Eco, Kid, and Pocket Book Friendly Cleansers

Spring cleaning is here! I have to say, I am messy by nature. I have a real hard time following through with picking stuff up and putting it back in its "home" if it even really has a home in our house. Many objects in our home are nomads or gypsies. However, I have been really dedicated to some new cleaning products.

The first one is vinegar, which my mom uses a lot for windows, but as I have been researching, it does more than windows. Vinegar is a cleaning superstar. My sorority sister Meredith who lived overseas, says the Germans use it to clean everything! I use it in a spray bottle mixed with water. 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water. I do windows, clean the kitchen sink, and shine the crome fixtures with this. This mixture also takes the price stickers off glass with a magical ease. I think of the time I spent getting those stickers off the bottom of my new china when I was first married, I wish I'd known the vinegar trick then! I also use it to wash my wood floors! My girlfriend puts some in her wash to soften the clothes instead of using fabric softener. Vinegar is great for descaling and removing calcium and lime deposits as well as removing soap scum.

Here is a great website for vingar uses.

I also have fallen in love with liquid Ivory dishsoap. It is very eco-friendly. Add 1 tablespoon soap to 1 cup water and you have yourself the BEST all-purpose cleaner ever. It makes things sparkle, you even hear that little--ting! You know, like the people on the Orbit commercials. I use this spray to clean my kitchen counters, stovetop, microwave, bathroom sinks, around (not in) the toilet, walls, I could go on forever! Spray, wipe, and dry. Drying I have found is essential to the cleaning process. Especially with windows and countertops. You need to dry it with a cloth or paper towel for it to really look its best.

Probably my favorite product here is the baking soda. My Grammy has always sung its praises and it deserves it. You can use it to scrub, to deodorize, cut grease. I polish silver with it. Use a damp cloth and some baking soda for a beautiful shine. Here is a great website for baking soda uses.

My very favorite thing is when you add vinegar to baking soda--that is a dynamic duo.

I recently found in Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook how to unclog a drain using vinegar and baking soda. Pour 1/2 cup of baking soda in the drain, pour 1/2 vinegar down the drain, cover the drain with a cloth to keep the gasses in the drain. Wait five minutes and pour boiling hot water down the drain (use a teakettle to keep from burning yourself).

You really cannot go wrong with any of these products as they are not harmful to kids as many household cleansers are. They are friendly to the earth. And, they are inexpensive.

So, let's get spring cleaning!

Mommy Friends

I have been blessed with many friendships in my life. Friends I have had since childhood, college friends, church friends. But today I have to give the shout out to my Mommy friends. It it hard to capture in words just what these women do for me. But I will now try.

Just in the past week some of my mommy friends have:
a) watched my preschooler on very short notice so I could go to a Dr's appt.
b) lent me a boatload of dish and glassware so I could host a party
c) disciplined my child gently and without passing judgment on me
d) listened to concerns or worries I had
e) made me lunch
f) made my kid lunch
g) gave me hand-me-downs
h) found the number (and a coupon) for the garage door fix it man
i) encouraged me
j) offered to do a playdate swap giving each of us some alone time
k)shared a great recipe--breakfast casserole
l) lent me a mop!
m) just called
n) gave my kids a snack
o) let my kid give her dog a snack
p) brought my kid home from the bus stop


I would not be as good a mother, wife, or friend without these women. I also would be a little crazier and at wits end most of my days.

• Potty training would have been a lot less funny and tolerable had I not had you all around to know I am not alone.
• Having moms who have been there before was so crucuile those first few months after birth! The things only another mom would tell you!!
• Knowing you love my kids and I love yours.
• The wealth of cleaning and cooking tips that we have all shared!
• Knowing we don't have to be perfect--or even seem perfect.

Thanks for being such great Mommy Friends!

Eulogy for Caroline Frances Kolacz Martinell, Grammy

My Grammy was never afraid to give advice among her pearls of wisdom was, “Take care of each other“ and she lived it, as a wife, as a mother, as a grandmother, and great-grandmother, she took care of us and in doing so showed us how to take care of each other.
Grammy lived her childhood amidst the poverty of the Great Depression. Yet, she recalled memories of these days with a thankful heart. She was thankful that her family had a farm, because that meant there was food. She was thankful she slept in the middle of the bed between her two sisters, that meant she was warm. She was thankful to have finished high school, recalling the sacrifice her older sisters made for the family by working at an early age after their father died. But that is what families did, they took care of each other. I’ll never be able to know all she overcame during those years, but I do know she learned some lessons to pass on to us.
The biggest impression Grammy has left on me is in her devotion to my Pop, and it is rivaled only by his devotion to her. A more loving couple you will never find, search if you will, my Gram and Pop chose to love each other through it all. Since the beginning of their marriage, they’ve been taking care of each other. They sacrificed by working alternate shifts so my uncle and dad had parents at home. When Pop suffered his first of many heart attacks Grammy adjusted the menu and cared for him—the rest of us recall that as the “no salt era”. In Grammy’s illness, Pop has cared for her, loved her in such huge ways. My grandparents’ marriage has taught me so much—about how daily love is, how to persevere, how to take care of each other.
Grammy had a zealous kind of love. You know she loved in what she did for you, cooked for you, and sent to you. Grammy would do anything for us kids, I mean anything. I remember, after getting my Polaroid camera, asking her to “pose” for me. We took all the plastic fruit from her counter outside and I made her pose with apple under the tree. I even went as far as to ask her to get up in the tree, she did it. She was that kind of Grammy, the kind of Grammy who played with you. She entered our world when we would play. She knew Pigs in a Blanket were my favorite dinner, so it was always there waiting upon our arrival. My favorite memories are of cooking with her, her showing me how to roll the pig up like diapering a baby. I love the times we’d go visit Aunt Kay together and talk about all the different things you could do with a zucchini. She also used to send me stuff, that made me always know she was thinking of me, whether it was cotton for my nail polish remover, recipes, coupons, or articles from the paper. I especially looked forward to her letters when I studied abroad, a great comfort when far from home and she was my most faithful penpal. And Each and every birthday you could count on a phone call from her and Pop singing in unison. She was always thinking of ways to “take care of us.”
In the past years, I’ve missed being able to call her for advice on cooking, gardening, and cleaning—did you know how many uses there are for baking soda? She did. She also can bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie, cook the perfect pot of chicken soup, and I am convinced that they taste so good because of her secret ingredient: love, her love. So no one else’s will ever quite be the same.

