All posts by Melissa

WHERE IS MY LIFE NOW





It’s been a very long time since I’ve updated this blog! A lot of life has happened in the mean time, and I just didn’t feel the desire to write much about it on here over the years. Facebook kind of took the place of this blog since it is just so easy to post pics and short tidbits during the day directly to friends and family.
Now that life has changed so much recently, I’ve decided it’s time to get back to blogging. There are quite a few things going on that I think will interest others and hopefully be informative and helpful as well!
So what are the big changes? Well…. it’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it condensed!

Over the last few years, I’ve been homeschooling, trying to take care of my family (still working on the organization thing!), and slowly getting my home business off the ground. I am happy to say that I have been making some money the past 4 years from it.
I’ve been making an income online, mainly from my ebook, The Soy Candle Making Book. I had closed my candle business down in 2012, since it was just too much work making, selling and shipping candles,and had me pretty stressed out. Instead, I turned the website into an informational site. Now I teach others all about soy candle making, and I have also started getting into adding information about other types of candle making. I have a few other websites that I make some money from as well, but I’ll get into my online business stuff in another post.
Now for the even more exciting changes! We moved onto some property! This has been a dream of mine for a long time, (I mentioned it here in this post from 2012). We now have a 12 acre farm with my parents. We didn’t move too far, just 15 min. away from our old home. I’ll do another post showing some of the work we did remodeling our old house to get it ready to sell.
I really love our new home, and I have lots of plans for it! We have 16 chickens now! There are 6 hens of laying age, 1 rooster, and then we just bought 9 more chicks 2 months ago. I have been enjoying our chickens and our farm fresh eggs so much, and I want to start selling eggs by the end of summer. I’ve found that between 5 or 6 hens we get just enough eggs for ourselves and occasionally enough to give away to family and friends, so the 9 more chicks should give us plenty to start selling once they begin to lay.

We have my horse here with us now, which makes me happy! My dad bought a horse last year, so that makes 2. My plan is to get an outdoor arena set up this summer. We already have a place we’ve been riding last summer, but I need to get some good footing down so it’s not so mucky during the winter, or too hard during summer. Once I’ve got the horses working well this year, I will start advertising riding lessons. Eventually I would like to start offering boarding and build a large indoor arena. The arena may be a fairly long term goal though unless we somehow get rich lol.

Along with riding lessons, I am also coming up with a plan to make one (or maybe both!) of our fields into one big trail course practice area. I’ll have lots of natural obstacles, and I think it will be a great place for riders to come practice in a nice big area, but not so large that it’s too intimidating. It would be a great place for beginning riders as well as green horses. There’s just so many ideas in my head for this one, but that will be for a future post!

We also just bought a dairy goat about a month ago and will be getting another one in a week or so! A few years ago I decided I wanted to get a dairy goat if we ever got some property. I love goat milk, and I figured it would be easier than a dairy cow since they are so much smaller. Well, a couple months ago I found one!  I am loving it! We’ve been enjoying the fresh milk, cream and I’ve even made some goat cheese. Getting up to go milk in the morning has been a great motivator for me each morning.

So our little farm is growing! I’ve got so many ideas it’s pretty overwhelming at times, but one thing at a time! I am so thankful to the Lord for this incredible opportunity.
Our boys are loving it out here, and it is so, so nice that they have so much room to roam and play outside.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this update and the pictures! You can follow more of our farm life at www.AnkenyHillFarm.com and follow us on Facebook @AnkenyHillFarm

Kids n Pets Odor and Stain remover Review

Review/Giveaway! How to Get Rid of Urine Smell from a Mattress and other places!

*I’ve decided to turn this review into a Giveaway!! See at the bottom of the post how you can enter to win a free bottle of Kids n Pets Stain and Odor remover :)

If you’re a parent, you’ve no doubt dealt with bed wetting. Even if your child isn’t out of diapers yet, you have or I’m sure you will have a blowout from time to time. Now I don’t know about you, but to me, mattresses are really hard to clean well. I have a shampooer, but even with that, it just doesn’t seem to get the smell of urine all the way out.

