High Five for Friday

The beginning of the school year is drawing scarily close so I’ve been trying to make the most of my last few weeks of freedom.  This week has been full of trying to get things checked off my to do list.  It’s been a productive and fun week – here are some of the highlights.

1. We came to the end of our 30 day real food and no tv challenge this week (but decided to extend the challenge longer).  It’s been a great month and I am so so very happy that we gave this challenge a try!

2.  I got to check off another item from my 2012 bucket list this week – I made laundry detergent (using this tutorial).  I haven’t used it yet (we still have some store-bought stuff to use up) but once I have and feel like it’s working, I’ll post more about it.  I’m pretty exited about it – the original poster said hers lasted nine months and she does eight loads of laundry a week, we do less than that (about five) so I’m hoping ours will last a year.  FYI the supplies cost $20 so that’s $20 for a whole year of laundry detergent!  Wowsers.  I also tried my hand at making homemade cleaners – I made a batch of dawn+vinegar shower cleaner that everyone has been raving about on Pinterest (I’ll let you know how it works) and a batch of all-purpose cleaner for counters and such.  I can’t wait to see how all this stuff works out!

3. We tried canning for the first time.  We canned three quarts of tomatoes and we think they turned out right (obviously we won’t know until we eat them later, but the lids sealed like the instructions said).  It wasn’t as hard as I expected and we’re going to try to can more tomatoes before the summer is over.  We’ve also put up quite a bit of corn – trying to get enough stored up that we can eat real foods all year long!

4. I spent yesterday afternoon shopping at Opry Mills with my BFF since 2nd grade, Bethany.  Yet another perk of moving to BG is being just an hour from Nashville so that we get to see each other much more!  We got a ton of great deals and some super cute stuff.  We also found this little gem…

That’s right, a denim romper with a collar (that my hair is hiding, sorry) and sleeves with shoulder cut-outs brought to you by the usually-hip store Forever 21.  It’s like a baby onsie without the snaps.  Speaking of, how on earth are you supposed to go to the bathroom while wearing this?

5. I’m headed off to camp again on Sunday and I’m super excited!  What’s that you say?  Oh yes, you’re right, I did in fact just go to camp a few weeks ago.  I am so blessed to get to attend camp twice this summer – once with our church here in Bowling Green and then once with my family’s church.  Church camp is just about the best thing of the summer.

Unfortunately I started feeling not so great yesterday (sore throat, headache, ears hurting) so I’ll be hitting the Zicam to try to get to feeling better before Sunday rolls around.

Linking up with Lauren