More than once I’ve been told I am like Grammy. My dad once said I was here to replace her. I don’t know about that but I felt a connection to her like I have had to no other person. There are just some things I think we understood about each other. We never spoke them, but they were always there.
My Grammy is feisty—“she’d give you one of these”, strong willed, frugal, spiritual, nurturing, loving,-- If anyone says, “You are just like Grammy” you know that’s a compliment.
When we would visit I got to sleep with Grammy. There is nothing better than laying in bed next to Grammy and saying your prayers, it’s the safest most comfortable place, all is right in the world hearing her say, “Good night, God Bless, tootaloo!” Which I do say to my kids, they smile and think I am silly, but it affords me the opportunity to share with them my memories of a very special Grammy.
And we when we clean with baking soda, or make a batch of pigs, or dance around the kitchen, or sing a little ditty, or work in the garden we will smile and think of her.And now our Grammy is home, we are left with her words to us, “Take care of each other.” That’s what she wants us to do.

Polish Blessing: "Zit-cheh toe-byeh styen-chah, zdrove-yeh, doe-breh poe-vode. Zen-yeh, a poe schmer-chee nyeh-byess-kee kore-oh-knee." I wish you luck, health, and prosperity, and afterward a crown in heaven."

New Year

So as part of a New Year's resolution I am trying to memorize some scripture. I am starting with Micha 6:8--“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

I picked this verse for a few reasons-- 1) it was readily available as the verse of the day on Biblegateway.com 2) it really spoke to me

God has showed me what is good. I have come into 2009 so thankful for all His blessings and just wanting to be faithful and of service. So I love that this verse spells out what is required of me: "To act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with [my] God." Today the sermon was all about mercy and how that is what Jesus is all about, not "the law." I tend to like the law, but I do always fall short of keeping it. But I sure notice when others don't and that is not loving mercy. If I myself act justly and love mercy instead of acting righteous and loving justice, I'll be a much better person.

The best part of this verse is about walking with God. That takes time and effort. That means I need to spend time with Him in His word. I need to be delibrate about that. More so this year than last. I hope that this verse will stay with me and help me prioritize.

Happy New Year

Pagaents

As Christmas draws near I am trying to keep myself focused on Jesus, his birth, why he came, and what he accomplished. I am trying to keep focused on that instead of my "to do" list to get ready for all the festivities which really are secondary compared to Him.

I just finished teaching an adult Sunday school class at church that compared and contrasted the two nativity stories in the gospels and we just wrapped up that with watching The Nativity Story movie, which if you haven't seen it-- please do. It is so good. While watching it last night I am always moved how the movie portrays Joseph as such a generous, wonderful, and righteous man. In pageants and this season, sometimes Joseph gets overlooked. But God chose him too, to be Jesus' earthly father. Anyways . . .

The kids are in a pageant on Sunday at church. When I told the kids about it Patrick kept insisting that he was going to be Jesus-- wrong! Originally Alyssa requested a speaking role, which meant she was to be one of the Magi, I thought that was pretty cool. However, as soon as I told her assignment she burst into tears because she only wants to be an angel. So, after convincing the pastor to rearrange things, that left Patrick with the Magi role, which he is more than excited to do! However, then he got upset because at preschool they also did a pageant in which he was a cow, and he kept saying, "No! I am supposed to be a KING!" Luckily, he was an enthusiastic cow, full of mooing.

And now Alyssa thinks her angel role is a speaking one and she keeps telling me her lines, "Be not afraid, you are going to have a baby and you will name him Jesus." While I am thrilled she knows the story, in reality, she has no lines, she is part of the angel chorus!

So-- I am left trying to humble these children. I am trying to impress that each role is amazing and special because each role is a witness to Jesus' birth, he is the real star of the show (which obviously Patrick gets, since he wants that role!) Jesus came down to earth, and he came all the way down, to be born in a stable and be vulnerable to many dangers. God in flesh.

I am praying my kids will get that it is not about the part they play and how "prestigious" it is, but that the real honor is always knowing and seeking Jesus and giving Him what we've got, even if it's just a really enthusiastic "moo".

"For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Matthew 23:12

Grandma's 90th Birthday

My Grandma turned 90 right before Thanksgiving. Here is a video of pictures I put together as a tribute--enjoy!

Love,

Steph

Give Thanks!

Psalm 100

A psalm. For giving thanks.

1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his ;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.