Fall is Here!

It's officially fall, my favorite season!

The mornings are chilly, with fog wafting over the fields and the days still mostly sunny and warm.
It frosted this morning for the first time, and boy did the heat from the woodstove feel nice this morning as it warmed our sleepy house!

I love fall.
I love the changing colors, the coolness of the outdoors, getting to wear sweaters and seeing pumpkin stands on the side of the road.
I love making apple crisp for dessert and chicken soup for supper, with homemade biscuits and settling down for a nice lively card game after dinner with my family.
I love seeing my breath in the air as I exhale, the crispness and chill that tries to creep into my bones but is banished as soon as I step in front of the toasty warm wood stove with a cup of hot tea in my hand.

The Italian Prunes are ripe on the tree and my mom and I picked all of the good ones a couple of days ago. There were quite a few, so we decided to make prune (or plum? what's the difference, anyway?) butter.

We made some in the crockpot, let it cook overnight and....its kinda gross. It looks good here, but when it was done, it just wasn't very good.
It wasn't totally gross, as in 'just can't eat it or I"ll gag', but I'll be honest: if there was another choice to put on my bread, I'd take it.
So....we put it in the freezer (because that's what you do with food that you don't really like but don't want to throw out just yet) and might make some muffins or something out of it.
I'm kinda disappointed because it smelled amazing and looked really good, but when we tasted it...yeah. Not so good.

In other news,
Monday was Tim and my (Tim and I's? Mine and Tim's? Grammar help??) 7 year anniversary and we went out on a lunch date to celebrate.
We had lunch at this cute little bakery in Coupeville and then walked on the pier, then went thrifting.
Here are a few pictures from that, it was a gorgeous day!!

The Coupville Pier

That bird sitting up there is a Blue Heron

Gorgeous, Huh? I still kinda feel like we're on vacation...haha it's just so beautiful everywhere you go. I can't believe I took this all for granted when I was a kid. It's so nice to be back. :)

Hey, next week is Kid's Clothes Week Challenge, and I'm going to be participating again!

If you want to know more about it, check out the Elsie Marley blog and sign up, it's so fun!
You sew an hour a day for a week and see how many things you can make for your kiddos. (Or grandkids, or friend's kids.)
I'm going to be making Christmas stockings and maybe some doll clothes, and possibly something else if I can find anything cool on Pinterest, which I'm sure won't be hard. ;)

That's all for today's ramblings, come back in a few days for something new!

Life In Washington

We've now been in Washington for not quite a week and it already feels like home.
It might help that it was my home for 18 years, but even the rest of my family is settling right in as if we've always been here.
Of course, we still have moments of adjusting- the coolness of the nights chills us all to the bone, even though it only is in the 50's and we miss our Tennessee friends. (Hi, friends! We love you!!)
We've yet to make any new friends, but I know we will at some point.

But overall, life is good.
Tim has been able to work several days with my brother Scott's boss doing concrete and replacing broken pipes, digging holes, that kind of work. Even though it's only part time and probably temporary, we're incredibly thankful.
The kids have been playing outside and roasting hot dogs over a huge fire and digging in the dirt pit and helping Tim split wood to deliver to someone. (Another odd job to earn some money!)
God is taking good care of us. :)

(Lest you think everything is perfect, Ethan is currently grounded in his room for repeatedly disobeying and hitting his sister. Life is not all sunshine and giggles.)

Here are a few pictures of our beautiful home, and some fun we've had since we've been here.

Here I am, taking pictures of clotheslines again..but isn't this one pretty? My daddy made it.

A water pump in the back yard. It still works.

My mom's gorgeous hydrangeas

Itailan Prunes- what could be fresher than just picking them off the tree? Organic at it's finest.

Ethan watching the cows next door.

Ellie going on a walk down the driveway

Blackberries from the bushes right down the driveway. I made blackberry cobbler with them Yum!

My awesome Daddy, workin' on the bulldozer.

My sweet Mom, picking blackberries with me

My Parent's house- and now our's too!

Tim and Ellie splitting wood together

Ellie's first time playing in the Puget Sound. She loved it!

