A few websites I have on hand

I haven't tried this one yet but if you do and like it leave a comment!

http://www.organicauthority.com/delicious-beauty/homemade-shampoo-and-conditioner-recipes-for-natural-hair.html

Here is a web site that I go to on occasion.  Will be pursuing it more often in the next few months.

http://frugallysustainable.com/

A website with lots of products is 

www.mountianroseherbs.com  

The prices are reasonable but its the shipping that is costly. 

For making oils to get started on some of the projects. 

http://www.ehow.com/how_5352082_make-essential-oils-home.html

For some of the things that you make 

Bentonite Clay, Coconut Oil, Witch Hazel and Castor Oil, and beeswax pellets as well as Carrier oils of Sunflower, Almond Olive and Aloe are what are mostly used when making some of these.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5422101_homemade-liquid-castile-soap.html

I am going to try this some time.  However the Potassium Chloride is no longer OTC and is only by prescription.  I was told that there is an OTC Potassium vitamin that can be used as a substitute but I don't know what the difference would be in the measuring.   

http://www.ablossominglife.com/  is a good one too.

Homemade pain reliever Creme

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/09/make-your-own-homemade-pain-relieving-cream.html

This does work.  However I melted it and made it into a bar as its is rather hard to get out of the dish.   

http://omirus.tripod.com/1hydrosols.html  For making your own hydrosols.

I've been finding some great websites online from frugal living to diy's that I'll share periodically.  Since we have an infestation of dandelions in my yard that get out of hand this one has some great things to do with them.

http://thenerdyfarmwife.com/

I'll add others along the way. 

Starting the Garden!

Dale and I worked in my garden area this afternoon.  Was so grateful for a helping hand as we leveled the ground on the side of my garden area for cinderblocks to be laid out to hold my container gardening that I'm doing as well as the ground. 

I planted six Early Girl tomatoes, two pickling cukes and six pole beans.  I've got at least one pea plant coming up but will have to do more in the next week.  I've been saving my eggshells to plant some of my seeds in this year to help hold down the slug population.  I may have to put slug bait down in the next day or two as well. 

Here are the first pics!

In the front of my "plant stand" I may be putting down my mulch bark I bought and work it around the walkway I'm building that goes into the garden area.

 

something I'll look into

Making oragami pots out of newpaper to plant seeds.  A great idea. 

I did start my peas and beans in egg shells this past week end.  When they are ready to transplant, I just have to put the whole eggshell in the ground.  It will keep the snails away too. 

Will be looking at making the newspaper pots in the next few weeks. 


http://naturemoms.com/blog/2013/03/26/10-steps-to-planting-organic-veggies-in-newspaper-pots/

Starting early.....

So I'm more scoping then doing at this point.

I did start my "Lasagna Garden".  Its where you start with either cardboard or newpaper (Newspaper ink has vegtable oil in it) and then do a layer of dirt and debris such as leaves.  From the continue as you would a compost pile and add the other refuse from the kitchen that would be biodegradable.  The newspaper will tone down the weeds from underneath. 

However the weeds in the lawn and surrounding areas of the garden is another issue that I'm working on.

I posted a pic the other day on Fb of some ideas with making the garden more presentable and not looking like it does now.  Mostly in the outsides of the garden beds I built.  Not sure how I'm going to proceed with the root garden yet on the weed issue. 

The plan is to go completely organic this year. I'm going to put black plastic down inbetween the garden beds and between my stepping bricks in the walk way.  I'll either do wider bricks and gravel inbetween the beds or just gravel, haven't decided yet.

I think I'm also going to redo some of the other walkways and patios I've done in the last couple of years with the plastic.  That will stop some of the weed population. 

I've got some time until May when I start work again so I'm hoping to get most of my garden together so its easier to manage.

Working on some other crafts as well for future things. 

Here are updates to my backyard.  The patio is Phase one of project one and the cinder block table under the window is Phase one of project two.  Ejoying the nice weather we've been having to start these projects.

Hubby informed me today that I was using the wood to make my beds in the garden that for the last several months he'd been using as lifts for working on the cars in the driveway.  He was feeling bad to buy new wood for the work on the cars as I used the junk wood for my garden beds.  I'm not worried as I was trying to keep the costs down on the garden.  Thats been my goal all along :)

This morning I was listening to Kim Clement as he spoke from his prayer garden.  While listening to him, God showed me that for years He has been trying to put my backyard into His sanctuary, and my home to be His home.  It makes perfect sense when you think that when we bought this house, it was because the pastor of the Foursquare Church bought the church across the street from us.

On one side of the street it is zoned for residental and business.  Buying  a property (an older mobile home to boot) near a commercial property isn't the best investment at times.  We didn't want a lot to be where a lot of traffic would be going on down the street and really liked that it was a quiet neighborhood. 

We knew when we bought our home it was to be a place for God to dwell and for us to serve Him.  It kind of lost that over the years due to different legs in the journey that we as a family have been on and I can see that God has had enough and is working to get us back to where He wanted us to be in the first place. 

So as I'm listening to Kim speak, I'm hearing "keys" and "prayer" which means that my prayer garden is expanding.  God wants His property back and in the service He's set it up to be in.  Its my goal as a wife, as a mother to do that by prayer and supplication.  He promised to provide all I need to have that happen.  I need to learn what a blessing is and not turn it down when it comes. 

The past week when I've opened my front door, I really haven't known what I was going to do until it has opened.  I've had plans as I take my first step, but it changes on the second step.  Yesterday was a good example.

I was getting ready to go out and work on the patio when my friend who gave me a pressure cooker last week came over with the pressure valve to it.  In fact I hadn't even opened the door yet and she had alredy knocked when my hand was on the handle.  I went to show her what I was doing and she told me I could take the sand she had as she wasn't going to be using it.  So while she gave me her shovel and a bucket and I was carrying out out to the piles of sand she had, she looked at me and said "I have a 50.00 gift card from Home Depot.  I'll get you your sand." So we got in her car.  I had also shown her another section I'm putting together and trying to find cinder blocks for it.  She asked me how many I needed.  I said nine. She bought that for me also.  

Please note how hard this was for  me. I knew it was a blessing that God was bringing me and I really had a hard time accepting it for a while.  Then I remembered something I learned in my Bibical Foundations of Freedom class on rejection.  "It is a sin of idolalitry to put words or actions of another person above God." ( page 152, Bibical Foudations of Freedom).  I could not reject the blessing my friend was giving me by listening to things from the past.  If God was giving me a blessing through her I needed recieve it. 

Later I went over to help her out with a project she has and we had some things in our wood pile that she needed also.  God is so good as I shared things with her that I knew she needed to hear about God and who He is.  At the end of the day, I felt the presence of God as He showed me things in my life that still need correcting.

I also discovered my new occupation title.  "Prayer and Benevolence."  I kind of like that!