Organizing our books

Books, books, books.  We seem to be over run with books at times.  I had put groups of books on certain shelves in order to make finding them easier.  However it seems that I was the only one who could remember where a book was supposed to go after it was read.  Oy.  My system was not complicated.  All library books on one shelf, all small board books on another, and the girls' books on two others.  I also had a shelf devoted to my books, and how-to books.  Anyways it was pretty obvious to me where each book went, but not so obvious to any one else :-)  So I had to take matters into my own hands.  I decided to put a strip of colored paper on the spine of each book.  That way all the 'red' books go on one shelf, all the 'orange' books on the next, etc.  Problem solved!  For the most part ;-)  The baby hasn't picked up on this system...ha, ha!!  Oh well, in time he will.  Hey, maybe it can double as teaching him his colors!  Killing two birds with one stone.

By the way, these pictures were taken with our family camera!!  It will still need to be sent in for a repair on the battery door.  It's pretty hard to hold the battery door shut (with force) and take a decent picture.  It will be a much cheaper fix than my camera.  I'm still going to miss using my camera :-(  Boo hoo.  But, too many other more important things that need to be done than fix a camera for that money!

Above you can see the green stips of paper that I taped on to the bottom of the spines.  I really love this system!!  Now no one, except that baby, has to ask me where a book goes!  Nor can they get away with leaving it out because...."I don't know where it goes."

Some books have one strip of color, those books belong in the living room, and some have two strips of color, those belong in the family room.  Above you can see a shelf with red strips and the one below are the books used for the online curriculum, Ambleside Online.  They all have a blue background with a white strip in the middle.  On the white strip I wrote the year the book is read in and which semester.  So for a book that is read in the seventh year, in the third semester I wrote, "7.3".

Had to include this picture of our resident cutie :-)  Tomorrow is a big day for Jedidiah.  He turns six years old....SIX!!!  Wow, amazing.  He is very, very, very...did I say very?  EXCITED to be having a party at the pool.  It will be lots of fun.  With so many July birthdays I convinced him that he didn't need to have cake for his birthday.  Ha, ha!  Actually there was no need to convince him.  Once he heard he could have pie he jumped all over that idea.  We will be making two trays of 'fruit squares'.  One of pineapple, one made with peaches.  Yummo!

Bulk food storage

You saw in my last post the components of my bulk food storage set up.  I finally got it back in order this morning.  I still have a few more gamma seal lids I want to purchase.  I tried color coordinating the tops with the food, or name of the food, but I only had so many lids on hand.  For example our Prairie Gold wheat has a yellow (gold) lid.  However when the girls had claimed the blue lid for the cat food bucket, and I wasn't able to use it for my "navy beans".  So I used green instead.  I can always dump out the contents and erase the "navy beans" lettering when I get some new lids.  I plan on buying a pink lid for our pinto beans, a black lid for our black beans...you get the idea.  They only have about 8 colors to choose from, so some of the lids will be the same colors and some won't match with the food or name of the food, but it's a start.

Excuse the graininess of the photos.  Here is my two tiered system.  The bottom level holds the full, or in some cases empty, containers of the grains/food.  These are 5 gallon buckets that you can purchase at Walmart in the paint section.  They have the number 2 triangle on the bottom, which indicates they are food grade.  I purchase the tops that go with them, and they are a bit of a pain to pry off.  The top row are the buckets that are in use, that have easy to access lids.  That means I only have to pry off lids when the top buckets run out, instead of every time I need something from the regular lidded buckets.

You can see parts of our couch cushions in this photo.  Most of the kids were in the bedroom with  me.  They were playing dinosaurs.  The cushions were for their nests...to lay eggs :-)  Jonah jumped in this picture.  You can see I have room in front of the top buckets.  Presently this is where I put my bowl as I scoop out any needed food item from the buckets.  It's also where Aubrey climbs up to help me scoop out said food items, as does Jonah and Jed.  Who knew that grabbing some food could be so much fun!

A close up of a gamma seal.  You just grab the middle of that "X" and give it a spin.  Much, much nicer than having to pry, pry, pry off the snap on lids that come with the buckets from the store.  Trust me on that one!  I really want to purchase a tool that is sold to pry off such lids.  They run cheap, like $5.  It would save time, and fingernails!

Here you can see the gamma lid off.  On the top of the lid you can see the white rubber ring that makes the seal.

 I have two of these black buckets.  I wanted to try them out  to see how I liked them.  I get them locally, so I'm not sure where you would find them online.  These also twist off, but have a 'lock' feature.  You need to press in that red button as you twist the lid off.  This prevents children from getting into the buckets.  So far I have not had a problem with my children trying to get into the gamma sealed buckets, but if I did, I could always put any needed items that needed to be stored from children in one of these.

Here you can see the grooves, or bumps that help to lock the lid in place.  It's sort of like those child locks for cabinets, the ones with the pull 'tabs', the same concept.

We had a late start to the day.  Well, I didn't :-)  We need to get those tests out and I need to run to the walk in ortho clinic for a check up on my foot.  After that we really need to dive into our regular school day.  I have to say it's hard to get mentally into this school stuff in the summer.  During my ER time I brought along one of my Charlotte Mason volumes.  I brought the wrong one.  But God always seems to know what we need, right?  I really would love to share some of my thoughts on what I read that night.  Great stuff!  Until then, have a great day!

Testing week done!!

Yeah, the annual year end testing is all done!  I had to do three separate testing groups, one for Saoirse, one for Flannery and Moira, and one for Isabella.  They took two tests a day, for 5 days.  As we were preparing to set up a testing area in my bedroom the girls insisted we had a small table upstairs we could use.  I was pretty sure we sold it in a yard sale.  Come to find out I was right.  Although we did have our small 'preschool' sized table that is supposed to have adjustable legs sitting up there.  For years and years we've had that round table in one of our rooms.  But recently we put it up as space just seems to be getting smaller :-)  A good look at the legs and is was apparent that there was no way I was going to be able to adjust them! Hmmm, now what.  Improvise!  Not very conventional to say the least, but functional.  This is where we spent many an hour the last week:

UGH!!  I've written this post at least 5 times over and it refuses to allow me to write any more than the above paragraph.  Can you see the steam coming out of the computer?  Grrrr.  Let me try again....

 In my recent round of decluttering and reorganizing I made a set up for our bulk foods in my bedroom.  You can see the components above, but I moved them all around to make this testing desk. I'll have to take a picture sometime of what the set up looks like normally :-)

 There was plenty of natural light for their testing week.  And they had the fan blowing on them all week as well.  We've been trying to make it to July 1st AC free.

