Over the last several (really long) months three of my kids have developed an interest in plants and gardening. Cassie has a house full of the healthiest, lushest plants I've ever seen, Ian has a new home with floor to ceiling windows along one side and an ample sized balcony - leading to lots of plantings along the window edges and a vegetable and large plant garden on the lanai, And River took a merit badge class for Boy Scouts where he was given bags of seeds which he planted in little cups all over our lanai - and because he failed to mark the cups with what he planted we're both waiting with bated breath to see what the heck he's going to grow and harvest.
I, personally, do not have a green thumb. At all. But for some reason our citrus trees and banana plants have gone nuts this year and have a record amount of fruit (that's our fruit in the picture above). Many years ago we got four free citrus trees from our local Lowe's. I can't recall the details of how we got them - something to do with a gardening club but how they told me about them is beyond me - but we had these tiny little trees, which we happily planted. Over the years we lost one and one bore a few oranges a few years in a row (very sour oranges, but still!). This year all three remaining trees have fruit - sour oranges, pink lemons(!), and we're not yet sure what the last tree is but the fruits have a super thick skin and take longer to ripen. The banana tree grew out of control and turned into many, many stalks some of which were as tall as our two story house. Unfortunately, we didn't brace the stalks that had bananas this year and they all fell over and died. :( The thing about banana trees is that they aren't the prettiest thing - lots of dead leaves mixed in with the live ones and they do expand as new shoots grow. So we decided to chop them all down about a month ago ... and within days they were growing back, and within a month many of the stalks were 4' tall. Almost creepy! I've given a bunch of the stalks away and am going to let the remaining ones regrow ... we'll see what we end up with next summer.
But back to the obsession ... somehow my children's love of greenery and gardening led me to deciding to play with molds and concrete, and to try my hand at making little concrete planters. They looked so fun! And they are! I've had a blast creating these and I can't wait to make more! Even more fun than making is them is taking pictures of them - so different from taking quilt pictures (love those too, but a change is nice).
All the little pots (and they are little with most less than 2" tall) are sealed with concrete sealer and some come with options for finishing.
To support my habit I must sell some of these and they're all available in the Jude Harbor shop here.
And just for fun, here's my very enthusiastically growing banana plants one month after chopping them all down (with a machete, but that's another long story ... but to make it short - banana plants are super easy to chop and one pass with the machete fell 20' tall plants) ...
*The Purex brand provided me with a sample of Purex plus Clorox 2 detergent in exchange for a product review. However, all opinions expressed here are my own.
My son Ian graduated from high school at the beginning of May (go Ian!). The evening before his high school graduation he graduated from college with his AA degree (go Ian!!). Icing the cake, he graduated near the top of his class with a perfect 4.0 GPA. He's a smart cookie.
In addition to celebrating Ian's graduation I wanted to use the opportunity that event provided to take a family picture with my parents. Of course, that meant dressing the children in decent clothes when 90% of their wardrobe is swimwear and the other 10% is casual clothes (at least that's how it feels to me). Anyhoo ... dress clothes meant shopping. New clothes were purchased for Adam and Kaden, including a nice solid white polo shirt. Oh, and aren't those neckties fantastic?
After graduation and pictures we went out for pizza. Guess who wore pizza sauce? Yes, the boy in the white polo shirt.
After washing the shirt in my regular detergent the stain was still there.
I was given a bottle of Purex plus Clorox 2 detergent to try and review, with specific instructions to take a before and after picture of a stain. Up for a challenge, this shirt presented either a perfect opportunity to do that before/after picture or a perfect opportunity to tell you the detergent didn't work - after all, this was an already washed shirt and the stains hadn't budged.
So we have a before shot (sorry for the really bad picture, yikes!):
I pre-soaked with a tiny bit of the bleach free detergent, then about 5 minutes later tossed the shirt into the washer with the rest of the laundry load.
After:
I'm not kidding. It worked great. I had to find my before pictures to figure out where the stain had been to take the "after" picture.
Overall, my whites got whiter with the detergent and it removed set in stains. I couldn't be more impressed and, because it's Purex, the price is right too. As if that weren't enough it smells good and two scents are available - Sunny Linen and Original Fresh.
I'm loving this new detergent and what it's done for our clothes.
Convinced? Want to try it yourself? Enter to win your own bottle by entering below! Good luck!
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My son Ian graduated from high school at the beginning of May (go Ian!). The evening before his high school graduation he graduated from college with his AA degree (go Ian!!). Icing the cake, he graduated near the top of his class with a perfect 4.0 GPA. He's a smart cookie.
