Haircuts at home

We cut hair at home. This is a pretty easy way to save a pretty sizable chunk of money every year. When I figured up some very conservative estimates for our family of 6 I came up with $330.00 that we would have to pay each year if we got our haircuts elsewhere. We would also have the cost of gas and it would take more time then doing it at home. We also wouldn't get the benefit of old hair in our compost pile or around our garden to keep animals away. I am not a professional hair cutter and so I do pretty simple haircuts (or sometimes, like pictured above, my extended family helps out.).

For all the boys we use the clippers (or "buzzer") These are not that expensive to buy and they last quite well and you can get them sharpened if they get dull. For my husband I use the 3/4 inch comb for the top of his head and the 1/2 inch comb for the sides and back.

For the boys I do 1/2 inch comb on the top and 1/4 inch on the sides and back and then I trim with a scissors above the ears, and I shave it around the bottom and on the neck.


For the girls I just have to trim their bangs regularly which works best to do with dry hair and start longer than you want and then work at evening it out. (this is a place where it is easy to get to short!) Every so often I will trim the back of the hair too, which I usually do with wet hair.




For mine we did something different. I figured that a layered cut is hair cut shorter on the layers of hair that are on top. If you have long hair and you hang your head upside down the hair from the top of your head goes the farthest down and the hair from the bottom is the shortest, etc. When my youngest sister was over the other day I had her cut my hair this way. I lay on the table with my head hanging down, as pictured, then she trimmed a couple of inches off of the end. The other pictures are the result. I think it worked pretty well. It is probably not the best haircut I have ever had but it certainly isn't the worst either. It is very fast and easy too.
If you would like more info on cutting hair here are some websites that have info:
http://www.hairfinder.com/howto/how_to_cut_hair.htm
http://www.expertvillage.com/videos/cutting-hair-scissor-cut.htm

More ways to use Zucchini!

We have still be getting a lot of zucchini from the garden and so I have been busy trying to fit it into our diets. My family doesn't prefer huge amounts at once so I try to stick little bits in often. Here are some of the things we have enjoyed lately:

• Zucchini Nut Muffins This is a new recipe and one we are really enjoying!
  3 cups flour (I use mostly whole wheat)
  1 teaspoon baking powder
  1 teaspoon salt
  1 teaspoon baking soda
  1 teaspoon cinnamon
  1 1/2 cups sugar
  4 eggs
  1/2 cup oil
  2 1/2 cups grated zucchini
  1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  1 cup raw sunflower seeds
  3/4 cup raisins
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Add eggs oil, zucchini and vanilla and beat. Fold in sunflower seeds and raisins. Put in greased or paper lined muffin tins. Bake 25 minutes. Makes 24 muffins.
• Yummy Zucchini and Carrot Patties.
  1/2 cup flour
  1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  1/2 teaspoon salt
  1/4 teaspoon pepper
  1 egg
  1/4 cup milk
  1 cup grated carrots
  1 cup grated zucchini
  2 tablespoons chopped onion
  Mix dry ingredients. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Place a skilled over medium heat and add a little oil. When oil is hot, spoon some batter in the pan making little patties. cook for about 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Serve warm either plain or with salsa and sour cream. We really like these and they reminded me of onion rings.
• On Pizza We tried chopping up the zucchini small and putting it on homemade pizza. It was quite good.
• In Quesidillas Again I chopped it small and then fried it with the onions, garlic and meat and then put that mixture and cheese in the tortilla and fried it. Nobody notice the squash.
• In Jello This is one from my mom and not actually one that I have tried. She put zucchini in the blender and made it into a liquid and then warmed it up and used it for the liquid in jello. She used orange Jello and I guess it turned it brown (and my 15 year old sister thought it wasn't very attractive) but it tasted fine.
• In Yeast Bread This is another one from my mom. She again liquefied it and then used it for the liquid in bread.

I hope these ideas are helpful to you!

Going camping!

In two weeks our family is going camping. We are very excited! We are going to the Jackpine Retreat, a rustic family camp that is one of the highlights of our year.

This camp is in Minnesota up near the Canadian border. I have gone since before I was one year old. I believe I have only missed two years in my life, the first time when I lived in Iowa (so about a 14 hour trip away) and 2 weeks away from delivering my first child and the 2nd time when I lived in Wichita, Kansas and was even farther away. Growing up this camp had no running water (it was hauled in), and no electricity. (So no showers and you used outhouses). We still use outhouses but there is electricity and water and one shower that everybody shares. But those are not the important things. What was and is important is the great Christian fellowship, the learning and singing around the campfire (either with bluegrass instruments or acappella), the beauty of nature that God created and just learning how tough you can be. It is a great place for kids to run and play and have fun balancing on a log or having races while manuvering an electric spool. The other day I was feeling very nostolgic about Jackpine Retreat and I found some pictures that I had and made them into a slideshow which is at the bottom of the page (I couldn't figure out how to put it in the post.)

Camping in general is a great family activity. It can be a very cheap way to vacation ( or I suppose you could buy expensive equipment, go to exotic locations and buy all pre-made food and make it expensive), as well as a great way to make your family grow closer together. Challenges faced together having a tendency to help you grow closer relationships and make memories, camping provides challanges that we don't face in day to day life (such as staying dry when it rains, or dealing with being wet if you don't stay dry, figuring out how to cook while camping, braving the cold nights, etc.

Camping is also good for homeschooling. It can really help to make kids understand what life was like a little better in the "olden days". What it is like to use and outhouse (or the woods) , having to carry your water, cooking over a fire, sleeping on the ground and many other things. One year when I was a teen we came up to the Jackpine campground in the summer (in addition to the September Jackpine Retreat) and had a old time survival camp. (There are some pictures in the slide show below) We worked at building our own shelter, starting a fire with flint and steel, foraging for food and stuff like that. It was a blast (even though we hadflies all day and mosquitoes all night and very hot weather). Camping is something that kids learn from and will remeber for their lifetime.

