Conserve Water While Washing Dishes

My husband tells me that I wash dishes in the weirdest way.  He has never seen anybody wash dishes like I do.  I learned this nifty way a couple of years ago by reading a book and it helps to save on water.  I have washed dishes like this ever since.

I start with a clear sink and a clean wash cloth.  I put my homemade dish soap on my wet dish cloth and a little in the sink and I wash the sink.  Then I proceed to wash my rinsed off dishes.  I stack them one by one in the clean sink.

When my sink is full, then I can turn on the hot water, rinse them off and set them aside to dry.

If you are lucky enough to have a split sink, you can have both sides washed and emptied, ready to use for clean dishes and rinse them all off.  I suppose a lot of it depends on how often you wash your dishes. ;-)

Schoolhouse Expo Scavenger Hunt

Doesn't that sound like fun?  A scavenger hunt?!  Oh how I wish I could join!  But instead, I'll pass the word along to you and let you join in!

Remember the Schoolhouse Expo that I've been writing about?  They are giving more people a chance to win prizes!  Even if you are not attending the Schoolhouse Expo, you can play along and have a chance to win something!

Here's the details, go there and sign up and follow all of the rules.  There are 3 hunts to join.  Scavenger A and B is a hunt through all of the vendors in the vendor hall.  College Fair Scavenger Hunt is a hunt through the college vendor booths.  Have fun and let me know if you win anything!  You have all week long to get this done too!

Schoolhouse Expo Starts TODAY!

I am so excited!!  Wait, let's make that

I AM SO EXCITED!

This morning, in 2 hours and 37 minutes, I will be sitting here attending the Schoolhouse Expo that is hosted by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  Jealous?  I know you are!  I would be.

Coming up on the schedule today that I am excited about is a session hosted by Janice Campbell called Multi-Level Teaching and Molly Green Economizers talking about Super Storage and Organizing.

And besides all of the fun of each session and the freebies that are given out.  There is also chances to win door prizes!  You can check them out here and see which ones appeal the most to you! 

I hope to win the getaway at Great Wolf Lodge.  We have one right here near us that we have been talking about taking a family vacation to.  How awesome would it be to be able to do it for free!? I could also stand it if I won the 2 night stay at Sierra Lodge. ;-)

A couple other prizes that caught my eyes were the comprehensive lesson plans from Veritas Press and the home edition of "The Five Father" by Five Fathers Music.  There is so many prizes available!  The list seriously astounds me!  


Even though the Schoolhouse Expo is sold out, you can still buy the Expo2Go tickets for $19.99 and get all of the audio recordings to listen to at your own leisure.  If you want to make sure that you can buy tickets for next year, please "like" Schoolhouse Expo on Facebook to be kept up to date with reminders and what is going on.  


And if you already "like" Schoolhouse Expo on Facebook, make sure to stay tuned to them all week for scavenger hunts!  There will be three of them.  I can't wait to get more information on those!

Praying for Your Future Husband by Robin Jones Gunn & Tricia Goyer Book Review

Before I start gushing about the book, I want to explain why, as a married woman, I wanted to read it.  A couple of years ago, I found a Christian author online named Tricia Goyer.  I really don't remember how I found her, but it may have been on Facebook.  I just remember that I really liked her, right away.

I waited and waited for the Walmart near my house to get one of her books in.  I was looking for Love Finds You in Lonesome Prairie Montana which she wrote with Ocieanna Fleiss.  If you're interested in this book, check it out here. I had to go to another Walmart to finally find it.  I read that book and just fell in love.

I have been waiting for the chance to get another book that Tricia Goyer wrote, but have not been able to.  But here was my chance!  I had a chance to pick a book for a review from Multnomah books and one of my options was Praying for Your Future Husband by Tricia Goyer and Robin Jones Gunn.  So I grabbed the opportunity!

I also have an 8 year old daughter, who will one day be old enough to read this book and give her the basic principles for praying for her future husband.

Now onto the book gushing:

Praying for Your Future Husband was a book that was very hard to put down!  The first night I read 86 pages and stayed awake until nearly 1am trying to read as much as I could.  My eyes were so heavy that I thought weights were hanging from my lids.

I'm going to start with the appearance of the book so I can make sure to hit every part!