Ekid is our middle child and he has had a really hard time getting over the bed wetting at night. He never did hold it well at night. In fact, up until about a year ago, he couldn’t go a night without wetting the bed most nights ( he is 6 now). As far as protecting the mattress goes, I tried those vinyl sheets, fitted and zippered…..They lasted all of a week before ripping or the fitted one sliding all over the place and of course on a night that he would have an accident…… I did finally find something that works pretty well though, Washable bed pads like the hospital uses.  They can move around, but still, it’s been much better than the other 2 options I mentioned, especially if you put it under the sheet.

So, before the washable bed pad that I now use and even at times after, we still have had urine get directly on the mattress. Well, when I was at the store awhile ago, I saw this stuff that’s supposed to get rid of the urine smell and make it disappear. I thought I’d give it a try. The first time I used it, I was sold!  It takes awhile to dry if you are using it on a mattress since it soaks in there pretty good. And I ended up using the whole bottle on pretty much the whole mattress except around the very edges, because, well, when Ekid pees he goes A LOT and there have been many a time where I didn’t clean it up right away and just put a blanket over the top and had him sleep on the other end only to have him pee that side too (usually when I thought he was finished with the bed wetting so I didn’t have the pad on.)

So what is this wonder product? You have probably heard of it. In fact I feel kind of silly that I didn’t know about it until last year…. Kids n Pets Stain and Odor Remover

This stuff is awesome, and you can use it on the mattress, floor, couch wherever! I haven’t had to use it for pet urine yet, but I imagine it works just as well.

So here’s how I do it. I admit, it would be much better if it were a spray bottle for large areas though. I did see that they do have a spray one on Amazon.com so I’ll have to buy from there next time. I bought mine at Fred Meyer but they only had the squeeze bottle.

 

 

Kids n Pets Odor and Stain remover Review

 

 

Now pour Kids n Pets onto the urine/pee areas (which in my case was the whole mattress).

Pouring Kids n pets onto the urine areas

Make sure to soak the areas well so that it reaches down to the source of the urine smell! Like I said, I used a whole bottle to cover the whole mattress.

Using Kids n Pets to remove urine smell on a mattress

I also used it on a spot on the floor where someone took off their pee soaked underwear and laid them on the carpet in the middle of the night…….

IMG_7412

After all that, just leave it to dry. The urine smell really will disappear as the mattress, or whatever you use it on, dries! If you sniff it while it’s still wet, you’ll still smell the urine a bit, but it will go away. Also, since it takes so long to dry, I stick a heater on in the bedroom to speed up the process.

Well, I hope this is useful to you! I know I’m so glad I found this awesome product. The links to the product are Amazon affiliate links, so I do make a little bit of money when you buy from them, but if you do buy through one of those links, I thank you so much. You can also find Kids n Pets at the store. I haven’t calculated if it’s more cost effective to buy from the store or through Amazon yet though.

So, here’s the deal with the giveaway and how to enter.

One entry per action that you do below! And please let me know in the comments each action you did. You can go to the top of the post to find all the share buttons!

  1. Leave a comment telling why you would love to win and/or
  2. Share this post on Facebook and/or
  3. Tweet this post on Twitter and/or
  4. Follow me on Twitter and/or
  5. Pin this post on Pinterest

That’s it! Have fun and please be sure to leave a comment for each item you did!  Entry will close April 29th and I will draw the winner on May 2 :)

Is Traditional Marriage Just Tradition?

Marriage Between One Man and One Woman

© C-foto | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

So, I know this is a very controversial topic, and I may regret posting this for the comments I may get, but I’m beyond caring anymore. And really, if it’s Truth, should I be worried about what people might think or say to me? This is not some trivial issue either. This issue has a Huge impact on our society.

