Baking Soda Love

I bought some of these nifty shakers from World Market a while ago. The price was right and I knew I could find some wonderfully practical uses for them.

After reading Clean House, Clean Planet , I was motivated to put some baking soda into this shaker along with about 10 drops of lemon essential oil. Now I have some "Earth Shaker" that I sprinkle in my kitchen sink or on my counter tops for a fresh pick-me-up. Do you know all the amazing uses of baking soda? And it's so cheap! Seriously good stuff.

And did you notice that I used my Brother Craft Label Maker? That thing is addictive!

Simple Summer Embroidery Project

I found this idea a few months ago in Country Living Magazine and fell in love. I am now getting around to doing it and have them almost completed...just need sweet husband to spray paint the hoops red tonight!

So if you have wanted to try YOUR hand at embroidery, this is a simple first project. And if you already love to embroider, then this is a quick and satisfying project with just back-stitching, a scrap of muslin, an 8-inch wooden hoop and some DMC floss #321!

Here is a link to the blog where the magazine got the idea in the first place!

Nesting

That's what I am doing these days. Nesting. You know you are nesting when you even dust out the metal air register in your bathroom!

Deep cleaning my laundry room and my bathrooms. Boy, my house is dirty. Painted Will's room today and primed a vintage changing table. Making lists. Finishing a baby quilt. Decluttering clothes and magazines. Getting ready for the slow, sweet newborn days! 6 weeks!

As I was priming the changing table today, I was doing it on the front porch. I was joined by a new friend. Mama Finch. She has laid her eggs in one of the ferns at the end of our porch and is busy getting ready for their arrival. She was worried at first when I came out there. Flitting and floating about and unsettled. But as time wore on we just watched each other and sat in each other's presence. Two mamas getting ready for their babies. It was sweet.

In the midst of the "nesting", I also want to be present in the moment. Able to notice small things like a mama finch or the new freckles on my 6 year old John's nose or the small bloom on my lavender plant. Nesting can often become manic and driven, but I want to "do the next thing" in calmness and gentleness and trust. Trusting that it's all okay...the list doesn't have to ALL get done...that my relationships with others are more important than the checkmarks on my to-do list.

This takes Jesus. Mama "flesh" can get worried and harried and demanding. All or nothing. Fearful and scattered. I recognize that without the power and love of my Gentle Leading Shepherd that the next six weeks could be filled with such a frantic nature that my husband and children suffer. I will be "tearing down my house with my own hands". And I don't want that.

So pray for me if you think about it. For peace and love. The verse that I have been meditating on lately is a simple one. I Corinthians 16:14 says "do everything in love".

Now THAT is gonna be my nesting goal!