Ants!

Our part of the country has been suffering from ant issues. We had a mild winter and a dry summer, so the ants are coming in. I prefer not to use bug sprays when we don't have to, especially with a little crawler around the house. Here are a few things we are using to keep the ants out.

Borax:
This wouldn't be good at all for little ones to get, but we use it outside our front and back doors. Borax destroys the digestive system of the ant. It has worked really well at keeping the ants out and killing the mound. Generally when we put this right outside our door, we see dead ants right around it.

Vinegar based cleaners:
Ants hate the smell of vinegar, so using vinegar as part of cleaning solutions helps. Check out my homemade cleaning solution post for a recipe.

Cinnamon sticks and/or cloves:
Ants don't like the smell of cinnamon sticks and cloves, so I put either (or both) at any cracks or places at the doors where ants tend to come in. I've literally seen ants stop and go back to avoid a cinnamon stick.

Soap and warm water:
I've been told that ants rely on a scent trail to know where to go. If you wash away their trail, they won't know to come back in. I regularly mop our floors with a mix of vinegar, baking soda, dawn dish liquid and hot water. This has been really effective as well.

I hope this helps anyone else who is having problems with ants. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them. Anything to get rid of ants!

Fresh from the Garden

We love fresh produce. We aren't able to have a garden where we are right now, but this year we've been blessed by the abundance of other people's gardens. We've been given green beans, apples, cucumbers and blackberries. We also found a great clearance type price on some strawberries. As a result, I've been having fun making pickles and preserves and some cute mini apple pies. Right now our canned goods include: bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, strawberry preserves, blackberry preserves, apple sauce and cranberry sauce. I try to keep canning supplies on hand so that when I find a good deal or get handed some great fruits/vegetables, I can get them canned pretty easily. Here are a couple of the recipes I've used recently.

Mini Apple Pies
I got this idea from Pinterest. I used apples from my friend's garden. I cut up the apples and combined them with a little lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon. I would give you measurements had I measured, but I didn't. I just took the apples she gave and then added what seemed like enough sugar and cinnamon and then tasted and adjusted to taste. I personally hate making pie crust. Maybe some day I'll get over that, but with an 8 month old and being 6 months pregnant, I give myself a pass and I buy pie crust. I had one on hand left from a taco pie recipe I made earlier in the week.

I used a round cookie cutter to cut circles and put them in a greased muffin pan. I then cut out little hearts from the crust also. Once the apple mix had cooked down, I spooned it into the muffin tins, topped with the hearts, and baked at 425 for about 15 minutes. I took these to a birthday party and they were gone pretty quickly, so I'm thinking they were liked :)

Strawberry Preserves

My husband loves strawberry preserves, but they are so expensive to buy. Whenever I find a really good price on strawberries, I make a new batch of preserves. Here's my recipe:

32 ounces of strawberries hulled and mashed with a potato masher

4 T lemon juice

1 49 g pack of powdered pectin

1 T butter

7 c sugar

Combine strawberries, lemon juice, pectin and butter and bring to a rolling boil. 

Add the sugar. 

Bring to a rolling boil for about a minute

Turn off and remove foam if you have any on top

Ladle into jars, seal and process in a water bath for 10 minutes. 

Note: If you're new to canning, please read up on how to properly sanitize your jars. It's really important to keep everything sterile and at the right temperatures. There are a lot of great resources with this information, so I'm not going to rehash it on this blog, but please check it out. 

I tried a new recipe for blackberry preserves, but I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm not going to post on here until I know if they turned out.

Do you have any great recipes for canning or for using fresh produce?

Update on Cleaning Supplies

I promised an update on my cleaning supplies, so here we go:

The all purpose cleaner I made works great! I will definitely keep using this. It cleans grease and grime and even cleaned my mirrors without leaving streaks. This one is a winner.

The furniture polish works well. The combination of smells between the lemon juice and tea tree oil is a little strange, but I don't necessarily think it smells bad. You could omit the tea tree oil, but would have to make it fresh when you need it because the tea tree oil works to preserve it. I'm not sure how long the mix will last, but it's still good so far.

The dishwashing detergent worked, but did leave the dishes a bit spotty. Though I know store bought detergent can do the same.

I'm also using a disinfectant since everything goes in my son's mouth. It's made with 4 tablespoons of vinegar, 3 cups of hot water and a couple drops of tea tree oil. This is great for cleaning his plastic toys. This is on my agenda for today!

Let me know if anyone else has tried any of these or found any other combinations that work well!

Cleaning Supplies

I'm in the process of replacing all our cleaning supplies with supplies I can make myself. I'm trying to do this for a couple of reasons. First, I hate spending a lot on cleaning supplies particularly when I can make them for less. Second, it lets me be sure exactly what is in what I'm using. This is particularly important since I'm pregnant. I suppose this really started when my I was pregnant with my son and needed to clean the oven. Finding that baking soda worked really well encouraged me to see what else I could replace. Here is a list of what I've made/ am making. I will follow up once I've used all of these a few times to let you know if I'm satisfied with them. These are not my recipes. I've found them from numerous sites online. Pinterest has been a useful source as well.

The essential oils are just my preference for smell. Use of specific essential oils like the ones listed below help preserve the cleaner so that it can be stored. They also provide a nice odor.

The citric acid listed in the dishwasher detergent is also a preservative that can be found in the canning section at grocery stores. The brand I'm familiar with is in a small green shaker kind of bottle. If you can't find citric acid, you can use unsweetened lemonade powder because it contains the same citric acid.

