Homemade Flea Spray

So flea treatment is really expensive so it got me searching high and low for something I could use that is a bit cheaper than Frontline, since we have 3 pets that need it that gets really expensive to pay for that treatment every month.  I found something that caught my eye! Well actually two things!

That's right lemons! When life gives you lemons make lemonade, well sort of.  You boil some water and then you add 6-8 lemons all sliced.  Let them set over night, add to a spray bottle.  Spray all the animals down good.  You can also use this on furniture and carpeting or any where else you may be afraid there may be an infestation.  There is something in the lemons that kills the fleas, so this will kill any live ones that are on your pets.  Use daily for a week to keep them at bay and spray down everything and vacuum daily emptying the vacuum outside so they do not get away in your house again in case any of them did not die in the process.

The next one is a repellent.  Vinegar water!  That's right fleas hate the smell of vinegar so if you spray your pets down with this it will keep the fleas away once you have all the current ones killed.  This makes me so happy and it seems to be working really well.

Also a good soap to wash your pet in if they have fleas, is Dawn so figure.  It also kills fleas and it sticks to them so when you wash the soap off you wash all the fleas down the drain with it.  I use Dawn soap to wash all my dishes so this definitely will save me money instead of going out and buying that expensive flea shampoo.

Alright, so that was three, but they are all amazing and seem to be working so well, it makes me so happy!

Don't judge, I did research on why we were having such a flea problem.  Turns out they like shaded areas, and guess what my whole back yard it shaded and that is where we let Decafe out to go to the bathroom, so there is pretty much no way around it except to keep all the animals treated.  You can also spray all of these in your yard and it is supposed to keep them at bay and kill the current ones.  I haven't done that yet since it is starting to get cold and they normally disappear then, but come summer you can bet your money my whole yard will smell like lemon and vinegar!

Kitchen Redo-Part 1

So the first thing I decide to tackle was all the cabinet bases, so we have everything in boxes around the kitchen and all over the dining room table.  Messy which drives me nutty, but gives me motivation to try and get it done asap!  So here is a picture of the base sanded down.  I didn't know it had such good looking wood underneath all the ugliness. It was quite a bit of work even though I used an electric sander, but it tore through the sandpaper as there was a lot of uneven parts in the wood and some nicks that I sanded out.  I also sanded them so they are a bit rough and more natural feeling.  I like it feeling like real wood and not so smooth like most cabinets are.  So I used 80 grit sandpaper and did not go over it with a finer sandpaper as my wise husband told me a professional would do.  I told him I didn't want it to look that way, he doesn't seem to convinced yet.  We'll see if I can win him over in the end. Watch for some stain pictures coming soon as that is what I have been working on this past weekend.  Hopefully the front cabinets will be done by this coming weekend so then we can work on the other cabinets next weekend or get the walls painted so they match a little better! I'm having so much fun with this project!

Kitchen Redo- Before

So I have absolutely hated my kitchen since we bought our house.  It is long and skinny aka a galley kitchen.  But everything set up in it is very funny, almost like it used to look a lot different but Greg and I cannot figure out what they did and why.  Any way, when we moved in we decided to just paint it and ignore it because it would need a lot of work to make it look better.  So desperate because I didn't like how it looked and that is where I spend a lot of my time, I kept looking for ways to redo a kitchen for cheap, how to refinish cabinets and so on.  Well we finally figured out what to do as we were browsing through Home Depot one day.  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!!  We found some really cheap flooring, and ours before was awful.  Then we found some pale blue tinted stain for the cabinets, so we decided to strip them down to the bare wood and start all over again.  I then had leftover pale gray paint and some white paint left so we the walls would be that color.  I was good with those changes, but then Greg suggested that we rip out the old trim and put in new(we have ripped out the old, but it will take awhile before we have money for the new).  Let me just say again, I'm so excited about all these changes I think it is going to make our kitchen look so much brighter since it looked like a dark hole before.  So here are some before pictures so you know what I am working with and when I say everything was dark you will see what I mean.

These are the dark cabinets that are everywhere, just not my favorite color and original to the house as they are all funny sizes.  So we just made do with them by refinishing them.  Plus one gallon of stain is much cheaper than all new cabinets.

