1800's Prairie Dance Quickly Approaching

Time has flown by this year!! I can't believe the year is already over halfway gone.
This means that the 1800's Prairie Dance is just around the corner. It will be on October 4th. Deadline to purchase tickets is August 15th. But if you purchase your tickets by August 1st, you will be entered to win 1 of 5 tickets that will be given away!!
Check out more info here: http://thecivilwarball.blogspot.com/


https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Civil-War-Ball/147792865374303

No Greater Joy Ministries

I just wanted to take a minute to say how grateful I am for Michael and Debi Pearl's No Greater Joy Ministry. They are such a sweet couple and I really enjoy getting to hear them speak. If you haven't heard of their ministry before, you need to check out the link here. I promise you, it will be a huge encouragement in your life and family. They are all about helping to strengthen the family and teaching how the man is the head of the household and how God made woman to be a help meet for him. They have many good books but I'm going to take a guess that some of their most read books are Created to Need a Help Meet, Created to Be His Help Meet, In Search of a Help Meet, and Preparing to Be a Help Meet. These are great books that help to outline what a Christ-focused marriage and family should look like. Also another one of Mr. Pearl's well known books is To Train Up a Child.
Although I am not a wife nor a mother yet, I still think it's important, as a single Christian young lady to prepare for this time in the future. It's always great to receive advice from people that have been there and know what struggles might come.

Our family has also been to a couple of the NGJ Shindigs. It was so nice to be surrounded by a couple thousand other people who were pretty like-minded with our family's beliefs and convictions. I am so thankful that they saw the need for such an event and put so much work into making it all happen.

They also have a great channel on YouTube with many many videos. I highly recommend looking them up!

I feel it's very important to support ministries such as NGJ. One way to help is by supporting them with your purchases on Amazon. When you shop on Amazon Smile, Amazon will donate .5% to No Greater Joy Ministries. Here's the link: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/62-1855964?utm_source=ngj.me&utm_campaign=AmazonSmile

Anyway, I just felt it on my heart to share a little about this very amazing ministry.
I pray everyone has a great weekend!

Change

Wow, I can not believe it is already June 4th!! Time is passing by so fast it seems. I have volunteered at Fort Rock several times already this year. We have had great turnouts so far. This last camp was at max capacity. It was an American History Family Camp and we were happy to have guest speaker Mr. William Federer.

So far I've been busy with my vinyl decal business, volunteering at camps, gardening, and just normal everyday housework. I have to admit, I'm not looking forward to this warmer weather that's about to begin. I'm a cold-weather, cool mountain air, jacket-wearing kind of girl. But none the less, the heat always comes. I just pray it isn't too terribly bad this year.

So lately I've been thinking a lot about change. It's something that is inevitable in life. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Here a while back I was visiting with a friend about when I graduated from homeschool high school and it occurred to me that it has been 5 years since my graduation. Where in the world has time gone? I used to think that adults were crazy when they said that time goes faster as you get older. Now that I'm an adult, I see exactly what they mean. I know lately in my life, I've been having some changes take place. All good, just things happening and going on that are different and out of the ordinary for my everyday life.. It really gets a person to thinking-how am I using my life to make a difference for Christ. We are only on this earth for but a blink of an eye, and how are we spending that time? We all have different phases of life: childhood, the teen years, young adult life, married life, parenthood, becoming grand parents, etc. Sometimes it seems that when you feel you are ready for your next phase, it couldn't come quicker. Then when you reach it, you wonder where the time went. Or at least, that's how I feel sometimes. I've been making sure that I am really stopping and enjoying the phase of life I'm in right now, whatever that might be. It's really great to know that God has me in the phase in life that he wants me in because He knows best. And I'm ready for whatever it is that He brings my way! It's a great feeling to know that I don't have to worry about it, just trust in Him. Stop and smell the roses and enjoy every second, moment, and every hour of my days. Whether that be doing laundry, baking bread, having a Braums's ice-cream with the family, or Skyping with a friend.


Well I hope everyone is having a great start to their summer!!

Giveaway!!

