Show & Tell Friday for August 28

One of the first crafts I ever tried was embroidery, many years ago. I grew to really enjoy it, especially crewel embroidery. I don't have photos of most of my projects, and I gave most of them away as gifts. Here's one example, though. I made this Hummel crewel project for my grandmother, who collected Hummel figurines. She eventually gave it back to me, so now I have it on my wall. I do apologize for the quality of the photo here.

I continued to enjoy embroidery until I discovered, and fell in love with, counted cross stitch. That became my craft of choice, and I work on projects here and there whenever I have a few minutes. It tends to take me a long time to complete a project. Here are bits and pieces of a few samplers I have done.

This cross stitch project was a gift for one of my daughters. I am particularly pleased with this one. It was quite challenging. Mr. T. made the frame to my specifications, and I painted it antique gold.

In the past few years I have found myself drawn to embroidery again. Maybe the Lord is preparing me for when my eyes will no longer be good enough for counted cross stitch (although I hope that day never comes!). I have done embroidery on apron pockets, like these:

And day of the week tea towels like this one:

And these:

Although I have a couple of cross stitch projects in the works, I have lately felt the itch to start an embroidery project. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But, when doing some decluttering in my craft closet, I came across just the thing. Many years ago, when an elderly friend of ours passed away, her husband (who knew I loved needlecrafts just as she had) gave me some of her things -- a tin of needlework things, etc. I had completely forgotten about this other item, though -- a large oblong tablecloth which she had started embroidering and never finished. There are eight napkins with it, and those are completed. But she had only begun the first corner of the tablecloth. There is a large motif in the center of the cloth, and largish motifs on the corners, with small ones on the sides. She had the first corner perhaps 1/3 completed. I decided that there was my embroidery project. I work on it for a little while most evenings, and here is the first corner all completed!

I love the bright retro colors. This is probably from the 1980s or maybe a bit earlier. It lifts my spirits to work with these bright colors and watch the flowers bloom!

That is my simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!

Making a simple ribbon board

Vivianna suggested I post the directions for making a simple ribbon board. This is directly quoted from my Christmas blog, but as you will see, ribbon boards can be simply made for any season you like -- or for all seasons!

A simple ribbon board to display Christmas cards and other paper treasures

As I've mentioned, I have a nice collection of vintage and antique Christmas cards, all given to me over the years -- oddly enough, by people who knew I used old Christmas cards in art projects with children in school and Sunday School. Many of these cards probably have no real value -- some of them have the backs removed, and many have had the signatures cut out. But they are valuable to me because they are so beautiful. For years I wanted to display them, but couldn't think how -- I didn't want to damage them further with tape or tacks or staples. I inherited a nice glass-topped desk, and displayed some of the cards under the glass. But I still wished I could display more of them -- to me, no matter how lovely a collection may be, if its beauty can't be shared with others, it's really not worth having. I know people who have treasures like this squirreled away in shoeboxes, and it's absolutely ridiculous because no one -- including the owner of the collection -- can enjoy them there.

So I came up with the idea of using a large ribbon board to display my vintage card collection. I made a very, very simple one, and it has worked well for quite a few holiday seasons now. I took a full sheet of foam core board and covered it with fabric. (You could use a holiday fabric, but I felt that a solid color would be the best background for the colorful variety of my cards, so I chose a plain dark green fabric.) Very simply, I cut the fabric a couple of inches larger than the board all around, placed the board face down on the fabric, neatly wrapped the excess fabric to the back of the board, and hot-glued it in place. To hang the board, I made a loop of festive red/green holiday cord, and hot-glued that to the back as well.

Next, I took lengths of red satin ribbon and tacked them diagonally across the board one way and then the other, gluing the ends of the ribbon to the back of the board. At the places on the front where the ribbons intersected, I used shiny brass tacks to hold the ribbons in place. All those ribbons made nice secure spaces in which to tuck my cards. I hung the board in my front entryway and it holds a great many of the cards in my collection -- the vintage cards are much smaller than the cards we send today. This card-filled ribbon board makes me happy every time I walk by it!


In fact, the idea worked so well for me that I made a second ribbon board in neutral colors -- using unbleached muslin for the fabric and ivory ribbon -- to hold the paper treasures I've collected for other seasons as well.

