Broke, but happy!: Never I thought I would Allow this in My House!!

We have had a very productive weekend! All 3 of us girls had our hair cut Thursday evening and then we got ready for the 3 day weekend! I cleaned up most of the aftermath from the Halloween party on Friday and started doing my 8 hours of continuing education so I can keep my mortgage origination license. I opted for a self-paced online course this year so I can get it in whenever I have a few extra minutes here and there. I also rescued my 3 beautiful pineapple plants from the raised beds and relocated them to the basement for the winter. I have 1 that is almost 2 years old and I would hate to kill it! I may try to "force" it to bloom, but I think that may be impossible in this climate, but I may research it more and find out. I have read somewhere about putting a bag over it with a rotting apple and the fumes it gives off with trick it into blooming. We will see..

Brandon and I got over to the Community college and did our early voting so we don't have to wait in line on Tuesday. The kids went with us and watched the whole process. Abigail gave us a blow by blow comparison of the presidential candidates at supper the night before. I guess this is what happens when one of her best friends is a kid out of a very politically involved family. A family where the kids have to watch the debates and any presidential speech and then have a quiz on it! I was surprized at what all Abigail knew about them, but we had to straighten her out about some things!
We also made some progress with Emily's science project. We had the experiment part done on October 28, but we had to do all the materials, hypothesis, procedure, conclusions, results, and all the graphs to go along with it. We got these written, got pictures printed, and now we need to get everything organized and fixed onto the board. We are trying to get this out of the way so it doesn't interfere with our birthday party next weekend and her birthday week won't be spent trying to hurry and get it finished. It is due November 19, but I hope it is ready to turn in by this Friday. I hate procrastination and it will not happen on my watch!

I organized my supplies for soapmaking and made a 6 pound batch of peppermint "Christmas" soap. I also tried to mold some candycane special molds, but I think it may have to be rebatched. We will see how the 6 pound batch turned out tomorrow morning after it cools for a while. As many pictures that I take of other things, I can't believe that I have never took pictures of the homemade soap stuff. I guess it is just because during the process it is nerve racking to just get done what you need to do, let alone document it with pictures! Here again is something dangerous that I am allowing in my house!

My soap making station. Hope no one was looking in the basement window-it looks like a drug lab!

Here is my "Christmas" soap. It should have a green bottom layer and you can actually see some of the green that I swirled up into the top layer at the far end of mold.

Saturday night we had some friends over for dinner. I like it when one friend calls to come over and I can call another friend to take care of the menu and I just supply the meeting place! Hahha! Thanks Kelly for supper and thanks Debbie for thinking about us while you were in town!

Emily's birthday is coming up and we went to Old Navy and bought her a few new shirts. The poor child has only a few shirts that she like to wear and she wears them over and over. Honestly, I am tired of seeing her in the same stuff all the time. We went through her closet Saturday morning and took out EVERYTHING that she had either outgrew or just didn't like to wear. It left a few things by the time we were done. So we set off shopping. She got several new shirts to change up her wardrobe. Then today we took her to Tractor Supply to pick out her birthday present. She said she wanted cowboy boots, but she actually ended up picking out a pair of Justin boots that are pretty wild! Of course Abigail wanted new boots too! She didn't complain when we were clothes shopping, but when it came to Tractor Supply boots she was mad! They don't have kids sizes thank goodness, but I pacified her with a junior compound bow. She is like the new Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games!