short barn, tiny happy, under the willow, and a little blog award

I love this barn. It's on one of my weekly drives for work, and it looked so beautiful in the snow with the ominous sky when I drove by last week, that I had to stop and take a picture. I need to remember to take my camera with me more often, and consider tossing a pair of boots in the trunk along with my pruners. (That makes me sound like an eccentric oddball who would also be likely to have several cats and really strange things in her grocery cart, doesn't it? But I could have avoided those branchy things in the foreground if I'd had boots!)
I love Tiny Happy. Melissa's blog is lovely, as is all of her work. I especially love all of the nature reflected in her projects. I've followed her blog for a long time, and was excited to order this sweet little pouch before Christmas from her Etsy shop. I took this picture a few weeks ago, and I haven't brought myself to take the little tag off of the zipper yet, or to separate the card from the pouch. Maybe I'm just waiting for the perfect purpose for it.

Photo from here.

Carrie over at Under the Willow was generous enough to send me some samples of her amazing handmade laundry soaps to try! They arrived in the mail on Christmas Eve, so this post is long, long overdue. Just about everything I would write about the soap was already written by Joanna over here. I only used the laundry soap on towels, since P seems to be sensitive to scents in laundry detergent (we usually use Down East, available at Sobeys). The scents are lovely, (I especially loved 'Home for the Holidays', and 'Lavender Grace' is really nice, too) and just subtle enough when the towels came out of the dryer. The whole bathroom doesn't smell like the soap, but you get a lovely whiff as you're using the towel. Mmmm. It's just good stuff, and the price is great! (Oh, and the towels were nice and clean, too.) So go have a peek at Joanna's review, and give it a try! Thanks so much, Carrie!

And Teresa, over here at Homesteading, kindly awarded me a little blog award. I must admit, I'm not really much for these 'chain-mail' things, so if you want to jump in and pass it along, please do! I'm flattered - thanks so much, Teresa! (By the way, Teresa is so sweet, is always up to something interesting, and her garden completely astounds me, so have a peek at her blog.)

Phew! I hope that you have a great weekend - today was a welcome snow day, so I took full advantage and during naptime I whipped up four lovely-looking batches of soap and overdid it a bit this morning setting up Son #2's room. I can't wait until everything's complete and presentable - when it's all together, there will be pictures!

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life

I just read and thoroughly enjoyed this book. (I don't usually post about the books I don't enjoy because I can't be bothered to waste the time to read beyond halfway. This one was NOT in that category!) I borrowed it from the library, and had it read within a day. Super fast, entertaining, and informative. Informal and fun - right up my alley when I'm feeling like Spring is on the way and I'm feeling all ambitious about homesteading projects. There's information about everything from beekeeping to chicken keeping, baking and finding great antique treasures. There are personal stories for each topic, as well as tons of resources and the practical things you need to know before attempting them on your own. Although there's not extensive information on each topic, she gives tonnes of resources at the end of the book, and extensive information and all of the particulars is not really the point of this book anyway. Jenna Woginrich, the author, also has a blog (are you surprised? I didn't think so) called Cold Antler Farm, where you can check out some more of her projects, including some cute sheep. Incidentally, she has a day job as well as all of her homesteading projects, which I really like - since that's much like me. Oooh, she also has a cute promotional YouTube video, too. Have a peek!

simplest, most effective grease stain remover, ever

Because I make soap, I use lots of oils. Lots of many different types of oils. And because I don't like to slow progress in order to do something as boring as change my shirt, I often have little grease spots on the sleeves, shoulders, or sides of the shirts I'm wearing while soaping (I do wear an apron!) For awhile, I tried a few different things; Lestoil, as recommended by my mother, definitely works, but it is toxic, horribly smelly stuff, and I would have to wash items three or four times before the smell was out of the clothes. Not to mention that I much prefer natural solutions, and who wants to use stuff that smells like that? I tried all of the regulars - baking soda, natural stain removers, OxiClean Baby (which works veeeery well on food and protein-based stains, has no scent, and is recommended by Annie Bond who knows everything about green cleaning) but nothing completely got rid of the grease spots. Until I came across the simplest tip - a regular (i.e. petroleum-based) dishwashing liquid. What we use on dishes is Down East made here in Nova Scotia (it's only available at Sobeys here in Yarmouth here in Yarmouth, it's only available at Sobeys), which I adore, but because it's not petroleum-based, it didn't seem to do the trick on the oil spots. So I bought the most 'regular' brand I recognized - Palmolive (although I'm sure cheap store brands would work, too - maybe even better!) Problem solved. Every grease stain I've treated (even old ones) has been gone after one wash. Just a little squirt before tossing it in the washer, and it's done!

Happy laundering!

orange, juiced & belly, huge

After lunch today, I realized that we had a pile of tiny, juicy oranges and clementines which needed to be used up. So I sliced and juiced them, and it was delicious.

Umm, no wonder people are telling me that I'm huge! 31 weeks last week - I don't know how I'll manage to stretch much more over the next nine weeks, but I'm sure I will.

Hope you're having a great weekend!