Monday, July 2, 2012

Miracle Cleaner - seriously !!!

I know what you are thinking. Yeah, right "miracle cleaner" ... another one, sure. Well, at least that is what I thought. But I was desperate. We live in an apartment and we are not allowed to have our own wash machine, so we have to use the one here in the building. May I say " it stinks " ? And that is putting it very nicely! It costs $ 1.50 per load however from when the water starts to fill in until the last spinning cycle is done takes 32 minutes. Now, can you tell just how the dirty, muddy laundry is supposed to come out clean???? Well, it doesn't! I have been buying the "expensive" detergents and adding Oxi Clean on top of the spray on stain removers with disappointing results. Now while the water runs into the machine, I keep pressing the heat setting button which then turns the time back to 32 min because if you just let it go it will take 5 min of your time just to fill the machine with water. Well, sorry, but with this being such a short cycle already, I can't afford to lose 5 min. So, those are my little 'tricks' to try to get our laundry clean.
The other day I was on - you guessed it - Pinterest and found this recipe for a 'miracle cleaner'.  I pinned it to my board, thinking that I may give this a try, maybe, someday.....   Then, my little guy went fishing with a friend, thank you Scott you made his day :)  Due to me not paying close enough attention, Jeremy escaped out of the house with a white t-shirt. When he came back a few hours later, he was very happy that him and his friend Scott had caught some fish, which they released again. Jeremy was all smiles and his face was glowing (it was really hot and he was kinda red and sweaty) and his formerly white shirt wasn't glowing so much. It was pretty dirty. In my experience, with these wash machines here, this was a lost cause. I little spot of mud didn't even come out of his short a while ago. No, this was a lost battle.....  Then I remembered the 'miracle cleaner'. I went to Pinterest, gathered and mixed the ingredients and gave it a try. I sprayed the shirt rather heavily and let it sit just like that for about 30 min ( I had just started a load of laundry, that's how I know that it was 30 min). Then I washed his shirt together with towels and socks and such on hot. I was very curious to see what would happen. When I got it out of the laundry it was - CLEAN !!!  I was so surprised and very happy. This is the reason why I have decided to write a whole blog post on that :)   I am guessing that there are a few mom's out there that could use a 'miracle cleaner' that actually works AND is cheap!
Now, for the recipe, I got it from Modern Day Moms





Ingredients for Miracle Cleaner:

1 part Dawn Dishwashing Liquid (the original blue kind)
2 parts Hydrogen Peroxide
Mix together and pour directly on the stain.


 Now that you know the secret ingredients to certain spot removal, I think it is time that I show you what it for my son's shirt.....



Before
After (what looks like dirt on the bottom, is actually just a shadow)







Before
After
 This is my new 'miracle stain remover' :)

Update: I have had some of the mixture left over, so I just put it away. When I looked later, the color has changed and now it is clear. When I first mixed it, it was blue. I haven't yet tried it again, but will do so with my daughters filthy shirt she brought back from camp. She wore it when she got pied - let's see how it holds up to that challenge ;-)  
Updated Update: Okay, Nina used the mix on her sweat shirt she got the pie on and it sat in her bags for about one week. Then we sprayed it with the now clear 'miracle cleaner' and it worked like a charm. Came out all clean!!!  I am so happy :)                                                                         

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Gluten - Free Taco Pie

I have told you about Pinterest, so now it is time to talk about what I have done there and what the results are.
Well, let's start with food :) That's always good, right?  I made taco pie on Sunday because we have had crock-pot food a few days in a row and I wanted a change of pace. However, the temperature is supposed to be in the 90's, 91 to 99 F or 33 to 37 C, all week. I sense another crock - pot week coming on .... did I tell you that I found this one site on Pinterest with crock-pot recipes for a whole year without any repeats? Oh, I digress, sorry, yeah, the taco pie - also from pinterest ;-)

It was very easy to make and quick, which is always a plus, because everyone is hungry when we come home from church. I had planned to stop by the Health Food Store and see if they have the Betty Crocker Gluten Free Bisquick mix because I wanted to use that instead of the regular wheat version. But the car was overheating very fast and very much and so the logical choice was to go home asap. I found a recipe for homemade gluten free bisquick mix, which is probably cheaper. Well, at least if you have the different flours at home, which you very well might if you live gluten free.

So, without further ado, here is the picture......

Impossibly Easy Taco Pie

Impossibly Easy Taco Pie

It's very easy, click here for the recipe for the taco pie and here for the recipe for the gluten free flour. I put the bisquick mix in a mason jar and store it in the refrigerator - oh, yes, I almost forgot. I didn't have shortening so I used coconut oil, which I feel is healthier anyway, you could probably also use olive oil or whatever you have on hand.