In addition to celebrating Ian's graduation I wanted to use the opportunity that event provided to take a family picture with my parents. Of course, that meant dressing the children in decent clothes when 90% of their wardrobe is swimwear and the other 10% is casual clothes (at least that's how it feels to me). Anyhoo ... dress clothes meant shopping. New clothes were purchased for Adam and Kaden, including a nice solid white polo shirt. Oh, and aren't those neckties fantastic?
After graduation and pictures we went out for pizza. Guess who wore pizza sauce? Yes, the boy in the white polo shirt.
After washing the shirt in my regular detergent the stain was still there.
I was given a bottle of Purex plus Clorox 2 detergent to try and review, with specific instructions to take a before and after picture of a stain. Up for a challenge, this shirt presented either a perfect opportunity to do that before/after picture or a perfect opportunity to tell you the detergent didn't work - after all, this was an already washed shirt and the stains hadn't budged.
So we have a before shot (sorry for the really bad picture, yikes!):
I pre-soaked with a tiny bit of the bleach free detergent, then about 5 minutes later tossed the shirt into the washer with the rest of the laundry load.
After:
I'm not kidding. It worked great. I had to find my before pictures to figure out where the stain had been to take the "after" picture.
Overall, my whites got whiter with the detergent and it removed set in stains. I couldn't be more impressed and, because it's Purex, the price is right too. As if that weren't enough it smells good and two scents are available - Sunny Linen and Original Fresh.
I'm loving this new detergent and what it's done for our clothes.
Convinced? Want to try it yourself? Enter to win your own bottle by entering below! Good luck!
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Homeschool Planet is an online scheduling and organizing program, great for schoolwork, household tasks, blogging and/or other home business work, kids activities, chores, etc. ... basically, everything on your plate and those of your family members.
To begin, I watched the video tutorials. There are thirteen short videos and they are amazingly helpful and provide lots of tricks and tips to the program that'd take quite a bit of trial and error to find otherwise. There are also "how to" and "FAQ" sections to the planner answering a lot of oft asked questions. I was very impressed and pleased to see how much effort was put into making this program as easy to navigate as possible.
After watching the videos I set up my people. Each family member is represented and by doing this I'm able to assign tasks to just certain people, ie - Adam and Kaden may be attending an event without the rest of us, I can specify that, or River may have an assignment to do for school that's unique to him, with this program I can easily clarify that.
We travel a lot in the summer and the kids spend part of the summer with their father so we really don't do a lot of schooling during summer break. However, we do do plenty of stuff. I wanted to be able to enter Adam, Kaden, and River's school schedules in now with correct dates and assignments so I opted to use our "real life" summer schedules (and chores) for the purposes of this review and enter the schoolwork accurately and do a mock run-through of us using the program for schoolwork.
Entering the regular activities is a piece of cake. I named the activity, assigned a date and time, if it wasn't all day thing, to it, specified who was doing the activity, and hit save. That simple. I could then look at everyone's activities using the calendar or planner views.
Suppose Ian is asked to do some volunteer work on Thursday afternoon. Well, Kaden's orthodontist appointment isn't relevant and neither is anything else that Ian isn't doing, I can go in and alter the settings so I'm only seeing what Ian has on the calendar, making it much easier to know if he can do that volunteer work or not. I could also print out his calendar, or planner view, so he knows what his week looks like without the clutter of everyone else's schedule..
Entering the schoolwork was also very simple.
I chose a subject, chose a child (or children) to assign the work to, and a time of day. Typically, I do our school schedule manually on a sheet of paper. With some subjects we do 1 assignment per day, every day, with some we do lesson 1 on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, 3 on Wednesday, etc., some things we do daily, some every other day, some once a week, and some Monday through Thursday. River does workbooks that need to be done by the end of the year and he does 2-3 pages per day. On notebook paper with a pen this is super simple and takes me about 10 minutes each Monday morning. Quite frankly, entering all that into this program sounded like a real pain the neck. Well, it wasn't. The program is designed to handle all those idiosyncrasies and more. I simply entered my parameters, the entered the days of the week we did the assignment, and the assignment on the calendar was generated the way I wanted it to be. There's even an option to complete a certain number of assignments or pages by the end of the year that'll automatically calculate how many pages to do per day. I was done entering the entire years worth of work in about 30 minutes.
Of course, I don't always need to know what everyone needs to do, so I can again print the schoolwork for just one student by isolating them and generating a printable calendar or planner for them.
It is very easy to print reports of schoolwork to do or completed, calendar views and planner views, as well as other reports.
