Wild Egg dying!

OK so I know there are SO many blogs about dying eggs naturally. But as I mentioned in an Earlier Blog I had made some violet jelly for the first time and when I saw how vibrant that violet water was, egg dying was the first thing that came to my mind!

After seeing this I decided to take natural egg dying a step further then most....

Spring love and craftiness!

Not only has the spring melted the non existent snow ;) but my heart is melting too. It is melting with the love from my boys and the things we or I do every day that brings laughs, smiles, hugs. kisses and excitement.

I swear I won't be buying toys anymore. We really don't buy that much and I suppose on special occasions I do let them get something. Like zoo trips I let them bring back a "zoovenir". ;) Watching the reactions time and time again when they get something I made or we made together is THE BEST THING EVER! This kind of joy does not come off of a shelf in a store.

Celebrating and some sweetness..

So it is almost Easter time and I wish those who celebrate a Happy Easter. But unfortunately I am kind of disappointed I started bringing this holiday into our house because now I kind of want it out. See for me growing up holidays weren't about religion they were about family. And that is great! But as I have gotten older and realized what these holidays are all about it makes it really hard to want to continue celebrating them.

I consider myself Pagan with a strong attraction to Buddhism as well. I saw someone call themselves a Buddhagan the other day and I thought that was great honestly! So why on earth would I be celebrating things I don't believe in? It makes no sense at all. But I do love the excuses the holidays give (not that you need any!) to do fun holiday related things especially with your children.

This has all really started to bother me recently more then ever because now my 6 yr old is asking me what these holidays are about and sometimes I realize I don't even know the answer! Like St Patricks Day. I really had no clue I just "knew" it was Irish and leprechauns and clovers and what not. Really now that I have actually done the reading why in the world are there leprechauns and heavy drinking by Irish loving people on this day? Seems to me it has nothing to do with the actual meaning. And why on earth would I celebrate someone who tried to make the Irish Druids become Christian (Catholic? i don't even know the right answer from conflicting reads on the net)!? As a Pagan celebrating someone who tried to make Druids history is ridiculous!

And then we have Easter now... Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs? Really what is the Christian significance behind those and a reason they are a part of this day? They aren't. They are from pagan centered stories.

                                     Image Designs By Willow How beautiful is that?!

The story of Eostre and Ostara. There are many versions of this story but I liked this one best as it is child friendly.

Eostre, the Goddess of Springtime, was bringing Spring to the land when she happened upon a young girl who was weeping in the forest. The girl had found a bird who had frozen to death in the snow. Taking pity on her, Eostre went to the girl to bring the bird back to life but Eostre could not save the bird's wings so she turned the bird into a rabbit instead.

Having once been a bird, the rabbit retained its ability to lay eggs and every Spring thereon the rabbit would lay eggs in all the bright colors of Spring as a thank you to the goddess Eostre for saving its life.

And that is the story of the Easter Bunny and the tradition of why we decorate eggs in bright colors. Eostre was the Goddess of Springtime and fertility hence the further symbolism of rabbits (procreation), eggs (fertility) and chocolate (aphrodisiac).

Lovely story isn't it? And this resonates much more with me then anything the Easter holiday has to offer. I am still having a bit of a time struggling with being prepared for certain Pagan holidays as the Christian holidays are so ingrained in me from growing up with them.

I did make sure we had a nice little day for Ostara this year but I forgot to prepare eggs for dying and Ostara baskets before it was too late! So since I love seeing my boys faces light up we are doing our egg dying and baskets on Easter this year.

So it is clear I love everyone. I don't care what your religion is as long as you are good to others. These commercialized Christian holidays are just not for me. Although I will admit we will probably still celebrate Xmas in the usual traditions just with a more Yule feel (although it is already pretty Pagan to begin with, without changing anything!). Same with Valentines day which we will be calling Love day! We are full of that and I am happy to make a day even more filled with love then the rest of our days already are. 

I just had to get that off my chest because it has been bothering me! I certainly was not trying to offend anyone. <3

We have been thoroughly enjoying this spring weather and have been trying to make the most of it. Just the a few days ago we decided we would make Violet Jelly. It was such a fun thing to do and boy I have never worked so hard for some jelly in my life! Picking violets out of the grass in our yard with a 30 pound baby on my back was quite the workout! But worth the fun! This was our first Violet Jelly ever and we weren't sure what to expect.

2 cups of violets. Big L helped me pick some too!

This was immediately after pouring boiling water onto them and the first thing that came to my mind was wow this might make an excellent natural egg dye! So I told myself if I was up to picking some more we would try that as well this year! And we now have violets sitting in the kitchen waiting to do their thing, so stay tuned for that probably being posted tomorrow!

After sitting in the fridge for 24 hours. So beautiful!

Big L stirring after adding lemon juice. What another beautiful color!