Playing at Double Bluff- so much fun!

Cookin' hamburgers with Poppa Don

Cows!!

What our mornings look like around here.

Road Trip: Finished!

We made it to Washington!
A day early, actually.
What a surprise and a blessing!

Our trip was really pretty smooth, and we managed to make great time, even with crazy crosswinds in South Dakota and wildfires in Montana, Wyoming and Washington.
We camped two nights and stayed in a hotel one night because I really wanted a shower and because I was really cold the night before. (we didn't have enough blankets!)

The kids did have a really rough time on the second day and we were SO thankful when the day came to a close. Two crying cranky kids in a corolla is not fun.
Try saying that three times fast! :)

Overall though it was a great adventure! I can't say I'll want to do it again any time soon...I'm glad we're done travelling and can rest and have a wonderful place to live. It's so beautiful here!
I'm thankful God brought us safely across the country and kept us from killing each other on the way. ;)

Okay.
Pictures.
Here are a few of our trip- my favorite ones.
I took almost 200 altogether but that would be way too many to share on here, so you get eight carefully selected photos.

I have a thing for barns...I think I probably took around 20 different pictures of barns or silos.
This one is in Missouri, I think.

C'mon though, how beautiful is this??

Golden waves of grain in Iowa

Cool stripey rocks in South Dakota

Beautiful sunset near Buffalo, Wyoming

Lots of smoke in Montana- there were two wild fires burning there when we went through.

There was also a beautiful train bridge hugging the side of a mountain.

Beautiful colors in Montana!

I didn't get any pictures of Idaho (although I wish I did- I think personally it was the most beautiful part of the trip!) but I was driving and Tim couldn't find the camera.
If you ever get a chance to take I-90 through Idaho though, you should. Its gorgeous. Just be prepared for tons of twisty turns and huge mountains.
Next time I'm going to share some pictures of our new home, then after that I'll have some sewing projects I'm working on and maybe a few crafts.
Thanks for sticking with me even though it's been pretty quiet here on the ole blog!
Moving is always crazy, and I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine and trying to post two or three times a week.

Check back tomorrow for pictures of our new home. :)

Natural Body Care Series:A Discovery Of Face Wash From An Unlikely Source

A couple of nights ago I was taking a shower and reached for my face wash, then remembered that I'd used the last of it the day before and forgot to buy more.
(drat!)

Face cleanser is one of those things that I've wanted to make on my own but am kind of scared to/don't have the money to buy expensive essential oils and beeswax or shea butter or anything like that, so I haven't made it on my own yet.

I was kind of in a pinch, because I needed to wash my makeup off before bed so I just grabbed our Homemade Tooth Powder and used that.
Now, before you think I"m crazy, let me tell you what's in it.
It has baking soda, coconut oil, a tiny bit of salt and some peppermint extract.

Guess what gals? It worked great!

The peppermint made my skin all tingly and clean and refreshed, the baking soda and salt exfoliated my skin and the coconut oil moisturized it and took off my makeup, leaving my face fresh and clean and feeling soft.
I am SO happy I discovered this!!

I used it again last night and man, I loved it even more the second time since I knew what to expect.
If you've ever used Burt's Bees Deep Cleansing Cream with Soap Bark and Chamomile, that's what it reminded me of.  Except without the soap bark or chamomile. But you get that same feeling on your face as you do with the Burt's Bees cleanser.

Anyway, if you want some frugal face cleanser, try this out! Just follow the recipe I have on my
Homemade Tooth Powder post and add in about a teaspoon of coconut oil and you're in business.
I love that natural ingredients have so many different uses!!

Natural Body Care Series: Baking Soda Face Scrub

It's been a few days since our last installment of Natural Body Care Products-
I've been slowly replacing our store-bought toiletries with homemade ones and am having fun sharing them with you!

First, I made Homemade Body Wash out of bar soap, castile soap and water. It works great!

Then, I made Avocado Lemon Hair Conditioner last week and am enjoying it thoroughly.