The calendar you create can be shared with Google calendar or Apple iCal. Also, log in information can be created for each child so they can view their own schedules on their mobile devices. I think this is going to be a great way for me to share the kids assignments and schedules with their father when he comes to town.
I have really only touched the surface of the assets and benefits of this easy, multi-faceted planner. Right now, a 30 day free trial of Homeschool Planet is available at Homeschool Buyers Co-op and I highly recommend giving it a try!
Take a look at some more of the TOS Review crews reviews of this planner to see how they used it.
Have you heard of new Renuzit Pearl Scents?
The long-lasting scented odor-neutralizing gel-type balls are encased in an attractive, decorative container with a slotted lid to release the fresh, gentle air freshener. They blend in well with home decor, so they don't have to be hidden in a secret corner.I placed my container of Renuzit Pearl Scents near my downstairs bathroom, which is also home to the dreaded, stinky litterbox. The Sparkling Rain scent has been much preferred over the cat box smells, which has been minimized as a result of the odor neutralizers in the formula. Definitely an improvement!
Would you like to win your own container of Renuzit Pearl Scents? Of course! Enter below for your chance to win 2, yes two, coupons for free Renuzit Pearl Scents. Good luck!
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We have a bunch of exciting new ties coming to the shop very, very soon and I can't wait to share them with you (actually, we kind of already have - you can see River wearing one here and another on top of the Easter basket here). While they prepare for their debut I decided to attack a small project at home, recovering a little bench in my living room.
There was nothing wrong with the "before" bench, which was once a patio coffee table that I bought at a thrift store for $5, it was just tired looking, having had the same fabric on it for the last ten years or so.
The plan for the living room is to create an eclectic mix of colors, patterns, and objects all grounded by lots of white. I absolutely love white in my house, the lighter and brighter the house feels the better.
I grabbed a bunch of Amy Butler prints left over from this quilt and this one and created a new top for the bench. The piecing isn't done meticulously, I was going for a random patchwork look.
After removing the top of the bench and spray painting the legs to freshen them up a bit the top was recovered and reattached.
Voila!
To unify the room a bit I made a throw pillow with some of the remaining fabric for the other side of the room. I love these fabrics so much! The pillow has a simple envelope closure and the fabric for the backside is just as wonderful as the fabric on the front. I'm going to add a few decorative buttons to the backside so it can just as easily be used as the front.
Off to the next project ... painting all the baseboards and trim throughout the downstairs and, finally, putting the finishing touches on the new floors that were laid last summer.
Once or twice I've mentioned my happy infatuation with Purex Crystals and how I like to use it in every wash load. I love, love, love the long lasting fresh scent the Purex Crystals provide.
Stinky socks ... no problem, they come out of the wash smelling better than new. Towels left on the floor smell fresh and clean after washing, instead of having a mildew odor. T-shirts in a drawer for weeks smell wonderful.
Well, we ran out and I've been waiting, impatiently, for a BOGO to buy more. In the meantime, our laundry is not smelling anywhere near as super awesome as it used to. When I was given a chance to try and review new Purex Crystals ScentSplash I was thrilled!
ScentSplash is new to the market, becoming available April of 2015. This is a liquid in-wash fragrance booster, different than the previous shake-in crystals. Three scents are available; Fresh Spring Waters, Fresh Lavender Blossom, and Fresh Mountain Breeze.
I was given the Fresh Spring Waters scent to try. For the first load I used about half a cap full, probably about 3 tablespoons worth, in a full load of laundry. That, for me, turned out to be way too much. The scent was a little flowerier than I'm comfortable with and was very strong. For the next load I used just a tablespoon or so of the product. Perfection. The clean laundry smells great, is a much more comfortable amount of scent, and using less took the scent from "flowery" to clean and refreshing. Using such a small amount means this a bottle of this will go a very long way.
It's very easy when folding the laundry to tell which items were washed with the liquid crystals. Even with a fabric softener sheet in the dryer, the clothes washed with the crystals smell fresher and cleaner.
Would you like to try Purex Crystals ScentSplash for yourself? Well, you're in luck! Enter below to win coupons for two free bottles of Purex Crystals. Good luck!
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The Purex brand provided me with a sample of Purex Crystals ScentSplash in exchange for a product review. However, all the opinions expressed here are my own.
The "hacking" on this Sprutt cabinet is minimal and simple, however I was excited that I discovered and purchased this beauty before it even made it to the Ikea website, leaving me feeling very "in the know", and just had to share.
