Home Sweet Simple Home

Monday this and that and the other

We had a wonderful quick get-away this weekend. We left Saturday afternoon for a 3 hour drive Up North to visit family and celebrate with friends who received a distinguished service award from their church during worship service on Sunday.
It was great to get away and worship somewhere else where I'm not in charge of anything. We all enjoyed ourselves. However, we seemed to be the only young family that kept all their children with them for the service. We didn't send Mr. Conductor to nursery or the girls to children's church. It seemed odd- foreign even, to be sitting as a whole family and there to be no other "littles" about. The kids didn't seem to mind though- they enjoyed the music and Maiden discussed the sermon with us afterwards. She enjoyed how the preacher made it simple and understandable.
It was nice to get home at a reasonable time and spend a quiet evening together as a family (after I spent my time putting everything away from the trip!).
Mr. Steady purchased and put together his new grill on Friday nite- a couple of gliches but he persevered and prevailed. He grilled hot dogs on it yesterday evening as a special treat for the kiddos.
The garden is growing nicely- except for a couple of patches of cucumbers that Mr. Conductor repeatedly ran over. Mr. Steady is thinking of sticking in some more seeds "and wait and see what happens". It looks like the little critters have been mostly leaving our garden alone for now.
Mr. Steady bought me some pavers for the middle of my garden so I need to take the time soon to get in there and clean it out- moving plants and such. I have some great plans for it- I'm sure it will turn out lovely.
I have been reading more on herbal remedies when I get a chance. Still haven't found the "right" book for here at home but I've made lots of notes. I went to a nature store last Friday but was not impressed with the sales staff- while knowledgable, they seemed to talk down to me, not listen to what I was saying and mostly offering me more "stuff" than I demeaned necessary. I did purchase a few things- another container of Sassafras's herbal exema salve (it's incredible stuff), some flax seed oil (as I've been reading very good things about it- everyone should have a tbsp a day from what I've read- great for hair and skin) and tea tree oil. I've been wanting to purchase tea tree oil for awhile but the price always stopped me. Somewhere around here I've got a list of all the things tea tree oil is great for . . . . . I know it's good for ear aches and skin (you can put it directly on a burn or sore).
I just received a catalog from the Bulk Herb Store- hoping to get a chance to look thru it later.
School is almost done for the "formal year" (we'll continue with a bit of this and that over the summer) and this weekend is our annual homeschool group end-of-year camp-out. The kids are literally counting down the days. We are so excited!