Adventures in Yard Work

I haven't finished my post on the other buggies we dealt with 9 plus months ago. But someting else came up that I thought I would write on.  That being our, or in this case, my, latest adventure in yard work.  I have had the girls go out in the yard to pick up the stray items that find their way around the place.  It seems that no  matter how many times I've sent them out there that they don't seem to understand what I mean by "Picking up ALL items/trash/stuff from the yard!".  So two days ago I went out there with them to show them what I meant.  The girls took turns watching the boys as I went around with the girls showing them what I wanted picked up.  Finally, FINALY, ***FINALLY*** all the junk has been picked up :-)  We did it in quick order too, so seeing as how I was ahead of things time wise, I thought I would throw in an extra bonus....mowing the lawn.  I had some of the girls bring in the boys, as it is too dangerous for little boys to be roaming the yard when the mower is running.  The other girls went around the yard picking up or moving any large rocks, or bikes.  I thought I pretty much covered the needed safety issues.  How wrong I was.  Silly me, since this was spur of the moment, I didn't go in to change my shoes.  I was wearing my sandles.  Note to self....sandles are BAD when you are mowing.  So here I was mowing along the edge of the garden (think mulch/sticks being mixed in with the grass), and somehow..it happened so fast, I got stabbed with a stick on the top of my foot.  Boy did that hurt.  It was hurting much more than I thought it should, so I stopped to take a look.  There was a bit of a very small scrape and a small round circle from the stab.  I rinsed it off with the hose that was running.  It wasn't bleeding much at all, and so I went on my way, I still had some yard left to mow. 

I was over heated by the time I got done, so my first order of business was to cool off.  Normally I am pretty religious when it comes to washing off wounds.  You can call me a bit of a germ freak.  So it was not normal for me to wait.  Of course all of this was going to work against me in the coming hours, but I had no idea at the time what I was in for.  So after I cooled off I went off to the tub to wash my foot.  It had been at least 45 minutes since I was "stabbed".  As I went to rub the spot, I had severe pain shooting through my foot!!  OWWWW!  Alrighty, that is NOT normal.  After rinsing and ever so carefully washing it, I was able to see a bit of wood.  Ah ha, a splinter.  I washed off my tweezers and went to pull out the splinter.  Come to find out that this splinter went almost straight *down* into my foot, not the normal piece of wood just under the skin.  Let me just say that it hurt!  It was very hard to get out.  I knew I had some choices to make.  A deep puncture wound (the wood was 3/8 of an inch long) can cause issues since it's not easy to wash out.  I did some soaking in epsom salt and hydrogen peroxide.  I took some remedies for tetnus and pain.  I figured I would watch it to see what happened.  By the next day the area was all pink around it (2.5 inch diamater), and continued to be painful.  Not much changed most of the day.  I wondered if I should call our homeopath.  I thought I would wait till the next day.  But things changed quickly last night.  Over six hours my foot got definitely worse.  So much so that waiting till the next morning wasn't looking like an option.  So I went to the ER.  This particular ER has always been pretty empty.  Not last night.  Three hours in the waiting room (typical of most ER's I know, just not this one).  An X-ray to see if they could see if anything was still stuck in there, a tetnus shot, an antibiotic and some motrin.  I wish I had the time to call the homeopath, but I made the right call.  My foot looks better already.  It's still pink and swollen, but not to the extent that it was.  You all know I am not fond of antibiotics, but this definitely wasn't going to wait till the following morning.  I guess I'll be downing some probiotics in the near future.

Hopefully we won't have a repeat of any such events in the future.

Dealing with buggies the natural way

Some of you may have heard me referring to dealing with the buggies on and off for a bit now.  We've had three different buggies.  None of them pleasant.  But all of them treated naturally.  Most people opt for the insecticide/pesticide options.  I knew that I didn't want to go that route for many reasons.  The biggest reason was of course for our health.  If you have buggies, then you are not healthy to begin with :-(  No sense making it worse by coating yourself with poison.  It is important to remember that our skin is the largest organ we have.  What you put on your skin will be absorbed, and it goes to the blood stream pretty quickly.  Below I tell you how we defeated two of the buggies.  I will use a separate post for the third buggie. 

First let me state that this is what *I* personally did.  I can't tell you what you should do.  I do suggest doing your own research to find what will work best for your family.  Our latest buggie has been fleas.  Oh, how fun!  NOT!  This, so far, has been the easiest to get rid of.  I don't think we are free of them yet, I only started this approach, but we've had great success so far.  Our animals have fleas.  We've never had a problem with them in the past.  As a matter of fact a lot of people I know are having issues with fleas like never before.  I am assuming it has to do with the warmer than normal winter we had.  What ever the reason, our animals have fleas.  They got into the house because of the cat.  The girls just couldn't resist sneaking him in for some snuggles.  Unfortunately he didn't come in alone!  Not too long after their little sneaky ordeal Moira came up with these itchy bumps.  Over a 3 day period she had a total of at least 60!  I thought she might have the chicken pox!!  No such luck.  I realized it was fleas.  Our plan of action...

The first step was to give the cats a bath with the original blue Dawn dish detergent.  I'm not sure how natural that is, but I am sure it is a LOT less toxic than a flea dip.  Dawn really works.  Maybe another soap would as well, but this is what I read, and I was sticking to it.  The girls continued this for a few days in a row.  I had the girls get everything off their bedroom floor.  If it was cloth, it was put into the laundry.  If not, it was put away, or into a bag to deal with later.  I then vacuumed the floor.  Afterwards I made up a mixture of diatomatious earth (food grade) and borax.  Borax is poisonous to humans or animals if consumed!!  Do not apply borax to animals or leave it out where a child can get into it.  Because I was mixing this with the DE and I was sprinkling it onto their floor, I wasn't worried that one of the kids was going to eat it.  I made sure that I got under all furniture and in their closet.  Supposedly fleas like cool dark places (hanging out under beds and couches).  The girls used pure DE on their mattresses.  They rubbed it in and then put clean sheets on top (a face mask is needed as the powder can irritate the lungs).  I have been going room by room through the house applying the DE and borax mixture to our carpets.  The results?  The next morning Moira only had 2 bites!  Since then she hasn't gotten any new bites.  I would call that a success.  I plan on leaving it in our carpets as long as possible.  After I vacuum I will reapply the mixture.

