Bullets of the Day

* It's amazing how the body is able to run on such little sleep.  I'm certain that this is surely the grace of God.

* Children brighten even the smoggiest of days.

* There's nothing quite like the look of a proud Momma.  Daddy's delight comes in a close second.

* Blind ambition is a great motivator.

*  I've never wanted someone who looks like me more......

My appologies dear blog readers.  Tomorrow I will write a longer post to document the weekend and I hope to have a few pictures too.

~*Melody*~

Girl Time is Lovely

Adrian and I have had some great girl time tonight....a little cooking, a little shopping, and finishing up with a little crafting.  Oh how I miss having close girl friends.  It's very therapeutic and necessary to experience life together with other women.

We've been preparing for Grayson's big 1 year birthday party tomorrow.  I can't wait to see the enjoyment on his face.  It's going to be a beautiful party.

I'm a bit tired from the travel and all so you'll have to forgive my short entry for tonight.

~*Melody*~

Sore Finger Thursday

Tonight I'm going to take a break in my green entries.  I'll resume these on Monday because I'm going on a little weekend gateway.  I'll be surrounded by family and celebrating a dear sweet little boy's first birthday.  Today I've been preparing for the trip and finishing up some last minute knitting.

I learned a valuable lesson today : my fingers and small needles don't make for a good match.  My poor fingers are so sore from knitting that I can barely stand to type.  Oi I'm telling you I'll never forget this one.  But I guess that's what life is about; living and learning.

Tomorrow morning I'm hoping to have time to do a nice and sunny fall mini photo shoot with my latest knitting pretties.  I can't wait to share with you my latest creation.  It's one of the cutest things I've made in a while.

So this is short and sweet.  Tomorrow night I'll be blogging from a different state.  Prayers for a safe journey are much appreciated....

~*Melody*~

Green Household Continued

To continue last night's topic, we've also done a few other things to keep our home as chemical free as possible.  As I mentioned in last entry, we do a few household maintenance things in a more green way now.  In addition to the routine maintenance on our air condition, we also purchased reusable filters for our heating and air systems.  These can be purchased relatively inexpensively if you buy them out of season.  Each reusable filter can be used for 5 years.  We bought extra large ones that we can cut in half so we saved in cost there as well.  Once the filter can no longer be used inside, I'll probably repurpose it as a door mat or scrub pad for our little patio. 

We've reduced and almost eliminated the use of any pesticides by planting catnip around our home.  Catnip also will protect your home from rat infestation.  Occasionally we still use a sweet borax trap inside for the periodic ant problem.  To combat any fleas, we sprinkle 20 Mule Borax soap on our doormats and around the perimeter of our home.  This can also be used directly on your pet to help them get rid of fleas and ticks.  Lavender is a good plant to use to keep insects at bay too and a drop of lavender oil on your pet's neck will rid them of fleas as well. 

Hope this gives you some ideas for useful things in your own homes,
~*Melody*~

Green At A Young Age

My green roots began back in the early '90s with a group called Kids F.A.C.E.  It was an environmental awareness and activist group for children and was sponsored by Walmart Stores.  I had my own club, complete with local chapter meetings and sponsored clean up events.  I have fond memories of spending hours cleaning up local neighborhoods and trying to educate others on the importance of taking care of our Earth. 

It was a nice start for me.  I don't remember the exact years that I was involved in this club, but the lessons I learned through it have stuck with me my entire life. 

Today environmentalism is dubbed being green.  Back in my early days, I was dubbed a tree hugger. *chuckles*  There are actually a couple pictures floating around out there of me hugging trees.  Even before my Kids FACE days I always felt a closeness to the Earth.  Maybe it's my Cherokee background or maybe it's because my family always honored the land we were using at the time, with either case I feel like I am supposed to take care of God's wonderful creation.

A few years ago I began really thinking about how I ran my household and what impact that made on the Earth.  I started looking at the chemicals I was using to clean my house, the amount of disposable containers I used and the amount of paper we wasted. 

