Laudry tips the natural way!

Good morning all!! I'm sitting in my chair early in the morning, watching a beautiful sunrise come up through the woods in my backyard. All I can see is red through the trees. Very beautiful. Anyhow, I'm writing this morning to pass on some quick homekeeping tips that I have stumbled across in recent days. These both relate to one of my most daunting daily tasks....Laundry!

I have discovered that in place of fabric softener, which can be expensive and hard on the skin, if you are an allergic type person, there are two natural products that can be used that work great! They are vinegar and baking soda!! Yep, when I put in a load of laundry, instead of putting in my fabric softener, I put in some vinegar (up to the fill line in my washer), and then I sprinkle in some baking soda slowly. It will bubble significantly, which is why it's best not to just dump it in! It's fun to watch, and a good science lesson for the kiddos! It works just as well as fabric softener, and although your clothes won't come out smelling like a mountain breeze....they will smell fresh and clean!!

Now, in the event that you do what I often end up doing on my busy evenings, and leaving a load overnight in the washer...ugh! Here's what I stumbled upon to fix that musty, been sitting overnight smell issue. I take a small sandwich baggie, put some baking soda inside of it, and poke some small holes into it with a fork (very carefully). I make sure the baggie is tightly closed, and then I throw it into the dryer with the smelly load. Works like a charm! After the load is done...I just throw the baggie away!

I hope these tips will be helpful to someone out there, who is looking to save money on laundry products, but still wanting to maintain the freshness!

I would share more here about cleaning with baking soda and vinegar, but due to lack of time I would love to point you to the blog of a friend of mine who is a great homemaker, and has blogged already about how to make and use homeade cleaners! Check her out here. It is so important for us wives and moms to find as many ways to keep our homes clean without breaking the bank, or without exposing our families to harmful substances.

Have a great laundry doing day!! God Bless!

Loving Your Husband Friday- Purity

It's Loving my Husband Friday, and I'm glad to be finding some time to participate again this week! Shannon is the host for Loving my Husband Friday, and as a personal testimony to some dear friends of mine, I wanted to make sure to stop and praise her for being such a godly wife. She is an example to me and to many around her I'm sure. Thank you Shannon for your example, and for reminding every week of our roles as wives!

Last Sunday our pastor preached on keeping purity in our marriage. It was a wonderful reminder for me of all the ways that I need to work to keep myself pure for my husband! He reminded us women that we need to keep our emotions for our husbands and not give them away to other men. Let's face it ladies, although many of us do not struggle with the visual lust, we get trapped when it comes to emotions. If you allow yourself to get emotionally close to another man...then you are giving yourself away to him. I believe that this can often even include fictional characters (such as tv characters, or characters in a novel). Anytime that we find ourselves wishing that our man was like THAT man, we have crossed the line. " But....he treats me so much better, or....can't I just fantasize a little that that fictional character is real and he loves me??" If we are thinking these questions in our minds at any time...then we are putting our marriage in danger!

Some ways that I have worked over the years to avoid these pitfalls in my marriage, and kept myself from temptation are these:

1) I stopped watching soap operas years ago. Not only are they immoral on so many levels, but they also are notorious for causing us women to put our real life men up to impossible standards!

2) If any other tv show or movie causes me to emotionally lust after the main male character, then I have purged it from my viewing list, and my daughters!

3) I purposefully choose not to be alone with a man that is not a relative, or someone who is basically like a relative to me. I know in my heart the men that I can "safely" be alone with, and which ones I cannot. Most apply to this rule!

4) I do not call/email/facebook with any man that I know might be a stumbling block to my emotions. If I feel that they are "safe", and yet I find myself having improper thoughts about them.....I let them go! Better to hurt some feelings and be pure than to compromise what belongs only to you and your husband!

These are some of the ways that I have chosen to safeguard myself, and one of the biggest ways I know of, is what brings us together every Friday, is to work on staying focused on loving our husbands daily. If we stay focused on their needs, and what we love about them...we are less likely to stumble.

And I want to share too, that one thing I love about my husband is that he also has a list of "safeguards" for himself to keep our marriage pure, and keep outsiders from causing him to stumble. Let's remember to pray for our hubbys in this area as well. It matters to my guy, and I'm very grateful for him, and his example to our four boys!

Join Shannon for more Loving Your Husband Fridays!

In His Word Wednesday- Heartily for the Lord

Colossians 3: 23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men.

