Star Wars in 7 minutes

Domestic Bliss - Making Laundry Soap and Fabric Softener

I have been collecting detergent jugs. With the help of Betsy I had accumulated enough jugs to fill! 

Now that I have ample room for storage I can devote a shelf to some of my 

favorite homemade creations!

 

 

 

Detergent jugs at the ready!

 

Leave to gel overnight. Fill jugs half full of mixture and half full of water. Shake well before use.

 

 

 

 

Homemade Fabric Softener.

Usually I just use straight white vinegar for my fabric softener. 

It gets rid of grim and neutralizes odors. But when I want something scented I just add essential oils!

Here are a few of my favorite blends.

 

Fill your downy ball with a few drops or for add the oils to a full gallon of white vinegar. 

 

The lemon in this fruity combination whitens.

 

These offer a little more of a manly scent. The knock-off Thieves mix kills germies and other uglies. It acts as a bug repellent as well.

 

When I first showed Alisha and Rachel this scent they loved it! 

We used it in all of our recipes that day! It’s just well...lovely!

 



 

"I am myself."

Herbal Vinegar for Your Hair

My Mom used to rinse my hair with vinegar after shampooing. She began doing this when 

I was about nine. My body was changing and my hair started to become more oily. I gagged 

EVERY time as the cold, smelly vinegar splashed through my hair down my body. I was thankful 

when she ceased the practice.

Now that I am grown-up I actually want to put vinegar on my hair again!

I enjoy experimenting with herbs and coming up with my own combinations. I was struck by one of

my creative moods so I decided to whip up a quart...steep up a quart?

 

Anywho, I researched and decided what herbs I wanted to use.

This is the combination I made-

l Oatstraw

l Nettle 

l Catnip 

l Calendula 

l Yarrow 

l Licorice 

l Horsetail 

l Chamomile 

l Rosemary 

l Peppermint

 

I selected these herbs due to the qualities they possessed. 

To combat oiliness, strengthen my hair, help with split ends, give my hair nutrients. 

Those were the qualities I wanted to harness.

 

Add the herbs to a clean quart jar. Keep in mind that the herbs will expand over time when they are 

steeping. Then fill the jar with apple cider vinegar.

 

Such a pretty sight!

What’s more exciting than making your own herbal concoctions? Making it with herbs that you have 

grown yourself! I L-OV-E Calendula! It does wonders on scraps and leaves your skin feeling 

wonderful. Why not try it on your hair? 

I made a salve for my mom one year and she loved it. Her hands are in water most of the time 

because she owns and operates her own dog grooming business. Everyday she uses  lotion and 

moisturizer on her hands. She tried the salve I made for her in the morning and by the afternoon 

she showed me her hands. She told me that they had been cracking and bleeding a little because 

they were so dry. But now you couldn’t even see the cracks! The secret is in the sap. The flowers of C. officinalis contain flavonol glycosides, triterpene oligoglycosides, oleanane-type triterpene glycosides, saponins, and a sesquiterpene glucoside.^[6][7]

 

The vinegar pulls all of those lovely qualities out of the herbs. It has turned a pretty shade of 
brownish red. Let steep for 1-2 weeks then strain off your herbs. The pretty bottle is optional. :) 
Use in place of

regular hair conditioner. I use a cup filled with it and after shampooing I put all of the hair that 

I can fit into the cup and let it swish and sit in it for awhile. Then I pour little splashes over the 

hair on my head. 

I put the ends into the cup again a few more times then pour whatever is left over my head. 

Keeping my head tilted back of course. 

Rinse well if you don’t want to smell like a pickle.

Snow day- Time to can!

 

I had some home-canned fruit juices sitting in my pantry and some juices I made last fall from our grapes and apples 

sitting in the freezer. I was struck by another one of my creative moods. 

The forecast called for snow all day so I decided it was a good day to can! 

 

The results were delicious!

 

Not pictured spiced grape-apple-raspberry jelly.

 

I have started to clean out the chest freezer at our old house. I brought over some corn and a few 

chickens. One, a rooster that had to go. And the second a big old brute from 2012 that has been

waiting to get turned into something.

I roasted the rooster for dinner and the leftovers are now barbecue chicken and stock.  

 

 



 

One of Libby’s chickens that has been languishing in the chest freezer for a few years. 

The birds weren’t good for roasting because they were so big and tough. They are much more 

suitable for soup and chicken salad. I took out my huge stock pot, put in the bird, added an onion, 

some garlic, celery and a carrot, filled it with water and let it cook all day. After this bird cooked I 

picked the meat off, bagged and put it in the freezer. As for the stock I let that cool before I bagged 

and threw that in the freezer. When I was done I ate the cooked carrots at the bottom and put the rest

of the spent ingredients into the garbage bowl to be thrown to the chickens-the live ones. 

