Little Okie Homestead

Well I tried it! I told you I would in my handwashing dishes challenge . I wanted to know if it would actually be worth my time and energy to hand wash our clothes to lower our electric bill. Well for right now in our current situation the answer is no. It would not be worth the amount of time and effort for me to wash our clothes by hand. Right now our house is tiny. And it's crowded with stuff. Our bathroom is actually pretty big but trying to wash clothes in the bathtub proved to be more hurtful on my back than anything else. Bending over to scrub out stains and dirt on jeans and then stomping, stomping, stomping on the clothes to get them washed and rinsed was really hard inside the tub. The worst part though was lifting the wet heavy clothes out of the tub, wringing them out and then carting them into the laundry room/our little closet to spin them dry otherwise it would probably take 3 days for them to dry. Of course it was probably harder than it really needed to be for m...

I have talked to many mom's that want to homeschool but feel inadequate to help their children thrive during their structured education years. I know how that feels because there are many moment in time where I question myself. So what I have come to believe is that if you teach your child to read and read well then they can learn anything! But how do you teach your child to read? Good question. I was thinking the same thing when Monkey was about 3 years old and I was dreading him getting to kindergarten age. Lucky for me I met another homeschooling mom that told me about Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons!  This book is amazingly easy to use. It has everything right there for you to read and then for your child to read. The first lessons start out slow and work there way up. But they work up pretty quickly but Monkey was pretty quick to catch on. But this doesn't always mean that when you start things will be smooth sailing. For us we had to try several differ...

Now that we are becoming homesteaders instead of city folks we are looking for all kinds of ways to save money. One thing I have noticed about people that are new to homesteading they seem to try to get off grid as much as possible shortly after seeing the bills lowering with small changes. That is one of our goals too. We eventually want to be self-sufficient and not rely on the power companies and grocery stores to care for our family. Of course this is a big goal and will take some time accomplishing. Right now our goal is getting our electric bill reduced. So how does handwashing dishes and the electric bill go together? We you probably know that the dishwasher uses electricity. Then you add in the hot water used and it cost money to heat the water. Plus the well pump is ran from electricity too. So all that adds up and can add up quickly. So we are experimenting to see if hand washing dishes will actually lower our bill. This past month our electric bill was $191! That...

I have struggled with TV entertainment for years now. Being a homemaker can be quite lonely and quite easy to fall into lazy habits of sitting around watching TV and letting things go. Especially with boys like mine. They are not constantly needing my attention. Seriously now that they are almost 6 and 2 1/2 they are requiring more of my time then they ever have! It was easy for me to say, "Go play in your room" while I sat and watched TV. Or they would be playing in the living room while I sat and watched. Since I'm careful what I watched it wasn't a big deal to have them in the same room. Well God has convicted me of this more than once and I start doing better and then I fall back into the traps of TV and laziness takes over! Laziness is talked about in the Bible quite a few times! There are warnings after warning about falling into this trap. But it doesn't mean that I don't fall into the evil traps that are set before me. Take a lesson from the an...

Well it's officially the end of week 2 on Trim Healthy Mama! I have tried some more new recipes from the book and from pinterest and I'm having so much fun with it. I also order some xylitol online to save money. I didn't realize how much sweetener I would be using but when you can make sweets for any meal or snack through out the day you can use quite a bit. Favorite Meals this week E pancakes from the book! Yum! I added in frozen berries to them while cooking and they were great and the boys loved them too. They got to have the added whipped cream or syrup on theirs. Fat Stripping Frappa! OMGOSH! This is going to be my go to summer morning drink! I can see myself making one of these up first thing in the morning to get my day going and then enjoying a yummy breakfast 3 hours later. Soon as warm weather hits Hubby's schedule will be packed full daily so my mornings will start early, like 5am early! So having a breakfast at 8:30 will be perfect timing! Cheese ...

It has been a great week! We have really enjoyed our food and trying new and healthy recipes! The first week on Trim Healthy Mama  are full of successes and trials! I'm still so proud of myself for trying so hard! So far my successes have been... I meal planned the WHOLE week! Every meal! Not including snacks but I had an idea of what I had available for snacks so I was prepared all week when the 3 hours came around to eat again! I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined a local THM group that met for a potluck and I'm so glad I did! I learned so much and we are even going on a shopping trip this weekend to learn what to buy where for the best deals! How awesome is that!  I ate on time, every 3 hours, once I learned how very important this was from the potluck dinner. I started my mornings off right with a quick shake or overnight oatmeal and then enjoyed a normal egg breakfast 3 hours later. I did my best with changes in our schedule and plans. When I meal planned I...

Well it's finally the middle of week 4 and my hair is starting to look natural again! After washing yesterday with a baking soda and vinegar wash my hair dried without being greasy for the first time in several weeks. It's so EXCITING! I really dislike having my hair up and I've been living that way for awhile. My hair is looking and feeling soft and fluffy! Today after sleeping with it out of a ponytail...Yea...It still looks relatively nice and I could style it easily and head out if it wasn't a day at home. Man I hate selfie's but thought you might want to see what I'm talking about :) So my plan to continue is to finish off the new mixture of baking soda and vinegar I made yesterday. Then I will switch to the honey was because I really think that I would prefer to use that. It's supposed to be less harsh and less drying. I also plan to start my once a week hair washing this week. So no more washing until middle of next week. Hopefully my ha...

Have you ever REALLY sat down and read Romans 12? Like really looked at it verse by verse? I haven't until the pastor spoke on it week after week after week at my new church. It has SO many AMAZING parts too that he seriously spoke on it for probably a month! But every Sunday when I left church I was uplifted and filled overflowing with the presence of God. I felt him guiding and leading me in ways that I have never felt before! It's amazing to look at the Word of God and see clear direction on how to live! So here it is! Read it! Meditate on it! And see what God shows you! I wanted to just highlight the whole thing but I refrained and just highlighted and underline the parts I found really important. My plan is to focus on parts of this chapter for the next few weeks and share with you what I'm learning and where God is leading me. So enjoy and please share with me what God shows you too! I'd love to hear about it! And so, dear brothers and sisters, *  I plead with...

Hubby LOVES cookies and he loves the chewy ones the best. No matter what I did I couldn't make the cookies perfect. Through experiment I learned that the best way to get a really good cookie is to cook on a stoneware cookie sheet. I only bake on stoneware because everything comes out better on it. I actually don't know why I still have my old metal pans. First measure out your unsalted softened butter and sugar then cream them together. Once it's nice and creamy add in your vanilla and your egg and continue to mix. In my house I use a handheld mixer, mostly because I don't have a stand mixer and I can't do this easily by hand. Then add in your flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt and mix together. I use a spatula to get it started and then use my hand to finish mixing. Once all combined well dump in your mini chocolate chips and mix well. I use the mini chocolate chips because you get more chips throughout the cookie and what is a bite of cooki...

Monkey was given this  Too Hot to Hug by Steve Smallman  from his Grandma Sheila. She passed away in 2012 right before Goose was born so it holds sentimental value. I believe even without that it would be one of our favorite books. Crumpet, the dragon helps keep a family warm through the winter but come summer he becomes to hot to hug and the family has to give him away. Before they can take him back to his cave they discover a way to cool him down so he can stay with the family. Each page is full of colorful photos along with a great story to go along with it. My boys ask for me to read it at least once a month. Which might not seem like much but when you have over 200 hundred books in your house along with weekly trips to the library, rereading any book more than once means it's a favorite.