Randomness

  So, I've been trying to aim for a blog post around the first of the week, but this week has been so busy it just didn't happen. I've been filling in at work for Katy (sis) while she is off galivanting somewhere. To all you mom's that work full time and still take care of your children and house and everything . . . . you are SUPERMOM.  I have piles of laundry on my table (ok, that can tend to happen anyway, just not this bad) piles of dirty dishes, and I just would prefer to continue in my Stay At Home Mom Life.

  I have a Kindle app on my computer and my phone, and I absolutely LOVE it. So I suscribe to several blogs because nearly every day they post free books from Kindle (I also just go on by myself and look). Free Homeschool Deals and Meet Penny. Meet Penny currently has a giveaway going on (ends today) that I just noticed last night. Its a $50 gift card to Amazon, giveaway from another site that I've heard of but never had the time to check it out. So I did last night. eReaderGirl also posts free or nearly free books from Kindle, Nook, PDF, etc. (Why did I not check this out sooner?)

  I've been working on a dress for Adeline for nearly a month now. It just needs to be hemmed and something done with the buttons. I let her choose the buttons, small lady bugs, but the closures I used don't work right with them, and I hate doing button holes. This fabric, I think would show messed up buttonholes extrememly well, so I'm loathe to even try. (love using words like that) I am going to try to finish it sometime soon though and that will be my next post. (If I get it done)

Oven Makeover and Love

     I recently acquired a "new" oven. My dear sister acquired a "new" one, and gave me her old one which works much better than my old one. My "new" oven was an old one in the house they just bought, so when I talk about the crud I cleaned off the drawer, it wasn't her fault. :) She didn't even use the drawer. Most of the gunk was underneath, and inside, only visible when you pull it out. I scrubbed it really good and got it cleaned out, but it had rust spots inside which made me really not want to put my pans in there.

     I got this bright idea to use locker sticky something. I got it at TJ Max to use for a computer skin and there was tons of it.

     The dots don't match up, but I wasn't really worried about that since there will be pans in it all the time, and also it was Sunday morning and I was in a hurry.





     I love it. It's cute, it jazzes up the inside of my oven drawer, and it covers up the rust spots. 

     This morning in my quiet time (with Hello Mornings) the reading was Psalm 139:1-8. This is one of my favorite Bible passages. It is a wonderful reminder of how well God knows us, cares for us, and LOVES us. While I was reading, I noticed two things that I never really have before.

1. O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

2. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

God knows us. As in, REALLY knows us. He knows why you do, say, think the things that you do. All the little stupid things you do that nobody else gets, He does. He understands, and He loves you anyway. I have a tendancy to think that if people really knew me, they wouldn't love me anymore, but God, who is perfect, adores me. God, who is perfect, adores you.

Homemade Lotion Bars and Altoid Tins

     Last Friday night the youth went bowling, and John Lee and I, as assistant youth leaders, went along. I don't really enjoy bowling so I took a couple Hamish Macbeth books along to read. The bowling alley was so cold (or maybe it was just my inactivity) that my hands and legs started chapping. By the time we got home, my hands were red and hurt like crazy. I bore it well all day Saturday, until that evening when it was time to make supper. Instead, I made some lotion bars! I found the recipe on Pinterest, and since I have never liked normal lotion (it makes my hands greasy), decided to give it a shot.

      Here is the link to the recipe I used. Coconut Oil Lotion Bars
 Coconut Oil, Cocoa Butter, Beeswax, Vitamin E, Essential Oils

     I was in a hurry, my kitchen was a wreck, and Honey Bunch was in the bath-tub (bad idea), but since I love making my own stuff, it was a blast. I like to partially fill a small saucepan with water and set my 2 cup glass measuring cup in it to mix/melt everything.

      I had originally planned to pour my mixture into a travel soap container, then thought, "Hey, I have gobs of Altoids tins that I don't know what to do with. They're perfect." I cut small squares of wax paper to put in the tins, but ended up only putting it in one tin. Next time I'm going to use it in all of them.

     Since I was in a hurry, I hadn't read how much EO to add, and used way to little. I split the melted concoction into 2 parts and made one Lavender/Spearmint, and the other Lemon/Spearmint. You can hardly smell it. I think I used about 5 drops of each in the separate mixtures.

     All this time, Honey Bunch was taking a bath, and I would check in on her, and Alice would run around the bath tub yelping. I was so caught up in my lotion making that I didn't notice any silence. That's a bad sign right? When I ran into the bathroom to get my EO's, I discovered that I really should've been paying more attention. Adeline had gotten Alice into the tub and was pouring water over her. Alice is a very good dog. She simply stood there shivering and not yelping, biting or anything. She did have a very long-suffering look on her little puppy face.

     After I poured the mixture into my tins, I stuck them in the fridge to cool down. The wax paper I had used in one of them meant that I could pull it out of the tin, the others, not so much. Obviously didn't think that through. The bar looks just like soap, and I really like. It doesn't make my skin feel greasy.

Things I will do differently next time:

1: use Shea Butter. Cocoa Butter has to strong of a smell for me.

2. use more EO

3. put wax paper in each tin, as it helps to remove them later

4. not have Adeline take a bath while I am making these.

     Do you have any ideas to put Altoids tins to good use? Please share them.

     On a completely different subject, does anyone besides me think it's hilarious that Veggie Tales' Larry Boy so closely resembles a bumbling Batman?