Rachele

March 12, 2013March 12, 2013

Sugar is sick

Our poor fur baby has been so sick today 🙁 I haven’t had her this sick since she was a baby and had parvo when we adopted her from the local shelter.

She woke us up at 5 am with awful diarrhea (let’s just say I have to shampoo the carpet) Daddy took her outside while mommy cleaned up all the accidents. My poor baby. We all went back to sleep for a little bit. When we got back up I took my Sugar for a long walk, poor thing 🙁 it was just awful.

So I got online with some of my Young Living Oil friends to find out what I could do for her. What I was able to find out was that the Di-Gize oil blend is very good for doggie diarrhea, but I didn’t have any so instead I added 1-2 drops of Thieves oil, Peppermint oil & Lavender oil to about 1tsp of olive oil & rubbed on her front paws & gently massaged onto her belly.

Then my vet friend told me that there is a bad strain of parvo going around that is even taking down vaccinated adult dogs and that no medicine was working so she was trying some alternative treatments and she was having some luck with Slippery Elm. Well hopefully it’s not parvo again :@ oh that was a nightmare when she was a baby.

I couldn’t find just slippery elm bark tea, so I used Throat Coat organic tea instead as it has a high amount of slippery elm bark, which helps to coat & sooth her innards.

I started Sugar on about 1 cup of chicken broth an hour. Then after she kept the first 3 down I mixed a half cup herbal tea with a half cup chicken broth, which she lapped down quite well. After 2 more cups of the herbal tea mixture I added a tbs of D Earth and 2 tbs of her normal dog food into her cup of tea broth. She took that well and started to perk up.

I increased the amount of dog food mixed with the slippery elm tea & chicken broth a few more times before bedtime. I applied the herbal mixture I mentioned above one more time before her last walk.

She seems to be doing much better tonight, although not 100% yet. Hopefully she will do better tomorrow. Il’l continue her oil massages 2 times a day and her herbal tea until she is herself again, which will hopefully be soon.

Boy it’s been a week that’s for sure! Last week we got Holly moved to Dallas

A few days later she calls to tell us her car won’t start :/ hopefully it’s just the battery, but we’ve got to wait until the next payday to send her the money for one.

A few days later our hot water heater died & it’s going to be $700-$900+ to replace it! Geeze! I never would have thought it would be as much for a 6gal RV hot water tank as it was for the 50 gal one we had installed in our old home. So, since I don’t have that money just lying around I’ve had to boil water for dishes & baths. What fun :/

The next day while I was cleaning out our black water tank some tp I guess got jammed in the tube and water flowed back into the bathroom before I could get the water shut off 🙁 yuck! So I spent 2 days cleaning that mess up! And yea we need to replace the toilet too, it’s usable but broke. That’s $200+

With it starting to get warmer we are going to have to replace the a/c before it gets too hot as it died after last year. That’s about $1200-$1500+ for a new unit.

Then my Sugar gets sick 🙁 so it’s been one heck of a week! But that’s ok! Because God is good all the time and He will somehow help us get everything we need. I’m just thankful we are blessed enough to have this RV to live in. When I do get discouraged from so many thinks going wrong I think of Job from the Bible and what he went through.

So no matter what happens God is still awesome & amazing. And I’m still believing for a new 2 bedroom 5th wheel with slides so our Stormy will finally have a little space and not have to sleep in the living room and we will have a bit more room & storage. 🙂

Till next time,
Enjoy your Journey 🙂
God Bless

Rachele T

February 14, 2013

Sugar gets a bath!

Gave our dog, Sugar, a much needed bath this morning. She was a little on the smelly side :/ She did very well, I think she rather enjoyed it actually. I like to use dawn dish soap and Dr Bronners lavender soap on her. The Dawn is gentle on her skin and kills the fleas, the Dr Bronners makes her smell very nice. I noticed to that her skin eczema has almost completely cleared up since we switched to an all natural dog food with Salmon.

February 1, 2013

A busy February 1st!

Today has been a busy day! Finally got into my chiropractor & upgraded to the unlimited visits for the month of February. He is very reasonable, it is only $240 for our entire family for the whole month with unlimited visits each! Ahhhhh! I’m already feeling relief! I just can’t go so long without getting adjusted anymore. My back has been so damaged for so long, it’s just going to have to be a part of my health routine from now on, like going to the gym or exercising. Then after this month I should be able to go back to weekly visits.

