The End of 2008 & Quilting

I can hardly believe that 2008 is almost over! As I look back on this year, I see so many ways that the Lord's hand was on our family. Sadly, I also see so many times that I have disappointed the Lord. I have to say that I just feel so unworthy of the grace He so freely gives. I want to do better in 2009!

I am so excited about my new "hobby"!! I have gotten the quilting bug! My great-grandma (yes, GREAT! she is 97) was the family quilter for many years. I always wanted to but felt a little overwhelmed. After reading Simply Susan's easy Invisible Nine Patch (in a previous post), and actually completing it, i got hooked! I have actually made five of them! And a Christmas lap quilt, and a quilted music bag for my oldest daughter for Christmas gifts. (thus the reason for no blog posts in December, lol) I love it, love it, love it. I am going to teach my daughters to quilt too.

Here is my lap quilt. I made it from strips of fabric that someone gave me. Quilting can be very frugal but can easily become very expensive! Buying new fabrics, all the cool quilting gadgets, etc... I am starting out small.

Here is the wall hanging I did for my bathroom.

If you want to see the tutorial again, here it is!

End of a Season

The summer is over and the garden is done. My garden did not do as well this year. I think there are a few reason why and I will be changing some things for next year. First, I tried to grow an organic garden...just to see if I could. I don't normally use a lot of fertilizer, but I do use some. This year, I used nothing and I did not even get enough tomatoes to can. Drastic difference from years past! I did freeze some, but not many. #2 reason, my great idea of planting the sunflowers along side of my tomatoes did not work the way I thought it would. Sure, it looked pretty and it worked to hold them up, but they got so large that they actually shaded the tomatoes. :o(

From my watermelon & cantaloupe patch, we only got to eat 2 cantaloupes and 1 watermelon. I finally picked my lone watermelon yesterday, I kept waiting for it to get bigger but it didn't. We cut into it and it was soooo sweet!

I am still getting some hit and miss tomatoes and peppers, at least up until we get the first frost. At least I have learned a few lessons for next year.

We will be going and picking apples soon to make our apple sauce and apple butter. I will post recipes when I do. I will also make apple jelly; this can be done with apple juice that you get at the store and it is sooo easy and spreads better than store-bought.

What about you? How did your garden grow?

Frugal Decorating Ideas

If you live near a Dollar Tree or Deals, get there! They have a ton of items there that you can use to decorate, or even make decorations. From ribbon, leaves, flowers, & wreaths, just a lot of stuff. Here are a few things that I made this week from dollar store items and things that I had on hand. Some of these ideas came from here.

I used a quart sized canning jar and put some artificial pumpkins & leaves inside. The floral arrangement was $1.00, the pumpkins $1.00, and about 1/4 of a bag of leaves ($1.00 for the bag).

No, I cannot tie a bow. I tried and tried but this is what I got. I told my husband and he said to let him try and he did it. This picture is before he made his beautiful bow. He told me it's just like tying your shoes. Duh.

Plates for my plate rack, $1.00 each and the leaf garland was $1.00.

I made the floral arrangement with about 3 bunches of flowers and the basket has little pumpkins painted on the sides.

I took the spring colors off this hat and made it more autumn-like. This hangs in my bathroom.

For less than $20, I decorated my living room, bathroom, dining room, and have some things left for the kitchen. If you haven't figured it out, I think autumn is the most wonderful time of the year!

Been busy and other stuff!

I have been sooo busy the last 2 weeks! We have finally gone through every drawer, closet, shelf, box, and Rubbermaid tote in our house. I am still shocked at how much stuff that we have accumulated. We could open our own Stuff-Mart. NO MORE. We are simplifying and that's that. We still need to sort some toys that we put into the garage and tie up some loose ends but we got the bulk of it done.

And, I'm even caught up on laundry.

Tomorrow is the BIG day. That is one reason that we have been working so hard to get the house organized. The big day...school is back in session. I am excited to get back into a routine. For some reason, I can't seem to get into a routine in the summer. Schedules are out the window! We stay busy being bored :o( But the beginning of a new school year is a fresh start for me. Regular menu planning, school, laundry & cleaning schedule, learning more about healthy eating, etc... I can't wait!

Each new school year brings on a different twist, with different family dynamics. This year, I will be teaching 9th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, and 1st grades and I will do some Pre-K work with my youngest. This will be the first year that I don't have a baby or toddler around. I told my oldest daughter that this will be our best school year yet! She reminded me that I say that every year.

Happy back to school time to you all :o)

Look what's in my garden

A praying mantis! Hopefully he'll eat all the bad bugs, especially the cucumber beetles that I have. I got several good pictures of him.

Simply Susan Bloggy Give Away!