The first time I used it, I used WAY too much and my hair ended up being super oily. Like, 'hair that just came from a photo shoot at the beach, messy, wet look even though it's dry' oily. Ick. Not what I was goin' for at all. ;)
I figured out that if you just use a small scoop, it works much better. And if I use it before I shampoo, it seems to work better for my hair because my shampoo gets out any extra oil that would weigh down my hair.

On to my next natural body care experiment:

Baking Soda Face Scrub

I've been having problems lately with clogged pores on my forehead- I made the mistake of using body lotion on my face while we were on vacation instead of facial lotion.
(Don't EVER do that! You will break out and get bumpy clogged pores. Trust me. I should've just went and gotten some facial lotion.)

Anyway, I was asking a friend what she does for clogged pores, and she told me about just using baking soda as an exfoliator. (Is exfoliator a word? My computer doesn't think it is. If not, it is now!)

I tried using baking soda and it's really nice!
My pores are looking a little bit better too, although they're not totally clear. But they look overall a bit smoother and my face feels so much cleaner!

Here's what you do:
(it's so easy I almost feel silly writing a whole post about it!)

~Start with a make-up free face.

~Get some baking soda out of your cabinet.

~Open up your pores by splashing your face with really warm/hot water or by holding your face over a pot full of steaming water.

~Then, pour a bit of baking soda into your hand and scrub it around on your wet face for about 30-45 seconds.
Make sure you really concentrate on your problem areas- for me, that's my forehead, chin and nose.

~Rinse with slightly warm water, then follow with your regular moisturizer.

That's it.

Try it!
It feels so nice; the baking soda is a gentle yet effective exfoliant because the little particles just rub away dead skin and get the dirt out of your pores without any of the synthetic additives that you'd get in a store bought exfoliating scrub.
If you wanted, you could add a bit of essential oil to your baking soda for an aromatherapy-like scrub. (I'm imagining lavender, mint or eucalyptus, or whatever your favorite herbal scent is.)
I just used plain baking soda because that's what I have, but I'm looking forward to playing around with it and seeing if there are any combinations that I like.

Have you ever used baking soda as an face scrub? How did it work for you? I'd love to hear about it! :)

If you want to know some more uses for baking soda, check back soon because I'm in the process of writing a post about all the ways I can think of that baking soda can be used for. There are so many!


I'm also linking up to The Prairie Homestead's Homestead Barn Hop and Like a Mustard Seed's
Living Green Link-Up.  There are SO many other talented people out there sharing a wealth of knowledge about all things frugal, homesteading and natural; go check them out!

Beauty

Here is a post from my first blog I started (and stopped posting on last year because I started Sweet Swan Songs, and I liked it a lot better.)
I am going to be sharing the posts from my first blog here in the next few weeks, because I think they are relevant and I want to transfer them over to this blog. So, if you've read these posts, sorry! But in most cases, it's been a year since I posted them, so here is a fresh look at some of my thoughts from the past year.
This was written last summer. I'm about to plant the same kinds of flowers this year, and am looking forward to them looking as beautiful as they did last year!

Some thoughts on..Beauty.


My flowers are finally blooming!

Remember way back in the springtime when I said I'd take pictures of my flowers when they stopped looking like sticks and dirt?
Well, the ones that looked like sticks never really did anything except die. (mental note: do not buy flowers from root stock. None of the ones I planted this year came up! )
Thankfully,  my bulbs and seeds did decide to emerge from the soil and now I have lovely, lovely Zinnias and Dahlias and Sunflowers and Marigolds.

Pretty Sunset

Our family likes to take little trips down to the river once in a while.
When the weather is as gorgeous as it has been lately, 'once in a while' turns into 'quite a bit'. :)
We went last night, and it was so pretty! It was mostly dark by the time we got there, and the kids enjoyed running up and down the hills, racing through the grass in the warm breeze.

We also went to the river around sunset a few nights ago.
Here are some pictures of how beautiful God's glory is.
It's amazing!

Nope, I don't know those people. 

Looking across the river to Arkansas

Looking slightly north

That orange is just beautiful!

Pretty, pretty!
I love sunsets. Such a gorgeous way to end the day. :)