Here is my board decorated for St. Patrick's Day:
And here it is decorated for Easter:


Here is my summer ribbon board:
Ribbon board decorated for fall:
A better view of the fall ribbon board:

I know that ribbon boards are not a new idea, but I haven't seen any just like mine. I hope someone else will try this idea for a special collection of treasured paper items!

Show & Tell Friday for August 21

For show & tell today, I have just one thing to share, but I hope others will enjoy seeing this. It's a vintage juice carafe that was my grandmother's. I've had it for awhile but didn't use it because the lid was missing, and I didn't have a plastic lid the right size to fit. I can remember so often seeing this carafe in my grandmother's refrigerator filled with orange juice (or sometimes Tang®).

All summer I have been making raspberry or peach lemonade using herbal teabags, a small amount of sugar, and pink lemonade concentrate, plus water, or course. In this recipe, the teabags need to stand in cold water in the fridge for a number of hours. I use a gallon sun tea jar to store the gallon of raspberry lemonade in. But one day, I needed to get more teabags ready to steep, and the gallon jar still had raspberry lemonade in it. What to do? As I looked about for a suitable container to steep the teabags in, I spied the vintage carafe. The perfect solution!

The carafe has a circus parade theme. You can just see to the far left, the words "The Circus Parade" and see monkeys, and a clown on a bicycle.

This view shows a tiger in a circus wagon, as well as the same clown.

Here you can see a bareback rider and a seal, and, to the extreme left, an elephant on a pedestal.

I love the whimsical vintage look of this carafe. I have looked around a bit on eBay and elsewhere but have not seen another one just like this.

That is my very simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!

Lifting up my soul to God (part 2)

I promised that I would share the other verses and insights I found on lifting our souls up to the Lord. Truly, as I pray each morning, I do lift my soul up to Him in praise, adoration, confession, petition, and intercession.

The second verse I found was this one:

"Rejoice the soul of Thy servant; for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." (Psalm 86:4)

Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David, wrote: "I look for all my happiness in Thee only, and therefore, 'unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.'

"I know that the nearer I am to Thee the greater is my joy, therefore be pleased to draw me nearer while I am laboring to draw near. It is not easy to lift a soul at all; it needs a strong shoulder at the wheel when a heart sticks in the miry clay of despondency... but the Lord will take the will for the deed, and come in with a hand of almighty grace to raise His poor servant out of the earth and up to heaven."

Those of you familiar with The Treasury of David know that not all the writings in it are those of Spurgeon himself. Following his commentary on each psalm, he also has a section called "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" which quote other Bible scholars, pastors, etc. of his time and before. It is worth reading what these godly people wrote.

In the "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" for Psalm 86, Spurgeon quotes John Gill concerning verse 4:

"It [the phrase 'I lift up my soul'] denotes the devotion, fervency, heartiness, and sincerity of his prayer: the doing of it with a true heart, the lifting up of the heart with the hands unto God."

Isn't that wonderfully put? It was a blessing to me.

The third verse I found was this one:

"Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning: for in Thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee." (Psalm 143:8)

This, I know now, was actually the verse that came to my mind during my prayer time this week. It is a verse that I have memorized. I love this verse! It says so much about the Christian life in only 33 words. Someone has said (and I agree with them) that this verse could be the theme verse for every believer. Can you imagine how different things would be if every believer lived out this verse?

Concerning this verse, Spurgeon wrote: "When David was in any difficulty as to his way he lifted his soul towards God Himself, and then he knew that he could not go very far wrong. If the soul will not rise of itself we must lift it, lift it up to God.... Let us attend to David's example, and when our heart is low, let us heartily endeavor to lift it up... to the Lord Himself."

Let us be doing just that!

Lifting up my soul to God

 
Today I'm sharing this older post (actually a combination of two older posts) concerning lifting up our souls to God.  This little study was a great encouragement to me.  I hope these thoughts will encourage others, as well:

This morning as I began my prayer time, the phrase "I lift up my soul unto Thee" came to my mind. I felt in a very real way that I was lifting my soul up to God in prayer. I could not recall for sure what psalm these words are from, so I quickly looked them up in the concordance at the back of the Ryrie Study Bible I happened to be using. I found three verses with similar phrasing, though there may well be more. After I finished my quiet time, I decided to look at these verses in Spurgeon's Treasury of David. Here is the first one.

