Summertime

Well, it has been quite some time since my last post. We are still here in Nashville, trying not to die from the heat everyday. Not really, but kind of. It's been hot, and only getting hotter. So, we stay indoors for the most part. We are getting a little stir crazy, but hopefully Fall will be here before TOO long.

We have had a little bit of excitement since my last post. My little munchkin lost her first tooth a couple of weeks ago! The toothfairy came and brought her some glittery money! It was a pretty special day!

Our little man got his first haircut! I loved his curls, but it was getting too long, and he was all hot and sweaty all the time, so I let his Daddy shave off all of his adorable baby curls. He is still way to stinking cute, but he looks like a big boy now!

CMA Fanfest week was a couple of weeks ago in Nashville. There were free shows, meet and greats, autograph signings, CMA Fest, and the CMT awards. Basically everyone in the county music industry was in town and performing somewhere. We didn't go to CMA Fest, but I vow to go next year. It sounds like the most amazing thing ever. A 4 day festival of ALL of everyone's favorite country stars. We made it down to Broadway street one of the nights of FanFest, and it was AWESOME. Broadway was shutdown for a few blocks, and there was a giant stage right in the middle of the road. Beer stands everywhere, people giving away free swag, and country music fans everywhere just having a good time. The night we went we saw Thompson Square and Lee Brice, who is one of my favorites. His "Love Like Crazy" is a great song, and you should download it at once.  Rodney Adkins played later that night, but the kids were over it by that point so we didn't catch that show.

I'm looking forward to the 4th of July! Once again, Broadway will be shutdown and Nashville will be celebrating in the streets. Craig Morgan will be playing, as well as the Nashville Symphony, to which the fireworks are choreographed. I think it will be awesome.

We are making friends! Nothing like our friends back home, who we miss SO much. But, our neighbors are pretty awesome. We have had tons, TONS of issues with our apartment, but living around cool people has made it bearable. Luckily one of those new friends is a mechanic. It's always good to have a mechanic in the crew.

Anyway, we are pretty much settled here, and just living our lives like normal. Sometimes I look outside and I can't believe that we actually left Ventura, and live in Tennessee right now. It's a trip. I don't know if we will stay here forever, or where we will end up, but it is an experience. It's cool to live in different places, see different things, and meet different people. I never thought that I would leave Ventura. Ventura just seems perfect in so many ways. But, there are a lot of other cool places out there too! I used to think that the ocean was the only thing that made a place beautiful. SO not the case my friends!

Poor Ambs.

Teen Mom OG, Amber Portwood went to court today, and in very interesting turn of events told the judge that she wanted to serve out her 5 year sentence in Prison rather than go to rehab. Apparently she has never stayed clean and said that she will never be able to stay clean. She is now in jail until her next court hearing next month to see where it will go from there. If she does serve out the sentence, Leah will be 8 when she gets out.

proud

As you all know, my husband is a drummer. We have been together for 8 years and and I have seen him evolve into an absolutely amazing musician. I have watched him go from strumming a borrowed guitar in his living room, to playing in the worship band at church, and now, he is in a great band, that is on the road to something great. 


I am so proud of him, words can't even explain it. Every time I see him play it, I am blown away. He is good. REALLY good. And now he is going to the same events as really famous musicians. This is Brad and Kristian Bush of the one and only Sugarland:

I still can't really wrap my mind around this. It's just crazy. I mean, what if the band really does make it big? I know it won't all be easy. He was gone for a week this time. And it was really hard. I missed him like crazy. I'd venture to say that if and when Softsilence goes on tour he will be gone for a lot more than a week at a time. But, we have made it through so much already, I know that we will survive anything else life dishes us. I am just so proud of Brad for not giving up on his dream and continuing to work for it, and showing our kids that you can do anything you want to do. 

DIY

This is the first time that I have had a dishwasher while living on my own. Prior that this, my only dishwasher was my husband. He did a good job, but I am happy to have a real one. I decided to see what making my own dishwasher detergent would entail, and it was surprisingly easy, cheap, and according to the reviews works as well, if not better than expensive store bought stuff so I decided to give it a try. It only takes 4 ingredients.
    
     Borax
     Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)
     Salt
     LemiShine


I was able to find all of the stuff at Walmart, except for the Washing Soda which I found at the grocery store in the laundry aisle. But I learned, thanks to pinterest, that you can turn baking soda into washing soda. I failed Chemistry so I can't explain how it works, but I found this explanation online: 

     Baking soda's chemical makeup is NaHCO3 (1 sodium, 1 hydrogen, one carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). Washing soda's chemical makeup is Na2CO3 (2 sodium, 1 carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). When baking soda is heated up to high temperatures, it breaks down to become washing soda, water steam, and carbon dioxide.




So, If you bake Baking Soda at 400 degrees it will turn into washing soda. You will know that it is washing soda when it is no longer semi shiny, and is dull and grainy. Or you can just buy it. Either way it works. 


Anyway, back to the recipe. Like, I said, SUPER easy.

I even made a cute label for the container! I love my cricut! 

Mix 
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Salt
1/2 Cup LemiShine (use more if you have hard water.)


Mix together in an air tight container. (MAKE SURE IT IS DRY BEFORE YOU USE IT...Trust me)


Use 1 tablespoon per load. You can use white vinegar as a rinse aid if you want. My daughter decided to dump all of our vinegar out on the grass the other day, so I didn't do that, but my dishes still came out clean and shiny!! 

Lemonade Ice Cubes

Ok, so these are pretty self explanitory, but Brad insisted that I pin these because HE made them. Nevermind the fact that I told him exactly what to do, and he would have never come it with it on his own, HE made them. And he did a good job.

Slice a lemon and put a slice in each cup of a cupcake tin. Pour in lemonade. Freeze.

Easy, and versatile. Mix it up! Use different fruit and juices. The possibilities are endless. And the BEST part- It doesn't water down your drinks. And making them in a cupcake tray gives you bigger cubes that are perfect for a big pitcher of lemonade on a hot summer day!

There you go babe! lets see how many repins you get! ;) 

I got Swag.

Swagbucks.com is my new obsession. I have been a swagbucks member for a while now, but just now am I really getting into it. What is swagbucks you ask? Well, it's a website. Obviously. Through this website you can earn "swagbucks" a few different ways, and redeem them for gift cards or other swag. There are thousands of things to choose from. The ways you can earn them are pretty simple. There are daily polls, surveys, special offers, watching commercials, through special "swag codes" that are put out regularly, and by utilizing their search engine. My goal is to build swagbucks over the next several months and then cash them in around the holidays to help out with Christmas presents. So far I have enough swagbucks to get a twenty dollar amazon giftcard. And it's only May, and I have only been actively trying to build them up for a few weeks. So hopefully by December I will have much more.

So, I really think y'all should check it out! Every little bits helps right? click on my referral code and sign up! You will get a few bucks to start, and I will get some to for referring you! Help a sister out! ;)

 Here it is! Do it! What's the worst that can happen?

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sloneal21

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sloneal21

Deals!

I'm slowly getting back on the couponing bandwagon. I showed you a deal last week on Nivea, and today I got a couple other good deals!

Kroger
They had these Country Time canisters on sale for $1! They are usually about 3 bucks so that was a great deal all on its own, but I had coupons for $1 off of 2 canisters of Country Time lemonade! So they ended up being only 50 cents a piece. That's a GREAT deal.

Walmart
Sun drop 2 liters are on sale for a dollar. Supposedly this is supposed to be similar to mountain dew which is my favorite, and there were $1 off 1 coupons on last Sunday's paper, so that made them FREE! I'll try it if it's free. Hopefully it is at least halfway decent.

Also at Walmart, I found trial size bags of pedigree dog food for $1. A few weeks ago a coupon came out for $2 off any size bag of pedigree dog food, so I grabbed that and got a dollar taken off of the rest of the items in my cart. Moneymaker!! Woot Woot!

Tomorrow is Coupon day! Stay tuned for more easy deals!