I also made sure that the girls coated the goats, dogs and chickens with the DE.  Again, don't use borax, due to the fact that the animals may try to lick it off, ingesting the poisonous borax as they do so.  I believe the girls gave the dogs a Dawn bath as well.  Goats are very prone to developing pneumonia if they get wet so we decided to just stick with the DE alone.  We are also raking up all outside hay and applying DE to the ground.  A healthy animal/human will not fall prey to parasites/fleas and the like.  I know that our animals diets need to change, but until that can be a reality we need to try to get rid of the fleas/parasites physically. 

The second buggie that we dealt with was lice.  I think I mentioned how we figured that one out!  If not, the short of it was that Flannery told me her head was itching.  I *never* suspected lice.  I looked her over, didn't see anything.  A few days later she was complaining again.  I did a thorough search, nothing.  It wasn't until a week or so later that I finally saw the nits.  Oy.  I knew I wasn't going to use the OT stuff.  Not only is it poisonous but the lice are building a resistance to it.  I can't remember what I was trying at first, but I wasn't seeing result fast enough.  I did some research and found a product that is silicone based, that is supposed to suffocate the lice.  It is non toxic.  We bought it, at $10 for 4oz!  Ouch.  The instructions say that one application is supposed to kill them off and that you may have to do one more treatment if the first didn't work completely.  I was not pleased with the results.  We did two treatments and we still had them.  Mind you I was doing the whole washing all our bedding daily and towels and clothing immediately etc.  We really couldn't afford to buy more bottles of the stuff.  I did a LOT of reading on this.  Oh, I almost forgot I also bought a special nit comb called the Terminator Nit Comb.  People were claiming that the comb was all you needed.  Hmmmm, not too sure about that, I wasn't too pleased with pulling out wee buggies that were still alive.  So what I did was have Jeremiah bring home a large container of vegetable oil.  I put it on all of our hair and LEFT it on.  I kept applying it each day, without washing the previous stuff out.  Each day I used the nit comb.  The life cycle of the lice is about 7 days in the egg until they hatch.  They do not start laying eggs for at least 2 or 3 weeks.  So we left the oil in our hair for 10 days.  We did wash some of the oil out at times, but then after our hair dried we reapplied the oil.  I've been combing through hair just to be on the safe side, and NO buggies :-)  A large bottle of oil, and one special nit comb was all it took.  Cheap and non toxic.

My next post will be about my battle with scabies.  I HATE those things!!!!!!  What I did wasn't complicated, but a bit more to write about, so I will save it for another day.

I certainly do not like sharing that we've had to deal with these very icky bugs.  BUT if I can help just one person through their ordeal with it then it will be worth it.  Again, I am only sharing what I did for my family.  I am sure I am leaving some details out, so please do your own reading.  Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have.

Why I've been missing in action

Two comments in a day after only posting two posts in a month!  There is a reason.  I wish I could say it was a good reason.  As any long term reader knows I stick with the basics.  This boils down to writing about life with a large family.  Lots and lots of things can be encompassed in that, I mean what *doesn't* affect a large (or any size family for that matter!!) family.  I have only written a couple posts on politics or my concern there of.  I've stayed away from such things like conspiracy theories or 'end of the world' banter.  Not that I haven't seen, or heard it, but I try to steer clear.  I mean, I have enough on my plate than to take on the world.  But recently that has changed.  Recently it has become evident that things may be changing in our country and NOT for the better.  As such I have been spending more time reading some of these issues and attempting to prepare, the best that I can, my family for the coming possibilities (physically speaking, which I am a fry cry far from being ready!!).

In a nut shell...I've been depressed.  Life as we know it may be changing (and soon), and it may never be the same again.  It's been pretty hard to get on here to write about daily life things (like the praying mantis that was found, or our diet change experience, or the new chicks, or seeing old friends...) .  It has been hard to engage in life.  I know that this is WRONG, but that is where I am at.  Kind of hard to really enjoy and engage in life when there seems to be no stopping what may be coming.  Hard to enjoy the little things when thoughts of being on the run, being persecuted, starving, your children dying because you can't access the basics of health care, or concentration camps are running through your head.  I am sure some of you may be thinking I have gone off the deep end, but I urge you to do your own research on these things.  The US has been training it's troops for civil unrest for the past handful of years, and it seems they are expecting a 'situation' coming soon.  I am very thankful for all I have, for the privileges I've grown up with.  I desire those same things for my children, and it breaks my heart to think that that may not happen.  I worry for their safety.  A huge fear is being separated from them.  The correct answer for all of this is to give my concerns over to God.  But sometimes it takes a while for that correct answer to become a reality.  After googling "Can America be saved?" I almost wanted to cry.  But I found one site, that echoed my heart.  Something I had been thinking about and was wondering how to implement (wide scale that is).  It's called, 40 Days to Save America.  I certainly don't think we should wait till the 40 days before the next presidential election to do something, but they have the right idea.  Please take a moment to look over their site and pass along their link.

There are many examples of God interceding for a country when that country falls to their knees in repentance.  I don't think we should wait till the fall to do this, but it would be good to come before God as a nation during this appointed time.  So this summer I plan on pouring my heart out to the Lord, the only one that can save us.  I know that we as a country deserve any punishment that we may experience.  But I also know that God is forgiving, and when people, as a nation, fall to their knees He may be willing to hold back that punishment.  I pray that there is a large enough remnant of repenters to call upon His Holy name to save our country.

There is much more I could write.  But I will leave off here.  My plan of action is to stop reading about this topic.  I know it's there, and from what I've read, not much hope to do anything about it, so more reading isn't going to help me.  Not to mention the worry and angst in which I have been living.  I want to enjoy life with my family.  I want to stop thinking, "I better enjoy this picnic, it may be the last one we go to (speaking of the Memorial Day picnic we went to)."  I know all the "right" theological come backs for my angst, I suppose for now I am not spiritually strong enough to find rest in those theologically correct positions.  I will spend extra time on my knees, and trying to prepare as best physically.  The results will be up to the Lord, and I can only pray that I will indeed find peace in that.

organizing

It seems I have talked a lot about organizing in the recent past.  I have been doing it.  We've been successful with some of our changes.  Other changes are taking a bit to stick, but I am determined for them to work.  Sometimes it's the small things that we change that can really make an impact.  I decided to rearrange my kitchen.  We've had our things in the same spots since we moved here, almost 6 years ago.  I decided to change things up to see if it would be a benefit to us.  One change was to move all of our plates/bowls/cups/silverware onto our metal wire rack, that resides right next to our dishwasher.  This means that 75% of the items coming out of the dishwasher can be put away without ever having to take more than a half a step.  I put our pots and pans into the cupboard where our dishes used to reside.  That gave them twice the space that they had before.  I always hated trying to tame the  pot monsters!  Take one pot out and a tower of others would come crashing to the floor.  Now there is plenty of room for them.  Plus I separated our cookware tops.  Trying to weed through them (among the monster pots) became overwhelming at times.  So those have their own drawer.  Easy to access, without having to rummage through everything to get to what I am looking for. 