"Unto Thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul." (Psalm 25:1)

Spurgeon wrote: "See how the holy soul flies to its God like a dove to its cote. When the storm winds are out, the Lord's vessels put about and make for their well-remembered harbor of refuge."

I love both of the images that he uses -- the soul being lifted to God as a dove flies to its place of shelter, and a vessel fleeing from the storm to a familiar harbor. That is exactly how I feel.

Spurgeon continues: "It is but mockery to uplift the hands and the eyes unless we also bring our souls into our devotions. True prayer may be described as the soul rising from earth to have fellowship with heaven; it is taking a journey upon Jacob's ladder, leaving our cares and fears at the foot, and meeting with a covenant God at the top. Very often the soul cannot rise, she has lost her wings, and is heavy and earth-bound; more like a burrowing mole than a soaring eagle. At such dull seasons, we must not give over prayer, but must, by God's assistance, exert all our power to lift up our hearts."

Robert Mossom wrote in 1657: "Unto Thee in the fulness of Thy merits, unto Thee in the riches of Thy grace; unto Thee in the embraces of Thy love and comforts of Thy Spirit."
 
Originally, I took two posts to share the other verses and insights I found on lifting our souls up to the Lord. I decided to add the second post to this one now (September 2011) to make it simpler.   Truly, as I pray each morning, I do lift my soul up to Him in praise, adoration, confession, petition, and intercession.

The second verse I found was this one:

"Rejoice the soul of Thy servant; for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." (Psalm 86:4)

Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David, wrote: "I look for all my happiness in Thee only, and therefore, 'unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.'

"I know that the nearer I am to Thee the greater is my joy, therefore be pleased to draw me nearer while I am laboring to draw near. It is not easy to lift a soul at all; it needs a strong shoulder at the wheel when a heart sticks in the miry clay of despondency... but the Lord will take the will for the deed, and come in with a hand of almighty grace to raise His poor servant out of the earth and up to heaven."

Those of you familiar with The Treasury of David know that not all the writings in it are those of Spurgeon himself. Following his commentary on each psalm, he also has a section called "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" which quote other Bible scholars, pastors, etc. of his time and before. It is worth reading what these godly people wrote.

In the "Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings" for Psalm 86, Spurgeon quotes John Gill concerning verse 4:

"It [the phrase 'I lift up my soul'] denotes the devotion, fervency, heartiness, and sincerity of his prayer: the doing of it with a true heart, the lifting up of the heart with the hands unto God."

Isn't that wonderfully put? It was a blessing to me.

The third verse I found was this one:

"Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning: for in Thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee." (Psalm 143:8)

This, I know now, was actually the verse that came to my mind during my prayer time this week. It is a verse that I have memorized. I love this verse! It says so much about the Christian life in only 33 words. Someone has said (and I agree with them) that this verse could be the theme verse for every believer. Can you imagine how different things would be if every believer lived out this verse?

Concerning this verse, Spurgeon wrote: "When David was in any difficulty as to his way he lifted his soul towards God Himself, and then he knew that he could not go very far wrong. If the soul will not rise of itself we must lift it, lift it up to God.... Let us attend to David's example, and when our heart is low, let us heartily endeavor to lift it up... to the Lord Himself."

Let us be doing just that!

Show & Tell Friday for August 14

Here is my hutch decorated for late summer. The top shelf has stayed the same with a Proverbs 31:31 stitchery made by a friend, and two flower teapots for one from another friend.

The bottom shelf features, as usual, some of my treasured ironstone dishes from my mother's family, but with some summery additions like an eyelet runner, sunflowers, berries, ivy and a little bluebird dish. The two cookbooks are favorites from Gooseberry Patch. The little packet of tea was purchased on our last getaway up north, and the summery tag was made by a dear friend.

The other two shelves are decorated with a seashore theme. The topmost one holds seashell candleholders we made for my daughter's wedding, and also two special cards, a ferry schedule from 1970, shells, and some green sea glass.

The next shelf holds more shells, more cards, a large painted sand dollar from Florida, a small handpainted sand dollar done by one of my daughters, and some plain sand dollars from Maine. On the right is another candleholder we made for the wedding (9 years ago now) -- we frosted the glass, poured the candles, trimmed with gold mesh and seashell charms.

