Linda @ Linda’s Lunacy

Bible in 90 Days – Week 12 Check In

March 25, 2012 by Linda @ Linda's Lunacy

Hello everyone!

This check-in finds us starting Week 12.

Can you believe it? Just 2 weeks to go! The 90 days is up on April 7th. Remember, there are 2 built in grace days. If you are on scheduled, you will complete it in 88 days.

Are you tired of reading? Feeling over whelmed?

You can do this!

The end is so close! Keep reading!

You can do this!

I hope and pray everyone has an AWESOME week reading God’s Word!

Leave a comment below with your progress!

Bible in 90 Days Resources:

Here is a Bible in 90 Days bookmark to print so you can check off your reading every day.

You can also visit Mom’s Tool Box to download several You Are Here in the Bible pages. These pages have all the major information from each days reading, major events, themes and people. These are awesome pages! Great for anyone looking for an overview of the Bible

Saturday on the Farm

March 24, 2012 by Linda @ Linda's Lunacy

I have more Daffodils blooming. These are in the front bulb garden.

Last year, my Tulips didn’t bloom. This year, I have one.

Beautiful! And here’s the Tulip and the Daffodils together.

The Dogwood trees are getting ready to bloom.

The Red Buds are blooming!

Did you know the Red Bed is in the pea family? I didn’t either until this week. See the beautiful little flowers? They are edible! You can eat them raw in salads. The kids and I were nibbling on the tree today. I think the flowers taste like lettuce. They would be nice in a salad.

You can also make jelly out of the flowers! I have my flowers soaking right now to make this Red Bud Jelly. The pods that develop on the tree are edible, too. They are like snow peas when they are young and green. We will be trying them as soon as they are ready. Have you ever eaten Red Bud flowers or pods?

The Dogwood trees are getting ready to bloom.

Here are a few links I found interesting and helpful:
10 Tips For Growing Onions From Seed
5 Newbie Gardening Tips for a Successful Season
Homemade Wasp Trap

Seed Starters Out of Paper Pulp
How to Grow Carrots
36 Things You Can Compost

[Read more…]

Our Homeschool Week in Review

March 24, 2012 by Linda @ Linda's Lunacy

I just love it when I find kids all over the house reading.

I found Zach laying on the schoolroom flour reading. you should have seen his face after the flash went off and he realized I had taken his picture. lol He was so engrossed in reading, that he didn’t see or hear me.

I found Abby sitting on the front porch reading her Bible.

The girls had their volleyball banquet on Thursday night. Here they are as they were leaving.

Hannah, on the right, made the skirt and shirt she is wearing herself this week. She didn’t use a store bought pattern. She also recently finished a riding skirt. She has to sew on a few more buttons then I’ll share pics of that. She’s getting to be quite the seamstress.

Hannah and Zach have been working hard on getting ready for their Church Bible Drill Competition on Sunday. Abby opted not to compete this year. I’m not very happy about it, but we decided not to force her. There’s always next year, right?

I wrote a review this week for The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. If your looking into internet safety for your family, check our my review of Action Alert. I also wrote a review for Progeny Press Literature Guides.

Here are a few homeschool links I found interesting and helpful:
Human Heart Coloring Page
Famous Homeschoolers
Compelling Reasons to Homeschool Children

Great Homeschooling Links – George Washington
25 Ways to Learn a Lot with an Abacus
15 Ideas to Improve Concentration
Delight Directed Learning

For more homeschool posts, visit Weekly Wrap Up.

This Week’s Favorites

March 23, 2012 by Linda @ Linda's Lunacy

To Read and Do

How to Make Your Own Toothpaste – video
Natural Hair Care with Essential Oils
DIY Matchbox – I made one of these for myself. I love it!
Homemade Seed Balls – These would make great spring birthday or Mother’s Day gifts.
Printable Word Art Lots of free downloads
Tricks to Reduce Food Waste and Save Electricity
Build a Frugal Pantry
How to Cook with Extra Virgin Olive – includes a video
Using Pinterest to Find and Organize Ideas for Your Family
A Cute Way to Eliminate Mudroom Puddles

To Cook

Oatmeal Cake
LOTS of mix recipes – A great way to stock your pantry
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups – Refined sugar free
Turkey Zucchini Burgers

Ranch Cheddar Burgers
No Bake Honey Peanut Butter Bars
Gluten Free Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie
Creamsicle Cookies – The kids are going to love these.

To Craft

Rag Quilt Project How To – video
Sewing Crafts – Lots of great free sewing patterns
Make Your Own Vintage Tea Towels – I need to find some tea toweling. I want to make some of these for myself and for gifts.
Sew a Case for Crochet Hooks
Fabric Coasters from Fabric Scraps
Crocheted Errands Bag
Hand Embroidered Cards

Hope you found lots of new favorites, too!

Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil Review & Giveaway

March 22, 2012 by Linda @ Linda's Lunacy

I have been reading about Coconut Oil for a long time. I have liked everything I read about it. How great it is to cook with. How great it is for your health. Just this week, another news story reported how Coconut Oil is being used to help relieve symptons of a major disease. All the personal stories that I have read all said how much they loved using it. I have wanted to try Coconut Oil for quite sometime.

There are hundreds of ways to use Coconut Oil. Not just in cooking!