I was at Ikea recently to look for a cabinet to put between two student desks in the breakfast area. I was leaning towards shelves with baskets, maybe even something like a nightstand - simple, clean, easy to keep tidy, and, preferably, white.
While I failed to measure the open space before going to Ikea, I knew it was about "two chair widths" wide. This coffee table caught my eye, though I wasn't convinced about the color. Ultimately, I decided on this night stand with white drawers from the children's section.
In the warehouse I went to get the night stand, only to realize it came in way too many pieces and I was way too tired to try to comprehend all that and figure out which pieces I'd need. Not happening. I headed over to Aisle 9, which is where I recalled noting that the coffee table would be. I didn't find it.
Instead, I found this most awesome thing. I hadn't seen it upstairs, but the line drawing on the box sold me. It looked like a library card cabinet. I googled it, to see if I could find a picture of it, and found this one. Sold, sight unseen.
At home I read the measurements on the cabinet box and measured the space. Perfect fit, with maybe 1/8" to spare. How much more perfect could it be? It was meant to be.
Adam was in charge of putting the cabinet together and delegating tasks to his brothers. Once the cabinet was together we put it in place. Except it didn't fit. The measurements on the box were 1/2" off. Uh oh.
My Ikea hack: I removed the casters from the legs and cut off the legs using my handy dandy sawzall (thank you, camper, for forcing me to buy tools), which made it fit just under, but still between, the two desks with no room at all to spare. I was able to add the plastic "feet"/casters back into the leg openings, but not the adjustable bits below the feet. Wonderfully, now that the cabinet is shorter it blocks much less light from the window and gives the kids an extra counter for "in use" stuff. The simple, necessary hack made the piece an even more perfect addition to the space than it would have been otherwise.
The cabinet came with bright white, pink, and yellow labels, which were lovely but not quite what I wanted, so I made my own.
The labels are simply fabric fused to super stiff interfacing. They give a nice little touch of color to the white end of the room and make the awesome cabinet stand out, creating intrigue as to what's stored in the drawers. Of course, they can easily be changed out as desired, allowing the piece to be used in a variety of spaces or even decorated seasonally.
Of course, now that we have nine drawers to fill and organize another trip to Ikea is a necessity, right?
So simple a pre-teen boy can do it.
That pretty well sums up my experience with this new detergent, Purex PowerShot Liquid.. Well, that and it's super easy to use with a perfect measure every time and no spilling, it has a nice, not girly, "Mountain Breeze" scent that lasts, and it gets clothes clean.
The key to this brand new, hitting the market in February, Purex detergent is the PowerShot feature.
Flip the bottle upside down,
right it and see the detergent in the holder at the top,
open the cap,
and pour into the washer.
The detergent stop pouring after one full dose, even if you don't right the bottle immediately. Once you've used it once the dose container will refill automatically and will be ready to go next use.
Fool proof laundry dispensing with easy, no-guesswork measuring and no spills.
If your load is large or extra dirty give it two flips.
For spot and stain removal you can open the cap and slowly pour the detergent directly onto stains.
I've been asked at what age my kids start doing laundry. To answer: all my kids are very capable of sorting laundry, and all but River load the washer and run the dryer (because River can't reach the knobs). They start running the dryer at about age 8 and the washer around age 10.
River and I are the folders. River is the towel folder, he began with small dish clothes a few years ago, when he was 3 or so, and has worked his way up to bath towels, with some shorts, socks, and tees thrown in on occasion.
Ironing is also a task they all learn as they get a little older. The teenagers do all their own ironing, especially the ones with retail jobs. Most of them started by ironing neckties and bow ties and worked up to shirts and pants as their need arose.
So ... now you know.
Enter below to win your own bottle of Purex PowerShot. I'll be giving 2 winners each 1 coupon for a free bottle of detergent. Good luck! (ended)
Congratulations to Rochelle and Kathe, the winners of this wonderful giveaway.
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The Purex brand provided me with a sample of Purex PowerShot detergent in exchange for a product review. However, all the opinions expressed here are my own.
That pretty well sums up my experience with this new detergent, Purex PowerShot Liquid.. Well, that and it's super easy to use with a perfect measure every time and no spilling, it has a nice, not girly, "Mountain Breeze" scent that lasts, and it gets clothes clean.
The key to this brand new, hitting the market in February, Purex detergent is the PowerShot feature.
Flip the bottle upside down,
right it and see the detergent in the holder at the top,
open the cap,
and pour into the washer.
The detergent stop pouring after one full dose, even if you don't right the bottle immediately. Once you've used it once the dose container will refill automatically and will be ready to go next use.
