Compassion Share & Tell: May 2014

May 16, 2014

Hey Compassion sponsors! Have you written to your sponsored child lately? Those kids love letters from you and I am here to encourage you to write them them! You can write them online, or mail them a handwritten letter, or even just a card. The point is to take time out of your day to let them know that they matter to you.

This month, I am sending something a little special to each of my kids. Want to see what I am sending?

May Compassion mailing to my sponsored kids

This month, here is what I am sending to my kids:

photos I have saved from the time we have been sponsoring/corresponding with them
printable of Romans 8:31 from Compassion's Letter Writing Pinterest board
handmade card with a note inside

Here is what I wrote to Lina:

Hello Lina,

We recently received an updated photograph of you, so I wanted to send to you the photographs I have of you. You are growing up into a lovely young woman!

This month I want to share with you Romans 8:31. Remember that God is always watching over you. He loves you! And I love you too!

Short and sweet, letters don't need to be long and drawn out. Just a reminder to these kids that they are in my thoughts and prayers.

Will you take time to write to your sponsored child today?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Freezer

May 13, 2014

Last week, I announced that I was planning on tackling my freezer over this past week. A little bit of procrastination on my part led to taking a bit of time this afternoon to tackle this project. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly I was able to clean out the freezer.

Here is how my freezer looked last week:

After throwing out a couple of things and doing a bit of organizing, here is what my freezer looks like now:

Ah, looks so much better! Will it stay like this? Most definitely not! And that is okay. I know this is one place where the contents is always changing. But now I know we need to use up some frozen blueberries soon!

This week, I am hoping to tackle a pretty big project for a friend. I have resisted sewing Civil War dresses for friends because everybody's shape is so different, and when you don't live very close to the person, it makes it a little difficult to do fittings. Since I am trying to earn money to go to Colombia though, I thought this would be a good time for me to tackle this one project.

This project may take me more than a week, so I will be sure to at least post my progress next Tuesday.

Are you tackling any big projects soon?

Love one another

May 11, 2014

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." - John 15:12

Linking up with Scripture and a Snapshot

Our Summer Bucket List

May 9, 2014

As much as I love the routine of our days during the school year, I love the unstructured time we have during the summer. But instead of spending endless days doing nothing, I like to have a bit of a plan as we enter summer.

A few summers ago, when both of my kids were still home during the day, I took my kids on quite a few local day trips. Of course I took a lot of photos on those day trips! I even ended up making photo books of our adventures for them and gave the books to them for Christmas that year. As my kids have gotten older, I know that the time is precious and I am thankful that we have opportunities to do a lot of fun things together.

This summer will be the second summer that my daughter and I will be home together during the day. She is quite a homebody and would rather stay home all day. But I know I would go stir crazy! Last year, we made a list of some things we wanted to do through the summer. We even made plans to invite a friend or two along when we could. And we both tried some new things together.

Last night, we started writing down some ideas of things we want to do for this upcoming summer.

We found a couple of ideas on Pinterest, but we came up with a few of our own ideas too. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be adding a few more items to our list. I love that my teenage daughter still wants to do things like 'chalk the driveway' and 'crayon art'!

What are your plans for this upcoming summer?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Laundry Soap

May 6, 2014

Last week, I happened to read a post in my Bloglovin' blog feed from Mary at Owlhaven where she shared her recipe for homemade laundry detergent. Her post was very timely for me because it was almost time for me to make another batch of laundry detergent. I had been using a recipe from a friend that makes 5 gallons of liquid detergent. One thing nice about Mary's recipe is that it uses all the same ingredients that I already have on hand.

Another nice thing about this recipe is that you can make a smaller quantity and it can be ready right away.

In a matter of minutes, I had enough laundry soap to run quite a few batches of laundry.

I only had enough Borax to made half of the recipe, but it made more than enough for me to have laundry soap for quite a few weeks to come! Since yesterday was Monday (which equals 'laundry day' at my house), I used this new-to-me laundry soap and was quite pleased with the results. The hardest part about making the recipe was grating the Fels Naphta soap, but I love that this recipe comes together so quickly. It just might be my go-to laundry soap from here on out!

So what I am going to tackle this week?