 



 

 



 Ugh! Winter, go home!                                    ...a little while later...

 

First Impressions

 I walked into my friend, Betsy’s, house. I was greeted by the strange hissing noise of a 

giant silvery stock pot with steam coming out of the top. 

Her mom and younger sister were bustling about with food and glass jars. 

 

“Mom’s canning carrots.” Betsy said, never failing to inform me of her family’s going’s-on. Having no clue what it meant to can something and not having the confidence to ask 

I just smiled and nodded. “The carrots Mom is using are actually deer bait.” 

She looked at me half expecting some sort of surprised reaction. B

ut again I just smiled and nodded. 

 

Looking back I think she told me things to see how I would react, 

but she didn’t really ever get much of a shocked reaction from me. 

 

“Oh, apple cider has protein from the bugs in the apples? That’s interesting.

 In fact that is kind of neat. Sure! I won’t tell anyone. :) ” 

 

“The big black tub that we are washing the apples in is really used to water the horse and the cow. 

Hmm, well if you washed it out I guess it’s okay. Sure, I won’t tell anyone. :)”

 

“You guys had to pick out some of the deer carrots because they were moldy from being in a

 plastic sack. Hmm. You gotta do what you gotta do I guess. :)” 

 

Later that evening I was standing next to Libby while she practiced her flute. 

Wendy was sitting at the end of the dining room table talking to me trying to get to know me better. 

Betsy’s youngest brother Logan was at the sink getting a drink of water. Her oldest brother Aaron 

came in from working out in the barn. 

 

Midst the hissing of the pressure canner, flute playing and chatter I see 

Aaron begin to poke and tease his little brother who wasn’t even half of his age. 

I was not impressed. Growing up in a family where “Stop” meant “Stop” the moment you say it, 

I was disturbed that a young man approaching 30 would continue to harass a boy who wasn’t

 even in high school yet. Still being a newcomer to their house I quieted the ‘crusader’ inside of me. If I was any braver...oh boy.

“Those canners are still hot!” Wendy raised her voice a little. Aaron stopped. 

Logan drank his water with a scowl still on his face. 

 

Aaron’s eyes met mine. Him still grinning after being scolded by his mother. Grow up! 

I was giving him my “I am not impressed” look. I could tell he was a little embarrassed now. 

Good. Picking on someone less than half your age- not impressive especially to a person like me. 

 

Looking back, whether or not he was trying to show off I did not know. 

But nevertheless I thought he was acting childish. Little did I know that he was 

actually kind of interested in me. Years later he told me that whenever Betsy would 

talk about this Lauren he wanted to hear what she had to say.

 

Proverbs 22:6 talks about training children onto the right path and when they 

are old they will not leave it. Children are being trained 24/7 whether parents know it or not.

 I find that a lot of what we are told indirectly as children has just as much if not more of a 

lasting affect on us as we grow older.

 

Growing up we were not allowed to tease. Ever. Like never-forever-never-ever. Mom not only had eyes in the back of her head, but she also had super sonic hearing

 and telepathy. Any sort of discord was squashed. Which was a disservice to me in the area 

of conflict resolution but that’s another story. 

 

When I stepped out into a bigger world I found for some that is not the case. 

That’s not bad. It’s just different and I have come to find that, that’s okay.

 

“To be teased is to me loved.” I heard Betsy quote a friend of ours.

 

Presently, I can take teasing a little bit better than what I used to. Instead of a deadpan look

 I can at least smile and even come up with a witty (witty for me anyway) comeback.

 

I can’t undo the past but I can probably take people who know me by surprise now. 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Blimey Cow - Youtube

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Update and How to ruin your life!

 

Hey everyone! Hope you have been having a good week. Four of my husbands siblings have been gone to PA this week. So things have been pretty quiet and kind of empty.  Things have been greening up on the farm lately. My garlic is growing. My rhubarb and Grandma's rosebush survived. I have been starting some seeds and we have been scouring seed catalogs. Aaron has been doing work outside and I am planning on moving flowers around soon.

 

The air is getting warmer and there is the smell of spring on the breeze.  I am gearing up for a super busy summer. Gardening, Farm life, fixing up our old house, blueberries, canning. I'm tired just thinking about it.   

 

Stay tuned for pictures!



 

 

 

 

An interesting article on the 'silent treatment'

Oh the silent treatment. It's an easy and readily available mechanism. But, it can cause more damage than what we may realize.  

 

 

The Surprising Truth About The Silent Treatment

Posted October 9, 2014 by Hey Sigmund

17,286 views

The silent treatment is a way to inflict pain without visible bruising – literally.

