Sunday, March 27, 2016

24 of 52 Weeks of Living Full!!

Hi all,

  Today I will be able to check off another item on my Happy Easter list.  You can read all about my goal lists here.  I will be updating the 2nd "E" in Easter.

Hunting hat still needs crocheting
Artistic craft with my daughter
  Today my daughter and I enjoyed some artistic time together by coloring in her adult coloring books.  It is really relaxing.  The adult coloring books are just about everywhere you look these days.  In all sorts of designs and themes.  We used a nice pack of coloring pencils in order to have some control for the small intricate spaces.

 
My before







  I chose a nice woodland owl for my coloring pleasure. :)
After






  Here's my daughters beautiful spring heart of flowers.  She was well into her picture by the time I thought about snapping our before pictures.










Post enough to get caught up on the Living Full series (behind 11 posts still)
Plan square foot garden (still reading the All New Square Foot Gardening)
  Over the last few days my husband, daughter and I have filled the beautiful raised garden box my husband built for us.


  We purchased 13 bags of this compost (since our compost bin is too new to have produced any of our own black gold).  This filled our 4 x 8 ft. bed up almost to the top and we had one extra bag left to add to our compost bin.




I never knew I would be so excited about dirt that I would want to take a picture of it.  I couldn't wait to start playing planting.   We bought 8 tomato, 4 yellow crockneck squash, 12 strawberry, 2 bell pepper, 9 broccoli, 2 cucumber and 12 lettuce plants.  







    I just love our very first garden!  I look forward to walking out in the backyard everyday to tend to our beautiful vegetables.  This is all new to us, so this will be a learning experience for us and lots of trial and error, but I think this will be a fun adventure!  
Yarn is very close to being all untangled, organized and made into balls ready for projects

Eliminate all clothing in closet that I no longer wear
Apron will no longer be my nemesis!!!
Sachets to be made with repurposed shower curtain
Try a new homemade cleaning or health and beauty recipe
Every piece of clothing hanging in the laundry room will be put in it's proper place


  While most of these clothes just needed to make their way up to my closet, there are some that are just not worthy to wear to work anymore.  Many of my white work blouses are dingy and have gray stains on the cuffs from the boxes that I have to open at work.  I am looking to find ways to repurposing those.  If I don't find a good useful way of doing that within the next day or two, I'm just going to let go and throw them out.  



  I also have a couple of old faded black pants and old sweatpants that will be cut off to make shorts for working outside and/or sleeping in.  My old t-shirts that are faded and/or stained will now become sleeping shirts or cut up for a great cleaning tool I plan to post about soon.  Hopefully I can find a good use for those old dingy white blouses.  If so, I'll be sure to post what I find.  

Well, that definitely looks much better!

Read daily I've been reading everyday….a lot (not all) of the reading has been off the internet, researching how to's, etc.  I plan to add more time reading good ol' turn the page book in hand reading time as that is one of my most favorite past times.  

Until next time….

Happy Living Full!

Jennifer

Saturday, March 26, 2016

23 of 52 Weeks of Living Full!!

Hi all,

  Just popping in for another update to my Happy Easter list.  You can read what my lists are all about here.  So far, I've posted two of the completed tasks.  Today I will update you on the 2nd "P."  We planned, and planted our garden! :)

Hunting hat still needs crocheting
Artistic craft with my daughter
  Today my daughter and I enjoyed some artistic time together by coloring in her adult coloring books.  It is really relaxing.  The adult coloring books are just about everywhere you look these days.  In all sorts of designs and themes.  We used a nice pack of coloring pencils in order to have some control for the small intricate spaces.

 
My before







  I chose a nice woodland owl for my coloring pleasure. :)
After






  Here's my daughters beautiful spring heart of flowers.  She was well into her picture by the time I thought about snapping our before pictures.










Post enough to get caught up on the Living Full series (behind 11 posts still)
Plan square foot garden (still reading the All New Square Foot Gardening)
  Over the last few days my husband, daughter and I have filled the beautiful raised garden box my husband built for us.


  We purchased 13 bags of this compost (since our compost bin is too new to have produced any of our own black gold).  This filled our 4 x 8 ft. bed up almost to the top and we had one extra bag left to add to our compost bin.




I never knew I would be so excited about dirt that I would want to take a picture of it.  I couldn't wait to start playing planting.   We bought 8 tomato, 4 yellow crockneck squash, 12 strawberry, 2 bell pepper, 9 broccoli, 2 cucumber and 12 lettuce plants.  







    I just love our very first garden!  I look forward to walking out in the backyard everyday to tend to our beautiful vegetables.  This is all new to us, so this will be a learning experience for us and lots of trial and error, but I think this will be a fun adventure!  
Yarn is very close to being all untangled, organized and made into balls ready for projects

Eliminate all clothing in closet that I no longer wear
Apron will no longer be my nemesis!!!
Sachets to be made with repurposed shower curtain
Try a new homemade cleaning or health and beauty recipe
Every piece of clothing hanging in the laundry room will be put in it's proper place
Read daily I've been reading everyday….a lot (not all) of the reading has been off the internet, researching how to's, etc.  I plan to add more time reading good ol' turn the page book in hand reading time as that is one of my most favorite past times.  

Happy Gardening!

Jennifer

Thursday, March 24, 2016

22 of 52 Weeks of Living Full!!