Lastly here is my hallway ribbon board filled with summer cards and tags.

And that is my simple Show & Tell for today. To see what others have shared for Show & Tell Friday, head on over to There is No Place Like Home.

Happy Show & Tell Friday!

A midday getaway

A week or so ago, Mr. T had a day where there was no work. He didn't find this out until that morning, and had already made his sandwiches the night before as he usually does. He did work around home in the morning, but we decided to take a picnic lunch to a nearby town where there are picnic tables and benches beside a beautiful lake. He brought his already-made sandwiches and I added chips and marinated fresh vegetables.

After lunch, we followed a path along the lake shore. We sat on a stone bench for awhile and just soaked in the beauty and tranquility.

The view from our bench. Can you spot the Indian on this little island?

The view to the left of our bench. So pretty.

I'm so thankful that God gives us these unexpected blessings in the midst of all our busyness and stress. Truly, He knows what we need and faithfully provides it.

A frugal main dish

Here, for lady m, is the Vietnam Fried Rice recipe. This recipe comes from the More with Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre. I am not sure if this book is in print any longer or not, but for those of you interested in frugality and living more simply, I highly recommend it. Look on Amazon or another site that offers used books and see if you can find a copy. It is simply full of practical and delicious meal ideas, and is likely to become one of your most-used cookbooks. The recipe below was actually submitted by a family living in Vietnam. I will add my modifications in brackets.

VIETNAM FRIED RICE
Cook 1 cup rice (will produce 3 cups cooked rice) or, have ready 3 cups leftover rice.

Heat in a large skillet: 4 Tblsp. cooking oil [I used canola oil and only used 3 T.)

Add: 1/4 to 1/2 lb. any cooked or raw meat, cut into thin strips [I used 2 1/2 leftover boneless pork chops, cut in small cubes]
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped coarsely
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. sugar
1 Tblsp. soy sauce

Stir-fry the above until meat is tender and hot, about 2 minutes for cooked meat. Add the 3 cups cooked rice. Stir-fry for 5 more minutes.

Add 1 cup leftover or frozen vegetables, such as peas, green beans, or carrots [I used green beans, and have even used mixed vegetables]

Stir well into rice-meat mixture. Just before serving, add:

2 eggs, beaten .

Over medium heat, stir carefully through rice mixture until eggs are cooked. Serve piping hot with a simple salad. The contributor suggested leaf lettuce with cucumber, mint and parsley.

Yield: 4 servings

Some simple crafting

Here are a couple of crafty things I've done lately. Both are very simple, even "rustic", as my husband often describes his crafty efforts, but they are things that have been on my list for awhile and I'm pleased to have finished them.

A few weeks ago I mentioned making some towel mats to go behind our drippy (from condensation due to humidity) toilets. I was adapting an idea for a bath mat I'd seen on a blog. The project uses an old towel and cotton fabric. The original also suggested some sort of embellishment to pretty it up. For my first one, I used a small old candlewicking project that had languished unfinished for years.


For this one, I used part of one of those narrow calendar towels I had thought too pretty to throw away. I am hoping to make a couple more of these so I can have a fresh one ready at all times. I have some ideas for recycled embellishments for those, too. Please don't judge my sewing skills by this project; they are limited, but not this much. It's just that the 2 layers of bath towel in this make it very hard to maneuver around under the needle.

Now, here are some summer hot pads. These have been on my list for ages but I hadn't made them because I didn't have any specifically summery fabric. Then I got looking through my stash and found this sunflower fabric. The blue checked one in the front is a remnant from something my daughter made, I think.

The other fabric (the back 3 hot pads) is recycled. Someone had given me a bunch of crafting odds and ends. This sunflower fabric was on one side of some sort of sewed item. I have no idea what it was supposed to be -- maybe a table runner, maybe an attempt at a baby sling? It was odd, anyway, and the other side of the item was a bright print of colored frogs on a blue background. Anyway, I unstitched it and washed both fabrics to reuse. I thought the sunflowers worked quite well for summer hot pads.

Those are my simple craft projects from this week. I am so thankful to God for the gift of creativity.