What do you like about camping? Do you have any good camping tips? Or any fun memories of Jackpine Retreat?

The beauty of breastfeeding

I am in the process of weaning my last child. It is a little bittersweet. Weaning was going fairly well until I developed mastitis. I ended up going to the doctor today for an antibiotic. Anyway I have been thinking about breastfeeding and the neat things about it. I did a little research to and I thought I would share with you some of the benefits of breastfeeding.

• It is better for the babies health. Breast milk has just the right mix for the baby's development. It has antibodies in it to help protect infants from bacteria and viruses and it helps them to fight of infection. Babies that are breastfed tend to be leaner throughout their lifetime. Babies that are breastfed tend to visit the Doctor less. They have less cases of SIDS, diabetes, high cholesterol and asthma.
• Breast feeding is great for losing weight! Breastfeeding (without supplementing) can burn 600 calories everyday which is like 2 hours of aerobic exercise. I have loved not having to be concerned about weight at all for several years. I weigh less now than I did when I was in college.
• Breasting feeding is a great time for relaxing. I have enjoyed having time to do a lot of reading.
• No menstrual period for quite a while! Very nice!
• Nursing helps to lower your risk for ovarian and breast cancer.
• Breastfeeding is very cost efficient! I can't imagine how much money I have saved by breastfeeding 4 kids.
• Breastfeeding saves time. No having to mix up bottles, breast milk is ready all the time. I don't have to wash bottles either, or spend time buying formula.
• There is less trash with breastfeeding as we don't have formula cans or bags or anything like that to throw away.
• More sleep! When my babies wake up in the night I don't have to get up and make a bottle up and sit up holding the bottle in place, I just pull my baby in bed by me and feed her.

What do you like about breastfeeding?

Remaking Clothes

One way that I clothe our family economically is by remaking clothes. We are given a lot of hand-me-downs, which are not always in the size or style that we want or need. Instead of just getting rid of them or turning them into quilts, I try to look them over and see if there is a way to turn them into something that we do need or want.
This dress at the left was given to us and fit my daughter Mara. However it was rather on the short side (I have a tall daughter) and we don't like short dresses for Mara. (She has trouble sitting and acting ladylike in long dresses, it would be quite a trial to keep covered up with a short one.) So instead of just passing it on again we revamped it. She did need another dress (we had some weddings to go to as well as for church). I found some material that I had left over from a bridesmaids dress and I added a layer on the bottom. The darker blue matched the flowers that were in the dress (that is kind of hard to tell in the picture). Mara wanted me to add some pink to it to so I added the pink strips. I wasn't totally happy with the result but she was and I was okay with it.
My other project for this summer was modest swimsuits. When we were out in Oregon for some weddings we went to the ocean which I knew wasn't going to be a private beach like we sometimes find here in Minnesota. I could have just worn shorts and a t-shirt but I thought it would be nice to have something a little easier to swim in and something Ken would like. For mine I used a pair of exercise pants that we had been given (that were pretty much out of black swimsuit material) and then a little bit of pink fabric that I had on hand. I made pretty much a sun
dress that had a high neckline and was tight under the arms. I then wore it over a bikini. It work out really well and I was happy with it. I used up pretty much every scrap of the exercise pants.
For Mara's swimsuit we took one that she already had and added a skirt to it. To make the skirt I cut a big circle out of some black fabric that I had on hand (bought for a dollar a yard, and I made a suit for my youngest son but I had leftover). The material was a polyester suit material so I figured it wouldn't soak up water that much and would dry quickly. I cut a hole in the middle of the circle to go around her waist and sewed it onto the swimsuit. Then we added the ribbon over top to cover up where I had zig-zagged the shirt on. The skirt came all the way down over her knees which was a little longer than I had planned but worked
out fine. She loved it. She had never cared for wearing shorts over her suit but the skirt she loved.

• Some of the other ways that I like to remake clothes are:
• ~ Turn adult pants into little kids pants. little boys pants are sometimes rather hard to come by, but often adult pants are pretty easy to get. Find a simple pattern for elastic waist pants and you can wip up a pair pretty quickly. Sometimes you can even use the hem and the sideseam from the original pair of pants.
  Just cut them up the inseam and the middle of the front and back and lay your pattern on.
• ~I have also taken old maternity dresses of mine and turned it into dresses for my daughter. An empire waist dress (without darts) works for a full length waist for a smaller person. Just re-cut the sleeve area and the side seams and shorten the length.
• ~ Another way to make dresses for girls is to add a skirt to a t-shirt. Find some fabric that coordinates and gather it up (or pleat it) and sew it on. A very quick way to make a dress.
• ~A way to use old sweaters is to make mittens or hats out of them. Go here for directions for the mittens. Here are directions for some interesting hats.

I have had a lot of fun remodeling clothing. When you are doing something like that, remember not to stress over it. You are saving something from the trash anyway, if it turns out that you hate it, turn it into a rag, you didn't pay anything for it anyway.
I would love to hear your ideas for remaking clothes and if you have blogged about let me know where as I would love to look at it.
Have Fun!

Before It Is Too Late

If you have a tender message,

Or a loving word to say,

Do not wait till you forget it,

But whisper it today;

The tender word unspoken,

The letter never sent,

The long forgotten mesages,

The wealth of love unspent,

For these some hearts are breaking,

For these some loved ones wait;

So show them that you care for them

Before it is to late.

~Frank Herbert Sweet