Life is a Journey we live one day at a time!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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. )
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.
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.
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