Harold got to come home this morning too, it was an unsuspecting pleasant surprise. The out of town job he was on this week delayed. So we got to spend some time together today with Stormy running errands. We are thankful for the jobs, even though he is having to work out of town for 1-2 weeks at a time, it will help us finish getting ready for the move to Oregon in a few months. We are thankful to have been able to pay off a large bill today because of it, that we needed to get taken care of. Thank you Lord! Just a few more to go and we will be debt free (everything but student loans) before we leave.

Got my onions replaced today. The one on the left has been out for about a week. the one on the right is the fresh cut onion. For those that don’t know, we help stay cold & flu free by placing an unpeeled onion cut in half in glass dishes throughout the RV. It only takes one onion cut in half for us. The onions absorb the cold/flu germs. We’ve done this for two years now & it works quite well. I prefer the sweet onions as they do not have as bad of an “onion” smell. The cheap onions can sometimes have a very pungent oder. But it is worth a little onion smell for a day to not get sick.

I also got my cast iron pans cleaned & oiled. I don’t use any soap on them, but sometimes I do need to use a little hot water & my scrubber and rinse them out. I then put them on the burner to heat them up till all the water has cooked off then turn the burner off. While it is still hot I give it a good rubbing with olive oil. I’ve heard some say not to use olive oil because it makes your food stick, but I’ve had really good luck with it. I cook exclusively with extra virgin olive oil now and I can usually just wipe the pan out with a clean towel when I’m done. I’m loving cooking with my cast iron.

I even tried my hand at homemade mayonnaise & ranch dressing today. The mayonnaise didn’t work out though. I used my extra virgin olive oil & the flavor was just way too strong. I’ll need to see what other lighter flavor oils are on the health food shelves. I want to use an organic oil as we are trying to get away from commercially processed foods, GMO’s & chemicals. But, I got the blending good though as it was light & creamy, just tasted awful. Lol.

Now my ranch turned out really good. Stormy helped me mix it up & it is Stormy & Daddy approved. So at least we had that success today. Ill post the pics and recipes first of next week as the rest of this weekend will be very busy.

Tomorrow we start early as we head to a class to learn to process different animals and learn to tan hides the natural way using no chemicals. I plan on taking lots of pictures, videos & notes.

Then Sunday we are off to my sister’s to celebrate my niece’s first birthday. Holly is coming to visit & go to the party with us. So we will have an awesome, but very busy weekend. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend too!

Till next time,

Rachele T.

January 29, 2013

Some scary storms!

Been hearing the last few days about possible severe storms coming this afternoon. So we got our running done this morning then did a walk around inside & out to make sure we “battened down the hatches” and nothing would hopefully blow away. The weathermen were all saying we may have severe straight line winds. That’s almost as bad as a tornado in this neck of the woods, especially when you live in an RV! So we had us an early dinner and headed up to our storage building for the afternoon & evening. We have a climate controlled unit inside a brick building where I have an office set up, so it’s a tad bit sturdier in high winds than our RV. Dad’s working out of town again so it’s just me, Stormy, & Sugar.

It was very windy all afternoon, but about 7pm Sugar jumped up and began growling at our closed unit door. A few seconds later we heard the wind change! Whoa! It sounded super scary, like a train! Hail started pounding on the metal roof and we could hear the gushing rain between massive gusts of wind. The lights began to flicker on and off and the wind was picking up speed & force. We could hear the building groaning and creaking. Then suddenly all the lights went out. The only light was from the glow of my laptop screen.

Stormy pulled her iPod out and used that for light as she decided to look through some of our family photo albums to take her mind off the raging storm outside. Sugar calmed down and went back to sleep on her blanket, and I settled in to get some work done on my laptop while we waited for the storm to pass, and hopefully for the power to come back on again soon.

The storm raged for a couple hours and finally settled down about the time the power came back on. So we decided to wrap up for the evening and head back to the RV.

Now mind you I had been praying for God’s protection over us & our RV all day, so it was no surprise to come back home to find everything still in its place. It didn’t even leak in my closet :), which seems to pour every time it sprinkles. So a big thank you to God and His Angels for their protection tonight. And to my wonderful husband who finally got all the holes in the roof sealed up. 😀

Now it’s time for a peaceful nights rest.
Good night all.
Till next time,

Rachele T.

January 28, 2013

A fun-filled weekend

With the weather being so nice we decided to take our dog, Sugar, down to the meadow to go for a run. She made a bee-line for the water and jumped right in like she had done it a million times. It was fun to see her swim all over the lake and explore all the sticks and rocks and chase the birds and turtles.

Proper Bucket Food Storage — How to properly store dry foods using buckets and Mylar bags.

Saturday Canning Class

Saturday we attended a “Canning Class” held at one of the local Cowboy churches. In the morning we learned how to properly store foods using buckets and Mylar bags. KETK was there to film our class. I think she learned as much as we did.