Research has shown that the act of ignoring or excluding activates the same area of the brain that is activated by physical pain.
The best predictor of divorce isn’t whether a couple fights – arguments are inevitable – but how a couple fights. The key to being closer in the good times lies in the way a couple treats each other during the bad.
The silent treatment can tend to present itself as a response more fitting of the ‘high road’, one of grace and dignity, but research has shown it is anything but.
Kipling Williams, a Professor of Psychology at Purdue University who has studied ostracism for twenty years, explains, ‘Excluding and ignoring people, such as giving them the cold shoulder or silent treatment, are used to punish or manipulate, and people may not realise the emotional or physical harm that is being done.’
The ability to detect ostracism is hardwired in us – it doesn’t matter if you’re being ignored by a group or a person you can’t stand, the pain still registers.

The silent treatment, even if it’s brief, activates the anterior cingulate cortex – the part of the brain that detects physical pain. The initial pain is the same, regardless of whether the exclusion is by strangers, close friends or enemies.

The silent treatment happens when one partner pressures the other with requests, criticism or complaints and the other responds with silence and emotional distance.
Paul Schrodt, PhD, Professor of Communication Studies reviewed 74 relationship studies which involved more than 14,000 participants.
Findings from his in-depth analysis revealed that the silent treatment is ‘tremendously’ damaging to a relationship. It decreases relationship satisfaction for both partners, diminishes feelings of intimacy, and reduces the capacity to communicate in a way that’s healthy and meaningful.
‘It’s the most common pattern of conflict in marriage or any committed, established romantic relationship,’ says Schrodt. ‘And it does tremendous damage.’
It’s an incredibly hard pattern to break because both partners lay the blame at the feet of the other.
‘Partners get locked in this pattern, largely because they each see the other as the cause,’ explains Schrodt. ‘Both partners see the other as the problem.’ One partner will typically complain that the other is emotionally unavailable. The other will accuse his or her partner of being too demanding or critical.
When couples become locked in this ‘demand-withdraw’ pattern, the damage can be both emotional and physiological include anxiety and aggression as well as erectile dysfunction and urinary and bowel problems.
It doesn’t matter which partner demands or which one withdraws, the damage to the relationship is the same. It’s the pattern itself that’s the problem, not the specific partner.
The silent treatment should not be confused with taking time to cool down after heated or difficult exchange. Williams suggests that instead of reverting to the silent treatment, try ‘I can’t talk to you right now, but we can talk about it later.’
Nobody engages the silent treatment expecting it to damage the relationship, and that’s the danger.
Generally, it’s called on as the weapon of choice because it’s powerful and it’s easy to get away with. There is nothing subtle about a physical or verbal lashing, but an accusation of the silent treatment, ‘Are you ignoring me?’ can easily be denied.
Silence can feel like a dignified, high road response but it’s not. It’s a way to inflict pain but without the physical marks.
Being noticed is so close to being loved, that sometimes they feel the same.
Being ignored is just as powerful.

 

Mid-week Special #1- 25 facts about me.

25 facts about me

1. I have never been stung by a bee.

2. I used to shoot competitive air rifle, I was pretty darn good.

3. My blood type is A+

4. I was born during a thunderstorm on my Grandma’s birthday.

5. My aunt thought that I was reincarnated.

6. My first pet was a goldfish named Glenda. I thought I had cleverly made up the name myself. 

But when I would tell people about her they would say things along the lines of “The Good Witch?”

 Having never watched the Wizard of Oz, I didn’t know what they were talking about.

7. My plans upon entering college were to get a business degree then go into interior design.

8. I am a closet geek. I love Star Wars.

9. My MBTI personality is INFP. Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving.

10. Octopus or squirrel tie for the weirdest thing I have ever eaten.  

11. My dream vacation would either be Hawaii or Jerusalem

12. I was a P.O. (petty officer, unpaid deck-hand) in the BaySail program on the Appledore V schooner a few years in high school.

13. I didn’t go to my Senior Prom.

14. Growing up I wanted to be a writer, and I still do.

15. I was first chair in Symphonic and Concert Band and Section Leader my senior year in band 

in High School.

16. The first nightmare I ever remember having was about a big black spider 

(with goggly eyes) crawling towards me from under my bed.

17. I have six piercings-relax they are all in my ears.

18. I am a granny driver and I would much rather have someone else drive.

19. I was almost named Lauren Rose

20. I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh

21. I don’t know how to type properly.

22. I want to learn how to throw knives.

23. I would like to have 7 children, 4 boys, 3 girls, but I’ll take whatever God gives me.

24. My favorite computer game growing up was the Yukon Trail.

25. I startle easily. I am very jumpy.