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Canning and Dehydrating – This Week’s Monday Motivation

Posted by html404 on October 3, 2011
in Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Home

If my camera cord wasn’t lost I could post a real photo of the things we have canned in the last couple of weeks. But alas, it is still MIA (military term for missing in action for those of you that go blank with abbreviations…I know the blankness because I use to experience it ALOT!) so you will have to make do with this photo I found on Microsoft Office in their image gallery. Boo hoo….

Two weeks ago a friend had us over to can 5 bushels of tomatoes. We had a great time spending time with them and have been enjoying the fruits of our labor in spaghetti, chili and pinto beans. We made canned tomatoes and a few jars of salsa.

Since we enjoyed canning so much we came home and made several jars of grape and strawberry jelly and applesauce….yummy!

We are hoping to make more applesauce this week with friends coming to our house if schedules allow for it.

Due to laws changing in Illinois in regards to farmers selling homemade baked and canned goods made in their own kitchens, we are hoping to sell some of our wares next year. Farmers use to have to use commercial kitchens to do this sort of thing. I even looked into using one this summer but it never panned out and I am glad now since we can do it all in our own kitchen. There are stipulations though…of course.

When I get into the whole kitchen thing, my husband likes to call me “Suzy Homemaker”….well that’s what I use to be before 2008 when I started working from home. I love all the so called lost arts. Love to cook, love to bake, love to can, love to sew, love to knit (even though I am not very good at it) and now we are getting into dehydrating since that does not kill all the nutrition in the food. It is very satisfying being able to provide my family with healthy, homemade food and clothes. What can I say? I am from the old school where I believe a woman’s place is in the home taking care of her family and house. It gives me great joy to fulfill my calling as a wife and mother. Not that I don’t enjoy my other “work”, as it helps pay the bills, but my greatest joy is being a wife and mom.

I know you all aren’t going to agree with me, so what is your calling? What gives you joy as a woman?

Disclaimer: This does not mean that I do not enjoy being a small business woman, I do. The thing is it would not be nearly as satisfying doing it on my own. I love the look on my husband’s face when I can say, “Honey, I made XXXX amount of dollars today/this week/this month.” And I love being able to include my children in my work. Just saying…;-)

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A New Addition – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on September 28, 2011
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Home

Sorry, this was suppose to go live two weeks ago, but I found it in my drafts folder……

See, I told you he was a new addition! But he is not a human addition, but the pet variety.
……And this went live this morning without a photo because I still have not found my camera cord, so I nabbed a photo of Robert that we emailed to Blaze’s owner. Sorry to those visiting earlier today and saw nothing! Surprise!

More of this story later….;-) Nothing like spiking your interest and curiosity, eh?

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Settling In – Motivation Monday

Posted by html404 on September 26, 2011
in Family Stuff, Home

We have settled into our new home quite nicely. We have even gone back to being hospitable and have had friends and family over at least four times with more to be scheduled. Yes, we are enjoying sharing our new home with others! I use to love having folks over until we really outgrew our townhouse. It is good to be back into playing hostess again.

We had our lefse party with family two weeks ago, which was a great hit. We hope to plan a quarterly lefse party into our family tradition. We are playing around with the idea of inviting a different family over for each one. Just thought that it would be fun to share this Norwegian potato bread and tradition with others.

We had our old neighbors over in August so they could see our new home before school started back up and all the chaos going back to school brings. We had a blast with them.

Another friend dropped over to pick up somethings/drop things off, so we gave her a quick tour.

Then yesterday old friends from our college days came over for the afternoon bringing some of their cast offs, which is like Christmas to the children – new (to them) clothes, toys, games (we did two new puzzles this morning since it was raining 100 piece each) and even some canning jars (we canned tomatoes last week with friends and then did some applesauce and jam on our own, so very satisfying!)

There is something special in having people over, don’t you think? Our children love it and have missed it, thus the reason for planning more get-togethers because they keep asking, “Can we have so and so over?” Plus we love it too.

How often do you entertain? Are you planning any fall parties at your home? Would love to hear how you all entertain guests in your home! That is this week’s motivation. Being hospitable is actually biblical, what better way to show the love of Christ to strangers and brothers and sisters in the Lord.

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NEW! Health and Garden Tuesday Post

Posted by html404 on September 6, 2011
in All Natural Products, Family Stuff, Health and Garden Tuesday, Health and Nutrition, Home

I just wanted to share a little testimony for this week’s post on Health and Garden Tuesday. Over the weekend I went with a friend to give a Raindrop to a client who won a free Raindrop with a qualifying order at one of my friend’s meetings. I was acting as her assistant and had to ring out two towels with hot water. The only thing is I made the water too hot and burned my thumb so much so that it started smarting and blistering right away. I was not able to put anything on it until Sunday morning and when I did I applied two Young Living essential oils: Purification and Lavender. The blistering is basically gone and what remains does not even hurt. I have never used an essential oil on a burn before and am very glad that I did since the pain of the burn is not as long lasting as it usually is. My burn really benefited from using Young Living essential oils.

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Shop Bedding.com

Posted by html404 on June 14, 2011
in Bedding, Home

Shop Bedding.com is a company that sells high quality mattress covers, sheets, pillow cases, pillows, and all sorts of bedding.

I was sent a bed bug proof mattress cover to review. (NO we do not have bed bugs, I choose this product since we have little children and they constantly spill things on our bed)

I really loved that this cover was so large and roomy. It was a bit big for my queen sized mattress. But, that’s okay. This mattress cover is very well made and is a nice soft material. I loved that it zips completely around the entire mattress and that it isn’t hassle to get on or off.

Personally, I view this product as a mattress cover, not a bed bug cover. It does a great job of protecting my mattress and keeps any liquids out and away from it. I loved that aspect!

Be sure to check out Shop Bedding.com on the web. They have great customer service and ship very fast!

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.