Getting ready to put into the water bath.

Waiting...

Only thing bad that I can say about this fun experiment is that this IS NOT healthy. It is pretty much pure sugar and naturally colored water... I am hoping to come up with a better recipe because you might as well be eating candy with how much sugar is in these! And it is white sugar at that, which we never use or eat.

OH! And in case you are wanting to make your own Violet Jelly this is the recipe we used! :) VIOLET JELLY! <3

All kinds of cloth and reusable goodness!

I am breaking my blogging silence again with a post about women's menstrual products. I have been meaning to write this for awhile but did not get to it untill today!

Anyway tax time came around again and I was able to make my "mama stash" a little bigger. :) I thought I would share my honest opinions again. If you would like to read my first post about menstrual related products including some brands not mentioned in this new post click ---> HERE! :)

As you can see from the picture above it may look like I went a little crazy BUT for a woman products to keep us clean and sane are VERY important and a necessity!

First up are my new mama cloth from Homestead Emporium! I have been wanting some of her mama cloth for a while now and I am in love! First I'll point out the obvious. Look at how AMAZINGLY beautiful these are!!!These are made by a WAHM and she hand dyes her fabric as well. These are SO soft, comfy and well made. No leaks even without my diva cup. LOVE them!
 

 And this beautiful duo came from MotherMoonPads (also made by a WAHM!) and are my second purchase from her. Of course I bought a second time because they are wonderful, soft, well made and great against leaks as well! Look at how cute they are, owls and pink piggies! :D

 Now I just threw these nursing pads from bamboobies in here because they arrived around the same time as everything else and are cloth and reusable. They were actually free for shipping! They are thin and work well for small leaks. Of course these were freebies and are meant to be very thin, they aren't made for major milk leaks. If you need more protection you are obviously going to need a breast pad with more then 2 thin layers.  They are so cute. :D

Now look at these! I will not pass up rainbows anytime I can find them! I have been looking for the right rainbow wipes for a long time now. And these wipes from Hazelbee Baby were it! But what is the purpose of all those wipes because there sure is a lot?! Family cloth. Yep I have finally joined the "gross hippie bandwagon". ;P Although as I am writing this I have not done anything but wash them yet.. But I did get them with the full intention of using them, and I will! It is just one more thing to add to my routine and have not fully jumped in yet. My goal at the very least was to use them for myself for #1. Nothing gross about that and considering I now have a wetbag for my mama cloth, they can be tossed right in too.

Look at how beautiful these are! Ahhhh the colors! :D She had them in neutral colors and girly colors. I got the girly for me (obviously!) and the neutral for my oldest boy. What about the husband and my youngest boy? Well I am all about saving the earth and making less waste. BUT my husbands "waste" is not something I can deal with yet. For a long time I said no way I could do family cloth and here I am trying to do it. But if my husband ever wants to jump on board he will have to wash his own.. Who knows maybe someday I will not be freaked out by that but for now, no thank you. And as for my littlest boy he is still in cloth diapers and has all those wipes I made for him already awhile back. :)

 And I super love that the other side is black on half of them. I figured these would be perfect for #2 wipes as stains would not show nearly as much! I know family cloth sounds ridiculous to some but it makes so much sense. And just the same as my mama cloth if there is some strange shortage of toilet paper someday, as long as I have my washing machine I can provide my family with a nice way to get clean.! Or even one of those rare days that you need to use the bathroom and realize you have no more TP! No worry grab some cloth.

We will still be buying paper toilet paper as I mentioned for my hubby so I am not too worried about anything. I just love the fact that we can reduce our household waste even more by doing this.

 And now for my first personal wetbag! Since my mama cloth journey I have just been throwing my cloth in this little fabric bag with a drawstring. This is so  much nicer! I got it HERE! It is well made and works great. And I love the print as well! Not pictured in this blog is the smaller wetbag I bought for my older sons family cloth. It has cute little dinosaurs on it and is very well made just as the others! And to add for the family cloth I just feel better keeping everyone's cloth separate so we all have our own wetbags now. :)

 And last but not least a new cup! Pretty huh? It is the Lunette cup. Well prettier then plain white I think (white is really not on the list of things I like). I am not sure on it yet though. I hear lots of people say they like this brand better then the diva cup. But I actually tried it for a day or 2 and went back to my diva.. I am going to give it another chance but maybe for my body it is just not right. It is stiffer then the diva. Or maybe the diva has gotten softer with use and I just don't remember it being that stiff? I leaked worse with the Lunette.. I felt because it was stiffer it didn't mold to my body right. But maybe with use it will get softer. I am definitely going to give it some more time. Just hard when something else works better for you...

 I try to buy handmade products as much as possible if I don't make it myself. Stop feeding the corporations and start feeding the people! Now obviously there are no WAHM menstrual cups (that I know of, feel free to let me know if there is!) but buy from families when ever you can!