Menu Plan Monday for August 10

A humid overcast day here in northern New England. Here's my menu plan:

MONDAY: Vietnam Fried Rice (made with leftover pork chops), Leaf Lettuce Salad with Oranges

TUESDAY: Layered Cheese Omelets, Hash Brown Casserole, Fruit Salad

WEDNESDAY: Pizza, Three-Bean Salad

THURSDAY: Pork Chops with Scalloped Potatoes, Green Beans, Molded Beet Salad

FRIDAY: Hot Dogs, Baked Beans, Coleslaw, Chips

SATURDAY: Hamburgers, Potato Salad, Marinated Vegetables

SUNDAY: Ham & Turkey Subs, Potato Salad, Chips

If you would like to see menus which others have shared, head over to I'm an Organizing Junkie and check out the links. Often, well over 300 people share links to their weekly menus. You'll find some great ideas and often recipes too.

A nice gift idea

Okay, I just posted this over on my Christmas blog, but I know that not all of my readers check in there regularly (most likely because I don't post there regularly) so I thought I would share it here. Recently, I found at the dollar store the most adorable little journals. They are about 5 inches square.

The end papers are pretty, too.

And even the pages are imprinted very faintly with roses.

I had mentioned that the little journals would make a sweet addition to many types of gift baskets. Now I have another idea for them.

Today I was glancing through a Gooseberry Patch Christmas in July booklet. I came across a quote which a friend of mine would absolutely love. Two ideas merged into one as I thought about this little journal.

Wouldn't it be a lovely idea to fill a journal with inspiring quotes and verses, to share with a dear friend or someone who needs encouragement? One could use fancy lettering, one's best handwriting or printing, or even calligraphy, to write the quotes, and then embellish the pages with simple drawings or leafy, vine-y stickers. I am definitely going back to the dollar store and buy several more of these!

Here are a couple of quotes to get you started in your thinking. These came from a calendar and no author was given for them.

"Though no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending."

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow."

Once you get started on this project, I guarantee you will see wonderful quotes everywhere you look. There are whole books of quotes available. You will find quotes in the things you read. You may have special quotes from people in your family. Bible verses are good to include, too.

Hope someone else has as much fun with this idea as I'm already having!

A TALE OF FOUR CURTAINS

Graphic from Baptist Bible Hour

(A story with a moral -- maybe more than one)

It was the best of times... That is, my sister-in-law apparently caught me at a good time when she asked me to consider taking on this project.

It was the worst of times... When I actually got into working on the project.

One day some months ago Mr. T's sister showed me a set of pretty floral sheets she had bought at a yard sale with the idea of making them into curtains. They had been stashed in her closet since ever since and she was wondering if I could take on that project for her. She would pay me to make four curtains from the sheets. It would be a "no pressure" project since she was in no hurry for the curtains. When I agreed, she brought out one of her current curtains -- an ecru lace number -- and said she wanted the others made just in the same style, only a bit longer if possible.

Who knows why I took the project on? In retrospect, I should never have said yes. But I thought it sounded simple enough, and we were feeling rather poor at the time. Also, she is a great sister-in-law and I would certainly like to help her out if I could. Even as I agreed, though, I knew that I could never and would never charge her for as much as my time would be worth to make those curtains. And now I know that to be an understatement.

I bravely tackled the project not long after that. The first step was to make a pattern from the existing curtain. It had one main piece plus a ruffle (a fact I had somehow overlooked at first sight. I hate making ruffles). The pattern making was quite a process and I ended up having to do all of my measuring on the kitchen floor. I also ended up having to tape sheets of newspaper together to get enough paper to make the ruffle patterns out of. Finally, all of the measuring and pattern making was done, so I pinned the pattern pieces in place and boldly cut into the sheet.

Here is where my recollection becomes somewhat fuzzy. At some point in here, I suppose after I had started sewing the first curtain, I realized I had calculated wrong and had cut the main curtain pieces all too long. I refigured things and adjusted the first curtain to the right length, but apparently did not re-cut the other pieces.

Then I started the ruffling process. Not fun, but it never is (for me, anyway). Pinning it on and basting is even less fun. It just wasn't looking good as I pinned, and finally in frustration I decided to set the curtain aside for awhile. There were lots of other things going on in my life right then.