I also had a battle with my spices and herbs.  I have about 30 glass jars (mostly mason jars with some peanut butter jars) filled with various herbs (medicinal).  I also have a largish group of spices that I buy at BJ's, so they are extra large.  I originally had the herbs in a cupboard.  Whenever I needed an herb I would have to resort to taking out most, if not all, of the glass jars to get to what I was looking for.  Since I was making various healing teas I couldn't keep all of my needed herbs in the front row.  I had seen this cute idea on another blog ( I wish I could find it to give her credit, hopefully in time, I'll update if I find it).  This woman put all of her cooking spices into the small mason jars (1/2 pint size) and put pretty labels on the top of the lids.  With the pull of the draw she could see all of her spices at once.  This was a neat idea.  But not practical for our situation.  Number one, we are seriously lacking drawers in our kitchen.  Number two, we go through a lot of spices and it's not practical to put them into small jars, still having to find a place for the bulk containers to reside.  So I found a solution that worked for us.  I moved all my bulk spices to my pantry.  They are lined up alphabetical.  They don't all quite fit, but it's the best I could do.  Behind the spices is another row of spices, these are extras of what is on the front line.  As for those 30 jars of herbs....I made some of my own labels with pretty paper.  The woman who I got this idea from just glued her paper to the top of the metal lid.  This would NOT work for our family.  They would  be in ruins in 72 hours.  So I laminated them, making it easy to clean off.  Instead of gluing them to the lid they manage to stay in  place with the metal ring, even when I go to open the jars.  If one happens to forget it's place, it's a breeze to just slip it back in, but this is rare.  Below you can see my set up.

Labeling my shelves leaves no excuse to all of the readers in our house as to where everything goes.  Let me just say that shopping day would leave my pantry a mess with everyone just throwing things in there willy nilly.

My bulk spices.  I do still keep some smaller spices in the original cupboard.

The bulk herbs.  For the peanut butter jars, as seen in the front, a bit off to the left, I just taped the label on.  Saoirse had great fun helping me with this project!  Since these are on a lower shelf I can see at a glance all of my herbs.  So picking the one I need at the moment is a snap.

A close up of a couple of lids.  Looks like I need to give them a brushing off.  The good thing though, is that they are being used!  And, yes, we have 'goat vitamins' :-).  It is an herbal mix for their health.  We get them from a site that makes only food grade remedies for goats.  So the humans in the family can use them too.

Mother's Day walk in the park

It was a wonderful Mother's Day.  I was given the opportunity to get some needed organizing done.  We have yet to start our third semester of our school year, for many various reasons.  The number one being all the illnesses and bugs!  But being unorganized was up there at the top of the list.  I can assure you that trying to get schooling done when we can't find our books makes it a bit difficult :-)

We had time later in the day to go to a local park and take a family walk.  Half way through it started to rain, but we still had fun.

Saoirse made this wonderful 'crown' for me.  I wore it for the better part of the afternoon.

Trail marker at the park.

Jedidiah is our bug man!  He came prepared with his net, bug box and bug book (written and illustrated by Moira).  I am very thankful that I laminated the pages today.  At first Jedidiah freaked out.  I think he thought the pages were going to remain in the wrong order.  But once I cut the pages out, and assembled it, he was very pleased.  Had I not laminated it the book would have been ruined in the rain.

Consulting his book.  The whole walk was dedicated to finding bugs.  He found a couple of beetles, a couple of bees, a lizard and a spider.

Aubrey was very pleased to be able to walk the entire way.  He did a great job!  He was very amused at the spotted ground when it first started to rain.

I was blessed with many flowers along the way :-)

Some from Saoirse.

Aubrey followed suite and picked some flowers, except he threw his on the ground.

I had a growing collection.

The girls had wanted to play "horse".  They took the opportunity to run through the fields as wild horses. 

I swooped up Aubrey to show him the plane flying over head.  I used it as an opportunity to have our picture taken as well.

Daddy and Jed were lagging behind...they were searching for bugs.

Trying to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time proved difficult.  It may have to do something with it raining out at the moment!!  We shall try again later.

Have a wonderful day!

porcupine livers

First off, I want to say a "Happy Mother's Day" to all the wonderful mommies out there :-)  Yes, it's Sunday.  And yes, we should be at church by now, but we're not...buggies ya know.  Ugh.  I'm taking a bit of a different approach which I will recap at a later time, if it pans out. 

But on to porcupine livers.  I can assure you its not what you think.  No homeschool experiment, no science documentary...no, just selfishness.  Oh, yes, selfishness.  So what does porcupine liver have to do with selfishness.  You see whenever I get myself a little something to eat, no matter how quietly I do so, every child seems to know I have food as soon as I sit down to eat!  This morning was no exception.  I made myself a wee bit of chocolate frosting and grabbed a handful of crispy walnuts.  And like clock work as soon as I sat down....little boys appeared :-)  Jonah and Aubrey were partaking of said chocolate and nuts.  Jed came along and asked what I was eating.  In an attempt to save some for me, I told him, "Porcupine livers."  To which he said, "Oh, porcupine livers!" And he dug right in :-)  After awhile I asked him, "Hey, isn't it amazing that porcupine livers taste just like chocolate and walnuts?"  No answer, his mouth was full.

Yesterday we finally celebrated Saoirse's birthday.  Well, sort of.  Half way.  We at least had a birthday dinner, and the cake was half way made.  But by the time we got done eating the dinner everyone was stuffed so we decided to hold off on the cake until today.  For Saoirse's b-day dinner we had pizza.  NOT GAPS legal pizza either.  Oh, no, it was the real deal....homemade, with wheat!  It was a compromise.  Buying some cheese and pepperoni is a LOT cheaper than going out to eat (which she requested).  Funny thing though.  Jonah remembered that pepperoni tastes yummy, but he didn't remember the name of them :-)  When he saw them he said, "Oh, I want some of....of...that!"  I asked him what they were called, and he couldn't remember!  Too funny.  And the baby. Well the baby doesn't remember me cooking with grain and was perplexed as to if it was ok to touch.  When I gave him a slice of pizza he kind of looked around to see what everyone else was doing with it.  He took one bite and didn't eat any more!  What?!  A child of mine not liking pizza?  We must remedy this.          

hair pics...take 2

I've been working hard all day today.  Come to think of it, I've been working hard for many days now :-)  Hair, hair, hair.  That is our mantra :-)  I have to say that having our hair cut shorter has made combing, washing and treatments much easier.  I finally took a break to eat some lunch and grabbed Flannery's camera to see if I could get a couple more pictures of our new haircuts, at least for Isabella and myself.  I quickly did a couple of edits in our new favorite, free, online editing tool.  The girls were very fond of piknic, but they just closed down last month.  Thankfully we found another program that works pretty much the same way, with the same easy to use features.  I took some liberty to add a few effects, because I get that craving to do something different every once in a while :-)

  

 I have had the front of my hair almost as short as it is now, but the difference is that it angles to the front, which I much prefer.