So the last few days I kept seeing a few people on my Facebook feed that had a big pink = sign on a red background as their profile pic. It is because they support Gay marriage. Equal rights for all. Today  the Supreme Court began hearing arguments on both sides on whether or not to overturn the California ban on Gay marriage.

Well, I also saw some pics on Facebook supporting “Traditional Marriage”, which, I am in favor of. The problem I have is with people calling it a “Tradition”. Now, how can you argue that something is important if it is just a tradition?? Marriage between a man and a women is not just “Tradition”. This is what frustrates me. People that are against same sex marriage, especially our politicians, giving a very shallow stand against it. I think it’s because they don’t even see it beyond a “tradition”.

The problem is though, that even if you give evidence out of God’s own word, so many people don’t even really believe that the Bible is true today, or they only think that part of it is true, so they aren’t going to listen anyway. Now that’s not to say I still shouldn’t try to show in the Word, because God’s word is a living Word and so the Holy Spirit will convict, and maybe that person will really think about what I’ve shown them.

It’s just frustrating because our society has gone so far to where if you try to use spiritual arguments, they would just get thrown out because that’s “your belief, not mine”.

So what to do? I mean, we’ve gotten to where it’s okay to have sex outside of marriage, it’s expected that our kids might start having sex in junior  high/high school, it’s okay to kill an unborn baby, it’s okay to look at pornography, and now it’s okay to be gay.  So what comes next after the same sex marriage battle is won?

Can we not see that our society has seriously been demoralized? Do you not see it? Is life better today than it was 50 years ago with all the “freedoms” to do as we please, and noone really looking down on it? I say it’s not. I’d like to look at Rome for example. When Rome fell, they had a serious moral problem. You can look at a lot of their artwork and see how sexually immoral they were. Oh, sure, people want to call it beautiful art of the human body, but NO, it was pornography plain and simple, they just didn’t have cameras back then to take real pictures so they had to draw and paint them.

Now, the important thing. What does God say about marriage? Does God’s word the Bible really teach that homosexuality is a sin?

Yes.

Now I want to clarify, there are many things that are sin, and sin is sin to God. All sin is bad. Does that mean that since I am a sinner, I should not say anything to anyone else about their sin? Well, let’s see what God says….

“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.” Ezekiel 3:18-21

Well, God is speaking to Ezekiel, the prophet, you might say. Yes, he is. But what’s the difference? Ezekiel was a sinner too, yet he was to warn those that were doing wickedness. Today we have the completed word of God, and he has commanded those that are saved and are serving him through one of His churches (his disciples):

“Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”    Matthew 28:16-20

Jude Chapter 1 starting in verse 3. This chapter makes me think of today’s world in which we live! Jude was going to write to them about salvation, but he found it needful to write about contending for the faith.

“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:

23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

I’m going to stop there for now. But I have more to say on this subject. I do ask that if you are going to comment, please be respectful. I will not tolerate rudeness, foul language, etc…. And I have a right to delete any comments. I did not write this to start an argument, because there is no arguing with God. If you truly have questions, that’s fine, but I’m not going to have a debate going on here. If you don’t agree with me on this subject and you feel the  need to share why, that’s fine, but, like I said, be respectful and we can have an intelligent conversation about it. ;)

 

Break My Heart by Chris Hall, Christian Music

Get Your Free Contemporary Christian Music MP3 Download!

 

Download Break My Heart by Chris Hall FREE, Christian Music

 

Okay, so I’m going to shamelessly promote my husbands music again. It’s been awhile, so I think it’s okay ;)

So, here’s the deal…

Anyone can get a free download of his very first Christian music album called “Break My Heart”. We are just trying to get his music heard and so I encourage you to sign up for your free download, and also share this post or share his Facebook page with your friends so they can get their free music too!

What’s the catch??

Well, not money. All you need to do is “like” his Facebook page, and then sign up for the mailing list. That’s all! Now, don’t worry about the mailing list either. We won’t be sending out a ton of emails, or hound you to buy a cd. All it is there for is to let his fans know when he is going to be doing an event, when there’s a new album out, etc… so probably at most you might get an email once a week, if that. Plus you can always unsubscribe if you so choose.