The cover was very catching and refreshing.  The young lady is in a field of wheat(?), soaking in the sun while praying under a blue summer sky.  Definitely a book that catches your eye!  I also loved the size.  It was very light and easy to fit in my purse.

The format and decorations of the inside were also very pleasing to my eye.    The pages have feminine touches on them and are extremely inviting.  How I would have loved to read this book when I was a young lady.  And what good it would have done me!

The book includes 12 chapters of different topics that a young lady can pray for her future husband.  I think all of these could also apply to older ladies who are still waiting.  The story of each author flowed from chapter to chapter as they touched upon topics such as praying for his heart, praying for protection, praying for strength, praying that he will be a God lover and praying for commitment.

Along with the personal touches that each author adds they have included a list in each chapter.  In the chapter Pray He Will Be a God Lover, for example, there is a list telling you exactly how to pray for that, like praying

that both of you will set your hearts and your affections fully on the Lord.

Each chapter also has testimonies from other women and prayers to recite to guide you along your praying journey.  At the end of each chapter there are discussion questions that can be answered in a group or used as personal enrichment.

This is a book that I rate with 5 stars and would personally recommend for any single woman, young or old, who are waiting for that special love to come into their life.  You can go directly to Tricia Goyer's website to order this book.

I was given this book to review with my honest opinion from Multnomah Books.  

31 Days of Cleaning - Day 1 & 2

There is an great book out by Sarah Mae that you just have to have!  It's called 31 Days to Clean Having a Martha House the Mary Way.  Go to that link to check it out if you'd like.  You can trade a tweet for a chapter, or just break down and pay $4.99 for a whole copy!






So I have started this challenge.  I have started later than most, but I'm all good with that because I'm working at my pace anyway.

Last week, I believe it was Thursday, I did Day 1.  I wrote my mission statement.  I think I will keep that for another blog post though.  I still haven't made it pretty like the book says to.  But I was thinking of doing that with my PSP.  It was very easy for me to get all of the supplies that I would need too because I already had it or make my own.  The only thing that I needed to buy to clean with was the lemons.

This evening was Ladies Spring Event at church.  I told myself and my girlfriend that I couldn't go until I did my Day 2.  That included cleaning the inside of my fridge and freezer.  And I did it!  I had it all done before it was time to go.  And if I do say so myself, it looks really nice!  I even took pictures.....

So here is my before fridge and freezer before:

 

And here is my after pictures:

"Bee" In the Blog Guidebook!

http://www.justfollowingjesus.com/


I just found this tonight, on another blog, thank you Elizabeth at Just Following Jesus in my Real Life.  So I checked the site out and it appears that you can sign up your blog to be in this guidebook of blogs.  How cool is that?! 

The even neater thing was that if you blog about the Blog Guidebook then you get to put your blog button in the guidebook for free!  But it's only a limited offer!  So hurry!

Check it out right here.  Hurry, don't delay! 

Someone needs to hire me to sell stuff. 

Schoolhouse Expo is Nearing!

I am so excited for next week!  It starts on the 16th! Only 3 more days!  

I have made sure that everyone close to me knows that I will be busy next week, all week.  Please don’t disturb me during the Expo!  I even made sure that I went to meet my lawyer this week instead of next week so I don’t have to miss anything!

The closer it gets, the more excited I become!  Today I downloaded the whole schedule and the other items that were ready for download.  Now I just need to find a way to print them all out.  I don’t have any ink.  Maybe I’ll head down to the library with a pocketful of change.

If you haven’t already bought your tickets and you’d like to hear all of the recordings then you can check out this link and give The Old Schoolhouse Magazine all of your precious info to buy the Expo2Go package!  You won’t be sorry!  I bought those tickets last year and was still glad that I had.  The neat thing about buying all of the sessions this way is that you can listen to them at your convenience.  It is $19.99 that is well spent!

How many days until it’s here again?

Month of May

My calendar is already filling up for the month of May!  I can't believe it.  I have 5 doctor appointments, 2 meetings, 3 nights of AWANA, a fire station open house, appointment to get cats fixed, a dinner at church and court (if I get to actually go this time).

Then of course, what I've been waiting for for quite a while.  The Schoolhouse Expo!  It's a homeschool convention that is online during the week of May 16-20.  I am so excited!!

