Pretty & sweet

Two of the nicest young girls ever. And beauty to boot!

-dana

Artsy fartsy

Recent images. I feel like I should call them vanishing images since stuff like this is disappearing from rural America.

-dana

More outdoors

Girl Scout camp was only a one night thing. So, immediately afterwards we meet Razor and some family friends for more camping. We spent our time here.




Riding these.





And seeing lots of these.






And, nary a mosquito bite if you can believe that.

-dana

Girl Scout camp

Girl Scout camp rocks! Just ask my little Brownie and Junior Scout!




-dana

The coolest place on earth

Boo spent a week at the absolute coolest place on earth. A place I could set up residence and never,ever leave. Nope. Never leave. Yep. It is that cool. And beautiful. And peaceful. And inspiring.

The John C. Campbell Folk School has a week each summer just for kids.













To read about the week for kids go here.

To watch a PBS documentary about this special school go here.

Ok. I know! How about we all sign up for a week stay together?

-dana

32 pounds of soap baby!

Today I've made 32 pounds of soap. Once cut into bars that will be about 100 bars of soap. Add that to the 16 pounds I made yesterday and 24 pounds I made the day before that and we are talking 72 pounds of soap this week. That is over 250 bars.

It's a shame my family never bathes.

I kid.** Don't worry I kid. Surely I kid.


-dana

** But I won't be kidding after our camping trip this weekend. Whew! Pass the soap!

Reducing our carbon footprint Part II

I've said before that I often consider the impact that I make on the planet. Oh, I aspire to do great things personally and professionally and all that but what I'm talking about is how my way of living affects the environment. So, in addition to hanging laundry on a clothesline, I also clean green.




Making my own cleaners was spurred not only by my desire to treat the earth right but also to treat my family right. We take great care to eat well and take care of our bodies. It only makes sense that I clean our home well too. The chemicals that are used in commercial cleaners are often toxic and nearly always detrimental to our bodies natural workings. Ever heard the term hormone interrupter? Um . . . ya, we try to avoid those. Why do you think I started making soap after all?




Here are my favorite basic recipes.

Glass Cleaner
2 parts vinegar to 1 part distilled water. Sometimes I add some antiseptic essential oil such as lemon, lavender or tea tree. Oh, three or four drops.

All Purpose Cleaner
2 teaspoons Borax
20 oz of distilled water
10 oz vinegar
2 drops of your favorite dish soap
A few drops of essential oils if you wish

Scrubby stuff
A box of Borax
A box of baking soda
A few drops of essential oil -- here my favorite is lemon and rosemary


Let me know if you try any of these.

-dana

Grandparent-ness

Grandma and Grandpa visited for about a week. That meant good food.



Extra special spoiling.




And lots and lots of goofiness.






We had a wonderful time. They are back home safe and sound. Wish they would hurry back.

-dana

Back burner blogging

So we made it through the sprinting race that was May. And, we are trying our best to be lazy.







Grandma and Grandpa are visiting from far away.





But, somehow we still haven't found our way to lazy yet. It's only been a week so maybe we need to give ourselves some more time.

Maybe we need to take a few lessons from this gal.





Off with the racing shoes and on with the napping.





-dana

More Razorisms

Yesterday Razor scored some new (to him) tools for both Father's Day and his birthday. One is a super duper table saw. As he was showing me all the bells and whistles I asked, "Did it come with an instruction manual?" Razor then said, "Yes but it still would be nice if someone came over and gave me a few tooters."

Tooters??

::Blink:: ::Blink::

I'm guessing he meant pointers. Or a tutorial. But, tooters has me stumped. (Ok. Well, bent over in a heap laughing my head off but I'll just say stumped to be polite.)

-dana

Favorite movie scenes

This is one of my favorite movies and favorite scenes.



Love Actually is a movie I could watch over and over.

Hmmm. I'm going to go search for it on my DVR. That and Pride & Prejudice . . . arguably the best love story ever. And, the version with Keira Knightly and Matthew Mcfayden is probably my favorite movie of all time. I love, love, love Colin Firth so the version that has him it is a favorite too.



Funny how I just now realized that Keira Knightly is in both.

Any good movie suggestions?
-dana

No more school. No more books.

School's out for summer. Yipee!

-dana

Reducing our carbon footprint

We have always tried to be good stewards of the earth. Long before it was the cool thing to do. Every now and then I'm going to share what we do to reduce our carbon footprint.

For one, I hang the laundry on the clothes line as much as possible.




We don't run our clothes dryer much which saves bunches of electricity. Plus, our clothes smell so darn good. Are brighter from the sunshine. And, are just so darn pretty to look at blowing in the breeze.

Aren't you glad I didn't show our underwear flappin' in the breeze?

-dana

Fruits of my labor

Between roller coasters and school talent shows I've been doing this.



And eating this.



And turning these . . .




into this.




-dana

Road trip + kids + friends = fun

We took a little trip mainly to do this.



And, we brought along our good friends Sven, Heidi and their daughter Svetlana**. Sven and Razor thought that they were totally in control of what, where, when and how but they didn't even know the why of it all. Five females versus two males? You do the math. Those sorry saps didn't have a chance.








** No that is not their real names. I have blogged about Sven and his wife Heidi before. But, I used to called Sven "Blade" and I once called Heidi "Helga" (and nearly lost my life for doing such). "Blade" became Sven after I saw this commercial.


I got a Sven in 2007 and my life has never been the same since. AND, (read this part carefully because you're gonna LOVE this {and I mean LOVE}) Sven has agreed to be a part of a regular segment here at Old Red Barn Co. where he will answer your questions too! More on this later.

-dana