So head on over to his Facebook page, Chrishallsongs, and get your free christian music!

Here is a list of the songs that are included:

  1. It’s All About You
  2. Break My Heart
  3. You’ve Got Me
  4. Come Back Home
  5. Storms in Life Will Come
  6. Fallen For You
  7. If I
  8. You Still Move Me

Enjoy!

Falling Off the Wagon and Getting Back On…..

So if you’ve been following my fitness posts, you’ll notice I haven’t posted anything for quite some time. Here are my excuses, most of them valid, but I could have started back on my fitness routine sooner.

First, I had a horrible toothache that laid me up for a few days. Then our livingroom had no space to exercise because we moved everything out of the kitchen into the livingroom and hallway so we could start remodeling our kitchen. A month later (like around the beginning of March) we were able to finally get some things moved out of there, but that took about a week or so since we rented a storage unit in order to store some things while we were getting the house ready to sell. During the remodeling, everyone got sick then a week of being healthy and then we all got sick again, and that lasted for about a week or so!

Anyway, so it’s been really tough and I haven’t really been able to exercise. I have gone for a few walks with the kids and tried to walk to the park more with them the last couple weeks when it’s not raining. I will say, that during the tooth episode and all the sickness, I ended up losing 10 lbs!!

And then…..

I think it all came back the last couple weeks. I’m sorry to say that I’ve been feeling like I have to constantly snack. Talk about frustrating.

So, my plan is to start back with my workout videos tomorrow (or, I guess it would be today since it is 1:30 am). And also, since my soft food diet worked out so well when I had my tooth issue, and then after having it pulled, I think I am going to try that again. I’m thinking since I didn’t eat any bread during that time really, that may have been a big help.

  • Applesauce
  • Yogurt
  • Slim Fast shakes
  • Soup

That’s pretty much what my diet consisted of during that time. So that and also going back to my veggie shakes too I think ought to do it :)

Well, that’s the update. Hopefully by next Monday I’ll have a good update about my fitness goals for this week. And I encourage you too, if you’ve fallen off the wagon with your fitness routine, just jump back on! Even if it’s only 15 min. a day, make the most of that 15 min.

End of Week 4 Fitness 2013 Progress

 

So, it’s been 4 weeks since I started my fitness routine.

Lets Recap

Week 1: I started Christmas day when we got home that evening and worked out through that Saturday doing only the Cardio section with Karen Voight’s Burn and Firm workout dvd the first 3 days, and then day 4 I did Lower Body/Abdominals and day 5 I did the Upper Body section.

Week 2: I skipped Monday and Tuesday because of New Years, and did the whole circuit on Wednesday, then Thursday I did lower body and cardio, and the same on Friday, and then I ended up taking a break Saturday and Sunday.

Week 3: I was sick toward the end, but I did get 4 days in a row in. I just did Cardio and Upper Body sections the first 2 days and then Wednesday I did Cardio and Lower Body/Abdominals, and Thursday I just did Cardio.

Week 4

So last week, I am glad to say that I was able to work out all 5 days, and then I took the weekend off, which is what I’m planning on doing. I was so tired last week, still hanging on to that cold I had the week before and then having my monthly visitor show up on Monday didn’t help either. But, I pushed through it and made myself workout. Made myself get up at or around 8am and do my morning workout, and then I did my afternoon workout even though I just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep! I also started somewhat of a diet last week too of Slim Right (like Slim Fast) in the morning, Green Protein Smoothie for lunch, salad and smaller portion of whatever I made for dinner (mostly chicken or burritos) and fruit for snacks. I stuck to that diet pretty well all week until Friday when we went out to Chinese food because my mom took the boys home with her to spend the night :)

New Workout DVD Review

Ok, so I ordered a new workout video as I said in the Week 3 update, Karen Voight’s Streamline Fitness (A.M./P.M. Workout). Instead of doing the full circuit every day last week like I had planned, I did the A.M workout in the morning and the P.M. workout in the afternoon the first 2 days I think, just so I could get the moves down and get a feel for it. Then I think I did the P.M. workout in the morning once or twice and the Cardio section in the afternoon the rest of the time. I probably should be writing down what I do each day. I’ll try and remember to do that this week.