 

 The back is much shorter than I have ever had it.  It's pretty funny to wash it, there isn't much to wring out!  Not to mention I use a lot less shampoo, and it takes a few seconds to wash up. And the drying time is cut by 80%, at least it seems that way.

 Here is Isabella.  I really love the way the layers turned out.  It is really short in back, with the longer layers in front.  I think she is the only one who could get away with that as the rest of us have straight stick hair. Well, Flannery has some natural wave to hers, but nothing like Isabella's.

 The back view.

The baby was getting fussy (he has a cold and happens to be cutting at least 5 teeth!!) so I had to finish up fast, hence the blurry picture.  But I think you can get the idea :-)

Alrighty, off to finish more work. 

We are still alive :-)

Alive is good, right? Ha, ha!  Like I mentioned a few posts ago we've been dealing with lots of health issues.  The latest of which is lice.  Oh, can we say, "fun!".  So I've spent the last few days trying to get on top of the laundry and keep up with everyone's hair.  How is it going?  Well, with our longer hair, it takes one hour to do one persons head.  Seeing as how every female in our family had lice now, that equates to me spending 5 HOURS A DAY doing hair!!!  People, I don't have 5 hours in any given day to devote to something like this, let alone for days on end.  So we've found a few things that we decided we would do for our family to get us over this infestation. 

The first, I will only resort to the insecticide solutions as a last resort.  We've decided to try natural, or non-toxic means.  There certainly has been a big difference in the population with the special comb we are using.  But I wasn't willing to leave it at that, as that alone is very time consuming.  Anyone that has dealt with lice before knows that you *have* to take care of the nits (the eggs) or you will continue in the cycle.  So combing is a must, but I wasn't willing to comb for two weeks and to find out it didn't take care of it!  So here is the list of things we are or will be doing:

We bought LiceMD.  It is a silicone product, something that is not supposed to be absorbed by the body.  It suffocates the lice, the adults and eggs.  However, the concentration, compared to brands available in Europe, is small.  It looks like we will have to re-do the application in another week.  I will be applying the solution tonight or tomorrow. 

Between the two treatments we will be rinsing our hair with salt water.  Apparently the salt dehydrate the lice.  I put some on last night and found a dead buggie this morning.  So I guess it works.  Totally non toxic :-) 

Moira and myself have been getting bitten on other parts of our bodies.  As a matter of fact, even though I have the lice, they have not been biting my head!!  They have been munching on my upper chest and upper back.  Go figure!  Wasn't sure how I was going to deal with that.  After thinking it over and doing some reading I decided on coating my skin with diatomaceous earth(DE).  DE is a fine powder that is made of fossilized diatoms.  It feels like a soft powder, but under a microscope it appears as mini razor blades.  For humans it poses no risks (although breathing it in will cause lung irritation).  BUT for little bugs, like lice, or parasites or bugs in general, it is torture.  The mini razor blades cut into their exoskeleton, which then dehydrates the nasty critters.  I just mix some into water and apply.  It dries into a chalky coating.  Lovely to be sure.  You can see it clear as day in the below picture.  I tried putting some in Flannery's hair.  Um, that doesn't work too well. I had to abandon my attempt to kill the bugs off in our hair with the DE.  I thought of putting the DE into some coconut oil, but not sure if it would work the same.

On top of the measures above, we will still have to clean all cloth items, or store them away for the next month.  Oy!  This has been taking forever.  I am hoping to really, really get that done tomorrow as it is imperative we try to make sure we don't pick them back up from our environment.  Things have been slow going due to my dryer being on the fritz.  The two automatic settings no longer work, well not unless you want to reset the dryer 3 times before your clothing gets dried.  The timed setting works, but if there are bulky items, like towels, it takes another cycle to finish.  With all the washing of hair and what not, there are a lot of towels.  And let us not forget that we have to wash *ALL* of our bedding, *EVERY* day.  We've been able to live without AC at this point, which has helped us in the laundry department.  How?  Well, we only need a sheet to cover up, instead of a blanket, which would take up extra loads in the washer. 

To top all of this off, I decided to take a really drastic step....Cut our hair.  All the girl's, including me, got a hair cut.  There was just no way I could keep up with everything that needs to get done if I am spending 5 hours just combing hair!  So it was snip, snip, snip.  I went to the local walk in hair cutters to get  mine done.  After observing some of the techniques that the stylist used, I set to work on cutting the girls hair.  I got all four girl's hair cut today.  I wish I had the energy to put in the gel treatment, but it is going to require...combing.  That means time, which will be shorter than if we still had our long hair, but I am simply worn out!  So tomorrow we will be walking around here with shower caps covering our gel doused hair.  We will be bagging, and cleaning, and spraying (DE).  And let's not forget that pile of laundry while we're at it :-)  Below is the result of our hair cutting frenzy:

Saoirse reminded me to take a before picture.  I had already wet her hair down and was about to pin her hair up to get ready for cutting.

The back of Saoirse's hair...before.

A side view...before.

After!  I have to say, I think it turned out really cute!

A half way decent back.  I usually always have a lop side with every hair cut.  But this time it turned out really great.

The side view.

All of us, including your's truly covered in DE.  Hey, I didn't say it was pretty!  The pictures were taken with Flannery's camera. These pictures above came out half way ok, but I have to honestly say the girls hair looks a lot better in person. 

Not the best picture of Moira, but the only one I have so far.  For some reason the angles Flannery took these at, along with the lighting, really skew how Moira really looks.  The same goes with the picture below of Isabella.  Weird!  Moira had a bit of layering around the back.  I was using a technique we saw online.  She asked me something and I said, "Oh, I don't really know what I am doing, I'm just copying the video we saw, and what I saw my stylist do today."  She then said, "Um, mom, I think you should stop cutting my hair and take me to see someone who does know what they are doing!"  ha, ha!