It is so easy to want to please men, and even easier to want to please ourselves. I can't tell you how many times during a day I think of myself, and it keeps me from giving my best to God. We know from Colossians here that God wants us to do everything heartily for him. Not for men, and not for ourselves. How much better would our marriage, and our parenting, or our friendships, and relationships with family be...if we took this verse more to heart. If everything we ever did or said was for the pleasure and delight of our savior, and not for any other reason! I think we would see a level of joy in our lives that we are not accustomed too.

I don't know about you, but when I am working for others, or for myself, I often find myself lacking joy because it never seems to be quite right. It's easy to let yourself down, or to let others down. It's easy for others to let us down. But, if we are working only for the praise of our savior, then we know that He can see our hearts, and He will be pleased with our efforts.

Lord, I pray that you will help me to remember daily to do the work you have called me to do, and to do it only for you, not for others, or myself. Give me a servants heart, and remind me daily of all the things that you want me to be doing, so that I can do them heartily as unto you. Thank you for your Word, and thank you for guiding my steps. Help me to be a good example to my children every day of a mother who works heartily for the Lord.

Join Megan today for more In His Word Wednesday.

Check out my new blog..oh..and apologies!

Hello to everyone! I know I have been less than diligent in my blog posting lately. Life around here has been quite crazy with catching up. After being down in Indianapolis for a week, and really still getting used to our school year to begin with...I have neglected my poor blogs. I doubt anyone has been pining away for me..but I still thought I should apologize. Priorities often have to be made, and sometimes the things we enjoy the most get put at the bottom of the list. As things are starting to settle down a bit, I am again attempting to start posting regularly on my blogs.

I started up a new blog yesterday for the other thing that I really enjoy doing...photography. I am working to learn to get better at it, and I would even love to be able to some day make some money doing it. But, until that time I wanted to have a place to share what I am learning, and the pics that I feel are the better ones that I have either taken myself, or the ones that Rob has taken (he also enjoys photography), that I have fixed up! If you are at all interested in photography and can give me any feedback, I would love for you to check it out! Or....if you just like to see pictures, mainly of cute children and nature...than please head over and follow me! It can be found here: http://elizphotos.blogspot.com/.

I have been learning many things from the Lord in recent months that I look forward to sharing again on my blogs, and of course, my children are always doing things that are worth bragging (I mean sharing :-)) about!

You will notice if you visit this blog, that there are some issues with my sidebar, that are kind of...annoying. A very kind brother in the Lord who knows WAY more about computer stuff then I do, is trying to help me fix it, and hopefully that will be resolved. If not, I hope that you would continue to visit me, simply for content and not be concerned about how it looks!

I will be talking to you all again real soon! Blessings in the Lord today!

Elizabeth

I Heart Faces "candid"

This weeks theme for I Heart Faces is candid. I had a hard time choosing which picture to use for this one, but I finally decided to use this picture of Audrey as we were just leaving the beach a few summers ago. She was peeking around the van with her towel wrapped around her, and I captured the shot. This is one of my favorite pics of Audrey when she was real little.

update on my Dad

I just wanted to give an update on how my Dad is doing. He went down to Indianapolis on Monday for a second attempt at the surgery to remove his pancreatic cancer. The surgeon believes he was successful in removing all the cancer. Dad has been in the hospital down there recovering all week, and he is doing remarkably well. The doctors are actually amazed at how well he is doing. There are tests being done on his tumor, and the lymph nodes that were removed, that will tell us more about whether any cancer might remain in his body, and what the future might hold as far as prognosis. We are still awaiting the results of those tests.

Dad is in good spirits, which is such a relief for my brother and I, and we are hoping he will be released to come home in a couple of days. This last week was challenging as my family was seperated for the week. I was staying down in the Kokomo area all week with my four oldest kids, and driving back and forth to Indy every day from there with the kids. Rob and the littlest ones were up here staying with his parents, and Rob had to work a lot also. It was a rough week, but we are all back together for now, and if Dad continues to be well, we will likely not seperate again, and hopefully just bring dad home here soon.

Thank you everyone who has been praying for our family through all of this. The prayers were definitely felt this last week!!

I Heart Faces- Contemplative

This weeks challenge for I Heart Faces is Contemplative. This is a shot I took of Lillian at the local Tea Party that we attended on the Fourth of July. She was just standing all by herself, and you can just see the contemplation in her face! I also love her hands in this photo! I actually had a few pictures of Lily that I couldn't decide between..she's such a beautiful subject :-)!

Join I Heart Faces for more great contemplative pictures!