Laptop changes

My computer looks different than it used to. See, Son's lap top finally gave out completely. It has crashed a few times before and he was able to repair it himself. But this time was it's swan song and there's no more repairing for it. Maybe Son should think about getting some kind of life insurance policy for laptops the next time he gets one! Anyway, since I was having a problem with my laptop monitor (a weird triple line running down the right side of the screen), Son put his screen on my laptop. So now, I have a slightly larger screen. It also has better resolution than my old screen did.

He took my old keyboard out and put his in, too. The cat had ripped two keys off mine and although I could still use the empty spots for the keys, it wasn't as easy. Now my laptop has a bunch of stickers on the keys from a kit he'd gotten at a computer store. All kinds of black and white figures. Anyway, at least I have all the keys!

He also put in both of his sticks of RAM to see if my machine would run faster. it helped somewhat, but it's really the exact same amount of RAM that I had before. He fine tuned my laptop a bit, removing old Wild Tangent games that I'm not going to buy, eliminating some of the start-up processes, and getting some programs off the quick-launch bar. Now it boots up a lot faster.

I suppose a little "housekeeping" is always in order for computers and laptops. This one is pretty old - I've had it three years which is a pretty long time for a computer. I'm really wanting a new laptop, but that will have to wait for awhile.

Technorati Tags: laptop,computer

New laundry soap recipe

• 1 bath size bar Ivory soap (4 oz.)
• 1 1/2 cups borax
• 1 1/2 cups soda ash
• 3 quarts cold water

Finely grate or shred the Ivory soap. In a large, dry pan (non-aluminum), mix the soap shreds, borax, and soda ash. Add cold water, mixing with plastic spoon while adding water. Place over medium heat. Stir constantly until soap shreds are completely melted. Pour into a bucket or other non-metal container. Add 3 more quarts of cold water. Mix well and allow to cool. This should be a very thick gel that will dissolve even in cold water.

Use 1/2 cup of this mixture per load of laundry.

Technorati Tags: soap making,laundry soap

Home made laundry soap update

I wanted to update you about the home made laundry soap I made a few weeks ago. I tried the powdered variety, but since we have well water it didn't really dissolve as well as I like. So, I changed to a gel variety. It's basically the same recipe. You just add water to it and let the soap, borax, and soda ash dissolve.

The first round of gel laundry soap was too thin and watery. I suspect I just wasn't using enough Ivory soap to make the batch, so I switched to larger bars - bath size bars. The next batch came out the way I expected. A thick, white gel-ish soap.

I use 1/2 cup of the gel per load. I hang my clothes on the clothesline, so one of the real tests was whether it made my clothes stiff. It didn't. Even the towels come off the line fairly soft. I don't use fabric softener, so this was a real victory as Son complains that with commercial laundry soap, the towels are rough.

The home made laundry soap doesn't have any fragrances or dyes in it, and it doesn't have chemicals in it that I can't pronounce. Ivory soap is real soap - fat, lye, and water - so I don't have to worry about unusual chemicals in that, either.

If you make your own home made  bath  or cleaning soap, you should have no problem using that in your laundry soap recipe.

This kind of laundry soap won't get you out of your debt problems, but it is a beginning in learning how to live without so many commercial products. At a later time, I'll share with you how to make bath soap in your crock pot so you can have it on hand for personal use, for general cleaning, or for making laundry soap. I will say that a crock pot will produce about three pounds of soap, which is really quite a bit. The larger bars of Ivory soap are only 4 ounces.

It's a very satisfying project to undertake.

Technorati Tags: soap making,laundry soap

Computer crash

Son has learned a hard lesson lately. His laptop crashed. He had a lot of fun stuff on it and thought he had it fixed, but then it crashed so far down that he can't even wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows! The lesson is: Do backups to CD or use a service to do an  online backup.

I'd hate to think of losing all the information I have stored on my laptop. But, I'm just as guilty of not doing the necessary backups and making copies as he was. What am I thinking?

What if your computer crashed? What would you lose?

Technorati Tags: computer,backup

Herbal teas

Drying my herbs gives me not only a chance to have delicious, organically grown herbs in the winter, it also gives me a way to have great food and beverages throughout the year. Today, I made orange mint iced tea, which is really good. Using dried mint in a mesh tea ball, I can actually get more of the herbal flavor infused into the tea than I can with fresh cuttings in the tea ball,

See, using dried herbs means that I get more leaves in a smaller "package" so the flavor is more concentrated.

I made the orange mint iced tea using the same method as I do for every mint iced tea. For hot tea, the steps are slightly different.

Mint Hot Tea

• Enough dried mint to fill a mesh tea ball
• 1 pint of water
• 2 small tea bags, if desired

Place the mint in the tea ball. Put tea ball and tea bags in the water and bring it to a low boil. Turn off the heat and let the tea steep for three minutes. Pour into a tea pot which has been preheated with hot water, discarding the tea bags and used mint. Add 2 teaspoons honey or other sweetener to your tea cup. Pour the tea over the sweetener and stir. Enjoy!

