Author Archive | Tricia

Happy Michaelmas everyone.  I love feast days and of course so do the kids, no school and lots of fun.  We tried to make caramel apples to celebrate the beginning of fall but even after sanding the apples surface, the caramel slid right off?  Hmmm, maybe next time I should make the apples cold before dipping them in the caramel?  Anyone done this lately, I could use a clue! We spent the day playing badminton out front, playing cards, cooking and enjoying each others company, and of course today is library day.

Going to the library is one of my fond memories of childhood.  Unfortunately, my momma only took me every once in a long while and I kept a book for about a year one time.  I remember thinking that the police was going to come and get me at any moment for not returning Harry the Dirty Dog.  I still love that book but it still gives that feeling that I am living against the law haha.

When I became a stay at home mom and got rid of the help, the one “homeschooling” activity that I did for my then 1st grader and two boys 3 and 4 years old, was storytime at the library followed by letting them get lost in a pile of books until nap time.

Library day is a day to find a new adventure.  You never know where you will go or what you will learn.  When you find the perfect book it is bittersweet to come to the end and even worse when that author never wrote another book.  Library day is a day when momma will not ask you to put down your book to match socks or clean up the front porch.
We usually come home with bags of books though lately I have had to limit the amount of books the little ones get so they don’t get lost.  Last week I found one in the garden and thankfully it was in perfect condition.

We live in a small town so our selection is not as good as when we lived in the city but good enough.  We will hopefully make new friends and visit faraway lands then land safely on our couch or favorite reading spot.

How often do you go to the library?  Do you have a sure fire way to not lose any library books?

I missed getting this on the blog yesterday because I spent my computer time trying to get a Facebook page going. Phew!  Glad that is done.  It was not easy, I am not a proficient computer person so there was a lot of hair pulled out yesterday but if you look on the upper right hand corner, you can now “like me”…um if you like me : )

So to continue with my week of daily rhythm here we go with Laundry day.  Around here we do a few loads a day, so what makes Wednesday laundry day?  Well, its the day when all beds get stripped and bedding gets washed, all towels are done, the laundry room gets cleaned up and hopefully the laundry shoot is empty by end of day.  All clothes and diapers are dried and sunned (there is nothing like sleeping on sun dried sheets).

The kids strip all the beds and throw all the bedding over the banisters into a pile down in the foyer.  Today, I was taking the picture and found a little dolly thought the pile looked comfy and was sweetly resting among the sheets and blankets.

1 bar Fels Naphta, Zote, or castile soap (I use Dr Bronners if I can find it on sale)
2 cups Washing soda (not the same thing as baking soda)
2 cups Borax (50 Mule Team or whatever borax you have in your neck of the woods)
1/2 cup baking soda (works awesome on smelly clothes)

Grate up the bar of soap, I whirl it around  quickly in my food processor to make the soap shreds into a powder then add the other ingredients and mix it all up good. Put it into your laundry container and use 1 tablespoon per load or 2 tablespoons for bigger loads.

There are plenty of recipes on the internet and you can take this another step and cook it into a gel which sounds like it makes a more economical soap but I have used the powder for years and do not like plastic bottles of buckets hanging around.

If you have a rhythm you would like to share please leave a link in the comments or just share it with us.