This was so delicious, that we had almost all gobbled up before I remembered to take a picture. Now, our picture isn't that pretty because we didn't put tomatoes on the pie while it was in the oven, I just added tomatoes and lettuce and sour cream on side on our plates. So, here is our picture of the left overs ;-)



I have strayed......

and I will tell you all about it ..... but first let me get back to my last post about the Bible in 90 days. Well, it didn't work for us. We thought it would be nice to listen to the bible while having breakfast. While in theory that was a splendid thought, in real life it didn't work out like that. We tried it a few days, but found that it took us about 1 hour or sometimes more of listening to the selection for the day. When we tried to read it ourselves, it wasn't much better because I think we must be slow readers because it took about the same time. Since we don't have that much time every day, we gave up on this. Maybe someday.....

Now I should tell you about me straying from blogging.....well, I finally discovered Pinterest. I didn't want to have a pinterest account for a long time, because you have to have the " new timeline " on Facebook, which I didn't want to have. Then one day, they got me and I somehow just had it on my facebook. I really, really don't like it. It seems so disorderly and confusing and overwhelming...but since I got stuck with it, I thought I might as well check out this pinterest - thing. Well, to make a long story short - I am having fun over there :)   If you feel like it, you can check out my boards here.  It is very cool, you have pictures of everything and anything you could possibly be interested in, from crafts to home decor, do-it -yourself, books, hobby, homeschooling to anything you can think of. The nice is, that this is a perfect way to keep all those cool things that you see and want to do some other time in one place. For example, all the crock - pot recipes you find online, you can now store on a board on pinterest, all the these cool homeschooling ideas or how about these neat storage and orgianizing ideas you find online? Yep, they can all go on pinterest and since it's all pictures, you can easily browse your boards or the boards of others and re-pin what you see somewhere else and have it all in one space. I find that a cool and very practical idea.  I have several boards with books I have on my kindle, it is so much easier and nicer to look at a picture and be reminded of what I wanted to read next :)


Saturday, March 17, 2012

Bible in 90 days

Have you ever read a biography of George Muller? I did, twice and I was and still am totally inspired. This man helped orphans during a time when no one cared about them. Not only did he give them shelter and food, he also gave them love and more importantly he showed them Jesus! That is already so  inspiring. The next thing that I find amazing about this man is that he didn't have the money to finance the orphanages, it was all donated yet he never ask people for money. He only asked God, who faithfully supplied all that was needed. That is worth a bible study all by itself. With all of this work and responsibilities this wonderful man took the time to read through the entire bible 400 plus times!
This puts the ball in my court and has me wondering how often have I read through the bible? Truth be told, I don't think I ever have read through the complete bible cover to cover.  I have read through most books but I don't think I could say that I read every book and every chapter. I have tried many bible reading plans and make it for about two or three months and then I fall behind and just never quite catch up again and go off on my own tangent. I don't know about others, but I find it very confusing to read in four different places in the bible.


So when a friend of mine wrote about the bible in 90 days, I got curious and googled it. What I found was intriguing. So, I have to read about 1 hour and an average of 12 chapters each day. It really seems like a lot, especially since I am not a fast reader and I can easily get stuck on a verse or sentence and try to analyze it. I thought it would be helpful for me to listen to the bible. I have this really cool app on my iPhone ; Bible.is . I can listen to the whole bible and it is dramatized, the really nice thing is that I can use the ESV which I really like. That way I can fold my laundry or bake bread, drive my teenage daughters all over the place, even do something really useful while I wait for them to take them back home again. I can  listen to the bible, cover to cover (so to speak) in 90 days. I think that is a cool idea. Maybe not like it was intended but hey, I get through the whole bible that way, right?  I hope this will help keep me on track. I am sure there will be days when I read right along.
I have heard, well, actually read, from many people that it is very rewarding to read through the bible in a short time because when you get to the NT you still remember the OT very well, because you have just read it. Also it seems that in this way of reading, it ties the whole bible together in a way that is not always so easily observed when reading through the bible in one year. So, I am very curious and will let you know how it is going.
Maybe you feel like joining me? The Bible.is is free to download or you can just read it.
Tomorrow Genesis is on the schedule chapters 1 through 16.
Let's see what I can tell you tomorrow…...

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Just in case you don't know yet.....

I don't know if you guys know this yet or not, but in April Answers in Genesis is having a conference in Eden Prairie. For Free!!! This will be great! So here are the details..... hope to see you there :)

SAVE THE DATES! Sunday & Monday, April 29 - 30, 2012.

ANSWERS IN GENESIS CONFERENCE with KEN HAM and Dr. Gary Parker
at Grace Church, 9301 Eden Prairie Road,  Eden Prairie, MN.