I'll have to get a better picture of the side and back view of Isa's hair.  She wanted to try a technique we saw online to add layers in.  It didn't work as we thought and so we had to take matters into our own hands :-)  With her natural waves her hair looked really neat.  In the above picture she had brushed out most of her smaller waves. 

Poor Flannery didn't want her hair cut short.  So we made a compromise.  After I cut it she decided it was too long!  Silly girl!  She decided against any layers.  I think with her natural light wave the layers would have worked in her favor.  But it's still really cute a straight cut.

I may decide to buzz the boys' hair.  They don't have the bugs, but I certainly don't want them to get them, and start this whole thing all over again.  We'll see.  I've been checking their hair daily and so far so good.  Tomorrow is a big day.  Lot's-O-Cleaning.

*all* goat babies have arrived

That last wee post was from one of the girls :-)  Everything went great.  We had a bit of a surprise thrown into the mix.  We knew that two of our goats were expecting.  One of our (my sister's really) goats, Pipi, was not supposed to be pregnant.  A goat can be bred when they are at least 8 or 9months old and weigh at least 80 pounds.  Well, when it came time for breeding we felt that Pipi was just not big enough.  She was still on the small side, so we thought she should have another year to grow.  We recently found out that she is a genetic dwarf, so she is full size for her, just not to the usual standard for her breed.  That was good to know.  So fast forward to the other day.  We all went out to watch Honey give birth.  We were told by our vet that she was pregnant with one really large baby.  Hmmm, I was doubting that as she was only 3.5 months along (out of 5 months) and if the baby was already big she was going to be in trouble come labor day.  I was thinking she had multiples, but only time was going to tell.  I was in the process of putting a little birth kit together when the girls had come to the window to tell us she was in labor.  The kit included some dixie cups, iodine, dental floss, scissors, and dewormer.  As I was walking over to the barn the girls were shouting with joy...darn, I missed it!  No worries, I was there to see the *second* one being born :-)  Isabella thought a third one was on the way as there was another bulging.  So we waited...and waited...and waited.  Hmmm.  The afterbirth was not coming out (it was partially out), which wasn't a concern as it can take some time for it to do so.  But if there was another baby in there it shouldn't take too long before it follows it's siblings.  And it is possible that a kid can be retained, which means death to the kid, and possibly the mother.  We could have gone "in", but that would have required giving the mama an antibiotic, which I really wanted to avoid.  So I did the next best thing, got a homeopathic remedy that is supposed to help with a stalled labor.  If nothing else it should help with the retained afterbirth.  I gave her the remedy and about 1 or 2 minutes later she had a very noticeable contraction, which expelled the placenta.  Coincidence?  Could be.  We waited some more with nothing happening, so I gave her another dose, and again a very noticeable contraction and only a small bit  more afterbirth to come.  By this point I was pretty sure she was done.  After a while I went inside to get some things done, you know like start making dinner :-)  Important stuff.  Jeremiah needed to run some errands and decided to take all the kids with him.  I had not slept well the night before and was falling on my face!  He thought I could use a little quiet :-)  As he was leaving he suggested that I check in on Honey, just to be sure she was really done.  Off they went.

I wish I had energy as I would have been able to get a lot done, with all the kids out of the house, but sadly I was trying my best just to stay awake.  So I puttered with a few things.  I remembered that I was supposed to check on Honey.  Oy.  The barn seemed soooo far away (it's not at all in reality).  But I got myself a hat and went out the door.  All the animals were calling to me and acting like they hadn't been fed....like ever.  Ha, anyone with goats and chickens knows what I am talking about.  However, with all the excitement of the new babies I thought it was possible that they were not fed.  I decided that I would give them a wee bit of food, at least to tide them over should they have not been fed.  If you don't have goats then it may be hard to imagine the chaos in which it is to feed a mass of completely starved animals (I think in the goat world the definition of "starving" is to not have had food in the past 30 seconds or so).  I had to fend off one of the dwarf who jumped the fence that is around the storage door.  I finally poured the food into the containers.  I went back in to get some chicken feed.  As I was sprinkling that on the ground for the chickens I noticed that Pipi was not present.  That would be a BIG RED FLAG!  Goats will do anything to get food, and for one of them to not be there sent my alarm bells running.  I was looking around to see if she had escaped, or was hurt, or....just then I heard this "maaaaaa" that had a definite grunting to it at the end...you know like as if that goat was pushing out a baby!!!  The sound was coming from the other side of the barn.  I made my way there as quick as I could to see wee Pipi with a bulging sack/head sticking out of...well you know where.  Yikes!!!!  The girls kept thinking she was pregnant, these past two weeks, but I wasn't buying it.  I ran to the chicken barn to grab an arm load of fresh straw.  I threw it down behind Pipi as the ground below her was just dirt.  It was apparent that she was going to need a little help getting the baby out.  So I gently helped her and in another two contractions she had herself a cute baby boy!  We had to help him nurse as she was a bit freaked out over him trying to suckle.  But she is doing fine now.

The following day Jeremiah took a few of the kids on another errand.  Flannery and Saoirse stayed home with me.  I had more energy and planned on getting some things done.  The girls wanted to go outside, which is where they will spend most of their time in the next few weeks, to play with the baby goats.  As Flannery was heading over there she yelled out...."Lily had her baby!!!".  Once again we missed it.  She always gives birth when we are not looking :-)  She had a baby girl.  Phew, three mamas, 4 babies, all within 24 hours.  Hey, at least it's all over in one day!  Lily had her baby out in the yard, where it is just dirt, so we had to wash the cord as it had gotten dirty.  Other than that all went well.  Some of the mamas are being nasty to the other goat babies, but I am sure it will all calm down in a few days. 

And this means that in another three weeks or so....MILK!!!  Wooo Hooo!!!  Bring on the cheese, the yogurt and kefir!  YUM!!

Honeys in labor!!!!

Are goat is in labor!!! Will have pics soon!!!!