We're doing a giveaway over on our Buttons and Curls page. If we can reach 80 likes by May 16th, one person will be drawn by random to receive one of our products! So invite all your friends to like our page. Click Here

Egg Shell Planters

So if you do much gardening, you probably know that it's best to start your seeds inside, before planting them. Our family is trying out a new technique this year. As always, we've procrastinated getting our tomatoes started, but we shouldn't be too terribly far behind. We're using egg shells as our "planters". They are chalk full of calcium, which is a vital nutrient for a good plant to grow strong and healthy.

So here's how we do it:

For any meal that we use eggs in, we save the shell. We're very careful when cracking them, to try and make it as clean of a break in the middle of the shell as possible. This way one egg shell can make 2 planters. We wash out the shell really well and make sure we get the membrane all out of the inside. This ensures bacteria won't grow. Then we lay them upside down on a paper towel until dry.

Now pull out an empty egg carton and place one half shell into each space. Now fill them with potting soil (we prefer organic non GMO). Place one seed in each shell of whatever seed you're planting. Cover up with a little more soil. Water thoroughly, without drowning the seed.

Water daily, or as needed

The plants do not need to be placed in the sunlight until you see them begin to peak their leaves above the soil. Make sure and keep your lid to your egg carton closed, this makes the perfect miniature green house. As soon as they begin sprouting, you need to sit them in a sunny location inside such as a window sill and open the lid.

*Note: If you use the cardboard egg cartons, it will absorb all of the moisture up

 

 

As soon as your seedlings are big enough to go outside (when your plant grows it's first set of true leaves), you can take each egg shell out and plant them.(crush up the egg shell with each plant to keep the great source of calcium near the roots)

 

Happy Gardening!

Why We Choose to Eat Butter Instead of Margarine

   

Vs.  

 So my mom has always been a firm believer that we should eat actual butter instead of margarine. She's always jokingly called margarine 'Melted Plastic'. It's been a few years now since we stopped buying margarine. About a year ago, we found an article telling the differences in the 2 products. What we found completely disgusted us and scared us!!
So even though Margarine and Butter have about the same amount of calories, Margarine has the following issues:

Is very high in trans-fatty acids.

Triples the risk of coronary heart disease.

Increases total cholesterol and LDL (the bad cholesterol), and lowers HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol).

Increases the risk of cancers up to fivefold.

Lowers the quality of breast milk.

Decreases the immune response.

Decreases the insulin response.

Would you like to know how Margarine was invented?
"Did you know that the hydrogenated fat they use in fast food restaurants in the deep-fat fryers was originally designed as candle wax?  When it didn't work as planned, they looked for a new use for
it, and found it worked great for frying foods and never going bad.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys.  When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback, so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.
It was a white substance with no food appeal, so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter.  More recently, they have come out with some clever new flavorings."

Oh, yes, and there's one other thing I might want to mention: Margarine is only ONE molecule away from being plastic!!!!!! So turns out Momma has been right all these years-margarine really is basically melted plastic. :-)
You should do this little experiment for yourself:

-Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or a shaded area. Within a couple of days, you will note a couple of things:

-No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies, will go near it.  (That should tell you something.)  It will not rot or smell differently, because it has NO nutritional value.  Nothing will grow on it.  Even tiny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow on.  Why?  Because margarine is nearly plastic.

Would you melt a plastic bowl and spread THAT on your pancakes??

So after you finish reading this post, you may have learned a little more about your margarine that's in your fridge than you would have liked to know. Now what will you do with this knowledge to save your family??

Pass the butter please!!!!!!!!!

Ball a Huge Success

Well guys, another Homeschool Civil War Ball has come and gone and it was a huge success!! I'm so thankful that the Lord has blessed this event so graciously. People always thank me for all the hard work I put into it, but in complete and all honesty, I love doing it. I'm an organizer and planner, so it's actually super fun to me. It just thrills my soul to see all of those homeschool families there enjoying themselves in a safe and conservative atmosphere. How often, anymore, do families take time to have good old-fashioned family fun. This world concentrates so much on the children getting away from the parents, that they lose the knowledge that you can have fun with your family. Our family should be our best friends, and then other friends will fall into place. I am just so thankful that the Lord has allowed me to host this event for 2 years now. Lord willing, I will have another one in the Fall!!