Orange mint and chocolate mint really lend themselves well to hot tea. They are very relaxing at the end of a hard day. How lovely to put up your feet and sip a wonderful mint tea before you head to bed!

Treating yourself to these kinds of lovely teas puts you in a better mood, too, in my opinion. Growing your own mints is a good money saving tool for your budget. While you're enjoying the fruits of your gardening efforts, you can begin to ponder things like which business plan consultants you may want to employ, which business model you will choose to use, and how to budget both your time and your money in order to be successful.

Go ahead. Brew a pot of mint tea for yourself. Put up your feet. Jot notes down on a pad of paper. Relax and plan.

Technorati Tags: mint,tea,recipe

Setting goals

As a woman, I often feel compelled to succeed probably just to prove myself to others. From time to time, I have to sit back and re-assess just what I'm working toward in my life. I have to ask myself questions that help me refocus my energies.

• What is my goal?
• What am I doing to make progress toward that goal?
• Do I allow distractions keep me from making progress?
• What is the time frame for completing my goal?
• Am I taking the small steps necessary to reach it?
• Am I maintaining my own personal identity in the process?
• Am I allowing time for spiritual regeneration daily?
• Am I writing down what needs to occur and what I need to do to accomplish my goal?
• Is the goal for me and me alone, or am I trying to impress or outdo someone else?

How are you progressing toward your goals?

I have to confess to you all that of late, I haven't been as committed to producing income that will help me leave my full time job or at least just go part time. Shame on me. I really know the reason, too, and I bet it's the same for you.

It's easier just to work and make a guaranteed paycheck than it is to develop a home business with all the risks it may entail.

Now that I've said it out loud, I can move forward toward my true goals.

My goal is to live and thrive full time at home.

This means making a few sacrifices at the beginning. Doing the necessary things to create a true home based income isn't always easy, but this is what it takes. It means cutting unnecessary expenses, which I have done, and increasing the time I devote to developing a true home based business - which I haven't done enough.

In upcoming blog posts I'll share with you my day-to-day advancements as I move closer to fulfilling my dream.

 

Technorati Tags: home based business

Reducing expenses without pain

We are definitely in a recession in the U.S. However, there are still people making money in all kinds of ways. Otherwise, there would be more people on the government dole than are actually employed. So let's just think about what we must do, compared to what our parents and grandparents did, to not only survive the recession but actually come out at least less scarred by it than perhaps some of our neighbors.

Profit or Loss?

When I read that a big automaker has lost money the last quarter, I already understand it's not a loss in the sense that they paid out more than they took in. This is a term used by big corporations to mean that they made less than expected, but they really did make a nice profit nonetheless. It's hard to feel sorry for them, you know?

For the everyday person, losing money means just that - their expenses outweighed their income to the extent that they are operating in the red at the end of the month. It doesn't mean they have less spendable income leftover - it means they owe more debt. Understanding this, we "everyday persons" have to learn to cut expenses drastically in order to still have some money leftover at the end of the month.

Cutting Expenses

For me, cutting expenses has meant learning to live a little differently without being so frugal that all the joy of life is removed.

• I've kept lights and entire circuits turned off when not in use.
• I use CFL bulbs in every fixture.
• I reduce water usage by making sure there are no drips or leaks and by only using the minimum amount necessary for any task.
• I limit trips in my vehicle to going to work, and I use those days as opportunities to run errands after work.
• I use leftovers to create new meals, reducing food waste.
• I recycle anything I can that's brought into the house so that I don't have to replace store-bought items so often. (Think, using plastic grocery bags instead of buying plastic trash bags.)

These are easy things to do that will really help the budget in the long run. By first reducing expenses we free up some of our money to be used in other ways, such as investing in a home business project or investing in our own retirement accounts. I've stopped just short of using video surveillance equipment to watch what is spent out of my wallet! Every dime that we can move from one purpose to a more profitable purpose has added value.

Technorati Tags: expenses,home based business

Gardening - mint cuttings

I've done some gardening over the weekend in the form of taking cuttings from my mints and getting them potted up. I used some of the hard plastic drink cups that you get from fast food places.

I cut the cups down by about half, cut a tiny hole in the bottoms, and put my cuttings in them. I also used craft sticks (the ones that look like ice cream sticks) to make my labels so I'd remember which mint is which. When you just cut them, they can be difficult to distinguish from one another, although the chocolate mint is pretty strong and easy to identify. (Now to find a use for the tops of those cups!)

I also used a couple of old whipped topping tubs for other transplants. I'd much rather use these plastic items this way than to add them to my trash. They won't compost so I can't get rid of them that way and reusing them just seems to make sense.