Last year, I didn't get to attend the Expo.  But I did purchase the Expo to Go tickets!  And as a nice little give away, they allowed everyone who had bought Expo to Go tickets to attend the Expo live on Friday.  I was ecstatic about that because that was the day that my favorite Christian fiction author, Tricia Goyer, was speaking that day!  I learned so much that day and thoroughly enjoyed myself!  Greg even took off for the afternoon with the kids for me I believe!


The nice thing about the Expo to Go was that when I received the mp3 files to download, I could listen to them at my own leisure.  And I could keep them too after I downloaded them to my computer.  I also received the devotions that were done each morning which was a nice bonus!

I hear that the Schoolhouse Expo is already sold out this year!  Wow!!  But you can still buy the Expo to Go!  It's $19.99 and you get access to 40+ sessions, including  Devotions with Deb and A Minute with Molly!  Believe me, if you are a homeschooling Mom, you don't want to miss this homeschool convention!


If you still need further proof that it is the best online convention and you don't want to miss it, check out the Vendor Hall.  From here you can see all of the vendors and click on their links.  You may even find some cool freebies!

The Fight of Our Lives Book Review

I don’t know if it’s just me or what, but the book that I recently read for a review was just not one I could follow.  Maybe I would need to be better informed about current events and such and I’d understand this book more.  I don’t know.

The Fight of Our Lives by William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn sounded like a great book to read.  The full title is The Fight of Our Lives Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth & Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam.  

I wish that I could say that the authors do a good job explaining this subject, but honestly, I didn’t understand much of what I read.  I understood parts of the book, but I was so lost that I couldn’t fit it into what I had been reading.  

The authors seemed to jump around a lot to me.  I am wondering if this book would be better read by someone who has kept up with these issues more than I have.  I am sorry to say that I haven’t kept up with it enough to follow.

This book was given to me by Thomas Nelson publishers and Booksneeze.com to read and review in my honest opinion.  I was not persuaded to write my post in any way.

History and Heart Ache

As I sat here on my computer on Sunday night, my TweetDeck updates started flashing like crazy.

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Wow, I thought.  I hurried into the other room and told Greg and his dad.  Then I hurried back in here and started searching on the net for more information.  I sat here most of the night and watched videos, the live presidential speech and reading different news articles.

What a historic moment that was.  This year has already been making history!  Earthquakes, tornadoes, shootings, terrorism, bombs and more.  Even the Royal Wedding!

I have sat here the past couple of days watching the different comments made by people about this shooting of bin Laden.  I am amazed at what some people who are advertising that they are Christians actually say!  It just blows my mind away.

I am not writing this post for discussion or debate about this, so I won't even put in my opinion of the matter here.

Monday morning I wake up early.  I have to have Kyle to his doctor appointment by 9:15am, it's a 20-25 min.drive, I need to stop and get donuts for breakfast and gas first.  I was in a hurry to get to the doctor on time and I was in a hurry to get back home because Greg had a doctor appointment that he needed to get to.  We actually did hurry and I got back in time for Greg to leave for his doctor appointment.

But something was amiss when I got home.  He should have been waiting for me so he could leave.  Instead I found the door unlocked.  When I came in, I found his bracelets and knife which he always wears.  His pistol and rifle were both where they were supposed to be.  There wasn't any note of any kind.  His Bible was was misplaced and his meds were all sitting out.

I went next door, his sister lives there and she told me that he might be at the hospital.  An ambulance came and took him.  So I came back here and called ER and yes, he was there.  I was patched through to his room and was able to talk with him.  He had been having some bad chest pains and decided to call 911 just in case.  He didn't want something to happen and me and the kids walk in the door with him laying there.  I went up and sat with him at the hospital while he waited for the test results from x-rays and blood tests done.  And EKG was done in the ambulance and another at the ER and they both had good results.

After drawing more blood and going through a CAT scan, they tell us that his heart looks in perfect condition, his lungs sound healthy and clear and they think it's some sort of heartburn or something to do with his esophagus.  He made an appointment with is regular doctor and with is internal specialist.

We were at the hospital for a little over 8 hours.  It was a long day.  I was gone from the house for 11 hours.  After we picked up the kids from our friends house who had nicely taken them for me, it was that long.  I didn't get to do any housework or schoolwork done because I was gone.  I wanted to do school all week this week, so much for that.  But I would have rather not done that, than had a hubby that was dead or sick.