Category: Kids

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Never Enough Time

Do any of you feel like there’s just never enough time? Between the day job and taking care of the garden, taking care of what comes out of the garden, keeping up laundry and the house, oh and cooking some supper and having dishes to eat on, that leaves about 30 min to sleep.

Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, but sometimes it feels like it.

Last weekend, I took one day with my grandkids. We played, watched moves and then went to my company party.

Me and the grandkids at the co party.
Having a snack at the company party.

We had a ton of fun just hanging out and watching movies, brushing hair and just doing “stuff” last Saturday. They always make my weekend, no matter what we’re doing.

That left Sunday as the only time I had left to get stuff done over the weekend.

Many jars of infused oils.
Infused oils. I love just looking at them.
Calendula infused sweet almond oil.
Calendula infused sweet almond oil

I started by straining the infused oils that were ready.

These oils had sat and infused at least a month and some of them as much as 3 months.

I think they turned out beautifully. Most of the golden ones are calendula and sweet almond oil, 1 pint is calendula and coconut oil and the green one is lavender and coconut oil.

Lavender infused coconut oil.
Lavender infused coconut oil.

I’ll make some salves, lotions and maybe some chap stick with these. I’ll probably leave a little bit as it is and use it just as an oil too.

We discovered this year that we really like breaded, fried okra. I grew up with the old boiled okra, and had learned I hated it.

After the boiled stuff, I never had the nerve to try it any other way, until this year.

So this year, we grew some okra for my daughter-in-law and decided we had to try it. Wow, is that better than the boiled stuff.

This weekend we had about 6 gallons of okra that needed to be processed. My plan was to dry some and bread and freeze some for use in the winter.

That way we could just use however much we wanted at a time.

I only have chest freezers so I could only freeze one tray at a time. They need to freeze in a single layer. So that took all day.

Left over fried okra.
Guess what was for supper tonight. Well, at least part of it.

While the breaded okra was freezing, I cut and set some up on the dehydrator. I filled 8 of the 9 shelves in my new dehydrator.

Using the time I had tonight to get a couple more things done.

Freshly made sweet pickles.
Making more pickles.

Tonight I made more sweet pickles for my husband’s sandwiches. Boy, did I start something. He loves those things and reminds me regularly when he’s getting low.

From the dehydrator I jarred up a little under a gallon of dried okra.

I now have enough okra to probably last us the winter. But…..it’s still growing. I’ll be giving some of that away this weekend.

Jarred okra.

This dehydrated okra makes a pretty decent snack. If you salt it a little before you dehydrate it, it’s a nice crunchy snack. My mom would have really like it.

Time or the lack thereof.

Anyway, my point here is, once the garden starts coming in and you have to start putting up the goodies, time runs away from you. It feels like there’s just never enough time.

I try really hard with “to do” list, to make sure I’m not running in circles. I’m even crossing stuff off my list. But it feels like I’m adding as much as I’m crossing off.

I guess that’s just how it goes. Mark off 1, add 2.

Extra days

I’m taking off this coming Friday to catch up on things that I can’t get done on the weekend. I’ve done this several times this year.

It used to be taking vacation time to work, even at home, would have really irked me. But not anymore. These days it makes me smile.

I really enjoy putting it all together, trying to put up more and more of our own food every year. And I really don’t mind just getting stuff done here at home, whatever that might be.

Now if I can find a way to ditch the day job…..

How do you get everything done. Or do you? If you have a secret on how to find more time, I hope you’ll share here. I know there has to be some kind of cool method out there…..maybe.

Let me know what you’re up to in these last days of summer.

I’m really hoping to get back to some kind of trial and/or error next week. Maybe a cracker or maybe even some mustard. I’ve been working on both.

Until next time-

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey

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Making Bead Sun Catchers

So, these Bead Sun Catchers turned out way better than I expected.

Pony beads used for project.
I got these beads from Hobby Lobby. They had glitter in them that looked great when they melted.

I these sun catchers on Pinterest several times and thought it looked like something Zoey would enjoy. She loves bright pretty colors and being crafty.

So I got the beads some time ago, thinking we would get to this pretty quickly. That was probably 2 months ago.

This weekend I had both grandkids and one of the cousins over to spend the weekend. It seemed like the perfect time.

I told the girls about the bead sun catchers and pulled out the bag of beads. Showed them the muffin tin I planned to use and told them to create whatever design they liked. They were thrilled.

Then I remembered some aluminum pans I had in the cabinet. You know the kind you buy 3 or 4 in a pack that can be thrown away after you use them? I had 8 inch square pans. But they have several different shapes and sizes to choose from.

Girls designing their bead sun catchers.
Working hard at their designs.
Creating more sun catchers.
Creating more sun catchers.

The girls had a ton of fun creating and re-creating. They mixed the beads and then separated them and then mixed them again.

They made designs and then dumped them then made new designs, until they finally came up with something they liked.

Once they had the first batch done, they had a better idea of what they would look like. Then it became easier for them to come up with new designs.

Heating the sun catchers outside instead of in the oven was a better idea.

When I got ready to melt the beads for the sun catchers I used the gas grill. I’d read in a few articles of people using the oven inside and it turning out bad. I decided I didn’t want to try that.

Completed sun catchers.
As you can see, we don’t even have to make a hole to hang them with in a few of them.

I tried to find what temp they needed to “cook” at looking at different websites to find a temp. I couldn’t find anything.

So I faked it and started at 450F. One article I read said it took about 10 minutes. At 450F it took about 30 min. I figured I was doing it wrong so for the second batch I let the grill get to 550F.

That worked much better. It still took longer than 10 minutes, but was still much faster.

Once they’re melted, just set them to the side to cool. I was worried about getting them out of the pan, but didn’t need to be. They popped out real easy.

There are a few things to remember next time.

I did discover, however, that while all the scalloped edges of the pan were a cool part of the design, the writing on the bottom of the pan also transferred. Not the cool design I was hoping for. I’ll have to figure a way to make that not show up.

Square pan sun catcher.
Here’s the square sun catcher. Can you see the writing in the center?

If you can think of a way to get rid of the raised writing in the bottom of those pans, please let me know in the comments. I haven’t been able to figure that out yet.

Some of them melted smooth and a few didn’t. The ones that still had a little texture from the lump of the bead looked really cool I thought.

But those all came out of the same batch, so I’m not sure what the difference was so we can recreate the effect. Next time I’ll try and pay more attention to that to figure it out.

Give this one a try when you get a chance. I guarantee your kids or grandkids will enjoy it. Share your creations here and post your pictures in the comments. I’d love to see them.

Until next time-

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey