Do you Look Older than you Should?

One thing that I think is very important that a lot of people don’t view as being a priority, is the care of their skin. Everyone spends money on vacations, cars, clothes, entertainment and houses. If you are like me I enjoy all these things which is fine, and they last for a while, but how much do we spend on clothes? How much time and money do we spend on decorating and redecorating our houses? Vacations and entertainment are a great way to relax, but how long do they last? Several years ago I thought about these same things, and realized I was not spending money on something that I will have for the rest of my life, my skin. If you think about it, what does everyone see no matter what outfit we may have on, or what car we are driving? Our face! That is when I decided to buy myself the complete Shaklee skin care system. I was so glad when someone told me about the high quality skin care products Shaklee has to offer, and that is why I wanted to share them with you.

Shaklee Enfuselle: Vitamins for your skinThe same nutrients that help keep you healthy on the inside also play a huge role in how you look on the outside. Over 50 years of scientific nutrition research has been applied to developing the most advanced therapeutic skincare system around providing you the answer to healthy-looking, beautiful skin. 

Shaklee’s Enfuselle Nutrition Therapy Skin Care is formulated with their exclusive Vital Repair+® to block ALL those skin-damaging free radical reactions and encourages you to have healthy cells so you see smooth, luminous skin.  Each system includes: a cleanser, Toner, Time Repair A.M.® SPF 15, C+E Repair P.M.®, Eye Treatment, Moisturizer, Refining Polisher, two Dispensing Pumps, and a FREE Lip Treatment SPF 15.

Here are results from a test done with Enfuselle.

  

When the trip is over what do we have left? Memories, hopefully in pictures or videos.
How long do you keep your cars and how much do you spend on your vehicles?
Clothing is a ongoing change, and we all want to look good so we change our clothes with the styles, at least some of the times. All of these are important but so is your skin. It stays with you the rest of your life.
Do you think about how you want to look in the future?
Do you look older than you should?

Parents of a Dozen

Spring Planting

About five years ago we moved to an acre lot. We use to live on only 1/4 acre. We really enjoy having the extra space for the children to play, but we are on a corner lot and we wanted to have a little blockage from the road so we had planted some oak and pine trees. A few weeks ago my husband found a deal on 7-8 ft. trees at Home Depot, for only $40.00, so he bought a couple to fill in some gaps. The root balls of these trees were huge. We had Home Depot put them in the back of our van with a fork lift. My husband backed the van up to the spot where we wanted them planted. Then my husband and sons pulled them out of the van, down a board, right next to the hole.

Here is the digging clan and a few just observing.

 

Here is our biggest helper. He always wants to help. Let’s see how long that lasts.

 

Everyone in action.

 

I took these pictures a couple of weeks later. See how much greener the grass is.

What a great day!

Some day these trees will all fill in.

I was so excited to see the nice weather and I can’t wait to get out to do some yard work, and plant our garden. Here you could see the parsley is starting to grow. I used paint sticks and a permanent marker to mark my seasonings.

The chives have grown, and we already have cut some to use.

I can’t wait either to see my flowers bloom. These are some Irises.

 

This next picture was taken the next day, which was just last week, April 18th. The weather has been yucky ever since then. I guess I will have to wait to plant my garden.

Have you been able to plant your garden yet?

Have a nice day.

Parents of a Dozen

Cleaning Carpets Safely

My carpet is about 10 years old. We have been in our house for almost 5 years now, and our carpet gets a lot of wear with all of the kids in our house, along with friends over, often.  We have not cleaned them in a while, and they were in dyer need of a good cleaning. Our old Hoover shampooer got a hole in the hose and was going to cost a lot to have repaired, so my in-laws bought us this new one, that I really like. It seems to have more power than the old one. (You could see the dirty water in the tank, yuk!)

I don’t like using toxic chemicals in my house, especially with all the little ones around. I use 1 tablespoon Shaklee Organic Basic H and one scoop of Shaklee Nature Bright mixed in the water. This shampooer has a separate section for the cleaners, but I didn’t use it. The 2 of the products together worked wonders with NO TOXIC chemicals. I sometimes also add 2 teaspoons Shaklee Basic G, if I feel I need to disinfect, which would be great for families with pets.

Before:This is my boy’s carpet and it had a lot of spots on it from who knows what.

    

The shampooer has a hose with attachments on it. I use it on the spots that didn’t come totally out, with the over all shampooing.

   

This attachment has spinners on it to deep clean.

   

After: Much cleaner!

    

Before: This is another room. Look at the traffic pattern. (How embarrassing!)

  

After: You could still see that the carpet is worn, but it is much cleaner.

 

This is the area right by the door way, on the left, that was the worst.

Would you like to have clean carpet that is safe for the family?

To order go to our Shaklee web-site.

Parents of a Dozen

A Pottery Barn Rug Redo

I have this Pottery Barn rug I got at a garage sale. I really like it, but it is in direct sunlight most of the day, and totally faded. I was touching up some of my black furniture last week before we had a 60th wedding anniversary, and (I kind of go crazy when I have a paint brush in my hand. The kids all know not to touch ANYTHING with whatever color I am using at the time.) I decided to paint the faded, black part of this rug. Of course I thought of taking a picture after I started.

 

I used this Rust-oleum Painter’s Touch, flat, black paint.

Here it is finished.

You could see here, how now it matches the stool and the vanity.

I did have to lock the door for a couple of hours. Not many of the kids would think that I would paint the rug.

Do think it looks better?

While I had the black paint in my hands, I also painted my son’s desk. (It was white and in really bad condition.) My son didn’t like that I was doing it right then because he was on the computer, had to get off, and move all the things off of the desk. Of course I did not take a before picture, again. (Excuse all the cords, his chair is usually blocking them.)

Parent’s of a Dozen

Linking up to:

Our Parent’s 60th Anniversary

We surprised my husband’s parents this weekend for their 60th Wedding Anniversary. We just had our whole family here and my parents (32 people). They were TOTALLY surprised.

   

We have A LOT of delicious food. Sorry my pictures are not the best. I should have used my daughters camera. Here is an Italian bean salad, and broccoli and bowtie pasta with Parmesan cheese. 

 

Chicken Parmesan and Garlic Bread 

 

Fruit Salad, salad and cheese cake. (Sorry, I don’t have pictures of them.)

Two of my daughters made this cake. (yummy!)

 

And don’t forget ice cream!

What a cute couple!

 

Here they are opening one of their gifts.

   

The little ones were having fun with the balloons.

  

Late at night our son was on the sneak, eating more cake. 

 

There are not many couples that make it 60 + years.  What’s the most years for a couple you know? How many years?

Parents of a Dozen

How we Have a Garage Sale

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Spring is here and that means GARAGE SALE TIME for us. I like to go to garage sales. Just about everything we have is from a garage sale, estate sale or Goodwill. To buy new clothes for everyone would cost a fortune. I also have fun decorating with all my garage sale finds. We also use the things we buy to stage houses. It is easier to part with things, when I get tired of something, find something better, or when the kids out grow their clothes, when I don’t pay full price. 

I also have two garage sales a year, one in early spring and one late in the fall. Today we had our spring sale. We have been trying to go through things the last several weeks. Having a lot of children it is necessary to keep things somewhat organized and de-cluttered, and it was time to clear out again.

Onto having a garage sale: The first thing we did was to clean out the garage, ugh. It was filled with our construction mess from doing our renovation.

Spring Cleaning and Giveaway

It is time for Spring Cleaning again and that means it is time to do some extra deep cleaning. One of the things that I like to try and do in the spring is to clean the windows. They get so bad looking. Here is a picture of one of the windows pulled down. (It showed the dirt better than the other pictures I took.) I use Basic H to clean my windows, It does a great job, is non-toxic, and only costs pennies for a 16 ounce bottle.

Before

Our Step’s Redo

When we started our renovation, we were going to just replace the carpet on the steps with the carpet we were taking taking out of the family room or living room. They were still in good condition. We did that in our old house. We used the carpet from under the couches and other areas that did not get much wear, to replace the carpet on the stairs, which then still matched the carpet upstairs.
You could see Part 1 and Part 2 of our Main floor renovation. 
Here we started to remove the carpet.

We found that several of the steps had Liquid Nails and screws on them. We think it was an attempt to try and remove the squeaks. It didn’t work. You could also see there was a pile of dirt, it was so GROSS.

Once we removed the padding we found LOTS of staples.

We used a screwdriver to remove the staples that held the padding down.
  
We tried to remove the Liquid Nails with a scraper and hammer.
 
This was the worst step, which had the most screws in it.
  
This is what they looked like, not very pretty!
  
To try and remove the paint on the steps we used this Citristrip. It is a safer stripper than the other strippers on the market. We bought it at Home Depot.
 
We brushed it on relatively thick, and let it sit for an hour or two. We stripped half of the steps at a time so we could still use the steps.
 
This is a picture of the stripper at work.

We then used a putty knife to scrap off the bulk of the softened paint.

We then used a green scrubby pad with water and Basic H in a bucket, and then wiped down the step with a dry rag.

This is what it looked like, after it was wiped down. It came off way easier that I thought, but we were still left with all these screws. Ugh!
 
Here are the steps half stripped.
   
This is the view looking down.

Some of the steps had ink stamps marks on them that needed to be sand off.
 
We used a Multi-tool to sand the steps to remove the ink. We bought this tool a few months ago and already have used it for several projects. We really like it!!!

Here we are sanding some of the remaining liquid nails.

This is the step with the most screws.

We drilled the screws in a little farther and then filled the holes with a Elmer’s wood filler, and let it dry. 
 
This is where the crews were patched before we sanded the wood filler. The bottom of the picture shows the gap by the bottom step we put some shims in it to try and eliminate the squeaky steps, which only helped a little.

These are the screw holes that were filled and then sanded. Much better!
 
Here are the steps after the stain, before the polyurethane. Still not so good, but better than the carpet.
 
Here are the steps with the poly. and then we taped it off so we could paint the rest of the steps.
 
After we painted we removed the tape, shortly afterwards, so we could remove any paint that seeped under the tape.
   
While scraping the paint with a cloth and my fingernail, I scraped off some of the paint that was on the riser, which then needed to be touched up.

We put hardwood flooring on the landing.

After we put the hardwood floor on the landing there was this gap that we put quarter round on and caulked. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it after it was done, and I don’t feel like doing it now.

Here is a picture of the corner round on the bottom gap. The top step is the step with the most screws and glue on it. It turned out not too bad.

This is a picture of the gap before, and all the patching.

Here are the bottom steps done.
  
These are the top half of the steps.

The steps are pine, the landing is oak, and the bottom step is plywood, but they all look good together. None of them are perfect, but we like them.

This is another picture of the steps before we stripped them.

My husband did an awesome job of cutting the hardwood flooring around the steps.

So what do you think?
Thank you for stopping by,
Parents of a Dozen