Prayers are good :-)

So, with all this time away from the computer, one would think I have been able to accomplish my long list of "to-do's".  Ha, well you would be wrong if you thought that!  For some reason I see this as a repeat of last year, but the truth is the truth, we have been 'plagued'.  We've been dealing with a LOT of issues around here, all of which have seriously thrown a wrench into my plans.  Although it may be "my plans" which is the reason all of this is going on.  I am sure that is part of it.  Either way we've been swamped.  Here are some of the issues we've been dealing with:

thrush
ring worm (on two of the children)
head lice
sinus issues
new allergies (Isa came down with a serious peanut allergy this past month, and now Flannery is reacting to eggs)
tear ducts swelling
UTI's
severe menstrual cramping (that was getting better, and is now worse)
some strange itchy mouth sores for one child

I know there are more, but those would be the major ones.  That doesn't even account for our animals.  With the warmer winter we had we are inundated with all sorts of bugs!!  We have never had a problem with lice before, but most of the animals have it (which is different than the human kind).  This morning the girls ran over to the window (they were outside) to announce that one of our goats is showing signs for labor.  This goat has had her babies around 3 o'clock in the afternoon the past two years.  This means she will be giving birth sometime tomorrow I suppose.  Please pray that all will go well.  Too many bad things have been happening here.  Last year we lost half of our milking season due to the goats getting mastitis repeatedly.  We really can not afford for that to happen this year.  I plan on making cheese this year with our milk.  We have been making a ton of yogurt and kefir as well.  I am not sure if our dwarfs are with kid, so I don't know if we will have milk during the winter like we were planning.  Only time will tell.  I am really trying to work hard on keeping within the grocery budget (with food at least) and having this milk available to us will be a big help.  Just yesterday we had our shopping day and I spent almost $30 in milk alone.  And that was with me trying to be ultra conservative, because we really could use 4 more gallons on top of what I bought. 

I need to spend some time making up some new chore lists.  After doing some research I've come up with a new plan of action to take care of the animals.  Our food can only be as healthy as the source it is coming from.  With that in mind we are going to try to make a big attempt to get our animals as healthy as possible, with in our means.  This will involve more work.  On top of all of this I am still trying to get what little bit of organizing/decluttering done here inside the house.  That proves difficult with three little boys getting into everything.  Only once did I put on a video.  That was a REALLY bad day.  The girls are capable of watching them, but they've had their own work to do. It's definitely a season of treadmill running, and I am not talking about exercise!  I mean I keep running around here without getting anywhere :-) 

Alright, enough of the fussing.  The baby just went down for a nap, so I plan on trying to get a few things done (we can't go to church due to the lice :-(  ).    

Now, not all has been a lose.  I've gotten some things done.  I am hoping to steal borrow Isa's or Flannery's camera to take some pictures of what I have accomplished.

A Check In

Sitting up on the porch, watching kiddos scrounge for critters.  Isabella found a toad.  Flannery found a small snake, and Moira found some crickets and a tree frog.  They are all looking for more "pets".  Jed has been a wee bit obsessed about critters.  So much so that I bought him a bug net and bug box.  We've watched crickets eat some salad, and see a cricket get eaten by a lizard.  Fun stuff :-) 

I finally found the reason for my inability to cope with life last week :-)  No, not pregnant!  But I am thankful to know that I am not going crazy.  Phew! 

We did not get much done in the way of spring cleaning last week.  Bummer.  I am going to try to get it done this week.  I am sure emotionally I will be in better shape.  I thought I would catch up on some of the things that have been going on around here.

::  The girls and I have been participating in the "no shampoo" craze.  It has been a trial and error process, but I am glad to say that I have finally found the correct ratios of ingredients for my hair.  I made up a chamomile tea concoction for the 'conditioner'.  However, my hair was *extremely* unmanageable!  I finally tried the recommendation of using a lot more apple cider vinegar.  What a relief!  Now my hair is smooth and manageable.  It is true that you can go days between washing your hair, once your hair adjusts to the new routine.  My hair feels thicker as well. Very odd.

::  Ever since our bout with the Norovirus this past winter my stomach has not been the same.  My leaky gut, which I was not having any problems with, grew worse than it was before we started GAPS.  Not pleasant.  As a result I will be re-doing the Intro stage starting in the next few days.  Isabella is faring far worse.  She has developed a peanut allergy, which is truly scary. It started a few weeks ago when she noticed that the roof of her mouth started itching after eating peanut butter.  She didn't mention it to me for a couple of weeks.  The itching was severe.  I told her she shouldn't eat peanut butter any more.  I am VERY thankful that she obeyed!!!  Just a few days ago she was cleaning up the kitchen.  She was wiping down the counter, which had some peanut butter on it.  Unbeknown to her, she got a small dab of the peanut butter on her finger, and passed it on to her lip. Within a couple of minutes her lip had doubled in size!!!  It ended up tripling in size before the allergy meds kicked in.  I can't imagine what would have happened had she swallowed it.  Isabella will be joining me in re-doing intro.  I may have to take her to our alternative practitioner to see if we can help her over come this allergy.  At this time everything I cook is from scratch, so I know that there isn't any peanut content in our food (save actual peanut butter).  But we are not planning on eating this way forever (though we will be eating whole foods), and should she be out and about and grab something to eat.....well, that's just a scary thought.

::  Juice fasting.  All of us did a juice fast, except the baby.  The younger kids only juice fasted for 2.5 days. Moira did so for about 4 days and Jeremiah, Isa and myself did so for about 6 days.  I have been battling a sinus infection for weeks now.  I knew I could kick it with a fast.  However I really needed to do one for 2 weeks.  I was hoping that 1 week would at least help.  I believe it did.  I did have to start taking my GSE/oregano oil blend.   Plus I added in some nasal washes (some with GSE in it and some with probiotics added to it).  Thankfully I am making some head way!  Plus the juicing gave me energy!!  Finally, after years of low energy, it was such a blessing to be able to function.  But, after the fast, which we came off slowly, my egg intolerance is worse than ever!!!  So I changed my plan of action.  I was planning on doing a longer juice fast, but instead have decided to re-do intro.  By re-doing intro I can reestablish my gut flora.  After that is set up I will then do a longer juice fast.  Only myself, and possibly the older two girls will be fasting this next time around.  The girls will only be doing a short one though. 

Now, some people will say that children should NEVER do any type of fast. I would agree with that for the most part.  But for us, it was a needed step to better health.  Since they were only fasting for 2.5 days, I wasn't concerned.  After all, nine months ago, when they had that horrid 5 day stomach bug I can assure you they were in much worse shape.  With the 2 day juicing fast, they were completely hydrated and obtaining a ton of micronutrients.  And since we have already done some detoxing from the GAPS diet I wasn't too concerned about any big detoxing.  Jed did great, and he really enjoyed the juices.  As a matter of fact after they were done with their fast, while the rest of us were still continuing on, he kept asking for some of our juice. 