Parents and children (able to sit & listen for an hour+) are invited to all
sessions!

No childcare provided.
COST: FREE Conference!  Answers
in Genesis products will be available for purchase.

SCHEDULE:
Sunday, April 29, 2012
8:00am & 9:30am & 11:00am - 'Reaching Today's Culture w/the Gospel'
will be taught at each church service.  Pick the time that works best for you!
6:00 p.m. - One Race, One Blood
7:30 p.m. - From Evolution to Creation

Monday, April 30, 2012
9:00 a.m. - Dinosaurs for Kids (aimed at K-6; all ages welcome)

11:00 a.m. - Defending the Christian Faith Biblically & Scientifically (aimed at
7-12th grade; all ages welcome)

6:30 p.m. - Communicating the Christian Message in a Secular World
8:00 p.m. - Geology and Genesis

Questions? Go to: atgrace.com, answersingenesis.org or amyprinty@yahoo.com

Monday, March 12, 2012

This is so horrible.....

When I was much younger I watched a movie called "Flesh". In that movie people where hunting other people to "harvest" their organs and were selling them to the highest bidder. I was about 12 years old or so and I thought it was the most scary movie but I was very confident that it was just science fiction and would never happen in real life. Well, about thirty years later, here we are. We keep hearing about reports of people who have been robbed of their organs, of in so-called "third world countries". The media doesn't even talk about it much.... Now this..... some scientists argue that it should be allowed to murder infants! Where is this evil going to stop??? Children who are handicapped? Grandma and Grandpa? Sick people? I know someone who did this ... Adolf Hitler.  I don't know, this is so shocking, so sickening though the bible tells us that we will encounter evil beyond what we have seen yet....I get the feeling it is on it's way..... I am going to repost an article from Dr. Albert Mohler, who explains the whole issue much better than I could. You know, I feel like I am in a (horror) movie or something.....how can human being even come up this kind of evil? This is one more proof that there are only two sides - either God or Beezlebub - light or darkness.... 
It doesn't help to not know about it. We can always pray and cry out to our Lord. Would you join me in prayer tonight for just a few minutes?

Something Deadly This Way Comes — “After-Birth Abortion”

The debate over abortion comes down to one essential issue — the moral status of the unborn child. Those making the case for the legalization of abortion argue that the developing fetus lacks a moral status that would trump a woman’s desire to abort the child. Those arguing against abortion do so by making the opposite claim; that the unborn child, precisely because it is a developing human being, possesses a moral status by the very fact of its human existence that would clearly trump any rationale offered for its willful destruction.
This central issue is often obscured in both public argument and private conversations about abortion, but it remains the essential question. We have laws against homicide, and if the unborn child is recognized legally and morally as a human being, abortion would be rightly seen as murder.
In the main, abortion rights advocates have drawn the moral line at the moment of birth. That is why, even with our contemporary knowledge of the developing fetus, abortion rights activists have persistently argued in favor of abortions right up to the moment of birth. Anyone doubting this claim needs only to consider the unified opposition of leading abortion rights advocates to restrictions on late-term abortions.
From the beginning of the controversy over abortion, this supposedly bright line of the moment of birth has been unstable. Abortion rights activists have even opposed efforts to restrict the gruesome reality known as partial-birth abortions. The moment of birth has never been the bright line of safety that the defenders of abortion have claimed.
Now, an even more chilling development comes in the form of an article just published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Professors Alberto Giubilini of the University of Milan and Francesca Minerva of the University of Melbourne and Oxford University, now argue for the morality and legalization of “after-birth abortion.”
These authors do not hide their agenda. They are calling for the legal killing of newborn children.
The argument put forth in their article bears a haunting resemblance to the proposal advocated by Dr. Peter Singer of Princeton University, who has argued that the killing of a newborn baby, known as infanticide, should be allowable up to the point that the child develops some ability to communicate and to anticipate the future.
Giubilini and Minerva now argue that newborn human infants lack the ability to anticipate the future, and thus that after-birth abortions should be permitted.
The authors explain that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion” to “infanticide” because their term makes clear the fact that the argument comes down to the fact that the birth of the child is not morally significant.
They propose two justifying arguments:
First: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense.”
Second: “It is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to be a person in the morally relevant sense.”
Thus: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack the properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
Those assertions are as chilling as anything yet to appear in the academic literature of medical ethics. This is a straightforward argument for the permissibility of murdering newborn human infants. The authors make their argument with the full intention of seeing this transformed into public policy. Further, they go on to demonstrate the undiluted evil of their proposal by refusing even to set an upper limit on the permissible age of a child to be killed by “after-birth abortion.”
These “medical ethicists” argue that a traditional abortion is a preferred option, but then state:
“Abortions at an early stage are the best option, for both psychological and physical reasons. However, if a disease has not been detected during the pregnancy, if something went wrong during the delivery, or if economical, social, or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something they cannot afford.”
Nothing could possibly justify the killing of a child, but these professors are so bold as to argue that even “economical, social, or psychological circumstances” would be sufficient justification.
This article in the Journal of Medical Ethics is a clear signal of just how much ground has been lost to the Culture of Death. A culture that grows accustomed to death in the womb will soon contemplate killing in the nursery. The very fact that this article was published in a peer-reviewed academic journal is an indication of the peril we face.
For years now, pro-life activists have been lectured that “slippery slope” arguments are false. This article makes clear the fact that our warnings have not been based in a slippery slope argument, but in the very reality of abortion. Abortion implies infanticide. If the unborn child lacks sufficient moral status by the fact that it is unborn, then the baby in the nursery, it is now argued, has also not yet developed human personhood.
The publication of this article signals the fact that a medical debate on this question has been ongoing. The only sane response to this argument is the affirmation of the objective moral status of the human being at every point of development, from fertilization until natural death. Anything less than the affirmation of full humanity puts every single human being at risk of being designated as not “a person in the morally relevant sense.”
Something very deadly this way comes. This argument will not remain limited to the pages of an academic journal. The murderous appetite of the Culture of Death will never be satisfied.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Yummy treats....