As time goes by, I'll take more mint cuttings and cuttings from other perennial herbs. Some will be given away. Others will be used right here to increase my herb garden. Gardening is one of the best fat burners I've found. I get to bend low, squat, use my arms for digging in the dirt with a small gardening trowel, and walk around just admiring the work I've done.

I dry as much of my herbs as possible so I'll have them throughout the year. For instance, right now I'm sipping a delicious glass of apple mint iced tea as I write this post.

Mint Tea

• 2 regular tea bags
• 2 heaping tablespoons of any dried mint you like
• 1 quart water

Bring it all to a high simmer, then remove from heat for about 3 minutes to let it steep. Pour into a half-gallon pitcher and add water to make the half gallon. Sweeten as desired. Sweetening helps to make the mint flavor bloom in the tea. I use 2/3 cup of sugar in the bottom of the pitcher and pour the hot tea over that.

An icy glass of mint tea is so refreshing! Apple and orange mints are super as iced teas, though any can be used. I really love to use chocolate mint in a hot tea. It's so relaxing at the end of a tiring day.

Technorati Tags: gardening,mint,recipe

Peaceful organization

One thing that helps me feel at peace at home is to have things organized. Now, I'm not saying that I'm always perfectly organized in every area, but I am working on it.

A few days ago I was talking to Son about needing a shelf of some kind at the back of the kitchen counter. It's an area I can't really use for anything and tends to seem piled up with this and that - appliances, cords, etc. While I was shopping I came across some coated wire locker shelves. They are 12 inches tall and about 10 inches wide and deep. You just unfold them and the legs lock into place. They can also be stacked, but two of them side by side fit my purpose perfectly.

I now have a place to put my crock pot, can opener, midget food processor, steamer, and food shredder/grinder. Since I have a power strip right there anyway, I can easily plug an appliance in when I need to use it without having to reach behind the shelves for the only outlet on that wall. There is room for smaller things to be on the shelves (midget processor, cords) and taller things to go underneath them (crock pot, steamer). The can opener lays on the shelf until it's called into action.

Being able to store these items at my fingertips is better for me than having them tucked away in some cabinet. See, I have hip problems which makes it difficult for me to reach into lower cabinets to find needed kitchen tools. Once down, it's hard for me to get back up again!

I realize all the "organization experts" in the world admonish you to either rid yourself of some belongings or hide them away. Well and good for people who never use things. However, I do use my kitchen gadgets - a lot! That's why I got them. They make my life easier, cost very little to operate, and are part of my kitchen furnishings. I enjoy seeing kitchen tools and gadgets out where they are used. A bare wall, counter, or shelf tells me the kitchen isn't visited very often. :-)

Technorati Tags: kitchen,gadgets,organize

Peace at home

It's a cool, quiet evening right now. I'm sitting on my front porch listening to the cicadas sing and the mourning doves calling to one another.  Between choruses, I can hear tree frogs punctuating the symphony with their intermittent chirp-chirps.

I've taken a couple of cuttings from my lavender plant and have them settled into small pots on my front porch. I hope the cuttings take root. I'd love to have lots more lavender around my house.

This time of day is one of the best reasons I love country living. No sirens. No traffic noises. No neighbors fighting. Just the solitude of being at home, comfortable, and miles away from work.

I'll head inside soon and get the kitchen set to rights before relaxing for the rest of the evening. I don't have to work for the next two days, so I don't have to feel rushed in any sort of way.

In the morning I'll take a few more lavender and mint cuttings. Gardening is more than just a pass-time with me. It's a deeply rooted love (pun intended) that goes back to my early 20s. I'll have all next winter to stay indoors while the landscape slumbers under winter's chill. For now, though, it's awake and calling my name every day.

Technorati Tags: gardening,nature

Gardening thoughts

I referenced my recent transplanting successes on Zoo Talk, letting everyone know just how my recently acquired transplants are doing. Getting plants, cuttings, and seeds for free is a great way to have new things in your garden. You can try them out without having to spend a lot of money.

Next, I'll be cutting down some plastic fast-food cups to use for transplant pots. Instead of adding them to the landfills, using them in this way saves me money and also helps the Earth.

I'm going to be taking more cuttings from my mints. I'll also take cutting from my lavender. With them both, I can increase my herb gardens and also have some to share with others. There's a lot of satisfaction to be had in sharing, you know.

I am hoping eventually to have most of my small yard covered with herbs, vegetables, and flowers. I figure it's better than having a lot of grass to mow. My goal is to have stone paths and some raised beds to the extent that it will be a true haven outdoors.

Gardening can be expensive unless you are willing to scrounge out some of your garden features. Using natural stone, cut wood, your own compost, and your imagination can give you a unique look that's interesting not only to you but to your visitors.

Technorati Tags: plants,gardening