Hi all,

  Just going to update my Happy Easter List.







Hunting hat still needs crocheting
Artistic craft with my daughter
  Today my daughter and I enjoyed some artistic time together by coloring in her adult coloring books.  It is really relaxing.  The adult coloring books are just about everywhere you look these days.  In all sorts of designs and themes.  We used a nice pack of coloring pencils in order to have some control for the small intricate spaces.

 
My before







  I chose a nice woodland owl for my coloring pleasure. :)
After






  Here's my daughters beautiful spring heart of flowers.  She was well into her picture by the time I thought about snapping our before pictures.











Post enough to get caught up on the Living Full series (behind 11 posts still)
Plan square foot garden (still reading the All New Square Foot Gardening)
Yarn is very close to being all untangled, organized and made into balls ready for projects

Eliminate all clothing in closet that I no longer wear
Apron will no longer be my nemesis!!!
Sachets to be made with repurposed shower curtain
Try a new homemade cleaning or health and beauty recipe
Every piece of clothing hanging in the laundry room will be put in it's proper place
Read daily I've been reading everyday….a lot (not all) of the reading has been off the internet, researching how to's, etc.  I plan to add more time reading good ol' turn the page book in hand reading time as that is one of my most favorite past times.  

 We had a really nice time just chatting, giggling and coloring.  Amazing how something so simple can be so much fun!

Happy Coloring!

Jennifer

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

21 of 52 Weeks of Living Full!!

Hi all,

  I'm so excited to show you what my husband surprised me with just over a week ago….


  A lovely compost bin!!!  It lives right next to my raised garden bed he built that I recently posted...


  No, we haven't found the perfect land for us yet….the search continues…but that doesn't mean that we can't fulfill as many homesteading wishes that our neighborhood will allow.  I think he did a fine job!  For right at $100 in lumber and screws we have what should make for a nice beginners garden I would say.  So, let the composting begin!  

Be sure to join me on the following two link ups.

Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop

Happy Composting!

Jennifer

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

20 of 52 Weeks of Living Full!!





Hi all,

  Today I made a nice new batch of homemade liquid laundry soap.  I used the recipe from this site.




  The only thing I did differently is I chopped up the bar of Zote for a quicker melting process.  The soap is very soft, so not much elbow grease involved.




 I use an old pot that from a set that I no longer use for cooking.  I fill it half full, melt the Zote and then add the Borax and Washing Soda.




 I fill the 5 gallon bucket with cold water, and fully melted soap mixture, then fill the bucket up almost to the top with cold water.  I let it sit overnight, then transfer into a more manageable 1 gallon vinegar bottle saved for this very purpose.



  I absolutely love the smell of the Zote soap.  My husband and daughter are not so impressed with the smell while melting in the pot, but doesn't mind it once cooled and used in the washer.  I have found this recipe to do great with our clothes.  I do have to pre treat stains with a little applied straight on the stain and work in with some rubbing and cold water.

  I use 1/2 cup of soap per load.  This happens to be one scoop from a left over Oxi Clean container.  Here's the break down per load….

1 bar of Zote: $.97
2 cups of Washing Soda: $3.97 for 1 box  (55oz) = $1.15 per 2 cups
2 cups of Borax: $4.09 for 1 box (76oz) = $.86 per 2 cups

  So all total a 5 gallon batch costs $2.98 which equals just under $.02 a load.  Woo Hoo!!  Now that's what I call frugal!

  Now, to just figure out a way to hang my clothes outside in an unobtrusive manner….since we are still in a neighborhood….hmmmm…..

Happy Washing!

Jennifer

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

19 of 52 Weeks of Living Full!!

Pups favorite spot while blogging!
Hi all!

  Wow!  We are already into month three of the new year.  How did that happen?  It's amazing how time flies and faster with each passing day.  All the more reason why I want to make the most of each day.  I'll have to be honest though, working full time has really made it hard for me to stay motivated to do some things on my off days, when all I really feel like doing is laying on the couch and not moving. This is another reason why living a simpler life through voluntarily downsizing, homesteading, and learning to live with less in order to fully live sounds better and better to me with each passing day.  My husband I'm happy to say, seems to be mulling the concept over in his mind more these days as well.  The search still continues for the perfect land.  In the meantime I will continue to learn all I can to live a more natural, self sustaining life as a neighborhood while allow. :)

  For now, how about another goal list for this month?  I will repeat some of the items that I didn't accomplish last month and going to do my very best to have a full out successful checked of list this time.  Since Easter will fall on March 27th this year how about…..

Hunting hat still needs crocheting
Artistic craft with my daughter
Post enough to get caught up on the Living Full series (behind 11 posts still)
Plan square foot garden (still reading the All New Square Foot Gardening)
Yarn is very close to being all untangled, organized and made into balls ready for projects

Eliminate all clothing in closet that I no longer wear
Apron will no longer be my nemesis!!!
Sachets to be made with repurposed shower curtain
Try a new homemade cleaning or health and beauty recipe
Every piece of clothing hanging in the laundry room will be put in it's proper place
Read daily

  I look forward to working on this list and posting extra this month.  With a week's vacation right around the corner for me, I'm feeling optimistic!  Anyone out there making your own monthly goal lists?

Have a great day!

Jennifer

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