Awhile later, with house guests expected, I wanted to complete the curtain project and get it out of the way. So I picked up the curtain again. Part of the problem was that the lace curtain, the one I was to copy, was made in such a way that the ruffle attached to the curtain on the outside... a small but significant detail. One was supposed to pin the finished top edge of the ruffle to the topmost line of stitching on the curtain piece, according to books I consulted. I started out doing that but it was extremely frustrating. I finally asked Mr. T what he thought, and he suggested I simply attach the ruffle to the wrong side. Yes, it wasn't as decorative, but then what I was ending up with was not decorative either. So, I followed his advice and it was much simpler and actually looked okay.

So I worked on the other curtains and did them all the same way. I finished them the day our house guests were to arrive and called my sister-in-law to report that her curtains were done. She came to pick them up that very day. I had carefully pressed them all and hung them neatly by twos on skirt hangers. And, in the very act of handing them to her, I noticed something I hadn't seen before. One of the curtains was a ruffle's length longer than the other three! What a disaster! With a sigh I took them back and promised to fix them after our guests left the following week. Thankfully, they could be shortened from the top edge and I wouldn't have to mess with those ruffles again.

How had such a mistake happened? Remember, months ago I had discovered I had cut the curtain pieces too long -- but I only fixed the one I was working on at the time! How stupid!

I won't bore you further, but my troubles were not quite over. When I cut them off, I cut them too short... but fortunately I discovered this before I had actually done any stitching/hemming of the headers. So I re-cut them and finally, finally finished them. They are out of my house and off my list.

Why do I tell you all this trivia? Because of a funny thing that happened later. I was declaring to my husband and son that I had learned a lesson from all this. "I'll never agree to make curtains for anyone ever again!" I vowed. My son burst out laughing and asked, "So that's the lesson you learned?"

That got me thinking. Exactly what had I learned?

* I had obviously learned (again) that I don't enjoy sewing for other people.

* I had learned (again) the truth of the maxim "measure twice, cut once".

* I had learned (again) that it doesn't pay to procrastinate. If I had gone ahead and cut off all four curtains at the time when I noticed they were too long, I wouldn't have forgotten about it and had to fix three of them later on.

* Most important of all, I had learned (again) not to make any decision, no matter how seemingly small, without praying about it.

I'm so thankful that God doesn't give up on us, but that He helps us learn and relearn the important lessons of life... no matter how long it takes.

Something pretty

I just had to share these photos of something pretty that I saw this morning. I had noticed them yesterday on my way out to work in the garden, but didn't take time to hunt up the camera because I knew I couldn't do them justice. Today, I decided to try.

These are wild strawberry plants. The leaves are beaded with dew, with a dewy "pearl" on each tooth of the leaf.

To me it is so comforting that the same God who creates intricate beauty like this for us to enjoy on a daily basis is the One in control of my life.

"O LORD, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches." (Psalm 104:24)

A Homemade Life ~ August 4

I'm a bit late with a homemade life post, but have just a couple of things to share.

A relative generously gave me these pots of rosemary and basil. She had been visiting up here for a month and had been using these in cooking. She didn't want to transport them back home, so we are benefiting from these fresh herbs! Pretty as well as delicious!

And then there is this swiffer sock, to use in place of refills. It's reversible; the other side is smooth. Here's the link: Swiffer Sock. The directions are fairly easy to follow and the design is fun to make. I would like to make a second one of these so that one could be used while the other is in the wash.

If you would like to see other homemade ideas, be sure and check out Life on a Back Road. You will find lots of inspiration there!

Back-on-Track Challenge, Day 26

Here's how things went yesterday:

* Health & energy -- kept up with the Body Clutter Investigator, ate well, drank plenty of water, got about 23g fiber, exercised, went for a walk, and got 6 hours sleep. Baked some very healthy muffins to have on hand in the freezer.

* Devotional life -- Had a good quiet time of reading the Bible and praying; worked on memorizing 2 Peter 1:10-11.

* Homemaking -- made a schedule for my day. Stuck to my schedule and accomplished most things on my list.

* Creativity -- Spent a lot of time working on craft preparation for our church's kids' outreach on Saturday. Posted in my blog. Wrote in my journal.

So that was day 26 of my challenge. And yesterday, July 31, marked the last day of my challenge. I'm very encouraged with how the last 26 days have gone, and am trusting the Lord that I'll be able to stay on track from this point on.