Dry Canning — Learning to “Dry Can” using the oven and canning jars.

After that we learned how to “Dry Can” dry goods using the oven and canning jars. This process works great for dry goods such as flours, cake mixes, corn meal, rice, and such.

Vacuum Sealing — There are many uses for a vacuum sealing system

After the dry canning demonstration we learned all the different ways to utilize a vacuum sealer to seal canning jars and items in vacuum bags. Vacuum sealing also works great to seal first aid, band-aids, toilet paper, diapers, matches, etc., for camping and survival kits to keep your items dry.

Learning to can figs and make Cherry Jelly — Learning to properly can figs and make cherry jelly

The next demonstration was how to make homemade laundry soap and all-natural deodorant. I can’t wait to try these out. I’ll post my results when I decide to try these.

We then learned how to can figs and properly prepare them for canning using the water bath technique. After the figs we learned how to can prepare and can cherry jelly using the inversion method to create the seal and preserve it. It was yummy!

Stormy's Barters — These are the items Stormy bartered for. She did really good!

Whew! It was one busy morning full of learning new things. We even had two ladies go over techniques for saving money using coupons! That was one I knew all about as I used to be an extreme couponer. 🙂 It was nice for a while, but I am trying to rid my home of toxins and items that are not all-natural or organic. Unfortunately about 90% of what you buy using coupons is not on my buy list anymore, so I gave up couponing.

After lunch we had a barter event. No money was exchanged, it was only item for item. It was a learning experience in learning to trade for what we wanted. Even Stormy got into it and made some good trades for several items she wanted. I got some good items also. We are looking forward to next month’s event as we will be learning about gardening, having a seed swap, learning to can meats, and doing more bartering.

Hoping you all have a great and blessed week!

Till next time,

Rachele T.

January 21, 2013

Holly’s Moving Day

Holly’s moving day finally arrived on Sunday. We had spent Saturday getting everything packed up and loaded into our truck ready to go. Sunday I took Holly to the Whataburger for a meal before I drove her to her new place. I know I’m going to miss her silliness and quirkiness, but it makes me happier to see my kids getting out into the world and beginning their own lives. To me that’s what being a parent has always been about. I’ve enjoyed every stage of my children’s lives. From the first time they wrap their little arms around my neck, to the first little kiss, the first mama, and smile, to the first steps, learning to potty all by themselves, learning to feed themselves, all the firsts, including moving out on their own.

Holly and best friend — Holly’s new place with her best friend!

I know as a parent I may not always make all the right decisions, I know I haven’t, but, to do the best possible with what I have to work with, that’s really all we can do. Love and encourage our children to pursue God and the dreams and talents He has given them, protect them from harm, and guide them to become the man or woman of God they were created to be. To me that is my job as a parent. I can only hope my kids will each grow to become an even better parent than I was. By taking the good things I did and repeat and take my mistakes and learn from them and become better.

After getting Holly all settled in I snapped this picture of the skies on the way home. It was just such a beautiful day. The weather was awesome and the skies were so blue and clouds just so white and fluffy!

sugar playing — Sugar playing fetch by the lake.

After Sugar and I got home I took her down to play by the lake. She had a blast running and playing. She even went for a short swim when she got excited and leaped into the lake. But once she hit that chilly water she was quick to swim out. But she had fun.

We even saw an otter swimming and having fun in the lake. Probably what Sugar tried to swim after when she jumped into the lake.

Stormy having fun at Grandmas, they were practicing first aid.

With Holly moved out, Harold working in Mississippi and Stormy spending the weekend with Grandma, Sugar and I spent the rest of the evening by ourselves. This was the first night in years I had more than a few hours all to myself. I planned on a quiet evening and early bed, but I ended up cleaning out the cupboard and shelves and organized the kitchen drawers. Of course. 🙂

Sunday was a full day all to myself, besides Sugar. We took a couple walks, cleaned the house, then I headed to Starbucks to use the internet. That was an interesting afternoon to say the least. Met a few intriguing individuals. One could probably write a book on the people of Starbucks. LOL. I’ve enjoyed my time to myself the last two days, but I’m ready for my Stormy and hubby to come home.

Till next time,

Rachele T.

