Rainy Sunday Productivity

Hurricane Patricia brought an insane amount of rain to Central Texas this weekend & it made for the perfect napping, reading, lazy bum weather.  I lived in yoga pants & long sleeved t-shirts, did {relatively} nothing all day yesterday and decided to be productive after church this afternoon.

It has been on my goal list a handful of months to make my own laundry detergent and so when Coach Husband loudly declared this morning that we were out of Tide, I decided today was the day.  Thanks to a sweet Master Reading Teacher friend I had a recipe o file and got busy. 

Ingredients

Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

20 Mule Team Borax

Purex Crystals

Arm & Hammer Laundry Super Washing Powder

Oxi Clean Stain Fighter

Fels-Naptha Bar Soap (3 of these!)

Five Gallon Bucket for mixing

Airtight container for storage

Grate the bars of soap using a cheese grater.  This was much easier than I originally expected & permeated the kitchen with a clean smell which made my heart happy. 

Dump all the ingredients in a five gallon bucket and mix well with your hands. 

Pour the mixture into your air tight container & voilà!

All in all the ingredients cost us about $20.00 or essentially one bottle of Tide liquid detergent.  However, the container looks as though it could last us 8 months to a year running around seven loads of laundry a week.  {Yes, there are only two of us and it takes seven loads of laundry….I’m a little OCD when it comes to sorting}.

It took a total of 15 minutes to make and as I pulled our first load of laundry out of the washing machine this afternoon I am pleasantly surprised with the cleanliness and fresh smell!

P.S. This weekend was Homecoming and for the first time in eight years I was not in attendance at the game.  Kickoff was at 11 a.m. and CH had meetings until noon.  It was the weirdest feeling for both of us, but I was still able to hug my sweet Alpha Chi Family Line minus a few generations.  I guess when Bre comes in December for the final game of the season we will have to make up full force for all the haunts we missed this weekend. 

You Jump, I Jump Jack

I had a goal this month to begin planning a reunion trip with Bre, but the Lord stepped in and orchestrated His own!  Unexpectedly this past week Bre & I were able to squeal, hug, eat Blue Bell, a copious amount of food and drink Dr Pepper together for seven hours.  It was exactly what my heart needed and I am so grateful for the fabulous guys in our lives that made it possible.

Saturday morning I was sitting in a professional development conference (yes, teachers work weekends) when Bre sent me a text message that she would be in Texas by 10:00 that night.  Work was sending her to Houston and we started scrambling for a plan of how we could meet up.  In a crazy whirlwind of cheap flights for the Bre, a steal of a hotel across from the ballpark and a really wonderful husband of mine we worked out a plan.  Coach Husband & I drove the three hours to H-Town on Sunday morning.  I didn’t wait for the car to be in park before I was rushing the hotel lobby to hug my best friend!  We then went on a crazy adventure to find lunch, I experienced my first Uber ride and we ate a really random pizza place.  From there we went to the baseball game & cheered on the boys.  Ate way too much food, laughed together, took copious amounts of pictures and headed back to their hotel for a final few minutes of togetherness before we left.

CH drove us home late Sunday evening while I cried pretty much the entire way.  We had a blast being together again & the countdown is on until Bre comes to Waco!

EIGHT WEEKS!

Friends, Food & Fall

I am blessed with a plethora of fabulous people in my life.  Surrounded in fact but women who are fiercely seeking out the life the Lord has for them and it is so encouraging.  However, over the past year I have slowly come to realize that while I “know” a lot of people, my circle of close friends is…limited.  These past few months I have been intentional about building, investing and cultivating relationships with women who are quickly becoming my tribe. 

Two of these fabulous women are co-workers of mine!  Tamara teaches first grade next door & Sarah is our phenomenal art teacher. {She is amazing.  One of my littles actually used the words, “organic shape” to me last week.  I am a certified professional and could not tell you what that means if my life depended on it}  Sarah is also the owner of Paint the Town Waco and the last two months Tamara & I have become pretty obsessed with her classes!  This past weekend Sarah hosted a “Pumpkin Painting Party” to bring in the pumpkin season.  There were so many women in attendance and we had the best time laughing, painting, eating and fellowshipping.  In the spirit of fall and pumpkins I have a couple of themed snacks to share with you!

The first is the pumpkin oranges.  I {obviously} stole this idea off of Pintrest and I am contemplating handing them out along with candy to trick or treaters!  Coach and I love fruit so we might give it a try.

Pumpkin Oranges

·       Clementines/Tangerines

·       Celery

--Peel your citrus fruit

--Slice celery into small pieces

--Place celery in the top, middle section of the citrus & serve

Confession.  I hate the taste of pumpkin.  It’s totally not my thing, so when I stumbled across this recipe for Pumpkin dip in an old cookbook I thought I would bring it for those who do enjoy pumpkin things.  After trying it though, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it!

Pumpkin Dip

·       1 can pumpkin

·       Cinnamon (to taste)

·       Ginger (to taste)

·       Cloves (to taste)

·       1 package vanilla pudding mix

·       1 8 oz. tub Cool Whip (thawed)

--Mix pumpkin, spices & vanilla pudding mix together in medium sized bowl

--Fold cool whip into pumpkin mixture until mixed through

--Refrigerate until ready and serve with Nilla Wafers or graham crackers  

Obviously you could not have a painting party with no chocolate!  The acorn cookies were a tad bit more labor intensive but the taste at the end was scrumptious!

 Acorn Cookies

·       Nutter Butter Bites

·       Milk chocolate chips

·       Hershey’s Kisses

--Melt ¼ bag of chocolate chips

--Smear melted chocolate on the bottom of an un-wrapped Hershey’s kiss

--Attach Nutter Butter Bite to Hershey’s Kiss

--Chill in refrigerator