16 weeks

So I am 16 weeks pregnant, my nausea has finally stopped although I still get a lot of headaches.  But whatever.  I have my energy back, which is so nice, you don't realize how much you miss your drive until it is gone.  I have felt the new little one move quite a bit and it is sooo very exciting.  I can't wait to find out what we are having although it will be awhile, last time we had to wait until we were 25 weeks along. So another 9 weeks to go, unless I can talk my doctor into doing it sooner.  My belly is growing and I have resorted to Greg's t-shirts, my sweatpants, and a few of my maternity items.  Although I'm not quite ready to only wear maternity clothes yet.  I do have some clothes that fit me they are just starting to feel a bit tight, so I stick with the sweats.  Well I think that is it as far as the pregnancy goes, I haven't taken any belly pictures with this one yet, so maybe I will get Greg to take some this weekend.  (I have a feeling it is going to be a busy weekend in this house)  Sorry I haven't been on here too much lately things have been pretty hectic.  I will get some stuff up here hopefully this weekend.

Homemade Soap

So I decided to make some semi-homemade soap just to see if I liked it and I really didn't like the idea of making soap with lye quite yet.

1 bar ivory soap grated
2 TBSP glycerin
8 c of water
essential oil of your choice

Grate the ivory soap.  Add to a saucepan and mix in some water, heat until the soap is melted.  Add the rest of the water and the glycerin.  Stir really well.  Add essential oil if you would like it to smell nice as the ivory soap does have a strong sent.  I scented half of it with peppermint and the other half vanilla pear and they both are amazing.  Put in a sealed container that can get wet.  Put a small amount on a bath puff and enjoy.  I really enjoy the peppermint first thing in the morning as it helps you to awaken all of your senses in the morning.

Deodorant

So I was looking for something that was going to work really well, since I sweat like non other.  I found something amazing. It works way better than any clinical strength deodorant I have ever tried and it is so much cheaper.

1/4 c cornstarch
1/4 c baking soda
5-6 TBSP of coconut oil

Mix all the ingredients together and then for an easy application you can put it in your old deodorant tube.   This should last about 3mo. 

* I would recommend going with less oil because it will not go on so thick, when I made it with 5.5 TBSP it felt a bit mushy so next time so it has more of a deodorant consistency I am going to start with 4 and see what we end up with.

I am honestly amazed at how well this works since I have tried pretty much every thing on the market and I can say this is great and I will probably never go back to regular deodorant again.

French Bread

I have had the hardest time trying to get a good french bread recipe and to find one that bakes up nice.  I finally found one!  It is about time because I love french bread with my soups.  So here goes the recipe.  This takes about 3 hrs total, so although this is an amazing recipe and tastes great it is not so much one you can make last minute.

4 c Flour
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 c warm water
You can add salt if you like but I don't add salt to any of my food, just a personal preference.

Put water in mixing bowl with yeast.  Let it stand for about 5-10 minutes(the yeast will look foamy when it is done)  Add 3 3/4 c flour and mix for about 5 min.  Let it rest for 2 min, if you have a wonderful mixer like my Kitchen Aide, then switch to your dough hook and mix for 5 min. Take the remaining flour and sprinkle on a clean dry surface, hand knead the dough for about 5min.  Form into a nice ball, the dough should feel tight and slightly firm.  Put it in a bowl that has been greased(I always just use Pam), and turn dough once so it coats both sides. Cover and let rise for 1-1 1/2 hrs, or until doubled in size.  Punch dough done and reform into a ball, split it in half.  Stretch one half out like a rectangle and fold both of the sides into the middle, pinch the ends together tight. *Pinching the ends together will help it rise up more than out so it retains it's shape better  Repeat with the remaining dough.  Put both loafs on a baking stone and cover and let rise for about 30 min more.  Make four cuts across the top of each loaf.  Bake at 375 for 25min.

Note: To get a good crispy crust if you have an electric oven you can throw some water in the bottom of the oven and this will create steam giving it that nice hard outside.  I have a gas oven so when there is about 15min let I use a spray bottle and spray some around the sides of the over.