Dry Idea Giveaway Winners

Sorry its late, working days this month throws me off with my Blog. Here are the three winners to the Dry Idea Giveaway. Melissa B Walker, Cathy Stesney and Tara Wright Larison. Congrats, and thank you to all that entered. I have a few more for Honey Bunches of Oats and Purex Laundry soap which would you prefer to win?

Purex and Ladies Home Journal

Ladies’ Home Journal is offering free 1-year subscriptions of their magazine. Go enter today at Purex 

A thankful heart

This is our fifth summer in our home. I love this home, it is very much like my home growing up. It has a similar floorplan. I love the character and rustic feel of it. However, a year into living here we learned it had some really horrible secrets. There was brand new baseboard that was gorgeous in the master bedroom, there was a purpose.. the major rot in the sheetrock, which over the course of time has led to crumbling huge holes. With the continual increase to our house note the past four years it leaves little money for repairs to such items. This year I decided we would try and fight things on our own, and not use a named service like we did the past two years. They had our home appraised at 185,000, after my first hearing they dropped it to 161,000 but that was still way out of our range. If I were to sell the house today I could not recover the purchase price of $116,000 without putting about $50,000 into repairs first.

Yesterday I met with the country appraiser's review board.  I listened as the county appraiser stated his facts as he knew them. When I began, voice shaking the entire time, trying to fight back tears as I spoke, I knew I had a captive audience, the Lord was working in each of their hearts. They reviewed the bid for repairs that my husband's brother in law prepared for us. They reviewed the pictures like these that I took, I had 64 of them. Some items they stated were upgrades like replacing the windows next to the fireplace that have pulled away from the home with double paned glass. That is okay my main concerns are the fireplace, bathroom and master bedroom, the windows will come in time.

When asked what the house would sell for, I stated maybe $120 but doubted that. I noticed the look in the woman's eyes as she asked the next question. Why we didn't file charges against the homeowner for non disclosed facts. My answer must have been the right one because her motion was to lower the house from $173,000 in improvements to $113,000, with the two acres of land at 12,000, that brought us to $125,000. It was all I could do to hold the waterfall of tears that would begin. It was a huge answer to prayer! Now I wait for that statement to then take it to the bank to hopefully then lower our house note the additional $400 increase that has been in place since May. It had increased $100 a year or more since we bought the home, each year. Now it will be more manageable. I pray that we are able to continue to sell quilts, get subbing jobs and that my husband can get some more side jobs to take care of some of these major issues with our home. I am truly thankful to everyone that has been praying along side us these past few months. I am thankful I trusted the Lord to help me in the pursuit of this fight. He truly granted me the desire of my heart yesterday morning.

Dry Idea Coupon Giveaway

Click on link below to enter for your chance to win up to $500 from Dry Idea-
Grand Prize is $500 and 20 winners will receive $50 for second place!

Dry Idea^® Roll-On available in Unscented, Powder Fresh and Cotton Dry:

· Superior All Day Protection from wetness and odor.
· Fast Drying Microcotton^™ Formula
· Hypo-allergenic
· Contains Vitamin E

 Enter the contest for $500 from Dry Idea.. using my personal link CONTEST

I love being a Purex Insider. They bring us the best products to review. This one is from Dry Idea It was for a roll on bottle of Dry Idea Advanced Dry Powder Fresh 24 Hr Antiperspirant & Deodorant. I used it all week while teaching and yesterday while being out in the yard and heat. I don't know that I have ever tried a roll on deodorant before. I really love stick deodorants and try to purchase the type that will not leave a residue on my clothing. This achieved that goal for sure. There was no stain or white residue on the interior of the clothing at all. Most of all I loved how it was very silky on my skin. It dried immediately and I felt protected all day. I also loved that the powder fresh scent was not overpowering. Sometimes I buy a deodorant and it gives me an enormous headache because of a heavy perfume smell. So all that being said I have THREE coupons to give out so I am going to pick THREE winners for this contest using Rafflecopter. Please make sure you complete the mandatory entries, if you don't your entries will be deleted before I choose a winner. 

I was provided a bottle of roll on deodorant from Dry idea as part of a Purex Insider so that I could review the product. My participation is voluntary and my opinions as always are my own.
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thankful Thursday

I am very thankful for a recent gift of cash as well as a quilt order. We were able to purchase a battery for the Toyota camry that has been sitting for a few years and also get it registered and insured. I had enough money left over to get these two fans too. This one is in our bedroom. It is so nice to have a new fan in here. I slept so much better. We have a window unit but the window is very low to the ground and there is a huge hole in the wall so its not very productive at night when it is hot. I also love that it has a remote control so we can turn it off in bed after I am done reading for the night.

The second fan is in our dining room. The old one was very ugly and last summer I tried to remodel it by spray painting it, when we put it back up the fan portion didn't work anymore. Now that problem is fixed with a new one. Its the small things in life sometimes that really give me joy.

This is my next obstacle. it is a light in the den that can't be left on very long because it gets too hot. It actually melted a different light bulb once, it was very scary. I am tackling lights this summer because it is something that will help our home be more energy efficient, and its honestly something small that I can afford one at a time. I am trying to figure out a better solution for this room though. The ceiling right here is too low to put up another celing fan. I really dislike this light in general, it is just ugly! I thought of a shop light and then having Paul build a wooden frame around it. I am hoping we can pull that off, the one that Lowes/Home Depot sales is way too expensive for this gal. 