If your interested in watching more videos to learn about Coconut Oil, you can visit Tropical Traditions YouTube Channel.

When Tropical Traditions offered to send me a jar of Coconut Oil to try, I was very happy for the chance try it. I hadn’t purchased Coconut Oil anywhere as I was slightly confused about which one I should buy. Refined? Unrefined? Virgin? Which one would be the best to try first? Just what is Virgin Coconut Oil? Thankfully, I was able to find out more information on Tropical Traditions website.

Virgin Coconut Oil, Gold Label – 1 quart

If you order by clicking on this referral link and have never ordered from Tropical Traditions in the past, you will receive a free book on Virgin Coconut Oil, and I will receive a discount coupon for referring you. This is the only referral link in this post.

Tropical Traditions has a Coconut Oil Recipe Page with hundreds of recipes. They all sound great. However, I decided the best way to try the coconut oil would be to use it in recipes we already know we like.

So I used the Coconut Oil to make Chicken Stir Fry, Fried Potatoes, and Black Bean Brownies.

The chicken cooked for the stir fry was delicious! I sauted the chicken in the coconut oil with no coating on it. Just chicken and coconut oil. Everyone loved the chicken!

We look forward to cooking chicken like this to put on salad. I also sauted the rest of the stir fry in the coconut oil. I go light with the soy sauce, so I could still taste the coconut oil. If you use more soy sauce, you probably won’t be able to taste the coconut. It made a very delicious stir fry. Success #1

We were having breakfast for supper one night, so I took some of our home canned potatoes and fried them in coconut oil. I made a larger pan cooked our normal way. In case no one liked the coconut oil potatoes. They ate them all!

You could taste the coconut oil on the potatoes, but the taste was not overwhelming. I gave the family a choice, and they all wanted to taste them, and liked them. I will definitely make the potatoes with coconut oil again. Success #2

Next, I used the coconut oil in my Black Bean Brownies. You can definitely taste the coconut oil in this recipe. The coconut flavor was stronger when the brownies were still warm.

After being in the fridge, the coconut flavor isn’t as strong. You can still taste it, though. Since chocolate and coconut go together so well, the coconut oil makes the Black Bean Brownies extra yummy. And even healthier! Success #3

Coconut Oil is excellent for your skin, also. I rubbed some straight coconut oil onto the back of my hand. A little goes a long way! It didn’t take very long at all to rub it into my skin. No longer than a lotion, really. It made the back of my hand feel so soft. The light coconut scent was nice.

I’ve made my own deodorant in the past, cornstarch, baking soda, and essential oils. Coconut Oil is supposed to be a great addition to homemade deodorant. So I tried my hand at making some.

I didn’t follow a recipe, just made it up as I went along. lol I used 2 Tablespoons each of Cornstarch and Baking Soda and 1 Tablespoon of Coconut Oil (I didn’t melt it, I used it at room temp). It was a little stiff, so I added another teaspoon of Coconut Oil. I then added 10 drops of Lavender Essential Oil. Then it was to loose. lol I had to add a little more cornstarch and baking soda. So I recommend adding any essential oils your using before deciding if the texture is what you want. I have not used this for its intended purpose, but I did test it on the back of my hand. It rubs on easily, and a little goes a long way. I gave this jar to my daughter to use. She doesn’t like using store bought anything. She was very happy to get it. 🙂

I didn’t have a pretty little container to put it in, so I put it in a canning jar. It works. lol Success #4

My first attempts at using Coconut Oil were all successful! My family (including the kids!) loved everything I made with it. I will definitely make Coconut Oil a regular ingredient in cooking and homemade beauty items from now on. I loved this Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil.

Tropical Traditions is giving a jar of Coconut Oil to one of you! Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a free Quart Jar of Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I was not obligated to write a postive review, or host a giveaway. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Action Alert Review

March 21, 2012 by Linda @ Linda's Lunacy

As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew, I received a free download of Action Alert.

The internet is a fun, educational, and very interesting place to be. It can also be a very dangerous place to be. Action Alert provides internet safety for your family. It includes these 8 Internet Safety Tools in one convenient download.

I found it easy to download and install Action Alert. There are numerous settings you can customize to protect your children when they are online. You can even set it up to send you alerts on your phone when you child goes to a site you don’t approve of. You can also remotely shut down the computer with your cell phone.

Another feature that I found cool was the Activity Video Recording. It records what the computer screen actually looked like. You can see what your children are doing, who they are talking to, you can also view all instant chat messages. You can set up daily times when the computer can be used. Very helpful if you have to be out of the house and the kids are home. The Search Filter only brings up safe sites in the searches. That will bring you peace of mind that your children aren’t going to see anything you don’t want them to see. I did find that my computer worked slower with Action Alert installed. Every computer is different, and it may not work that way on yours.

Action Alert is the only internet safety solution to be endorsed by the Child Safety Network.

Action Alert was featured on The Today Show. You can view the segment here. (Note: PGKey changed their name to Action Alert and made the program downloadable, instead of using the key.)

For more information, you can read the Action Alert FAQ Page.

You can download a Free Protection version of Action Alert. Yes, free. Download and start protecting your family in minutes. There is also a Maximum Protection version available for $29.99. The Maximum Protection version is fully customizable. Action Alert also has a Facebook Fan page.

See what other The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew Members are saying about Action Alert.

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a free Action Alert download in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”