Fabric Refresher: 1 cup water, 1/4 c vinegar, 1 T rubbing alcohol, 1/2 T baking soda, lavender essential oil

All-Purpose Cleaner: 1/2 c. vinegar, 1/4 c. baking soda, 1/2 gal water, tea tree oil

Furniture polish: vinegar, 1 c. olive oil and 1/2 c lemon juice, tea tree oil

Dishwasher detergent: 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda, 1/2 cup citric acid (or unsweeten lemonade), 1/2 cup kosher salt & use 1 T per load; vinegar to rinse dispenser

Disinfectant: 4 Tbls vinegar, 3 cups hot water, tea tree oil

Do you have any recipes for homemade cleaners that work well for you? If so, please share them in the comments!

Contentment

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." Philippians 4:11
"But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." 1 Timothy 6:8
"Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you." Hebrews 13:5


I love looking forward to things. One look at my calendar would show you this. I have marked how many more weeks until my baby will be born. How many weeks old my son is. I count down how many more weeks (ish) until my husband returns home from this deployment. Not just the big things though; I look forward to weekends and play dates and family visits. I look forward to the next milestone in my son's life. I've always been one to look forward. 


And then as I pray and study, I find the Lord pushing me to contentment. Some of the verses listed above speak of financial contentment, but that isn't really where I struggle. I've never been concerned about having things. I'm thankful that the Lord provides what we need. I don't care too much for things. I'd rather wash my clothes on a washboard than with a washing machine (though sometimes a washing machine is quite the lifesaver). I'd rather make things from scratch than purchase it for more. No, the type of contentment I struggle with is being content in the moment. 


My need for learning contentment is in enjoying the moment instead of planning for the next. It is enjoying watching my son rock back and forth on his hands and knees instead of hoping he'll start crawling. It's enjoying the cuddles and night time feedings instead of hoping that eventually he will sleep through the night. For me it's enjoying the conversations my husband and I have rather than spending too much time wishing he was already home. 


It isn't that planning ahead is a bad thing. The woman in Proverbs 31 obviously plans ahead because she ensures her family has warm clothes for the winter. She buys land that she knows will be profitable in the future. So, it isn't that planning is bad. With all that will be coming up in the next few months for me, planning is required. I have a birthday party to plan for my son, a welcome home party for my amazing husband, plus planning for keeping everything running after the baby is born. No, contentment isn't about not planning. Contentment is about being thankful for this moment. It's being thankful for what God is doing in my life today. James reminds us "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14). Life is short and each day is a gift from God. 


So may God teach me contentment in today because today is a gift and tomorrow is not promised. 

Kitchen Staples

I’ve been visiting with my parents and offered to cook some while there. Looking through their cabinets made me think about how we each have our own kitchen staples. You know, those items that we never want to run out of. Here are some of my kitchen staples:

Olive oil – I prefer cooking with olive oil unless it’s a recipe that requires a high smoke point oil (like roasting a chicken; olive oil would be terrible for that). It is also great for home remedies as I mentioned in yesterdays post.

Baking soda – Besides a baking necessity, baking soda cleans tough grease off the stove and from inside the oven. I think that entire blogs could be (and probably are) dedicated to the endless uses of baking soda.

Yeast – I make my own bread, so yeast is important to keep on hand.

Flour: All purpose, whole wheat, bread and cake – Yes, I keep an assortment of types of flour because they all have important purposes. Whole wheat and bread flour are both important for most of my bread recipes. All purpose flour is important for making sauces and gravies, and cake flour. Well, you never know when you need to bake a cake.

Coconut oil – It gives a sort of tropical flavor to dishes. It also has a lot of household purposes.

Salt, pepper, Italian seasoning – I put Italian seasoning in a lot of dishes. I just like it.

Honey – I use honey instead of sugar or to cut down the amount of sugar used in some of my bread recipes and sauces.

Vinegar – This is another food that has many uses in the kitchen as well as the rest of the house.

Shortening – Some recipes just require good old fashioned shortening. It’s just the way it is.

Sugar – Sugar is needed to activate the yeast.

1 can of super cheap spaghetti sauce – So, I realize this seems weird, but I always keep a can on hand. If I need to make a quick spaghetti, I start with the cheap canned sauce and add tons of stuff to it to make it taste like it isn’t super cheap canned spaghetti sauce. It’s an inexpensive base for making really yummy sauce.

So those are some of my pantry staples. What about you? What do you always have in your pantry that you wouldn’t want to run out of?

Home Remedies

I love home remedies as long as they actually work. I’m always looking for good, natural ways to treat issues. Recently, with the constant weather changes in my area, my sinuses have been really upset. My son is also in the middle of teething, so my mind has certainly been on treating these issues. So here are a few home remedies that I’ve found work for me and my family. They may be ones you already use, but perhaps there will be a new idea in the mix.

Ear Aches:

A couple drops of olive oil in the ear relieves earaches for me. I’ve used this with my son also and it seemed to work for him as well.

I know some people who use a little hydrogen peroxide, and they say that works as well.

Congestion:

I realize this is probably obvious, but steam works amazingly well. For adults, a pot of water heating on the stove works great. When my son was congested, we spent a lot of time sitting in the bathroom with the hot water on steaming up the room.

Saline drops are great as well. These are sold, but are also really easy to make. It’s just ¼ teaspoon salt mixed in 1 cup of warm water.

Teething:

A little bit of olive oil on your finger and rubbed into the gums seems to help with the teething pain.

My son has no interest in teething toys. He really just wants to chew on fabric and hands. He’s pretty impartial; any hand or piece of fabric will do. With that being the case, gum massages seem to help most.

Diaper rash:

I love certain commercial all natural diaper ointments, but have also found that coconut oil works great. If you aren’t familiar with coconut oil, check it out. It has a lot of uses along with being good for cooking.

I hope at least one of these is a new idea for you. Hoping your weather has been calmer than ours!