This is what I would like to replace it with. I also want this same exact thing in the Kitchen where  a light works about half the time if that. Of course Lowes has this at almost $200, and well that is not reasonable at all.

Wordless Wednesday

These little guys started hatching a few days early. They were supposed to start hatching today but instead started on the 19th. They are super cute guinea hens

You can't really tell but this little collection is 24 guinea hen! I am thankful to a friendly family a couple miles from us that provided us with these eggs. Now we need to work at getting a gate up to prevent the dogs from behind us from getting into a yard and then also keeping our dogs out of the free range area they will have

Tackle it Tuesday

With teaching this month as a side job I don't seem to find the time to get some posts in. It does not help that we have had lots of power outages with all our rain fall. I finished this up this week as my Tackle it Tuesday for the week. The quilt top holds a T shirt block on purple at the bottom corner that holds initials, she was one shirt short so this became a nice solution to the quilt. Then the top right corner is a shirt that I cut the middle word Wisconsin from and then appliqued to another shirt back. The finished quilt, which I will complete this weekend, will be twin size.

A Busy Month of June

This is my favorite chicken, his beak has been turned sideways since day one, but he is doing fine. He loves to follow you around the coop like a best friend.

My daughter's bunnies got a new cage, their old one didn't work so well with this rainy month we have had.

New baby quail- all white that hatched for Father's Day weekend. They are super cute. It is hard to believe they turn from this very pretty yellow to all white feathers.

New construction, while my husband was away on his trip my two sons and I moved all the chickens to the new coop area, it really needed a roof. My husband spent the weekend coming up with a great plan.

The garden has done so well with all this rain, this area holds watermelon, cantaloupe and honey dew, as well as some extra tomatoes.

The first of our sweet melons.

A honey dew or cantaloupe.

The squash have really outgrown their perimeter. Their production has slowed down too, so this weekend we will plant another section. It has been wonderful to share some of our produce with others that I work with or friends.

Two gorgeous eggplants. I love their bright shiny color. I hope some more grow as we gave these two away.

I love that we are having such a great success this year. It has prompted us to think about a fall garden. We tried it once and it didn't do so well. I am hoping this year will be an exception.

The chickens in the coop with the quail and the rabbits are free range, these little guys will come eat from your hand.

A new gate has been a blessing. Now I can go out feed in the first coop area and walk directly into the garden area to feed the chickens and pick our crop for the day. I am very thankful for this gate!

After a days work, the roof is half finished. It covers half of their coop providing some shelter and shade from the very hot sun.

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All in a weekends work

9 Tshirts and Patchwork 52 by 72 Childhood Memories Quilt

Father's Day Quilt with Blue paisley fabric

These yellow squares were on a white shirt that was super worn. I cut them out and appliqued them onto a back of another shirt so that it could become its own square

What became of this weeks pick- frozen veggies.

This weekends pick from the garden!

The cucumbers that I picked became 12 jars of pickles

$15 Hair Accessory Gift Certificate to Lilla Rose

Enter to win a $15 Gift Certificate for a really innovative hair accessory called the Flexi 8 from Lilla Rose

I used the Extra Small Flexi 8. I have super fine hair, there truly is not much hair at all and its only shoulder length. I rarely ever can get a hair piece to stay in all day. I use the very tiny clips from Walmart and have to adjust them. I wore this Tuesday through Thursday this week while teaching and I didn't adjust my hair once, not even when I got home. I played kickball, exercised, ran a couple laps and it stayed in place. I loved that when I took the piece out I didn't have a handful of hair with it. I also loved that it doesn't hold it so tight I get headaches from wearing it. I did try the small that my daughter got and it was still too big, so its nice to know that they sell something so small that will still suit the needs of an adult. I am hoping to purchase the Celtic Knot, Celtic Cross , Plumeria Flower and Hawaiian Flower styles in the near future. I love how plain all three of those are and that I could wear them with anything and they would all three match.

My daughter tried the Extra Small Flexi 8. She loves it. I will have to get her one that she can wear that suits her style more- like turquoise. She said, "I love that my hair does not get all tangled when using it." That is her biggest complaint with pony tail holders.

This is what the Flexi 8 looks like. It is built to last. I love that the clip part of it slides underneath and will not break off. I also love that they have so many different styles to choose from and you can purchase it for your hair needs whether you have thin short hair or long thick hair etc.

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These pictures are much better than mine. So I am sharing these too.  Here is some more information from their site, "Our Clip is different from other hair accessories because of the following features: Our clip is ornate: beautifully designed in a
multitude of colors; it is amazingly flexible which most items of it’s kind are not; it is one-piece so you do not have to worry about
losing a piece of it; the Flexi Clip is also darned durable and finally, it locks so the pin does not slip out. Our flexible clip will fit in just
about any thickness of hair. We have six sizes: mini’s, extra small, small, medium, large, and extra large."

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tackle it Tuesday

Cucumbers from the Garden

All sliced up and ready to go

Sitting in Hot Brine cooling for jars

8 jars ready for fridge, ready in 2 weeks time.

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