Nursing and fasting are not recommended.  Again, for good reasons.  But sometimes you got to do what ya got to do :-)  I did not go in to this without doing my research.  I outlined a whole routine for my body to handle any detoxing as efficiently as possible.  Did it work?  Well, I believe so.  I felt yucky that first day (but it was also the day I came down with my sinus infection), but after that I felt great.  Also the baby was not fussy (something he would have been had I been detoxing into him).  In order to minimize any toxins passing on to the baby I did the following:

AM-take 1 TBS of bentonite clay
Mid-day take one tablet of chlorella
PM- take 1/2 tsp of diatamatious earth (DE)
PM take a warm bath with 2 cups of epsom salt and 1 cup of baking soda
Daily- 15 minute T-Tapp workout
Daily- skin brushing

Yes, that is a lot, but I was trying to give my body ways in which to process the toxins.  The clay, chlorella and DE all have the ability to draw and bind to the toxins.  This prevents them from being reabsorbed when they get into your intestines.  T-tapp helps get your lymph pumping.  After a workout I would then do some skin brushing which helps stimulate your skin to release any toxins.  The bath with the salt and soda helps your body to give off toxins as well.  My goal was for the toxins to be taken care of safely and not be released into my milk.  I am sure some did, and for insurance I gave the baby some clay as well.  So if he did get some toxins, he had a way to deal with some of it. 

Well, I am getting very, very sleepy.  Time to catch some z's.  I wish I had some pictures.  That will have to wait.  Until?  That's ok, life happens.  We are trying to be careful.  We are making emergency preparedness a priority and as such some things will have to wait until we have obtained some needed supplies.  Man I wish money grew on trees :-)  Ha, ha!!  There are so many things on my wish list and it can be hard to leave that list in God's hands, for His timing.  For example, besides my camera, there is a homeopathic course that I really want to take.  Not only is it a year long, but you also get to have personal tutoring with the homeopath.   But God knows this, I am sure He can make a way, should He really think I need to take the course :-)  I am at peace with this. 

Ok, off to get some sleep.  I'll need it to tackle our spring cleaning.  Thankfully we will be headed into our day with at least a decently clean house.  That will save us time, so we can jump into decluttering, organizing and deep cleaning.  Can't wait!

powering down

I know, I don't write in ages, then two posts in one day.  Actually I am hopping on here to say that in a wee bit I will be powering down our computers for a spell.  We have so, so, so much work to do around here and the computers are a temptation to all.  I've been doing a bunch of dehydrating, the kids and Jeremiah have been doing a bunch of outside work, and in the process our house is a heap of a mess.  It has become evident that we do not have a firm foundation in chores and diligence.  There will be a ton more gardening to do, goat babies are due to arrive in two weeks (MILKING soon, woo hoo!), more dehydrating, and I am hoping to try my hand at pressure canning meat.  We are taking an early break from schooling to jump into more decluttering and totally devote ourselves to working on being diligent in the everyday small stuff.  I will probably be checking email here or there, but I am really going to try to stay off till we get our house in order. 

My main goal will be to get the girls working on their own, without me having to stand over them.  I think it will help if we have set times during the day that the work gets done.  Although they each have an assigned room, things like laundry and dishes have been a hassle.  Not to mention that they would be involved in something when I call out it's time to to tidy their rooms, making the whole process take forever because they would want to finish up what they were doing.  There are a lot of things they want to accomplish, but we keep putting time in nonessentials, there by decreasing our time to put towards the things we really want to get done.  Not sure how this will all work out.  I do have two sheets that divide the work of the dishes and laundry between us.  Set days/ or times to accomplish those tasks.  Plus, for a time I think I am going to box up a bunch of stuff to put in the attic to make cleaning up an easier task.  It is obvious that the decluttering I have already done was not enough, since we are not taking care of the things that were left down here.  So box, box, box.  Or maybe bag, bag, bag as I do not believe we have any boxes on hand. 

I am looking forward to this time.  It will be difficult, but I am sure it will pay dividends in the long run.  Please, if you think of it, do pray for us.  This is going to require a LOT of work on my part.  I am ever so thankful I have more energy, due to taking a week to do a juice fast.  Seriously, I was thinking I would never have energy ever again!  GAPS has done a lot for my health, but having energy wasn't one of them!  I will write more about the reasons, and how we handled the juice fasting (Jeremiah and myself).  I plan on juice fasting every other week for a couple of months.  I wanted to do just one long juice fast, but that is not financially possible.  So far so good.  I've been making sure to do a LOT of detoxing supplements to make sure they do not get recycled.  I am assuming it is helping as only the first day of the juice fast was hard.  After that I was fine, more energy by the day.             

Interview over at Gaps Diet Journey

So a few weeks ago I received an email.  It came from Starlene, who writes over at GAPS Diet Journey. Her blog was one of the first one's I came across, writing about the diet.  I was in full research mode, trying to read all I could about other people's experiences.  So it came as a surprise, a delighted surprise, to see an email from her asking if she could interview me on our family's experience with the GAPS diet.  We chatted this past weekend.  It went well, I had a lot of fun talking with her.  We had a lot in common.  I learned a few more things as well.  She passed along an awesome pizza crust recipe (GAPS legal) that we tried out yesterday.  Yes, we did have pizza for Easter.  It was wonderful, though I do feel bad that we were lacking any sort of tradition for this holiday.  I need to get on the ball with that, you know, before all the kids leave home.  Sigh. 

Anyways, on to the interview.  You can check it out HERE.  Starlene wanted to know how a large family managed GAPS.  By the way, she happens to be the oldest of seven :-) 

He is Risen!

HAPPY EASTER

It is early here, only a few are awake.  I thought I would take a moment to wish everyone a wonderful Easter.  We do not have any plans...at all.  I feel poorly about it all, since we usually do a little something special for Easter. But the past month has been a very busy one.  Which evidenced itself with my lack of blogging.  Believe it or not, I took maybe two pictures this whole past month!  No crafting either.  Wow, what a sad state of affairs.  Things were just a wee bit busy in other areas of life, and so a necessary break for the above mentioned activities.  As a side note, my camera is not working :-(  It threw me an error code a week ago.  From what it sounds like, it may be an expensive fix.  There is no foreseeable way for us to get it fixed as there are so many other more important things that need money to go to, the camera isn't one of them.  Thankfully I do have the family camera, but that just means no more bokeh :-)  There is much to catch up on, lots of things that we have accomplished.  I will wait till another day.  Plus I have to share with you all about  my interview with Starlene from "Gaps Diet Journey"!  Lots of fun.  She has opened the door to new recipes!! We were in need of some new recipes around here.  I try to keep cooking simple, so that throws out a lot of possibilities with many GAPS recipes.  We only use common ingredients, and quick prep times.  I'll link up to all of that tomorrow.  Until then, have a blessed day.