The first step toward green living came with changing the cleaning products I used.  I'd like focus on that topic for this particular post.  I keep a vinegar and water spray bottle on the back of my sink at all times.  We use this cleaner as a sanitizer in the kitchen, to clean the bathtubs and sinks in the bathroom, and a nice window and glass cleaner all over the house.  We own a bird and the vinegar solution is also safe enough to use around her cage.  There's a world of uses for vinegar and I encourage you to do your own research to find some uses for your own home. 

We use a natural laundry detergent that is free of dyes, phosphorus, enzymes, ammonia, naphthalene, phenol, sodium nitilotriacetate along with numerous other chemicals. Not only are our clothes cleaner, but they are also much safer for our skin.  We don't have to worry about rashes caused from leftover chemicals in our clothes, plus we aren't wondering what we're flushing into the sewer system.  I fill my Downy ball with pure vinegar.  It does a wonderful job of softening, whitening, and preserving the color of our clothes.  We don't use bleach at all.

All our mopping is done with hot water and pure vinegar.  You'd be amazed at how shiny and clean your vinyl and hardwood floors can be with such an inexpensive cleaner. 

Baking soda is used for tough stains (as a paste) and for deodorizer (just sprinkled or in the box). 

We've also reduce chlorofluorocarbons by no longer buying aerosol or propellant cans of any kind.  We also do regular maintenance on our air conditioning units to make sure we aren't leaking freon into our home or air outside.  (This is about to go off topic.  So I'll continue this discussion in another post.)

There are a few other natural cleaning products and options we'd like to incorporate, but for now we are pleased with our progress so far.  The environmental benefits are great, but the fringe benefits are even better in most cases.  The air quality inside our home is dramatically better which has almost eliminated any asthma problems I previously had.  We are also overall more healthy now than when we used those chemical based cleaners. 

Green to be continued.....

~*Melody*~

NaBloPoMo Day 2

Lately I've been doing a lot of reminiscing and contemplation about my past.  I'm trying to bring out the happy memories.  It's too easy to always focus on the bad memories, which does nothing but bring you down.  Why is it that bad memories stick better in our minds than the good times?  As I get older, I'm finding that memories of good times are fading quickly.  In fact, there's times when I have difficulty even remembering anything about my childhood.  Oh how I wished I remembered those times that I swore I'd never forget. 

I also wish that I had wrote in a journal or a diary on a more consistent basis.  I love to write so that wasn't the issue.  The issue has always been that I haven't taken time to write.  Goodness, so much of my life has revolved around learning how to take time for myself.  I still am very guilty of missing the mark.  God has tried to show me the consequences of being in too much of rush, but I'm constantly pushing His wisdom and leading aside.  Why must we be so stubborn when we know better?

So that leaves me here, making a conscious decision to take time to document life; the good and the bad, to be more open to experiencing life; not just merely existing, and to enjoy the whole experience.  Life is far too short to just go through the motions.  Wouldn't you agree?

~*Melody*~

National Blog Posting Month

Or NaBloPoMo as some like to call it.  I've always wanted to join in the National Novel Writing Month, but just haven't felt like I'd have time to commit to such a large task.  So here I am trying something a little less daunting.  I hope I can complete a whole month of blogging.

So for tonight's first post, I'll talk a little about my weekend.  Friday night I had a great time with our youth group at their lock-in.  It was so fun and incredibly stress relieving to be with those teens.  There was only about 35 of them so we were able to split up into a couple groups for games and such.  I just enjoyed the carefreeness of being with them.  I laughed and felt like myself again.  Goodness it's been so long since I felt like me.  Give me a bunch of teenagers or preteens anyday. I much prefer them to adults.  ;-)  Well except my closest friends  (too bad most of you live too far away from me to hang out.).

Saturday morning I taught my first craft class.  It was just a small group of women at my church.  They seemed to have a good time and learned quite a few new things.  I had hoped that it could be an ongoing thing, but I don't think that will be possible.  Maybe some other time, who knows.

Tonight I am thoroughly exhausted, but I feel fulfilled.  It's nice to feel like you've done something with your life and truly lived.  I feel like I lived this weekend.  And much to my surprise, life is good.

~*Melody*~