Fool proof laundry dispensing with easy, no-guesswork measuring and no spills.
If your load is large or extra dirty give it two flips.
For spot and stain removal you can open the cap and slowly pour the detergent directly onto stains.
I've been asked at what age my kids start doing laundry. To answer: all my kids are very capable of sorting laundry, and all but River load the washer and run the dryer (because River can't reach the knobs). They start running the dryer at about age 8 and the washer around age 10.
River and I are the folders. River is the towel folder, he began with small dish clothes a few years ago, when he was 3 or so, and has worked his way up to bath towels, with some shorts, socks, and tees thrown in on occasion.
Ironing is also a task they all learn as they get a little older. The teenagers do all their own ironing, especially the ones with retail jobs. Most of them started by ironing neckties and bow ties and worked up to shirts and pants as their need arose.
So ... now you know.
Congratulations to Rochelle and Kathe, the winners of this wonderful giveaway.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Purex brand provided me with a sample of Purex PowerShot detergent in exchange for a product review. However, all the opinions expressed here are my own.
Knowing this, a friend asked me to take a look at some of the Norwex products she's fallen in love with and review them. Skeptically, I said sure. She sent me Norwex Cleaning Paste, a Window Cloth, and an Enviro Cloth.
The facts:
Environmentally friendly paste that cleans, polishes and protects chrome, stainless steel, aluminum, porcelain and similar surfaces in one application. Comes as a solid. Rub damp Enviro Cloth on product to create paste and apply to surface. Not for use on brass or silver. Always test on an inconspicuous surface, if you are concerned about the possibility of scratching.
Use the microfiber Enviro Cloth wet (with just water) or dry to clean EVERYTHING with outstanding results. Use it dry to dust, holding the smallest particles in its fibers, creating a cleaner surface in less time without leaving a harmful chemical residue behind to collect dust. Use it wet to loosen and lift the most stubborn dirt and debris up into the cloth and away from the surface. Between laundering (with no fabric softeners or dryer sheets) simply rinse, wring out and hang to dry. No harsh chemicals.
The microfiber Window Cloth allows you to clean windows, mirrors, jewelry, and shiny surfaces with only water. Simply spray water on the surface then polish with a dry Window Cloth. No harsh chemicals.I first used the Cleaning Paste and Enviro Cloth to clean my stove, which was disgusting. Seriously, yuck. This was the week I painted the cabinets white ... suddenly my white stove didn't look so white. I dampened the cloth slightly and used it to grab the tiniest amount of the paste. I have to say, I was impressed. The stove didn't come out spotless, some of the stains have been there for years, but 99% of the dirt, grease, and grime came off and came off pretty easily - I'm not going to lie, it took a fair amount of elbow grease but it got it as clean as it can get.
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| Everything but that back burner came out beautifully, I wish I had a before picture of that burner though ... it's a huge improvement |
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| After ... so pretty! |
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| The 11 year old stove and microwave blending in with the newly painted cabinets |
Next stop, kitchen sink, which is stainless ... or something. It was dull and slightly discolored in the basins. With a bit of scrubbing, some paste and the cloth it came out sparkly and much cleaner.
The sliding glass door and downstairs windows were next. For these I dampened the Enviro Cloth a little bit and washed the windows. They weren't particularly clean on the outside and had just been through the dust bowl of 2014 that appeared in my house when the kitchen tile was removed, so the insides were a dusty mess. After washing with the Enviro Cloth (and nothing but water!) I came behind and dried with the Window Cloth, the windows came out clean with no streaks or hazy, dusty areas. I have to say my favorite "result" to date is the windows and sliders, they come out so clean and pretty (I'd show you a picture, but they look like clean glass ... not a very exciting picture).
I also used it to clean my van's headlights. I tried the toothpaste trick a few months ago and it worked alright ... for a few months. It couldn't hurt to try the Norwex paste and cloth, so I did. The results speak for themselves, though I think they'd have been even more noticeable if I hadn't cleaned them so recently. I cleaned the headlights while waiting for one of my kids to gather some stuff and get in the car - I didn't spend more than 5 minutes on the project. To give a more true comparison I didn't edit any of the photos in any way.
So, three simple products to clean most of the house. Three simple products that require nothing additional but water. The initial expense of Norwex products is kind of high, but when you factor in how long they last, how easily and quickly they work, and that the only additional item needed is water they seem like a very good value.
Norwex products are sold by consultants at parties, or can be purchased online here. Of course, if you want to you can become a consultant.
Have you used Norwex products? What did you think?