Supermarket – Merry Heart Crafts

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was very nice. Not much going on. We didn’t have church yesterday as there was no power at church. Lots of people here in Floyd have been without power since the storm. I spoke to a lady at our local supermarket this morning and she is still without power. I certainly pray everyone gets power restored before tonight. We are supposed to get really cold-single digits with wind chills at zero or below. So many people have electric heat. It would be hard for them to stay warm without electricity.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day cutting out quilt pieces. I have been inspired by my blogging friends, Blessings and Cheryl. I am doing a simple block quilt. The block pieces are 5″ X 5″. Then hopefully I will sew them all together (using the sewing machine). We’ll see how it goes. I have made quilts before but always using panels not something I have to cut out and sew together. I thought this would be the simplest to do. If I calculated correctly it will take 216 5″ X 5″ blocks to make a twin size quilt. Okay, so maybe I am already overwhelmed. I think it will be a fun project though-something different for me.

Well, that’s about it for us. School is finished for the day, the outside chores are done and the girls are going for a walk on the tractor road. Two dogs and several cats are walking with them. The geese are swimming happily on the pond, the sun is shining. I am SO blessed. Enjoy your day and God bless.

I have just discovered this product. Some of you ladies may already know about it but I had never heard of it. You all know that I have made my own laundry soap for years. I have always had trouble with it leaving my clothes looking dingy. I would make a batch and by the time I used it up my clothes would be looking like I hadn’t even washed them. YUCK! Then I would buy a box of store bought detergent and use it up so my clothes would look clean again. Then repeat the process. So I was reading on line and one of the recipes was saying you could add bluing to your detergent. What? I immediately jump up to the google bar and type in, “What is bluing?” It is something you add to your wash to make your white clothes remain white. You can buy it online. Our local supermarket carried it. Can you believe that? I had never even noticed it before. Well, as of right now, I am thinking it is the best thing since sliced bread. I have been using it for about 2 weeks. My whites are still white. I think I have found my solution. Also when using homemade laundry soap, my towels usually become water resistent. They would not absorp water. This has not happened since I started using the bluing. YEAH! I hope this post doesn’t sound like a commercial for bluing. I just wanted you ladies to know, in case any of you have been having the same problem. I also bit the bullet and purchased some lavender essential oil to add to it. I avoided buying it for years because, well, everything you add to it makes the cost go up more and I wanted to keep it cost effecient. But I really like for my clothes to smell nice after they have been washed. I admit it. I like smelly things (good smelly things).

I also tried something new today. I made my own fabric softener. The recipe I used is:

1 cup baking soda
6 cups distilled white vinegar
8 cups water
10 -15 drops orangeessential oils (optional) or 10 -15 drops lemonessential oils (optional) or 10 -15 drops essential oils, of choice (optional)

Directions:

You will need a one gallon container.
First add the baking soda to the plastic container.
Next add 1 cup of water to start with.
Slowly add the vinegar to the bottle as the vinegar and baking soda will start to fizz.
Then add the rest of the water swirling around & cover venting the top a few times.
Last add the essential oil.
Add 1 cup in your final rinse cycle for each load but give the bottle a good shake to stir up the essential oil if using.

I got this recipe from food.com. I want to remind you all that baking soda and vinegar fizzes at lot when mixed together. Now, I knew this but for some reason I put my baking soda in and then just started pouring in the vinegar. HUGE MESS! My thanks to my darling girls who came to Mom’s rescue with lots of towels. Anyway just a reminder. I used lavender essential oil in mine, so now I have lavender laundry detergent and lavender fabric softener. My clothes should smell great.

Well, that’s my day. I hope you have a great evening and God bless.

Friday evening we went to our Pastor’s house. As I mentioned earlier, he gave us some peaches. He has a small orchard at his house. All his trees were so full of fruit. It was beautiful.

These are only a few of the trees. Grace took lots of pictures. I will try to post more of them tomorrow.

This is a view from his yard. Very pretty. We also ate supper at his house. Almost everything we had was home grown. I love to eat this way. We had hamburgers on the grill, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes from the garden, fresh homemade applesauce, and fresh peaches. Delicious!

The girls and I did not get to can our beets yesterday. As it was raining most of the day, we decided to run a few errands in town instead. Jess had given me some coupons she had for canning jars and lids. We decided to go to Wal-Mart and get these. They are a little cheaper there than there are at our local supermarket. We will be canning the beets today.

The sun is shining here nicely today. Temperatures have cooled down some, thanks to the rain yesterday. Outside temperature is about 80 degrees. This is one of those weeks when things begin to start building up. Much to do. Beans are ready to pick, berries are ready, beets are ready and I think we might have enough tomatoes ripe to make a batch of salsa. I love to can and put away food for my family however when I start getting behind, it is easy for me to allow that to become a stressor in my life. I do not want this to happen. God has given us this bounty and I thank Him for it. When I was growing up, the garden and canning controlled our summers. I do not want that for my girls. I want the garden and all it involves to be enjoyable and fun for my girls. I want to keep a balance. This is hard, as old habits are sometimes difficult to break. Pray that I will do this well-that my girls will have a love for gardening and canning and not see it as just hard work.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Tag: Supermarket

Monday

Homemade Laundry Soap and Bluing

Directions:

Orchard