This week we have spend a little of our time watching "The West Ladies" aka Homestead Blessings. We watched the Dairy Delights, Crafts, Cooking and Herbs. It was really fun to see how easy these wonderful ladies make the work look like. Even my little guy had fun watching it and he learned about herbs and such as well. It was pretty cool. Since we were drooling over the cooking dvd and got really hungry, we decided to try some things. Of course we have to adapt some of recipes because we need them to be gluten-free. I have been buying Jules flour for a little while now and really, really like it. It doesn't taste gluten-free at all. We really enjoy it. Anyway, I searched her recipes for peach cobbler and found it. I haven't had peach cobbler since I lived in the south, about 16 years ago. It took me about 10 min to prep it and put it in the oven. It came out very nicely and tasted so delicious! I had a hard time to defend it from certain children (who got up in the middle of the night to steal another piece of peach cobbler). In the morning we had only two pieces left - I guess I have to make some more  :D

A quick picture before it was all gone. Unfortunately GF flour doesn't brown like regular flour.

Yesterday we treated ourselves to homemade ice cream. No we don't use the hand-crank the West Ladies use ;-)  We have a little electric one, which works very nicely and produces about 1 1/2 quarts of ice cream. We tried it last night for the first time and boy, was it good ! The recipe is very easy.

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla

Though I must say that the 2 cups heavy cream was a little too rich. We had some of the cream stuck to the roof of our gums. So next time I will try it with only 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 cups of whole milk. I think that might be just a little less rich. I use vanilla without alcohol, which I think makes it so much better tasting. I will write an update on the reduced fat ice cream. It was too late last night to make chocolate sauce, which I really enjoy, so we used the sprinkles we have on hand.



I liked mine without anything, just pure :)

Monday, March 5, 2012

New system

Jeremy and I were frustrated lately with the way the school work went. I wrote a schedule and gave him a copy and he was supposed to do it. Well, that didn't always work very well for us because at time he didn't know what to do and had to wait for me to have time for him to explain the work that needed to be done. Sometimes he had to wait for about 10 min because I was working with one of his sisters. I think you can imagine what happens to a young boy who has to wait to find out what schoolwork he has to do.....yes, I lost him to his Legos and it was hard to get him back.
I came across a system I had heard of before, but due the fact that we live in a small place always discarded the idea - until a few days ago... I came across a blog from a mom who uses workboxes. After reading and thinking about it, I thought we should try it. It was fun to set up the boxes, though I must say, it does take a little more work on my part. However, my little guy really gets what he has to do and is now happy that he can work independently. He worked on quite a few subjects today without needing help! The only really bad thing is that we now have all the boxes in a corner of our already small place. But it does seem to work very nicely for us. I will let you know how the rest of the week goes, as this is our first day and so I can't say too much about it.
So here is what I do. I have one box per subject, say for example, Literature. I put a blank paper, pencils and his cd in the box. Then I write a note of what I want him to do. In this example : listen to Wind in the Willows ch. 4 and draw a picture about the story and write two sentences. I print this out and add it to the box. Done! Then I move on to the next subject. It gives him a good idea of the work that needs to be done and he can freely choose which subject he would like to do next. Some things we will do together, but most he can do himself.