January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Propane Problems

Wednesday evening right at bedtime our second propane bottle ran out. I thought no big deal, I had another 30lb on the grill. So I pulled off the two empties and loaded them in my truck to take to get filled first thing Thursday morning. That didn’t last long, maybe about two hours :/ then that tank was empty two. Brrrr! That was a cold night!

chocolate lava cake — Chocolate Lava Cake

I sure was glad the propane store opened at 7 am! I was sitting there with three empty bottles to get filled. After getting home and hooking everything back up I thought yeah, we’ll be warm in just a few minutes. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was like trying to get my diesel truck started after running out of gas, not easy. An hour later the pilots finally stayed lit and we had heat again. It was 10 am before we finally had the heat back up to a normal temperature and me and my girls had thawed out. I definitely didn’t feel like cooking any breakfast so I took my girls to IHOP for pancakes. 🙂 Yumm!

The rest of Thursday was just pretty normal, cleaning, dishes, laundry and a girls night with pizza and chocolate lava desert from Dominoes! MMMMMM!!! there were yummy. Then we settled down for a nice warm night!

About 3:20am Friday morning I was woken up when a pack of coyotes starting howling and yipping just behind my RV. I could hear them running and playing around our RV. I listened to them howl and play in the field around the RV park for a little then they ran off and I could hear them in the far off field toward the pond toward the back. As I was trying to go back to sleep I noticed it seemed chilly. So I got up to check and it was cold! The heater was blowing cold air and it was about 50 degrees inside. Oh no! Now what? There was no way I was out of propane already! AND I could still hear the coyotes howling out in the back field! Oh my! I was not looking forward to going outside! Thankfully no run-ins with any coyotes, but I also couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I was getting no propane out of either bottle. The only thing I could think was that some condensation had gotten into the regulator and it was froze up. I remember last year our old regulator did the same thing and we had to wrap it to keep it from freezing. So I grabbed a couple of bath towels and wrapped the regulator to see if I couldn’t get it to thaw. After a few trips inside and out, I was still not getting any propane inside. It was now 4:30 am and I was freezing! So i locked everything back up and curled back up under the covers to try to stay warm till morning.

Cool Car — Cool car Stormy took a picture of at the Hallsville Brookshires

Later Friday morning I was woken up this time by sirens blaring just down the road. It was one siren after another, I figured there must have been an accident. I found out later that a poor kid was killed about a mile up the road. 🙁 So sad. Since I was awake I started back on the propane. As it started to warm up outside I started getting more propane inside. Finally it was enough to keep a flame lit and we were back in business again.

Stormy's wonderful Treasure — Stormy’s Wonderful Treasure

Friday was a busy day once we thawed out. One of our errands took us to Hallsville. We made a stop at the Brookshires and Stormy spotted a really neat car that she just had to take pictures of. She absolutely loves cars! Our real reason to stop at the Brookshires was because Stormy had seen a Brave doll there a few months before and had been saving her allowances to buy it. But as we started looking we couldn’t find it anywhere. Stormy was starting to get real sad. But, there was one more place to look. Way in the back of the store was a small end cap of clearance items. As we looked we didn’t see anything. They must have sold out. Then as we turned to walk away something caught my eye behind another product. As I reached for it and pulled it out, it was the Brave Doll my Stormy was looking for. There was no price on it, it was originally $7.99, so we knew it had to be less than that. After it was rung up the cashier announced her total was only .80 cents. Stormy was so happy.

At the end of the evening we were finally on our way home. As we came around the corner toward the RV park we noticed a bunch of emergency lights at the convenience store. I guess they had a fire. A few minutes later half of the emergency vehicles turned on their sirens and tore off down the road. (I later heard that there was a double fatality a few miles down the road. 🙁 Very tragic. )

Wrapped tanks — Propane tanks wrapped up for the night.

After we got home I decided to wrap up our propane tanks and regulator. It’s supposed to get below freezing again tonight, but hopefully it will not freeze. But we are definitely piling on the blankets anyway, just in case.

It has definitely been an adventurous two days. But it is time to cuddle up under the covers and say goodnight to all our friends.

Till next time,

Rachele T.

January 15, 2013

A Chilly January Morning

Woke up this morning to a chilly icy rain so we decided to spend the day indoors.

Got the RV all cleaned and a yummy beef stew going in the crock pot.

One of the things I love about homeschooling our daughter is that we don’t need to worry about the weather outside, or getting into an accident trying to get her to school.

Tomorrow is supposed to be more icy weather, so it will be another day inside. Of course our dog Sugar won’t mind. She spent most of today under the girls’ bed covers. She poked her head out from under the covers for a few minutes to say hi.

I didn’t get a chance to post last night, but I caught this pic of last nights moon while walking Sugar. I wish I could have really captured the full view, but my camera just didn’t catch all the differences in light. It was breathtaking.

Till next time, remember life is a journey we all live one day at a time.

Blessings,

Rachele T.