Our weekend.. some thoughts

We had a great weekend. Saturday was busy with our garage sale. We did very well by the way and have only a couch left to get rid of. I am so glad all that extra furniture is gone to someone who will love having it. The kids made a little extra money by selling some of their toys they no longer played with. I suggested that Catherine put out her handmade jewelry at the cash table to sell. She did very well and sold almost all her inventory!(ended up making 40.00! total) She was so excited! I think it was a thrill for her to see that other people loved the things she created. She was back at it last night creating more pieces to sell, probably on a table at Art Camp and she will have a little spot if we go to Canton to sell my art.

We had several garage sales in our neighborhood and I bought some old wooden windows I am going to paint on and sell. I ended up getting in contact with someone from church who is going to bring me more later this week! I am so thrilled! I have been praying for God to help my business grow and look what he is doing! The windows will mostly be painted and have scripture written on them .. I will post a few pics when I get my first one completed.. but here are a few examples I found in the internet.. just for kicks:

you can look at their website here:)

On a lighter note.. I have been doing a bit of research on Hand-washing dishes vs using a Dishwasher. WHY? Well.. our dishwasher stopped washing as good as it use too .. so I decided to start hand washing. I have done this for about three weeks now and have found that hand washing doesn't require more time in the kitchen like I thought it would. I like hand washing. Its relaxing to me. But as I contemplate whether we should buy a new dishwasher I wondered if it really was more economical/energy efficient to use a machine. I thought at first water conservation would lean toward machine washing. But in the reading I have found MOST people prerinse their dishes BEFORE placing them in the washer. THIS has always made me think.. "you know.. if I JUST ad some soap to this process then the dishes would be done and not have to be washed in the washer" .. Long story short.. from what I have read.. its literally a "wash" .. The hand washing might use more water than the machine.. BUT not if you rinse the dishes first. The machine might use less soap than hand washing .. but it has chemicals that are bad for the environment.. (phosphates) .. and if you buy phosphate free automatic soap.. its pricey. I could go on and on .. how they off set each other.. but I wont bore you any longer..

So.. are you a hand washing fan or a Automatic Gal?

Interested in coming to the hand washing side? heres some tips :)

We are off to the grocery store.. one of our weekly field trips :) todays focus? "How stores use consumer marketing and how to not give in to the call to buy buy buy"