I have been eyeing this ebook called "Nourishing Ways" written by Susan Godfrey for a few weeks now.

Since it is her 2nd "Blog-i-versary", she is having not one, but 2 giveaways! The ebook that I want is giveaway #2.

Head on over there and wish Susan a happy Blog anniversary and make sure to enter these giveaways!

Simplifying Laundry

I am SO loving my new laundry system!!! I just can't say enough about it! In a previous post, I told you about my new Home Management Binder. I have just completed my second week with my laundry system. I only have to wash Monday-Thursday for all 8 of us. We always have clean clothes and I am not stressed having to laundry over the weekend, which = more time with my family.

Here is another "good problem" to have. We just plain have too much stuff! This past week was kitchen week and yesterday I cleaned out all the bottom cabinets in my kitchen. Wow! For example, I condensed this:

To this:

This cabinet and drawer are right next to the sink. I have about 10 regular dish towels here and 4 of the bigger size that I like to use for laying wet dishes on after washing. In the drawer, there are about 10 dishcloths. I may have gone overboard :o) Just in case I got rid of too many, I did keep some back in a grocery bag. I will re-evaluate on Tuesday, when I wash towels. If it works out, the bag goes out!

Ahhh....so freeing! Simplifying. I will be weeding out our clothes also. I am on no time schedule. I will do it as I go with the laundry. We simply have too much. When you have a hard time shutting drawers, finding hangers, etc...just because all the laundry is clean, then you have too much!

I thought of another idea too. Since I have no laundry to do on Friday, I had scheduled Fridays to clean the laundry room. I decided to make that my sewing/mending day too! Since I will have a clean laundry room, I will have room to sew!! No more dragging my sewing machine upstairs to the dining room; I now have a place. Our house is somehow getting bigger lol.

Why didn't I think of all this 15 years ago?

Home Management Binder

I have been reading Candy's Blog and I ordered her ebook with some of my birthday money! The best money I have spent! I have been studying her Home Management Binder system with excitement! I have tried various things over the years to get organized (I was certainly NOT born organized!!) and this system is wonderful!

I have been working on my own binder for a little over a week now, but implementing some of the items for a few weeks. I am glad to say that my laundry is all caught up. This was one of my goals. I started a laundry system that looks something like this:

I have tweaked it a little as there was a LOT of wash to do on Monday (all the bedding and towels, and then not much on Tuesday. Other than that, it is working beautifully. Today is Thursday and I have one load to finish drying and all of my family's laundry will be clean, folded and put away! This usually only happens about once or twice per year. Now I will also have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday without worrying about any laundry for the 8 of us. Can you tell I am excited?

Here are a few other sections of my binder:

For my schedules section, I have daily items, laundry, and "Focus cleaning", kind of like the Flylady zones. They have been rearranged to fit our family's needs. That is part of the beauty of this system, customize it to to fit your family.

I do not have these completed yet. My plan for the medical section is to keep records of my diabetes stuff (6 month check up numbers, eye exams, etc), the children's doctor visits, medications, dental visits, orthodontist visits, etc... But, another part of my medical section will include my findings on biblical health. I have been studying for about a year about being healthy and what God's best is for us regarding foods, gluttony (Many Christians' "pet" sin-including me for so many years), exercise, spiritual health, and some natural remedies. It has been very interesting so far! I hope to get it all put together for a downloadable Bible study sometime in the future.

My zippered pouch to hold my post-its, stamps, pens, etc... I plan on adding a few more sections but I want to complete what I have so far.

My new mirror!

While we were gone, we stumbled on a pfaltzgraff outlet store. Woohoo! I have the Tea Rose pattern and Jason said we could stop in there to possibly add something to my set. There were so many pretty things but I just couldn't decide. I did see some Luncheon size plates but they were $10 each and I need 12 to go with my set. I decided against those for now. We left and walked around some and then came back to the store. I still couldn't decide so I figured it was best to not get anything. When I got to the door, I saw this mirror and I knew this was it! My husband just laughed...spent an hour in the pfaltzgraff store and got a mirror! I thought of this post from a wonderful homemaking blog that I enjoy.

Library

I love going to the library! It is one of my favorite places to go. Where I live, we have one of the best library systems in the country (at least, that is what they say...and I believe them!). As a book lover (my dh is one too!), I could easily spend way too much $$ on books. Libraries are a frugal way for me to read books that are edifying or educational. It is a wonderful resource for homeschooling too!

Here is one of the books that I am currently reading.

It is a GREAT resource!! We really have lost something when it comes to homemaking. I believe that it has become a lost art. This book is a manual, full of practical advice on taking care of your home. I am looking forward to putting some of this good advice into practice!