn’t believe it.  Evan said, “what a tough little cookie”.  What a trooper this dandelion is.  We looked on our lawn and couldn’t find a single dandelion and yet here, right in the middle of our driveway that is hard as rock, with no nutrients in the soil, stands this hearty little dandelion.  Where it was on a Sunday that we found the flower/weed, I thought……..amongst the trials of life, this little dandelion overcomes all obstacles and………?  Can’t you just hear the story now.  And the moral is?

Homemade Fabric Softener

Yesterday while surfing Pinterest, I came across THIS BLOG that showed how to make fabric softener using only Epsom Salts and Doterra Essential Oils.  I thought, “how simple is that”.  Since I already had Epsom Salts and Doterra oils on hand, I decided to make me a small batch.  I went by her recommendations and mixed lemon and lavender oils with the salts.  I really liked it but it didn’t give me the smell I was looking for so I added a little lemon grass and wild orange oils to the salts.  I liked it better that way.  It did seem to make my clothes a little softer and the towels and whites that I washed and dried did not have any static in them.  I also use dryer balls so between the mix, my clothes came out really nice.

I made me a couple of signs to put on the front and back of my softener bottle but I will need to change the ingredients, adding the wild orange and lemon grass oils to the sign.  Guess I was being a little too efficient in making my signs before even trying out the product – huh.?
 
All you need is 10 drops (or more) essential oils per 1 cups of Epsom Salts.  Mix/shake well and there you have it, your own fabric softener.  Once again, I went by her recommendations and used 1/4 cup per load of wash and it worked great.  My sign states: 1 scoop per load…..I have an old scoop that came in a canister of hot chocolate and it was just the right size.  Happy Washing!
UPDATE:  The sign on "Ingredients" states: 1 cup Borax.  Do not use Borax.  The correct ingredient is EPSOM SALTS.

Hair Growing Monkey

I bought this little fella at Shop-Ko on April 10, 2013.  I bought it with the intent of bringing it to school and letting one of the children I work with take care of it.  I call it “Monkey” and I thought it was so cute.  The little boy I work with diligently spritzes it with water every day and we even built a shelf for it so it can sit right in the window for sunlight.

I bring little Monkey home on the weekends to make sure I keep his head moist.  This morning when I got up and checked on him, looky what I saw…………..yes!….he is growing his (grass) hair.  I can’t wait to take him to school Monday so the little boy I work with can see that his little Monkey is growing hair.  He will be so excited! 

Title 1 Conference

On the 10th of April, I traveled to Boise with a good friend to attend a Title I conference, for the school.  It was definitely a lot of sit time.  Classes started early in the morning and went till 4-4:30 p.m.  I can say, however, I did learn a lot and it was worth sitting all those hours.  We attended classes for two days.  We stayed at a hotel called The Grove, on the 13th (my lucky number….got married on Friday the 13Th) floor.  It was a nice hotel that also had a dining area and a shoe shining place. 

Looking out the window………way too much for me.  As the saying goes…you can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl.  Or…..nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. 

After the first day was over, we decided to head out to eat.  Here is a picture of the Capital Building as we were driving by.

Here’s where it got GOOD!  LaRue asked me if I’d ever been to the Cheesecake Factory.  I’ve never been there so off we went.  She said it was a bit pricy but how often do you get to go out and eat somewhere different.  We decided to share everything, except the cheesecake.  They brought us extra plates so we could serve ourselves off of the main dish, since we were sharing.  We both like zucchini so we ordered a side of fried zucchini ($4.95) and we both love shrimp so we ordered bistro shrimp pasta ($17.95) and, of course, CHEESECAKE ($6.95 per slice).  Even with sharing, we couldn’t eat everything and we had enough left-overs to bring another whole serving back to our hotel….and we didn’t even touch our cheesecake.  We figured we’d eat it for breakfast the next morning or between classes.