So my thoughts on the Streamline Fitness?

I like it, I like it a lot! The A.M. workout kind of had a strange feeling for me at first with the set and the fact that she looks more muscle bound in that one than in the Burn and Firm dvd (I’m not crazy about the really muscley look for women, toned and firm is great, but looking like a body builder is not, which she doesn’t totally look like that, but it was just a bit different than what I was used to). But I’m getting used to it now and the morning workout is really great. It works your arms, butt and legs as well as some cardio too.

The P.M. workout is wonderful. It is a bit difficult and I have to quit a bit early during the abdominal workout which is more difficult than the abdominal workout on her Burn and Firm dvd (I can get through that one). But I’ll just keep doing what I can and eventually I know I’ll be able to keep up. After that is more of a Yoga workout which is very calming yet is also a bit difficult when you have to use your leg strength to hold some of the positions, but, again, it will take time for my body to get strengthened which is the whole point of this, isn’t it? I love the fact though that the P.M. workout does cause me to feel very relaxed afterwards.

I have yet to actually workout in the evening with the P.M. workout because I just don’t have time once I get the kids to bed and then the hubby is usually watching a movie at that time too. So I’ll probably just rotate between that and the A.M. workout in the morning.

Plan for This Week (Week 5)

So the plan for this week, which of course I’ve already started since it is Tuesday, is to rotate, like I said, between the A.M. workout and the P.M. workout of Streamline Fitness in the morning since they both workout different parts of the body and I may also throw in the Upper Body section and Lower Body/Abdominals section of the Burn and Firm dvd. And then I will continue with the Cardio section for my afternoon workout from Burn and Firm.

Progress Yet???

I am happy to report that I am finally seeing some progress in my measurements! I tried measuring myself last week on Friday but It seemed I hadn’t really lost much of anything, maybe 1/4 of an inch around the waist and possibly the thighs. Also, I hopped on my moms scale when we went to pick the boys up on Saturday and was very disappointed that I hadn’t lost any weight at all! (in fact it seemed like I had gained 5lbs, but that could have

So here are my measurements as of today:

Waist: 37.5″ (-1/2″)

Hips: 39.5″ (-1/2″)

Thigh: 24 &1/4″ (-1/4″)

Calf: 16&1/4″(-1/4″)

Now, I know my waist and hips are pretty accurate, but it’s hard to tell exactly where I’m measuring on my legs each time, so those could be a little off. I guess it’ll be easier to tell when there are more dramatic improvements.

So that’s my update! I’m feeling much more energetic this week, and I think my cough is finally gone, so I have hopes that this week will be more productive since I feel like putting more Umph into my workouts.

I will also say that I haven’t been as strict on my diet this week, though I still plan on doing my shakes each day, but I was reading that sometimes when we start working out and trying to get in shape, that we could start cutting out too many calories, therefore giving us less energy. So I’m still watching what  I eat, but I may try eating a little more this week.

Give Your Body a Rest

Also, I think it’s important to give your body a rest at intervals, which is why I’m taking 2 days off instead of only 1 on the weekend like I had planned before. Now, last week I was still getting over sickness, I had just upped my workout, and was on my period, so I’m pretty sure that all accounted for my being so tired, but on Saturday, with the kids all gone, my husband and I slept in. Well, I had woke up earlier in the morning, but didn’t look at the clock, thinking it was still somewhat early. The next thing I knew, I looked at the clock and it was nearly 2pm in the afternoon!! Apparently my body was needing the rest because I haven’t done that in a very, very long time.

So, I hope this report was helpful. Feel free to post a comment below about what has worked for you, or what you are doing to lose those extra pounds or just get in better shape this year!