Switching to cloth may seem like a big scary issue at first but it really isn't hard once you have nice things that work for you! And I would NEVER go back to anything disposable ever again by choice! Any questions, feel free to ask and I will answer to the best of my knowledge/experience or direct you elsewhere that I may know of! <3

Old post...

I did a guest post review for Diaper Junctions blog waaaay back last year but I had stopped blogging for bit so this never got posted.  If you would like to read my full review for what used to be my FAVE cloth diaper just click on over HERE!

These diapers I love so very much. The only reason I have issues with them now is because Little L has figured out how to take off diapers made with aplix closures. Which is very frustrating and sometimes messy. :/

As a previous post of mine states I am now on the search for our next favorite cloth diaper but you should definitely read this post if looking for info on cloth diapers! ♥

World breastfeeding week!

OK so it is the end of the week now but I will never stop loving breastfeeding. BreastMILK is one of the greatest things in world and breastFEEDING is too! Nothing like being able to nourish your baby and keep them full and happy all by your little self. :)

I have so many fond memories of both my boys nursing. I am so blessed that I have a mom who showed me the way and was so helpful. I love my mom so much, she is my best friend and always will be. If only everyone was that lucky...

Lughnasadh!

 Lughnasadh is the first of the 3 harvest Sabbats and is typically celebrated on August 1st. It honors the Celtic Son God, Lugh and is a grain celebration. Certain grains such as wheat, corn and barley are ready to be harvested in August and many other grains too. The Old Irish word "Lunasa" means August as well.

There are a lot of similar celebrations around this time too from what I have read. For instance Native Americans celebrate early August as a grain festival in honor of the Corn Grandmother and called it the Festival of Green Corn.

What a lovely day it was. I woke in the morning to go pick some fresh herbs from the garden to make special herbal ice cubes for our grape juice later in the day. We don't normally buy or drink juice but on special occasions we do. :)

When I walked out to the garden with Little L on my back I noticed that the garden was covered in white butterflies! They were flying around playing with each other and sitting on the dirt and plants flapping their wings. I tried to get some good pictures but I guess I lack picture skills with the butterflies... I tried taking a picture from further away to show them all but you couldn't even seem them and taking them up close when they are moving is hard too!

Three little butterflies♥

There are other names for this Sabbat, the most common probably is Lammas, meaning "loaf-mass", it is an Anglo-Saxon word. It is also sometimes known as the Feast of Bread. And feast on bread we did! :)

We made honey wheat bread. And Little L now seems to think it is funny when I am kneading bread. He is on my back in the baby carrier and every time I punch down the bread he laughs! :D I am glad he thinks its fun cause my wrists sure don't think 10 minutes of kneading is!

One perfect little ball of dough turned into two yummy loaves of bread. Using this recipe HERE. And we have been eating it smothered in apple butter ever since.

We made blackberry pie.

Shh I know It is a premade crust but I was running out of time making stuff. I think we all survived. :)


We had THIS as well, it was pretty yummy although I had to leave out the spinach and tomato as I didn't have any...

Topped with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream, it was like bowl of burrito.

We tried to have a picnic on the floor in the living room but Little L decided he wanted to fling beans from all of our bowls so we made our way to the table.

Big L seems to think you can't have any kind of a picnic without hot dogs so I made them each one. Don't worry they are organic, nitrate free and all that good stuff. :) Little L also thought their cups were better for food then for drinks...

Last to mention but certainly not least was the food altar we created outside before we ate. We burned some sandalwood and frankincense in my little cauldron. I really wish it had kept the mosquitoes away, but they were awful and the reason we tried to picnic indoors...

I have to thank Spiritrunner and her post at Hearth-N-Home for this wonderful fun idea for the food altar this year!

That orange thing in the middle is a cucumber from our garden that started changing colors so we picked it and added it to the center.

He was so happy to leave some food for Mother Earth and the animals to eat too :)

I hope those who celebrate Lughnasadh had a wonderful day! And if you don't I hope your day was great too! ♥

Guest blog post!

My yellow polka dot gardening boots. ♥

Kimberly at Hartke Is Online asked about anyone who might like to have a guest spot on her blog Hartke Is Online last month at the Sowing Millions Tweet chat. And of course I waved my web hands saying "Oh me me!".

I am very honored she used my post, her blog is fantastic and you should go check out my post there (AND the rest of her blog!!!!) when you have a min! ♥

http://hartkeisonline.com/backyard-gardening/gardens-expand-as-space-allows/

Christmas in... almost August?

Well it's not really July much longer and every month it is getting closer to the holiday season. I have been wanting to blog about this for awhile so I finally decided to JUST DO IT! :)

What is one thing millions, maybe billions of people spend money on every year? Well yes gifts, presents, whatever you call them. But how about what those gifts go in?