Where we still had classes to attend the next day, we opted to have a late checkout so we wouldn’t be so rushed the next day.  In the morning we got up and packed everything to the car except the cheesecakes….knowing we had the late checkout and we could come back to the room during our break time and eat it.  We did, however snitch a bite or two before leaving for classes.  During our break, we headed back to our rooms only to find the maid had been there and cleaned everything, including disposing of our cheesecakes.  My, my, my how I wanted that cheesecake!  We talked to the front desk and explained what had happened and they gave us each a $10 bill for our troubles.  Sure the $10 was great but my mouth was telling me how delicious the cheesecake was or could have been.  All-in-all, it was a great weekend!

Windy, Windy Day!

Last Saturday, April 13, 2013, my husband and I traveled to Idaho Falls for a temple assignment.  While there, we also went to Rigby to visit my daughter and her husband.  We had a very nice visit.  Love to visit with family!  The winds were terrible all day long and on our way home, we were coming along a road where the winds were blowing dirt and it pitted the front window of my new-to-me, 2006 Ford Explorer.  We purchased the Explorer last November while on a trip to Utah.  Winds – Agh-h-h-h-h-h!  We only use the Explorer for long distance travels and I’ve really taken great care of it.  It really upset me that the dirt pitted the entire windshield.  Oh well, I guess things could have been worse and as the old saying goes: LIFE HAPPENS!

As we were getting closer to home, and not much traffic on the road, I took some pictures of all the dirt/dust blowing across the road to show you just how windy it was.  From the sounds of it and from talking to other people, it seems like the wind was blowing everywhere.  At least from Idaho to Utah.

Dehydrating Carrots

Last year, my husband and I dried a bunch of carrots and we’ve used them all year in soups.  We just ran out of our dried carrots so this past weekend, we cut and dried a bunch more.  After peeling and washing the carrots, we needed to slice them so we used an old Molinex grinding machine that I received a long, long time ago from hosting a Tupperware party……say, back before I was married.  I know, it’s a very old machine, but it works perfectly.  You just put the carrots in the chute, push down on the plunger, and out come your sliced carrots…….slick and easy.

I was slicing the carrots while my husband was loading the trays.

After loading the trays, they were placed in a food dehydrator that we purchased a few years ago.

We still had a shelf to put on the top layer but we ran out of carrots so just for the fun of it, we added a few potatoes to it.  Oooooops, we didn’t soak them in lemon juice water or anything and they turned a little black.  I guess we’ll know better for next time.

And here we go…..the finished product….already for a soup bath.  It’s amazing how much moisture dries out of things you dehydrate.  They almost disappear to nothing. 

Robin Catching Worms

Thursday afternoon, this robin was hopping all over our lawn getting its fill of worms.  It was so interesting to watch.  He/she would run a few steps, cock its head to the side listening, then wap….the beak went in the ground and I’m sure the little worm didn’t have a clue what hit him.  The robin tugged backwards and out would come the worm.  I was sitting on the porch taking pictures and he/she didn’t seem to care if I was there or not cause it actually got pretty close to me.  Today there have been more robins on our yard hunting worms.  I didn’t realize that robins were such good worm catchers.  It’s a good thing cause our yard seems to have lots of worm lumps this year.  I actually got a video that I was going to post along with the pictures but I seemed to have accidentally deleted it – oops.  If you look close enough, you can see blades of grass that are starting to green up – Wahoo!

The Flag That Waves By An Old Cigar Store

On March 26, 2013, my husband and I drove to the bank to make a deposit.  I decided to sit in the car while he went in the bank.  As I looked across the street, I noticed how beautiful the flag was as it was waving in the wind.

And, just to the right and a little below our beautiful flag stands an old cigar store.  The old/vintage building, I thought, must have quite a history to look as it does and still be standing proudly on the edge of main street, running through our little town. 

It was but a few days later that I was reading through a few blogs I follow when I came across the history of the little old cigar store. Go to the following BLOG SITE to read for yourself the history of this little old building that has a story to tell.